The Last Neandertal

Some 150,000 years ago Europe and Western Asia were dominated by an extraordinary race of human beings who were tall, around 6 feet or so, with an immensely strong physical build, and clearly intelligent, their brain was in fact slightly larger than that of modern man. They were called the Neandertals. They had the strength and the courage and the social organisation to survive and thrive even through the terrible ordeal of the successive ice ages, which carpeted Northern Europe in perpetual snow and ice for years on end. They were the great survivors. Then suddenly, around 35,000 years ago they disappeared. Wiped off the map. Extinct. Replaced in some strange and inexplicable way by our own direct ancestors, Modern Man, homo sapiens, who went on to populate the entire world. The extraordinary disappearance of the Neandertals remains one of the greatest mysteries in the history of human evolution. This programme unravels that mystery. It explores the very latest scientific research to present, at last, a solution to the Neandertal Enigma.

• documentary