Funding for this program was provided by. Human beings are all one species. We are all equally capable of language, creativity, and thought. The differences among us lie in our cultures, our beliefs, how we organize our societies and how we make our living. Humans have populated every environment on earth. We live on the frozen tundra and in the searing deserts. We live in thriving cities of millions and in isolated camps of a few dozen. Some societies seem simple because they are small and their members are selfsufficient and use simple tools. Others seem complex because they have large populations and people depend on each other for food and goods and use sophisticated technology. In between, there is a range that fills the spectrum. All of these differences are cultural, learned behavior, the result of a complex interaction between our inventiveness and our natural environments. As we search for new horizons, our inventiveness thrusts us across the boundaries of space, into new worlds. This new view of earth dispels an ancient myopia the artificial boundaries of our states and the politics that often divide us. Here is a vision of one planet and one family of humankind. But the view from earth reminds us of a common human dilemma, the rise and fall of our many ways of life. Here, among the ruins of ancient civilizations, archaeologists are retracing the steps in a long and shared human odyssey. Across two worlds, the old and the new, they are discovering the independent spark of the human genius, the many times and places that we have created grand civilizations. Ancient egypt. As early as the 18th century, scholars came here to marvel at and study the great relics of the ancient sun kings. Laboring among the pyramids and temples of this oldworld civilization, early archaeologists speculated that complex civilizations were created in the near east to spread far and wide. They thought the greek city states, the roman empire, and all the civilizations that followed were the inheritors of a single act of creation. But discoveries in the new world would provide a stunning challenge to this myopic vision of Human History. In 1839, in the jungles of mesoamerica, explorers John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood encountered the realms of the ancient maya. Europeans were amazed by catherwoods written descriptions of ancient maya cities. Architecture, sculpture and painting all the arts that embellish life had flourished in this overgrown forest. Who built this city . In the ruined cities of egypt, the stranger knows the story of the people whose vestiges are around him. America, say the historians, was peopled by savages. But savages never reared these structures, never carved these stones. We asked the indians who made them . And their answer was quien sabe . Who knows . During the next century, other explorers revealed the amazing variety of newworld civilizations. A great city, teotihuacan, dominated the basin of mexico. Atop a hill in the valley of oaxaca, sits monte alban, the royal center of a mighty kingdom. And in the forests and jungles of guatemala, maya city states once reigned over thousands of square miles. This is mesoamerica. At about a. D. 700, three great civilizations had emerged here. The realms of the maya. The power of the great city of teotihuacan. The zapotec kingdom of monte alban. For many scholars the differences between new and oldworld civilizations suggested an independent course of history that each evolved on its own. This led to another and deeper insight beneath these differences may lie a grand and universal similarity, a parallel course of Human Evolution throughout the world. We now know that all humans once lived nomadic lives. We gathered wild plants and followed the migrations of animals. Our lives were lived in small bands. Everything was shared. No one had more power or wealth then anyone else. 10,000 years ago, people began to farm and live in permanent settlements. Soon, villages, towns and cities evolved and life changed. Thousands lived within city walls. We specialized in a single task, and depended on others for Everything Else we needed. In time, we became divided into rich and poor, as our human relationships became ever more complex. Archaeologist william sanders. I think all human societies are the product of a process of cultural evolution. In general, this evolution leads to an increase in the size of societies, an increase in the complexity of their interaction and institutions. It also leads to more economic interdependence among households within a society, and among societies. Keach to trace the evolution of human societies in the new world, an Archaeological Team comes here to mexicos tehuacan valley. The team is led by veteran archaeologist Scotty Macneish. They are seeking evidence of the first inhabitants of the valley. When macneish first excavated here in 1962, he discovered a time capsule of human occupation at a site called purron cave. Macneish here we are back at purron cave. We really havent dug in it in almost 30 years. Walls all preserved. Even the trowel marks we made to mark off strata are still preserved and we have all sorts of neat floors of charcoal one on top of the other. The amazing thing about this cave is that we really have unbelievable preservation. The reason we have preservation is its so dry in this area that the bacteria of decay that destroy things cant live, so anything thats dropped in here, it dries up and dehydrates and lasts forever. Keach as macneish dug deep into the cave, traces of an early people emerged from an archaeological stratum he called el riego. Macneish here is our el riego layer, 8,600 years old. Now, in it we not only have a date in terms of the year, but we have some idea of what part of the year. Here are grass seeds that flower and meet fruition, which they brought in here sometime in july and august. We have fruits of cosiwica that reach fruition october, november. Here is a chupendia; theres one right in front of the cave thats fruiting right now in midnovember. So, from these plants coming out of this layer, plus the artifactual evidence, it looks very likely that this layer was occupied somewhere between july and november. Keach in november, the dry season begins. The landscape around purron becomes a searing desert. There is no water. Even cactus are barren of fruit. During the dry season, the ancient residents must have abandoned purron cave to seek water, plants to gather, and animals to hunt. Macneish believes they came here, to another cave that overlooked an oasis, constantly watered by underground springs. Mexican archaeologist angel garcia cook, excavated the cave with macneish. Cook is now director of the Mexican Institute of archaeology. Yeah, que bueno, yes, el tipo flaco. Flaco. Keach this projectile point indicates that this cave was occupied at the same time as purron cave, about 5000 b. C. Clues to the diet of the caves ancient residents also began turning up. Interpreter this is a piece of maguey that was cooked over a fire and then chewed. It was a species of cactus that they chewed and then spat out. Sometimes you can see the mark of peoples teeth on these quids. So maguey was clearly a part of the diet of the people that came here at a certain season of the year. This is a leaf of nopal cactus, which you can find during all the seasons, but there are times when people eat it more often because there is nothing else to eat. Keach nopal still grows just outside the cave. Macneishs workmen remember droughts when they ate nopal to stave off hunger and thirst. They call the cactus starvation food. So, discovering cactus in the cave tells the archaeologists it was occupied during the dry season when both food and water were scarce. Pretty good, not bad. Needs a little sauce. The most precise evidence that this was a dryseason camp is a tiny, hollow bone. Interpreter this is the bone of a bird, perhaps a duck, which migrates to this region each year only in the winter during the dry season. All this is evidence of the food that they had in this cave and indicates that it was occupied in the dry season in autumn and winter. Keach until recently, another living culture was still following a nomadic way of life. These are the kung bushmen of south africa. They provide some clues as to what daily life might have been like in the ancient tehuacan valley. [ thunder ] in the rainy season, the desert blooms. The men hunt and the women gather nuts and berries. The kung call this the season of full stomachs and celebrate with dance and song. [ singing ] but during the dry season the kung must camp near a few permanent waterholes. Every drop of moisture is precious. In the searing heat, they gather deeply buried roots. The kung survived here by blending their lives with the seasonal availability of the animals they hunt and the plants they gather. It is an ancient way of life. Archaeologist william sanders. If you look at Human History over the past two million years you can think of it in terms of two major revolutions one going back where man first started using tools and then from then on all the work that was performed was primarily human labor. And then the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century when you start harnessing all other kinds of energy. During that long block of time from a couple of million years ago until the Industrial Revolution, there was a point about 10,000 years ago when human beings began to farm, began to practice agriculture, and that harnessed a lot more energy than was possible by just hunting and gathering wild resources. Keach in the old world, we know that agriculture sparked the development of the worlds first cities in places like sumer in ancient mesopotamia. But how did farming begin in the new world . When Scotty Macneish first came to the tehuacan valley in 1962, he was seeking the answer to one simple question did agriculture evolve here or was it introduced from the old world . Then well measure out from the corners. Keach in a stratum of the purron cave that had been laid down thousands of years later than those in which he found the hunters and gatherers, macneish made a discovery that exceeded all expectations. Macneish this is a corn cob, and its a real little one. Keach it may have looked insignificant, but the shriveled ear dated to about 5000 b. C. It was the earliest evidence of farming ever discovered in the new world. Since corn is a staple crop, it would have allowed a nomadic hunting gathering way of life to evolve into a settled agricultural one. Corn slowly evolved in the new world from tiny ears, like the one macneish discovered, to the size we know today. Like staple crops of the old world, such as wheat and barley, corn has a wonderful property. Corn can be dried and stored, to provide food year round. Corn can also be produced in abundance, so populations grew. Step by step, a new way of life took hold. Permanent settlements evolved. Simple shelters became substantial dwellings to protect young and old alike. Macneish returns to the valley where he found the first corn. He is now seeking evidence of the earliest permanent settlement, perhaps the beginnings of a village. A few miles from the caves, in the ajalpan clay pits, macneish spots a familiar pattern. High in this wall, is a blackened layer of charcoal and just above it, the cobblestone floor of an ancient house. The floor dates to 3000 b. C. , 2,000 years later than the huntergatherer settlements in the caves. What were getting here is a big piece of burned clay. Its lying on top of the floor and is, from looking in here, is a piece of the wall. What they did is they took clay and, like the hebrews in ancient egypt, put grass in the clay and then plastered it on the sticks which were the wall of the house. Its very much the same system the indians up in the country have today. Well get the shape of the house from the post holes, so, well know a lot about this very simple first kind of housing in a permanent village. Keach the cobblestone floors macneish discovered would have been the foundations for small mud and thatch houses, like these. A settlement like this marks a dramatic turning point when early farmers begin to abandon their nomadic way of life for a settled one. So, ajalpan, in fact, is what mao zedong would call the first great leap forward from when people were food collectors to when people were food producers. And once youre food producers, why the skys the limit in terms of moving on to civilization. But this step has to happen before you can go on. Keach with the advent of agriculture different societies all over mesoamerica began to evolve cultures of enormous complexity. On the western border of what is now honduras lies the ancient maya city of copan. These are the same ruins described with wonder by stephens and catherwood in the 19th century. Today, an International Team of archaeologists has converged at copan to mount a massive scientific expedition. The objective is to discover what happens to a society when agriculture gives it the ability to become larger and more complex than ever before. And according to her map, that is where she found that one tomb where we got that really good skeleton. William sanders and colleague David Webster are about to excavate a sprawling set of ruins that has lain abandoned and covered by weeds and brush for more than 1,000 years. Beneath what appears to be a natural hill, these archaeologists believe may lie the ruins of an ancient building. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the first clues begin to emerge. These strange figures are portraits of spirits that once adorned a magnificent carved bench, a throne upon which a maya lord sat in council and judgment. Huge blocks. Yeah. Megarocks. Remember evelyn, the tomb she found on the other building was right along the front of the terrace starting outside of it, then going underneath it. Keach the buildings begin to give up their secrets. Here, the archaeologists believe, lived a noble family. Maya royalty often buried their ancestors in a place of honor just in front of their dwellings. A burial is just now being uncovered. It may contain definitive clues to the status of the people who once lived here. Deciphering the clues requires the special expertise of forensic archaeology. Clean the rest of the dirt out. Okay, thats good. Thats what it is all right, a femur. Hey, youre lucky. Keach near the elite buildings at copan archaeologists have now discovered many burials. Anything else . They are the special province of physical anthropologist rebecca storey. I have here some skeletons from an elite compound in copan. One of the things we like to be able to tell is gender because being able to tell males from females is useful in reconstructing social organization. Our best evidence on the skeleton actually comes from the pelvis which has to be wider in females because of the needs of childbirth. One easy way we can tell sex is to use the sciatic notch right here and to use what we call our rule of thumb. Stick your thumb in. If it moves, its a female. If you put your thumb in and it doesnt move, its a male. Normally i would expect to find equal numbers of males and females. However, in this case i found twice the number of females to males. And in one patio there were 15 females and only 2 males. The best explanation for this disparity is probably that the males of the household had more than one wife. Having multiple wives is common among elite maya and wives would be seen as a form of wealth. This is additional evidence that that was an elite compound. Keach over the last 10 years, excavations have revealed a series of elite compounds, each one a complex of temples, workshops, and residences. Like oldworld palaces, archaeologists believe that these were the dwellings of maya lords and their retainers. Archaeologist David Webster. This person would have been the head of one of the Major Political subdivisions of the copan political system. He would have been a noble just below the rank of king. He has his own sculptured facades on his buildings. He has a sculptured bench. Hes got his own titles. Hes able to enjoy altars and status symbols of all kinds in his compound here. He was probably polygynous, probably had a number of wives and concubines. So, he was a very important person indeed and there were probably a number of people like him in this political system who dominated other courtyards with similar political followings. Keach maya society is no longer egalitarian as were the huntergatherers. Now there are people with more wealth and power than others. One of the consequences of cultural evolution is the creation of social classes. But these nobles did not represent the highest social level in copan society. Less than a mile away from the compound lived the kingdoms royal family. This is the acropolis, a Magnificent Group of palaces, temples, and plazas. 16 kings ruled here for almost 400 years. After his inauguration, each new king would build his own palace atop those of his ancestors. Deep inside the acropolis these earlier buildings have now been discovered. Here, a team of archaeologists has tunneled its way to an ancient tomb. So, you got it dug away, you think . Yeah. All right, well, lets do it. Its pretty complete. A little bit of it stayed behind there, but not too bad. Boy, its a big piece of jade. Feels like its got an indentation on the bottom. Its probably an ear flare. Along with the burial was a hoard of precious jade. In tombs like these, maya kings were often buried with special offerings to accompany them on their voyage to the world of the dead. Archaeologist william fash. Jades can tell us specifically about what he was wearing the day he went to the other world. This one in particular is a nice example of a human figure. These four jades with human figures were the central pieces of the jade collar that he wore when he was placed on the slabs in the center of the tomb. There are also pieces that represent ear flares or ear rings actually that the individual wore. The men wore earrings in maya society, too. And the way this worked was that this flowery part went on the outside and the spool and the counterweight came in through the back and this held them in place. And also it allowed a little bit of balance. If you just had the heavy jade on the front, the guy would have been falling over. This is very elaborate jewelry and is also an indication of the status and wealth of this person because jade itself is harder than steel, yet the maya had no metal tools. So each one of these represents literally hundreds if not thousands of manhours of patiently carving away at this basically with just sand and water. So, this is quite an assemblage of wealth in a single spot and he went into the other world very well dressed for the occasion. Keach as cultures evolve in complexity, finer dis