Original subtitles

ALLAN [off-screen]: This is an incredible scene.

There'’s really no other way to describe it than to say

it'’s a scene of mass death.

ALLAN [off-screen]: A single family. Frozen in time.

Buried in seconds, almost 4,000 years ago.

ALLAN: A lot of people refer to this as China'’s Pompeii.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Could this tragedy hold clues to the

collapse of one of China'’s very earliest ancient kingdoms?

I'’m Allan Maca.

An archaeologist and expert in ancient civilizations.

And I'’m investigating China'’s distant past from

a whole new perspective, space!

Today, state of the art satellites see the world in stunning detail

and reveal hidden archaeology,

enabling us to recreate a lost ancient world,

invisible to the naked eye.

Working alongside leading Chinese experts,

my team and I are traveling to some of the country'’s

most remote and incredible landscapes,

and with cutting edge science, investigating previously

unknown cultures, lost cities and devastating cataclysms.

This is ancient China as you'’ve never seen it before.

♪ ♪

300 miles west of Beijing in China'’s Shaanxi Province and

on the edge of barren desert,

are the hills of the Loess Plateau.

I'’m here to explore a revolutionary new discovery

that'’s completely rewriting the earliest history of China.

This is Shimao.

A 4000 year old citadel.

At the heart of a lost ancient kingdom.

ALLAN: Nothing prepares you to see this place in person.

This is one of the greatest new discoveries in the

archaeology of the world.

This was clearly a massive, massive city.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The significance of this discovery became clear

just a few years ago.

Shimao may have been the biggest city of its time

anywhere on the entire planet.

And Chinese archaeologists are only just beginning to reveal its secrets.

Now, with new technology, I want to explore this

extraordinary ancient society.

ALLAN: Wow! Congratulations.

ALLAN [off-screen]: What'’s behind its most chilling discoveries?

ALLAN: I can tell that some of the bones are very young.

ALLAN [off-screen]: And can the fate of China'’s other lost civilizations help me solve

one of the greatest mysteries of all?

ALLAN: I feel like I am in the presence of something otherworldly.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Why, after 500 years of living here,

did the people of this great city seemingly...

just vanish?

Before this discovery, this was just a grassy hill.

The only sign of anything manmade,

was a simple line of rocks.

ALLAN: When they first found this they thought it was a

part of the Great Wall, you can see why.

So they began some excavations around here and they found no

this is 2000 years earlier than the earliest phase of the Great Wall.

ALLAN [off-screen]: These walls are incredibly well preserved,

yet they'’re over 4,000 years old!

That means Shimao is built at the same time as Stonehenge in Britain

and thrived more than 2000 years before the Roman empire.

ALLAN: I'’ve been to a lot of ancient cities and you don'’t

actually feel like you are in a city because they are ruins

but this, in this place I feel like I am there.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This would be an extraordinary discovery

anywhere but to understand why this is so ground-breaking,

we need to see it, from space.

The stepped structure at the center of the city is built

into a hillside, high above the meeting point of two rivers.

It'’s in dusty, rugged terrain that borders the sparsely

populated Ordos desert.

Experts never expected to find a major ancient city here.

It was long thought that Chinese civilization began

much later, and hundreds of miles to the south in the

fertile plains of the Yellow River.

ALLAN: A stone walled settlement is totally

unexpected at this time period and this place but I want to

know what kind of society built something so large and

so sophisticated.

ALLAN [off-screen]: I'’m lucky to have been invited to

explore the latest discoveries with Shao Jing,

one the lead archaeologists at Shimao.

SHAO: This is the path up to the giant central platform.

ALLAN: This is an immense amount of labor here.

This is not rammed earth.

This is not mud brick.

This is stone that had to be brought up here to the site.

It looks like nothing I'’ve ever seen.

SHAO: It'’s the first time in the history of Chinese archaeology

we have found a 4000 year old structure built this way.

ALLAN: I know that I had never expected to see anything like

this but it'’s amazing to hear that you all had never expected

to find anything this far north at this time.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This vast stepped structure is at the

center of the city.

The team is currently excavating the remains of

buildings that once stood at the top.

They'’re trying to figure out how this society worked.

SHAO: This is the top of the giant central platform.

The whole area covers 20,000 square meters.

In this prosperous city

the high-class people would live here.

It included the King'’s palace, his administration and large

scale artisan'’s workshops.

ALLAN: Okay, so all of the elites were here living, working.

The king was here.

ALLAN [off-screen]: From the latest excavation data we can recreate what

Shimao might'’ve looked like 4000 years ago.

A series of stone platforms with restricted access

to each higher level.

Right at the top, the palaces of the city'’s rulers.

ALLAN: There'’s clearly a well-defined hierarchy here.

This huge structure, this palace dominates the

entire area, it'’s visible for miles.

So this thing is a constant reminder of the power of the

people who governed here.

One of the crazy things is that archaeologists have only

excavated a fraction of this which makes me wonder how much

is out there in the surrounding area?

ALLAN [off-screen]: Chinese researchers are discovering

ruins spread all over the rugged terrain by combining

drone sensing with excavations.

Now, my tech specialist Ryan Kastner and drone pilot

William Luo are going to create a photogrammetry model

so I can understand just how large this city was.

RYAN: Ideally what we want to do is we want to pop it up.

WILLIAM: Okay.

RYAN: And we want to try to see where the wall'’s going.

ALLAN [off-screen]: My team engineer Eric Lo combines thousands of images

to create a 3D view of the terrain,

called a Digital Elevation Model or DEM.

RYAN: So let'’s have a look at the data.

ERIC: So these are the three multi spectral flights that we did this morning.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

ERIC: And then we can see hints of the wall here.

But let'’s switch over to the DEM so we have a bit of clearer view.

RYAN: Yeah. It'’s a lot easier to see on this, huh?

So we can see the wall we were focusing on.

Right on the ridge which makes a whole lot of sense.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The 3D reconstruction clearly brings

out the remains of a city wall that follows the ridgeline.

In all, 6 miles of these walls have been identified hidden in this landscape.

They mark out an enclosed inner city and an additional ring

of outer wall surrounds 1,000 acre site,

an area the size of about 200 New York city blocks.

That means that 4000 years ago this could'’ve been the

biggest city on the planet.

The scale of this place is unprecedented...

but even the smallest artifacts being found here

are transforming our understanding of how

civilization develops in China.

ALLAN: Ahh, this is a lot of material here.

You guys have been busy.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This incredibly fragile jade

scepter is a symbol of power, carried by rulers of Shimao.

ALLAN: It'’s very light, it'’s very light weight!

It would sit on a staff, right?

It'’s amazing to me how thin they could cut it.

I mean, you can see you can see my hand behind here in the light.

SHAO: Only the son of the god, the emperor held this.

He held this to pray to the god,

to tell the god that he was the rightful ruler.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This is the earliest example of a jade

scepter ever found.

Even the most ordinary looking objects are ground-breaking.

These burn holes show that these are what'’s known as

oracle bones, a means of divining the future.

The very first Chinese writing will later appear on just this

kind of fortune telling device.

And one crucial find gives its name to an entire age of human development...

bronze.

SHAO: This is a knife.

ALLAN: This would have been the edge.

SHAO: Huh. We only have a few dozen.

These date to around 2000 BC.

They are some of the earliest bronzes ever found.

ALLAN: Wow this is incredible.

ALLAN [off-screen]: All these amazing finds are revealing that many of the

foundations of Chinese civilization appear here at Shimao,

centuries earlier than anyone ever expected.

But the team has just made an astonishing discovery like

nothing ever seen in China before.

I'’m one of the first outsiders allowed to see it.

SHAO: This is a very important discovery.

The people of Shimao have left us a gift from 4000 years ago.

ALLAN: Wow!

ALLAN [off-screen]: Archaeologists excavating the ancient megacity

at Shimao have just discovered incredible

4000 year old carvings in the central palace area.

ALLAN: Congratulations! This is unbelievable.

This looks like like the ancient Mayan city of Copan in Honduras

from the 6th century A.D., 2500 years later.

As an archaeologist, does it get better than this?

SHAO: Not that I know of.

ALLAN [off-screen]: There are faces that look half human half animal;

strange hybrids and familiar creatures are

all carved into the walls of the giant platform.

It'’s a unique insight into the beliefs of the people

who built this city.

SHAO: These aren'’t images of people.

They are all representations of gods.

ALLAN: This is amazing and that there is also such variety,

so for example what is this?

I mean, it almost looks like maybe some kind of a sea creature.

SHAO: This is similar to a find called the Green Pine Dragon

from Erlitou city, the home of a later dynasty, the Xia.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This later dynasty of the central Yellow River Plains

was thought to have founded Chinese civilization,

but Shimao is rewriting history.

So far the team here have excavated just one side

of the giant central platform.

Much still remains buried.

But already, the skill and complexity of this lost

society is vividly emerging.

ALLAN: The carved stone facades of this building are

incredible I mean this is 4,000 years ago.

And you'’ve got images of gods, images of animals like snakes,

you even have a dragon which becomes a formative symbol in

Chinese dynasties.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Everything about Shimao is more advanced,

much earlier and far bigger than anyone thought possible.

And all in this unlikeliest of places.

ALLAN: Yet there'’s a huge mystery here.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Archaeologists have dated artifacts found here

to between 4,300 and 3,800 years ago...

but after that, there'’s nothing.

This means that after 500 years of occupation,

the entire city of Shimao seems to be abandoned.

ALLAN: Something happened here that forced these people

to relocate or wiped them out entirely.

The question is what?

ALLAN [off-screen]: I'’m heading across China to see if

the latest discoveries about the collapse of other ancient

societies can offer clues to what happened at Shimao.

First, I'’m heading to the mountainous upper reaches of

the Yellow River, to the site of an ancient apocalypse.

ALLAN: This horrible event took place 3,900 years ago.

But being here and seeing it myself,

there'’s an immediacy like this just happened.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The village of Lajia was home

to a thriving early bronze-age community that developed

at the same time as Shimao.

ALLAN: There'’s at least 14 individuals here.

They all died at once.

You can see women with their children as young as perhaps

two or three or four years old,

huddled together around the cooking fire and

clearly this was a family.

It'’s clear to me that the people here had no time

whatsoever to get out.

All they could do was huddle the young together and hope

and pray that they would survive.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This frozen, cataclysmic moment

has been compared to Pompeii, near ancient Rome.

But this family is not entombed in volcanic ash,

but thick mud.

ALLAN: This is such a striking moment of death here at Lajia,

this adult protecting the child from harm while

seemingly looking up.

What happened here?

ALLAN [off-screen]: Archaeologist, Ye Maolin and his team

first discovered the bodies and

they'’ve spent years trying to piece together how this

tragedy unfolded.

And they'’ve found a vital clue.

YE: Look at the big crack here.

It'’s from an earthquake.

A crack this big shows how powerful the earthquake was.

ALLAN: OK wow, so this whole, this whole thing was just

completely cracked open.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The massive earthquake demolished

these houses trapping the families.

But these people are buried in mud.

Where did it come from?

The latest Chinese research suggests the earthquake

triggered a cataclysmic chain of events.

ALLAN [off-screen]: I'’m investigating what happened to

an ancient village known as China'’s Pompeii,

that left its people buried in mud and frozen in time.

The answer could be visible from space,

even after almost 4000 years.

My team'’s satellite archaeologist,

Sarah Klassen, is looking at data from a mountainous gorge

25 miles upstream from Lajia.

She'’s been told about a mysterious gap in a mountain

ridge overlooking the Yellow river.

SARAH: There is this one large area that looks like it'’s been erased.

It'’s almost as though someone has come through and wiped it

off the landscape.

What we are looking at here is actually a landslide.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The devastating earthquake that hit Lajia

would have set off landslides across a huge area.

Some experts believe one of them buried the people of Lajia in mud.

But the latest research suggests a new theory.

That this landslide further upstream was so massive,

that it set off a chain reaction that led to disaster

on a biblical scale.

To understand what happened, I'’m heading high above the gorge.

Geoarchaeologist, Wu Qinglong believes the landslide caused

one of the biggest disasters ever to hit China and that

it'’s linked to a phenomenon known as a quake lake.

WU: The landslide happened over there.

We can see there is a huge part missing from the ridge.

At the end of the Neolithic period,

there was a terrible earthquake here,

it was so destructive that this entire ridge fell down.

And the rocks blocked the Yellow River.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The massive shockwaves send an

entire mountain tumbling into the gorge.

Creating a 200 meter tall dam across the river,

its remains are still visible nearly 4000 years later.

The dammed river begins to form one of the biggest

"quake lakes" ever discovered.

Dr. Wu calculates that after several months it would have

stretched 50 miles upstream,

holding over 12 billion cubic meters of water.

The pressure builds as the waters continue to rise...

Until the dam... breaks.

WU: Within 12 hours 90% of the water burst out.

ALLAN: That'’s insanely fast.

WU: That'’s catastrophic. ALLAN: No question. Yeah.

ALLAN [off-screen]: If Dr. Wu is right,

this is one of the biggest freshwater floods ever studied

and bigger than any in China'’s recorded history.

It would have wrought devastation for hundreds of miles downstream.

So, back at Shimao, might this city have been hit by a

similar cataclysmic natural disaster?

The city is surrounded on 2 sides by rivers.

But it'’s hundreds of feet above the valley floor,

which rules out catastrophic flood.

What about an earthquake?

Devastating quakes have struck China throughout its history.

One of the deadliest of all time ravaged this part of

China 500 years ago.

But Shimao'’s amazingly preserved walls show no sign

of earthquake damage.

So what did happen here?

I'’m heading to investigate the disappearance of another

remarkable ancient civilization 600 miles

southwest in Guanghan in Sichuan province.

30 years ago, a discovery was made here that stunned the world.

I'’ve been given special access to one of China'’s

most extraordinary archaeological treasures.

ALLAN: Incredible!

Could this amazing find help answer the mystery of what

happened at Shimao?

ALLAN [off-screen]: I'’ve been allowed privileged access to

an amazing relic of an ancient Chinese civilization that

I hope could hold clues to the abandonment of Shimao.

ALLAN: When I see this, when I'’m confronted with this,

I feel like I'’m in the presence of something other-worldly.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This astonishing bronze mask is

evidence that there was another completely unknown

Chinese civilization that existed about 500 years after Shimao.

ALLAN: This is like nothing else I have seen in China.

And when this was found this was like nothing anyone had

ever seen in the world.

ALLAN [off-screen]: It'’s just one of a treasure trove of

precious objects found at the site of an ancient city called Sanxingdui.

There are scores of giant faces,

striking bronze heads with golden masks,

and humanlike sculptures

performing mysterious rituals.

ALLAN: I just can'’t believe how many bronze objects there

are, and the variety is extraordinary.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The world'’s leading expert on

Sanxingdui believes the giant masks depict gods,

and the bronze heads represent the rulers of the city.

SUN: We'’ve found many bronze heads in Sanxingdui.

But we can divide them into two types.

Some of them have long braided hair and some of them don'’t,

they tie their hair up instead.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Professor Sun believes these masks,

with two distinctive hair styles,

represent the two different clans who ruled the city.

And his theory could help answer Sanxingdui'’s most puzzling question.

Just like at Shimao, the city seemed to suddenly disappear.

The clue to what happened lies 30 miles south in Chengdu,

the site of another ancient city, called Jinsha.

It emerged around the same time as Sanxingdui'’s demise

and archaeologists have found hundreds of objects here,

evidence that the two cities belonged to the same culture.

But Professor Sun believes there'’s one crucial thing missing.

Archaeologists here have only found figures from one of the

two clans: those with braided hair.

SUN: The people who had braids became the rulers of Jinsha.

ALLAN: So what happened to the people that had no braid?

The people with their hair pinned up?

SUN: My theory is that at the end of Sanxingdui,

there was a great conflict between the clan without braids

and those with braids and the whole city was destroyed.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Professor Sun'’s theory,

of a city torn apart when one clan destroys another in a

violent civil war, would explain why Sanxingdui was

suddenly abandoned.

So could something similar have happened at Shimao?

It seems possible.

Because excavations are uncovering grizzly evidence

of brutal killing.

ALLAN: Look at this. It'’s just heads.

SHAO: Yeah.

ALLAN: Looking at the skulls, I can tell that some of the bones

are not yet fused, so they'’re very young.

SHAO: Teenager. ALLAN: Teenagers.

SHAO: Yeah. ALLAN: OK.

SHAO: We can tell that these heads were cut off because on

many we found incision marks here.

ALLAN [off-screen]: But these are not the victims of a power-struggle within the city.

Examination of the skulls shows they are all young women

and chemical analysis of their teeth reveals they'’re not from

here, but from more than 100 miles away to the northwest.

So, how did their remains end up here?

SHAO: It could be because Shimao was involved in some violence.

Like wars with other territories.

ALLAN [off-screen]: It seems these young women were captives.

Victims of human sacrifice.

It appears to be gruesome evidence of conflict with a

rival, enemy kingdom.

So, could Shimao'’s downfall have been caused by war?

ALLAN [off-screen]: I'’m investigating the abandonment

of the colossal ancient city of Shimao.

There'’s no evidence here for the natural disasters and

internal conflict that destroyed other ancient civilizations.

I want to know, could war with undiscovered rival kingdoms

have caused its downfall?

To find out, I'’m going to analyze the city'’s defenses

and investigate if they were ever breached.

Starting with the main gateway through the city'’s outer wall,

the formidable East Gate.

My tech experts Ryan Kastner and Eric Lo are using laser

scanning, called LiDAR, to reveal its structure.

ERIC: So what the LiDAR is going to produce is a 3D model

that we can move around, look at from different angles and

take measurements of, as if we had it in real life

but we can do it on the computer.

ALLAN: Hey guys.

RYAN: Hey Al, we'’ve got some good stuff to show you man.

ALLAN: Alright, East Gate?

RYAN: Yeah so we'’ve been Lidaring round the East Gate

the past couple of days, we were able to scan the entire thing.

ALLAN: Wow.

RYAN: Yeah this is a combination of about 100 different scans.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The scans reveal advanced defenses.

The outer walls include bastions,

protrusions at regular intervals that allow archers

to fire on the flanks of an enemy attack.

And the gateway itself is also ingeniously designed.

ALLAN: This is the main entrance to the gate here but

the entire structure is built on the edge of a steep cliff.

Now if an invading army had managed to climb all the way

to the top of the cliff they are confronted first by this

U shaped structure which means they are going to have to

divide their force to get in through the gate entrance.

And what would be waiting for them here?

Probably hundreds of soldiers as the first line of defense.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The main gateway is protected by guardhouses

and two massive towers overlooking an L-shaped passageway.

It forces attackers through a right-angled turn and into

more concealed defensive positions.

And these fortifications are just protecting the outer city.

There'’s a further inner wall and a mile of jagged terrain

to cross even to reach the towering walls of the palace area itself.

ALLAN: There'’s something fundamentally important about

the idea of defense at Shimao.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The city was prepared for an attack on a massive scale.

But archaeologists have found no evidence of destruction or

any sign that these magnificent defenses were ever breached.

So war did not destroy this city.

But perhaps, there'’s just one more possibility...

that might finally explain Shimao'’s downfall.

My team archaeologist Sarah Klassen is heading 800 miles

southeast of Shimao, to the Yangtze river delta.

She'’s investigating some recently discovered ancient

structures that succumbed to a final destructive force.

She starts by examining a Digital Elevation Model or DEM,

a relief map, made from multiple satellite images.

SARAH: With the DEM, I'’m looking for things that you

wouldn'’t necessarily expect to see in nature because it'’s

too, too perfect or too engineered.

To the north up here, this is really interesting.

There are two kind of linear embankments with a

depressed area in the middle.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Archaeologist Wang Ningyuan leads a team

revealing that these banks are ancient manmade earthworks...

SARAH: Oh wow, you can really get a sense of how big this

feature was and how many people would have been

necessary to build it.

WANG: From there to there it'’s about 100 meters across.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This massive earth wall is built between two hills

to create an ancient man-made dam and reservoir.

And from the satellite data, Wang Ningyuan'’s team have

discovered this is just one tiny part of a massive

water control system.

Miles of artificial waterways that provided transport and

control of agriculture over an area nearly twice the size of

Manhattan island.

Amazingly, the ongoing excavations here have dated

this to over 5000 years ago.

It'’s the oldest evidence of humans harnessing water ever discovered.

Chinese experts believe it allowed an earth-walled city

of more than 30,000 people to flourish in these flood prone

coastal lowlands.

That means that this new discovery,

called Liangzhu, is the oldest city ever found in China!

But Like Shimao, this city was also abandoned after 800 years.

And here, the latest excavation is finding evidence of why.

ALLAN [off-screen]: In my quest to find out why the

ancient stone city at Shimao vanished 3800 years ago,

I'’ve ruled out the earthquakes, floods and

wars that destroyed other ancient civilizations.

But Sarah'’s investigating one more possibility.

She'’s looking for answers in the demise of the oldest city

ever found in China.

Here, Wang Ningyuan and his team are finding evidence that

the city'’s agriculture was hit by an unstoppable force,

climate change.

WANG: The layers below here belong to the final period of Liangzhu.

This is all manmade.

The thick layer on top has accumulated from

repeated seawater floods.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The team'’s evidence suggests that

prolonged heavy rains destroyed the city'’s agriculture.

Dwindling food supplies forced the population to move away

and then silt left by centuries of rising sea-levels

buried what remained.

WANG: It'’s amazing that Liangzhu could support such a big city.

But when the climate changed and big floods came,

this city was helpless in the face of nature.

So the environment forged this civilization but also somehow,

decided its end.

ALLAN [off-screen]: If a dramatic shift in the climate

could destroy a city the size of Liangzhu could

something similar have happened at Shimao?

Recent analysis of ancient pollen grains found across

northern China reveals that when Shimao was at its peak,

it was much warmer and wetter.

But 3800 years ago, just when the city declined,

the monsoon weather patterns changed abruptly.

This area became drier and colder.

ALLAN: The climate change evidence makes perfect sense.

If you look at the landscape, look at the soils,

it just doesn'’t seem that this area could have sustained

such large numbers of people in ancient times.

ALLAN [off-screen]: This is the best explanation so far

for the demise of Shimao.

That sudden climate change transformed this region into a cold semi-desert,

ravaging the civilization with famine and drought.

ALLAN: All the things that sustained life were no longer possible

and when you'’ve got people that aren'’t satisfied

you get flight and you get abandonment.

ALLAN [off-screen]: The people of Shimao deserted their once great city,

leaving it to disappear beneath the windblown silt.

Lost for millennia until now.

ALLAN: It'’s so exciting.

These discoveries are changing everything.

The where and when of how it all began has typically been

lost to the mists of time but now we have real evidence.

ALLAN [off-screen]: Right now, all across China,

cutting edge archaeology is uncovering an entirely new

chapter in the story of human civilization.

ALLAN: I'’m amazed to learn how these lost cultures struggled

to survive in the face of earthquakes and landslides,

floods and war, catastrophes with the power to destroy.

ALLAN [off-screen]: It'’s a reminder that great empires

rise and can be wiped out again in the blink of an eye.

But what they'’ve left behind has laid the foundations

for all the wonders to come.

The new beliefs, architecture, art, and hierarchies

that would lead to thousands of years of civilization in China.

Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.