The Human Journey

Dr Alice Roberts travels to the ends of the earth to trace the extraordinary beginnings of the human story in The Human Journey, a landmark series for BBC Two. Using the latest genetic, climate and archaeological evidence, she will discover the five epic routes our ancestors took across the globe, and the obstacles and brutal challenges they encountered along the way. She will discover where we came from, how our ancestors colonised the world, and how their journeys changed us. Today's global population is extraordinarily diverse; yet we all share one thing in common: DNA that tells us one astonishing message – we are all closely related.

In this series Alice Roberts will show how most of us descend from a tiny group of men and women who left Africa in a perilous crossing – and then went on to colonise the rest of the world. She will explain how all Europeans living today are descended from just a handful of women, why different ethnic groups look the way they do, what makes some of us able to tolerate milk and alcohol, and why others are great at conserving heat.

Alice Roberts will interrogate the evidence to address mysteries including how our ancestors reached Australia without boats and what happened when they came face-to-face with other human species like Homo erectus. She will also explore how they overcame extraordinary challenges – from supervolcanoes to climatic disaster – to become the people we are today. (Source: BBC Press Office)