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The Americas

Alice Roberts investigates how humans may have reached North and South America, looking at routes across the Canadian ice sheet and from Australia across the Pacific.

For Stone Age people, reaching North and South America seems impossible - on each side vast oceans, and to the north an impenetrable ice sheet that covered the whole of Canada. So how did the first Americans get there?

Dr Alice Roberts discovers evidence for an ancient corridor through the Canadian ice sheet that may have allowed those first people through. But there are problems - in particular some very ancient finds in southern Chile seem to suggest a very different way in to the Americas. Amazingly, an ancient human skull discovered in Brazil even points to an Australasian origin of the Americans. Could a route from Australia across the Pacific have been possible? A surprising answer to the problem eventually comes from a Canadian forensic scientist more used to solving murder cases.

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59 minutes

Audio described

Last on

Wed 6 Feb 2019 02:00

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Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Alice Roberts
Director Peter Oxley
Producer Paul Bradshaw
Executive Producer Kim Shillinglaw

Broadcasts

Origins of Us

Origins of Us

Science series telling the story of human evolution through changes in human anatomy