♪♪
[ Mid-tempo music plays ]
-The Amazon --
more than 2 million square miles
of dense forest,
penetrable only by its rivers.
♪♪
Long considered
a pristine forest,
seemingly too hostile
to have ever been inhabited
by people prior
to the arrival of Europeans.
And yet, in recent years,
several discoveries
have been made:
evidence of human habitation,
hidden in caves...
under the canopy...
buried in the ground.
What if,
contrary to long-held belief,
the tropical forest
was not as untouched
by human hands as we thought?
What if wide-ranging,
complex cultures
thrived throughout the jungle,
long before European conquest?
♪♪
As scientists delve deeper
into the exploration
of this difficult terrain,
they are convinced the Amazon
was home to numerous,
well-established communities.
Archaeologists,
archaeobotanists,
and anthropologists
are studying the artifacts
these people left behind,
in an attempt to understand
the ancient world of the Amazon.
Who were they?
How many of them were there?
How did they manage to live
in the forest?
And what do these
ceramic figures
say about their beliefs
and their vision of the world?
♪♪
Thanks to new
investigative technologies,
researchers are making
great strides in understanding
these highly developed
communities
and piecing together
their existence
in the years
before the Conquest.
♪♪
From the depths of the jungle
to the shores
of the Amazon River,
the full story of this
isolated part of the world
is only now being
brought to light.
♪♪
[ Theme music plays ]
"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible in part by
contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.
[ Machete hacking vegetation ]
-These images, recently shot
by ethnologist David Green
and his team
in northern Brazil,
not far from the border
with Guyana,
are of an exceptional discovery.
[ Brush rustling ]
[ Birds chirping ]
David was led to this cave,
hidden in the hills of Amapá,
by following indigenous guides
who have special knowledge
and accompanied him
through their territory.
[ Bats chittering ]
[ Wings flapping ]
[ Indistinct conversation ]
♪♪
-I'm here at Bat Cave.
Some really beautiful
works of art.
This is a mysterious site
because it's still unknown.
And so this is really
an important place
to continue
our archaeological work
before it gets destroyed.
-[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
-Acutely aware of the value
of his discovery,
David left everything untouched,
only filming and photographing
the artifacts
until a proper archaeological
assessment can be made.
♪♪
A few weeks later,
he enlists the help of
archaeologist Stéphen Rostain.
An expert in pre-Columbian
cultures in the Amazon,
he is one of the few people
who can immediately identify
what David found
and place the items
in historical context.
At his base in Guyana,
Stéphen learns of the discovery.
-Did you see only one
anthropomorphic urn,
or some more?
-There are probably
9 or 10 urns.
-Yeah?
-But they have all been broken.
I've noticed there's a lot
of different handles,
and different zoomorphic forms.
Sometimes it's really hard to
understand what animal they are.
They seem to be like a composite
of different creatures.
But I believe
there's a lot more.
This is just begi--
You know,
really, we just looked
at a small part.
-For the archaeologist,
these remains are characteristic
of the Aristé,
one of the cultures present
before the arrival of Europeans.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-These are typical of the
anthropomorphic funerary urns
found all along the Amazon.
They are made from pottery
with a sculpted human face,
usually on the neck.
The ashes of the deceased
were placed in them,
or even their bones
after decomposition.
The most important thing
is that we have
the main part of this pottery,
which is familiar from other
excavations at other sites.
So we can extrapolate
and reconstruct the urn
into something like
its original form,
as it initially was.
So we have a representation
of a funerary urn
from the so-called
Aristé culture,
located in the region straddling
French Guyana and Brazil.
It is a huge territory,
some 300 kilometers long.
The culture dates
from around the year 1000
until the early centuries
of colonization.
Anyway, it's a very
interesting discovery,
because these burial caves
are extremely well hidden.
-More broadly, the discovery
belongs to a vanished world,
the traces of which
remain buried
in the largest tropical
rainforest on the planet.
It's the forest itself that has
made it so difficult to learn
about the peoples living there
in the pre-Columbian era.
The dense vegetation makes
moving through it
almost impossible,
and has long stopped
scientific exploration.
And there was little evidence
to suggest
that there was
much to be studied.
The forest's vegetation
consumes everything,
breaking it down
or growing over it.
And early accounts
of exploration,
like that of conquistador
Francisco de Orellana,
have been forgotten.
The year was 1542.
The Spaniards were engaged
in the conquest
of the Incas of Peru.
But Orellana wanted to push
further into the forest,
in search of mythical lands
of gold and cinnamon.
He ventured inland,
following the Amazon River
from its source in the Andes.
Aboard two small ships
carrying a total of 56 men,
he was the first European to
cross the entire Amazon forest,
and to encounter the people
who inhabited it.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-"All night long,
we passed through
a series of very large towns.
By daybreak, we had covered
more than 20 leagues.
[ Water splashing ]
But the further we advanced,
the more densely populated
the country became."
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-[ Speaking native language ]
-The problem is
that a hundred years later,
there was no one left
on the banks of the Amazon.
The microbial impact of Western
diseases had done its work.
So, disbelief prevailed,
and persisted
for five centuries,
right up until the 1980s,
when archaeologists began to
take an interest in the Amazon.
-Stéphen has studied the Amazon
for more than 30 years
and is a pioneer
of Amazonian archaeology.
His goal is to provide
a better understanding
of the cultures
that existed before 1492.
-Obviously, we only have
a very sketchy knowledge
in certain regions,
so we're trying
to piece together a puzzle
that still
has many pieces missing.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Stéphen is eager
to collect and connect
scattered pieces of knowledge
in order to paint
a complete picture
of the pre-Columbian Amazon.
♪♪
What do the today's tribes know
about the mysterious designs
their distant ancestors used
to decorate the urns?
To address the question,
Stéphen meets
with Native Americans
who still practice
the art of pottery.
The Palikurs
are an indigenous group
whose territory is the same as
the now-extinct Aristé culture,
straddling Guyana and Brazil.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-[ Speaking native language ]
-The Palikurs, as we know,
have inhabited this region
since at least
the European conquest,
and probably before.
So they were very possibly
in contact with Aristés,
and, indeed, may themselves
have been Aristé.
So maybe they can help us
understand the designs
and see if they still
have meaning today.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Doralice is part of a family
that has been creating pottery
for several generations.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-The exchange takes place
in the Palikur language,
through an interpreter.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-This is an urn
that was found recently,
and I wanted to know if,
in the drawings,
it means anything to her
or nothing at all.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-This one, I recognized.
And that one.
Definitely,
I just noticed this one.
-Ah, good. That's good.
So, this became
the Palikur style,
which has evolved until today.
I had another question.
For me, this pottery
represents death,
so we have a new body,
and the soul will be at rest.
So, to find out the ethnicity...
[ Conversation
in native language ]
-She says
she can't confirm anything.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-That one is unfamiliar.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-We think there must have been
a cultural upheaval
throughout
the Amerindian world
at the time
of the European conquest,
resetting the ethnic map
of the Amazon,
and the meaning of certain
designs disappeared
with these populations.
So, you have to look
at other vestiges,
other sites, other signs left
by the Amerindians
in this great rainforest.
♪♪
-The next phase of exploration
will be done by air.
Mickael Mestre is in charge
of the operation.
This plane is equipped
with a lidar system --
an airborne laser,
able to penetrate the canopy
and precisely map the contours
at ground level.
To that end, the survey must be
carried out from the sky.
♪♪
To cover the entire section
under investigation,
the small plane must make more
than 50 tight turns.
♪♪
In an operation that lasts
several hours,
there's no room
for weak stomachs.
In this way,
dozens of square miles
can be observed,
as if the area
had been deforested.
[ Birds chirping ]
♪♪
The data acquired
during the flight
is processed in Cayenne
by the company
that operates the lidar.
♪♪
Thousands of data points
are assembled and transformed
into a model
that restores
the contours in the terrain,
from the undulations
of the canopy
to the tiniest variations
in relief at ground level.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-If we can zoom in here,
on that zone,
it could be -- could be
a site with ditches.
A circular layout.
We have a trench dug
at the top of the hill,
marking out
a central reservation.
These sites are typical
of pre-Columbian occupation,
particularly in French Guyana.
They are known
as crowned mountains.
-"Crowned mountains."
Mickael has been studying this
type of terrain for a long time.
And the use of lidar
has made a series
of archaeological discoveries
possible.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Today, the figure is
something close to a hundred.
It is a very widespread
phenomenon.
Several cultures seem to have
produced this kind of layout.
But for what purpose,
we're not yet sure.
♪♪
-The sites could be
almost anything:
residential buildings,
defensive structures,
places of worship.
A few weeks later,
Mickael has the opportunity
to excavate one of
the crowned-mountain sites
spotted by lidar.
-I think
there's another ceramic,
right underneath the first one.
A second one, right there!
The shapes are common:
large, undecorated basins.
We've seen them before.
Ordinary ceramics can be reused
in a funerary context, too.
They may be objects
that belonged to the deceased.
-These perfectly intact
large vases
were deliberately buried at
the top of the crowned mountain:
a form of offering
that suggests a link
to the beliefs of certain
pre-Columbian peoples.
[ Rain falling ]
[ Thunder rumbling ]
Because they are so
inaccessible,
thorough excavations
of hidden jungle sites like this
are very rare.
Often, archaeologists
can only access them
when construction work happens,
as was the case on the outskirts
of Lake Tefé,
more than 1,200 miles
from the mouth of the Amazon,
during building work
on a school.
While digging,
the residents discovered
a ceramic funerary urn
nestled at the bottom of a pit.
Aware of the importance
of this type of find,
they immediately
informed archaeologists
at the Mamirauá Institute.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-First, we found one,
then we unearthed
two, three, four.
We thought that was
already a lot.
Then, five, six, seven, eight,
nine appeared.
The village accompanied us
at all times.
It was a truly special moment
for all of us.
[ Conversations
in native language ]
♪♪
-Carefully collected,
one by one,
the urns then traveled
more than 600 miles by boat
through the forest,
to the laboratory
at the University of Santarém.
♪♪
There, archaeo-anthropologist
Anne Rapp
is charged
with analyzing the urns
and the material
contained inside.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Here we now have a group of
nine urns collected together.
We cannot say whether
all the individuals died
at the same time,
but we may be sure
that they were all buried
during the same period.
That's to say,
before the arrival
of the first Europeans
in the region.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-For the scientists,
it is a unique opportunity
to examine the funeral rituals
of pre-Columbian societies.
The first step is to X-ray
the artifacts at a hospital.
Anne is the first
to see the results.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Is that all bone?
-Bone, yes.
It's very interesting.
We really have a huge amount
of material in this container.
-Yes. How does it compare
to the others?
-Yes, it's impressive.
-It's going to be
an interesting dig,
opening it up
and getting it all out.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-To access the contents
of this small ceramic jar,
the lid, which has not been
moved for at least 500 years,
must first be detached.
It's an extremely
delicate operation,
with the container itself
weakened
by its long stay underground.
♪♪
-[ Speaking native language ]
-You lift, I'll put my hand
here and pull.
This time, we'll try
in the opposite direction.
♪♪
[ Crackle ]
Ah!
There it is.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Examination of the urn
can finally begin.
♪♪
Anne and her assistant
are about to meet
former inhabitants of Lake Tefé.
♪♪
-Here we may have
the grandparents,
or great-grandparents,
of people who encountered
Orellana in the 16th century.
♪♪
-To ensure she doesn't
lose any material,
Anne must proceed very slowly.
♪♪
It will take at least two days
to clear away the sediment
and reach the first
significant remains.
♪♪
-[ Speaking native language ]
-We have an exceptional amount
of preserved material,
especially in the context
of the Amazon,
where we generally see
a very limited preservation
of organic material.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Examination of the first bones
immediately reveals
what kind of ritual the bodies
were subjected to.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-You can actually see evidence
of cremation.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-The grayish areas
are clearly marks of fire.
-But the scientist's
first objective
is to sort and organize
the bones.
Do they come from the skeleton
of a single individual,
or of several?
-[ Speaking native language ]
-That's probably one of
the last bones in the chest.
Here we have an idea
of the sections
of the skeleton present.
There are no duplicate bones,
so it appears there's only
one individual inside.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-A single individual,
and a complete one at that.
The funeral ritual
is becoming clearer.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-We can see the two-stage
process of the funeral:
first, the cremation;
followed by the bone material
being placed inside the urn
with extreme care.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Once the remains
were inside the urn,
it was decorated
with a unique pattern
meant to represent a new skin
made of pottery.
♪♪
But, for the anthropologist,
the investigation is not over.
The remains of the individual
have more to share
about their owner's identity.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Several parts are very marked.
These are joints
and muscle insertions
that have worn over time,
so we may be sure
that this is a fairly old adult.
We always tend to think that
in the past, people died young,
but that isn't the case with
what we've seen in the Amazon.
There are several clues
to indicate that people lived
to advanced ages,
maybe up to 50 or even 60 years.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-The scientist notices
other characteristics, too.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Here is
the archaeological femur.
If we compare it with our model,
which is from
a 1.68-meter-tall individual,
this is definitely
from someone much smaller,
measuring between
1.50 and 1.55 meters.
Based on the size,
it may be a female individual.
[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
-So, the occupant of this urn
seems to have been
an elderly woman.
♪♪
And the story continues.
The urn itself,
particularly some of the
patterns Anne is uncovering,
shed more light
on its significance.
♪♪
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Here we begin to see the area
around the eye, the mouth,
and what appears to be
a drawn cheek.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-This is the eyebrow,
the nose, a tiara,
and here,
the area around the ear.
♪♪
-A face,
perhaps to evoke
that of the old woman,
or the spirit of the deceased.
-In reality,
this pottery cannot be separated
from the individual.
The study of the ceramics
in the urns
is based on
a particular individual,
so we try to tie it
all together.
♪♪
-Cristiana Barreto is an expert
on Amazonian iconography,
working at the Emílio Goeldi
Museum in Belém.
She has a particular interest
in the drawings
on the urns recently
discovered at Tefé.
Her objective is to understand
what the peoples who shaped
and decorated these objects
wanted to communicate with them.
-These ceramics were meant
to have a great visual impact.
They are ritual ceramics,
made to be used
in funeral ceremonies.
There is always
a white background
to increase the contrast
of red and black.
The high contrast is a way to
attract the gaze of observers,
drawing them
into the labyrinths,
into the iconography,
where they see snakes,
jaguars, and animals --
often somewhat disguised
and hidden.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-While mysterious
in the eyes of the layman,
to the initiated,
these forms make perfect sense.
-It looks
symmetrical and geometric,
but it's actually the geometric
representation of a jaguar.
We have the jaguar's eyes
and the face.
They are in the background,
but suddenly they come forward,
then go back, giving the idea
that the jaguar is moving,
maybe coming towards us.
♪♪
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Here we have a cobra --
the movement of a cobra --
but it isn't filled in.
It could be the background.
This also gives us
a sense of movement,
from the inside
to the outside of the urn,
as if it were coming
out of the urn.
It isn't surprising.
It's a visual process
of animation,
where everything
seems to be moving.
Everything
in Amazon visual logic
has to do with movement.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Patterns and symbols
representing cultural beliefs
and showing the role these urns
played in funeral ceremonies.
-You have to imagine these urns
as the focal point
of a funeral ritual,
with its dances,
musical rhythms,
alcoholic drinks,
and other drugs.
It's all geared to attaining
an altered state,
etching these symbols
in people's memories.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-[ Singing in native language ]
♪♪
[ Animals chittering ]
-Plants and animals
from the natural world
can be found
on pre-Columbian objects
throughout the Amazon.
Now scientists are interested
in learning more
about these traditions
and these people.
♪♪
Stéphen meets with Cristiana
in Belém
in a bid to better understand
the tribes of the Amazon
and their conception
of the world.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Belém is a large city
at the mouth of the Amazon,
and very interesting for its
museum of Amazonian archaeology,
the first of its kind
in the world,
set up in 1905
by Emílio Goeldi.
It has an absolutely fascinating
collection of urns --
pieces of enormous beauty
that you won't find
anywhere else.
Some really innovative things
for my investigation.
♪♪
-Today
the institution's collection
contains more than
2 million artifacts.
Taken together, they are
like a huge clay book
on the shared history
between humanity
and the world's
greatest rainforest.
♪♪
Based on their similarities,
some of the more recent
additions to the collection
seem to suggest
that multiple Amazonian tribes
shared a common belief system.
♪♪
-Here we have set aside
some of the funeral urns
from different cultures.
They are almost all
from the Amazon estuary.
-They reflect the identity
that each people wanted
to give to its clan,
to its ethnic group.
It is resounding proof
of the human diversity
that has existed in the Amazon.
♪♪
Ceramic styles and details
have helped researchers
identify
hundreds of different cultures
that existed
in the Amazon basin.
♪♪
But it's the characteristics
common to all of these artifacts
that shed new light
on the world view
of those who created them.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-There are also similarities.
For example, arms are
represented as snakes,
and here,
animals are also used.
[ Animals chittering ]
-[ Speaking native language ]
-They use scorpions
to represent the eyes.
We can also say
that the use of animals
to represent the human body
is a pan-Amazonian tradition.
-There's a certain analogy
to it all.
-An analogy between images
and the natural world.
♪♪
It's this idea
of not differentiating
between nature and culture,
of it all being part of a whole.
It's a complex concept
for us Westerners to grasp.
-We have
a very naturalistic society.
We need to separate
culture and nature
to know where civilization is,
and where it isn't.
But with the Amerindian,
there is a continuous thread,
and ultimately, no frontier.
♪♪
-According to anthropologist
Philippe Descola,
animism was
the predominant belief system
for many Amazonian cultures.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Animism is something I
discovered during my fieldwork,
when I resided for a few years
among the Achuar people
in the deep Amazon.
It is also when I discovered
that most of the plants
and animals
were conceived by them
as having
an interiority, a soul --
or in any case, a subjectivity,
a capacity for reflection.
-[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
[ Speaking native language ]
-There is no nature
in their world.
There are simply social partners
with feathers, fur, leaves,
bark, et cetera,
with which the Achuar people
exchange daily,
through magical incantations,
dreams in which they saw
these non-human beings
addressing them,
in the form of a person,
in order to start conversations,
dialogues, et cetera.
-[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
-I realized that this was
something very common
in the Amazon,
and in other parts of the world.
There is no conquest of the wild
by the domestic,
which is the most
characteristic way for us
to conceive
of our relationship to nature.
There are social relationships
that are permanently established
between humans and non-humans,
that are not necessarily
easy relationships.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-After all, the woolly monkey
that comes to see you
during a dream,
the next day,
we will try to k*ll it
and to eat it.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-The relationships between
humans and non-humans
are relationships
of mutual accommodation.
Very powerful relationships
of attachment,
competition, and solidarity.
-A spiritual union of people
with the natural world
was typical
for Amazonian cultures.
But scientists want to find
the cultures' creation myths --
stories that explain the origins
of a people's world view --
in order to better understand
the significance of the urns
and their patterns.
♪♪
Handed down by oral tradition,
these stories are difficult
to piece together
and understand today.
But Stéphen is keen
to track them down
among some of the peoples
of the forest.
♪♪
This is the Maroni River,
which separates Guyana
from Suriname.
Here, the forest
crowds the riverbanks,
except in spots
where it's been pushed back
by the villages
of the Wayana people.
Stéphen hopes
they can tell him more
about the ceramics
and other artifacts.
[ Rooster crowing ]
The Wayanas continue
to represent
their founding myths
through symbolic figures,
so this is an opportunity
to find out
more about the stories
behind them.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-The chief of the village
where Stéphen stops
has something to show him,
and leads him to
the large community shelter
known as the tukusipan.
♪♪
This is what the archaeologist
is looking for:
a ciel de case -- or "maluwana"
in their language --
a wooden disk decorated
with strange beasts
that represent
the Wayanas' belief system.
-What is the name of the person
who did this?
-Aimawale.
♪♪
-Aimawale is one of
the few people
still able to reproduce
this type of design.
It is a very old art form
that he learned
from his grandfather --
one he keeps alive using
ancestral painting techniques.
-I prepare my paintings --
how to put it --
it takes patience.
It takes a long time
to paint a ciel de case.
-But he also knows the stories
and the myths
that inspire them.
♪♪
And that is what interests
the archaeologist the most.
♪♪
-What is the ciel de case for?
-A ciel de case is an object
that protects the community
and the village.
There are six main patterns.
So, there's the jaguar,
for example, here;
the caterpillar;
then there's the fish-animal;
the tapir, which is often
on the ciel de case, too;
plus, the turtle; and the fish.
-Do you choose all the patterns?
-Yes, of course.
Here, I was inspired
by my grandfather.
Each pattern represents
a legend, a story.
-That's the giant anteater.
What does that do?
-Legend has it that the giant
anteater k*lled its baby,
then went to
the aquatic monsters
and k*lled a water spirit.
So the shamans know
how to harness its power
to take revenge --
for example, on evil spirits.
-What about the turtle?
-The turtle is the wife of God,
the supreme god, called Kuyuli.
When there was the flood,
the God transformed his wife
into an underwater turtle,
and his children are like eggs.
That's what the story says.
-And you tell these stories
to children?
-Yes, of course.
Then there are other patterns,
like the squirrel.
It's actually
a squirrel monster.
It's small, but it has
supernatural power.
-There are plenty of monsters
in the stories.
And lots of legends.
-With us, yes, with the Wayana.
♪♪
-What the Native Americans
describe today,
when they tell us
about their legends,
is this close interaction
between humans and nature.
We can better understand
the relics they left behind.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Philippe Descola has collected
and studied these myths,
to try to understand if
they connect to a broader story.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-What we find
absolutely everywhere
are these little stories --
five-minute stories,
which give a good indication
of what the mythical times
were like.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-How, at such and such a time,
such and such a species
of hallucinogenic plant
became what it is.
The sorts of small events
that will cause
so-called natural species
to emerge, little by little.
And these are small stories.
These are small pieces of
this great story of speciation.
-[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
-The great story of speciation:
how all living things --
plants and animals --
came to exist.
♪♪
-[ Speaking native language ]
-There is an original unity,
a great culture that unites
humans and non-humans,
who are not really
distinguished from one another.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-[ Imitating bird chirping ]
-The myth allows us to
at least understand this --
the golden age, if you will.
A golden age where animals
and plants behaved like humans:
cooking, hunting, playing music.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Amazonian mythology is a story
that starts from culture
and goes towards nature,
while we are doing the opposite.
-This singular relationship
Amazonians developed
with their environment
is at the heart
of everything they do.
But how long have humans been
living in the Amazon rainforest?
Is it possible to trace
when these creation myths
were first told?
♪♪
A tiny fragment of pottery of
inestimable value offers a clue.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-This history of ceramics
is a long one,
with very early origins.
Some of the fragments
of ceramics we have here
are 7,000 years old.
It is the oldest dated pottery
ever found in the Americas.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-These fragments come from
the Monte Alegre region,
in the heart of the Amazon,
where this art form was born.
♪♪
Reaching the area requires
a 400-mile journey
upriver from
the mouth of the Amazon,
and then a connection
with one of the river buses
that travel
to isolated villages.
Archaeologist Edithe Pereira
has been making the trip
regularly
for more than 10 years.
And each time, it's a journey
back to Amazonian prehistory.
♪♪
The very first traces
of human settlement
can be found here.
Drawings on the rock face
that date back to 12,000 BCE.
♪♪
But these decorations,
that have lasted millennia,
are now in danger.
-[ Speaking native language ]
[ Speaking native language ]
-The biggest problem here today
is wasps.
[ Wasps buzzing ]
A type of wasp makes its nest
very close to the paintings.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-And sometimes
on top of the paintings.
-It's a very real risk
for the paintings...
and for scientists.
Several stings from these
large insects can be fatal.
[ Buzzing continues ]
No loud talking
or sudden movements.
♪♪
These are the only paintings
in the area
that have been successfully
dated,
and they are much older
than was previously thought.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-We carried out a project
to try to better understand
not only the cave dwellings,
but also life in the villages.
We found raw materials
for making pigments,
with usage marks.
The oldest traces in the shards
was dated
to some 12,000 years ago.
-They are the oldest observable
traces of human presence
in the whole of Amazonia.
♪♪
It is further proof
that humanity has lived here
for thousands of years...
in this environment
that until only recently,
was thought to be completely
free from human impact.
But where is the evidence
that is usually left behind
by thousands of years of
human activity and occupation?
And how did the ancient peoples
inhabit it?
Finding the answer requires
a flight to a point seemingly
as far away from any form
of human activity as possible --
Nouragues,
a CNRS research station
set up deep in the heart
of this green ocean,
accessible only by helicopter.
♪♪
Stéphen has come here to meet
ethnobotanist Guillaume Odonne.
-Here we are, in the forest.
We can look around for any signs
of human presence,
but, at first sight,
it's only plants --
lots of different vegetation.
It's tempting to think
that it might be very difficult
to find any evidence
of the presence of Amerindians
from 500 or 1,000 years ago.
We have always known
that the region
around the research station
was occupied
by Native Americans.
But until now, it was thought
that human occupation
was rather tenuous,
with a low impact.
But in fact, no, this forest
has been much more impacted
than previously thought.
We have clearly shown that there
have been massive occupations
over a long period of time.
It is difficult to find sites
without any trace of man.
♪♪
-It takes a great deal of work,
across multiple fields
of research,
to achieve results like these.
Guillaume leads
the LongTIme project,
a wide-ranging
multidisciplinary study.
Tropical soil specialists,
botanists, ecologists,
and anthropologists
are all working to identify
the plant species
living in this corner
of the jungle,
which could help them
find evidence
of ancient human presence.
To determine all the species
present at this site,
Guillaume called
on professional climbers.
Their mission
is to collect leaves
from 130 feet above the ground,
so that
these giants of the forest
can be studied with accuracy.
-The feedback from the botanists
will allow the ecologists
to say, for example,
that in this section,
40% of the trees
have edible fruits,
or 25% of the trees
can provide timber
for the construction
of traditional houses.
-Mapping the tree species
reveals significant
concentrations of palm trees
bearing edible fruits,
like the comous and the patawas.
-All these numbers in red
are palm trees.
There are five bacaba,
around 50 patawa.
When we scroll the map,
we can see
that they are very present.
If we go to this other plot,
LongTIme 2,
there is only one patawa...
here.
-The presence, or lack,
of certain tree species
is a strong indicator
as to whether the land
was ever occupied by people.
-As you see, we're
in this transition zone
between the top of the hill,
which was occupied,
and the bottom of the hill,
over there,
where there was clearly
no occupation.
Back here is the area
known as the vine forest.
Lots of tangled vines here.
This is a low-canopy forest,
with less than 10 meters
of tree height.
Everywhere,
we are surrounded by vines.
They are often on the sites
of former villages.
♪♪
-When cross-referenced,
all this information
allows scientists
to pinpoint
the location of villages
and also areas that were set
aside for agricultural use,
where the vegetation
was cleared.
♪♪
-The way it works is,
when a village is set up...
-[ Speaking native language ]
-...little by little,
people clear the area around it,
where...
useful species --
food species --
can be established.
Then, the year after...
there will be another clearance,
where further species
will also become established.
Once the village is abandoned...
all that remains
are the planted species,
or the food species
that have become concentrated.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-Likewise, they also end up
becoming established
on the site
of the abandoned village.
We then end up
with an enriched zone.
-So, we have these changes
in vegetation,
these developments,
these new formations.
Can they be dated?
Can we pinpoint
an approximate time
when these stages
actually occurred?
-From around 50 datings,
taken from all the sites,
we can identify
two main periods of occupation
in the area around Nouragues.
The first was between
1,000 and 1,200 years ago;
and the second, between
400 and 600 years ago.
-The moment of contact?
-Exactly.
All these phenomena seem
to have stopped abruptly
at the moment of contact.
-All over the Amazon,
we have this
proliferation of evidence,
particularly in the vegetation,
which demonstrates a strong
pre-Columbian occupation.
Almost everywhere --
whether along the Amazon,
along the Orinoco,
in the western Amazon,
or the upper Amazon -- we see
significant concentrations
of human activity.
All the data points
towards that.
♪♪
-Analysis shows traces
of 83 different species
of domesticated
native plants...
including cassava...
coca...
and pineapple.
This abundance and diversity
has, however,
long puzzled researchers.
Most soil in the Amazon
is not suitable for agriculture.
And yet the gigantic forest
actually thrives,
despite very poor conditions.
♪♪
Domestic crops cannot
grow in the acidic soil --
a result of heavy rains.
How did the people of the Amazon
manage to cultivate food?
Archaeologists
have recently discovered
that pre-Columbian people
in the Amazon
developed a method
for transforming the soil
into very fertile land --
terra preta, or black earth.
♪♪
Brazil is where the most
spectacular terra preta sites
can be found.
In some places,
it is several feet thick
and is the subject of serious
archaeological excavation.
-We know that this terra preta
here formed with this soil.
So, they look very different,
and they are very different
in a way.
But that's the metric for that.
But we have to have human action
interfering in the yellow soil
in order to create
the terra preta.
-Scientists believe terra preta
is an indication
of the onset of domesticity.
But how did
the uncultivatable soil
become something fertile enough
to sustain human occupation?
♪♪
Analysis of the soil's
composition can provide answers.
♪♪
Researcher Manuel Arroyo-Kalin
regularly brings back
samples of terra preta
for study
in his London laboratory.
♪♪
-What I can see here,
very clearly,
is large quantities
of bone fragments.
We can also see here
large numbers
of fine, rounded fragments
of pottery artifacts.
And here it's very interesting
because these soils
are absolutely full of charcoal.
And that already begins
to unravel part of the story.
For one, the large amounts
of charcoal
have got to be
associated to burning --
the sort of thing
that you'd find associated
to domestic production of food
and the large number of fires
used to fire the pottery.
And then you have
waste-management activities,
simply to pile it up
and to burn it slowly.
-Indigenous people mixed
everyday waste products
and other materials
into the acidic soil
to create terra preta.
But in scientific terms,
what makes this mixture
so fertile?
-Charcoal helps
to attract stuff.
It has a role in contributing
to higher
organic-matter retention.
-The secret ingredient
was the organic matter
left after trash was burned.
-All of these fragments of bone,
and potentially
some of the pottery,
is providing a pool of
calcium and phosphorus,
which act
as plant micronutrients
that are absorbed by plants.
And so that helps
plant productivity.
-The result is a living soil,
rich in bacteria,
which contribute
to the absorption of nutrients
by the vegetation
and ensures lasting fertility.
♪♪
While the terra preta
still has its secrets,
pre-Columbian people were able
to transform uncultivatable land
into one of the world's
most fertile soils.
-So, the terra preta is
an outcome of a process
which, only through
various phases of occupation,
have created the thick expanses
that have subsequently been used
as agricultural expanses.
♪♪
They are, at the very least,
signatures of higher demography
and possibly sedentary
settlement in the Amazon basin,
probably kicking in
around 1500 B.C.,
and intensifying and growing
in population as we go along.
♪♪
-If markers are placed
on a map of the Amazon
where terra preta
has been found,
they create an outline
of territories
known to have been
inhabited by Amerindians.
♪♪
Using this data,
scientists estimate
the total population
of the Greater Amazon
was somewhere between
8 million and 10 million people
when Europeans arrived.
-You have to imagine
a very diverse,
very populated
pre-Columbian Amazon,
where all these worlds
were interconnected.
They were sedentary populations,
but very mobile.
[ Water rushing ]
-After seven months of travel,
Orellana recorded
his final thoughts
on the peoples of the forest.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-"As we said, all those
we have met on this river
are people of
great reason and ingenuity,
as can be seen
from all their works,
as well as their vivid drawings
and paintings of all colors,
which are
a wonderful thing to see.
-[ Speaking native language ]
-A hundred years later,
there was no one left.
What happened?
It's simple.
When the Europeans
landed on the continent
and came to the Amazon,
they brought with them
viruses and germs
for which the Amerindians
had no natural defenses.
These viruses spread,
and many Native Americans died
before Europeans
had even encountered them.
Explorers arrived in villages
to find only dead bodies
and skeletons in hammocks.
They hadn't even had time
to bury their dead.
-With its population
decimated by disease,
the Amazon was left uninhabited.
A vast land seemingly available
for the newly landed settlers.
And a blank page
in the history of humanity,
that scientists are only now
beginning to write.
♪♪
-[ Speaking native language ]
-This is a territory of some
7 million square kilometers,
which still holds
many mysteries for scientists.
We discover new things about
the flora and fauna every day.
In the case
of human settlements,
there are as many discoveries
to come
as have been made so far,
if not more.
♪♪
-Opportunities
to explore new territory
are often the result
of modern development.
♪♪
In northwestern Brazil,
deforestation has revealed
tiny geometric structures
spotted from the air
and scattered over tens of
thousands of square feet.
♪♪
In Colombia, following the
dismantling of the armed groups
that occupied the forest,
archaeologists discovered
a huge wall of pictures --
tens of thousands
of paintings --
animals, humans,
and non-humans --
at Chiribiquete,
which was recently listed
as a World Heritage Site
by UNESCO --
the first official
acknowledgement
that these rich
and mysterious cultures
are part of our
invaluable heritage.
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Mysteries involving notable historical events, people and locations are scientifically examined.
Mysteries involving notable historical events, people and locations are scientifically examined.