Another chance to watch Professor Alice Roberts journey 40,000 years back in time on the trail of the great beasts of the Ice Age.
The BBC will be reprising this fascinating series, beginning on Saturday 29th BBC FOUR. It's worth watching for many reasons, one of which is it brings the cave paintings from the Ice Age to life. The paintings of Chauvet feature the animals of the Ice Age but with hardly any depictions of the human figure - this series may explain why.
Ice Age Giants
Episode 1 - Land of the Sabre-tooth
Episode 2 - Land of the Cave-Bear
Episode 3 - Last of the Giants
BBC guide: Drawing on the latest scientific detective work and a dash of graphic wizardry, Alice brings the Ice Age giants back to life. The Ice Age odyssey begins in the 'land of the sabre-tooth' - North America, a continent that was half covered by ice that was up to two miles thick. Yet this frozen land also boasts the most impressive cast of Ice Age giants in the world.
High in a cave in the Grand Canyon, Alice discovers the mummified poo of the loveable, grizzly bear-sized Shasta ground sloth. Lying in the sands of Arizona are the shelled remains of a glyptodon, surely the weirdest mammal that ever lived. On the coastal plains of California, Alice encounters the vast Columbian mammoth, an animal far larger than any elephant today. These leviathans all have one thing in common: they were stalked by the meanest big cat that ever prowled the earth, armed with seven-inch teeth and hunting in packs - Smilodon fatalis, the sabre-toothed cat.
To view the cave paintings of Chauvet:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/index.php
BBC's Ice Age Giants:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018cbd4