Through reenactmentscomputer animation and expert analysis, this two hour National Geographic documentary charts the origins of humanity, chronicling the evolutionary development that left Homo sapiens as the lone remaining human species. The video presents intriguing new discoveries, from hobbit sized people to giant hominids, that not only shed light on our past but challenge many long held scientific beliefs. Text books will no longer include the famous illustration of human evolution moving in a straight progression from hulking ape to modern human. A new generation of scientists is unearthing tantalizing clues in a mystery that circles the globe over millions of years. Their discoveries are dramatically rewriting the human story. This new evidence reveals prehistoric ancestors did not walk the earth alone. Parallel experiments in human evolution gave rise to diverse human forms, from giants to “hobbits” … each with the intelligence skills and potential to flourish. Some evolved, others died off, and even those that gave rise to modern man may have teetered at the edge of extinction. How and why did we outlive nature’s other human experiments? Combining advanced CGI, reenactments and expert analysis, “Search for the Ultimate Survivor” takes viewers from modern day Indonesia to prehistoric Europe and the African plains on a mission to find out what happened over the millennia to help us survive. The emerging big picture reveals that the human family tree is really more of a bushwith many branches competing for survival. These competitors challenged our dominance, forced us to change and nearly 70,000 years ago pushed us to the brink of extinction. So with all of these different human experiments, why were we the ultimate survivor? Among those searching for answers is National Geographic Explorer-in- Residence Louise Leakey, the youngest star of the famous paleontology family. Now working in Kenya, she is rewriting the Leakey legacy as she unearths Flat Face, a new human species that lived three and a half million years ago alongside the hominid known as Lucy. Enter the tropical lost world of the Indonesian island of Flores populated 18,000 years ago by miniature elephants, komodo dragons and the recently discovered Flores Man the “hobbit-sized” human that made front page news around the world. This newly found creature flourished on the island while modern humans rapidly dominated the rest of the planet. With exclusive documentary footage “Search for the Ultimate Survivor” examines the partial skeleton found in Indonesia. The skeleton shows this species to be just a child sized miniature version of mana three foot tall adult. The skull housed a brain a quarter of the size of our ancestor, but despite this smaller brain the “hobbit-like” creature seemed to have the intelligence of a larger species. In “Search for the Ultimate Survivorviewers see history in the making as scientists rebuild their understanding of human evolution bone by bone. Follow the trail of the first walking ape Erectus Outbound as he embarks upon a prehistoric road trip across Africa to the Pacific Rim. Back at home in Kenya, scientists find evidence that Erectus at home learned to master fire and cook meat. New theories may explain why this milestone gave rise to a larger brain and changed the course of prehistoric human history. After following Erectus over centuries, scientists determined to solve the mystery stumble across yet another new human experiment, but this man is much larger than any they have found so far … he is Goliath. While scientists are tracking Flores Man in the Pacific and Erectus traveling north, remains of the superman Goliath are found across southern Africa. And they all lived on earth during the same moment in time.
