Original subtitles

Narrator: Just before the outbreak of World War II,

stunning examples of artwork

began emerging from the Mexican jungle.

Ramirez: Who was the enigmatic man portrayed here?

And when was it made?

Narrator: These colossal heads heralded discovery of a lost world.

We are talking a city.

That is enough for a city.

A major city.

Narrator: The treasures found here would change our understanding

of the origins of human culture in Mesoamerica.

Nothing like this had ever been found in the Americas before.

Narrator: These were the vestiges of an entire civilization that,

today, takes its place among the very oldest

found anywhere in the world.

♪♪

[ Ramirez speaking Spanish ]

Ramirez: Oh, it's wobbly.

Narrator: In Veracruz, Mexico, cultural historian Nina Ramirez

is following in the footsteps

of two of America’s greatest pre-war archeologists,

husband and wife team Matthew and Marion sterling.

And the Sterlings made the biggest find imaginable...

An entire ancient civilization called "the Olmec."

They built the very first pyramids, palaces,

and planned cities

for which Central America is now so famous.

♪♪

Over 3,000 years ago, the Olmec flourished here.

Some consider them the mother culture of Mesoamerica,

from which the Mayans and Aztecs later descended.

But when Matthew and Marion arrived here

at the end of the 1930s,

no one even knew the Olmec civilization ever existed.

It was all still hidden, waiting to be revealed.

The Sterlings were lured to Mexico

by an intriguing story of a 19th century workman

who'd uncovered a mysterious giant stone head

buried deep in the jungle.

If the stories were true,

if the colossal head was still there,

Matthew sterling was convinced that such an unusual sculpture

had to be part of a much larger archeological site...

And that it was well worth investigating further.

Narrator: And if there was a bigger discovery to be made,

Mathew sterling's credentials made him the man for the job.

By his late 20s, he was leading huge expeditions

to study remote tribes in Papua New Guinea,

rising to become chief of the Smithsonian bureau of ethnology.

16 years his junior, as a girl,

Marion was outgoing and adventurous.

When she got the opportunity to support sterling

in his ethnology work, she was intrigued.

And eventually, the two married.

The explorers shared numerous adventures all over the world.

But their trip to the Mexican village of Tres Zapotes

prove to yield the most thrilling find of their lives...

The rumored stone head.

The Sterlings undertook a grueling journey

based on hearsay,

but their gamble paid off, because what they uncovered

was unlike anything they'd seen before...

A single colossal stone head buried deep in the ground.

The Sterlings didn't know it yet,

but they'd taken the first step

in discovering the lost civilization of the Olmec.

♪♪

♪♪

Ramirez: And here he is...

A 6-foot high, 8-ton colossal head

carved from a single Boulder of volcanic basalt rock.

♪♪

Nothing like this had ever been found in the Americas before.

The nearest equivalent would be

the monumental figures of ancient Egypt.

But when the Sterlings excavated the head,

there was no torso attached.

Instead, it was sat on a foundation of unworked stone,

which suggests that, from its very inception,

it was intended as an intimidating, powerful portrait.

[ Thunder crashes ]

♪♪

Narrator: The dig was incredibly difficult

given Central America's tropical environment.

The team faced heavy rains, and flooding at the excavation site.

But their hard work proved worthwhile

when they saw what they had unearthed.

Ramirez: You really get a sense of the individual, here.

He's quite severe-looking.

He has this furrow in his brow, as if he's contemplating.

You've got this broad nose,

strong lips, and wide, chiseled jaw,

all framed by this helmet,

with the straps coming round, suggesting authority.

But who was the enigmatic man portrayed here?

What does he represent?

Who created this? And when was it made?

Narrator: The Sterlings were determined to make their Mark

by solving these mysteries, but there was little to go on

because the colossal stone head bore little resemblance

to the monuments of any known Mesoamerican cultures.

When the Spanish conquistadors first landed

on the coast of Mexico in 1519, they overthrew the Aztec empire

that had dominated the region for 200 years.

And before the Aztecs were the Mayans,

who reigned supreme from around 250 to 900 A.D.

But before the Tres Zapotes dig proved otherwise,

the archeological consensus in the 1930s

was that the Mayans were the oldest major civilization

to exist in Mesoamerica.

But what the Sterlings found next would change everything.

Matthew had realized

that the colossal head they had found

was in fact surrounded by a series

of mysterious mounds.

And so, the Sterlings quickly assembled

a large crew of local workers, and began to excavate.

Narrator: In the small Mexican village of Tres Zapotes,

Matthew and Marion sterling led an archeological expedition

that would change our understanding

of early Mesoamerican culture.

Their initial unearthing of the stone head was exciting,

but what they found next was a game-changer.

Ramirez: The discovery of this monument, Stela C, was,

I think, probably, the point at which the Sterlings

felt they had hit the jackpot.

This was so significant because it gave a date.

♪♪

What you can see in this central band, here,

are lines and dots that relate to the Mayan calendar,

known as the long-count calendar.

Each line and each dot creating a date, working backwards.

Now, Marion worked out that it gave a date of around 478 A.D.

This was significant.

It put it at the height of what was then thought

to be the earliest civilization in the Americas... the Mayans.

Narrator: To their dismay, the top half of the monument was broken off,

frustrating the sterling's attempts

to calculate an accurate date.

Matthew was convinced that he could make out

one more circle right here at the crack.

He went back, interrogated it again and again.

Is it there? Is it not?

It's really hard to make out.

And Marion had another go at calculating the date

with that circle taken into account.

The date she came up with?

31 B.C.

That made this stone the oldest dateable artwork

ever found in the Americas.

Narrator: The finding met this culture predated the Mayans,

and yet, it was sophisticated enough to use calendars.

It was evidence that a previously unknown

advanced culture existed here

at the same time that ancient Rome was becoming a superpower.

Time will tell that the date this Stela suggests...

31 B.C... Was, in fact, conservative.

The Olmec culture that this stone came out of

was significantly older.

Narrator: The Sterlings had opened a new chapter

in the story of the Americas.

Matthew: Tres Zapotes, our source of supplies and of labor

during the first two seasons of archeological work

here in the southern part of the state of Veracruz.

Discoveries made a year before have enticed us

to return to Tres Zapotes.

Narrator: Once Matthew realized

Tres Zapotes was a full settlement,

the project was scaled up.

Matthew: Here is the cross-section trench

that we make through one of the large mounds.

We dig down as deep as traces of human habitation can be found.

Our excavations are really cross-sections of history.

Narrator: Archeologists were desperate

to find further evidence of the people

who carved the head... And they were not disappointed.

[ Indistinct talking ]

Recovered pottery suggested that this culture

was clearly distinct,

not just an earlier iteration of the Mayans.

Matthew: A cache of pottery is our first find.

Let's try to get it out without injuring it,

and see what we have.

♪♪

Note the tubes on which the little jaguars stand.

They were evidently for axles,

which makes the little Jaguar archeologically thrilling,

for it has always been supposed that the use of the wheel

was unknown in aboriginal America.

Another fine example of free-hand modeling.

In fact, it's one of the best pieces

of early American ceramic art ever found.

Narrator: Even today, these artifacts

the Sterlings help dig out of the ground 80 years ago

engenders a sense of discovery.

Yet there were still many more questions

to be had than answers.

Taken together, the colossal head,

the early date on the stone calendar,

the very first evidence for the wheel in the Americas,

and much more,

what the Sterlings had uncovered so far was beginning to paint

a tantalizing picture of a full-blown civilization.

But they needed more proof.

Matthew: Off again, now, bound on the journey to the next site.

Narrator: The Sterlings decided to follow up on rumors

of other stone heads found west of their Tres Zapotes dig,

in a place called "la Venta."

It was an arduous trek that took them through dense jungle

and along rivers, under a scorching Mexican sun.

And it was a journey made on nothing more than hearsay.

Over a decade before the Sterlings' expeditions,

rumors of another giant stone head were reported at la Venta,

in the very heart of Mexico's swampy lowland jungles.

Matthew: They la Venta archeological site

is curiously located on a Sandy island

in the great coastal mangrove swamps,

footing it for two hours over swamp land

is the last stage of our trip to the spot

where we hope to find the big stone heads

of which we have heard exciting rumors.

Narrator: In fact, what the Sterlings would find at la Venta

would far exceed their expectations.

Narrator: During the archeological dig at la Venta,

Matthew and Marion sterling unearthed relics

beyond their wildest expectations.

And they provided an interesting clue

about the ancient civilization that once flourished here.

The Aztecs referred to the people

who lived in this region as "the Olmec."

The Sterlings' first forays into la Venta's dense jungle

revealed not just one,

but a staggering four, colossal heads.

Matthew: You never know, when you start one of these excavations,

what's going to be revealed,

and we begin to feel sure that, here at la Venta,

we have come upon the hiding place of a unique group

of early American heroic sculpture.

La Venta played a major role in characterizing the Olmec.

Narrator: But what the Sterlings found at la Venta

was just the beginning of something much, much bigger.

Dr. Rebecca Gonzalez Lauck was the first archeologist

to fully map the la Venta site,

picking up where the Sterlings left off.

This was full of education. It was virgin jungle.

At that time, the site was thought to be

just a little ceremonial site.

And they did not really think that it was... it was a city,

and that there were outlying sites all around it.

As we see it now, the estimates are

around 10,000 people that lived in this area.

So, we are talking a city. That is enough for a city.

A major city for that time period, yes.

♪♪

Narrator: A major city with monumental art.

Matthew: This head... it's the finest of the five colossal heads

we have unearthed.

The monument found at Tres Zapotes

was a colossal head.

But this one, from la Venta...

One of the first things they uncovered... is a work of art.

This is the iconography of power.

There's a quality to this sculpture that is timeless.

It has the proportions of an identifiable, realistic face.

Indeed, just its very nature...

A great big, monumental stone carving...

That in itself is a way of proving that the wildness,

the barbaric wilderness around the city, is kept at bay.

It's nature held at bay, nature under the control of man.

And when we look in this face,

we see someone who is in control.

Narrator: But in control of what, exactly?

When the Sterlings arrived here,

they would have had little or no idea.

Rebecca, what would this site have looked like

when it was at its heyday... Its height?

That is amazing.

Oh. So, both those ones we see in reproduction here

would have been in the Plaza?

Wow.

Narrator: La Venta can be seen as a blueprint

for the later Mesoamerican cities

of the Mayans and the Aztecs,

whose spectacular geometric pyramids

and vast plazas still survive today.

But many of these designs were first realized here, in Clay,

at la Venta... evidence that the lost Olmec civilization

was perhaps the mother culture of all Mesoamerica.

People thought, before the Mayan,

it was sort of, like, people lived in villages.

There were no cities. There was no hierarchy.

And so, when Matthew and Marion started finding huge sculptures,

there was a different perspective.

We now have proof that a vast, influential Olmec power center

was thriving here from around 900 to 400 B.C...

Hundreds of years earlier than even the Sterlings imagined.

For context, this was the same period

that saw ancient Greek civilization

taking shape in Europe.

Like the Greeks,

the Olmecs used art to project power.

And their artistry wasn't fully appreciated

until the dig at la Venta.

Matthew: At this point, our excavation reveals the largest stone head

which we are to find at Le Venta this season.

Ramirez: When Matthew sterling excavated his head,

he recorded finding a fragment right next to it

with a reddish-purple paint on the surface.

So many sculptures from the ancient world,

and also from the Olmecs, were brightly painted,

polychromatic.

Now, we just see the skeleton, the bones.

Narrator: But in a world without metal tools,

how did the Olmecs create these huge stone sculptures

in the first place?

The basalt rock from which the sculptures were carved

isn't found anywhere near the swamplands of la Venta.

But 90 miles away,

in the foothills of the Tuxtla mountains...

Although the Sterlings never made it here,

Dr. Alfredo Delgado

has identified it and uncovered the sites

of the long lost Olmec sculpture workshops.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

So, as they're sculpting the monuments,

these are the big fragments chopping off.

Amazing.

Narrator: And Alfredo's latest discovery

among these sweltering rocky outcrops

is an archeological first.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Uh-huh.

Ramirez: Wow.

I can't believe it.

It is ahead. It's amazing.

And now, the lost colossal head.

So, it had a natural fracture, which meant it wasn't suitable.

Narrator: The basalt rock that the Olmecs used is as hard as granite.

Experiments by modern sculptors using stone tools

show that each colossal head

could take 5 to 10 years to carve.

The fact that the Olmec's rulers

could afford to commission such works,

and found a way to transport them all the way to la Venta,

is evidence of their extraordinary wealth and power.

Some of these boulders are 20 tons.

How did they physically get the boulders to the cities?

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Ah.

Narrator: So, why go to such extraordinary lengths?

What made these monuments so important to the Olmec?

Narrator: In the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica,

it appears that art played a crucial role.

Olmec sculpture was a form of communication

in a civilization that has no writing.

And it's a way of transmitting ideas,

myths, knowledge, history, through the sculptures.

Narrator: One of Matthew and Marion's biggest and darkest discoveries

was how the Olmec united worldly and spiritual power

in their ceremonial monuments, giving an unsettling insight

into certain Olmec practices.

Matthew: The finest of our discovery...

Indeed, one of the finest examples of aboriginal American

sculpture ever found... Is this alter.

It's been carved as this three-dimensional sculpture

that you have to move around.

But its function is different, because this is an altar

for performing ritual sacrifice of children.

At the front, you can see a figure...

Possibly some sort of high priest...

Emerging out of what could be a cave.

The whole dynamism of this piece is amazing.

But it's what's in his hands that's most disturbing,

because he's presenting a dead baby.

Narrator: The Olmecs likely believed child sacrifices pleased their gods,

and brought good fortune to the city.

And the site would soon provide

evidence of other spiritual practices, too.

The Sterlings returned to la Venta in 1942,

to explore an enclosure to the north of the great pyramid.

They soon discovered strange rows of massive basalt columns

with the stones fitted closely together,

and deliberately packed with Clay.

Much to their surprise,

they had unearthed the oldest tomb ever found in Mesoamerica.

And as they continued to dig, they found a sarcophagus,

where ancient bones were laid in brilliant red cinnabar

alongside rare mirrors and masterpieces in Jade.

This was an extraordinary discovery,

and it provided a wealth of new information

about the complexity of Olmec society.

Ramirez: Buried alongside a host of precious objects.

She's only 8 centimeters high, carved out of Jade.

And then, the color that you can see, there,

that rich red... That's being produced

by rubbing cinnabar onto the surface.

But what makes this really distinctive

is what she's holding in her hands.

You can just see, there, a fragment of hematite,

a naturally reflective mineral.

Narrator: In fact, neither hematite, Jade, nor cinnabar

were found in the Olmec region.

Everything seen here had to be sourced from elsewhere.

So, they're trading to get hold of the luxury items

that allow them to gaze upon their own face.

The mirror is symbolic.

In a spiritual sense,

mirrors can be seen as a sort of portal

between the earthly and the spiritual realms.

The fact that this has been interred in a burial

suggests that it is, perhaps, acting as some way

of transporting the individual onto the afterlife.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: Compared to the enormous basalt monuments,

small-scale Jade figures offer a very different window

into the Olmec world.

Intentionally buried,

they reveal a complex culture of sacred rites and ceremonies.

This fascinating depiction of a ritual frozen in time

is displayed exactly as it was found.

Jade was the most precious commodity in the Olmec era...

Far more valuable than gold.

And stunning Jade masks

also played a major role in Olmec ceremonies.

[ Indistinct talking ]

At the Xalapa museum,

expert Dr. Sara Ladron de Guevara explains.

Sarah, what treasures have you brought out for me today?

These are the lovely masks of [indistinct].

Some are kind of eroded.

But this one looks brand-new, doesn't it?

It does.

It's beautiful.

Jade, or Jade-dyed.

And Mesoamericans loved green stones.

And that was a very important thing that Olmecs started.

And it seems like everything was started

by the Olmecs in Mesoamerica.

You can see that these masks can fit a face.

There are holes for the eyes to see.

And there are holes for the nose to breathe.

They could even speak.

So, it's a useable mask.

Am I allowed to touch it?

- Sure. - Oh, how wonderful.

I will be extremely careful.

It's heavy.

It's heavy because it's very hard stone.

And what we have here are,

to me, it looks like four maize cobs?

- Yes. - Very lightly carved

on the surface of the Jade.

Maize is a sacred thing.

There's a god of maize in later times,

but it has the beginning in Olmec times.

Narrator: Part of the Olmec's strength depended on

cultivating enough maize to feed the large population.

So, the importance of rituals ensuring a good harvest

would have been Paramount.

One thing that is very interesting about the masks

is that, offering 4 from la Venta,

I noticed at least two of those figurines are wearing masks.

We have the archeological evidence

that masks were used in ceremonies.

Narrator: It's possible this very mask

was used in some sort of harvest ritual.

But the Olmec didn't confine their sculpting skills

to large lumps of rock and precious stone like Jade.

We now know they were also accomplished woodcarvers,

thanks to what must be one of the most unlikely

archeological discoveries of recent years...

A set of mysterious offerings made to a sacred mountain.

Narrator: The Olmecs have proven they were accomplished sculptors

of giant boulders and precious stone.

Yet a mysterious archeological find on a sacred mountain

has revealed that they mastered yet another artistic medium...

Wood.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Preserved wooden objects are incredibly rare

in Mexican archeology.

Poc Ortiz was part of the team that first excavated

these momentous wooden heads.

That wood's over 3,000 years old.

Artifacts that represented an entirely new era of Olmec art.

Ramirez: These are really old.

What date are they?

Unique conditions at the site of El Manati,

where the heads were found,

ensured the unlikely survival of these sculptures.

Constant flooding from freshwater Springs

prevented bacteria from destroying the wood.

But they were still incredibly fragile.

It's interesting, too, I can see some paint,

some color.

Around it.

What does it tell us about this really early phase

of Olmec civilization?

These ancient wooden busts were found over 100 miles

to the west of la Venta,

and just 10 miles south of the last,

and most important, discoveries in Mexico

made by Matthew and Marion sterling.

In 1945, just as the Sterlings

were about to fly out of Mexico after another season,

Marion received a letter from a friend.

She mentioned reports of a hunter

who had ventured deep into a remote part of the jungle,

and claimed to have seen stone carvings

similar to the one at la Venta.

The prospect of one last trek

into uncharted backcountry was irresistible,

and the Sterlings soon embarked on their final,

most grueling, jungle journey to date.

At times, they became lost and disoriented,

and even when back on track, were completely unaware

that they were heading towards the very first

major Olmec settlement... San Lorenzo.

And this is what, or rather who, they found.

Let me introduce you to El Rey... the king.

He's 9 1/2 feet high, and weighs in at over 30 tons.

♪♪

But El Rey isn't just impressive for his size.

He's also one of the most beautifully executed

of the colossal heads,

'cause see these gorgeous details like the line

that's drawn around the lips,

just giving that extra sense of dimension and definition.

And then, there's this wonderfully defined

headdress, as well, where you can see

the individual plumes going over the top.

Indeed, the headdress is interesting

because you can see this concrete section at the front.

When it was discovered, El Rey was flat on his back in a ditch,

and that part was broken off.

The starlings' team reattached it.

But there's other evidence of damage, too.

So, there are drill holes above the nose, under the eye,

and there are x marks on the side.

Matthew speculated that this damage could have been done

by marauding conquerors

trying to break up this evidence of an ancient civilization.

♪♪

Narrator: Including El Rey, Matthew and Marion

helped find five more colossal heads at San Lorenzo,

and since the Sterlings' retirement,

another five have also been unearthed.

The Sterlings' discovery of this new site of San Lorenzo

pushed the birth of civilization in Mesoamerica

back yet again, to over 3,000 years ago.

The scale and riches of the site

left a new generation of archeologists

with the exciting task

of unraveling the beginnings of the Olmecs.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

San Lorenzo is before la Venta.

It's the first city.

Narrator: The latest excavations also revealed

an unprecedented construction...

Mesoamerica's very first palace.

But ongoing excavations are backfilled to protect them,

so envisioning what lies below the ground

requires some imagination.

In fact, deeper excavations suggest the 10 colossal heads

of San Lorenzo

may once have formed two intimidating processional lines

leading up towards the red palace.

Understanding the true meaning of Olmec art and culture

has long been frustrated

by their apparent lack of a writing system,

but a recently discovered object may provide the key

to unlocking the secrets of the Olmec.

The world of the Olmecs continues to throw up surprises.

I'm lucky to be able to share with you a recent discovery.

It was only found in 1999.

The reason it's so significant is, all over this surface,

there are incised symbols.

These symbols are not random.

They seem to be forming patterns...

Patterns that suggest a writing system.

And if the date is right,

this is the oldest written material in the Americas,

and indeed, the oldest written material

in the western hemisphere.

And the symbols all relate to things

that were significant within Olmec culture.

So, the ones we can make out relate to the maize,

or the pineapple, or animal skins,

we've even got a symbol that looks like a perforated,

sort of pointed knife that could have been used

in rituals, or indeed, in sacrifices.

The Olmecs are the first to everything.

And then, it all seems to end.

Why? What happened to them?

So, they don't really die.

They move, and become something else.

I like that thought.

Narrator: We still know little about the Olmecs

compared to the Mayans and Aztecs who came after.

The sites first explored by the Sterlings

are nowhere near fully excavated.

But in rediscovering this extraordinary lost civilization,

Matthew and Marion gave us an incredible head start.

Matthew: Those long dead artists are having a new day of glory.

The Sterlings' final excavations in Mexico

inadvertently brought to life the birthplace,

the crucible, of Olmec civilization.

While ancient Egypt is flourishing,

while cities are going up in Mesopotamia,

there's now evidence that, across the ocean,

disconnected from those cultures,

another civilization is emerging.

And it's a civilization of pioneers,

of groundbreakers, of firsts.

I think it's fitting that the people

who discovered this civilization

were also pioneers... Pioneers in archeology.

And what they uncovered has redrawn our understanding

of world civilizations.