Discovery anthro documentary highlights Badjao culture

Did you know that the Badjao of the southern Philippines are the only intact freediving culture left in the world?

 

In a three-part documentary on the Discovery Channel, anthropologist Dr. Niobe Thompson traces how humanity managed to survive an ancient African super-drought and spread out across the globe to become the world’s only "global species".

 

In his travels, Thompson visited the Badjao in Tawi-Tawi, among whom was 63-year-old Santarawi, one of the last great Badjao divers who can stay up to five minutes underwater with a single breath.

 

Aside from the Badjaos, The Great Human Odyssey also features the Crocodile People of Papua New Guinea, the Bushmen of the Kalahari, and the reindeer-herders of the the Russian Arctic.

 

What is it exactly about humans that allowed us to outlast other hominins?

 

“I have a personal opinion (about the question), and that is that really it was our ability to work together,” said Thompson. “I don’t think that Neanderthals or Denisovans or other forms of Homo erectus had language.” According to Thompson, this ability to communicate is what set us apart, facilitating our social nature which then helped us survive.

 

On the question of human race

 

“If you look at genetic diversity in humans today, there’s less genetic diversity in all 7 billion of us than there is in one troop of West African chimpanzees,” Thompson said. The reason why humans are so closely related to one another, genetically, is because we’re all descendants of a small group of humans from around 150,000 years ago.

 

“So there is no such thing as race.  You know, skin color is one thing, but if you dig below the surface, you’ll find that genetically human beings on earth are practically identical.”

 

Thompson went on to say that humans are “miraculous creatures,” able to adapt to various extreme environments and survive.

 

“I don’t know if learning that kind of a thing would make us better to each other,” he said. “ But I think a story like The Great Human Odyssey does help show our common humanity. It helps to show that you know, not very long ago, all of us were just a small group of people hanging on in Africa.” 

 

"The Great Human Odyssey" premieres on 2 August on the Discovery Channel, airing Sundays at 8:00 PM.— Bea Montenegro/TJD, GMA News