The Human Odyssey

Authors: Hannes Schuler, Manfred Baur. History & science - ZDF - 2001 - 45 min

2001 – the future is now. Six billion people live on planet Earth. People with fundamentally different hopes, fears, experiences. Six billion fates. But all of us share the ability to think and to feel – and our common roots.

2001 – The Odyssee of Mankind tells us how human beings populated the Earth across all continents over hundred thousands of years, from the beginnings in Africa to the south of America. We make a journey to the cradle of mankind, and on this journey decipher the secrets , which fossils from all over the world tell us about our origin and our spread over the globe. 2001 – The Odysse of Mankind follows the traces of the first human beings who left to conquer the Earth.

The Conquest of the New World is about the ancestors of the Indians, who were the first humans to set foot on the continent of America, which for a long time had been cut off from the ice. In and unbelievably short period of time they settled on the whole continent, from the North down to Fireland. Is it true, that all conquerors came across the frozen Bering Street? How important are the puzzling findings in South Amerika, which would militate in favour of a much older colonisation through mankind? Do we have to rewrite history and admit that the New World has been inhabited for a much longer time than we think today?