All language subtitles for Jungle Mystery Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon Series 1 Part 2 1080p

This is the Amazon rainforest.

It's breathtaking.

So many people think of the Amazon
as this vast natural oasis.

Truly wild, unchanged forever...

...dotted with a few isolated tribes.

But it's a complete myth.

See, a monumental mystery is
unfolding out here,

with new evidence of vast societies
that thrived along these banks,

and stretched right across
the continent

where now there's nothing but dense
rain forest.

I want to get to the bottom of
this mystery

and find out for myself the real
history of the Amazon.

I'm Ella Al-Shamahi.

I'm an explorer and archaeologist
in some of the world's most

dangerous and remote regions.

I'll be travelling through
the Amazon's conflict zones.

In search of a lost, ancient world.

There's handprints.

There's actual handprints.

I'm seeing how new technology is
looking beneath the jungle

uncovering vast, hidden settlements

and revealing the remains of entire
civilisations of millions of people.

It's going to raise a whole pile
of questions.

Who were these people?

And when did they live here?

Where did they come from?

And perhaps most important of all,
what on earth happened to them?

It's the second leg of my
Amazonian Adventure.

And I've arrived

in Colombia.

Ella. Nice to meet you.

Hi, Ella, it's a pleasure.

Welcome to San Jose del Guaviare.

I'm on an epic mission

to discover the hidden secrets of
the ancient Amazon.

On my journey so far,

I've seen how new technology

is revealing
long-lost civilisations

that once thrived in the
dense rainforest.

There were people living here
hundreds of years ago.

This is real
archaeological discovery.

Until contact with Europeans
around 500 years ago...

...completely wiped them off the map.

Now, I'm reaching much
further back in time,

to discover how those great
civilisations first came to be.

Here in Colombia, one spectacular
discovery holds clues

to the very first people to inhabit
the Amazon.

But this region is dangerous,
and without my local guide Oliver,

getting in with cameras would be
just about impossible.

Are we OK to have cameras?

If they tell us to turn off the
camera, we will do that, obviously.

Do all cars get called over?

Not all, but some do.

Do you have your passports with you?

Everything all right?
Yeah, all good.

We can keep on.

What exactly is the sensitivity?

The whole region has been affected
by the 50 years civil war,

so, they still are checking people
for arms, for example.

And this is a civil war with FARC?

It's with the FARC, Yeah.

War raged between FARC guerrillas
and the Colombian government

for 50 years

at a cost of more than
200,000 lives.

But now, an uneasy truce has
been agreed.

How's the peace agreement working
out in this particular area?

There are still some groups,
active groups.

So, that means the peace agreement
is failing, basically.

I'm venturing into territory still
run by ex-FARC militia.

Because the jungles of Colombia are
home to one of the most

incredible finds ever made in
the Amazon.

If we can actually get there.

We are going there right now with
the permission of the FARC.

Yeah.

And that's essentially what's
protecting us and keeping us safe.

It's like a rebel visa, isn't it?

A rebel visa?

Yeah, we've basically got a visa
from a bunch of rebels.

After nearly three hours,
we arrive at a remote village,

that will be my base for the next
couple of days.

The locals are very nervous about
the possibility of officials

coming to snoop.

So I let Oliver try to convince them
that we're OK.

So, I'm not completely clear on
what's going on.

They're having a really big
elongated discussion right now

about permissions.

Everybody keeps saying problem,
problem, problem,

I'm like, clearly there's a problem.

There's so much distrust.

So, what's the situation?

Well, the situation is basically
they do have some doubts.

So, they are not, like,
really happy.

But negotiating, we got the access.

Good. All right.

Phew.

Hey! Ella.

You're smiling! How are you doing?

Good.

Joining me is British archaeologist
Mark Robinson who's spent

two seasons working here.

Ready to see something spectacular?

Yes, yes.

Backpacks on, we head out from
the village.

Mark believes this huge rocky
outcrop was a special place

for ancient people.

It's incredible.

Isn't it just?

A good place for me to look
for clues.

You can just imagine if you were
a pre-Columbian Amazonian,

just kind of, 00f.

You'd see that and it's something,
isn't it?

It looks a bit like the Mecca of
the region.

It, kind of, draws you in.

War with the FARC has meant this
place has been off limits

for decades.

Following the peace treaty,
Mark was among the very first

archaeologists allowed back in to
explore it.

That is something.

I'm trying not to swear.

That is incredible.

This is the prehistoric
Sistine Chapel.

Everywhere I look, there are
crazy geometric patterns,

animals,

birds

and plants.

I mean there's so many,

it's kind of overwhelming,
there's just so much.

Those are humans up there.

The paintings are like
a distant diary

depicting the lives
these early Amazonians lived.

We're seeing themes,
we're seeing style to this.

This is not an individual,
we're talking about groups,

group consciousness and group
culture as it starts to develop

and how they depict the world
around them.

So, we start to really get an idea
of who these people are.

There's handprints.

There's actual handprints.

Some person stood here

and put their hand
on that bit of wall.

It's absolutely profound to think
that that handprint

may be a handprint of the
first people

to have made it to the Amazon.

Experts believe the first people
reached the Americas

between 15 and 25,000 years ago,

crossing a land bridge that, then,
joined Siberia to Alaska.

Migration continued south over
thousands of years,

finally passing through
the narrow gap of central America

and into the Amazon.

Those first people could have come
through here,

right where I'm standing.

But just how old are the
rock paintings?

Is there any way of knowing whether
they could have been painted

by some of those very
first Amazonians?

There are a number of different
techniques in archaeology

that can be used to date things,

are any of them going to be of any
use for this wall?

The one that most people know is
carbon dating.

But, the biggest problem in this,
there's no carbon involved.

We're looking at ochre on the walls,
so, that's a real problem for us.

But I'm far from finished here.

Because it turns out that there's
much more to explore.

Last year, Mark and his colleagues

discovered 16 more walls of
ancient drawings

all completely unknown to science.

And tomorrow, I'm going to be
one of the first archaeologists

ever to explore them.

It's morning.

And I'm back on the trail of the
first Amazonians.

Oh, my God.

It tastes amazing.

The art I saw yesterday was one of
the most breathtaking things

I have ever seen as
an archaeologist.

But it turns out it's just the tip
of the iceberg.

This is the rock face we need
to scale.

Because in this remote part of the
Colombian Amazon,

Mark has located another 16 walls,

all covered with more
ancient paintings.

This better be bloody worth it.

Mark has only ever been here
once before.

Let's check the GPS.

So, the point we had from last
year is just up here,

it looks like it's just
through the bush here.

We are getting close.

There we go.

And this is it.

As you can see, we've got a
beautiful bowl.

Oh, my God.

There's, there's rock art all the
way back here,

I've just walked past a turtle,
there's all kinds,

it just, it seems to circumvent
right around this rock face.

Mark's colleagues have started
making 3D scans of the walls,

so archaeologists will be able to
analyse every single detail

of these drawings without having to
trek through the jungle.

But it'll take time
because, incredibly,

Mark estimates there could be more
than 100,000 paintings

on this remote outcrop.

It's possibly the greatest cache of
ancient rock art in the Americas.

To think that I have the absolute
privilege and honour

of being in the very, very first few
scientists, of archaeologists

to see this.

It's just mad.

What we're looking at here is
undescribed to the world,

it's undescribed to science.

How cool is that?

Compared to yesterday's site,

some of these drawings look simpler,

perhaps even older.

Come have a look at this one here.

And Mark has discovered a clue that
could help us work out

just how early they might be.

The little image right here,

it looks like an animal, there's
an animal head here

and a large body,

and that shape of the head, as well,
it's quite distinctive.

And particularly distinctive is
this long

trunk coming off the front.

This is a mastodon.

A prehistoric relative of
today's elephants.

But mastodons haven't roamed South
America for at least 12,000 years.

The people who once lived here,
must have lived alongside them.

Clearly there's an overlap between
people and these mega herbivores.

It tells us that this artwork was
drawn at that time period.

So, this is a great
chronological marker

that these were some of the
earliest people.

That's absolutely insane.

I think so many people when they
think about archaeology and dating,

they always think about
traditional dating methods

like carbon dating and all the rest
of it.

But actually, sometimes
there's something

right in front of your face, which
is an animal on some rock art

that went extinct at a certain
point, and it's on this wall.

Unseen by outsiders for
12,000 years,

Mark is now identifying more extinct
species on the walls.

A giant sloth...

...and another completely
unexpected animal.

That is so clearly a horse, right?

One of the interesting aspects
with this horse is the head shape.

This head shape, OK, it's quite a
crude representation -

but that's a head shape we expect of
one of the earliest horses.

Horses are native to the Americas,

but they went extinct from
South America around 13,000 years.

That is amazing.

Living alongside horses, sloths and
giant mastodons,

it's clear that the Amazon these
earliest people knew

was a mix of forest and
open savannah.

Very different from the Amazon we
see today.

To think that some of the earliest
inhabitants of the Amazon were

here painting when importantly,

the Amazon did not look like the
Amazon rainforest of today.

It's absolutely goosebump-inducing.

It's, just, it's insane.

Leaving Colombia, I'm heading south,

back over the jungles of the
Brazilian rainforest.

Across the Amazon today, there are
at least 400 indigenous groups.

Including about 100 that remain
totally uncontacted.

All are genetically related.

Direct descendants of those very
first hunters,

maybe even those who left their
rock art

over 12,000 years ago.

But just a few groups are
startlingly different,

with incredible genetic secrets
that are challenging everything

we thought we knew about how the
Amazon was first occupied.

One of them is a Brazilian
indigenous group called the Surui.

And I'm going to meet them.

But like so many others,

they've been seriously affected by
contact with the outside world.

When you look out the window,

there's so many roads, and the roads
bring with them

a lot of problems.

So, actually, for the Surui,

it was actually a road, a big
highway that was put in in 1969,

that was when 90% of
their population

were completely decimated.

Think about that.

That's 90% of their population

being decimated because a road was
put in

that brought in outsiders with,

basically, diseases that they didn't
have immunities for.

So, basically, this whole area used
to be indigenous territory?

Yeah, the whole state was
virgin rainforest.

My new Brazilian guide Flavio is
taking me to meet the Surui...

...who now live on a small
reservation.

Right, so, I guess this is
the village.

Yeah.

Oi.

So nice to meet you.

I'm actually quite nervous meeting
Chief Almir Surui.

Thank you, thank you for coming out.

So is this?

Ah, your brother.

Hi. Ella, Ella.

Because in the past,

the Surui have not been treated
well by scientists like me.

Since the late 1980s,
researchers have taken samples

of indigenous blood as a matter
of course.

A violation that's been repeated
numerous times over the decades,

and that the Surui strongly resent.

Hi.

Hi.

Can I ask when and how was your
blood taken?

Did you ever hear from them again?

Did you ever get any results
from them?

Weitag Surui's blood was taken
in the 1990s,

to be shared and possibly sold,

along with other Surui samples,

without any permission,

to scientists, including those
researching ancestral DNA.

They were never told why.

Or given any results.

I'm sad that you were
disrespected like that,

I'm really sorry about that.

That shouldn't have happened.

Incredibly, no-one has ever even
told the Surui

that their blood samples have opened
up a massive mystery.

I want to try to explain that what
scientists have discovered

in their DNA is simply astonishing.

But finding a way to communicate
genetics to them

isn't going to be easy.

And I'm pretty nervous about how
they might react when I try.

I genuinely have no idea how this is
going to go.

I am so stressed.

On top of everything,

I feel a huge weight of
responsibility for all

my fellow scientists.

I am terrified.

Because the discoveries are turning
our assumption about the first

Amazonians completely on its head.

Let's see if I do it this way.

OK.

How many of you are really
familiar with this map?

There's something really interesting
about yourselves, actually -

the Surui.

It turns out that you,

unlike most other indigenous groups
in South America,

you share some DNA, some ancestry,

with people...

...in Australia.

I'm trying to communicate
a scientific bombshell...

...that the Surui have some
ancient ancestors,

that almost no other
indigenous Amazonians share.

The question is, how is there a
relationship between here and here?

You guys are one of the few
indigenous groups that have it.

Most scientists believe that
every indigenous group

in the Amazon can trace their roots
back to one ancestral population,

which reached South America
at least 15,000 years ago.

But their DNA reveals the Surui
are one of just three indigenous

groups in the whole of the
Americas who are partly

descended from another, completely
different ancestor that they

share with indigenous Australasians.

It means that you're very unique,
it means there's something

really interesting going on with
you and there's a sign

of ancestry in you that really is
very unique and very special.

We still don't know how or exactly

when the Surui's mysterious
ancestors got here.

THEY SPEAK IN SURUI

But my attempt at explaining some
science has unexpectedly set off

a discussion about their own origin
myths.

It's incredible to hear
the Surui's own

mythology about their ancient past.

And I feel I've done my
best to explain why

we scientists think
they're so special.

So this has been a completely
profound experience actually.

We, the outside world, have to
give them so much more respect,

and we, scientists, also have to
give them so much more respect.

And help, because if we let

the loggers and the miners win,

we will have lost
one of the most fascinating

pieces of the jigsaw puzzle
when it comes to Amazonian history.

One of the most ancient people,

and it would be just absolutely
devastating.

THUNDER CLAPS

My hunt for the origins
of the people of the Amazon

has taken me deep into prehistory.

I've found new evidence about
the very early pioneers

who migrated here at least
15,000 years ago.

And I've met indigenous people
with an ancient secret in their DNA.

But how did the first Amazonians go
on to forge the great civilisations

that I've found existed centuries
before the first Europeans arrived?

The first question is

when did groups of nomadic
hunter-gatherers

first begin to
settle and build homes?

There are clues in the far
west of the Amazon, in Bolivia.

Here, Earth scientist
Umberto Lombardo has been

searching for evidence of
prehistoric Amazonian settlements.

He's finding evidence in the most
unlikely of places -

an ancient rubbish tip
of discarded snail shells.

This is hard, it's hard like rock.

But it is not a rock.

We know in this area there
are no rocks.

This is a huge flood plain,
and all the sediments are very fine.

It looks like a rock because it is
full of shells, snail shells.

You see all the shells
are fragmented and cemented,

all together and this
is actually an apple snail.

Here, we have one,
this is a small one.

The oldest shells here have been
dated to 10,000 years ago,

when they would have been a major
part of the diet for the people

who lived here in what was a
difficult and dangerous environment.

These are the Bolivian flood plains.

In the summer months, this
part of the Amazon bakes

under a relentless sun.

But in the wet season, it becomes
a very different place.

The landscape is so flat, and it
rains so much, that it is very

difficult for the water to
drain to the rivers.

So when the rainy season starts,

about 80,000 square km
of this area get flooded.

But over centuries, the snail
shells discarded by these first

inhabitants created
something incredible.

Forest islands that became a safe
haven from the flood waters.

Umberto believes that as food

and domestic waste gradually
built up above the floods...

...trees grew on the
drier, enriched ground,

giving shade from the scorching sun.

Each mound became an oasis of
shelter in the vast, hostile plains.

Rather than moving around,
the people of the Amazon were

settling down, forming the first
permanent settlements in the region.

And, amazingly...

...Umberto has even unearthed
the remains of the very people

who once lived here.

The skulls are very deformed,
squashed like this,

because of the weight
of the sediments on top of them.

And from the radio-carbon age
we could get from these remains,

we know they are 6,000 years old

and they are among the oldest
skeletons from Amazonia.

From the nomadic migrants
of 15,000 years ago,

I've discovered the first
evidence of people who settled

and built homes around
5,000 years later.

But what happened next?

To find out, I'm teaming up again
with Bolivian archaeologist

Carla Beta ncourt.

And you can see this black layer?

Yeah.

I've already seen how Carla's
recent excavations in Bolivia

are revealing a sophisticated
society that flourished

well over 1,000 years ago.

Now she's contacted me
about a new find,

a 1500-year-old skeleton,

which Carla hopes
might contain clues

to how Amazonians from
that era lived.

The thing with skulls it that
they are actually quite light

and this one feels like a rock,
and the reason why

it feels like a rock is that it's
clearly still covered in dirt.

Carla and I are coming to a nearby
lab to see what secrets this

new find might contain.

Hi, Ella, nice to meet you.

This is the moment of truth.

It's like unwrapping a
Christmas present out here.

A really careful operation.

Ah look at this. Oh, that's great,

Oh, that's great.

As you can see, there's
clearly an eye socket,

there's another eye socket here,
you've got the nose.

But you can see the detail,
can't you, Carla?

You can see the teeth. Yeah, yeah.

As a palaeoanthropologist, I'm
used to studying human remains.

But this is my very first
ancient Amazonian.

The teeth of Carla's skull might
contain clues to how

this ancient Amazonian lived.

We've got to be careful cos that
might just dislodge the whole tooth.

There we go, it's coming out.
Perfect.

The enamel, that tooth is
really, really worn down

through something it's eaten,
through some kind of wear.

Let' do it.

But the best way to analyse
this skull...

...is by scanning it with 21st
century medical technology.

No"

Oh, wow!

It's cleaned up all the dirt,
essentially, it's...

You can just see the bone.

That is so cool.

The teeth... Look at how clean they
are finally.

This is why people get so
excited about CT scans

because if we were cleaning this up,

we would have had to be really
delicate, take it to a lab.

It would have taken time, we may
have damaged it in the process.

This is brilliant.

Thank you so much. This is so good

Our examination reveals tooth
wear consistent with eating

a grain like maize.

It is really cool to think that
that skull has been in the ground

for a thousand years and now it's
been brought back to life.

It is so unusual to find
human remains in the Amazon,

and I'm basically beside myself
that we got to CT scan one of them

and, you know, it wasn't the best
preserved human remains,

it was crushed,
it was covered in earth,

and yet, you saw what
that CT scan did.

That's pretty awesome.

The people Carla is excavating, were
not only settled they were farmers.

A crucial step in forging
a civilisation.

But there is still one great
mystery to be solved.

The Amazon rainforest is
a hostile place.

And despite appearances,
its soils are poor,

and unable to sustain agriculture.

So how on earth did ancient
people tame it, and sustain

a population that experts now
estimate was in the millions?

I've discovered that by the time
Europeans arrived in the Amazon

almost 500 years ago,

great civilisations were thriving.

But how could they grow enough food
to sustain themselves?

Ecologist Carolina Levis
and botanist Mariana Cassino

are investigating the mystery,

looking for clues in a small,
self-sufficient village.

The natural soils of the Amazon
are a light-coloured clay.

But this village was
built on something very different.

We can see these big
layers of a darker soil.

The soil in some parts
are really dark,

full of ceramics
and full of charcoal.

When we find this soil
with a lot of ceramics,

we know that they were
created by human activities.

Ancient people who once lived here
transformed the natural soil,

and it's still
fertile 2,000 years later.

Now we are finding these black earth
soils created by humans

in many, many places of the Amazon.

Scientists have now identified more
than a thousand sites in the Amazon

with this magical secret -

charcoal-rich, highly fertile
black earth.

Within this dense forest
there were once fields,

growing crops like maize and manioc.

But it wasn't just cleared areas
that were tended.

Beyond the village, Mariana
and Carolina are discovering

that ancient people
even tamed the forest...

...turning swathes of jungle

into giant gardens

planted with everything
the people here needed to thrive.

Look at that, a big brazil nut tree.
Yeah.

Here in this place,
we have a huge diversity of plants,

plants used for construction,
food, medicinal.

Carolina and Mariana are convinced

that high concentrations
of certain trees growing today

can only be explained by centuries
of forest management,

with ancient traditions that have
been passed down into living memory.

For hundreds or even
thousands of years,

the peoples of the Amazon
tended the forests,

encouraging rich orchards to grow
amongst the trees of the rainforest.

With the collapse of these great
civilisations

after the first Europeans arrived,

the gardens and orchards
were overgrown,

disappearing into the jungle.

Everywhere I go, I'm meeting
indigenous people

whose lives are changing with the
times...

...but who still live more or less
sustainably within the forest,

often fighting to keep their
ancient traditions alive.

The Huachiperi people's story

echoes that of indigenous
groups all over the Amazon.

Hola!

Buenos dias.

Como esta, senorita?
Very well, thank you.

What kind of fish is this?

You know, where I come from,
we think that these eat humans.

No, no, no, she's having none of
this.

Hi! This is one hell of an outfit.

Billy wants his arrow
for the traditional dance

and he can't find it.

Even without his arrow, Billy's not
going to miss this dance...

MAN SINGS

...a tradition handed down
over generations.

But like so many indigenous groups,

the Huachiperi have been
decimated by disease, in their case

an epidemic of smallpox
brought by outsiders in the 1940s.

Like peoples all over the Amazon,

their forest was cleared by loggers,

the land turned over to cattle
ranching.

And in the 1960s, they were moved
onto two small reservations.

Once, there were around 30,000
Huachiperi.

Now, just a handful remain,
like Edi Dariquebe.

MAN SINGS TO DRUMBEAT

You see, this might just look like

what you'd see in a school assembly
somewhere,

and I'm sure that's part of it
but if you notice, they're all kids

and there's maybe a few dozen people
left in the whole world

that speak this language and
so really,

this is also a way of keeping the
traditions and the language alive.

More than 13,000 years
of continuous history...

"from rock art to settlements,
farming and civilisation.

Right across the Amazon,
indigenous people are struggling

as their world literally
disappears around them.

On my journey, everywhere I go, I'm
seeing the Amazon being destroyed...

Oh, my gosh.

You can see this, right?

...as modern demands for food
lead to agricultural methods

that are having a devastating
effect for all of us.

Oh, this is depressing.

They are
basically cremating the Amazon.

So they have slashed the most
important trees

and the idea is, they burn
everything,

they let the grass regrow

and instead of there being
lots of shrubs and trees,

you're left with pasture land.

And the cattle come in
and after a few seasons,

the nutrients here are going to
be pretty terrible

and so the grasses only grow for so
long,

so they need to do the exact same
thing

to another bit of the rainforest,

and they just keep going and keep
going.

And before we know it, that
rainforest will be gone.

Like, I've read about this
theoretically in the papers,

but being here is just so,

it's so goddamn uncomfortable, to be
honest with you.

20% of the entire Amazon rainforest
has been destroyed,

and deforestation is
rising at an alarming rate.

It's a global catastrophe...

It looks like Armageddon.

...and a disaster for the Amazon's
indigenous inhabitants.

Next time...

I'll be getting to grips

with the challenges the indigenous
people of the Amazon face today.

I meet surviving communities being
pushed to the edge of the forest

and the people
who are fighting back...

...to keep 15,000 years of unbroken
heritage alive.

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