Wild New World

*Wild New World*
Wild New World
	Series title card from US broadcast
Also known as	Prehistoric America; 野性新世界 (Chinese)"; 先史時代のアメリカ (Japanese)"
Genre	Nature documentary
Narrated by	Jack Fortune
Composer	Barnaby Taylor
Country of origin	United Kingdom & Japan and China
Original languages	English & Japanese and Chinese
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producer	Neil Nightingale
Producer	Miles Barton
Running time	50 minutes
Production companies	BBC Natural History Unit; Discovery Channel
Original release
Network	BBC Two; BBC Three
Release	3 October –; 7 November 2002

Wild New World (also known as Prehistoric America) is a six-part BBC documentary series about Ice Age America that describes the prehistory, landscape and wildlife of the continent from the arrival of humans to the welcome of the Ice Age. It was first transmitted in the UK & JP on BBC Two from 3 October to 7 November 2002. Like several other BBC programmes, it contains both computer graphics and real-life animals. Occasionally, footage of non-American counterparts of the extinct North American beasts (like the American lion and the American cheetah) are used in juxtaposition with footage of native American animals, like the pronghorn.

Wild New World was co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and Discovery Channel. The music was composed by Barnaby Taylor and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra. The series was narrated by Jack Fortune and produced by Miles Barton.

The series forms part of the Coordinator History Unit's Continents strand. It was preceded by Wild Africa in 2001 and followed by Wild Down Under in 2003.

Production

The series was announced by the BBC with the working title All American Animals,^[4]^[5] but it was later changed to Wild New World.

Episodes

All episode names were given from BBC website. All broadcast dates refer to the original UK transmission.

Each of the episode consists with the prehistory and wildlife of a particular region in the United States, except for final episode which is about various modern American animals.

Episode	Title	Original air date
1	"Land of the Mammoth"	3 October 2002 (2002-10-03)^[6]
14,000 years ago, Beringia Filming location: Alaska, Yukon (Canada) Preserved in the frozen soil of Alaska are clues to an unknown land, where muskoxen and wild horses roarmed alongside woolly mammoths. Enormous American lions harried the families of mammoths, formidable in the defence of their young. The lion were more successful at hunting at bison in the snow but they were no match for the giant short-faced bear. Animals woolly mammoth · muskox · steppe bison · grey wolf · grizzly bear · short-faced bear · American lion · Yukon wild horse · Dall sheep · saiga antelope · Arctic ground squirrel · Arctic fox · Arctic hare · caribou · raven · Beringian Lion
2	"Canyonlands"	10 October 2002 (2002-10-10)^[7]
13,000 years ago Filming location: Nevada, Grand Canyon (Southwest US) The first people to experience the splendours of the Grand Canyon would have seen a much greener, richer land. Today it is cougar country but then bizarre ground sloths sheltered in the caves and browsed in the canyons alongside Columbian mammoths. Camels were on the menu for both the first people and the impressive sabre-tooth cat (Smilodon). Animals Shasta ground sloth · sabre-tooth cat · Columbian mammoth · cougar · turkey vulture · bighorn sheep · mountain goat · vampire bat · desert woodrat · desert pupfish · sandhill crane · mallard · Camelops · American bison · Hagerman horse · Mexican horse · raven · condor · red fox · caracara · American cheetah · dire wolf
3	"Ice Age Oasis"	17 October 2002 (2002-10-17)^[8]
13,000 years ago, Florida Filming location: Florida (Southeast US) America's Deep South is today a haven for the manatees, alligators and waterbirds which abound in its clear, turquoise springs. But when the Ice Age gripped much of the continent, the south was a warm paradise for the earliest human hunters as well as warmth loving wildlife. Tapirs and capybaras grazed in the swamps, dwarfed by the giant ground sloths which towered above them. Sabre-tooth cats came to face to face with skunks and jaguars stalked armoured glyptodonts. Animals American mastodon · Columbian mammoth · Glyptotherium · American alligator · Florida panther · American lion · scimitar-tooth cat · sabre-tooth cat · jaguar · white-tailed deer · American bison · North American river otter · Pinckney's capibara · Hemiauchenia · tapir · Eastern copperhead · amphibians · Virginia opossum · Eremotherium · Hesperotestudo · raccoon · striped skunk
4	"Edge of the Ice"	24 October 2002 (2002-10-24)^[9]
13,000 years ago Filming location: Washington, Oregon (Northwest US) The towering rainforests of the Northwest have a timeless quality, yet when the first humans reached this coast, they witnessed a very different landscape. Open woodlands and Arctic tundra were home to caribou and strange elephant-like mastodons – all potential prey for the scimitar-toothed cat (Homotherium). Animals American mastodon · Columbian mammoth · scimitar-tooth cat · harbor seal · elk · woolly mammoth · moose · brown bear · Arctic fox · herring · sea lion · salmon · American bison · caribou
5	"American Serengeti"	31 October 2002 (2002-10-31)^[10]
13,000 years ago Filming location: Colorado (Midlands) The vast seas of grass on the Great Plains are home to bison, coyotes and prairie dogs today. But previously the area was an American Serengeti, populated by Columbian mammoths (the largest of all mammoths). Here cheetah hunted pronghorn antelope and lions stalked horses and bison. But the most impressive of all the carnivores was the giant short-faced bear. Animals Columbian mammoth · short-faced bear · American bison · pronghorn · sage grouse · American cliff swallow · sandhill crane · Mexican horse · Hagerman horse · Camelops · elk · prairie dog · coyote · grey wolf · American cheetah · sabre-tooth cat · American lion
6	"Mammoths to Manhattan"	7 November 2002 (2002-11-07)^[11]
14,000 years ago until present Filming location: Manhattan The final episode shows how the megafauna become extinct, and about how modern animals living on the continent have adapted to the increasing human population and development in North America. The meeting between human and megafauna in North America was a deadly one – most of the large land animals, including all the mammoths and mastodons, horses, camels, giant ground sloths, short-faced bear, and all the big cats (except the cougar) disappeared and the landscape changed dramatically. But some animals learned to flourish in human's environment. Today chimney swifts roost in the towering smokestacks of Portland, kit foxes den in Los Angeles suburbs, moose trample the gardens of Anchorage and red tailed hawks nest in Manhattan. Animals Columbian mammoth · sabre-tooth cat · Shasta ground sloth · American mastodon · woolly mammoth · polar bear · Camelops · wild horse · puma · grizzly bear · moose · American bison · Carolina Dog · rabbit · cattle · Horse (both domestic and feral) · purple martin · wild turkey · common grackle · cowbird · red-winged blackbird · burrowing owl · kit fox · black skimmer · West Indian manatee · Vaux's swift · Cooper's hawk · peregrine falcon · Mexican free-tailed bat · red-tailed hawk · eastern grey squirrel · mallard · African elephant · impala · lion · common eland · blue wildebeest

Themes

The show's episodes offer several common themes, the main one being the coming of humans to America via the Ice Age's land bridge and causing the extinction of the North American megafauna featured in the episodes. Another BBC programme, Monsters We Met picks up and elaborates on this topic in greater detail. A more recent Discovery show, Prehistoric, also features scenic elements of Prehistoric America, such as the present melting away to reveal the past, as well as creatures already shown by the show, like the American mastodon, Arctodus and Columbian mammoth.

Merchandise

DVD

In United States and Canada, a two-disc DVD format was released under the title "Prehistoric America" on 7 September 2004 by BBC Warner.^[12] The series was included with two additional programmes:

Grand Canyon – From Dinosaurs to Dams Everglades
To Hell and Back Other: Fact Files Documentary

A three-disc DVD format was released in China for Region 6 on 12 June 2008 by Excel Media.^[13]

Books

In United Kingdom, an accompanying hardcover format was written by Miles Barton, Nigel Bean, Stephen Dunleavy, Ian Gray and Adam White, with foreword by D. Bruce Means. It was released on 19 September 2002 and published by BBC Worldwide.^[14] (ISBN 0-563-53425-7)

The companion volume for the US market, Prehistoric America: A Journey through the Ice Age and Beyond, was published by the Yale University Press on 8 February 2003.^[15](ISBN 0-300-09819-7)

References

^ "Wild New World - Episodes". bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 9 July 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
^ Fraser, Fiona (16 September 2002). "BBC and Discovery explore Wild New World". C21Media. Archived from the original on 27 June 2024. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
^ "BBC airs Mammoth task". Broadcast. 25 September 2002. Archived from the original on 27 June 2024. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
^ "Three new shows from BBC-Discovery renewal". C21 Media. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2002.
^ "BBC and Discovery explore Wild New World". C21 Media. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2002.
^ "BBC Two – Wild New World, Land of the Mammoth". Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
^ "BBC Two – Wild New World, Canyonlands". Archived from the original on 28 January 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
^ "BBC Two – Wild New World, Ice Age Oasis". Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
^ "BBC Two – Wild New World, Edge of the Ice". Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
^ "BBC Two – Wild New World, American Serengeti". Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
^ "BBC Two – Wild New World, Mammoths to Manhattan". Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
^ "Prehistoric America (DVD)". Amazon. 7 September 2004.
^ "Wild New World: The Complete Series (DVD)" (in Chinese). Excel Media. Archived from the original on 14 February 2017. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
^ Wild New World (Hardback). ASIN 0563534257.
^ Barton, Miles; Bean, Nigel; Dunleavy, Stephen; Gray, Ian; White, Adam (2002). Prehistoric America: A Journey through the Ice Age and Beyond (Books). Yale University Press. ISBN 0300098197.

External links

[1] "Wild New World - Episodes". bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 9 July 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2024.

[2] Fraser, Fiona (16 September 2002). "BBC and Discovery explore Wild New World". C21Media. Archived from the original on 27 June 2024. Retrieved 27 June 2024.

[3] "BBC airs Mammoth task". Broadcast. 25 September 2002. Archived from the original on 27 June 2024. Retrieved 27 June 2024.

[4] "Three new shows from BBC-Discovery renewal". C21 Media. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2002.

[5] "BBC and Discovery explore Wild New World". C21 Media. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2002.

[6] "BBC Two – Wild New World, Land of the Mammoth". Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.

[7] "BBC Two – Wild New World, Canyonlands". Archived from the original on 28 January 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.

[8] "BBC Two – Wild New World, Ice Age Oasis". Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.

[9] "BBC Two – Wild New World, Edge of the Ice". Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.

[10] "BBC Two – Wild New World, American Serengeti". Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.

[11] "BBC Two – Wild New World, Mammoths to Manhattan". Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2015.

[12] "Prehistoric America (DVD)". Amazon. 7 September 2004.

[13] "Wild New World: The Complete Series (DVD)" (in Chinese). Excel Media. Archived from the original on 14 February 2017. Retrieved 14 February 2017.

[14] Wild New World (Hardback). ASIN 0563534257.

[15] Barton, Miles; Bean, Nigel; Dunleavy, Stephen; Gray, Ian; White, Adam (2002). Prehistoric America: A Journey through the Ice Age and Beyond (Books). Yale University Press. ISBN 0300098197.

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