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00:01Deep in the desert of South America, mysterious pyramids rise up from the
00:07ground. The lost city of Keral. There's nothing like this in human history. This
00:13is totally unique. Recently discovered after millennia buried beneath mountains
00:21of sand, it was constructed at the same time as Egypt's great pyramids at Giza.
00:27Did these people build South America's first ever pyramids? Look at the conservation of these
00:33things. It's really incredible. Now new mapping technology is allowing investigators to delve
00:38deep inside the heart of Keral to solve its mysteries. Who created these structures and why?
00:47The building of pyramids, the building of monuments, everything was religious. And could this be the
00:52birthplace of the first civilization in the Americas? Suggests that the trajectory these
00:58people took towards civilization is different than anywhere else in the world. To answer these
01:04questions, we'll deconstruct this ancient wonder. We'll dive deep into its mighty pyramids,
01:13burrowing down through tons of sand, to unearth the incredible story
01:18of South America's ancient lost civilization that suddenly disappeared without a trace beneath the desert sands.
01:36Keral. A mysterious series of pyramids in the heart of Peru.
01:43Archaeologists only began excavating this abandoned desert site just over 20 years ago.
01:49Since then, it has continued to confound investigators.
01:54Why are such incredible structures here, in one of South America's most inhospitable landscapes?
02:02Today, researchers are uncovering a lost civilization unlike any other.
02:08One that's forcing archaeologists like Jeff Rose to radically rethink how civilization arose on this
02:15continent. Before archaeologists started working here, we thought there's four or five original
02:21complex civilizations in the entire world. But this adds one more to that list. Except what they found here
02:28is nothing like the other early civilizations.
02:33Keral is one of the most extraordinary archaeological sites in the world.
02:40Buried beneath layers of sand, rock, and rubble, lies a mysterious pyramid abandoned for thousands of years.
02:48The pyramid covers an area of five football fields at its base.
02:54A giant 98-foot-high structure built from multiple platforms.
03:00In front of it, a bizarre stone ring with 10-foot-high walls and stairs flanked by two upright monoliths.
03:11Nearby, archaeologists find five other pyramid-like buildings.
03:15Could this vast ancient city rewrite the rulebook on how civilizations are born?
03:27When Europeans arrived in the Americas in the late 1400s, they encountered the Maya,
03:33Aztec, and Inca civilizations, all advanced, but also steeped in violence.
03:41Jeff Rose is an expert in early societies. Most archaeologists believe that all these American
03:47cultures were born out of war.
03:49It was people having to gather together to protect one another from those guys over in the next valley.
03:55And in doing so, they were increasing their technological complexity, they were becoming more social,
04:00and then before you knew it, you had civilization. At least that's what we've thought for the last 100 years.
04:07Kural could rewrite the rulebook.
04:11Because incredibly, experts haven't unearthed a single weapon here.
04:16So did Kural evolve from peace, not war?
04:24Jeff joins the archaeological team digging for answers.
04:30Ruth Shadi Solis, in charge of the excavations here at Kural, first visited this site nearly 25 years ago.
04:48But Ruth thought differently. And in 1996, she began excavating. It wasn't long before she realized that
04:57this site was exceptionally old, and might even be the earliest civilization in the Americas.
05:08Until now, experts believe the Olmec civilization was the oldest in the Americas.
05:14These people inhabited Mexico from around 1500 BC. Could Kural be even older?
05:23The hunt for proof of Kural's age begins inside the city's largest pyramid.
05:30The Great Pyramid is an ancient engineering marvel.
05:35A series of stone and mortar walls form the exterior.
05:41Supporting them, a layer of tightly packed gravel forms a solid base.
05:51Behind this, large rocks packed into nets called chikras are stacked up against the inner retaining walls.
06:03To give the structure strength.
06:07Could these strange bags hold the secret to the pyramid's age?
06:16The dry desert air has preserved the chikras in incredible condition.
06:21But how long have they been here?
06:24The nets are made of organic material, such as reeds or grass.
06:28So scientists can use carbon dating to figure out their age.
06:34Lead archaeologist Plinio Guillen Alarcón is excavating the chikras.
06:48So just how old is this site?
06:51Plinio's results reveal it is far more ancient than expected.
06:58Kural dates back nearly five millennia.
07:01Thousands of years before the Olmec, Mayan or Inca cultures arose.
07:15It's an incredible discovery.
07:18To have this here completely rewrites what we thought we knew about the rise of civilization in the Americas.
07:25The chikras reveal that civilization on this continent began long before experts previously believed.
07:34Which means Kural's monuments were built at the same time as the ancient Egyptians were building their vast pyramids at
07:42Giza.
07:45And there's another surprise.
07:47All the sites that Jeff has worked on from this period are normally filled with ceramic shards.
07:53But no one has ever found any at Kural.
07:57Pottery is the most common thing you'd find at any archaeological site over the last seven or eight thousand years.
08:02You know, it's used for everything.
08:03It's storing liquids for cooking.
08:06It's durable so it doesn't decay in the ground.
08:09So not to have it here is a really weird mystery.
08:14For thousands of years, human civilizations have relied on ceramic pots for cooking.
08:20And to store their food, water and other goods.
08:25The earliest potters shaped their clay by hand.
08:28Then fired it in open bonfires.
08:32Making pots hard enough to be preserved for millennia.
08:36Over time, civilizations turn their skill into art.
08:40Creating elaborately decorated vases that tell us much about their culture.
08:48From China to Egypt, all the major ancient civilizations have left pottery behind.
08:54Except at Kural.
08:56Why?
09:00The team believes Kural is unique.
09:03A civilization where people built huge, complex pyramids long before mastering seemingly simple skills,
09:10such as firing clay.
09:12It suggests that the trajectory these people took towards civilization is different than anywhere else in the world.
09:20Kural smashes the model for how civilizations are born.
09:25So how did these people survive in the desert without water?
09:29And what were these pyramids for?
09:32Can this body found buried in the heart of Kural's Great Pyramid provide the answer?
09:54Kural, a nearly 5,000-year-old pyramid city unearthed in the Peruvian desert.
10:01Built before the people here had even invented pottery, the earliest civilization in the Americas.
10:09But why were these pyramids built here?
10:12And what were they for?
10:16Paleopathologist Guido Lombardi
10:23He's trying to figure out who these people really were.
10:28Could their lives and deaths shed light on the mystery of how these great pyramids were used?
10:34A clue may lie with a skeleton buried inside this ancient monument, Kural's Great Pyramid.
10:44At the top of the structure lie the crumbled walls of a series of interconnected rooms.
10:52At their heart, a ceremonial chamber of huge significance to the city's elite.
10:58But when archaeologists excavated this room, they discovered a gruesome secret.
11:08In fact, it was a skeleton of a man.
11:11The skeleton of a man, not seen for around 4,000 years.
11:17Who could it be?
11:20Can this discovery shed new light on the purpose of these ancient structures?
11:28Guido investigates the man's skeleton, immaculately preserved by the protective walls of the
11:33pyramid.
11:34From his teeth, we can see that they were in very good shape.
11:41So this person could have been in his 30s or perhaps 40s.
11:46Guido examines his spine.
11:49He discovers bony growths on his lower vertebrae.
11:53This is something that tells us that this person carried heavy loads.
11:57The person was carrying so much loads that the body needed extra bone to be built in order
12:05to make the spine stronger.
12:08His feet also show signs of damage.
12:11So this is osteoarthritis, which is a condition that is associated to athletes today.
12:20The evidence tells a tale of incredibly hard labor.
12:25This worker carried huge loads over long distances.
12:29But skull fractures lead Guido to believe his death was no accident.
12:34He suspects the man was attacked, then thrown into the burial pit while still alive.
12:41Once the body was placed in that position, then he was covered with stones.
12:49Big stones that actually crushed many of his bones.
12:53And then, still alive, he was killed.
12:58The skeleton's position reveals to Guido why he died.
13:03The person was naked, was tied up with the hands on his back.
13:10So there is no doubt for us that this person probably was sacrificed.
13:15The man was killed and buried within the pyramid as a ceremonial offering to the gods.
13:21To me, the way I understand it is that this person's body was placed there to work as a protector
13:29of the pyramid once it was completed.
13:34Archaeologists think the pyramids were the stages on which religious rituals were carried out to unite the community.
13:40From what we know, Karal was associated to many practices around a very strong religion.
13:48This skeleton tells us that ritual was very important to them.
13:56Almost all of the world's ancient civilization worshipped gods.
14:01Rituals would be held on sacred stages to appease them with gifts and offerings.
14:08If the gods were thought to be bloodthirsty, they were offered human sacrifice.
14:15In the peaceful city of Karal, this practice was relatively uncommon.
14:21But the massive temples and ritual fire altars show religion was still a hugely important part of life.
14:30So who presided over these ceremonies?
14:32Was a dominant upper class using these pyramids to wield power over the masses?
14:42Archaeologists believe a hierarchical society is one sign of a developed civilization.
14:48This is the body of a woman discovered near Karal.
14:52Her skeleton suggests that not only did such an upper class elite exist,
14:57but they went to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate their status and power.
15:02This woman's skull is strangely flattened.
15:05This is not a disease.
15:07This is not a condition.
15:09It wasn't caused by an accident.
15:12There is no evidence of fracture.
15:15Her head was deformed while she was alive.
15:19This skull remodeling is caused by tightly binding the head to reshape it.
15:24We know that they did this before the baby turned one year old.
15:32It looks like in this society, this was a marker of high status.
15:37This woman's remains and the sacrificed worker are clear signs that the people of Karal were split into high and
15:45low status.
15:48This was a complex structured society made up of different social classes.
15:55The elite imposed a religion that enforced their power and the pyramids were at the heart of their rituals.
16:02But what brought these people to the desert in the first place?
16:07And how did they create such an incredible city in one of the world's harshest environments?
16:27The ancient city of Karal in South America is transforming our understanding of human history.
16:34It's older than any monumental culture in the Americas and may have been the birthplace of civilization on this continent.
16:46Archeologist Jeff Rose is puzzled by how different Karal seems from the many other early cultures he studied.
16:53One of its greatest mysteries is why the city was built in such hostile terrain.
17:03Karal sits in the middle of Peru's coastal desert, an arid belt between the Andes and the Pacific.
17:11It receives around an inch of rainfall every year.
17:15The one thing you really need for a settlement to flourish is water.
17:20You need a water supply that's both going to provide water for the people and is also going to nourish
17:25the plants.
17:25So this entire enterprise is contingent on whether or not there's a reliable source of fresh water.
17:31The people were certainly getting water from somewhere because the city they built was enormous.
17:41In its heyday, Karal would have been truly magnificent.
17:49The circular plaza was once painted white.
17:53This ten-foot-high ring was a place for ceremonies and large gatherings.
18:01At the top of the vast main staircase, an altar with a central fireplace suggests organized religion was at the
18:10heart of society.
18:12And to house the city's population, there were enough buildings for over 3,000 people.
18:22The city's epic footprint reveals that the people of Karal were not just surviving, they were thriving.
18:30So how is this possible in one of the driest places on Earth?
18:36Archaeologist Aldemar Crispin Balta is hunting for answers.
18:41This streak of green surrounds the trickling Supe River.
18:47Investigators believe they've found evidence that Karal's people had a clever way to channel this water to their fields.
19:06This faint channel, barely visible in the rock face, could be part of one of the oldest irrigation systems in
19:12the Americas.
19:14Carved out centuries before any other South American civilization built waterways.
19:19At the same time as the ancient Egyptians were constructing canals.
19:25Aldemar believes what they've discovered here is just a tiny fraction of a massive system of waterways.
19:45But for the people of Karal, there was one big problem.
19:49The Supe River only flows for five months of the year, between December and April.
19:55The rest of the year, it's dry.
19:59When the river had no water, people faced a deadly threat of drought.
20:04To survive, they had to find another water source to feed the canals.
20:09So where was this life-saving supply?
20:13When the river dried up, the Supe Valley had a unique advantage.
20:19Water from high in the Andes traveled through permeable rock.
20:24And emerged in the valley as freshwater springs.
20:28This underground source ensured farmers had water all year round.
20:33To irrigate their thirsty crops, even in the driest of times.
20:39A year round water supply made life possible at Karal.
20:44It allowed them to irrigate the fields that supported a thriving population.
20:48But incredibly, experts are discovering they didn't use this precious water to focus on growing food.
20:57Aldemar's team hunt for clues in the debris left behind by ancient farmers.
21:03Every ancient civilization that I know of has fed their people with some kind of a key cereal grain,
21:10whether it's rice or corn or wheat or barley.
21:15So what we're looking for here is what kind of seeds are in this dirt?
21:19What were they growing in that valley?
21:23Aldemar discovers that people here grew a few vegetables and fruit.
21:35But the most common crop of all comes as a surprise.
21:47Once again, Karal goes against everything archaeologists like Jeff think should have been happening 5,000 years ago.
21:55It's crazy to think that they're going through all this work just to grow cotton.
22:00You know, you go to the Sumerians and they're growing wheat and barley.
22:05You go to the Maya and they're growing corn.
22:07You know, these are all things that can feed a civilization.
22:09And these guys are putting a tremendous amount of work in to grow something you can't eat.
22:19The builders of Karal's lost pyramids found ingenious ways to extract every drop of water from their harsh environment.
22:28They'd tamed the desert, but why were they using it to grow something they couldn't eat?
22:34And how did the city eventually become buried beneath a blanket of sand?
22:55The city of Karal in Peru is forcing archaeologists to rethink the rise of civilization in the Americas.
23:03Almost 5,000 years ago, Karal's engineers developed a system of irrigation.
23:10It made farming possible in one of the world's driest places.
23:14But instead of growing enough food to feed their city, they were cultivating cotton.
23:20So how did these people survive?
23:24This intricate cotton material discovered at Karal is a clue.
23:29Archaeologists believe it's a fishing net.
23:31Were Karal's people growing cotton to produce fishing equipment?
23:36If so, why?
23:38When the city is 10 miles from the ocean?
23:42Investigators turned to the pyramids for clues.
23:46When archaeologists first uncovered the Gallery Pyramid, they discovered a treasure trove of unexpected objects.
23:55Including an offering that contained fragments of a raft.
24:01When they investigated further, they unearthed something even more surprising.
24:07In what was once the ceremonial hall on top of the pyramid,
24:14they found the trunk of a tree, surrounded by carefully arranged blue whale vertebrae.
24:21Why did this desert-dwelling civilization fill their monument with offerings related to the sea?
24:30These clues suggest that the ocean was central to Karal's survival.
24:36But what role did it play in this inland society?
24:41Gabriel Prieto Burmester is an archaeologist who specializes in the marine history of Peru.
24:48In his lab, he examines artifacts from an archaeological site near a coastal town called Huanchaco.
24:56The settlement he is studying was founded about a thousand years after Karal.
25:02But Gabriel believes it could still shed light on the enigma of Karal's ancient past.
25:08The first fishermen here hunted sharks with hooks and lines.
25:13We have all these shark vertebrae, more than 16,000 that we currently excavated.
25:20And, of course, we have these beautiful shark teeth that tell us about the capacity of these people to actually
25:32hunt these big and large fish.
25:37But hunting 10-foot-long sharks was a risky way to feed their families.
25:42It wasn't long before the people of Huanchaco utilized a new, more efficient technology.
25:50These are two beautiful examples of fishing nets.
25:54Nets allowed them to catch smaller fish, but in greater numbers.
25:58Perhaps the most important thing is that they were all made of cotton.
26:03Today, the fishermen of Huanchaco still use simple nets while riding traditional reed boats.
26:09A way of fishing inherited from their ancestors.
26:14Gabriel thinks that by using nets, these ancient people were able to catch more food than they needed.
26:21What they didn't eat, they exchanged or sold.
26:24The people of Huanchaco were embarking on a process crucial to civilization, trade.
26:32The fact that they are using fishing nets to increase their fish catch tells us about a more open community
26:41that is using a surplus in marine products to exchange for other goods.
26:50These artifacts are surprisingly similar to the temple offerings at Coral.
26:55So archaeologists think people at Coral also traded nets for fish.
27:00But nearly a thousand years earlier,
27:04could these simple nets represent the first flowering of trade in the Americas
27:08that almost five millennia later is still going strong in the commerce and economies of today?
27:15When you exchange products from different regions,
27:18you are actually fostering one of the principal elements of civilization.
27:24That is, on the one hand, social interaction,
27:27and at the same time, you are increasing, you know, the economy.
27:32Experts believe that Coral's new trade-based prosperity didn't happen by chance.
27:37It was driven by a sudden change of climate.
27:42A cold-water current which flows along the coast of South America
27:47helps support an abundance of marine life.
27:52But nearly 5,000 years ago, the waters warmed and the fish stocks changed.
27:58Larger species, such as tuna, were replaced by schools of smaller fish.
28:04This called for a change in fishing techniques.
28:08Instead of using a single line, the fishermen now needed nets.
28:15Nets required more cotton than the fishermen could grow themselves.
28:19But the people of Coral had plenty, so trade benefited them both.
28:26As the citizens of Coral exchanged cotton for fish,
28:30their civilization grew and flourished.
28:33Coral was like a very large marketplace.
28:36The perfect stage for these people to meet
28:39and to exchange products between fishing and farming communities.
28:44And that's definitely something that
28:46eventually leads to a more complex way of life.
28:51The pyramids were also a draw.
28:54Attracting traders to the city.
28:56Coral had these beautiful and large monumental centers
28:59where they can go to pray, where they can go to exchange their products for other goods.
29:06Unlike all other early civilizations in the Americas,
29:10this society wasn't born out of warfare.
29:14Rather than attacking their neighbors,
29:16the people of Coral built a rich culture rooted in peaceful trade.
29:21But another mystery remains unsolved.
29:25When archaeologists uncovered the giant pyramids of Coral,
29:29they found that there was an abrupt end to human activity here after 1600 B.C.
29:37Why did civilization suddenly disappear from the Supe Valley?
29:42Could a series of cracks in the Great Pyramid hold the secret to Coral's collapse?
30:02The giant ceremonial complex at Coral was the center of the first civilization in the Americas,
30:09thriving for more than a millennium.
30:12But nearly 4,000 years ago, the site was suddenly abandoned.
30:16There's no evidence of human activity beyond 1600 B.C.
30:21So what went wrong?
30:25Archaeologist Dan Sandweiss investigates
30:27whether one of nature's most destructive forces brought Coral to its knees.
30:32Look at the conservation of these things.
30:34It's really incredible.
30:35It's such a luxury to work on the coast here,
30:38where everything is so dry and well preserved.
30:41He thinks a clue to what caused the destruction can be uncovered within Coral's largest monument.
30:51When archaeologists first unearthed the Great Pyramid here,
30:56they discovered it had suffered tremendous damage.
31:01A giant crack ran through the sacred fire altar.
31:07It split the ceremonial hearth in two,
31:12and the southern face of the structure had slumped and slipped sideways,
31:19deforming the entire pyramid.
31:23Could a cataclysmic earthquake have driven the ancient people of Coral to flee their sacred city?
31:37Throughout history,
31:39many cultures and civilizations have been destroyed by natural disasters.
31:44Was this the fate of Coral?
31:51This is the location where Coral is,
31:53is one of the most earthquake-prone areas on Earth.
31:56It's part of the Pacific Ring of Fire,
31:58where a plate from under the Pacific Ocean,
32:01in this case, is going underneath the South American continent
32:03and pushing it up.
32:05And as it goes, it gets stuck, creates friction,
32:07and when that releases, then you have really big earthquakes.
32:10And around here, they occur about every 50 years.
32:13Really big ones.
32:15Dan believes one such colossal quake badly damaged
32:18the Great Pyramid's ceremonial buildings.
32:21A really good example of the damage this big earthquake did
32:24is this wall that we see here.
32:26You can see how the top is pushed back in this direction,
32:29and the base is pulled out.
32:31It's even bulged in the middle.
32:32If you look at these walls rotated back,
32:35they're at least 20-degree angle rotation.
32:37If this were happening in a city today,
32:38it would be a real disaster.
32:42Could this terrifying event have forced people
32:45to abandon Keral?
32:48Archaeologist David Palomino Olivos believes
32:51the citizens wouldn't run from a threat
32:53that they knew well, no matter how powerful.
33:14David's investigations here unearthed evidence
33:17of repairs to the site.
33:18This proves that Keral's people stayed
33:21to shore up their monuments.
33:23But one thing has puzzled him.
33:26Why didn't the Great Pyramid collapse?
33:29His structural investigation suggests
33:32something astonishing.
33:34Keral's architects had developed building techniques
33:37to minimize earthquake damage.
33:40We have the evidence
33:40that the population of Karal
33:43knew the anti-sismic methods.
33:46In terms of this,
33:47they made that the internal structure
33:50between the sismes
33:50would not collapse.
33:56He believes the shikras,
33:58which give the pyramid strength,
34:00also give it a degree of seismic stability.
34:04When tightly packed
34:05one on top of another,
34:07they form foundations
34:08which dramatically reduce
34:09the effect of tremors.
34:17These loose sacks of rock
34:19disperse seismic energy through the building,
34:21diluting its destructive power.
34:25This technology saved the Great Pyramid
34:28from total destruction
34:29and allowed it to be repaired.
34:33So if it wasn't earthquakes,
34:35what did cause Keral to be abandoned?
34:37And what terrible event buried the city
34:40in sand?
34:58The people of Keral had built
35:00an incredible city
35:01in the Peruvian desert.
35:04They overcame the challenges
35:05of water supply and earthquakes
35:07to establish a civilization
35:09based on trade.
35:12But 3,600 years ago,
35:14they disappeared.
35:16I keep going down.
35:17That's really interesting.
35:19Dan Sandweis
35:20is trying to work out
35:21why they left.
35:23Something was going on
35:24that didn't come in with the wind.
35:26Oh, look at the size of those rocks.
35:29So as we go down this pit,
35:30we're going through time.
35:32The deeper you go,
35:33the older you get.
35:34He's looking for changes in the sand,
35:37unusual layers which could be
35:38evidence left behind
35:40by a natural disaster.
35:41If we look down here,
35:43there's a really fascinating deposit
35:44about five meters down.
35:46Angular rocks, large size,
35:48jumbled together.
35:50That took a lot of water
35:51to bring those in here.
35:52It must have been moving
35:53really quickly at some point
35:54to deposit those rocks.
35:57Although Corral is a desert
35:59for most of the year,
36:00it can be hit
36:01by periodic floods.
36:03With earthquakes
36:04loosening the sediment,
36:06any storms further up the valley
36:08unleash huge volumes of mud.
36:10These mudflows
36:11have a name in Peru.
36:13Huaycos.
36:15So if we were here
36:15during this event,
36:16it would start raining first.
36:18It would probably be lightning
36:19and thunder.
36:20And then we'd hear
36:21this rushing, roaring sound
36:23and this massive wall of mud
36:25and rock and sand
36:27would start shooting down
36:28this canyon towards Corral.
36:30It would be a really nasty
36:31place to be.
36:32If you were in the way of this,
36:33you probably wouldn't survive.
36:37In 2017,
36:38this region of Peru
36:39suffered a series
36:40of devastating Huaycos.
36:43Many communities
36:44are still reeling from them.
36:46Nearly 5,000 years ago,
36:49Corral was built up
36:50on a terrace above the river,
36:51perhaps helping to avoid
36:53the worst of these Huaycos.
36:56Corral's architects
36:57had done all they could
36:58to design a city
36:59resistant to nature's wrath.
37:02Dan still believes
37:03it could have been
37:04a powerful natural force
37:06that pushed them
37:06to abandon the pyramids.
37:09He suspects
37:10the huge sand dunes
37:11that encircle the site
37:12could hold the key
37:13to Corral's demise.
37:15Some soar over 100 feet high.
37:20Their formation,
37:21thousands of years ago,
37:23was triggered
37:23by a shift in the climate.
37:27When Corral was flourishing,
37:29I've discovered
37:30this is a time
37:30when there was a really big change
37:32in the climate system.
37:33And we begin to get
37:34these El Nino events
37:35that occur every couple of decades.
37:37And that means
37:38every once in a while,
37:40the waters off the coast
37:41get warm.
37:41And when they warm,
37:42water evaporates
37:44and comes inland,
37:44and we get these massive storms
37:46in the valley.
37:47Storms alone
37:49are a deadly threat.
37:50But when they hit
37:51earthquake-ravaged terrain,
37:53the effect is catastrophic.
37:57As earthquakes hit the region,
37:59they destabilize
38:00the arid mountain earth,
38:03sending loose debris
38:04crashing down
38:05into the foothills.
38:10Torrential rain
38:11powered by the warm water
38:12of the Pacific
38:13washes the debris
38:15into the river
38:16and eventually
38:17to the coast.
38:20Over many decades,
38:22the silt builds up
38:24to form a large ridge.
38:26The ridge seals off
38:27the once rich fishing bays,
38:29filling them with sand.
38:32To make matters worse,
38:34over time,
38:35prevailing winds
38:36then blow the sand inland
38:39and turn the once fertile fields
38:41into desert.
38:45Over a thousand years,
38:47Kharal gradually choked
38:48to death.
38:50It created the dune
38:51we're standing on.
38:52This is a 30-meter-high dune
38:54made from that sand.
38:56In the end,
38:57nature killed off Kharal.
39:00Its agriculture,
39:02its economy,
39:03its magnificent pyramids
39:04all smothered by sand.
39:06When you cover the fields,
39:07you lose a big piece
39:09of the economic basis
39:10for the Kharal civilization.
39:12They were based
39:13on farming
39:13and fishing.
39:14And if you knock out
39:15a big part of the farming,
39:17it's not sustainable anymore.
39:18And we think that's
39:19what happened to Kharal.
39:20That's why it came to an end.
39:22Once their civilization faltered,
39:25around 3600 years ago,
39:26the citizens of Kharal disappeared
39:28from history.
39:31The Egyptians
39:33would continue building
39:34pyramids for another century.
39:36But no more pyramids
39:38would be built
39:39in the Americas
39:40until they were constructed
39:41at places like Teotihuacan
39:43and La Venta
39:43in Mexico
39:44more than a thousand
39:45years later.
39:48But Dan believes
39:50Kharal's culture
39:51and customs lived on.
39:52When Kharal was abandoned,
39:54it was a dead end
39:55for the Kharal civilization,
39:57but not for the people
39:58or for many
39:59of their traditions.
40:00And undoubtedly,
40:01some of the traditions
40:01continued to influence
40:03later people
40:03carried down
40:04from generation to generation.
40:07The city of Kharal
40:09flourished for a thousand years
40:10before suffocating
40:12in the desert sands.
40:14Its people
40:15forged the first civilization
40:16of the Americas.
40:38Most archaeologists
40:40once thought
40:41that all cultures
40:42followed a similar path.
40:43War was a driving force
40:45and pottery
40:46a prerequisite
40:47for any new civilization.
40:50Kharal rips up
40:51the rule book.
40:52This is totally unique
40:54in human history.
40:56The archaeologists
40:57found here
40:57is nothing like
40:59the other
41:00early civilizations.
41:01It demonstrates
41:02that there are
41:03different pathways
41:04to becoming civilized.
41:08The archaeologists
41:09Kharal's incredible story
41:11is forcing archaeologists
41:13to rethink
41:14the history
41:14of civilization.
41:17Evidence from this site
41:18proves that societies
41:20can emerge
41:21from peaceful beginnings
41:22born from trade
41:23not conquest.
41:25That a culture
41:26can be technologically
41:28advanced enough
41:28to build earthquake
41:29resistant buildings
41:30without first
41:32inventing the simplest
41:33clay pots.
41:36Kharal was a society
41:38that fought off
41:38some of nature's
41:39harshest challenges
41:43but was eventually
41:44defeated.
41:47The first civilization
41:49in the Americas.
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42:22the Americas,
42:23of the Americas,
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