The First Eden
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| The First Eden | |
 The First Eden DVD cover |
|
| Picture format | 4:3 |
|---|---|
| Audio format | Mono |
| Episode duration | 55 minutes |
| Producer(s) | Andrew Neal |
| Presented by | David Attenborough |
| Music by | Carl Davis |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| First shown on | BBC One |
| Original run | 8 March 1987– 29 March 1987 |
| No. of episodes | 4 |
| IMDb profile | |
The First Eden: The Mediterranean World and Man is a BBC documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 8 March 1987.
It comprises four programmes, each of 55 minutes' duration, which describe man's relationship with the natural habitats of the Mediterranean, and is a glorious portrait of the landscape, wildlife and plants of the Mediterranean. From the earliest human settlements to the cities of today, from the forests of the North African shore and the Middle East to Southern Europe, this series tells the dramatic story of man and nature at work.
The series was produced by Andrew Neal, in association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and WQED Pittsburgh. The music was composed and conducted by Carl Davis.[1]
Attenborough undertook the project in between his 'Life' series The Living Planet (1984) and The Trials of Life (1990).
Contents |
[edit] Episodes
[edit] Episode 1. "The Making of the Garden"
The geologic processes that formed the Mediterranean ocean.
Deposition of salt precipitate through the evaporation of brine. Northward movement of Africa sealed the entrances to the Mediterranean in the East and the West 20? million years ago and caused the basin to dry out. Drilling cores from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean show a 1 1/2 kilometre thick layer of salt under 100 meters of sediment. Five and a half million years ago the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Straits of Gibraltar.
Atlantic fish and other animals swam in to colonise the newborn sea.
Multi species dolphin pod, sperm whales, Monk Seal (indigenous), Loggerhead turtles.
Mount Etna volcano, limestone islands, Malta.
Island animals and plants evolved in isolation.
Dwarf hippopotamus and elephants (now extinct) had no need for large size because of a lack of predators and because of limited vegetation.
Majorca midwife toad threatened with extinction by introduced snakes.
5 1/2 million years ago there were forests on islands and all around the mainland shores of the sea. On the African shore (where it is very much hotter today) forests have died out except in the Atlas Mountains.
Atlas Mountains Macaque monkeys and their social baby minding.
Springtime skies full with birds. Migration to northern shores and northern Europe.
Migration routes established by end of ice age 2 1/2 million years ago. The Martin which weighs only a few ounces crosses the width of the Sahara. Oases are staging posts where birds may stay for several days building up strength.
European shore and springtime has arrived. Wildflowers, seasonal and perennial. Pollination by insects. Birds have travelled to feed on insects. Bee eaters nesting in sand banks in colonies. Spoonbills in Spain, stalks and flamingos.
Plant ways of dealing with summer dehydration. Sage oil film reduces evaporation from leaves and repels goats, proterium develops spines in summer, capers produce enormous suction in their roots and extract the last vestiges of soil moisture.
Lizards. Snakes, Montpelier snake.
High summer in the pine and olive woods with noisy Cicadas.
Crickets, grasshoppers and other insects hunted by spiders, scorpions and centipedes.
The island of Rhodes and Jersey Tiger moths.
Tortoises hibernate underground. Cold winters prevent most African species from living in Europe. Fruit bats in Cyprus cave. Porcupine shelters underground in winter. Rock Hyrax may spread to Europe.
28,000-year-old flint tools of increasing quality over time found in cave in eastern Spain. Cave drawings of horse and deer. Coniferous forest spread as ice age retreated.
Bison, Ibex. Wolf, the first animal to be tamed by man, hunting cooperation.
Wooded valley in Spain 10,000 years ago, painting on cliffs of deer, stags, Ibex, wild bull, people, hunting scenes, bees nest.
Around this time at the eastern end of the Mediterranean people were learning new ways of living.
[edit] Episode 2. "The Gods Enslaved"
Attenborough explores the shift over time from mans prehistoric view of the natural world as divine to a complacent view of it as a larder to be raided with impunity.
Cave paintings in Spain and France of wild animals as game 15,000 years ago show that wild Bulls were regarded with almost religious awe.
10,000 years ago Bulls were domesticated and mountain goats tamed. The domestication of wild pigs began.
9000 years ago in the grasslands of the Nile delta cattle owning tribes developed a much more elaborate way of life. Worship of a bull as the god Apis. The Falcon was worshipped as Horus the lord of the skies. Over time the worship of birds became generalised to all types of birds. The hippo was worshipped as Tawaret (protector of pregnant women), the crocodile Sobek (the God of evil) the cat was mummified as an associate of the god of war (Pasht). There were Lion, Ram, Hawk and Goat gods. The images of them that stood in temples were given human bodies to show that they represented not ordinary animals but divine beings.
Fertilisation of fields by Nile floods. Wheat and Barley cultivation.
Crete was settled by people 9000 years ago. Olive oil was the main form of wealth. It was used for cooking, lighting and anointed on the body for cleaning. Eight thousand years ago the domestication of wild grape vines began and were propagated from cuttings. There were over 100 palaces in Crete and they all centred around a large paved arena. Here was held the great ritual that dominated the lives of the people, a blend of ritual devotion, athletic prowess and great bravery where men would somersault over a bull.
Fishing in the Mediterranean.
By the beginning of the first century AD the Romans had become the dominant nation in the Mediterranean; hunting was a Roman passion and they ransacked their vast empire for animals, the stranger the better. They were taken to the arenas that were the centres of mass entertainment. "The Roman public's thirst for blood and pleasure in witnessing pain seems to have been unquenchable and without limit." "The caged animals were kept in dungeons below the main arena. The terrified animals in their cages were hoisted up from this pit. And not only animals, human beings too, criminals, slaves and prisoners of war. And here in this arena they were set one upon the other to provide the crowd with spectacles of the most appalling carnage. It still continues to this day in Spain." Bullfighting.
The cult of Artemis. During the first century BC a cult of bull worship appeared and soon spread across the Empire. Mithras a new God. The bull is still seen as the source of all life but now it requires a God in human form to release its fertility.
Roman Lepis Magna, Libya. By the end of the first century AD North Africa was supplying half a million tonnes of grain per year and two thirds of Rome's wheat. The southern shores of the Mediterranean were among the most fertile territories in the Roman Empire. -Desertification of land around the city.
In 43 AD St Paul settled in Ephesus, his message of Christianity began to strike at the trade in trinkets to pilgrims to the shrine of Artemis and a riot ensued, however erosion of the land and subsequent silting of the harbour at Ephesus stopped trade and caused the city to become abandoned. See Deforestation during the Roman period.
The bull, one of the most important of the gods was dethroned, so today castrated and subdued it works out its days in harness as man's patient slave.
But at the other end of the Mediterranean the sun was just a little less harsh, the rainfall more generous, so there nature is able to a little better withstand man's assaults and so over the next few centuries the centres of human power and population slowly move to the other end of the sea.
[edit] Episode 3. "The Wastes of War"
Deserts of Jordan.
The Bedouin.
3000 B.C. Horses Used to pull carts and wagons
4th century mass migrations of Huns Visigoths Vandals.
Rise of Islam.
Arabic hunting with falcons.
Medieval attitudes and beliefs about animals credited some with extraordinary powers.
The Crusades.
The spread of the black rat and plague.
Forests of Spain and Italy cut down for Merino sheep grazing.
Venetian shipbuilding.
The battle of the Lepanto.
End of 15th century shipbuilding moved to Spain for timber.
End of 16th century shipbuilding moved to Northern Europe for Baltic Forest timber.
Spanish riding school.
[edit] Episode 4. "Strangers in the Garden"
Suez Canal proposal and construction.
Invasive marine animal and plant species move from Red Sea to Mediterranean over 100 species and growing.
North American aphids moved to France and attack grapevines.
1940s Jacques Cousteau invention of scuba mask opens a whole new under water world.
Increased fishing led to overfishing.
Trawling for fish.
Increasingly big and expensive boats throw away 70% of their catch.
Pollution of water by oil and untreated sewage.
Fish nursery grounds.
Seagrass meadow community dying due to sewage and sediment.
By the 1970s it was clear that the Mediterranean was dying and in 1985 a multinational conference outlawed oil dumping and established over 200 pollution monitoring stations - more needs to be done.
Lands maltreated since Roman and Grecian times, rich farming lands wrecked by deforestation and erosion.
Egyptian dams evaporate one third of water and remove fertile silt from water, chemical fertilisers used as a substitute and in conjunction with pesticides may cause extinction of birds such as the Bald Ibis.
Israeli cultivation of desert land.
Forest destruction by fire.
Draining of wetlands.
Tourism on the southern coast of France.
Loggerhead turtle egg laying affected by human population.
Tunisian lake birdlife and development pressures.
Original European forest remnants in Yugoslavia and Greek river delta.
Remote islands.
Monk Seal.
Final piece to camera.
[edit] Quotes
[edit] Episode 2. "The Gods Enslaved"
49 min 40 sec
(Reference to the port city of Leptis)
| “ | And yet, today the harbour is silted up, most of the city lies buried beneath sand dunes and the land has become a desert. As the population had grown and more people wanted more fields, so more of the forest that once stood around the city was cut down, until eventually it was all gone. With no roots to hold the soil, and no attempt to conserve it, it was carried away by the wind and the rain. | ” |
50 min 10 sec
| “ | And this is where it went. In places all around the eastern Mediterranean the sea is separated from the mainland by strips of flat marshy land like this. Made up of the soil that once clothed the hills beyond. All this was deposited during the last 2000 years. This is the marsh that now separates the sea from the city of Ephesus. These ruined buildings mark the edge of the quay where once merchant ships lay moored. As the harbour died so did the trade upon which the city's wealth was based, and so well ultimately did Ephesus itself. What was once one of the most splendid cities in the Roman Empire fell into decay and was abandoned. | ” |
52 min 20 sec
| “ | It used to be said, that in places like this, nature eventually failed to support man, the truth is exactly the reverse, here man failed to support nature. Ten thousand years ago man regarded the natural world as divine, but as he domesticated animals and plants so nature lost some of its mystery and appeared to be little more than a larder that could be raided with impunity. | ” |
[edit] Episode 4. "Strangers in the Garden"
52 min 25 sec Final piece to camera for series.
| “ | It was in the lands around this sea, that some 10,000 years ago, human beings first discovered how to tame animals and cultivate plants. Could it be here too that they also first learned from the mistakes they made during that process, that nations no matter what their political philosophy or economic circumstances or religious beliefs recognize that they simply had to get together and agree, if they were to save these wild landscapes and the animals and plants that live in them. That that perhaps, is just one more lesson that the Mediterranean could offer to the world. For surely these things are among our most precious possessions, the last glimpses we have of mankind's first eden. | ” |
[edit] References
- ^ The First Eden DVD
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| The Life series Life on Earth (1979) | The Living Planet (1984) | The Trials of Life (1990) | Life in the Freezer (1993) | The Private Life of Plants (1995) The Life of Birds (1998) | The Life of Mammals (2002) | Life in the Undergrowth (2005) | Life in Cold Blood (2008) Other work and narrated: |
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