00:00:00
- [Announcer] This channel is part
00:00:01
of the HistoryHit Network,
stick around to find out more.
00:00:08
- [Narrator] We have been
here from the beginning.
00:00:11
(tense music)
00:00:15
Our ancestors navigated
by the wind and stars.
00:00:21
Crossing vast oceans and mountain ranges,
00:00:25
searching for new lands.
00:00:28
Over thousands of years, our ancestors
00:00:31
became astronomers and
architects, philosophers
00:00:36
and scientists, artists, and inventors.
00:00:42
We created distinct societies
and built a vast trade systems
00:00:47
that covered two continents.
00:00:50
In 1492, our world was changed forever,
00:00:56
but we did not disappear.
00:00:59
Today, the languages and
teachings of our ancestors remain.
00:01:05
And these are the untold stories
00:01:07
of the Americas before Columbus.
00:01:14
(eerie music)
00:01:19
When did the first people
arrive in the Americas?
00:01:24
Indigenous creation stories
tell how our ancestors emerged
00:01:28
as humans from the earth,
the water, the sky,
00:01:32
and the land below.
00:01:34
Some people believe that we walked
00:01:36
into the Americas on foot,
across an ancient land bridge
00:01:40
that once connected
Asia and North America,
00:01:44
Others say, we paddled
here in oceangoing canoes
00:01:48
along the Pacific coastline.
00:01:51
There's one thing that all of these views
00:01:53
of arrival have in common.
00:01:56
They all begin with a journey.
00:02:00
By 1491, tens of millions
of indigenous people
00:02:04
were living in every part of the Americas.
00:02:07
From the high Arctic to the
southern tip of South America.
00:02:12
There were countless
indigenous nations each
00:02:15
with their own distinct
language and ways of life,
00:02:19
but this didn't happen overnight.
00:02:22
It took thousands of years
to build this diverse world
00:02:26
from a very small founding population.
00:02:30
Since 1492, we've shared
our traditional territory
00:02:34
with people from every part of the world.
00:02:38
Today, we continue our
search for the origins
00:02:41
of our ancestors and the
roots of our cultural identity
00:02:45
as indigenous people.
00:02:53
- We have two different kinds of dates.
00:02:56
We have the archeological date
that says probably somewhere
00:03:00
between 18 to 20,000 years ago,
00:03:03
the first non-native born human
came into this hemisphere.
00:03:09
In terms of indigenous perspectives,
00:03:11
we've we've always been here.
00:03:14
Philosophically, we've
never been anywhere else.
00:03:18
- [Narrator] Every indigenous nation has
00:03:19
its own creation story.
00:03:22
These stories have been
passed down from generation
00:03:25
to generation for thousands of years.
00:03:28
Creation stories, form a powerful part
00:03:31
of each nation's identity and our sense
00:03:34
of who we are as a people.
00:03:39
(thunder rumbling)
00:03:42
In the beginning, there was a great flood,
00:03:45
a few animals and birds
survived by clinging to a log,
00:03:49
among them was the tiny muskrat.
00:03:52
The creatures decided
they needed to find land,
00:03:55
but the world was covered in water.
00:03:58
One by one, they took turns
diving deep into the water,
00:04:02
looking for some dirt to
bring back to the surface.
00:04:06
But each animal came back empty handed.
00:04:09
Finally, that tiny muskrat
dove under the water.
00:04:13
When he came back, he
had a paw full of earth.
00:04:17
He placed it on the
back of a turtles shell.
00:04:20
This is how North America
became known as Turtle Island.
00:04:27
In the beginning, there
was only the sea and sky.
00:04:31
The gods created the earth
and populated it with animals
00:04:35
and birds.
00:04:37
But the animals couldn't worship them.
00:04:39
So they decided to make humans.
00:04:43
The first humans were made from mud,
00:04:45
but they fell apart too easily.
00:04:48
Then the gods made humans from wood,
00:04:51
but they had nothing in their minds.
00:04:53
So they destroyed them in a flood.
00:04:56
Finally, the gods made
humans out of maze dough.
00:05:00
They had intelligence and knowledge
00:05:02
and could worship the gods.
00:05:04
So they became the first people.
00:05:13
In the beginning, people lived in the sky
00:05:16
and the only creatures
they knew were birds.
00:05:19
A young hunter set out
one day to find a rare
00:05:22
and beautiful bird.
00:05:24
When he finally found
it, he shot his arrow.
00:05:27
And when he went to retrieve it,
00:05:28
he discovered a hole in
the bottom of the sky.
00:05:32
Looking through it, he
saw forests and rivers
00:05:36
and wild animals.
00:05:37
He asked the other hunters to travel
00:05:39
to this world with him, but they refused.
00:05:43
So he made a rope and
lowered it down the hole
00:05:46
and climbed down to the world below.
00:05:49
He shot a deer and brought
it back to the Sky World.
00:05:53
The others wanted to hunt deer too,
00:05:55
so they climbed down the rope.
00:05:58
The last person to go
through the hole in the sky
00:06:01
was a woman and she became
stuck, preventing the people
00:06:05
from returning to their home.
00:06:08
She can still be seen in
the sky as the Morning Star.
00:06:16
Historians have long supported a theory
00:06:18
that our ancestors walked
into the Americas across
00:06:21
an ancient land bridge that connected Asia
00:06:24
and North America during the last ice age.
00:06:29
Until about 13,000 years ago,
00:06:32
great sheets of ice, kilometers thick,
00:06:35
covered much of the Northern sections
00:06:37
of North America, Europe and Asia.
00:06:43
But there were some ice
free regions in the Northern
00:06:45
hemisphere where people lived.
00:06:48
One of these regions
was known as Beringia.
00:06:53
This thousand kilometer
expanse of land connecting
00:06:56
the two continents, emerged
when glaciers locked
00:06:59
up vast quantities of
water causing sea levels
00:07:03
to fall more than 100 meters.
00:07:06
- You see evidence that people
came across a land bridge,
00:07:09
you see evidence of a land
bridge did exist in the past.
00:07:13
- In the Northern parts of North
America, Alaska, the Yukon,
00:07:16
even Northern British Columbia,
00:07:18
we have a collection of some
of the most ancient sites
00:07:22
across the continent.
00:07:24
And of course that would be up
in an area that archeologists
00:07:26
referred to as Beringia.
00:07:29
- And you know, those
people who made it across
00:07:31
the Landbridge, all
they had were their wits
00:07:34
and a few stone tools.
00:07:36
And yet they managed to explore, discover
00:07:39
and colonize two continents.
00:07:41
So that's a pretty amazing achievement
00:07:43
in the annals of human history.
00:07:46
And they did this by being very
aware of their environment,
00:07:49
of being able to manipulate
their environment
00:07:52
to their own benefit.
00:07:54
- [Narrator] The water
between the two continents
00:07:55
dropped so low, it exposed
the bottom of the sea.
00:07:59
This arid Prairie like
landscape, remained ice free
00:08:03
and the abundant birds and
mammals provided people
00:08:06
with food and materials
for clothing and shelter.
00:08:11
But Beringia was a temporary landscape.
00:08:14
Around 20,000 years ago,
the world's climate began
00:08:18
to warm and the glacier started melting.
00:08:21
By 15,000 years ago, the rising sea levels
00:08:24
had covered up the Beringia land bridge
00:08:27
and people living there either
had to return to Siberia
00:08:31
or stay in North America.
00:08:33
The melting glaciers and
rising sea levels created major
00:08:37
environmental changes in
the Northern hemisphere.
00:08:41
The land between the two North
American ice sheets widened
00:08:45
about 12,000 years ago,
offering an ice free corridor
00:08:49
for people to travel through.
00:08:51
- Historically in
archeology, it was believed
00:08:54
that the spread further
south into the continent
00:08:57
was between the Laurentide
and Cordilleran ice sheets.
00:09:00
And this is known as the ice
free corridor hypothesis.
00:09:05
And so, many researchers
saying this was the gateway
00:09:08
into the Americas.
00:09:10
(rhythmic drumming)
00:09:13
- [Narrator] But taking this route south
00:09:15
through such a harsh
terrain, would've involved
00:09:17
a tremendous risk.
00:09:21
- [Dr. Yellowhorn] If
they had a people who were
00:09:23
up in Alaska and they see this opening
00:09:26
between two ice sheets,
00:09:28
they're taking a big leap
of faith to say, well,
00:09:30
maybe we go a thousand
miles south of here,
00:09:32
we'll find better land.
00:09:35
The ice free corridor would've been
00:09:37
a very dynamic landscape.
00:09:39
It would've had terrible
winters like harsh,
00:09:42
cold winters and not much
better in the summer,
00:09:44
the summers would've been cold and rainy.
00:09:47
So there wasn't a lot of
opportunity for people to find
00:09:50
stable land that they could colonize.
00:09:58
- [Narrator] The end of the
last ice age set the stage
00:10:00
for the movement of people
overland into North America.
00:10:04
The indigenous people who
traveled into the continent on
00:10:07
foot from Beringia could not
have known it at the time,
00:10:11
but they were not the
first people to settle
00:10:13
south of the ice sheets.
00:10:15
In fact, humans had already
been living in both North
00:10:19
and South America for
thousands of years before
00:10:22
the glaciers melted and
opened up routes south through
00:10:25
the ice free corridor.
00:10:34
(upbeat music)
00:10:38
- [Woman Narrator] Glaciers covered much
00:10:39
of the Northern hemisphere
until about 12,000 years ago.
00:10:43
As temperatures warmed
worldwide, ice melted
00:10:46
and sea levels began to rise.
00:10:48
These changes to the
environment led to animal, bird
00:10:51
and human migration
throughout North America, Asia
00:10:54
and Europe.
00:10:56
Tens of thousands of years ago,
00:10:58
the climates and parts of the
Asian subcontinent was much
00:11:01
wetter than it is today.
00:11:03
In India, the Thar desert was
once a vast fertile grassland.
00:11:08
Hunters following the herds eventually
00:11:10
settled permanently in the region.
00:11:21
As the glaciers retreated,
00:11:22
the warming climate created
new agricultural zones
00:11:25
in the Northern hemisphere.
00:11:27
Early agriculturalists
cultivated new food resources
00:11:30
in the fertile soils of the middle east.
00:11:33
And this led to the formation
of farming settlements,
00:11:36
and eventually cities.
00:11:47
During the last ice age, sea levels
00:11:49
were 100 meters lower
than they were today.
00:11:52
And this created a thousand
kilometer wide land bridge
00:11:55
to appear between Siberia and Alaska.
00:11:58
This became one of the migration routes
00:12:00
that humans took into the Americas.
00:12:06
Changes in climate over the
millennia has influenced
00:12:09
the migration paths and hunting practices
00:12:11
of humans throughout the world.
00:12:15
(tense music)
00:12:22
- When they first started
doing their surveys in the,
00:12:27
what would be the ice free corridor,
00:12:29
the observation they
made was that the sites
00:12:32
were getting younger as they went north,
00:12:34
which is counterintuitive.
00:12:36
You'd expect that the oldest
sites would be in the north and
00:12:38
they'd get progressively
younger in the south.
00:12:42
So it looked like people were
moving north instead of south.
00:12:45
So this has always been very paradoxical.
00:12:47
And the only way you can
explain it is that there were
00:12:49
people already living
south of the ice sheets.
00:12:52
And where did those people come from?
00:12:54
- [Narrator] The recent
discovery of an ancient village
00:12:57
and campsites in the
Americas that are more
00:12:59
than 14,000 years old
supports a new theory
00:13:03
that people first
arrived by boat along the
00:13:06
Pacific coastline of
North and South America.
00:13:10
- In the seventies, researchers proposed
00:13:13
an alternative hypothesis to say that
00:13:16
the coastal route was also viable.
00:13:19
And this sparked a huge
debate in archeology
00:13:22
that it had to be one or
the other, which one was it?
00:13:26
We're now coming to an understanding
00:13:28
that it was likely both happened.
00:13:30
However, archeologists
are more leaning towards
00:13:33
the coastal route as
the earlier alternative.
00:13:38
- [Narrator] Any journey
along the Pacific coast
00:13:40
during the ice age,
would've been treacherous.
00:13:44
- Keep in mind that the
west coast, at that time,
00:13:47
would've been choked with
icebergs and lots of ice floes.
00:13:51
So for people to travel that way,
00:13:55
they would certainly require
some good ocean going skills.
00:13:59
And that's not out of the
question because we do know from
00:14:03
the archeological record in east Asia,
00:14:05
that as early as 40,000 years ago,
00:14:08
people were able to
make open ocean voyages.
00:14:15
When people go on journeys like this,
00:14:17
their destination is
usually unknown to them.
00:14:22
- [Narrator] We may
never know what compelled
00:14:24
indigenous people to embark
00:14:26
on this treacherous journey by sea.
00:14:29
- What is the history of
humanity in North America?
00:14:33
We have indications that humans were here.
00:14:36
They were producing culture.
They were burying their dead.
00:14:39
They were becoming a
part of the landscape.
00:14:41
They were taking
ownership of the landscape
00:14:46
in their own way.
00:14:49
- [Narrator] Once arriving on land,
00:14:51
these seafarers would've
found themselves in a strange
00:14:54
and foreign world, filled with
unknown peril and promise.
00:14:59
- When people are, are traveling
into unknown countries,
00:15:03
they really have to rely on the skills
00:15:04
that they bring with them.
00:15:06
And so if they know how
to live off the land,
00:15:08
if they know what
seafoods they can consume,
00:15:11
this will give them a
better than average chance
00:15:13
of surviving any new
country or a new terrain
00:15:15
that they're starting to settle in.
00:15:21
- [Dr. Watkins] The idea
of where we come from
00:15:24
is extremely important.
00:15:25
It gives us that sense of place.
00:15:27
It tells us the locations
that we are tied to
00:15:30
both as a people, as individuals.
00:15:33
It's the part of the landscape
that continues to reside
00:15:36
in our bones, in our blood,
but particularly in our minds.
00:15:46
- [Narrator] It's not known
how many indigenous people
00:15:48
arrived in the Americas by water.
00:15:51
But evidence suggests this was
not an isolated occurrence.
00:15:56
- Archeology keeps finding
more and more localities,
00:16:00
which add pieces to the puzzle.
00:16:02
When we look at them all
in a very broad picture,
00:16:05
it does give us that story,
that deeply complex story
00:16:09
about the first people to
come into North America.
00:16:14
(birds chirping)
00:16:23
(shells clinking)
00:16:29
- [Man] (Speaking foreign language)
00:16:32
- [Woman] (Speaking foreign language)
00:16:38
(tense music)
00:16:44
(crow cawing)
00:16:47
(tense drumming)
00:16:49
(crow cawing)
00:16:52
(drumming continues)
00:16:54
(crow caws)
00:16:58
(crow caws)
00:17:00
(crow caws)
00:17:05
(crow caws)
00:17:06
(drumming continues)
00:17:12
(birds chirping)
00:17:34
(crow caws)
00:17:41
(drumming continues)
00:18:12
- [Woman] (Speaking foreign language)
00:18:15
(thunder rumbles)
00:18:18
(voices in distance)
00:18:24
(crow caws)
00:18:28
(heavy rhythmic drumming)
00:18:34
(crow caws)
00:18:50
- [Narrator] Whether our ancestors arrived
00:18:52
by land from Beringia or by
water along the Pacific coast,
00:18:57
people were soon living in
every corner of the Americas.
00:19:02
- Native Americans were at the
southern tip of South America
00:19:06
more than 14,000 years ago.
00:19:08
So the hypothesis is that
they took a coastal route just
00:19:12
because traveling over land,
00:19:14
would've been very difficult at the time.
00:19:20
- We have a much greater understanding
00:19:22
of the fluctuation in sea levels.
00:19:24
So it's easier for us to
locate those most ancient sites
00:19:28
along the coast, spreading all
the way down to California,
00:19:32
and of course, all the way down to places
00:19:33
like Monte Verde in South America.
00:19:36
- [Narrator] Monte Verde
is an ancient village site
00:19:39
located in Chile about
50 kilometers inland
00:19:42
from the Pacific coastline
that was occupied
00:19:45
at least 14,800 years ago.
00:19:48
The village was discovered
in the 1970s beneath a Creek
00:19:52
and was largely preserved
within the wet environment.
00:19:57
The village consisted of
12 small huts that would've
00:20:00
supported about 20 or 30 people.
00:20:03
The huts were made from wood,
animal hide and woven rope.
00:20:08
There were two large and
several smaller hearths
00:20:11
in the village.
00:20:13
The people at Monte
Verde, collected plants
00:20:16
in the mountains, grasslands
and coastal regions
00:20:18
of Southern Chile, suggesting
that they traveled widely
00:20:22
to collect food and building materials
00:20:25
along with the remains
of Mammoth and Lama,
00:20:28
10 types of seaweed
and the shells of crabs
00:20:31
and clams were found at the site.
00:20:34
The Marine based diet of
those who lived at Monte Verde
00:20:37
points to a people who were well adapted
00:20:40
to a Marine lifestyle.
00:20:42
- Over the course of
many thousands of years,
00:20:45
when you're doing things
such as experimentation
00:20:48
of new life ways or trial
and error in new food types,
00:20:54
all of this accumulates over
many generations and gives us
00:20:57
what be called traditional knowledge.
00:21:02
- [Narrator] Since first
arriving in the Americas,
00:21:04
indigenous people have hunted
wild game for food, shelter,
00:21:08
tools, and clothing.
00:21:10
The type of tools used by
these ancient hunters are often
00:21:13
used to define their cultures.
00:21:16
One of the most important
discoveries of ancient stone tools
00:21:19
in the Americas, was made
at Clovis, New Mexico
00:21:23
in the early 20th century.
00:21:25
The distinct way of
manufacturing these spearheads
00:21:28
led to the Clovis First
Theory, which suggested
00:21:31
that the earliest people in the Americas
00:21:34
arrive shortly after the glaciers melted
00:21:36
and used the same tool technology.
00:21:39
- When we look at the history
of archeology as a discipline
00:21:42
early on say in the early 19 hundreds,
00:21:46
scholars believed back
then that North America
00:21:49
had only been inhabited
by indigenous people
00:21:51
for two to 3000 years.
00:21:53
However, this changed of
course, with the findings
00:21:55
of Folsom and Clovis Points in association
00:21:57
with what we call megafauna
or ice aged giant mammals
00:22:02
and creatures that walk
to earth along with
00:22:04
the indigenous people.
00:22:08
- [Narrator] The
discovery of mammoth bones
00:22:10
alongside stone tools at the Clovis site,
00:22:13
revealed that indigenous
people were hunting
00:22:15
megafauna with spearhead
technology around 13,000 years ago.
00:22:22
- Clovis was the type site where
00:22:24
the first stone tools were found.
00:22:26
And so after that kind of
became the umbrella term
00:22:29
for fluted point technology.
00:22:35
(mammoth roaring)
00:22:41
- [Narrator] This lethal
tool was sharp enough
00:22:43
to penetrate the thick
hides of large game,
00:22:46
such as bison and Mammoth.
00:22:49
Clovis points were made
from jasper, chert, obsidian
00:22:52
and other brittle stones, and
were eventually discovered
00:22:56
throughout North America.
00:22:58
- [Dr. Yellowhorn] The
Clovis tool complex spread
00:23:00
across North America very rapidly.
00:23:03
So this has always given the
impression that people are
00:23:06
moving along and occupying new lands.
00:23:11
And there's lots of, lots of
variety across North America,
00:23:14
the geographical variations.
00:23:17
- [Dr. Reimer] And for many
decades, it was believed
00:23:19
that the Clovis culture was the first and
00:23:24
only culture to be across
all of North America.
00:23:28
However, most recently, in
the last 10 to 20 years,
00:23:32
the Clovis first models pretty much been
00:23:34
thrown out the window because
we have ample evidence
00:23:37
across North America, Meso
America, down to South America
00:23:41
of sites that predate
the Clovis time period
00:23:45
and this data and these
sites are really interesting
00:23:48
in pushing the boundaries of what we know
00:23:51
about that distant time.
00:23:55
- [Dr. Yellowhorn] Think
of Clovis as an idea,
00:23:57
and that there was already a
preexisting population that was
00:24:01
receptive to this new invention.
00:24:04
So when the new invention came along,
00:24:06
it was the idea of it that
spread into a preexisting
00:24:10
population.
00:24:13
- [Narrator] Although stone
tools were widely used
00:24:15
in the Americas for thousands of years,
00:24:17
tools made from animal
bones were also used
00:24:20
for hunting and fishing.
00:24:22
- [Dr. Yellowhorn] Before
people had Clovis points,
00:24:25
they actually used bone
technology and the bone tools were
00:24:29
just as lethal as the stone tools.
00:24:32
Now there're starting to
be a whole series of sites
00:24:34
that have been discovered.
00:24:35
And one of the discoveries was
actually made very early on,
00:24:39
the Manis kill site in Washington state.
00:24:43
There was a bone tool that
was embedded in the vertebrae
00:24:47
of a Mastodon and it was actually made
00:24:50
from another Mastodon's bone.
00:24:52
From that he could get a radio
carbon date off the element
00:24:55
of the tools, but he could
also get a radio carbon date
00:24:58
off the kill that it was embedded in.
00:25:02
- [Narrator] The remains
found at the Manis kill site,
00:25:05
date back 13,800 years,
00:25:09
a full millennium before
the glaciers melted enough
00:25:12
to open up the ice free
corridor to the north.
00:25:16
- [Dr. Yellowhorn] A
hunter likely took down
00:25:17
a Mammoth once in his
life and talked about it
00:25:19
for the rest of his life.
00:25:21
- [Narrator] As the glaciers receded,
00:25:23
and the lands opened
up, allowing migration
00:25:26
across North America,
hunting techniques changed
00:25:29
based on the terrain and their prey.
00:25:33
- There's certainly a
long history of hunting
00:25:36
as a way of life and going
right back to the ice age
00:25:40
when humans first appeared on the scene.
00:25:44
And of course,
00:25:44
as people moved into the
farther north regions,
00:25:48
they started coming across
animals like such as reindeer
00:25:52
and caribou, and these
are herding animals,
00:25:55
so they started hunting them communally.
00:26:01
- [Dr. Yellowhorn] Clovis
tools were very lethal
00:26:03
and whatever they hit
would've been injured,
00:26:06
but of course you'd have to
be very close to that animal
00:26:09
and you'd bring them into natural traps.
00:26:11
And then once they're
into the natural traps,
00:26:13
and then you can use your
stabbing spears to kill them.
00:26:21
- [Dr. Claw] Stones and animal bones
00:26:23
were the first materials used by humans
00:26:25
to craft tools for hunting.
00:26:27
Some of the earliest
tools to be discovered,
00:26:30
date back more than 2 million years.
00:26:38
20,000 years ago, nomadic hunter gatherers
00:26:41
lived in the Kebara Cave region in Israel.
00:26:44
They developed the Kebaran
tool technology using flint
00:26:48
to make spear points and arrowheads.
00:26:55
(gentle music)
00:27:04
The Solutrean Tool industry
emerged in Western Europe
00:27:07
around 19,000 years ago.
00:27:09
The people of this region
made tools by napping,
00:27:12
tiny flakes off the Flint core.
00:27:14
Hunters also used heat to
make the flaking more precise.
00:27:31
One of the earliest
stone tool technologies
00:27:34
in North America was the Clovis point
00:27:37
named after the site in New Mexico,
00:27:39
where the spear points
were first discovered.
00:27:42
The people who created these tools hunted
00:27:44
a wide range of megafauna,
00:27:46
including mammoths.
00:27:49
Throughout the world, the
different styles of tools
00:27:52
that people developed,
determined the type and size
00:27:55
of the game they hunted.
00:27:58
- [Narrator] As our
ancestors settled throughout
00:28:00
the two continents, creating
hundreds of nations,
00:28:03
languages evolved and diversified.
00:28:06
And through these languages came stronger,
00:28:09
social and cultural identities.
00:28:13
The Western hemisphere is the
most linguistically diverse
00:28:16
region in the world.
00:28:18
It's estimated that there were as many
00:28:20
as 2000 distinct languages
spoken in the Americas in 1491.
00:28:26
Each of these languages are
part of a language family
00:28:29
connected through common
words, grammar and diction.
00:28:33
(speaking foreign language)
00:28:40
- [Narrator] Languages are more
00:28:41
than a means of communication.
00:28:44
For ancient societies,
they contain the cultural,
00:28:47
historical and traditional
knowledge of a nation.
00:28:52
Many of the languages spoken before 1491
00:28:56
are still in use today.
00:28:58
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:01
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:05
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:07
- [Narrator] Quechua in South America,
00:29:12
Mayan in meso America,
00:29:14
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:19
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:25
- [Narrator] Pueblo in North America
00:29:28
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:32
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:34
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:43
- [Narrator] and Inuktitut in the Arctic.
00:29:46
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:53
(speaking foreign language)
00:29:56
- [Narrator] Meso American cultures like
00:29:57
the Maya and Aztec had a
complex writing system.
00:30:04
But most indigenous languages were based
00:30:06
on an oral tradition.
00:30:09
- Language doesn't
leave marks on the land.
00:30:11
Language isn't a thing that
we can point to in the world.
00:30:14
It's something that is done by people.
00:30:16
And especially without
writing all you have
00:30:19
are people as your evidence.
00:30:21
In North America, there's
a very complex tapestry
00:30:23
of different language families
00:30:24
that have crossed over each other.
00:30:26
And there's probably about
30 families in North America.
00:30:29
There's probably another 30
or so families in Central
00:30:32
America and maybe even a hundred
families in South America.
00:30:36
The original work on
comparative linguistics
00:30:38
was reconstructing languages
that had long written histories
00:30:41
like English and the romance languages
00:30:43
like French and Italian.
00:30:45
So it was early on believed,
no you simply couldn't
00:30:48
do that in a language that
didn't have a written history.
00:30:51
The early anthropologist
linguists in North America
00:30:55
proved that yes, you could.
00:30:56
You could reconstruct these languages
00:30:58
and often could show
materially that language here
00:31:02
was actually a close
relative of a language
00:31:04
that was quite far apart from it
00:31:05
separated by a number of others.
00:31:08
They applied these methods that
had been developed in Europe
00:31:11
and proved that they could be were used
00:31:13
for unwritten languages.
00:31:14
And that opened the door
for people to work on Native
00:31:18
American languages and figure
out where did they come from?
00:31:21
Which is always, you know,
the question that presses
00:31:23
a lot of people when they study us.
00:31:27
They also found sometimes
that the indigenous people
00:31:31
themselves would tell you, oh, well,
00:31:33
our language is actually related
to those guys over there.
00:31:36
I mean, you can ask and
you find out, well yes,
00:31:38
we share a whole bunch of words in common
00:31:39
and you go talk to them you can tell.
00:31:41
And although they can't really communicate
00:31:43
in each person's language, they still find
00:31:45
quite a large number of
words that are similar.
00:31:48
- [Narrator] Indigenous
languages carry deep cultural
00:31:50
and traditional knowledge.
00:31:52
But tracing their histories is a challenge
00:31:54
to linguistic researchers.
00:31:57
- [Crippen] Even though
we have reconstructions
00:31:59
internally reconstructed
and externally reconstructed
00:32:02
language families,
00:32:04
we can show that they're related,
00:32:05
but we can't go back any further.
00:32:07
And that's because
unlike biology, language
00:32:10
doesn't have a constant rate of change.
00:32:12
It changes in fits and
starts with long periods
00:32:15
of little change, sudden
dramatic reconstructions
00:32:19
of how the language works.
00:32:21
It's not something that we can
predict with any reliability.
00:32:26
We can show that a language
is internally related,
00:32:28
but we can't tell you how
long the connections are.
00:32:32
And we rely almost entirely on archeology
00:32:34
to give us some sort of
calibration to our guesstimate.
00:32:39
- [Narrator] Oral entomology is both fluid
00:32:42
and fragile and of the thousands
of indigenous languages
00:32:45
that existed in the Americas in 1491,
00:32:49
hundreds have been lost forever.
00:32:51
- The exact question of when these,
00:32:53
all these languages came here,
00:32:54
as far as linguistics can
tell, they've just been here.
00:32:57
(speaking foreign language)
00:33:01
(speaking foreign language)
00:33:05
(gentle music)
00:33:08
- [Woman Narrator] Archeological
sites in every part
00:33:11
of the world tell the
story of ancient peoples
00:33:14
and the cultures and civilizations
00:33:17
they created over thousands of years.
00:33:25
Uruk is one of the first
major cities in the world
00:33:28
that featured monumental stone buildings.
00:33:31
It was built at the center
of a vast trade network
00:33:34
in the middle east.
00:33:51
5,000 years ago, Egypt was divided
00:33:54
into upper and lower regions.
00:33:56
A Pharaoh named Narmer
created a unified kingdom
00:33:59
and there are sites throughout Egypt
00:34:01
that represent the artistic
achievements from this era.
00:34:19
Cahokia was the largest urban center
00:34:22
in North America a thousand years ago.
00:34:25
It was part of an elaborate
inter tribal trade network
00:34:28
that connected people as far
away as the Gulf of Mexico
00:34:32
and the Great Lakes.
00:34:35
The archeological record
in every part of the world
00:34:39
continues to inform us
of the accomplishments
00:34:41
and ways of life of our ancestors.
00:34:46
- [Narrator] Indigenous
people settled in every region
00:34:48
of the Western hemisphere,
from the High Arctic
00:34:51
to the Caribbean islands,
00:34:53
to the Southern tip of South America.
00:34:56
Historians estimate that by 1491,
00:34:59
the population of the
Americas may have been as high
00:35:02
as a hundred million people.
00:35:05
Population growth in society's worldwide,
00:35:07
can be traced to the
advent of agriculture.
00:35:11
As people began to grow annual
crops, the need to travel
00:35:14
to find food, lessened.
00:35:16
Villages grew into towns
and towns into cities,
00:35:20
with the farmers providing
a steady supply of food.
00:35:24
The impact over thousands of
years, was a significant growth
00:35:27
of population in the Americas.
00:35:30
- Throughout the Americas
civilizations rose,
00:35:32
it fell, like an oscillating
frontier through time.
00:35:36
Some of them had great periods
of development, innovation.
00:35:39
Their technologies were
among the most incredible,
00:35:42
their populations were significant,
and then they collapsed.
00:35:46
Archeologically, we're
looking at palimpsest.
00:35:48
In other words, we're looking at layers
00:35:50
and pieces and fragments.
00:35:51
It's like looking at a wall of graffiti
00:35:53
and seeing one layer on top of another,
00:35:55
on top of another, on top of another.
00:35:57
And when an archeologist digs,
00:35:58
he may be digging through
10 different layers,
00:36:00
or she may be recovering the relics
00:36:02
of maybe 10 civilizations.
00:36:05
- [Narrator] An example of
a significant population
00:36:07
surge, was the Aztec city
state of Tenochtitlan.
00:36:12
Founded in 1325 on a manmade island
00:36:15
where present day Mexico city now stands.
00:36:17
It was the capital of the Aztec empire.
00:36:21
The city had a complex social
strata that included the
00:36:23
working class, military members,
priests, and the elites.
00:36:28
It was a vibrant city with
a bustling marketplace.
00:36:32
At its peak, Tenochtitlan was home
00:36:34
to more than 250,000 people.
00:36:37
And was the center of an
empire with a population
00:36:41
of between two and 3 million,
00:36:44
In 1491 Tenochtitlan was the
largest city in the Americas.
00:36:49
- [Dr. Mendoza] The question then is
00:36:50
what about North America?
00:36:52
The Mississippian side
of Cahokia was a center
00:36:55
that maintained significant populations
00:36:57
into the tens of thousands.
00:36:59
- [Narrator] Cahokia
was arguably the largest
00:37:02
and most influential urban center
00:37:04
in North America before 1491.
00:37:07
At its peak around 800 years ago,
00:37:09
Cahokia had a population
of 40,000 or more.
00:37:13
The city's strategic location
where the Mississippi,
00:37:15
Missouri, and Illinois rivers meet,
00:37:18
made it a natural gateway
for inter tribal trade.
00:37:21
But over time, like the
major cities in meso America,
00:37:25
Cahokia also disappeared.
00:37:28
- We have factors like
drought. We have warfare.
00:37:32
We have invasion and conquest.
00:37:33
All of these things factor
into the variable landscape of
00:37:37
demography and population in the Americas.
00:37:42
- Indigenous archeologists
are much more adept
00:37:45
at thinking about the who of the past
00:37:47
and the why of the past,
00:37:49
rather than just the, what
of the material culture.
00:37:53
It's not just the piece of
pottery that happened here
00:37:55
without humans being involved
in either transportation in
00:37:59
breaking it and moving it
from one place to another.
00:38:03
And I think that's what drives
a lot of good archeologists,
00:38:05
is recognizing that we're
not in it for the artifacts,
00:38:09
we're in it for the stories
that the artifacts can promise.
00:38:12
One of the most important
things about being an indigenous
00:38:15
person involved in archeology is knowing
00:38:18
the importance of story, the
importance of the individual
00:38:22
and knowing how these all
fit within who we are today.
00:38:29
There are so many tribal people
involved in trying to relate
00:38:33
the history of individual
tribes, individual places.
00:38:37
In the past it has been perceived to be
00:38:40
the role of the expert to tell
00:38:41
what the history is, history of place.
00:38:44
And it's often has been based
on someone else's stories,
00:38:47
some written reports or such.
00:38:49
Now it's extremely important
that indigenous groups have the
00:38:54
authenticity, the authority,
and the right to present
00:38:57
the history as they know it.
00:39:01
There are so many indigenous
people who are getting advanced
00:39:04
degrees, who are getting
recognized as authority.
00:39:07
And so now they're able to
take that and tell the stories
00:39:11
that their communities want
them to tell, so that people
00:39:14
outside of the community
can really understand
00:39:17
what has gone before.
00:39:19
(gentle music)
00:39:23
- [Woman Narrator] The
sequencing of the human genome
00:39:25
has led to many significant
discoveries about the migration
00:39:29
and ways of life of ancient
peoples throughout the world.
00:39:38
Ancient Egyptians believed
that the soul remained
00:39:41
with the human body after a person died.
00:39:44
Egyptian rulers and their
families were buried in tombs
00:39:47
with gold, tools, food and animals,
00:39:51
to help them on their
journey to the afterlife.
00:40:05
The Qafzeh cave in Israel
is the site of the earliest
00:40:08
known human burial.
00:40:10
The remains of several adults
and children were found,
00:40:13
including a boy, buried with a deer antler
00:40:16
placed across his chest.
00:40:31
At the bottom of a
Cenote in Eastern Mexico,
00:40:35
Archeologists found the remains
of a young woman who died
00:40:38
more than 13,000 years ago.
00:40:41
Her DNA is a close match to
many indigenous people living
00:40:45
in central and North America today.
00:40:49
For tens of thousands of
years, people in every part
00:40:52
of the world have been
carrying out rituals
00:40:55
and ceremonies as part of
their burial practices.
00:40:59
- [Narrator] While there
were tens of millions
00:41:01
living in the Americas in 1491,
00:41:03
the population soon after people arrived
00:41:06
would only have been in the thousands.
00:41:08
It's not surprising that the
discovery of an ancestor from
00:41:11
this period is an extremely rare event.
00:41:15
13,000 years ago, a
teenage girl in the Yucatan
00:41:18
fell into a deep hole and died.
00:41:21
Over the millennia, sea levels rose
00:41:23
and water filled the cave.
00:41:25
In the 1990s, a group of
underwater archeologists
00:41:29
found Naia, as they named
her, in 40 meters of water
00:41:32
deep in a Cenote near Tulum.
00:41:35
Testing Naia's DNA confirmed
that she's a direct ancestor
00:41:39
of the indigenous people living in
00:41:41
North and Central America today.
00:41:44
When the human genome was sequenced
00:41:45
early in the 21st century,
00:41:47
it opened the door for geneticists
00:41:49
to study the biological
blueprint of human beings.
00:41:53
The data collected from
studying the DNA found in human
00:41:56
cells can be used to
trace a person's ancestry.
00:42:00
By comparing the DNA of
modern indigenous people
00:42:02
with that of ancient people, we can see
00:42:05
how our ancestors
migrated and settled down
00:42:07
during the past several thousand years.
00:42:10
- It's using your DNA to
look at similarities between
00:42:14
different populations.
00:42:15
So there are many different
ways we can do it.
00:42:18
We can look at your maternal lineage.
00:42:21
We can look at your paternal lineage,
00:42:23
or we can look at everything
which is the whole genome.
00:42:27
And in that instance,
we're sort of looking
00:42:30
at the entirety of your
father's contribution,
00:42:34
your mothers and all of your ancestors.
00:42:37
This is just another way
to think about our past
00:42:40
and figure out how we were
related to each other.
00:42:44
We are all really
connected and our genetics
00:42:47
is telling us that too.
00:42:49
To have a really rigorous study, you want
00:42:51
to have ancient samples because
with the ancient samples,
00:42:55
you can tell date it
back really accurately.
00:42:58
How long ago did they live
and what did they eat?
00:43:01
And also, where were they?
00:43:05
If we're looking at ancient DNA,
00:43:07
we're only looking at the people that
00:43:09
they actually were able
to extract DNA from.
00:43:12
These are only 50 people
but, there were thousands
00:43:15
of people at that time.
00:43:16
And there are very few samples
that have been included from
00:43:20
the United States and also from Canada.
00:43:22
The majority of them have
been from South America
00:43:25
and Central America.
00:43:28
- [Narrator] What does DNA
from the ancient ancestors
00:43:30
we've discovered, tell
us about our origins?
00:43:34
- Actually, the closest
relations to natives
00:43:39
in the Americas is from
sort of central Asia.
00:43:44
So we know that we migrated in,
00:43:46
but a lot of people have questions about,
00:43:49
was it just one big migration?
00:43:51
Did it happen at multiple times?
00:43:53
Did we actually migrate
and stay in one spot?
00:43:57
Or did we just spread all
over the Americas and how many
00:44:01
migrations occurred?
00:44:03
DNA can only tell us so much.
00:44:05
We need to know actually
when these occurred,
00:44:08
where they occurred.
00:44:09
So if a group split
off from another group,
00:44:12
just by looking at DNA, we
can sort of make a guess,
00:44:15
but we won't actually
know where it occurred
00:44:19
or when it occurred, unless
we have archeological data.
00:44:24
- [Narrator] The study of
DNA from ancient peoples
00:44:26
requires a culturally sensitive approach
00:44:28
and ongoing consultation
with indigenous communities.
00:44:32
While archeology and
genetics may seem at odds
00:44:35
with our indigenous origin
stories, they all contribute
00:44:38
to the overall history of our peoples.
00:44:44
- [Dr. Claw] Going back
to my creation story
00:44:46
that I grew up with, it was a journey,
00:44:49
because I think a lot of creation stories
00:44:51
are journeys and that's
how I sort of reconcile
00:44:54
it with the genetics.
00:44:56
We're talking about population migration.
00:45:01
Our ancestors, they went
on this huge long journey
00:45:05
for thousands of years
and I'm a product of that,
00:45:09
so not only did they have
to journey across continents
00:45:13
and oceans, but they also
had to fight disease.
00:45:18
And once European contact came,
00:45:21
so many of our people died, our ancestors.
00:45:24
But we here as living people
are actually the products of
00:45:28
all of that, that long journey.
00:45:33
(dramatic music)
00:45:38
- [Narrator] When Christopher
Columbus first encountered
00:45:40
indigenous people in our
traditional territory,
00:45:43
more than 500 years ago, he
mistakenly called us Los Indios.
00:45:51
He thought he'd found
a new route to India,
00:45:54
but he'd actually arrived in a world
00:45:56
unlike anywhere else on earth.
00:45:59
A world that was home to
thousands of distinct nations
00:46:03
and millions of people.
00:46:07
Today, we keep our history
alive through our stories
00:46:10
and traditional knowledge.
00:46:12
And we stay connected to our ancestors
00:46:15
culture they left behind before 1491.
00:46:21
(drumming music)
