The World: A Television History. Ep. 01. Human Origins

United Kingdom, 1983

Film
Please note

Sorry, we don't have images or video for this item.

Episode number 1 of Series “The World: A Television History”.
This episode looks at the origins of mankind; where we come from, and how we differ from other forms of life on earth. It traces our descent from apes in trees, to land apes who stood erect, to our large brain development 500,000 years ago. Since that time no brain development has occurred, only changes in appearance to suit the different climates that existed after the ice-age. 10,000 years ago humans reached a social and cultural level which put them far above other animal life. Based on The Times atlas of world history.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 70,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued since the 1940s. As a result, some items and their descriptions may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved researchers to view.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

producer/director

Taylor Downing

production company

Bricomin Films

Channel Four

Goldcrest TV

Network Television

Duration

00:26:00:00

Production places
United Kingdom
Production dates
1983

Appears in

The World: A Television History

Group of items

The World: A Television History

Explore

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

302184

Language

English

Audience classification

G

Subject categories

History → Man, Prehistoric

Mathematics, Science & Technology → Human evolution

Short films

Short films → Short films - Great Britain

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/81116--the-world-a-television-history-ep-01-human-origins/ |title=The World: A Television History. Ep. 01. Human Origins |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=26 October 2026 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}