''Before We Ruled the Earth'' is a two-part documentary television

miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...

that premiered on February 9, 2003 on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

. The program featured early

human history Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied throug ...

and the challenges human beings faced thousands of years ago. The first episode was called "Hunt or Be Hunted" and the second called "Mastering the Beasts."

Episodes

Episode 1

"Hunt or Be Hunted" (narrated by

Linda Hunt Lydia Susanna "Linda" Hunt (born April 2, 1945) is an American actress of stage and screen. She made her film debut playing Mrs. Oxheart in ''Popeye'' (1980). Hunt portrayed the male character Billy Kwan in '' The Year of Living Dangerously'' ...

Before We Ruled the Earth
' (IMDB description page)). The first part in the series shows how humans started out as prey for other animals such as saber-toothed cats. It depicts a saber-toothed cat killing an antelope and leaving the remains of the carcass; our ancestors attempt to steal the remains from the cat and one of the group is killed as the saber tooth spots them. It also shows how we discovered tools and made use of the sharpened stone. Later the show showed how as we grew more intelligent, that we were able to turn the tables on the beasts.

Episode 2

"Mastering the Beasts" (narrated by

John Slattery John M. Slattery Jr. (born August 13, 1962) is an American actor and director widely known for his role as Roger Sterling Jr. in the AMC drama series ''Mad Men'' (2007–15), for which he was nominated four times for the Primetime Emmy Award fo ...

). The second and last part in the series takes place during the Ice Age. It shows how the Cro-Magnon and modern humans have become the dominant species and how we hunted animals such as

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

s, aurochs and buffalo. Threats however include giant cave bears and

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

. Death on the tundra was common and to survive our ancestors need to be able to adapt to change, such as the warming of the earth at the end of the last Ice Age ... something most of the giant beasts could not do, and therefore suffered extinction.

References

External links

On allmovie.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Before We Ruled The Earth 2003 American television series debuts 2000s American documentary television series Discovery Channel original programming Documentary films about prehistoric life