1 00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:12,160 [intriguing music playing] 2 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:17,320 [Graham] For those who don't know me, I'm Graham Hancock. 3 00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:24,960 I've been exploring the possibility of a lost civilization in prehistory 4 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:26,760 for more than 30 years. 5 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,280 Archaeology claims if there were such a thing as a lost civilization, 6 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:36,240 they would have found it already. 7 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:40,440 Well, I profoundly disagree with that. 8 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:42,280 [music continues] 9 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:44,160 And now, my quest continues… 10 00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:47,880 [airplane engine revving] 11 00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:52,880 …in a part of the world often overlooked by historians of humanity's origins… 12 00:00:55,640 --> 00:01:00,800 The oldest dates that we got were about 13,200 before present. 13 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:06,000 [Graham] …exploring some of the world's most intriguing ancient wonders. 14 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:10,160 There's numerology. There's mathematics. There's astronomy. 15 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:14,600 This could be considered a lost technology. 16 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:16,880 [Graham] And making new discoveries. 17 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:19,200 Wow. 18 00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:23,320 [triumphant music playing] 19 00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:26,480 It's impossible. It's impossible. 20 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:32,680 I mean, as a kid, I always thought the timeline was off. 21 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:36,400 [Graham] All with a radical new proposition in mind. 22 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:40,880 Could the key to discovering a lost civilization 23 00:01:40,960 --> 00:01:42,560 of the Ice Age lie here, 24 00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:45,160 in the Americas? 25 00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:48,680 [triumphant music crescendos] 26 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:55,960 [triumphant music ends] 27 00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:57,520 [theme song playing] 28 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:06,440 [theme song ends] 29 00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:09,000 -[thunder rumbling] -[electronic warble] 30 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:12,680 [somber music playing] 31 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:22,360 [Graham] The quest for our origins 32 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:26,400 and the quest for the origins of civilization, 33 00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:30,600 are fundamental to what it is, to being human. 34 00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:34,840 But I think it's part of the human nature. 35 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:38,760 If we're convinced that something doesn't exist, 36 00:02:39,640 --> 00:02:40,760 we don't look for it. 37 00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:42,840 [tense music playing] 38 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:51,040 [Graham] My search for those origins has led me here, 39 00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:55,080 to one of the most striking places in North America. 40 00:02:56,960 --> 00:02:58,200 White Sands. 41 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:09,120 This is a land of austere beauty and strangeness 42 00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:12,040 that's been hiding a secret for thousands of years. 43 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:16,520 A secret now unveiled 44 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:19,680 that's forcing a rewrite of the prehistory of the Americas. 45 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:21,600 [tense music intensifies] 46 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:25,760 [Graham] Until the 1990s, we were taught that deep in the Ice Age, 47 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:30,560 humans migrated from North Asia to Alaska, across the Bering land bridge, 48 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:34,200 then, around 13,500 years ago, 49 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:39,760 walked south through an ice-free corridor, before spreading across the Americas. 50 00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:45,120 A scenario held so firmly for so long 51 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:50,400 that few archaeologists went looking for traces of any earlier human migration. 52 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:52,280 [tense music continues] 53 00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:56,560 For a very long time, there's been this conviction 54 00:03:56,640 --> 00:03:59,000 that evidence would not be found of a human presence 55 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:01,440 older than 13,500 years ago. 56 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:07,480 Turns out, that idea was wrong. Very wrong. 57 00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:10,240 [tense music intensifies, stops] 58 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:13,840 [Graham] White Sands National Park's resource manager, David Bustos, 59 00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:16,320 began working here in 2005, 60 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:20,400 hoping to share with others his passion 61 00:04:20,480 --> 00:04:22,520 for this pristine wilderness and its wildlife. 62 00:04:24,840 --> 00:04:28,160 But he soon found himself on the trail of something else, 63 00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:31,880 something that seemed crazy at first. 64 00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:39,400 I think about 2006, I heard a story about footprints of a Bigfoot. [chuckles] 65 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:44,720 And there was a government trapper that found these amazing prints. 66 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:48,400 He described them being 22 inches across and eight inches wide. 67 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:50,600 -[Graham] Yeah. -What could that be? Must be a Bigfoot. 68 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:54,200 And I think lot of people gave him a hard time. There's no Bigfoot. 69 00:04:54,280 --> 00:04:56,600 But I was thinking, "I've seen these." [chuckles] 70 00:04:56,680 --> 00:04:57,720 Yeah. 71 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:01,600 [David] And so we went out, and when we brushed out the footprints, 72 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:03,960 you could see they had incredible claw marks. 73 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:07,400 [Graham] Obviously, this was no Bigfoot. 74 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:12,440 He did find a big footprint of a giant ground sloth. 75 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:14,800 -That's what they were. -Giant ground sloths. 76 00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:19,280 [Graham] They knew the prints must be very old. 77 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:25,640 Giant ground sloths went extinct around 11,500 years ago. 78 00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:33,040 Then David and his colleagues found even larger prints nearby from mammoths, 79 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:34,400 also long extinct. 80 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:41,520 Some of the gait and stride can be 13 feet long. Really incredible. 81 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:46,680 Look a little bit further, you'll find the giant camel, American camel. 82 00:05:46,760 --> 00:05:49,280 -[Graham] Yeah. -Sometimes you'll see dire wolves. 83 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:53,200 [Graham] All these tracks are from megafauna, 84 00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:57,880 giant mammals which suddenly vanished at the end of the last Ice Age. 85 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:03,160 Many are little more than compacted sand, 86 00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:07,160 buried and protected by layers of sediment over thousands of years, 87 00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:12,360 until erosion brought them back to the surface. 88 00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:15,080 [intriguing music playing] 89 00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:17,480 Among these ancient mammoth tracks, 90 00:06:17,560 --> 00:06:20,840 David also spotted another intriguing set of prints, 91 00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:26,840 and he and his colleagues decided to take a closer look. 92 00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:31,800 When we brushed out these other footprints, 93 00:06:31,880 --> 00:06:35,320 we've seen really nice, clear toe impressions in the heel. 94 00:06:35,400 --> 00:06:37,520 [triumphant music playing] 95 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:39,640 -[Graham] Human footprints? -Human footprints. 96 00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:43,360 At the same age, it appeared to be, as the megafauna. 97 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:44,720 It was really amazing. 98 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:46,120 -Incredible. -[David] Yes. 99 00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:48,200 [triumphant music ends] 100 00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:51,360 [tense music playing] 101 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:54,160 [Graham] These fossilized human footprints must have been made 102 00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:57,080 in the time of the mammoths and the giant sloths. 103 00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:01,920 At least 11,500 years ago. 104 00:07:03,840 --> 00:07:05,960 And there are thousands of them. 105 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:08,040 [tense music continues] 106 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:18,120 There's something intimate and special about White Sands. It's not tools. 107 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:23,160 It's not a broken femur from a prey animal that's been butchered. 108 00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:25,640 It's human footprints. It's us. 109 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:32,920 We are seeing the human presence very intimately and very directly 110 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:34,040 in those footprints. 111 00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:36,120 [tense music continues] 112 00:07:38,920 --> 00:07:41,160 But when were they left here exactly? 113 00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:46,360 Just how old are these footprints? 114 00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:52,160 There's no technology that can date them directly. 115 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:57,920 So the National Park Service teamed up with the US Geological Survey 116 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:00,000 to search for more evidence. 117 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:03,560 [tense music intensifies] 118 00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:06,720 [Graham] And they struck gold, 119 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:12,160 finding layer upon layer of animal and human tracks going deep into the past. 120 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:14,120 [camera shutter clicks] 121 00:08:16,320 --> 00:08:19,320 Buried among them were seeds from an aquatic grass… 122 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:21,160 [camera shutter clicks] 123 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:23,240 …seeds that could be carbon dated. 124 00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:26,960 [suspenseful music playing] 125 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:29,600 [Graham] And the results were astounding. 126 00:08:33,560 --> 00:08:36,680 [David] We know that the footprints were here for thousands of years, 127 00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:41,680 at least from 23,000 years to 21,000 years. 128 00:08:41,760 --> 00:08:42,600 Wow. 129 00:08:42,680 --> 00:08:44,680 [suspenseful music slows down] 130 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:54,440 The discovery of human footprints at White Sands is a huge step forward 131 00:08:54,520 --> 00:08:57,400 in our understanding of the peopling of the Americas. 132 00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:02,720 We're looking at absolutely incontrovertible evidence 133 00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:06,560 that humans were present in New Mexico deep in the Ice Age, 134 00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:09,880 as much as 23,000 years ago. 135 00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:15,120 It's proof that long before it was possible to spread south 136 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:17,640 into the Americas through that ice-free corridor, 137 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:20,760 humans were already here. 138 00:09:22,160 --> 00:09:24,360 [suspenseful music continues] 139 00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:28,400 This changes the history of the Americas, and it changes the history of the world. 140 00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:35,320 These are human beings just like us, 141 00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:39,080 but human beings concealed behind the veil of time. 142 00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:43,240 And our task now is to lift that veil back 143 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:49,000 and re-establish that connection with our ancestors and the remote past. 144 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:53,520 [suspenseful music ends] 145 00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:57,360 The footprints hold special meaning and significance 146 00:09:57,440 --> 00:10:00,120 for the Indigenous communities of this area. 147 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:07,080 Kim Pasqual-Charlie of the Pueblo of Acoma consulted with the team 148 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:08,800 on this groundbreaking discovery. 149 00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:16,160 [Graham] Tell me about the relationship of the Acoma to the land. 150 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:19,560 How long have your people been here? 151 00:10:19,640 --> 00:10:22,720 Are there myths and traditions about an origin story of your people? 152 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:27,520 Yes. Our origin story started somewhere in the north area. 153 00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:30,360 And through our migration story that has been passed down 154 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:32,200 from generation to generation, 155 00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:34,600 we settled here and there, coming down here. 156 00:10:34,680 --> 00:10:37,200 -And that's where my people stayed. -Yeah. 157 00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:39,920 We've been in the Southwest for a very long time. 158 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:40,840 [Graham] Yeah. 159 00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:43,240 To Kim and her people, 160 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:46,440 these prints are far more than archaeological records. 161 00:10:48,040 --> 00:10:50,800 -Your ancestors left their footprints. -[Kim] Mm-hmm. 162 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:53,840 I understand you were involved in finding some of those footprints? 163 00:10:53,920 --> 00:10:55,520 Yes. There's no words to describe it. 164 00:10:58,560 --> 00:11:02,920 We've come to see where our ancestor once walked this earth. 165 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:07,600 [tense music playing] 166 00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:13,680 And to place my hands in the little footprints of children. 167 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:20,360 -You know? And it gets very emotional. -[Graham] Yeah. 168 00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:21,760 -[Kim] You know? It's-- -Yeah. 169 00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:25,080 I'm sorry, Graham, but it just… [chuckles] 170 00:11:25,160 --> 00:11:26,960 There are times it makes you wanna cry. 171 00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:28,360 -[Graham] Absolutely. -You know? 172 00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:32,080 [Graham] But once the footprints are exposed, 173 00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:34,400 the same process of erosion that revealed them 174 00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:36,480 will slowly start to erase them. 175 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:42,800 These footprints which testify to the ancient presence of your people 176 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:44,000 are also fragile. 177 00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:45,440 -Right. -They could easily be lost. 178 00:11:46,040 --> 00:11:48,880 [Kim] You know, maybe 50 years from now, 179 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:52,200 the next generation won't be able to see the footprints. 180 00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:55,000 -[Graham] Yeah. -[Kim] But the stories will continue. 181 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:56,720 Our stories will continue. 182 00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:03,520 [wind howling] 183 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:06,040 [Graham] But the barren landscape begs a question. 184 00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:10,080 Why would all these humans and animals have come here? 185 00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:12,760 [suspenseful music playing] 186 00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:17,000 Remember, North America was different during the Ice Age. 187 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:20,880 The north half of the continent was smothered by ice. 188 00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:26,080 And this part of New Mexico was very different. 189 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:27,960 At first glance, 190 00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:32,200 this vast, open desert with patches of brush and wind-sculpted dunes 191 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:35,360 seems pitiless and otherworldly. 192 00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:40,720 [Graham] But if we wind the clock back to the height of the Ice Age, 193 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:42,920 conditions here were very different. 194 00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:53,160 The Tularosa Basin held a giant body of fresh water known as Lake Otero 195 00:12:55,120 --> 00:12:57,120 surrounded by vegetation. 196 00:12:57,200 --> 00:12:58,360 [mammoth trumpeting] 197 00:12:58,440 --> 00:13:02,640 Ancient mammoths, ground sloths, and camels came to this watering hole 198 00:13:02,720 --> 00:13:04,720 to feast on the grasses and trees. 199 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:06,800 -[mammoth trumpeting] -[birds chirping] 200 00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:09,880 And, as we now know, humans followed them. 201 00:13:15,280 --> 00:13:17,320 Establishing the age of the footprints 202 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:19,560 was a complex scientific problem. 203 00:13:20,680 --> 00:13:25,120 David and a team of experts spent more than a decade building the evidence. 204 00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:31,520 But when, in 2021, they published their findings in the journal Science, 205 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:34,160 not all reactions were favorable. 206 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:39,240 [David] I think with anything that's so unique and unusual, 207 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:41,600 it takes a lot of science to be able to support it. 208 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:45,840 [Graham] The carbon dating of the seeds was challenged. 209 00:13:46,560 --> 00:13:51,000 But the team confirmed their results using other samples of pollen and sediment 210 00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:53,080 quieting their critics. 211 00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:57,960 Is there still controversy around the 23,000-year-old dates? 212 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:01,720 I think until you have a time machine, there always will be. 213 00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:05,680 But beyond all these dates also, if you look, 214 00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:08,960 you still see a mammoth footprint 215 00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:12,280 a meter, a meter and a half above human footprints. 216 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:14,680 -And there's more mammoth prints below… -Below. Yeah. 217 00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:17,520 …so megafauna and people have been on this horizon 218 00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:19,200 -for thousands of years together. -Yeah. 219 00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:21,120 [tense music playing] 220 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:23,640 [Graham] The White Sands discovery helps to solve 221 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,000 one of the most perplexing mysteries of prehistory, 222 00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:30,560 the sudden extinction of America's Ice Age megafauna 223 00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:35,280 between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. 224 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:42,760 The suggestion of archaeology was that human beings hunted down all the megafauna 225 00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:44,040 and butchered them. 226 00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:46,560 I don't know of any hunter-gatherer group 227 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:49,480 that would willingly exterminate its food supply. 228 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:54,560 So the notion that humans were responsible for the extinction of the megafauna, 229 00:14:54,640 --> 00:14:57,320 uh, has always seemed, to me, quite bizarre. 230 00:14:57,400 --> 00:14:59,320 [tense music ends] 231 00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:03,800 [Graham] The tracks here prove that humans and those animals overlapped 232 00:15:03,880 --> 00:15:07,000 for at least 10,000 years before their extinction. 233 00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:12,560 I think a much better explanation 234 00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:15,040 for the extinction of the Ice Age megafauna 235 00:15:15,120 --> 00:15:21,160 is the global cataclysm that took place around about 12,800-12,900 years ago, 236 00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:22,520 known as the Younger Dryas. 237 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:25,160 [thunder rumbling] 238 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:27,040 [tense music playing] 239 00:15:32,800 --> 00:15:35,160 There was a sudden plunge in global temperatures, 240 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:38,200 a sudden rise in sea levels, 241 00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:43,240 and the world very rapidly became an extremely difficult place to live. 242 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:47,600 It's a time we call the ancient apocalypse. 243 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,280 North America was hardest hit, 244 00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:54,360 which could explain both the extinction of its megafauna 245 00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:57,160 and also, the big gaps in human history here. 246 00:15:57,840 --> 00:15:59,160 [tense music ends] 247 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:05,840 We are going to have to completely change the story of the peopling of the Americas 248 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:07,280 in the light of this new evidence. 249 00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,040 Archaeologists are opening their eyes and their minds 250 00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:14,880 to the possibility of a much older human presence. 251 00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:19,480 [David] We're just touching the tip of the surface of what's to be learned. 252 00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:21,400 I think throughout the Southwest as people look, 253 00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:25,080 they're gonna find sites that are just as old as White Sands also. 254 00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:27,480 So it's like you've opened a door on the past, 255 00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:29,480 -which nobody's stepped through before? -Yeah. 256 00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:31,680 [tense music playing] 257 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:34,720 [Graham] Paradigm shifts don't happen instantly. 258 00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:38,560 It's the accumulation of evidence that finally discredits an old paradigm 259 00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:41,600 and allows eyes to open to new possibilities. 260 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:43,680 That's what we're witnessing in the Americas now. 261 00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:50,960 What's been discovered here at White Sands is part of a much bigger story, 262 00:16:51,040 --> 00:16:53,400 a global story that I've been investigating 263 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:55,320 for more than 30 years. 264 00:16:55,400 --> 00:17:00,000 If we want to clear the fog of amnesia that surrounds our remote past, 265 00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,520 we need to look much deeper and much further back 266 00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:06,320 than we've ever done before, right here in the Americas 267 00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:08,160 where the timeline of prehistory 268 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:11,000 keeps on receding with every new discovery. 269 00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:14,280 [tense music ends] 270 00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:16,760 New discoveries 271 00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:21,920 that are not just being followed by archaeologists. 272 00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:25,760 [tense music playing] 273 00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:33,720 [Graham] So, Keanu. 274 00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:34,960 Graham. 275 00:17:35,040 --> 00:17:36,240 Let's talk about the past. 276 00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:40,160 -Okay. -Why does the past matter to you? 277 00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:42,680 Well, you know. 278 00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:46,200 I remember as a young child just being inquisitive. 279 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:48,200 And as I have grown up, 280 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:52,040 it comes to the question of a fundamental sense of 281 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:54,600 "who are we?" 282 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:59,920 Yeah. And what's driven me on this quest of my own for more than 30 years, 283 00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:03,240 um, is to try to get back to some sort of source. 284 00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:04,480 Source of what? 285 00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:06,760 The source of who we are. 286 00:18:07,360 --> 00:18:09,840 -And the timeline. -[Graham] Timeline's all wrong. 287 00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:15,080 That's why those footprints in White Sands were so significant to me. 288 00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:16,000 [Keanu] Mm. 289 00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:18,160 My feeling is that 23,000 years is just the beginning. 290 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:19,920 We're gonna go back much further than that. 291 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:22,560 Yeah. I have that… I have that feeling too. 292 00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:27,560 And we are just at the edge of… of rediscovering so much of our lost past. 293 00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:28,560 [Keanu] Mm. 294 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:32,560 And in a way, America is the place where that story is unfolding. 295 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:34,680 Well, that's an exciting idea. 296 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:36,800 [tense music playing] 297 00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:39,240 I think you're on a quest, Graham, 298 00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:43,400 to teach and to bring understanding, perhaps. 299 00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:47,040 [Graham] Well, the issue about the Americas is 300 00:18:47,120 --> 00:18:51,320 that there is so much of our past that we've forgotten. 301 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:57,160 And my role, such as it is, has been to try to recover, 302 00:18:57,240 --> 00:18:59,000 uh, some of that lost memory. 303 00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:03,160 When I think of the past like that, it sounds exciting. 304 00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,000 Absolutely. For me, the past is all about mystery. 305 00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:09,920 It's not about what we do know. It's about what we don't know. 306 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:12,840 The huge areas that have not been explored or investigated. 307 00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:15,080 The possibilities that haven't been explored. 308 00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:16,080 Yeah. 309 00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:18,160 [tense music continues] 310 00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:24,720 [Graham] We need to start looking specifically for evidence 311 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:27,640 in places where we might not have looked before. 312 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:30,640 During the Ice Age, 313 00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:33,360 the northern part of North America was a frozen wasteland. 314 00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:37,440 The places to look are down near the tropics. 315 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:38,560 Down near the equator. 316 00:19:38,640 --> 00:19:42,200 Places that were warm, comfortable, nurturing, hospitable. 317 00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:45,360 Perhaps even a vast region 318 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:49,160 that was long believed to be an archaeological wasteland, 319 00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:53,320 but where astounding secrets of the human past 320 00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:55,400 are now beginning to be revealed. 321 00:19:57,480 --> 00:19:59,240 This is the Amazon. 322 00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:01,320 [tense music intensifies] 323 00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:07,080 You're looking at more than six million square kilometers of land 324 00:20:07,160 --> 00:20:10,040 that are still under dense canopy rainforest. 325 00:20:12,600 --> 00:20:17,520 That immense land area is a huge mystery 326 00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:19,880 at the heart of the human story. 327 00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:22,520 And little by little, we're beginning to realize 328 00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:24,600 how enormous that mystery really is. 329 00:20:24,680 --> 00:20:26,280 [tense music continues] 330 00:20:26,360 --> 00:20:30,080 For decades, the dominant view of archaeologists was that 331 00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:32,520 the Amazon's only historical inhabitants 332 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,920 were small semi-nomadic tribes of hunter-foragers, 333 00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:39,800 much like those still surviving in the rainforest today. 334 00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:45,640 But I believe the dominant view is wrong. 335 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:47,680 [tense music intensifies] 336 00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:50,200 [tense music continues] 337 00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:57,120 [Graham] I'm headed to the far west of Brazil and the state of Acre. 338 00:20:58,120 --> 00:21:00,000 Like most of the Amazon basin, 339 00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:03,520 it had long been blanketed by sprawling rainforest 340 00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:09,000 until vast expanses began to be burned down 341 00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:11,480 to make way for cattle ranches. 342 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:14,000 [fire crackling] 343 00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:21,640 Coming to the Amazon rainforest is both an exhilarating and depressing experience. 344 00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:26,720 The amount of land that's been cleared of trees 345 00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:30,960 is an unfolding modern day disaster with no easy solution. 346 00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:35,240 But as new swathes of land have been cleared, 347 00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:37,600 it's led to something that no one expected. 348 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:39,680 [tense music continues] 349 00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:45,080 [Graham] I'm here to meet Dr. Alceu Ranzi, 350 00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:51,320 a paleogeographer who began his career studying the Amazon's Ice Age animals. 351 00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:54,440 [airplane engine revving] 352 00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:59,040 [Graham] He wants to show me evidence of a mystery 353 00:21:59,120 --> 00:22:01,280 that remains unsolved today. 354 00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:05,560 [tense music intensifies] 355 00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:12,560 -Whoa! -Whoa! 356 00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:13,680 [both laugh] 357 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:14,720 Roller coaster. 358 00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:26,920 [Graham] From up here, the ongoing devastation is unmissable. 359 00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,400 You can see how much of it has been cleared. 360 00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:34,800 -So much. So much. -[Graham] Yes. 361 00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:40,080 Twenty years from now, all the forest will disappear. 362 00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:45,360 But this clearance has opened a little window on a great mystery. 363 00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:50,440 In 1986, Dr. Ranzi was flying over this region 364 00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:53,360 when he caught a glimpse of something unexpected. 365 00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:58,040 I was arriving in Rio Branco by jet, commercial jet. 366 00:22:58,120 --> 00:22:58,960 Yes. 367 00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:00,880 -Sitting in the window seat. -[Graham] Yeah. 368 00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:03,280 -And looking at the environment like this. -[Graham] Yes. 369 00:23:03,360 --> 00:23:04,680 [Dr. Ranzi] Like this. 370 00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:06,760 And then I see a big circle. 371 00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:09,280 [dramatic music playing] 372 00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:17,520 My God. What's this? Huh? 373 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:19,960 -And the jet is so fast. Gone. -Yeah. 374 00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:21,680 Disappear. 375 00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:25,680 [Graham] He didn't yet realize it, 376 00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:29,080 but in those few seconds, Dr. Ranzi had spotted something, 377 00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,200 that if our old notions of the Amazon are true, 378 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:33,800 simply shouldn't exist. 379 00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:37,520 -Wow. -[Dr. Ranzi] Yeah. 380 00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:44,040 [Graham] Giant geometrical shapes, as much as 1,000 feet across, 381 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:48,160 formed by trenches and massive piles of earth, 382 00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:51,240 now known as geoglyphs. 383 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:54,960 Fantastic design. My God. 384 00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:57,400 Fantastic design. And so big. 385 00:23:57,480 --> 00:23:58,360 [Graham] And enormous. 386 00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,600 -So enormous. Enormous. -[Graham] Yeah. Yeah. 387 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:01,520 Yeah. 388 00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:04,280 [tense music ends] 389 00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:06,720 -Beautiful. Beautiful thing. -[Dr. Ranzi] Beautiful. 390 00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:08,800 [tense music playing] 391 00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:13,680 And what I'm seeing is a square surrounded by an oval. 392 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,000 [Dr. Ranzi] Ah, look. Another one. 393 00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:19,920 -Yes. They're everywhere. -[Dr. Ranzi] Everywhere. 394 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:22,000 Another one here. 395 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:23,960 Another one here. 396 00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,040 Wow. Incredible. 397 00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,960 [Graham] The perfect geometry is only visible 398 00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:35,960 from hundreds of feet in the air. 399 00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:40,400 And yet, somehow, this was all created by people 400 00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:42,880 with their feet stuck firmly on the ground. 401 00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,520 [tense music ends] 402 00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:49,440 This, to me, raises a feeling of deep respect. 403 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,240 How do they have the perspective to see how they would look from above? 404 00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:00,800 It's a powerful experience. 405 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:05,400 I've visited many temples and pyramids and sacred sites around the world, 406 00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:08,040 and this has a very special feeling. 407 00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,560 You know, very special. 408 00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:13,600 [triumphant music playing] 409 00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,240 I mean, it touches my heart. 410 00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:21,120 [spluttering] I'm… I'm looking at something majestic. 411 00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:31,680 It's as though the curtain is being pulled back from the… from the Mona Lisa. 412 00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,000 Suddenly, I'm seeing something that I didn't know was there, 413 00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,880 and it had an enormous emotional impact upon me. 414 00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,640 It was as though the ancients were speaking to me directly. 415 00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:50,080 "Look what we could do. Don't underestimate us." 416 00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:52,320 "We were scientists." 417 00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,040 [tense music playing] 418 00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:02,360 When you first told archaeologists about this phenomenon, what did they say? 419 00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,200 -The first one was a famous archaeologist. -[Graham] Yes. 420 00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,680 -[Dr. Ranzi] I showed her the picture… -Yeah. Yeah. 421 00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:13,520 …and she looked and said, "Where is it? In the Amazon? It's impossible." 422 00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,160 It's impossible? Look at the picture. 423 00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:18,080 Help me, please. 424 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:19,880 -I don't know what this is. -Yes. 425 00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,160 [Graham] The evidence is undeniable 426 00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,080 and spread across an area the size of West Virginia. 427 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:32,320 [tense music playing] 428 00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,000 At first, it was thought these mounds 429 00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:37,080 might be defensive ramparts. 430 00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,680 But there's no evidence of warfare here. 431 00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,880 And the ditches lie inside the mounds, so they're not moats. 432 00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,880 And there's no evidence that they were used as settlements. 433 00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:56,720 [tense music ends] 434 00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:01,320 It's impossible to avoid speculation when we look at the Amazon geoglyphs. Why? 435 00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,680 Because there are no written documents from their original creators 436 00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,360 that tell us why they made them. We don't know why they made them. 437 00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,800 [intriguing music playing] 438 00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,760 What's your thought about how many there are in the whole area? 439 00:27:15,360 --> 00:27:16,800 -Thousands. -[Graham] Thousands. 440 00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,080 -Thousands. Thousands. -[Graham] All right. 441 00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:20,160 Thousands. 442 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,640 [music crescendos, stops] 443 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,920 [Graham] It raises many questions. 444 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,680 How old are these geometrical earthworks? 445 00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,200 Are they older or younger 446 00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,600 than the Amazon rainforest that long concealed them? 447 00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,040 [suspenseful music playing] 448 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,720 What was the size of the workforce that created them in the first place? 449 00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:49,880 And what skills were required to direct the work successfully? 450 00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:53,160 [Graham] This is not new work. 451 00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,680 This is people who already knew what they were doing. 452 00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,760 They've done it many times before. 453 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,680 I would love to know what was in their minds 454 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:03,000 when they were making this. 455 00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:04,120 Yeah. 456 00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:05,880 [Graham] It's such a huge effort and energy. 457 00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:07,960 [suspenseful music continues] 458 00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,720 [Graham] The geoglyph building project is a compelling mystery, 459 00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,280 one that scores of researchers are now grappling with. 460 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,880 Back on the ground, we're meeting Professor Martti Pärssinen, 461 00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,360 an archaeologist and anthropologist from the University of Helsinki, 462 00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:38,920 who's been searching for answers alongside Dr. Ranzi for two decades. 463 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,280 [Graham] Clearly, we're looking at an enormous phenomenon here, 464 00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:45,960 not something small. 465 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,240 And a phenomenon that shows knowledge of geometry 466 00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:53,040 and also a high level of organization must have been involved. 467 00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,800 [Pärssinen] I think so because many of these are so complicated. 468 00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:57,920 [Graham] Very complicated. 469 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:02,080 It is necessary to have pre-planned how to do it and how to organize it. 470 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:06,880 [music ends] 471 00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:10,000 [Graham] After examining hundreds of geoglyphs, 472 00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,640 Professor Pärssinen has uncovered a key piece of evidence 473 00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,680 that points to the type of society that built these structures, 474 00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:25,720 ancient raised roads connecting many of the geoglyphs. 475 00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:28,360 [mysterious music playing] 476 00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,160 This area is full of roads. 477 00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:35,000 -Hunters and gatherers do not build roads. -[Graham] Mm-hmm. 478 00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:36,840 [Pärssinen] They don't have any need for that. 479 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:42,000 It needs already society with a much more higher level of thinking. 480 00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:45,360 - [Graham] I see. - And relationships between each other. 481 00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,120 -So that is a really complex society. -[Graham] Yeah. 482 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,080 And if I'm right, this was not expected before in the Amazon. 483 00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,920 No, it was totally a… surprise for us. 484 00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,200 [tense music playing] 485 00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,040 [Graham] To figure out more about who the builders were, 486 00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:04,840 Professor Pärssinen's team has been excavating the areas around the geoglyphs, 487 00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,160 including this one known as Tequinho. 488 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:13,400 Archaeologically, tell me what you do find, uh, inside the earthworks? 489 00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:17,680 From Tequinho, we found 40,000, uh, shards of ceramics. 490 00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:20,680 [camera shutter clicking] 491 00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,600 [Graham] These shards were around 2,000 years old. 492 00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,880 The earthwork itself was dated to around 2,500 years ago. 493 00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,480 But the pottery was unexpectedly sophisticated. 494 00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,640 -Most of it is of high quality… -Right. 495 00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,360 -…and polychrome ceramics. -Right. 496 00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,360 So that polychrome is a rather advanced form of ceramics. 497 00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,760 Yes, normally polychrome ceramic is considered to be part of civilization. 498 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,360 [tense music playing] 499 00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,640 [Graham] The multicolored ceramics raised an unexpected parallel 500 00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,640 with another far-off culture known for their deep knowledge of geometry, 501 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:01,880 the ancient Greeks. 502 00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,000 Generally, historians and archaeologists say that, you know, 503 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:09,840 the Greeks were amongst the first to create geometry, 504 00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,600 but clearly, we have to reconsider that view. 505 00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:14,040 I think you're right because 506 00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,920 this Geoglyph culture is exactly the same time 507 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,600 when the Greek culture had archaeological period 508 00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,760 that has been called Geometric Greek period. 509 00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:27,720 [tense music playing] 510 00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,240 [Graham] The fact that two cultures so far apart 511 00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:31,760 were making geometric art 512 00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:35,080 and producing sophisticated pottery around the same time 513 00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:37,520 seems more than a coincidence. 514 00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,000 It's fascinating that we're seeing this parallel development of ideas 515 00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:45,520 between cultures unconnected. 516 00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:46,560 Yes, exactly. 517 00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,960 [Graham] I'm not suggesting the Greek and Amazonian cultures were in contact. 518 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,800 But could both perhaps have shared a legacy of knowledge 519 00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,760 inherited from a vastly older civilization, 520 00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,720 one that traveled the Earth in the night of time, 521 00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,640 leaving traces of its wisdom wherever it went? 522 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,000 Now, the way that archaeology explains this is to say, 523 00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,600 "Well, look, we all have the same human minds, 524 00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,880 and so we're all going to do the same things." 525 00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:19,800 And the fact that they did them at the same time 526 00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,160 in widely separated geographical locations 527 00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,840 is just explained by that shared neurology. 528 00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:28,200 I'm afraid that just doesn't work for me. 529 00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,560 It's obvious from looking at the design that there must be a background to this. 530 00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:36,880 This isn't something that just appears out of nowhere suddenly one night. 531 00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:41,040 So how far back can you trace the prehistory of this area? 532 00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,160 And is there any evidence that these places were special 533 00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,640 before the geoglyphs were put there? 534 00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:52,120 That's a very good question because we excavated up to one meter… 535 00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,200 -[Graham] Mm-hmm. -…and after that, the ceramic disappeared. 536 00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,720 But then I noticed that the charcoal continued. 537 00:32:58,800 --> 00:32:59,640 [Graham] Mm-hmm. 538 00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,240 And we went down and down and down, 539 00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:06,640 and then we started to take radiocarbon samples, 540 00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,840 and finally we found that many of these sites 541 00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:14,360 have been established already 10,000 years ago. 542 00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,400 My goodness. Wow. From the deep past. 543 00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,800 -From the deep past, exactly. -Yeah. Fascinating. 544 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:23,520 [tense music playing] 545 00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:28,200 [Graham] So, 10,000 years ago, not long after the end of the Ice Age, 546 00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,640 it looks like these same sites may already have held 547 00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,920 some great significance to the people who visited them. 548 00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:38,240 That adds more to the picture then. 549 00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:42,560 So in a sense, what we're looking at now is the latest incarnation 550 00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,600 of a very long-term association with the land, 551 00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:47,960 -a very long-term project in a way. -[Pärssinen] Yes. 552 00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,560 We have evidence of a highly organized, sophisticated Indigenous civilization 553 00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,960 taking all the initiatives that we would expect of a high civilization. 554 00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,160 [Graham] This research is truly groundbreaking 555 00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,960 for our growing understanding of human history. 556 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,640 We have to reconsider our whole ideas of the ancient Amazon 557 00:34:10,720 --> 00:34:13,640 and our whole ideas of ancient civilizations. 558 00:34:13,720 --> 00:34:15,840 To me, this is one of the most exciting discoveries 559 00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,840 that has been made in the last 100 years. 560 00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:19,560 It's really, really something special. 561 00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,640 [tense music playing] 562 00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:26,560 [Graham] And the work is far from over. 563 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:33,000 We are now aware of a phenomenon that we didn't know existed 20 years ago. 564 00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,760 The next question is how many of them are there? 565 00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,240 How many of these earthworks actually exist? 566 00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:41,320 [triumphant music playing] 567 00:34:42,720 --> 00:34:45,440 To date, more than 1,000 geoglyphs have been discovered 568 00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:47,320 in the Acre region alone. 569 00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:55,000 Eight miles from the airfield, 570 00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,480 Professor Pärssinen is hoping to add to the tally 571 00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:00,680 in an unexplored part of the forest 572 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:04,200 near an exposed geoglyph called Fazenda Cipoal. 573 00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,080 [triumphant music ends] 574 00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,440 Our understanding stopped on the border of the forest, 575 00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,720 and now we want to know what's there. 576 00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,080 [suspenseful music playing] 577 00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,200 [Graham] To detect what's beneath the trees, 578 00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,840 the team is depending on a technology that sees through them. 579 00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:25,320 LiDAR. 580 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:32,080 By using this system, we can clear the vegetation out 581 00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,280 and get the results from the bottom. 582 00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,280 And in that way, we can see the topography exactly. 583 00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,760 [Graham] With LiDAR, you can see what's under the canopy 584 00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:45,840 without destroying a single tree. 585 00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,160 You don't have to tear down the rainforest. 586 00:35:48,240 --> 00:35:49,960 You don't have to destroy anything. 587 00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,640 Joining the hunt is Fabio De Novaes Filho, 588 00:35:54,720 --> 00:35:58,840 who will be surveying the forest with his drone-based LiDAR system. 589 00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,120 [Fabio] We are going to fly at 80 meters. 590 00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:03,240 That's good. 591 00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:08,640 Maybe we can have about 100 to 200 points per square meter. 592 00:36:08,720 --> 00:36:09,960 That's excellent. 593 00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,600 The topography will be very precise. 594 00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,480 [adventurous music playing] 595 00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:16,480 [blades whirring] 596 00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,680 [Graham] The device fires laser beams down between the leaves, 597 00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:32,760 detecting changes in elevation. 598 00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:35,400 [music continues] 599 00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,840 The data is then used to create a 3D map of the landscape, 600 00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:41,720 revealing any anomalies. 601 00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:43,480 [music ends] 602 00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:46,600 These drones will change everything in archaeology. 603 00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:48,680 [intriguing music playing] 604 00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,160 [Graham] While the team looks to see what might be hidden beneath the canopy, 605 00:36:57,240 --> 00:36:59,080 I'm investigating a different question. 606 00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:05,160 Why were the geoglyphs built in the first place? 607 00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:11,760 Archaeological excavations offer no clue as to why they were created. 608 00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:16,160 But the Indigenous people in this area hold knowledge and memories 609 00:37:16,240 --> 00:37:18,720 that help to shed light on the significance and meaning 610 00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:20,800 of these remarkable earthworks. 611 00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:30,520 I've come to the geoglyph known as Jaco Sá to meet one of its caretakers. 612 00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:32,600 [intriguing music continues] 613 00:37:34,720 --> 00:37:39,520 Antônio Apurinã is from the Apurinã people and works within FUNAI, 614 00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,080 Brazil's national Indigenous agency. 615 00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,000 [Antônio in Portuguese] The Apurinã are a people 616 00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:53,040 whose origins are closely tied to nature, to the earth. 617 00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:55,920 [in English] What is the opinion of the Apurinã 618 00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:59,520 about these constructions? What is your feeling about them? 619 00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:01,960 [in Portuguese] I am standing in a place 620 00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,320 for which I have the utmost respect. 621 00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,680 For us, it is a sacred place. 622 00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:16,080 It wasn't made for war. It wasn't made for defense. 623 00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:21,200 It was made to express something cultural. 624 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,080 [Graham in English] If the geometrical shapes have no practical function, 625 00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:31,240 such a huge effort to create them suggests a higher purpose. 626 00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:37,000 There may be a clue in the spiritual traditions of the Apurinã. 627 00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:42,080 [in Portuguese] So, we compare this here 628 00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:47,960 as if it were a circle of the Apurinã 629 00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:54,120 when they dance and pay homage to a deceased chief, a shaman, 630 00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,680 to an important person from the village who has died. 631 00:38:57,760 --> 00:38:59,760 [somber music playing] 632 00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:06,160 We see this space as somewhere that would welcome us 633 00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:13,040 once we have left the material world. 634 00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:18,000 [in English] This is a view very strongly held 635 00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:21,800 amongst Indigenous cultures across the Amazon to this day, 636 00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,160 that, after death, our soul makes a journey, 637 00:39:25,240 --> 00:39:28,520 ultimately to an afterlife existence. 638 00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,440 This is an idea that is found all around the world, 639 00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:37,920 and structures were created to aid the journey of the soul after death. 640 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,160 [tense music playing] 641 00:39:40,240 --> 00:39:43,280 Let's take the example of pyramids. 642 00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:47,400 I don't know of a single pyramidal structure 643 00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:50,320 around the world that isn't connected 644 00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:54,120 to the notion of death and the afterlife journey of the soul. 645 00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:59,880 This is particularly evident in the ancient Egyptian pyramids, 646 00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:05,200 but it's just as evident in the pyramids of the Americas and of Mexico. 647 00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:06,760 [tense music continues] 648 00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,000 So it's interesting to learn from Antônio 649 00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,040 that the Amazon geoglyphs may have served a similar purpose 650 00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:17,480 for the people who first created them untold thousands of years ago. 651 00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:18,920 [tense music ends] 652 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:24,840 [intriguing music playing] 653 00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:29,600 [Graham] Back at the airfield, it's time to find out if our LiDAR survey 654 00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,840 has detected yet more of these sacred sites beneath the canopy. 655 00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,680 So, Fabio, please, tell us what you found. 656 00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,760 We surveyed the area using the LiDAR. 657 00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,920 And you see the trees? 658 00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:44,840 [Graham] Yeah. 659 00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:46,960 [music crescendos] 660 00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:49,160 And now… 661 00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:52,240 Wow. Incredible. 662 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:53,240 Wow. 663 00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,880 [music ends] 664 00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:58,680 [closing theme playing] 665 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:25,800 [closing theme ends]