Walking With Cavemen

[emmy]

The BBC has launched its most ambitious science project to date - Walking With Cavemen.

The £4 million series is a follow-up to Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Beasts, and uses the same state-of-the-art technology to explain the story of human evolution.

Presented by Professor Robert Winston, the series takes the viewer back three-and-a-half million years to explain how modern man evolved from apes.

A total of 111 scientists were involved in the project which was filmed on location in South Africa, Iceland and Britain. Actors were used to portray the different stages of evolution alongside computer-generated images of woolly mammoths and giant crocodiles.

The four-part series begins in East Africa when a species of ape first left the forests and began walking on two legs.

It ends around 30,000 years ago when our ancestors split into two populations - cave-dwelling Neanderthals in ice-age Europe and a different species specially adapted to conditions in drought-ridden Africa.

Director and executive producer Richard Dale said: "We wanted to show people all the things they didn't know about where we come from, all the parts of our past that are a complete surprise."

Fourteen actors took part in the series and they underwent a rigorous training programme before filming began.

For much of their time on screen they are naked, but lead actor David Rubin insisted they didn't find it embarrassing: "Once we were out in Africa, it was so hot that being naked was preferable to wearing clothes. It was only a problem for about five minutes and then everyone just got on with it."

Walking With Cavemen begins on Thursday March 27.

[Althalus]

I am so looking forward to this programme, if it is anything like the previous two, then this one will be brilliant.

Also great pictures emmy

[emmy]

Took me ages to find the images.

[Saru]

Looks like this programme is going to be brilliant - can't wait to see it.