History Characters / WalkingWithCavemen

The [[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursNonDinosaurs most famous]] [[IncrediblyLamePun non]]-''[[IncrediblyLamePun Homo]]'' hominid, a savanna dweller from 3.2 million years ago that walks upright. This species includes the famous Lucy.

* BladeOnAStick: Their spears have stone tips, unlike those of previous hominids.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: The segment is entirely about how ''H. heidelbergensis'' care about their sick, but not their dead, and how they have no funerary rituals as a result. Yet the website mentioned Spain's "Pit of Bones", which is notable because someone felt the need to thrown in some 30 ''H. heidelbergensis'' bodies there over a period of perhaps several years. Such bodies were already dead, but not rotting when they were thrown. ''That's'' a funerary ritual. They may have confused ''H. heidelbergensis'' with the earlier ''H. georgicus'', one of whose individuals (a senescent, completely toothless man) was cared for years but not buried; or ''H. antecessor'', whose only known individuals were [[IAmAHumanitarian butchered and eaten]] by other hominids in the same way they'd do to [[TheMostDangerousGame hunted animals]].

[[folder:Series whole]]
!!Robert Winston

[[folder:First Ancestors]]
!!''Australopithecus afarensis''

!!CHLCA

!!Beetle

!!Verreaux's Eagle

[[folder:Blood Brothers]]
!!''Paranthropus boisei''

!!''Homo habilis''

!!''Homo rudolfensis''

[[folder:Savage Family]]
!!''Homo ergaster''

!!''Homo erectus''

!!''Gigantopithecus blacki''

[[folder:The Survivors]]
!!''Homo heidelbergensis''

!!''Megaloceros giganteus''

!!''Homo neanderthalensis''

!!''Mammuthus primigenius''

!!''Homo sapiens''

-->'''Winston''': And why do we know they lived in this forest? Because this forest is '''everywhere'''!

* HumansAreWhite: Like in too many human evolution documentaries, this version of ''H. habilis'' looks "Caucasian" despite living in East Africa. It is even more noticeable because there are other hominids living in the same place and time, who are darker, but they are [[UnfortunateImplications not on mankind's ancestry]] unlike ''H. habilis''.

* AsHimself: You may have heard of Baldwin. [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready He is an American actor]].

** The handaxe. It can be used for any task, and it doesn't need improvement to the point of [[MedievalStasis remaining unchanged]] for [[UpToEleven over one million years]].

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: Recreated with makeup instead of CGI, unlike in ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts''.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: It got its own entry in the show's website despite not being a hominine, and it was portrayed entirely with puppets rather than CGI (as the animals in ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'') or human actors in prosthetics.

* HumansAreWhite: Played by Caucasian actors despite living in East Africa. Possibly justified since portraying what is essentially a modern human with a chimp's face wouldn't go over well if it involved non-Caucasian actors.

* ThePrecursors: This species later bifurcates, with the European population evolving into Neanderthals, and the African population evolving into ''H. sapiens''.

* ThePrecursors: To humanity. While the show ends thousands of years before agriculture and civilization, Winston notes that these people are biologically identical to us and could do the same as us if dropped into the 21st century.

* ThePrecursors: The ending points future human adaptations that will be made possible by ''Australopithecus'' being bipedal, like toolmaking and speech, but that ''Australopithecus'' itself doesn't have.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: The segment is entirely about how ''H. heidelbergensis'' care about their sick, but not their dead, and how they have no funerary rituals as a result. Yet the website mentioned Spain's "Pit of Bones", which is notable because someone felt the need of throwing around 30 ''H. heidelbergensis'' bodies there over a period of perhaps several years. The bodies were already dead, but not rotting yet when they were thrown. ''That's'' a funerary ritual. They may have confused ''H. heidelbergensis'' with the earlier ''H. georgicus'', one of whose individuals (a senescent, completely toothless man) was cared for years but not buried; or ''H. antecessor'', whose only known individuals were [[IAmAHumanitarian butchered and eaten]] by other hominids as if they were [[TheMostDangerousGame hunted]].

* YourCheatingHeart: Technically not the case given that the species is polygamous, but the male comes across as this for ignoring his former favorite in favor of the new one.

* StealthPun: There are several hominids in East Africa in this time, and mankind just happens to descend from the ugliest, noisiest, and generally most disgusting of them all...

* ImplacableMan: ''H. ergaster'' parties hunt by tracking and following large game during the day, until they drop form sunstroke. The ''H. ergaster'' can do this because their exposed skin and sweat glands allow them to cool down.

* {{Narm}}: Even if you buy the creatures' makeup, there is something comical about the way Lucy moves when she tries to walk faster.

* ScienceMarchesOn: They probably could have combined the ''Australopithecus'' and CHLCA plots into a single ''Ardipithecus'' plot if Ardi had been unveiled before 2009.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: It appears out of nowhere, looks weird, is never commented on, and it is eaten by Lucy after it lands on her.

* ScienceMarchesOn: ''H. habilis'' status as a human ancestor is slowly eroding with each new discovery. It is possible toolmaking was more widespread than previously believed, and that ''Homo ergaster'' type hominids evolved earlier than previously thought and thus not from ''H. habilis''.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: They appear out of nowhere, try to dispute the carcass to the ''H. habilis'', and are driven away. They never appear, nor are they referenced ever again.

* ScienceMarchesOn: It's been suggested that there was just one ''Homo'' species in this time, that was a very plastic one (think dogs rather than people) and as a result, ''H. rudolfensis'' and ''H. habilis'' were the same species (maybe even ''H. ergaster'', as well - but this is extremely far from the consensus).

* ScienceMarchesOn:
** Some later argued that the ''H. heidelbergensis'' of the Pit of Bones are not actually ''H. heidelbergensis'', but early Neanderthals. If true, ''H. heidelbergensis'' should probably be considered as existing before 500,000 years ago only (the approximate age of the Pit of Bones remains).
** In the case the "not caring for their dead" bit was taken from ''H. georgicus'': The type locality of this species was interpreted later as a sabertooth cat den. Maybe they could not bury ''these'' dead because they were hunted by cats and unretrievable. [[RiddleForTheAges Or maybe they really didn't care about their dead]].

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
** The show makes no mention of ''H. heidelbergensis'' being the largest hominid ever.
** Instead of showing the "caring" with a recently injured who dies in under 12 hours, they could have shown them caring for an individual in need of attention for several years, like a [[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/science/some-see-roots-of-compassion-in-a-toothless-fossil-skull.html toothless senior]] or a [[http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/30/deformed-skull-of-prehistoric-child-suggests-that-early-humans-cared-for-disabled-children/ mentally challenged child]].
** Showing ''H. heidelbergensis'' as the first hominid with some kind of burial, however crude. Instead of another hominid with no burials.
** If inspired by ''H. antecessor'', showing that compassion did not extend beyond one's family until much later, and people outside it were (literal) fair game.

* PropRecycling: Not only is it the model used in WWB, the scene of the ''Megaloceros'''s death actually uses the same POV and animation of its death in WWB, too.

* EarAche: ...though not before the young male bites off half an ear from his competitor.

The series host in the original British version.

* RedShirt[=/=]TheWorfEffect: The troop's leader is introduced with great fanfare and immediately killed by a crocodile.
-->'''Winston''': If you believed walking on two legs made our ancestors the kings of the jungle, you'd be wrong.

* AccidentallyCorrectZoology: The scene was likely based on reports of African eagles hunting monkeys. But three years after the show came out, it was published that the Taung Child (first identified ''Australopithecus'' and probably the most famous after Lucy, plus an infant at the time of its death) had been killed and eaten by an eagle.

The largest ape ever. It is about 3 meters tall and lives in southeast Asia.

* AmazonBrigade: The herd is made entirely of females and their subadult children, like in WWB.

[[/folder]]

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: It got its own entry in the show's website despite not being a hominid, and it was portrayed entirely with puppets rather than CGI (as the animals in ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'') or human actors in prosthetics.

** In the case the "not caring for their dead" bit was taken from ''H. georgicus'': The type locality of this species has been interpreted lately as a sabertooth cat den. Maybe they could not bury ''these'' dead because they were hunted by cats and therefore unretrievable. [[TheUnreveal Or maybe they really didn't care about their dead]].

* ArtisticLicense-Biology: It's played by a Verreaux's eagle, a species that feeds almost entirely on ''hyraxes'', not primates.

* ScienceMarchesOn: ''H. habilis'' status as a human ancestor is slowly eroding with each new discovery. It is possible toolmaking was more widespread than previously believed, and that ''Homo ergaster'' type hominids evolved earlier than previously though and thus not from ''H. habilis''.

* HumansAreWhite: Played by Caucasian actors despite living in East Africa.

The [[StockDinosaursNonDinosaurs most famous]] [[IncrediblyLamePun non]]-''[[IncrediblyLamePun Homo]]'' hominid, a savanna dweller from 3.2 million years ago that walks upright. This species includes the famous Lucy.

* MilitaryBrat: His grandfather was a British Army officer during WorldWarOne.