When We Met Monsters

What do you think the scariest animal on this list is?

Man I wish I could see through those early humans eyes . Imagine the landscapes they saw.

I live in a bear-dense area. Have met a bear in the wild a couple of times, being alone unarmed and far from transportation. This kind of an encounter puts many things in perspective. Humans are really pretty helpless out there. We tend to forget it. To be at the mercy of something wild that is without question mightier than you is a situation most of us never face these days.

Prehistoric art is so incredible. Takes you there every time.

It’s pretty incredible how small humans were able to take on all these huge terrifying creatures and come out on top. The human spirit really can’t be topped.

Actually our sense of smell is pretty damn good. Our big brains make up for a lot of the shortcomings that our lack of smell receptors give us. The problem is, we MODERN humans think our noses are bad because we are out of practice. Our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, however, greatly relied on their noses for a variety of uses. Even though we only have about 1000 olfactory genes, our larger olfactory bulbs allow us to identify roughly 1 trillion different smells. There are reports of South American jungle guides who can track exotic bird nests merely by their distinct smell. University studies have found that by having students train their tracking ability for 1 week, they were able to track the scent of hidden chocolate across a large park field all the way to the source. Our sense of smell is much better than we think.

This makes it easy to imagine how humans became such a collaborative and pro-social species (even though we still struggle at it on a global scale)

It’s so amazing thinking of the creatures we saw . From ancient mammals to ancient marine reptiles , the world was sooo much more deadly just years ago and our ancestors saw it all .

Absolutely incredible isn't it. I can't look around a thrift store or charity shop without stopping to look at everything, couldn't imagine what it would be like if we could go back and temporarily witness the past. I'd get eaten for sure, too busy bent over looking at something interesting

Something to consider is that our love of mythology, fantasy, and monsters in our media and entertainment probably has an evolutionary basis. Even when we believed that our myths were real, like during the Bronze and Iron ages, our fascination with magnificent and gigantic beasts was not something that anyone got to live out in person -- but during the Paleolithic, it was another story altogether. When little boys develop an obsession with dinosaurs, or people play games like the Witcher series or Dark Souls, or get into Game of Thrones (dragons), they are playing into this evolutionary need to be in awe of monsters -- living things that once took on a spiritual significance, and which our brains are fully adapted to interact with on a daily basis. We are missing that now, and it affects us in ways that we don't even realize. Fifty thousand years ago, no one would have had much need for myths or fairytales; the real world was far more fascinating.

There's gotta be some truths to some oral traditions of our ancestors sending a hunter or hunters to rid the new land of " monsters".

Really enjoy the pace of this video - no sensationalism...the species described were spectacular enough and speak for themselves

That New Zealand intro was gold. The way you slipped them in there without changing the tone was hilarious

There was one elemental force that leveled out the playing field for humans: Fire.

"If it bleeds - we can kill it!"

I’m so glad YouTube recommended this to me.

The way you talk about the Pleistocene era of humans, animals, and geography as so idyllic and impressively beautiful is really sweet, I love it

The fact that, on top of the paleontological facts, you add in your own visceral admirations for these gigantic creatures and try to deliver with your narrative the same fear that gripped ancient humans when they first made those encounters is what makes these little documentaries so compelling to watch. In many ways you were able to speak out exactly how I felt as a kid when I first learnt of the existence of those monsters. Truly well done and thanks a lot for making this for all of us.

I would love to go back in time to live and view the Americas of that time and see the Dire wolves and all the animals and great open plains of this beautiful world back then =)

The note about the cave lions was poignant. That feeling of spectacle and amazement, it's not something that's taught or can always be put into words, it's something you experience.