Humans are everywhere. How did we get from the savannahs of Africa across to the most northern reaches of Alaska and Greenland, to the outbacks of Australia and the islands of the Pacific millennia ago? How did we master fire, figure out how to craft tools and survive the Ice Ages? In this episode Dan is joined by Professor Chris Stringer, Research Leader in Human Evolution at London's Natural History Museum, to talk about how Homo Sapiens managed to outlive other human cousins like Neanderthals and Denisovans, cross oceans, shape landscapes and one day, build cities and space shuttles. 00:00 Introduction: The Last Human Standing 4:40 Meet The Human Family Tree 7:40 Ancient Skulls Compared: Sapiens vs Neanderthal 19:05 We Are Hybrids: The Truth About Interbreeding 25:41 The Secret to Our Success Produced by James Hickmann, Mariana Des Forges and edited by Natija Grauzinyte. The channel manager is Vilde Øksnes. Join Dan and the team for the first-ever LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday 12th September 2025! To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask! Get tickets here, before they sell out: You can find more Dan Snow's History Hit on the audio podcast here: Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at All music from Epidemic Sounds.