The award-winning film-maker and academic Henry Louis Gates Jr travels the length and breadth of Africa to explore the continent's epic history. In this first episode, Gates focuses on the origins of human existence and looks at the anthropological and scientific discoveries that point to Africa as the genetic home of all currently living humanity.

This episode charts the emergence of Christianity and Islam and examines how the two religions reshaped Africa between the first and the 12th centuries AD, as well as for centuries thereafter.

Empires of Gold marks an era of great commercial and manufacturing growth throughout several of the continent's regions.

This episode shines a light on the powerful, cosmopolitan cities that dotted Africa at the time when Europe was in its Middle Ages. From 1000 to 1600, commerce, wealth and prosperity expanded across Africa, building new cities and founding new powerful states that mark this golden age.

The Atlantic Age examines the tremendous changes that took place in Africa between the 15th and 18th centuries.

In the final part of Africa's Great Civilisations, Henry Louis Gates Jr reviews the 19th century, when a fierce competition for resources and trade stimulated ingenuity but also enticed European powers, triggering the 'scramble for Africa' and inciting conflicts that threatened the stability and wellbeing of the continent.