The Great Human Odyssey

CBC, PBS NOVA, Arte, Smithsonian Channel and NHK

Why are we the last of our kind? Dr. Niobe Thompson takes a journey of discovery in the footsteps of our human ancestors, and unlocks the mystery of our unlikely survival and miraculous emergence as the world’s only global species.

We evolved during the most volatile era since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Like the many other kinds of human who once shared our world, Homo sapiens should have died away. Instead, our species survived to populate every corner of the planet.

How did we do it? How did humans overcome near extinction in an African superdrought? How did we find a doorway through the Sahara and out of Africa? What happened when we met the Neanderthals? And how did humans master the Arctic... and cross the oceans?

Breakthroughs in genetics, climate research and archeology are redrawing our knowledge of human origins at breathtaking speed. Dr. Niobe Thompson takes the audience inside groundbreaking scientific research to reveal dimensions of the human journey we once thought impossible. In a series of expeditions to some of the world’s most remote cultures, including the world’s last free-diving sea nomads, the Crocodile People of Papua New Guinea, Bushmen of the Kalahari, and reindeer herders of the Russian Artic, Dr. Thompson gives us a never-before-seen window on our species’ past.

In the process, we discover the fragility of human life and the miracle of our adaptable, imaginative, and curious nature.

Filmed over 18 months across 5 continents in 4K resolution, featuring drone and helicopter-mounted RED aerials, extensive underwater and Phantom slow-motion footage, and a live-recorded symphonic score.