All language subtitles for Ancient Apocalypse (2022) - 02x06 - Chapter VI.NF-EDITH+FLUX.English.HI.C.orig.Addic7ed.com

[insects and birds chirping]

[dramatic music playing]

[Graham] Today marks
a special moment in the Mayan calendar.

It's the spring equinox
when the sunrise ushers in

not just a new day
but a new cycle of life.

As the sun clears the tree line,

its rays illuminate
one of Palenque's most majestic temples.

[music intensifies]

This is the Temple of the Sun,
a most appropriate name.

Just to be here,
bathed in light, is a privilege,

a connection that merges spirituality
with science in a way

long forgotten by the modern world.

At certain key moments of the year,
and this is one of them,

the rising sun does more than illuminate
the steps of the temple.

Maya architecture is a repository
for ancient knowledge,

linking sky and ground, heaven and earth.

[music continues]

In the process,
it often brought the light of the sun

through certain specific alignments
into interior spaces,

purposefully designed to receive it.

At the winter solstice,
the sun rises over a mountaintop ruin,

shining into the temple through a doorway,

where we might imagine a priest
waiting to be bathed in light.

Six months later, on the summer solstice,

and only on that day,
the dawn sunlight grazes another pyramid,

before a needle of light
strikes an interior corner,

while at both equinoxes,
the sun rises above a man-made depression

in the eastern horizon,
again shining rays through a doorway

at such a precise angle,
that for around 40 minutes,

it dramatically illuminates
another inner alcove.

[suspenseful music playing]

For the Maya, such dazzling displays
must have evoked a sense of awe

in all who observed them.

[suspenseful music ends]

And it's not just a special moment
for the ancient Maya.

[Indigenous people chanting]

[in Spanish] Palenque is
an extremely symbolic site.

Ancestral worship in Palenque
was depicted in its architecture

and in its modified landscape.

It connects with
the modern-day population.

Mayan culture in Palenque
is very much alive.

[applauding]

[Graham in English]
Maya priest Nicolás López Vázquez

has been performing ceremonies here
for decades.

[drum playing]

[in Spanish] The ritual going on right now
represents the spring equinox.

The equinox was very important.

That's why they made the temples.

It is like a connection
with the whole planet.

[Indigenous people ululating]

[Graham in English] Indeed,
this complex seems to have been designed

as an instrument to detect and manifest
the wondrous harmony of the universe.

[blowing conch]

[drumming ends]

[intriguing music playing]

So what was the motive
for their intense focus on the heavens?

And how did they acquire
their advanced astronomical know-how?

[intriguing music intensifies]

Could we be witnessing a legacy
handed down by a far older civilization,

one that left traces
of its advanced knowledge

throughout the Americas?

[intriguing music builds, ends]

[theme song playing]

[theme song ends]

- [thunder rumbling]
- [electronic warble]

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] Dominating the center of Palenque
is its most impressive edifice

known as the palace.

And above it looms
this intriguing structure,

unique in the Maya world,
a multi-storied tower.

[intriguing music builds]

Scholars are divided
on the purpose of this tower.

The puzzling thing is the roof.

The roof we see today is
an entirely modern

and possibly inaccurate reconstruction.

Earlier excavation photographs show
the tower in ruins without a roof.

So was it roofed in antiquity?

Indeed, the original tower may have been
topped by an observation platform,

which would explain what was found within.

It's significant
that there's a room with glyphs

representing perhaps the most important
of all planets to the Maya, Venus.

Scholars have confirmed
through Mayan texts

that this symbol does indeed represent
the brightest planet in the night sky.

Could it be that this tower was built
specifically for use by astronomers?

Intuitively, it feels like it was intended
for observations of the heavens.

One would not expect a tower
designed to observe the skies

to be roofed.

And those Venus glyphs inside the tower

strongly suggest that
that's what it was used for.

But of all the celestial bodies
in the sky, why Venus?

It may have something to do with one of
the Maya's greatest mythological figures.

[intriguing music continues]

The gods and goddesses of Maya cosmology
often had eerily human characteristics,

sometimes endearing, sometimes terrifying,

sometimes deeply mysterious.

The deity named Kukulkan,
who was at one time a man,

not only combined
all of these characteristics,

but was also identified
with the brightest planet in the heavens.

[suspenseful music playing]

The tradition says that Kukulkan arrived
after a great cataclysm,

accompanied by attendants.

He was a wise teacher
who gave instruction in the rule of law

and how to organize a civilization,
to cultivate corn,

and how to build great monuments in stone.

Even after his time with them was over,

Kukulkan continued to be worshiped
in the heavens,

where he manifested in the form
of the planet that we know today as Venus.

[suspenseful music ends]

- [intriguing music playing]
- [insects chirping]

Across the Maya world,

there are other representations
of Kukulkan.

And at one iconic site,
his memory is also connected

to that highly significant moment
of the spring equinox.

At Chichén Itzáin the Yucatán,
at the temple of Kukulkan,

if we look at that pyramid,
what we see normally

is the northern stairway of the pyramid
with the large head of a serpent

at the base of the stairway
and a kind of blank balustrade

running up the side of it
with nothing on it,

but on the spring equinox,
as the sun is beginning to set,

the pyramid is so perfectly positioned
that shadows cast by its corner

onto that stairway create
the form of the body of the serpent,

so the head of the serpent
is suddenly completed with

an undulating, waving shadow body
of the serpent,

and this is a manifestation of Kukulkan.

[intriguing music intensifies]

In different parts of Mexico,
he was known not only as Kukulkan

but perhaps most famously as Quetzalcoatl.

All of these names mean
"plumed or feathered serpent."

One might almost imagine
that Kukulkan was a traveler

who used a locally-appropriate name
wherever he went.

We've met a similar figure in Peru
where he was called Viracocha.

In Mesopotamia, he was known as Oannes,

and in Egypt, he was Osiris.

But the stories remain the same.

Powerful figures who appeared
after a global cataclysm

and bestowed upon ancient peoples
the gifts of civilization.

[suspenseful music playing]

The identification of their civilizing
hero with the planet Venus

might explain one
of the Maya's unique obsessions,

tracking that planet's movements
in the night sky.

Their studies of Venus
are really, really striking.

It is the case
that once every roughly 584 days,

Venus will be seen to rise
in the same place.

The Maya had an absolutely precise,
spot-on estimate

of the... what's called
the synodical return of Venus.

And they were able to make the calculation

thanks to one of the Maya's
most extraordinary achievements,

one that, like the incredible stonework
of ancient Peru

and the ingenious pharmacology
of ancient Amazonia,

might be part of a legacy of knowledge
handed down from a remote prehistory

by a mysterious predecessor civilization.

[suspenseful music builds, ends]

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] Dr. Edwin Barnhart has been
mapping and studying Palenque

for over 25 years,

and he's one of very few people
in the world

who can read the script
of the ancient Maya.

We read these glyphs
from top to bottom in double columns.

You read right left, right left
to the bottom of the first two,

and then you go to the third and fourth
and read down so that's the reading order.

How does the system of numbers
that the Maya use

compare with the system of numbers
that we use today?

[Dr. Barnhart]
Our system is quite similar.

We have a base-ten system.
We call it decimal.

You and I, we can write any number

- into almost infinity using ten digits.
- Mm-hmm.

We've got a zero,
and then one through nine.

- Yeah.
- And when we get to ten,

we put a zero in the ones place
and a one in the tens place.

They use base 20.

[mysterious music playing]

[Graham] It's a Morse code-like system
of dashes and dots

including a shell glyph representing zero.

[Dr. Barnhart] A dot means one.

- A bar means five.
- [Graham] Right.

And so when you get
three bars and four dots,

- that's 19.
- Mm-hmm.

How they'd write 20
is putting a zero there

- and then putting a dot in the 20 place.
- Okay.

So it's a positional system of enumeration
that allowed them

to do math on a... on a different level.

You know, our system's great.

We can calculate into infinity,
but it takes ten symbols.

The Maya pulled the same thing off
with only three symbols.

So in that regard,

their system is
way more elegant than ours.

Wow.

[Graham] The Maya not only used zero,

but were acquainted with place numerations

at a time when
the Ancient Greeks and Romans,

despite their many achievements,
understood neither.

Their system was great.
The Romans, they did great things,

but their number system stunk.

- That's why they had to make the abacus.
- Yeah.

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] The Maya's
advanced numbering system

wasn't just an elegant way to count.

For their astronomers,

this was the key to calculating
and predicting the movements

of heavenly bodies like Venus,
the sun, and the moon,

with astounding accuracy.

And that same knowledge of mathematics
was also fundamental

to what was arguably
their most impressive invention.

By far the most perplexing achievement
of the ancient Maya

was their own amazingly precise system
for measuring time,

which they incorporated
into one of the most complex calendars

in human history.

[intriguing music intensifies]

The calendar, which of course
is incredibly complicated.

Could you help to uncomplicate it for me?
What is the Mayan calendar all about?

The calendar, its...
You know, its solar year is 365 days.

[Graham] Right. Okay.

[Dr. Barnhart] The calendar
they really care about is 260 days,

but then they have a long count calendar,
which is kind of a linear count of time.

[dramatic music plays]

[Graham] The Maya tracked key dates
using a combination of three calendars,

each with its own individual purpose.

[intriguing music playing]

Their sacred calendar was
a repeating cycle of 20 groups

consisting of 13 days apiece,
totaling 260 days.

[rock rumbling]

A second calendar tracked the solar year,

but was composed of 18 groups,
each of 20 days,

with another five to complete
a 365-day year, just like ours.

[rock rumbling]

When used in tandem,

these two calendars gave a unique name
to every single day

across a 52-year period
before then starting over.

But what made the Mayan system
truly unique was their third calendar,

the so-called long count,

which tracked
much greater periods of time.

[intriguing music continues]

[Graham] Tell me more
about the long count calendar.

What is it? How does it work?

What's it intended to achieve?

It's certainly the most interesting one
because the Maya are very cyclical,

but it's the only calendar they have
that's a linear calendar.

It can go backwards and forwards in time
in a straight line into, towards infinity.

[Graham] The symbols of the long count
measure the passage

not just of years, decades,
or centuries, but entire millennia,

reaching deep into
both the past and the future.

Is it the case that most of what we can
now read in the... in the Maya script

has to do with the calendar?

[Dr. Barnhart] Here's a perfect example
that when we look at this page,

everything that you see
with bars and dots and these,

this is all calendrical information.

On the whole,

two-thirds of the entire Maya corpus
of writing are calendar glyphs.

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] One explanation
for this obsession

is that the ancient Maya believed
the world went through recurring cycles

of creation and destruction...

[dramatic music plays]

[waves crashing]

...and that they were living
in the fourth such cycle,

quite similar to the ancient Hopi

who believed they too
were living in the fourth world.

But unlike them,

the Maya were able to put
specific dates to their cycles,

all tracked using the long count.

[suspenseful music continues]

[Graham] What's this one about here?

[Dr. Barnhart] That's a beautiful image,

one of the few
that very specifically tells us

what the date was
at the start of the fourth creation.

- It says 13-0-0-0-0.
- [Graham] Right.

And then the very next day, this resets.
And this would be 0-0-0-0-1.

Right. So putting that
into our dating system today?

- 3114 B.C., August 13th.
- Right.

And that's the beginning of the age
of the world in which we now live.

Right. And the idea, like,

- why did it start at 3114 B.C.?
- Yeah.

[Dr. Barnhart] That's one
that the best minds, for a century now...

- Yeah.
- ...have failed to sufficiently answer.

Yeah. I... I have to say, I find that date
quite fascinating in itself,

um, since many ancient civilizations,
if we follow the archaeological record,

had an extraordinary beginning
at around that time.

In Ancient Egypt around 3000 B.C.

- Sumer, similar sort of period.
- [Dr. Barnhart] Right. Asia as well.

[Graham] It's like
the world was waking up at that time,

and the Maya picked that date.

It is very interesting.

[Graham] When do you think
the system began?

How far back can we trace the origins
of this incredible set of calculations?

You know, it's a difficult question.
I've pondered that a lot.

And I... I like to say that by the time
somebody carved it in stone,

that wasn't their first attempt.

Right. And what's the oldest date
that you... that you've found?

There's a couple of them.
There's one that goes back 33,000 years.

Another leads us to a specific date

that has us go back
very exactly five million years.

- Five million years into the past.
- Yeah. And... and you can do the math.

I think that its intention
is to make a statement

about the never-ending nature of time.

[dramatic music playing]

[Graham] Alongside these dates,

one key player
in the drama of the night sky

keeps appearing in the texts, Venus,

that same planet associated with
the Mayan deity, Kukulkan.

[music ends]

So Venus is integrated into
the overall Mayan calendrical system.

They track it again and again.

There's actually 104 different groups

- of five Venus cycles...
- Yeah.

...that they put together
so that you could actually track Venus

- and it would be right.
- Right.

The Maya were obsessed with the cosmos,
and the Maya were obsessed with time.

These two issues
are fundamental to... to Mayan culture.

These two obsessions reveal
that the Maya had and enumerated

a deep understanding
of our planet's vast antiquity.

So they were able to do
what modern computer software is doing.

- Yes.
- How could they do that?

I think that they were among

the ancient world's
greatest mathematicians.

- They just kept cranking the numbers.
- Yeah.

They're doing calculations
of millions of days.

Fascinating.

If they're using dates like that,
you have to ask yourself,

"Why would they need to do that?"

- [Dr. Barnhart] I think...
- [Graham] It's all speculation.

When we archaeologists
take a hard look in the mirror,

- basically it's all speculation. We...
- Yeah.

We are working on theories.
Very few facts in my field.

Yeah.

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] I have a theory,
which is also, admittedly, speculative.

The Mayan calendar feels to me
like an out-of-place artifact.

It feels to me like a legacy
that the Maya have received

from a culture that really did need
these enormous numbers...

A lost civilization
that passed on its knowledge

of the cyclical nature of time,

encoding it in myths
and spiritual traditions

that would, many thousands of years later,

manifest spectacularly
in the enigmatic machinery

of the Mayan calendar.

But to what end?

I suggest the answer has everything to do

with the Mayan concept
of the impermanence of world ages.

I sometimes think of the Mayan calendar
as a computer for calculating

not the end of the world,
but the end of an age.

[fire crackling]

The Mayan calendar envisages
repeated destructions

and re-makings of the world.

Repeated world ages come and go.

[tense music playing]

It was never correct
that the Maya imagined

the world would end
on December 21st, A.D. 2012.

But they do see
an episode of great turbulence and change,

uh, taking place at around our time.

[thunder rumbling]

Certainly, the end of an age is predicted
for roughly the 80-year period

from about 2000 to 2080,
somewhere in that period.

And it's curious that actually that is
our experience of the world today.

We're living in a time of chaos,
of unpredictability, of change.

Could the Mayan calendar's timing for
the end of our current age be accurate?

Perhaps we should be gazing up
at the heavens,

tracking the stars and planets
as they did...

[thunder rumbling]

...in case another world-changing apocalypse
is imminent.

[tense music ends]

[gentle music playing]

But there was more to the Maya's interest
in the heavens than predicting the future.

There's evidence right here at Palenque
that Dr. Barnhart wants to show me.

[Dr. Barnhart] This view out here,
there's a perfect place

where you can see the horizon.

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] On the southwestern edge of
a plaza across from the Temple of the Sun,

Dr. Barnhart is taking me
to another powerful edifice

known as the Temple of the Foliated Cross.

It dates from around A.D. 692.

[majestic music playing]

Inside on the back wall,
a curious carved mural awaits us.

Scholars now believe it addresses

the great central mystery
of Maya religion,

the mystery of
what happens to us after death.

We are standing in front of
an extraordinary mural,

which is quite difficult
for me to interpret.

[Dr. Barnhart chuckles]

Tell me what you make of it.
What's it all about?

Well, it's obviously so complex.

The iconography is everywhere on this.

[Graham] Mm-hmm.

[Dr. Barnhart] There's the foliated cross
because of this foliation coming out.

[Graham] Mm-hmm.

[Dr. Barnhart] We also have
our two figures on either side.

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] The mural shows
the deceased Lord Pakal on the right,

the original founder
and ruler of Palenque,

his eyes closed
and dressed in burial clothes,

and what's assumed to be his son
and successor, Kan Bahlam, on the left.

[Dr. Barnhart] Here's Kan Bahlam's face.

His portrait is everywhere in the city.
We know exactly that is him.

- [Graham] Yeah.
- [Dr. Barnhart] We recognize him.

But he's big and tall.

- Kan Bahlam.
- [Graham] Yeah.

[Dr. Barnhart] I always...
I think about him.

We have such a wonderful,
rich history of his life.

[Graham] Yeah.

We know that his dad
was the most famous king of this city.

And he was named heir-designate
at age six.

But his dad didn't die until 80.

So he spent his entire life,
until 48, to be the king.

- Right.
- And I think he was incredibly trained

in mathematics, architecture, astronomy,

- but also religion, mythology.
- Mm-hmm.

This group, the three magnificent temples,
is his showcase.

This guy probably planned this
for 30 years of his life.

- [Graham] Mm-hmm.
- Finally, he got to build it.

And it's the height
of Maya scientific achievement.

- Yeah.
- There's numerology.

There's mathematics. There's astronomy.

[Graham] The message of the mural is that
the deeds and rituals performed by the son

are essential if the father is to triumph

in the afterlife journey
that now confronts him.

Separating them is an icon
of the greatest significance.

[Dr. Barnhart] Here's our world tree.

That's the sun god's face
in the middle of it.

But the tree is also the path
between this world and the other world.

In some contexts, it's the Milky Way.

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] Is the role that the Milky Way
plays a... a kind of path of souls?

It's an afterlife journey in some sense?

Yes. The things that
these two individuals are interacting with

is the conduit between this world
and the other.

Right.

The notion of a leap to the heavens
to the Milky Way

and... and a journey
that is made after death

is very strong amongst the Maya.

What's remarkable is
how widespread this notion is.

This Milky Way symbolism
as a... as a path of souls is found

not just amongst the Maya,

but... but amongst many other cultures
in North America.

Absolutely. It's one
of those Pan-American ideas.

It really is.

From the tip of Chile up to Alaska,

native thought is
that the Milky Way is the path of souls

from this world to the other one.

The dead follow it,
and the power that shamans have,

- they can walk it.
- [Graham] Right.

But it's... it's fascinating
that it's in every single culture

that we can get information about
about the Milky Way.

[intriguing music ends]

[Graham] It reminds me of how the Apurinã
of Brazil view the Amazonian geoglyphs

as if they were sacred portals
to the afterlife.

- In the Amazon, it's still very alive.
- [Graham] Yeah.

Here in the Maya world,
it's still very much alive.

Yeah. So it's like there's
a remote common ancestor to this idea.

[Dr. Barnhart] I believe so.

I think that these core identity ideas
came over with the first people.

And that's why we find them
amongst so many cultures,

even though those cultures,
for example, in southern Chile

and the far north of North America,
are not in contact with one another.

They're still expressing the same ideas
because it's the same inheritance.

Absolutely. And I think
there's more than just the Milky Way.

There's a couple of different things
that are those core principles.

One of them is
that the Maya have a great love

of the concepts
of shamanism, transformation.

[Graham] Yeah.

[menacing music playing]

There's no doubt that Mayan culture
was a shamanistic culture.

I think that the idea
of the journey of the soul after death

results ultimately
from shamanistic experiences.

[menacing music continues]

Is it a coincidence
that many of the other Indigenous cultures

of the Americas,

and indeed many ancient cultures
all around the world,

preserved an almost identical vision
of the afterlife journey of the soul?

Or are we confronted here
by some underlying connection,

a powerful, all-pervading belief system

that was inherited
by many later civilizations

from a lost civilization of prehistory?

[menacing music builds]

[menacing music subsides]

[Keanu] The work that you've shared
has been very exciting.

And when we see
archaeological examples of...

of the knowledge of the sky and the stars,

as we look back on it,
I feel like it is older than we think.

Yeah.

And you connect this idea
to a shamanistic point of view.

[Graham] Yes, absolutely.

All shamanistic cultures
are very interested in the stars.

[mysterious music playing]

But at a certain point, that interest
in the stars can become a religion.

Can you dig a little bit into that for me?

Shamanism is a system
to investigate the mystery of death.

[music continues]

What happens to us when we die?

This notion that the soul leaves the body,
leaps up to the heavens.

It was about the journey
of the soul after death.

[Keanu] It seems like in our stories
and our own journey,

as we grow up, there's this fact of death.

There's the end.

Yeah. It's the essence of everything.

[splutters] It's a kind of
morbid subject to discuss,

but it's fundamental for all human beings.

We're all... we're all facing that moment.

Classically, it's described
as a driving force for our actions.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to die, so I will do something.

Yeah. And that's... that's exactly what
the shamanistic teachings are saying,

uh, is that we had better use
this opportunity of life well.

Yeah. I think that is the challenge
that's before us.

Because that idea
is found all around the world,

very... very specifically
the leap to the Milky Way.

I don't think
that could have happened by accident.

I think it's... I think it's something
that's been passed on

from an ancestor culture.

Yeah.

[intriguing music playing]

[Graham] But when was it passed on?

Just how far back can we trace
this shamanistic tradition

of measuring and tracking objects
in the heavens?

The answers just might lie
at one of the first places I visited

on my journey through the Americas,

deep in the Amazon rainforest
at the ancient site of Serra Do Paituna.

[intriguing music builds, ends]

[uptempo intriguing music playing]

The stone was used as a canvas,
uh, for extraordinary art,

and that art itself
needs to be deciphered.

It needs to be better understood.

[uptempo intriguing music builds, ends]

[Graham] In an attempt to do just that,

archaeologist Dr. Christopher Davis
became intrigued by

this prominent grid image full of symbols.

[intriguing music playing]

Now, talk to me about
what we're looking at here

and what you make of it.
What's your analysis of this?

It's the largest single painted image
at this site.

- There's 49 total boxes.
- [Graham] Yeah.

[Dr. Davis] One of the first difficulties
was trying to figure out

should we, you know, look at this

from the left to the right
or right to the left.

[Graham] It seems
the ancient painters left a clue.

[Dr. Davis] Here you can see
this snake image here.

That's fascinating.
So there is an image of a snake there.

[Dr. Davis] Right here in yellow.

Mmm. So almost having the snake there
is telling us how to read it.

Exactly. The pattern that pops out to me

is when this grid is read

in a sinusoidal pattern
starting at the bottom.

[Graham] In a sinusoidal pattern,

the boxes read up one column,
then down the next,

then up again, like that snake.

But to what end?

When he looked to the west,

Dr. Davis noticed a natural notch
in this rocky pillar nearby.

If you're standing right in front,
in the background to your right

there's a rock window that the sun,
as it passes over here and sets,

eventually it intersects that rock window.

So I believe that they were
possibly taking a tally of the sun.

[somber music playing]

[Graham] Dr. Davis calls this tally
a sunset capture tracker,

an ingenious way to record
the sun's movements over time,

one created more than 13,000 years ago
during the last Ice Age.

But how does it work?

I see X marks,
and I see single lines as well.

- These Xs, these are all together.
- [Graham] Yeah.

[Dr. Davis] And if you read
up and down this way,

eventually you get
all of these single lines together.

These single vertical lines go together,
and then you go back to the Xs.

These single vertical lines are the boxes

that I think coincide
with the sun capturing.

And that time is sometime around
what would've been the winter solstice.

- How clever can you get? That's amazing.
- [Dr. Davis chuckles]

[somber music builds, ends]

[Graham] It's not just the grid.

[intriguing music playing]

Dr. Davis believes that nearly all of
the prehistoric art here tracks the sun.

[Dr. Davis] There's a lot
of concentric circles and other images

that appear to be the sun.

And they specifically are pointed
to the winter solstice,

and they wrap all the way around
to the summer solstice.

[Graham] More art, facing due west,
marks the equinoxes.

So again, it shows
this almost obsessive focus

with the key moments of the solar year.

Yes, absolutely.

[Graham] What we have here may well be
the earliest evidence yet found

anywhere in the Americas

of humans keeping tallies
of celestial events.

[Graham] So in a way,
this whole thing is kind of a huge machine

for tracking the passage of time?

I believe so.
I believe it's like an almanac

that's written in pictures.

[intriguing music ends]

This speaks to a scientific mindset
amongst the artists themselves,

as though they're observing
particular incidents

and moments in the sky...

and getting to grips
with the science of time

and thus the ability to predict
what would happen

at particular dates in the future.

[intriguing music playing]

So it was a kind of scientific project
for them?

[Dr. Davis] Absolutely, yeah.

[Graham] The art itself
looks very shamanistic to me.

That's just my personal impression.

Do you think shamans were at work here?

[Dr. Davis] It's possible.

They carried several occupations,
scientists, doctors, all sorts of things.

[Graham] Yeah.

[Dr. Davis] They usually
do carry sacred knowledge,

things like the movement of the stars.

Do you see that spread widely
across the Americas?

[Dr. Davis] Yeah.

The knowledge of using astronomy
in this way is found throughout here.

So the Maya...

and other cultures seem to be using this.

In the American Southwest,
we had chiefs who were sun watchers.

So all of this lore
does seem to go back far in time...

- Yeah.
- ...uh, to some deep understanding

that had spread
throughout much of the Americas.

[Graham] This obsession with the heavens
is just one of many recurring themes

I've encountered again and again
all across the Americas...

[intriguing music playing]

...ideas that play a central role
in my 30-year quest

for a forgotten episode in human history.

[uptempo intriguing music playing]

The question is,
where did these ideas come from?

For me, these are indications
of a remote common source,

that these ideas have filtered down
through many different human cultures,

but the ideas themselves
have remained relatively intact.

Unless it's some just extraordinary,
unbelievable coincidence,

we are looking at a legacy
which has been handed down

from the remotest antiquity
and has been preserved

and passed on and developed

by multiple different cultures
all around the Americas.

[uptempo intriguing music ends]

[dramatic music playing]

[Graham] A legacy perhaps left
by a seafaring people

capable of crossing oceans
as wide as the Pacific

thousands of years before scholars
accept such voyages were possible.

A culture that understood how
to harness the power of plants

to create mind-enhancing visions

of geometric patterns
and encounters with fantastical beings,

visions of such great importance
they would become the basis of their art.

And a culture that shared its knowledge

of how to create
technologically-advanced structures,

whether built in stone

or made from the body
of the earth herself,

structures with great spiritual meaning,

designed to bind ground to sky,

celebrating the soul's journey
into the afterlife.

In fact, I would suggest these
common religious

and spiritual motifs
that are found all around the world

are amongst the best evidence
for a lost civilization of prehistory...

[music builds]

...that we're ever going to find.

Oh my God. We're taking on
every childhood misconception

of the story of... of the world.

[Graham] The story of the peopling
of the Americas is changing,

and I'll give credit to science for that.

It's scientific archaeology that is...
that is unveiling this new information.

What I'm saying is
that old ideas are being pushed aside.

It's very clear
that stuff just keeps on getting older.

What new evidence will come to light next?

[music intensifies]

[music ends]

[dramatic sting]

[closing theme playing]

[closing theme ends]