50x03 - Ancient Builders of the Amazon

[bunniefuu]

For centuries, historians
imagined the ancient Amazon

as a wilderness--

no civilization,

barely any people,

nature untouched by human hand.

Archaeologists largely
ignored it.

People just assumed that there
was nothing here in the Amazon,

and it wasn't worth
looking for things here,

so nobody came.

But now,

dramatic new discoveries

are shattering those
old assumptions.

All of a sudden,

we see something in the Amazon

that had been assumed
couldn't exist there.

Huge ancient
agricultural systems,

urban centers over
a thousand years old,

mysterious monumental
architecture.

This has changed our perception

of ancient Amazonian societies.

From the last ice age,
stunning paintings

left by some of the
very first humans in the Amazon.

Acá están plasmados...

Here are captured the thoughts
of many groups

over thousands of years.

Who were these ancient artists
and builders?

What were the civilizations
they created?

Finally, archaeologists
are revealing the untold story

of the "Ancient Builders
of the Amazon,"

right now, on "NOVA."

DvX3M
www.opensubtitles.org

The vast Amazon.

Covering almost half
of South America.

About two-and-a-half million
square miles

of tropical forest,

the largest and most biodiverse
rain forest on the planet.

It holds a third of all known

terrestrial animal and
plant species

and about 20% of the planet's
flowing fresh water.

The Amazon's natural history
is spectacular.

But what about
its ancient human history?

Great ancient civilizations
flourished

in other parts of the Americas,

like the Maya and the Inca.

All built thriving cities
filled with temples.

They reshaped the landscape
to support huge

agricultural systems,
many still visible today.

But until recently,
most scientists viewed

the ancient Amazon
as untamed nature--

a wilderness.

It was pretty standard,
the assumption of

both the public
and the scientific community

that the Amazon was pretty much
untouched nature,

that human groups there

were only small,
relatively mobile groups

living more or less one
with nature.

Y durante muchos siglos...

For many centuries,

we thought that in Amazonia,

civilizations and complex
societies

had just never developed.

If you look at the history of
archaeology in South America,

people just assumed that
there was nothing here

in the Amazon
and it wasn't worth

looking for things here,

so nobody came.

And then this idea

that there was nothing happening
here

in the past became very strong.

The lack of complex societies

in the Amazon seemed to have
a good explanation:

its poor soils made intensive
agriculture impossible.

Without intensive agriculture,

dense populations and complex
societies could never exist.

This was the dominant argument
for decades.

But now, a new generation

of archaeologists
is proving that wrong.

One of the scientists
leading the way

is Bolivian archaeologist
Carla Jaimes.

She works in a remote area
of the Bolivian Amazon

called the Llanos de Mojos.

Y debo admitir que la primera
vez que...

I have to admit
that when they first asked me

if I wanted to do archaeology
in the Llanos de Mojos,

it seemed really remote
and inhospitable to me.

What are we going to find
in the Amazon jungle?

Ya son...

Now it's over 23 years

that I've been doing research
in the Llanos de Mojos.

And the more I learn about it,
the more it surprises me.

Carla's greatest surprise
is that wherever she looks,

she finds the remnants
of an ancient culture--

especially when she looks at
the landscape from the air.

On the edges of the rain forest,

where jungle gives way
to grasslands,

geometric markings cover
the plains.

Y de repente...

And to suddenly see
those marks on the earth,

perfectly geometric, gigantic,

in places where today
there is nobody,

this would make the mind
of any archaeologist explode.

Who made them?

How long ago?

Why?

Carla has devoted much of
her career to those questions.

Slowly, she is getting answers.

Evidence suggests the marks
are raised terraces

probably constructed
by ancient people

to protect their crops
from floodwaters.

The terraces are 20 to 30 meters
wide

and 200 or 300 meters long.

They date from 1,600 years ago
up to 500 years ago.

So they were functioning
for over a thousand years.

The terraces suggest
intensive agriculture.

Could this be evidence
of dense populations

or even ancient cities?

In another part of
the Llanos de Mojos,

Carla has been investigating
a number of hills

covering the landscape.

Es increíble la cantidad de
cerámica que se encuentra...

It's incredible the quantity
of pottery

we find on the surface
of these hills.

This, for example,

is a fragment of a grater,
which they used to prepare

different foods
like peppers, manioc, and corn.

Como los Llanos de Mojos...

Since the Llanos de Mojos
doesn't have any stone,

the ancient people who lived
here had to make

many of their basic tools
from pottery,

like mortars and graters.

Esta cerámica que encontramos...

This pottery we find
on the surface

I calculate is about


When she and her team started
digging below the surface,

they found so many artifacts,

they concluded the hills
were not natural at all.

So here we are on top of
Loma Perotom,

which is one of hundreds
of small hills

in the southeast
Llanos de Mojos.



people thought they were
natural formations.

We now know they were
constructed

over 1,500 years ago.

Rather than hills,

these were giant, carefully
built earthworks.

Along with
the agricultural terraces,

this was yet more evidence
that ancient Amazonians

were not just living
on the landscape,

they were actively
transforming it.

We now know that these societies
left a huge mark

on the landscape.

The Llanos de Mojos is a
landscape

that has been modified.

Even knowing how ancient people
transformed the landscape,

Carla was unprepared for the
amazing discovery her team made

in 2019 at a large mound
called Cotoca.

A menos de diez kilómetros de
distancia...

About ten kilometers from here
is one of the biggest mounds

of this region.

In 2019, we decided to do
a lidar survey of it.

Lidar is the remote sensing

laser technology that's
revolutionizing archaeology.

Lidar bounces thousands of tiny
laser beams off the landscape

and then assembles their
reflections into a 3D image.

Forests and grasslands can then
be digitally cleared away

to reveal the hidden outlines

of ancient human settlements
beneath.

When the lidar images of the
large mound were processed,

Carla could hardly believe
her eyes.

Lo que vimos fueron mapas de
sitios...

What we saw was the outlines
of a place that was so big,

we realized it was not

just a single mound.

It was a collection of mounds
that formed what we could call

a city or some sort of
urban complex.

It measures about 600 acres,
and inside it there are

at least 18 separate structures.

Nothing quite like this had
ever been seen in the Amazon.

It was a breathtaking discovery

which reverberated
around the world.

But was it really a city?

As archaeologists discover more
evidence of ancient structures

in the Amazon,

debates arise about the nature
of the societies

that built them.

In fact, many people

didn't want to believe that
there was anything like urbanism

in the pre-Columbian Amazon.

Well, as time goes on
and technologies improve,

we start to see that,

wow, these types of societies

existed in many parts
of the Amazon.

The only thing is, is, they
don't fit our standard model

of what an urban society
would look like,

based on models that come from

deep in Western historical
experience--

Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece,
and Rome.

The lidar images of Cotoca

show a huge constructed platform


and spanning over 50 acres.

This was the focus
of an extensive urban complex.

In its center was a huge


which archaeologists believe

was probably used for
grand rituals

and administrative functions.

This civic
ceremonial construction

dominated a network
of settlements that spread out

over the surrounding plains.

Working in another part
of the Amazon,

Michael Heckenberger was
one of the first to describe

this distinctive type of
Amazonian settlement pattern.

We proposed that this indeed
was a form

of pre-modern urbanism.

That in fact,
they didn't have cities,

but the connections
and networks--

very systematic
and very tightly integrated--

of towns and villages
had the same scale of impact,

perhaps organized the same scale
of populations,

as people were accustomed
to talking about

in small to medium-sized
urban civilizations

elsewhere in the world.

After the discovery of 2019,

Carla is now expanding her
lidar surveys,

looking for yet more
ancient settlements.

¿Como le va, señorita?
Bien, gracias.

She works with the
Indigenous people

who still live in the forests
of the Llanos de Mojos--

like Dionisia Noza,

leader of the Mojeño Indigenous
community of San Bartolo.

Dionisia and her family
are probably descendants

of the people who created
the ancient urban complexes.

¿Sienten que también tienen una
relación

con, con sus ancestros

y con la gente que vivía antes
acá?

Bueno nosotros sentimos porque
le hablamos nosotros.

Nosotros sentimos que ellos nos
están ayudando, no ve?

Entonces por medio de eso
sentimos el peso

de que nosotros sentimos que
vamos a poder, igual que ellos.

I think there is something
that is really changing

in archaeology.

It is our commitment to return

the results of our research to
the communities where we work.

Before,
research would be published

in foreign languages
in publications

in other countries.

Now we make sure the
publications come back here.

People want to have them
translated

and keep them in their own
libraries.

Before starting his flight,

lidar expert Renan Torres

explains the remote sensing
laser technology to Dionisia.

He has the latest generation
of lidar equipment,

which is now so small,
it can be mounted on a drone.

Este es un drone...

This is a drone
on which is mounted

the latest lidar sensor,
which allows us

to erase the information
about the trees

so that what remains

is only what has been modified
by humans.

Carla has already made

amazing discoveries with lidar.

She hopes for more.

She suspects that
buried beneath the jungle

around the village
of San Bartolo

are more traces
of ancient settlements.

She is looking for the
telltale raised-earth platforms

created by ancient peoples.

That night,

when Carla and Renan
study the 3D image

of the rain forest
around San Bartolo,

their expectations
are surpassed.

When the vegetation
is stripped away,

they can clearly see
that the present-day village

is actually built on an ancient
human-made platform.

So the platform looks
rectangular--



and about three meters high.

And there are in fact
two platforms.

So there has probably been
a community where Dionisia

and her family live today
for a thousand years.

It was one of the many small
satellite communities

of the ancient urban network
of the Llanos de Mojos.

This existed right up
to the time of the arrival

of Europeans in
the 16th century,

the end of the era
of the ancient Amazonians.

When did that era begin?

Until recently, nobody was sure.

But in the Colombian
rain forest,

extraordinary evidence
of the arrival

of some of the first humans
in Amazonia is being found.

Archaeologist Gaspar Morcote
has made the search

for those first Amazonians
his life's work.

In an area of mountainous jungle

called
La Serranía de la Lindosa,

he and his team have been
finding traces

of ancient human activity
everywhere.

Este es uno de los caminos de
mayor antigüedad...

This is one of the oldest
pathways of those first humans

in the Amazon rain forest.

How does Gaspar know
they were here?

The clues are in
the physical remnants

those early Amazonians
left behind.

Hemos encontrado las
evidencias...

We've found the traces
they left.

Traces of bones,
their food, pieces of fruit,

their fireplaces,
and their stone tools.

When Gaspar's team
radiocarbon-dated

those traces,
their age astonished him.

Muestran que hace...

They show that


human groups arrived in this
area of the jungle.

It means that humans were here

towards the end of
the last ice age.

Este es un sitio que está
ubicado en estos aleros...

This is a site in one of
the rock shelters

which were typical places
those first inhabitants

of the Amazon used.

And this is a type of soil
which we can read like a book.

Y acá nos cuenta la historia...

It tells us the story
of those first inhabitants

and all of the generations
that came after.

That whole story is here.

The story told by these soils

is of the
nomadic hunter-gatherers

who arrived here
over 12,000 years ago,

some of the earliest
confirmed evidence

of people in the Amazon.

They used this rock shelter
as a temporary campsite.

No tenían cerámica.

They didn't have pottery.

They were nomadic groups
who wandered the jungle

living from what they hunted and
the fruits they could gather.

The tools and food remnants
left by those early Amazonians

tell Gaspar the story
of their way of life.

But other traces they left
behind are much more dramatic.

To reach them requires
a journey by river.

The Guayabero River
is born in the High Andes.

Its waters squeeze between
the high rock walls

of the Serranía de la Lindosa

before flowing down
into the jungle.

Scientists think that humans
first came into South America

through the Isthmus of Panama.

To get into the Amazon,

some had to cross the Andes,

and Gaspar believes that
the Guayabero Canyon

provided those early travelers
with a natural entry point,

through the mountains
and down into the rain forest.

Un portal donde...

It was a gateway

through which those
first humans came down

from the Andes and started
to colonize the Amazon basin.

There is no way of knowing
all the different pathways

people took on their way into
the Amazon,

but dramatic evidence reveals

this was clearly
a very important one.

Because those ancient travelers
covered the cliffs

of the low mountains of
La Lindosa

with painted figures.

Thousands of them.

Este es un mundo fabuloso que
la gente antigua...

It's a fabulous world
that those ancient people

painted here.

They represent the animals
they lived with

and the plants they lived with.

Acá están plasmados...

These figures capture
the thoughts of many groups

over thousands of years.

Muchas figuras que pueden
plasmar la magia...

Some of the figures
seem to represent

the magic and shamanism
of their rituals,

but there are also geometric
figures and human figures.

The ocher pigments contain

iron oxide minerals from the
earth.

Even though their exact meaning
is not clear to Gaspar,

he feels the paintings express
a profound kinship

with the natural world.

Eso no es como hoy día...

Unlike us today, who feel
we are separate from the jungle,

those people were part of it,

along with the rest of the
animal and vegetable world;

just another being
of the jungle.

Along with the figures
of humans and animals

of today's rain forest,
like deer, tapirs, and jaguars,

there seem to be animals
that went extinct

thousands of years ago.

It is a reminder of
just how ancient

some of the paintings
probably are.

We are talking about


At that time, there was a fauna
that no longer exists

in South America,

like mastodons

and the American horse.

...que todo este tipo de fauna

convivió, vivió con la gente,
con los humanos...

All of these animals
lived with humans

up until about 10,000 years ago,
when they started to go extinct.

...pensamos nosotros, que
existen también animales...

So here, we think,

there are animals
of the last ice age,

like the giant sloth
right behind me.

The painted cliffs
of La Lindosa

open a remarkable window
on the lives and minds

of the first ice-age Amazonians.

At their nearby
habitation sites,

Gaspar and his team
have also discovered evidence

of how their lives changed
over the millennia.

The only tools the earliest
nomadic hunter-gatherers

left behind were made of stone.

This was their way of life
up until somewhere between



Posteriormente mas o menos
acá...

About here, at 70 centimeters
down,

we start to find
the people with agriculture.

These are the people
who domesticated plants.

In levels dating
to less than 6,000 years ago,

Gaspar starts to find evidence

of manioc and peach palm
cultivation.

Other research has shown
that early Amazonians

also planted cacao, tobacco,
papaya, and chili peppers.

Todos los trabajos de las
últimas,

de los últimos 20 años...

Work in the last 20 years

has shown that Amazonia is
an independent center

of plant domestication.

Manioc is a great example.

Su experimentación inicial...

We know that the first
experimentation

in domesticating it began


here in Amazonia.

It is the same with cacao,

tobacco,

coca, and papaya.

But how could early Amazonians
grow all these crops?

It has long been known

that the soils of the Amazon
are naturally sandy and acidic.

Nutrients in the topsoil

are absorbed by
the dense vegetation

or leached away
by the constant rain.

This is what led archaeologists
to believe

intensive agriculture,
and therefore large populations,

were impossible in Amazonia.

When I came into the field,
it was widely assumed

that Amazonian soils

were not particularly fertile,
they were difficult to work,

and would not provide
the type of productivity

that could support
large populations

based on agriculture.

Well, we've come to realize
that not only are Amazonian

agricultural systems
very diverse,

use a wide variety of crops,
fruit trees,

but they also focus,
as often as not, on root crops,

rather than seed crops,
like corn or wheat or rice.

And it turns out that manioc,
the primary root crop,

actually does quite
well in Amazonian soils.

But what about the other crops
that early Amazonians planted,

like cacao, tobacco, coca,

and papaya,
that require more fertile

and less acidic soils?

By the banks of
Brazil's Rio n*gro

in the northwest Amazon,

a team of Western and
Indigenous archaeologists

is investigating the soils of
an ancient Indigenous community.

Led by archaeologist
Manuel Arroyo-Kalin,

they discover
a thick layer of dark earth

quite different from
normal jungle soils.

It is a loose, rich earth,

which is fantastic
for cultivating,

because it's very fertile.

In fact, we are finding

pieces of bone in it,
which tell us

that its pH is higher,
more alkaline, than usual

in acid jungle soils.

It is probably close to
pH neutral,

which is why it preserves
bone material much better.

This rich dark earth is called
terra preta,

and it does not exist naturally
in the Amazon.

Ancient people had to create it

by carefully composting ash,
crushed bones,

pottery shards,
and vegetable refuse

into the soil around
their communities.

Over generations,
this transformed

the acidic jungle sands

and clays
into the rich dark soil

that could sustain
intensive agriculture.

Tucano archaeology student
Jurandir da Silva

is fascinated by how his
ancestors created terra preta.

They transformed the soil
according to their needs,

over many years
turning refuse into the soil,

letting it decompose,

and then putting more and more
on top.

And with time,

the terra preta becomes
really fertile

and productive.

People still use it today
for their agriculture.

It turns out human activities,

just basic refuse activities,

and the upkeep of
houses and villages

incorporates materials
into the soil

that make them more fertile,

that make them more suitable
for agricultural production.

Ancient Amazonians

clearly understood the value
of this composting.

They used it to
transform jungle soils

so that they could support

intensive agriculture and
large populations.

These production strategies,
they were good enough

to keep the people living
together--

we're talking about hundreds

or thousands of people--

for a long time
in the same place.

As well as creating fertile
soils around their communities,

ancient Amazonians also

carefully managed
the rain forest.

They gathered certain trees,
like peach palm and Brazil nut,

in groves, where they could
be visited occasionally

and their fruits harvested.

To this day,

even very remote parts
of the Amazon

bear the mark of this
ancient forest management.

What Europeans imagined as
pristine wilderness

was in fact for millennia
a semi-domesticated landscape.

La gente lo que hace con las
plantas es...

What those people did

was to propagate
certain species,

concentrating them
in a few places.

...de selva con una cierta...

And so we see a jungle

that is a mosaic of species

which is the product of
their work.

...trabajo, lo que vemos hoy en
parte es...

What we see today is the
fruit of human actions

that managed the forest
without destroying it.

The latest research shows

that the landscape

and much of
the biodiversity of the jungle

was created by
the Indigenous community

that lived here in the past
and still live here now.

More than 80 species of plants
were domesticated

or semi-domesticated
by ancient Amazonians.

That process began
about the same time as

the so-called Neolithic
Revolution in the Middle East.

But it was very different,
and led to different results.

Typically, an archaeologist
would say,

"Well, these people,
they never really completed

"the full Neolithic cycle.

"They never really became

fully formed farmers."

But what archaeology
tells us today

is that that perspective
is not right,

that these people were
building their whole histories

based on
a different perspective,

on a different logic.

In the Middle East,

plant domestication was
based upon a handful of crops,

such as wheat and barley,
which could be easily stored.

The accumulation of surpluses

and the development
of huge irrigation systems

that had to be administered

led to forms of
centralized political control.

From these arose
the first cities and empires.

In Amazonia,
it was different.

The need for irrigation
was minimal.

The humid climate

made storage and surpluses
impossible.

So, highly centralized urban
settlements never developed.

What emerged were
towns and chiefdoms

with populations
in the tens of thousands,

but not grand cities
and empires.

There was not just one
ancient Amazonian culture,

but many.

They appeared all along the
Amazon River itself,

from the Guianas in the north
to the Xingu in the south.

All distinct,

all with
their own unique styles.

One of the most remarkable

is from
the high jungle of Peru,

at a site called
Monte Grande.

Siempre el punto crítico...

Always, the central point
of the scientists

of the academy
was that in Amazonia,

there was no
monumental architecture.

There was no evidence of
organized populations capable of

building
monumental architecture

because they thought
they were just hunter-gatherers.

Peruvian archaeologist
Quirino Olivera

had always wondered about
the strangely symmetrical mounds

by the banks of
the Marañon River,

a tributary of
the Upper Amazon.

They seemed natural,

but could people have
constructed them?

In 2010,

he started to excavate
a similar mound

on the outskirts of
the nearby town of Jaén.

It is the rainy season
in the high jungle,

so every night, they must
cover the site to protect it,

then uncover
it the next morning.

En el año 2010...

In 2010,

we started
archaeological research

on a mound that, up until then,

had been completely neglected.

We had no idea
that we were on the verge

of a discovery so important.

Quirino has been excavating

the site at Monte Grande
ever since.

It is one of the most
extraordinary

and baffling archaeological
finds of recent years.

Ese detalle de sacar capa por
capa nos lleváron

a identificar...

As we cleared away the
top layers of soil,

we began to see stones

in a circular arrangement.

Then platforms and
terraces began to appear.

That really surprised us--
it seemed extraordinary.

As the full structure emerged,
their surprise grew.

Here was a massive pyramid, as
tall as a five-story building,

constructed from
clay, stone, and reed,

with a mysterious stone spiral
built on its summit.

The carbon-14 dates
were even more astonishing.

The pyramid was
built over 5,000 years ago,

even before the pyramids of
Egypt and Mesopotamia,

a time when archaeologists
had believed

the Amazon was populated only
by hunter-gatherers.

The find is so important,
Quirino has invited

famed Brazilian archaeologist
Eduardo Neves to visit.

!¡No creo que estoy acá!
!¡Verdad!

!¡Que alegría!
Que lindo.

Permiso, pasar para

hacer una pequeña ceremonia
que tenemos acá.

Claro, si.
Por tu llegada.

!¡Que lindo, Quirino!

He visto
tantos fotos de acá,

imágenes.

Y ahora finalmente
estar acá...

Si, es una
maravilla.

Quirino is of Indigenous descent

and celebrates the occasion

with an offering to
the Pachamama,

goddess of the Earth.

Salud, bienvenido.

To be here at Monte Grande,
for me, it's really like

a dream fulfilled,

because I've been
teaching classes

on South American archaeology
for many years,

on Amazonian archaeology,

and of course, I know
of Quirino's work,

but being here is
a total different story.

You can have a feeling about
the power of the place,

where it is located in
this valley,

surrounded by the mountains.

This is a very important site.

It's one of the most important

archaeological sites

that we have in the Americas,

not only here in South America.

Monte Grande rewrites
the history of complex societies

on the continent.

For over a century,
when archaeologists wrote about

cities and high civilization
in South America,

they focused on cultures like
the Inca of the Andes

or the Nazca of
the Pacific coast.

But here at Monte Grande
is clear evidence

of a complex society
and monumental architecture

at least 3,000 years older
than either the Inca or Nazca.

If you compare the evidence
from early architecture,

of monumental architecture,
of plant domestication,

we see a lot of things
happening before here

in this part of Peru,
in the Amazon,

not in the coast and
not even the mountains.

So I think it really brings

and highlights the importance
that the place

that Amazonian
Indigenous people had

in the deep cultural history of
this part of South America.

The excavation of
an almost identical

but much smaller
spiral pyramid

in Ecuador revealed a tomb.

This makes Quirino think

that Monte Grande also is
the tomb of a religious leader.

If he's right,

it would give meaning to
the mysterious spiral

so carefully
constructed on top of it.

Porque el espiral es...

The spiral is one of the
most ancient symbols

in the history of humanity.

It signifies the beginning
and the end of life,

the endless creation of
one generation

from the preceding one.

Yo estoy sentado en
el centro

de la arquitectura
en forma de espiral.

I am sitting at the center of
the spiral architecture,

and right beneath me,
in the spiral's center,

would be the tomb
of that high-status individual.

Suponemos que está...

We believe that he is
seated in a fetal position.

And from
the center of his head,

the spiral expands out
like the axis mundi,

the axis of the cosmos.

Y eso además tiene un concepto
astronómico,

probablemente por...

This also probably had important
astronomical associations,

as in most ancient societies
who studied the night sky,

the stars, and linked them
to life on Earth.

In the beginning,
everything was in darkness.

There was no fire and no light.

The only one with fire
was a being called Iwa.

So, before the world could
begin,

our ancestor had
to steal fire from him.

Quirino believes Monte Grande

embodies profound beliefs about
life, death, and the cosmos.

The creation story of today's
Awajún people does, too.

It tells of
a primordial time

when people and animals
spoke to each other.

Through their adventures,
the world was born.

The story is told by
Eduardo Izmiño, Awajún elder,

and his wife of
many years, Teresa.

They live nearby, and
have often wondered about

the people who built
Monte Grande.

They don't feel related to them,
but are impressed.

¿Este trabajo, que nos da?
¿Qué nos enseña?

So, what does this
place teach us?

It's clear that in those times,
there was no money,

but there was hunting
and fishing, a lot of it.

The people ate very well.

There was a lot of solidarity.

This required a lot of work,

a big communal work.

They were living from
hunting and fishing,

and here,
there was a lot of people:

children,
young people, adults.

That was in those times,
working together.

One person could never
do all this.

Eduardo and Teresa are not

the only ones to
marvel at the achievements

of the ancient peoples
of the Amazon.

Evidence of them is being found
from the Atlantic to the Andes.

Not hunter-gatherers living in
a tropical wilderness,

but sophisticated cultures.

The hidden history of the
lost civilizations of the Amazon

is being unearthed.

What happened to those ancient
Amazonian farmers and builders?

Most scholars estimate
that within 100 years of

their first contacts
with Europeans,

about 80% of the
Indigenous populations died,

k*lled by epidemics of
European diseases

to which they had no immunity.

Violence by settlers and
rubber tappers k*lled even more.

Perhaps as many as
eight million people died.

The great urban complexes and
agricultural systems of Amazonia

were reclaimed by
the rain forest.

The pristine wilderness
that many Europeans imagined

was in fact a landscape
emptied of

most of its
former inhabitants.

Today,

an estimated one-and-a-half
million Indigenous people

live in the Amazon.

In 1492,

there were many, many more.

And the scale of population
in the Amazon

has been a question that has
drawn a lot of attention

for, um, a long time.

But overall,

the estimates
generally range today

between about
five and ten million people

in the Amazon basin.

The scale of the destruction
brought about by the conquest

has given archaeology's
exploration of the past

extra relevance to
Indigenous people.

In the city of
São Gabriel da Cachoeira,

on the Rio n*gro
in the Brazilian Amazon,

Indigenous archaeology students

are learning their craft.

I want to get

involved with archaeology,

and I do it so I can learn

the story of my people.

These days,
my people are interested in

reclaiming the history of

our Indigenous
Tariano community.

Learning how we got
from the past

to where we are now,
and into the future.

For me, it was very important

to do this archaeology workshop,

because it looks at the origins
of my own people,

way back in time.

Archaeology student
Odanilde Freitas

has been studying granite rocks
in the rapids of the Rio n*gro.

Centuries before the conquest,

ancient people carved
mortars and grindstones in them

to sharpen
their fish spears.

Here we have a polisher
and circular bowl.

Here we have sharpening stones--

two in one--

where the people sharpened
their arrows and spear points.

Oda's archaeological work
has made her think about

the history of her people,

a history almost
erased by colonization.

There has been a
big impact

in our culture

from the centuries of
colonization,

but with archaeology,

I feel we can rescue
and reconstruct our identity,

our Indigenous history,
through artifacts like this.

Excuse me.

I'm sorry.

It's because
those people were free.

They were really free.

My people suffered.

They disappeared.

Imagine how they were massacred.

Sadly,
that's the word.

They were massacred,
they were r*ped,

physically, culturally,

psychologically, emotionally.

So that makes me sad
to think about the past.

For me, it's very sad.

The sadness Oda feels

echoes the tragedy of
Indigenous people

all over the Americas.

Archaeology offers
a reminder of what was lost.

But some Amazonian people today

also feel that
the recent discoveries

help establish their rights

to the land they have
lived on for millennia.

As their forest is cut down

for mining, cattle pasture,
and soy fields,

many Indigenous people
are turning to archaeology

to support their cause.

Kalutata Kuikuro is
an up-and-coming leader

of a group that has become
iconic of Indigenous Amazonia

and the struggle
for its preservation:

the Kuikuro.

Today my people understand

that archaeology is important.

Every day, we're being pressured
by ranchers and White people,

so we believe that archaeology
and understanding our history

is part of
our political struggle.

So archaeology today is
not just about the past.

It is bringing together

scientists and Indigenous people
in a common cause:

the future of the Amazon.

I think that the combination

of the so-called scientific
approaches with

this more politically engaged
archaeology done--

you know, the decolonialized
archaeology done--

by Indigenous
and non-Indigenous people,

it's going to make
archaeology more powerful

and more relevant
and more interesting.

Y creo que casi todos nosotros
tenemos también...

I think all of us
have something

very important in our thinking,

which is our commitment
to Indigenous communities.

Y estamos en momentos muy
difíciles en la Amazonía.

We are in difficult times
in Amazonia,

because it's being destroyed.

This is what is
bringing us together,

thinking about how
the past can help us

oppose the destruction

which is now
so systematic in Amazonia.

The revelation that for
millennia,

the ancient Amazon was home to
complex civilizations

is a reminder that

humanity and the rain forest
can coexist.

They did for thousands of years.

They can do so again.

Estos grupos humanos
no impactaron...

Those ancient human groups were
not detrimental to the forest.

On the contrary,
they were managing the forest.

Entonces creo que es una
enseñanza, un legado...

So this is a lesson, a legacy,

that those ancient humans
have left us.

They can teach us so much.