전체 에피소드

During the Stone Age, humans shifted from the nomadic lifestyle to the more settled life of farmers. Part 1 of this two-part documentary illuminates the background of these changes and shows the difficulties Stone Age humans had to contend with. Until around 10,000 BC, humans lived as hunters and gatherers. Then an irreversible change began. Settlements formed. "For millions of years humans lived as foragers and suddenly their lives changed radically. This was far more radical than the start of the digital age or industrialization," says prehistorian Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. For a long time, scholars believed that a sedentary lifestyle was a prerequisite for constructing large buildings. Then archaeologist Klaus Schmidt discovered Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, a 12,000-year-old complex of stone blocks weighing up to 20 tons. Its builders were still hunter- gatherers. They decorated the stone columns with ornate animal reliefs. How these structures were used and who was allowed access to them remains a mystery.

Around 12,000 years ago, humans underwent a transition from the mobile lifestyle of hunter-gatherers to the settled life of farmers. That epoch, the Stone Age, produced monumental building works. How did our ancestors live and build back then? Part 2 of this two-part documentary takes us to unique archaeological sites in Scotland, Brittany, Austria, Malta, Turkey and Jordan. The gigantic stone circles, temples and tombs from the Stone Age beg the question not only as to why this effort was made, but also of how, given the technical possibilities of the time, our ancestors were capable of building structures like the Barnenez burial mound or the stone ring of Orkney. How many people did they need to transport a 20-ton stone?