Original subtitles

♪♪

narrator: A horrific discovery is retrieved

from the bowels of a frozen peak in the andes.

Rose: Why are these children buried so high up on a mountain?

What on earth could they possibly be doing up here?

All the signs point to these children being selected

and groomed for some very special purpose.

Narrator: Debris from a passenger plane found

buried in a glacier in the french alps

raises new suspicions.

Clarke: If the crash had, in fact,

been an act of sabotage, you have to ask,

"how did they do it?"

was there a bomb onboard?

Rose: What are classified documents

doing amongst the debris of a passenger plane crash?

Narrator: And strange towers of ice

in the middle of a subzero desert.

Irving: It's really confusing. To make ice, you need water.

So how did all this ice end up in a desert?

Narrator: These are the strangest mysteries,

trapped in the coldest places.

Lost relics,

forgotten treasures,

dark secrets,

locked in their icy tombs for ages.

But now as ice melts around the world,

their stories will finally be exposed.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

[ wind whistling ]

♪♪

♪♪

high in the argentinean andes, amidst the icy peaks,

archeologists find a site that leads to a ghastly discovery.

♪♪

irving: When most people picture the andes,

they think of peru or machu picchu,

but there are also

the snow-covered mountains of argentina.

They tower over the atacama desert,

one of the driest places on the planet.

Rose: This mountain is over 20,000 feet in elevation.

♪♪

and it's home to the highest archeological site in the world.

Narrator: Archeologists braved several days of driving winds

and freezing temperatures

to reach the summit of llullaillaco

before they could begin excavations of three burials

lying under 5 feet of rock and earth.

One of the burial platforms had been placed

in a naturally formed hole in bedrock so narrow

that the archeologists were forced to lower a man

by hand into the pit to retrieve its contents --

the body of a young girl.

It's a disturbing sight.

Narrator: It appears as if these bodies are all children,

three of them, which had been mummified by the cold.

Rose: Why are these children buried so high up on a mountain?

What on earth could they possibly be doing up here?

Narrator: It's an unsettling discovery,

even for this group of seasoned archeologists,

and they're compelled to find out what happened to them.

♪♪

the tombs date back to the inca empire.

The incas were a sophisticated and powerful civilization

that ruled over a large portion of south america

from 1438 to 1533 a.D.

From what we know of inca traditions,

people were buried where they lived,

not on top of a mountain.

This isn't a settlement,

and there's no larger burial site up here.

It's just these three bodies.

Narrator: Due to the extremely cold, arid environment,

their bodies froze before they dehydrated,

so the organs never shriveled and desiccation never occurred.

This resulted in making them

the most well-preserved mummies ever found.

♪♪

scientists begin analyzing the bodies

and quickly determine their ages.

The smaller children,

a boy and a girl, are both around 4 or 5.

The older girl is around 13, and they discover

that she was likely suffering from tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is highly contagious and deadly.

Putting infected people high on a mountain

would be an effective method

of preventing the spread of disease.

Maybe this was their way of stopping an epidemic.

Narrator: But when scientists examined the remains

of the two other children,

they showed no signs of the disease.

Maybe the other two were siblings of the sick child

and quarantined as a precaution.

Narrator: But it just doesn't make sense.

There had to be other places to isolate sick people

that weren't so hard to reach.

This was a sophisticated civilization.

♪♪

archeologists analyze their clothing and conclude

that these children were members of a high social class.

When the spanish invaded in 1532,

they were known to capture important members

of the inca nobility and hold them ransom as a means

to exert influence over the entire society.

Could these children have been taken hostage?

Rose: The young boy was found tied up,

which could be evidence of a kidnapping.

And the high elevation would have allowed them to spot

any rescue force coming from a distance.

Billson: Maybe these were hostages who were eliminated

when nobles didn't cooperate

or when they weren't needed anymore.

Narrator: But why would they go to all this trouble

to bury disposable hostages on the top of the mountain?

And that's not the biggest problem with this theory.

Scientists perform radiocarbon testing on the mummies

to determine their age.

Irving: Examinations of the remains suggest

that the bodies are, at the very least, 500 years old.

Rose: The spanish didn't arrive in the area until 1532.

These mummies were buried decades before that.

So these children probably weren't political hostages.

♪♪

narrator: More research into the bodies

offers yet another surprising discovery.

Tests show that each of the children

had high levels of alcohol

and coca in their system at the time of death.

The fact, the older girl had a chunk of it lodged

in between her teeth and her cheek.

These intoxicants were used by inca of all ages.

The alcohol was a corn-based spirit known as chicha,

and coca leaves were known to alleviate altitude sickness.

Narrator: Could the alcohol and coca provide a clue

to what led these children to die high up in the mountains?

♪♪

♪♪

narrator: Three frozen mummies of inca children

are discovered on top of a mountain in the andes.

Their bodies reveal that they were given

a large amount of alcohol and coca prior to their deaths.

Do these intoxicants give us

any clues into the cause of the children's death?

By modern western standards, it sounds disturbing,

but the incas viewed these things very differently.

Rose: To be drunk or in a state of intoxication

was considered to be a spiritual

or holy experience for the incas.

Coca was an integral part of their society.

♪♪

and it still remains an important part

of andean culture, even today.

Billson: Inca silver miners chewed coca leaf

to help overcome pain, fatigue, and respiratory problems.

But why give coca and alcohol to children?

Narrator: Researchers turn back to the bodies,

looking for answers.

They analyze the older girl's hair with the understanding

that hair grows 1 centimeter per month.

Irving: The girl's hair was braided so tight

that it retained environmental evidence

that gives us a timeline of the girl's health.

Narrator: They deduce that her diet had changed

dramatically about 12 months before her death.

Studies of the hair showed that her diet

changed from mostly potatoes

to a much richer diet of meat and maize.

Irving: It would have been one of the most luxurious diets

you could imagine at that time.

Bellinger: All the signs point to these children being selected

and groomed for some very special purpose.

Narrator: Could they have been selected for ritual sacrifice

to the gods?

♪♪

the incas participated in human sacrifices.

Child sacrifice was called capacocha.

Bellinger: It was a great honor to be sacrificed in this manner.

The inca chose children from the far corners of their lands

to underscore the unity of their empire.

Narrator: In fact, there was a caste of inca groomed

especially for this great honor.

They were called the aclla.

And the older girl fits the description.

An aclla was a young girl

schooled in the art of weaving and chicha-making.

Narrator: When acllas reached puberty,

they were either married off to a dignitary

or offered up as a sacrifice to the gods.

If she was chosen for sacrifice,

she would be led through a series of rituals

involving large quantities of alcohol and coca

during a months-long journey from the inca capital of cusco

to her final resting place.

Researchers still don't know how she died,

but typical methods of ritual killing were strangulation,

live burial,

and blows to the head.

As barbaric as it sounds, we need to understand this

in the context of inca belief and tradition.

This was one of the greatest honors bestowed on anyone,

whether child or adult.

Their sacrifice literally

was to ensure the survival of their entire people.

Narrator: While the oldest girl seems to fit into the story

of this tradition, the younger two children do not.

Until more conclusive evidence comes to light,

experts continue to explore theories

as to why they were also part of this sacrifice to the gods.

♪♪

♪♪

resting on the border between Italy and France,

towering at an elevation of over 15,000 feet,

lies the tallest mountain in the alps -- mont blanc.

Bellinger: You're way up in the alps,

in the most pristine wilderness,

and then you look around

and you see there's debris and carnage everywhere.

Rose: The debris is scattered all over the glacier.

It covers the landscape, half-buried in snow and ice.

How did all this end up on the top of a mountain?

Narrator: The debris field is scattered

for miles along the glacier and includes mechanical parts,

pieces of luggage, and fragments of human remains.

Given the size and the scale of the debris field,

this looks like it came from a large aircraft,

probably a commercial airliner.

Based on this, it leads you

to think of one plane crash in particular.

Narrator: On the morning of January 24, 1966,

air india flight 101, a boeing 707,

was en route from bombay to london

with stops in delhi, beirut, and geneva.

Before landing in geneva, contact was lost with the plane.

It suddenly and mysteriously went down over the alps,

killing all of the 106 passengers and 11 crew members.

♪♪

the flight recorder was never found.

The black box would have revealed some evidence

of what happened to the plane, but without it, there's been

a lot of controversy surrounding the tragedy.

Narrator: As the mountaineers scour the glacier

inspecting the debris,

they make an intriguing discovery.

At first glance, it appears to be a plain canvas bag

poking out of the snow.

Narrator: But this is no ordinary bag.

Inside, they found newspapers, calendars, and a letter

from the ministry of external affairs to india

labeled "top secret."

what are classified documents

doing amongst the debris of a passenger plane crash?

Narrator: Onboard the plane was india's top nuclear scientist,

homi j. Bhabha.

He was the head of the country's atomic energy commission

and commonly known as the father of indian nuclear power.

Bellinger: Bhabha was on his way to vienna to attend meetings

at the international atomic energy agency.

[ indistinct shouting ]

narrator: Just four years earlier,

india had been at war with china

over disputed territory in the himalayas,

and there was also simmering tensions with pakistan

due to the recent indo-pakistani war of 1965.

O'keefe: As a result of all these political tensions,

india was looking to grow its military strength

and develop a competitive nuclear-weapons program,

and homi bhabha was the man who was going to make it happen.

India had also been strengthening its ties

to the soviet union in hopes of purchasing military equipment.

It was poised to become the world's next nuclear power.

Narrator: Could the crash have been an attempt to stop india

from producing an atomic bomb?

Rose: If homi bhabha was suddenly killed,

it would definitely inhibit india's aspiration

of becoming a nuclear-armed nation.

If the crash had, in fact, been an act of sabotage,

you have to ask, "how did they do it?"

was there a bomb onboard?

Some other kind of explosion?

Narrator: But if the plane was destroyed by a bomb,

the debris field would be much larger.

For example, if you take a look at the lockerbie bombing

in 1988...

♪♪

the wreckage was spread over 845 square miles.

Narrator: In the case of lockerbie,

large parts of the plane

were found strewn across the debris field.

In fact, the side of the entire front end

of the plane was found intact.

But on mont blanc, the debris found

is much smaller in size and more mixed.

♪♪

researchers then make an unexpected discovery

that raises even more questions

about what happened to the plane.

Clarke: Not only did they find wreckage

from the air india flight,

but in the debris, they also discovered a radio console

from an italian fighter jet.

Narrator: It appeared to be from a lockheed martin

f-104g fighter jet

belonging to the italian air force.

It was entirely unexpected.

Everyone had been assuming they were looking at parts

from one plane, not two.

O'keefe: So, what's a radio console

from an italian fighter jet

doing at the crash site of another plane?

[ engine whirring ]

was it just a coincidence, or was there

something more going on?

It all just makes you think

that something suspicious is going on here.

♪♪

♪♪

narrator: In January 1966, air india flight 101 crashed

near the peak of europe's tallest mountain -- mont blanc.

After finding a radio console from an italian fighter jet

among the wreckage,

some are questioning exactly what happened that day.

O'keefe: One theory is that the italians were

spying on the french

and that the italian fighter jet collided

with the air india flight

on one of these clandestine missions.

Clarke: According to the crash report

issued by the french government, eyewitnesses report

having seen huge clouds of smoke above mont blanc.

Narrator: But there's just one problem with this.

If there had been a mid-air collision,

you'd expect to see a lot more debris

from the italian fighter jet, not just the radio console,

but we don't.

Narrator: While the conspiracy theories

are certainly intriguing,

the real answer of what happened to the air india flight

might be much simpler.

As part of the inquiry, investigators pored

through the air traffic communication logs

to try to figure out what happened.

Bellinger: Before takeoff,

one of the plane's navigational instruments wasn't working.

So the pilot had to stay in constant contact

with the control tower to keep track of his position.

Narrator: The weather conditions that day were white-out,

so the communication between air traffic control

and the pilot was even more important.

O'keefe: In those crucial final minutes of the flight,

it sounds like there was a critical misunderstanding

between the air traffic controller and the pilot.

Over the radio, the pilot said that he was passing abeam

mont blanc, meaning alongside the mountain.

But this was not the case.

He was actually heading directly for it.

It seems the air traffic controller missed

or misunderstood the word "abeam"

and replied to the pilot,

"you have 5 miles to the mont blanc,"

by which he meant,

"mont blanc is 5 miles directly in front of you."

narrator: The controller, thinking the pilot understood

that he needed to change course, did not alert him.

♪♪

o'keefe: There's no way of knowing for sure

what happened to the plane,

but it appears that the air india flight crashed

due to faulty equipment and a misunderstanding

between the pilot and air traffic control.

Bellinger: It's still strange that the debris

from the italian fighter jet was found.

Maybe there are still some unanswered questions there.

Narrator: Unless more evidence reveals itself

within the melting glacier,

the mysterious fighter-jet debris found on mont blanc

will likely continue to stoke the embers of conspiracy

and speculation for years to come.

♪♪

♪♪

in the ladakh region of northern india,

a cold desert stretches for miles between the himalayas

and neighboring kunlun mountain range.

♪♪

macferrin: Hardly any rain falls in this desert.

The himalayas are the highest mountain range in the world

and block almost all of the monsoon rains

that come in from india.

It leaves a very high, arid plateau behind.

It's one of the driest regions of the world.

Irving: It sits at such a high altitude

that it's still freezing cold all year long.

These extreme temperatures and lack of water

means that there's very little plant life.

It's a frozen desert.

♪♪

narrator: Hikers trekking through the lowland

between the mountains come across a strange spectacle --

giant spires that appear to be made of ice.

♪♪

clarke: I've never seen anything like this before.

It's highly unusual to see these vertical structures of ice

in the middle of a desert.

♪♪

it's really confusing. To make ice, you need water.

So how did all this ice end up in a desert?

♪♪

♪♪

narrator: In the middle of a cold, dry desert

in northern india, strange towers of ice

jet out of the otherwise barren landscape.

How did they come to be?

Examples of vertical ice formations

have been recorded elsewhere on the planet.

In antarctica and the arctic,

small towers of ice can be found.

It's a phenomena called sastrugi.

♪♪

sastrugi form when wind blows the snow

into these hard-packed ridges over the surface

and form much like sand dunes do in a desert.

[ wind whistling ]

billson: When the wind picks up, it erodes the softer snow

around the solid ridges, creating these peaks.

Narrator: Could these ice spires be a type of sastrugi?

When sastrugis form,

they get to be, at most, a few feet high,

and they shift around in the wind.

You need vast fields of snow in order to form them.

These enormous towers isolated by themselves

with no snow on the landscape

couldn't have possibly been sastrugi.

♪♪

narrator: Scientists believe they have seen

something like this before,

just not on our planet.

♪♪

in 2015, nasa scientists found evidence

of unusual ice formations on pluto,

resembling giant knife blades.

Could these formations on the other side of the solar system

provide answers to the ice formations in ladakh?

Clarke: The spires we see on pluto are up to 1,600 feet tall,

2 to 3 miles apart.

So although they're a lot bigger than what we see in india,

they are of similar shape.

Narrator: In order to understand whether the formations on pluto

offer any explanations for the ice towers in ladakh,

we need to understand how the spires on pluto were formed.

Nasa scientists used weather-prediction techniques

to analyze how the formations on pluto came to be.

These formations on pluto were formed by sublimation.

It's when the sunlight vaporizes the ice,

and then it re-condenses to slowly form these giant towers.

Narrator: Sublimation is the process of turning

a solid substance to gas without liquefying it first.

In the case of pluto, the vapors then immediately refreeze,

creating 1,600-feet-tall towers of ice.

Could the same process that formed the giant spires on pluto

have created these giant ice spires in india?

It's plausible,

if it weren't for one glaring issue.

Macferrin: You would need vast amounts of snow

in order to sublimate enough water

to form ice towers of this size.

There's no snow around,

so these towers couldn't have been formed by sublimation.

♪♪

narrator: Based on the size of the formations,

the climate, and geography,

there doesn't appear to be any explanation

for how these structures could have been made naturally,

which begs the question, could they have been man-made?

Clarke: Some of the ice towers are adorned with prayer flags,

which could lead one to believe

that they're for religious or spiritual purposes.

Narrator: Their shape appears to be architecturally similar

to the buddhist temples found in the area,

called stupas.

A stone stupa is a domed structure

used as a place of meditation.

Often, they'll be topped with a tall steeple

and a private interior chamber to house religious relics

or even act as a burial chamber.

The ladakh region is home

to a large number of tibetan buddhists,

and there are the remains of about 4,000 or 5,000

stone stupas in the area.

But the aerial and satellite imaging of the area

appears to contradict this theory.

Macferrin: Satellite images show us that these structures melt

in the summer, and most of them, by the end of the summer,

have completely disappeared.

Narrator: Why would you build a temple

that only lasts for half of the year?

♪♪

when the structures do melt in the summer,

the key to their mystery reveals itself.

Clarke: As the ice towers melt, a system of pipes is revealed

that runs right through the middle of the structure.

Irving: The pipes appear to be able to pump water

from higher up in the mountains

to the center of the frozen spires.

Narrator: This confirms they are man-made.

Irving: But why would someone create a giant ice tower

in the middle of a freezing desert?

♪♪

♪♪

narrator: In the freezing arid desert between the himalayan

and kunlun mountains stand dozens of bizarre icy spires

with pipes running through the center of them.

Who built them, and why?

The answer may be linked to the village farmers

whose crops can grow in a barren desert.

Billson: Once the meltwater from the winter has run out.

There is little drinking water left for the villagers

or water for the crops in the valley.

Irving: Sonam wangchuck, a local engineer,

attempted to address the water shortages

that threatened the villagers' way of life.

He came up with the ice stupas

as a way of storing millions of gallons of water

for various communities that would last into the spring.

Narrator: Ice stupas are created in the winter

using runoff spring water

that's been piped underground and down slope.

When the temperatures drop below zero,

the water is sprayed up into the air, where it freezes.

Over the season, elaborate conical structures take shape,

reaching up to the height of a 10-storey building.

They start melting in March

and can last all the way through July.

Macferrin: In the summers, these towers melt away and form rivers

that actually feed and sustain the local towns,

that irrigate the crops and sustain life

up in the high desert.

Narrator: The ice stupas aren't temples but, rather,

an imaginative way of overcoming irrigation problems.

They're human ingenuity at its finest.

♪♪

♪♪

in western alaska on the bering sea

lies the small coastal town of quinhagak.

O'keefe: It's a small community

with a population of about 700 people,

and the only way to get in there is to fly in.

[ engine rumbling ]

rose: It's completely surrounded by miles and miles of sea

and frozen tundra.

This place really is the end of the earth.

Narrator: In early spring 2007,

the town was experiencing unusually warm weather.

As a result, the permafrost was turning into swampland.

Bellinger: Local teens were out enjoying the weather

and quad-biking on the beach

when they came across a strange wooden object in the sand.

When you first see it, it's hard to tell what it is.

Narrator: The village elders knew what it was.

It appeared to be an ancient ceremonial mask

associated with the yupik people.

Narrator: The yupik have lived in this area

for hundreds of years and still do.

Fearing that the artifacts from their ancestors

could be in danger of being lost forever,

the yupik elders invited archeologists

from the university of aberdeen to investigate the area.

O'keefe: When the team began to explore the area,

they discovered a treasure trove of valuable artifacts --

hundreds of wooden masks, bowls, dolls, and figurines,

as well as ivory and wood carvings

all buried deep in the permafrost.

Narrator: It's not just a collection of artifacts.

It's an entire village that's been frozen in time

for hundreds of years, dating back to the 15th century.

But at the site, something seemed off.

Narrator: As the archeologists excavated further,

they made a gruesome discovery.

Melting out of the permafrost,

they find the skull of a young woman.

As archeologists uncover the rest of the body,

they find that she is located

just outside of what used to be a sod house with multiple rooms

branching off in every direction.

Bellinger: Usually, human remains

are buried in one specific area of a village,

but what we have here really doesn't make sense.

They're right outside a house.

Narrator: And it's not just one body.

More remains are found, one after another after another.

28 people in total emerged from the icy ground

in the immediate vicinity of the house.

Rose: In this part of the world,

you would not expect to find human bones

associated with a residential structure.

Billson: There's something really off here.

Finding a body positioned like this and not in a tomb

or in a grave site is quite strange.

These bodies weren't buried.

They appear to have just fallen

and been left on the ground outside their homes.

O'keefe: These bodies are found lying down,

some with their faces in the mud,

others with hands outstretched,

there's a clear suggestion of extreme distress.

Narrator: It soon becomes clear that these are the victims

of some sort of cataclysmic event.

What could have caused the annihilation

of this entire yupik village?

Rose: 28 people is a lot to die all at once.

Something truly terrible must have happened here.

Narrator: Scientists take a closer look at the bones.

Bone-structure analysis

identifies most as women, children, and old men.

Only one was a male of fighting age.

Could it have been a natural disaster?

O'keefe: Historical remains from ancient settlements around

the world show it's possible for a catastrophic event

to bring life in an entire city to an abrupt end.

Narrator: The most famous example of this is pompeii.

Pompeii was a large roman town

that was entirely destroyed in 79 c.E.

When the nearby volcano, mount vesuvius, erupted.

Billson: The vesuvius eruption covered the town

in at least 19 feet of volcanic ash and debris.

The intense heat of the eruption killed people

right where they stood, preserving their last moments,

wherever they were in town, whatever they were doing.

In many ways, the sight of quinhagak

is very similar to pompeii.

Everything is just left where it was.

Narrator: It's clear quinhagak wasn't subject

to a volcanic eruption,

but could some other natural disaster

have brought life in the village to an equally abrupt end?

Rose: The village is on the coast,

so is it possible that a flood or some other tidal event

could have killed these people?

Narrator: In 1964,

an earthquake known as the great alaskan earthquake

rocked south central alaska.

The ground split open, buildings collapsed,

and a massive tsunami swelled and crashed onto the shoreline,

killing 131 people, all told.

Could the same thing have happened

hundreds of years earlier here in quinhagak?

♪♪

narrator: In quinhagak, southwestern alaska,

archeologists uncover the remains of 28 members

of the ancient yupik people, preserved in the permafrost

since around 1650 c.E.

Could they have been wiped out en masse by a massive flood

or even a tsunami?

If it was a flood, you wouldn't expect

to find any biological specimens intact.

Any wooden artifacts would have rotted in the water.

Narrator: In addition,

the sedimentary layers of the archeological site

would have been destroyed.

The force of the tide would have moved things,

but that's not the case here.

What we're seeing is that everything was just left

as it was, totally frozen in time.

Narrator: If it wasn't an earthquake, could it have been

a sudden and deadly plague that wiped out this community?

Rose: In the ancient city of thebes in egypt,

there was a horrific plague, around 250 a.D.

Archeologists have found bonfires

containing human remains

and pits where bodies were covered with lime

in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease.

Bellinger: If it were an epidemic, we would expect to see

the remains at a safe distance from the village,

not left right outside their houses.

O'keefe: You'd also expect to see adult males among the dead.

However, the majority of the remains found at the site

belong to women, children, and the elderly.

Narrator: The answer to what deadly events happened here

may lie within the buildings themselves.

Archeologists find a layer of ash in the site.

The ash is in a thick layer across all of the walls,

which indicates that the main building completely burned down.

They even discovered the charred remains

of a dog inside a building.

Bellinger: Examining the roof more closely,

it turned out that it was just studded with arrowheads,

so many, in fact, that it looked like a pincushion.

Narrator: As they dig further, they find grass ropes.

O'keefe: A lot of these bodies were burned

and partially dismembered,

some of them even tied up with the same grass rope

and executed.

Narrator: Out of respect for the dead and their descendants,

the archeologists chose not to release

any images of the human remains.

Rose: There are arrows everywhere.

Something truly tragic happened here.

Narrator: All signs point to a nightmare scenario.

The ancestors of this village

were clearly the victims of a terrible massacre.

What could have led to this tragedy?

♪♪

bellinger: Local elders tell of an ancient story

that might hold the answer.

Billson: Yupik legends describe a conflict

that was started during a game of darts.

Narrator: It all began when one boy accidentally hit another boy

in the eye with a dart.

The father of the injured boy was so furious,

he knocked out both eyes of the boy who caused the injury.

O'keefe: Then a relative of that boy retaliated,

and the conflict escalated.

Narrator: Legend has it, the people of quinhagak

put together a war party

and set out to attack the other village,

but it didn't go as planned.

Rose: The people of the other village

had prior warning of the attack

and ambushed the fighters, killing all of their warriors.

Narrator: After the ambush,

the warriors from the other village descended on quinhagak,

killed the women and children, and burned it to the ground.

O'keefe: The dart game eventually caused

a series of wars across alaska and the yukon.

Narrator: It was known as the bow and arrow wars,

and stories of this period have been passed down

in yupik oral tradition for generations.

Some, however,

have another theory of why the wars may have started.

O'keefe: They believed it was the result of scarce resources

after a cold-weather pattern

known as the little ice age hit the region.

[ wind blowing ]

narrator: The little ice age is believed to have taken place

between 1400 through to the mid-19th century.

The ice age catastrophically changed the environment.

Many plant species were made extinct,

and animal migration patterns changed.

Local populations had to compete

over what few resources were left.

Narrator: Regular food sources would have been scarce,

and their normal hunting areas

may not have yielded enough meat.

This could have motivated the yupik to wage a vicious war

on their neighbors for their own survival.

It's a tragic discovery, but one that gives us insight

into what happens when environmental conditions

force human survival to the brink.

♪♪