''Wild New World'' (also known as ''Prehistoric America'') is a six-part BBC documentary series about Ice Age America that describes the prehistory, landscape and wildlife of the continent from the arrival of humans to the welcome of the Ice Age. It was first transmitted in the UK & JP on BBC Two from 3 October to 7 November 2002. Like several other BBC programmes, it contains both computer graphics and real-life animals. Occasionally, footage of non-American counterparts of the extinct North American beasts (like the American lion and the American cheetah) are used in juxtaposition with footage of native American animals, like the

pronghorn The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American a ...

. ''Wild New World'' was co-produced by the

BBC Natural History Unit The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including '' ...

and

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 music was composed by Barnaby Taylor and performed by the

BBC Concert Orchestra The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale symp ...

. The series was narrated by Jack Fortune and produced by Miles Barton. The series forms part of the Coordinator History Unit's ''Continents'' strand. It was preceded by ''

Wild Africa Wild, wild, wilds or wild may refer to: Common meanings * Wild animal * Wilderness, a wild natural environment * Wildness, the quality of being wild or untamed Art, media and entertainment Film and television * ''Wild'' (2014 film), a 2014 Am ...

'' in 2001 and followed by '' Wild Down Under'' in 2003.

Production

The series was announced by the BBC with the working title ''All American Animals'', but it was later changed to ''Wild New World''.

Episodes

''All episode names were given from BBC website. All broadcast dates refer to the original UK transmission.'' Each of the episode consists with the prehistory and wildlife of a particular region in the United States, except for final episode which is about various modern American animals.

Themes

The show's episodes offer several common themes, the main one being the coming of humans to America via the Ice Age's

land bridge In biogeography, a land bridge is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and Colonisation (biology), colonize new lands. A land bridge can be created by marine regre ...

and causing the extinction of the North American

megafauna In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and New Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant. The most common threshold ...

featured in the episodes. Another BBC programme, '' Monsters We Met'' picks up and elaborates on this topic in greater detail. A more recent

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

show, ''Prehistoric'', also features scenic elements of ''Prehistoric America'', such as the present melting away to reveal the past, as well as creatures already shown by the show, like the

American mastodon American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, ''

Arctodus ''Arctodus'' is an extinct genus of short-faced bear that inhabited North America during the Pleistocene (~2.5 Mya until 12,000 years ago). There are two recognized species: the lesser short-faced bear (''Arctodus pristinus'') and the giant short- ...

'' and

Columbian mammoth The Columbian mammoth (''Mammuthus columbi'') is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited the Americas as far north as the Northern United States and as far south as Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line ...

Merchandise

DVD

In United States and Canada, a two-disc DVD format was released under the title "Prehistoric America" on 7 September 2004 by BBC Warner. The series was included with two additional programmes: * ''Grand Canyon – From Dinosaurs to Dams Everglades'' * ''To Hell and Back Other: Fact Files Documentary'' A three-disc DVD format was released in China for Region 6 on 12 June 2008 by Excel Media.

Books

In United Kingdom, an accompanying hardcover format was written by Miles Barton, Nigel Bean, Stephen Dunleavy, Ian Gray and Adam White, with foreword by D. Bruce Means. It was released on 19 September 2002 and published by

BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcas ...

. () The companion volume for the US market, ''Prehistoric America: A Journey through the Ice Age and Beyond'', was published by the

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

on 8 February 2003.()

References

External links

* * *
Wild New World
' at

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wild New World English-language films BBC television documentaries about prehistoric and ancient history Documentary films about nature Documentary films about prehistoric life Prehistory of North America 2000s British documentary television series 2002 British television series debuts 2002 British television series endings Discovery Channel original programming