100,000 years ago the first humans ventured out across the Earth in search of new horizons - an exodus from Africa that was to bring them face to face with monster-like creatures and test their powers of survival to the very limit. In this series we journey with them into an unknown world where no man had set foot before. A world dominated by formidable predators: vast Short-faced bears, Sabre-toothed cats, huge Eagles and the savage 5.5 metre long dragon - Megalania. A world where man was both hunter and hunted. Each film is a dramatic reconstruction of personal stories, of our ancestor's struggle for survival in the battle for planet Earth.
The Eternal Frontier
13,000 years ago humans first arrived in the Americas from Siberia, laying claim to a quarter of the world's landmass. These early explorers found an icy world - where temperatures plummeted to 50 degrees below freezing and the snow clad plains were home to huge beasts, the like of which humans had never encountered before: elephant-sized Ground Slots with great claws, armoured Glyptodonts, Sabre-toothed cats, and massive Short-faced bears. These early humans were skilled hunters, with the technology and skills to thrive in the intense cold but surely they had no weapons capable of resisting such predators - or were these fearsome creatures too confident in the face of this new diminutive arrival? Who would be the hunter and who the hunted?
The Burning
60,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had travelled to the shores of Indonesia. Using fragile rafts they overcame the perils of the timor Sea and set foot on a new and lonely land - Australia. They required all their bush-skills to eke out a simple existence in this direst and harshest of continents. But the need for fresh water forced them to venture further into an unforgiving world where savage fires raged uncontrollably across immense tracts of land. The search for water was to bring our ancestors into the domain of incredible creatures - giant rhino-like Diprotodons and the lumbering 250 kg Demon duck of doom. Yet this was a world ruled by reptiles. The most fearsome was the 5.5 metre heavyweight ripper lizard, Megalania, a brutal ambush hunter with nothing to fear from man. Surrounded by such devastating predators, how could our ancestors survive this unwelcoming land?
The End of Eden
A mere 850 years ago humans first discovered New Zealand - the last major landmass on earth to be inhabited by man. Skilled seafarers had crossed the mightly Pacific Ocean from their tropical homelands in search of new islands where they could hunt and grow crops, but nothing had prepared them for this mysterious and chilly new land. For 80 million years it had been a world without land mammals - a world ruled by birds. Moas, giant ostrich-like birds, up to three-times the height of a person, patrolled the ground, and Haast eagles, the biggest raptorial bird the world has ever seen, terrorised the skies. With their tropical crops failing and an aerial predator well capable of killing a man, life was to prove harsh until the humans turned to hunting. In an orgy of killing and feasting both eagle and 11 species of Moa were exterminated in just 160 years. A legacy of extinction that continues to the present day. Had Man become the Monster?
* Screen Format : 16:9 (Anamorphic Widescreen)
* Sound Mix : Dolby Digital
* DVD Type : DVD-9
