Session 11 - In Search of Shangri La

The darker the age, the more desperate we are for illumination. This is certainly true of the tale of Shangri-La, which differs from other myths in that it's a largely modern story. In 1933, British novelist James Hilton published Lost Horizon, which became an instant hit with the public. It follows the fortunes of a group of Western travellers whose aeroplane crashes in the remote, unexplored part of the Himalayas that we now know as Tibet. The group find themselves in an earthly paradise, where materialism, modern cynicism - and the threat of war - are unknown. Despite its modernity as a popular myth, the notion of an earthly paradise beyond the Himalayas had been known to Western scholars for centuries.

Wikipedia - Shangri La
BBC History - Shangri La
Wikipedia - Shambhala
Wikipedia - Antonio de Andrade
Wikipedia - History of Tibet

Session 10 - In Search of the Queen of Sheba

The story of the Queen of Sheba appears in religious texts sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Described in the Bible as simply a Queen of the East, modern scholars believe she came from the Kingdom of Axum in Ethiopia, the Kingdom of Saba in Yemen, or both. Their main clue is that she brought bales of incense with her as a gift; frankincense only grows in these two areas. Both countries claim her as theirs. Given that they are separated by only 25 kilometers of water, both could be right.

National Geographic - Mysterious Queen of Sheba legend
The Guardian.com - Archaeologists and the quest for Sheba goldmines
Wikipedia.- Queen of Sheba

The Incredible Human Journey - The Americas - Session 9

 We investigate how humans may have reached North and South America, looking at routes across the Canadian ice sheet and from Australia across the Pacific.

Early Settlement of the Americas - Wikipedia
When and how did the first humans arrive in America - National Geographic
The first people who populated the Americas - The BBC
Prehistoric migrations to the Americas - New York Times

The Incredible Human Journey - Europe - Session 8

In Europe, we investigate how our species coped with the rival Neanderthals and the Ice Age.

australian Museum.- Homo Neanderthalensis
Nature.com - Oldest homo sapiens fossil claim
European early modern humans - Wikipedia
Thoughtco.com - We dont call them cro-magnon anymore
Cave Painting - Wikipedia

The Incredible Human Journey - Asia - Session 7

We discover how humans journeyed to Asia and survived in the the Arctic regions of Northern Siberia and their arrival in China.

New evidence about the human occupation of asia
Australian Museum.- Human evolution - The first-migrations out of Africa
The Out of Asia theory - Wikipedia
Rewriting of human origins ongoing in East Asia
The Atlantic - Early Humans left Africa 250000 years earlier than thought
The Smithonian - Earliest-humans in China