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00:01This week, join me as I try to unlock the secrets of one of the strangest archaeological discoveries ever made.
00:08Colossal heads.
00:103,000 years old, carved at the dawn of civilization in Mesoamerica.
00:16How did the Stone Age culture create such massive monuments?
00:20And who were the people archaeologists call the Olmecs?
00:24To find out, I'll search the slopes of an ancient volcano.
00:27This is black gold, huh?
00:30And look for clues deep within a bubbling tar pit.
00:33I'll lift 20-ton boulders.
00:35I didn't kill anybody or destroy anything.
00:38And probe the mystery of a primitive people who took on the impossible and won.
00:44We're digging for the truth and going to extremes to do it.
01:01Deep in the Central American jungle lies a mystery that has been puzzling archaeologists for decades.
01:09Colossal stone heads.
01:11Hi, I'm Hunter Ellis.
01:13This monolith is over 30 centuries old and weighs more than 10 tons.
01:19But who made it?
01:20And how?
01:22I've traveled to the heart of Mexico to find out the secrets of the kings of the Stone Age.
01:30They were the Olmecs, the people of the forest.
01:34To find them, we have to journey back through the civilizations that have come and gone in this land.
01:41The Aztecs are the most familiar.
01:44500 years ago, they created a vast empire that covered more than 80,000 square miles.
01:50They built great cities.
01:52Huge temples.
01:55They sacrificed thousands to their gods.
01:59Then fell to the Spanish conquistadors.
02:03The Olmecs came before them.
02:07The Maya, too, share the Aztecs' renown.
02:10And also left a great legacy in stone.
02:14They ruled an empire that encompassed 100,000 square miles and more than 20 million people.
02:21Their temple walls tell us about the rise and fall of their gods and their kings.
02:29But go back further still.
02:33Centuries before the birth of the Maya and 1,200 years before the birth of Christ,
02:39the Olmecs emerged from the lowland jungles of modern Mexico.
02:47This was the time of Tutankhamun and Ramses the Great in Egypt.
02:53While here in Central America, there was only jungle until the Olmecs came.
02:59In terms of scale, the Aztec and the Maya civilization border on the epic.
03:04But size isn't everything.
03:06The Olmecs may have ruled fewer people, but they were also the first to rule.
03:14They are a people shrouded in mystery.
03:17The jungle has swallowed almost everything they made.
03:22In fact, no one even knew they existed until the first giant heads turned up.
03:28Colossal heads.
03:30Strange and disembodied.
03:3317 of them.
03:35So far.
03:39The Anthropological Museum of Jalapa, Mexico, is home to six.
03:43The largest collection of Olmec colossal heads in the world.
03:48For curator Roberto Luna Gomez, these heads are his museum's greatest mystery.
03:54Hello, Roberto.
03:55How are you?
03:55Very good.
03:56Thank you very much.
03:57Being that it was that long ago, how did they create these heads?
04:01What were their tools like?
04:03No metal tools.
04:04So this is all stone on stone?
04:05Only stones against stones.
04:09Rock against rock.
04:12Roberto says its features were painstakingly carved by grinding and pounding.
04:20Who were these people?
04:21And what do these huge heads mean?
04:26As works of art, the heads are incredible.
04:29The largest weighs over 20 tons and stands over 11 feet tall.
04:34Every head wears a unique helmet.
04:36And every face is an individual.
04:39Stern.
04:41Benign.
04:42Powerful.
04:44As archeological discoveries go, they're baffling.
04:50To find out more, I'm heading to the Olmec's first capital city, San Lorenzo.
04:57In their time, this was a swampy jungle.
05:02It's the worst place for archeologists trying to find the remains of an ancient civilization.
05:08Human bones, textiles, wood, everything that's not made of stone or pottery simply rots away.
05:16Nothing like hiking through a jungle in 100% humidity.
05:21The first great population center in Central America lived at the top of this ridge.
05:27The Olmecs went on to build other cities in this region, but this is where it all began.
05:34This is San Lorenzo, what some believe was the first city in Central America.
05:41I know, I'm trying to find it too.
05:45It's hard to see the remains of a civilization here.
05:48Unlike Maya or Aztec ruins, all the Olmecs monuments have sunk deep into the soft jungle soil.
05:563,200 years ago, this ridge was surrounded by dense jungles, swamps, and rivers.
06:03Even today, it looks like an unpromising place to launch the first civilization in Central America.
06:11Just don't tell that to Dr. Ann Cyphers.
06:14She's been digging at San Lorenzo for more than 20 years and has a lot of respect for the Olmecs.
06:20What you're looking at is a site that's probably seven square kilometers in size.
06:25How many people are we talking about? I mean, I look out and it's a huge plateau.
06:30On the San Lorenzo site itself, probably about 5,500 people.
06:36And of all the projects that have been here in the last 50, 60 years, we probably haven't even scratched
06:411% of the surface or the subsurface.
06:44So there could be other colossal heads all around us that we haven't discovered.
06:48There could be incredible things.
06:49But since I'm going to have to dig in the dirt to find it out, it's going to take me
06:53a lot longer.
06:57So far, San Lorenzo has yielded 10 monolithic heads, but they weren't easy to find.
07:03The first heads were excavated in the 1800s.
07:08They were met with astonishment.
07:13Recovered from deep within the soil, nothing like them had ever been seen before.
07:19People were mystified.
07:22Speculation was rife.
07:24Why did they look so different?
07:27Had colonists from Africa carved them?
07:31Were they the work of survivors from Atlantis?
07:36But by the 1940s, archaeologists had gotten over their shock.
07:41They began to appreciate them as indigenous works of art.
07:44And started calling the Olmecs of San Lorenzo the mother culture of Central America.
07:51It's a story Ann Cyphers knows better than anyone.
07:54Over here to the east, there's something very, very interesting.
07:59Unfortunately, this very, very interesting thing is no longer here.
08:02It's a huge hole.
08:04It's a huge hole, and it has something quite colossal in it.
08:07Ah, a colossal head, I'm guessing.
08:09You're so right.
08:10Now, which colossal head came from this site?
08:12Colossal head number eight was removed from this place.
08:15Now, that's the beautiful one in front of the museum, right?
08:18That's right, the one as you go into the Jalapa Museum, that is the first head you see.
08:22Unbelievable. And it came from there.
08:23Unbelievable.
08:24But what's even more fascinating about where it came from is the fact that it was buried,
08:29intentionally buried, within an earthen platform.
08:32In other words, that means it was hidden.
08:34So you couldn't see it.
08:34It was placed on the ground, and then the platform was built over it.
08:38So that it was completely encased in dirt, and so it was totally invisible to people.
08:44So it was like a memorial in a sense.
08:45Exactly, like a memorial, something with a high degree of symbolism.
08:50And interestingly, it's on the east.
08:52The east, the sunrise, the place of the ancestors, perhaps.
08:58Amazingly, it wasn't the passage of time that concealed it.
09:02This colossal carving was deliberately and ceremoniously buried.
09:07All the other heads show signs of weathering and erosion.
09:11But not this one.
09:13It's unique.
09:14A singular Olmec mystery.
09:19But even if their giant monuments can be uncovered, their daily life remains a puzzle.
09:26One that archaeologist Carl Wendt wants to solve.
09:31He studies the materials the Olmecs had on hand, and how they used them.
09:37He says the Olmecs had one signature resource that I need to see for myself.
09:45Alright, so what do we need?
09:47Buckets.
09:48Okay.
09:48See some shovels.
09:49And it looks like he has something messy in mind.
09:53You've got your boots.
09:54Boots?
09:55How come there's only one pair?
09:57Is this the new guy thing?
09:59Yeah.
10:00Guess I'm getting dirty.
10:04We walk into the nearby field.
10:07When the Olmecs came here, they didn't hike through farmland.
10:11They hacked through jungle.
10:14Whatever was here was valuable.
10:18Okay.
10:19And it still is.
10:21Man, check this out.
10:22Whoa.
10:23It's a lake full of tar.
10:26This is awesome.
10:28Black gold, huh?
10:29Yeah.
10:29This is the stuff.
10:32I can see it bubbling to the surface right over there.
10:35That is so cool.
10:38More or less, it's crude oil.
10:40You know, it's the stuff that just kind of oozes from the ground.
10:44Just go ahead.
10:45This isn't like ice where you're going to break through at any moment, is it?
10:47No.
10:47Okay.
10:49Just be careful, though.
10:50Yeah, don't lose your footing, because I left the rope in the car.
10:54So is this flammable?
10:56You know, it is.
10:58But I've found in my experiments that we have to get this at a pretty high temperature before
11:02it actually starts to burn.
11:04So we're safe for now.
11:05We're safe for now.
11:05But if you lit a fire and threw this on a fire, yeah, it'll burn.
11:09Carl says the whole region is dotted with seepages like this, surrounding the Olmec site at San Lorenzo.
11:15Okay, so how do I want to do this?
11:17This is the heart of modern Mexico's oil country.
11:20Here, the crude oil just wells up to the surface and congeals.
11:24Let the water roll off a little bit.
11:26There you go.
11:27Oh, look at that beautiful sludge.
11:30Oh, you can see the water just bead right inside.
11:32Yeah.
11:34Oh, wow.
11:36How many different ways could they have used this?
11:39You know, we know they used it for decoration, for example, on figurines and things like this, as a paint.
11:45We know they've used it for adhesive.
11:48You know, all sorts of different kind of multipurpose material.
11:51I mean, just as people today would use it.
11:54It's the glue.
11:55It's their duct tape.
11:56It's their duct tape.
11:57A million uses for it.
11:58That's it.
12:00It turns out that people have been using asphalt for millennia,
12:03especially here in Central America.
12:06For Carl, fragments of asphalt found far from San Lorenzo are invaluable.
12:12These chunks were once collected and processed by the Olmecs.
12:17Most of their artifacts rotted away a long time ago.
12:20But a whole range of Olmec materials, primarily wood and textiles, have left impressions in asphalt.
12:29That shadowy presence provides an insight into Olmec daily life.
12:36So tell me what you're able to learn about the Olmecs by studying a site like this.
12:40Well, you know, one of the things that I've been doing as part of my work is not only trying
12:45to do experiments to see how they process the material,
12:48but I've been doing some research on trying to source analyze the material.
12:52In other words, trying to rehab the artifacts from the excavations.
12:56And I've been able to trace back some of the artifacts, the asphalt artifacts, to particular areas where seeps are
13:05from.
13:06And that tells us about trade patterns, exchange, interaction, all these types of things that are really difficult for archaeologists
13:12to understand.
13:14From studying artifacts like asphalt, archaeologists are getting a clearer picture of how the Olmecs traded their raw materials and
13:21finished products.
13:23They've discovered that the Olmecs traded goods over hundreds, if not thousands, of miles.
13:29Well, it looks like we got our two buckets. Is that enough?
13:31I think so. And I'm already dirty.
13:34All right. Well, I'm stuck.
13:39Let's unstick our way out of here.
13:41All right. Sounds good.
13:50All right.
13:51The Olmecs were a small civilization with big ideas.
13:55They created huge stone monuments.
13:58But their culture remains one of Central America's greatest mysteries.
14:03Many of their secrets are still buried in the remains of their first city, a place that archaeologists call San
14:09Lorenzo.
14:10Well, that can be picked up.
14:11Ann Cyphers is piecing together what this settlement looked like.
14:15She does it by taking soil core samples throughout the 30-square-mile site.
14:20This is Don Juan.
14:21Don Juan. Hunter.
14:22And this is Marisol Varela, who is an archaeologist.
14:24Don Juan. Marisol.
14:25Very nice to meet you.
14:26Ann says I should give it a try for myself.
14:28Yeah, I'd love to try your hands up.
14:29Her team has done 3,000 core samples at San Lorenzo, evenly spaced every 65 feet across the entire site.
14:38Tell me about what you'll find here to indicate Olmec presence.
14:43Well, what is very interesting is when you start seeing possible vestiges of structures.
14:49For example, floors will leave a specific signature, and so that can be picked up within the dirt.
14:55Tell me the difference you'll see.
14:57Like, how can you tell if you hit a structure?
14:59What is the change that you notice?
15:01Well, usually it's house floors.
15:04You can find the kind that are made of a blood red sand plaster, or an orange sand plaster, or
15:12there are then stone pavements,
15:14and the core bucket will just bite right through it.
15:17And as you pull the dirt out, it's very clear to see that you have gone through a floor.
15:22So the red will stand out, the bentonite will stand out, and then you know that at that depth you
15:27have a structure.
15:28That's right, you need to measure and find out how deep you have gone with your bucket.
15:32Okay, so each sample you take, you'll measure the depth so you know what you found where.
15:36Okay, we're looking at about 31 centimeters or so.
15:40No, not about or so.
15:42Okay.
15:42We want an exact measurement.
15:43Very precise, okay.
15:44Very precise.
15:45I'll go right back in here.
15:47Okay.
15:4831 centimeters.
15:50Very good, Hunter.
15:52This is about five and a half feet tall here, so what happens when I'm running out of room?
15:57Well, when you get down to having the whole extension within the ground, then it will be time for you
16:06to add on an extension.
16:07And we have more extensions right here.
16:10Manually, we've gone down to about 18, 19 meters.
16:14No kidding?
16:14No kidding.
16:15That's like 60 feet.
16:16You do that by hand?
16:17Do it by hand.
16:18Don Juan, muy fuerte.
16:22You need four, five, sometimes six men to be able to do that.
16:27No kidding.
16:29Now I see why we know so few details about the Olmecs.
16:32Bites into the dirt.
16:33Their occupation layer is up to 60 feet down.
16:38It's like looking for buried treasure.
16:41This is an Olmecs site, so the treasure I'd like to strike isn't gold or jewels.
16:46It's stone.
16:48And it's almost as rare.
16:51In fact, the closest source of stone for the Olmecs colossal heads is a long, hard way from here, in
16:59a place called the Tustla Mountains.
17:03The Tustlas are a group of volcanoes in southern Veracruz.
17:07They are at least 40 miles away from San Lorenzo.
17:12Up here, mammoth stones are everywhere.
17:17Many of them are bombs, blobs of lava that are thrown out by an eruption.
17:26But if this is where the Olmecs came to get the stones for their monuments, just how did they get
17:30them back?
17:38The Olmecs didn't select just any type of rock to make their colossal monuments.
17:44They used especially hard basalt.
17:48I've heard there's evidence of an Olmec workshop nearby.
17:52To figure out why the Olmecs chose such a labor-intensive medium, I'm meeting archaeologist Dr. Richard Diehl.
17:59Yeah, great to see you.
18:01I want to get you with a machete.
18:03Yeah, I appreciate that.
18:05These two roughly-shaped rocks betray hours of Olmec labor.
18:08There's some stone here.
18:09Yes, the vesicular basalt is what we call it.
18:11It comes from the mountain, say, Los Sintipec, just behind us.
18:14Does this have a carved head anywhere? Did they get that far?
18:17No, no, they didn't. What I'm sitting on here would have been the top.
18:20Okay.
18:22And they had the sides pretty well smoothed down.
18:26And then this tab on the end.
18:28Yeah, I wonder what that is.
18:29Well, we don't know.
18:30I suspect that that was left on purposely at this point in the manufacture to help move it.
18:38That is, it may have been a tie-down or something.
18:40Something they could actually hold on to.
18:42Exactly.
18:42Attach something to.
18:43It seems to make sense.
18:44I mean, this is a stone in the midst of manufacture.
18:47That's what's really neat about it.
18:48Right.
18:48It's not that it's particularly beautiful, because, man, it isn't.
18:51But it shows you some of the process of manufacturing.
18:56Archaeologists found this stone in two pieces.
18:58But by lining up the sculptor's marks, they can see how the smaller slab once rested on the base.
19:07Why this type of stone?
19:09What was so special about this stone for the Olmecs?
19:11Well, I think it was the stone's association with volcanoes.
19:15And so it's born in fire.
19:17And so I think it had those connotations of the underworld, the abode of the gods under the volcanoes.
19:23And this stuff, these boulders all through these fields were part of volcanic eruptions that I think were then eroded
19:31downslope.
19:32And we were pretty well at the bottom of the slope here.
19:34So this is where they stayed.
19:35And this is where the Olmecs came looking for the kinds of stone that they wanted to use.
19:40I think what they were doing here was...
19:41Richard tells me that a group of master carvers and apprentices might locate a good stone and work on it
19:47for weeks.
19:49They roughed out the basic shape on site.
19:52Then they would transport it to San Lorenzo for finishing.
19:57And apparently they got fairly well on with working this thing when something happened.
20:02Was this an apprentice here?
20:03Well, I wonder.
20:04Yeah.
20:05This is broken.
20:06After he broke it, he was probably no longer an apprentice.
20:09He was probably a farmer.
20:11I think there was a relatively small group of carvers here at any one time.
20:15But then when it came time to move the stone, that's when you had to bring in a bazillion people.
20:19It could be that the entire community showed up here to help.
20:23That's absolutely incredible.
20:24It's really amazing what these folks could do.
20:28The stone monuments ended up nearly 40 miles away.
20:33How could a Stone Age culture move rocks weighing up to 40 tons?
20:39And why did they bother?
20:41It's time for some experimental archaeology.
20:44What does it take to move a colossal head?
20:55Before the dawn of the Olmecs, the peoples of Central America lived in small groups.
21:00They survived by hunting and gathering in small-scale agriculture.
21:05Populations were sparse.
21:07There were no leaders with huge labor forces under their command.
21:13Then in 1200 BC, the Olmecs emerged from the jungle and established Central America's first political center.
21:21A city filled with powerful monuments.
21:25What exactly sparked this dramatic development?
21:29We may never know, but they left us some pretty large clues.
21:34Hefty ones, too.
21:37And carving them was only half the battle.
21:41How did they move these massive rocks to their capital, which was in the middle of a swamp and 40
21:46miles away?
21:49Today, it's a piece of cake.
21:51All it takes is a phone call.
21:57Let's pick one up and get a sense of the size we're talking about here.
22:01Now, this is a good rock for a colossal head.
22:13So this crane is rated to 20 tons, which should be enough to hopefully pick up this colossal rock.
22:24Guess we'll see how well these straps hold.
22:27The crane shouldn't have any trouble with this rock, but I'm not so sure about using a single nylon strap.
22:41Success.
22:43Now we just have to figure out whose head we're going to carve.
22:47Fourteen tons, no sweat.
22:50And we didn't even lift a finger.
22:56All right, let's see if I can swing it around a little bit.
22:59So this?
23:01Which way?
23:03This?
23:04This is to go down?
23:05This?
23:07This?
23:09Whoop.
23:11The translation thing is a little difficult.
23:14The Olmecs didn't have it so easy.
23:17This is about average for the rocks they were moving.
23:20Some were more than twice as big.
23:23All right, I didn't kill anybody or destroy anything.
23:27I think that was lucky.
23:28With little more than brute force and sheer determination, they moved rocks weighing up to 40 tons.
23:38But how did they do it?
23:42No one really knows other than it required a lot of manpower.
23:50Still, Dr. Carl Wen has some ideas.
23:53It's definitely not an Olmec head.
23:55No, it's not an Olmec head, but I think you'd be surprised.
23:58Yeah.
23:59Fizzy.
24:00Yeah.
24:04So, how much do you think each one of these weighs?
24:06You know, I'm guessing probably around a half a ton.
24:09Okay, so about a thousand pounds.
24:11And so, some of the smaller Olmec heads weight how much?
24:16Much more, you know, seven, eight tons.
24:18Okay, so I mean, we're talking about like 14 to 20 times this size, basically.
24:23Sure.
24:24But we're starting small.
24:26I'd like to see what we can do on our own here first.
24:29All right.
24:30All right.
24:31Well, okay.
24:32It might seem a little bit crazy, but when you stop to think about it, what tools did the Olmecs
24:37have?
24:39They didn't have metal tools, but maybe they had ropes braided from liana vines or wooden levers.
24:46And a little leverage can go a long way.
24:50What did other cultures do?
24:52Well, you know, that's a good point because, you know, one of the ways we get ideas about how the
24:56Olmec moved it is by looking at other cultures.
24:59Other cultures used a number of different devices to actually reduce, again, the friction and ease the pulling of these
25:05stones.
25:10Just as the Egyptians deployed mass labor to move the building blocks of the pyramids, so did the Olmecs.
25:17But on a very different scale.
25:19San Lorenzo's population was a mere 5,500 people.
25:25So their challenge was a bit like Carl's and mine.
25:29All right.
25:30Where do we start?
25:31Well, we got the guys, so...
25:34Yeah, I think we can move a lot of rocks with these guys.
25:37We've asked them to figure out how to move this stone using only rope, levers, and sweat.
25:53I mean, the amazing thing is that look how many guys it's taking to move these small rocks.
25:58Yeah.
25:59I mean, I'm just picturing just hundreds of Olmecs now trying to move stones ten times this size.
26:05That's one thing.
26:05And we, you know, there's been estimates, Doug, that, you know, one man, you know, say, could probably move about
26:1050 pounds over a long distance and, say, maybe about 100 pounds over a short distance.
26:14So that's sort of how we did some of the calculations.
26:18Extrapolating from what one person can accomplish, archaeologists have calculated that more than 1,000 men might have been needed
26:25to drag a stone that weighed 40 tons.
26:28That's a couple of full garbage trucks.
26:33The move might have taken place in stages that lasted well over a year.
26:38We've got about 17 guys moving this rock.
26:41Sliding it.
26:42The Olmecs probably needed as many people again to feed them, prepare shelters, and clear the road.
26:48They're moving it, but it's kind of slow.
26:49So I think we should change techniques a little bit and put it on some sort of a sledge.
27:00Carl says they would have tried to reduce the friction as much as possible.
27:03And a wooden sledge does make the pulling easier.
27:08This moves pretty smoothly.
27:10Yeah, a lot better.
27:10Yeah.
27:16And remember, they never invented the wheel.
27:19The best they might do was to use some logs as rollers.
27:23Oh, yeah, once it gets up on those.
27:30I'm beginning to get a true appreciation of all the obstacles the Olmecs were up against.
27:35But the really big invention of the Olmecs was in their organization of human labor.
27:42Even using all the materials the Olmecs had available to them, moving a stone like this in this environment is
27:48a tough job.
27:49What's even more mysterious is what they did when they arrived at the swamps and rivers.
27:53Because around here, they're everywhere.
28:03In order to get the stone to their city, which used to reside on that plateau right over there, the
28:09Olmecs had to traverse miles and miles of swamp and jungle, which today have been replaced by crops.
28:14But in the wet season when it rains, this place is entirely flooded and San Lorenzo becomes a virtual island.
28:25The population at San Lorenzo was nourished by the rich wetland environment.
28:31Large-scale public monuments only became possible because individuals created surplus food, freeing up others to serve as artisans.
28:41Even today, one man with a net can gather a lot of food.
28:45I want to see how.
28:47So I thought I'd meet up with one of the locals to see if he could show me the ancient
28:51art of net casting.
29:01This is going to be really interesting because my Spanish is horrible.
29:05They're curled up.
29:07The Olmecs probably fished pretty much the same, but I bet they were a lot better at it.
29:15This is really complicated. I have no idea where any of this is going.
29:18So.
29:19Another one?
29:20Though their nets have rotted away, ceramic beads have been found that may have been weights for nets like this.
29:28Ah!
29:30Beginner's luck!
29:39This is my first fish.
29:49Two pescadores!
29:51Yeah!
29:56The water was a rich resource, but it set limits on the Olmecs living space.
30:01Still, they had a solution to that problem and the manpower to make it happen.
30:07Archeologist Ann Cyphers tells me, despite their relatively small population, they transformed their landscape.
30:14We're talking about millions and millions of cubic meters of fill that were brought in to create more space for
30:22habitation.
30:23The whole site was ringed by these artificially built terraces and the amount, the volume, we're talking about millions and
30:31millions and millions of cubic meters of dirt.
30:34So they put a lot of hard work into developing this site.
30:37A lot of hard work.
30:38And that also indicates the amount, in an indirect way, the amount of labor necessary.
30:44We're talking about a lot of labor.
30:46Even though we're talking about centuries of development, it's still a lot of manpower.
30:50Right.
30:50So you're thinking the masses were probably the labor force and there's a very few leaders that would sort of
30:56delegate the work.
30:56It required leadership.
30:57Exactly.
30:59The early Olmecs chose natural high ground to live on for easy access to the productive wetlands.
31:06Then, as their population grew, they added terraces and expanded the high ground until the plateau encompassed more than one
31:14million square yards.
31:16These were public works projects on a scale never before seen in Mesoamerica.
31:22And they required having someone in charge.
31:25Who were these leaders?
31:29The colossal heads may be the key to that mystery.
31:34In fact, archaeologists believe they each portray not the face of a god, but the likeness of a king.
31:41I remember Roberto showed me something.
31:44Several of the heads bear strange marks.
31:48Do these traces indicate that there was something else here before the head was made?
31:54The answer was only recently discovered.
31:56And it adds a totally new dimension to our knowledge of the heads.
32:02These shapes are reminiscent of shapes on a large sculpture called a royal platform or throne.
32:09The arches behind this kneeling figure form deep niches that turn out to be an exact match.
32:17This discovery means that a royal throne was tipped up on end and a face was carved into its smooth
32:24top.
32:26So this over here was the top of the old throne, so maybe that is why we're seeing a much
32:33more flat face, right?
32:35Yeah, exactly.
32:36It may be that basalt boulders had proven so difficult to transport that the Olmecs were systematically reusing them.
32:43You might even call it Stone Age recycling.
32:47One theory is that an incoming ruler could create his own likeness out of his predecessor's throne.
32:52Another is that an inauguration throne could be used to create a likeness upon a ruler's death.
32:58We just don't know.
33:00One thing's for sure.
33:02These huge stones were important symbols of a ruler's power and his ability to command hundreds of people.
33:11The Olmecs were masters at exploiting everything in their environment.
33:15And they had the manpower to think big.
33:21Using sledges or rollers and brute force, they pulled their massive rocks from the mountains.
33:27But when they reached the rivers and wetlands, it was time for a very different tactic.
33:33I'm meeting up again with Carl Wendt to test some of his theories of what the Olmecs did next.
33:38Hey, Carl. How's it going?
33:39Hey, how are you doing?
33:39Looks like everybody's hard at work here.
33:41Yeah, yeah, we're doing some experiments.
33:44We're trying to get an idea of how the Olmec moves their stone.
33:47The thing is, we don't really know, and that's one of the main problems.
33:50One of the ideas that I have is that they might have actually transported it for some period of time
33:54on water.
33:55Well, can you show me what you guys are doing then?
33:57Yeah.
33:59The Olmecs must have been expert boat builders.
34:03Daily life in this region would have required a variety of vessels for both fishing and transportation.
34:09But did they have a boat that could carry a rock weighing 40 tons?
34:15Carl doesn't know what any of their boats actually looked like.
34:18None have survived.
34:19But he does know they had access to a material that would have helped a lot.
34:23It's the same stuff I helped him collect, bitumen, natural asphalt.
34:28We find the asphalt artifacts in our excavations, and especially at sites near rivers.
34:33There's a lot more of the asphalt.
34:35One of my ideas is that they used it primarily to seal watercraft.
34:40Interesting. So it waterproofs your vessel.
34:42Exactly.
34:43So tell me about the process.
34:45Well, what we'll do is we're going to put in the asphalt into the pot.
34:48We'll cook it down for some time to evaporate the more volatile components.
34:53And then at which time, maybe after 20 minutes or so, we'll add some of the additives and be ready
34:57to go.
34:57And is this how the Olmecs would have done it?
34:59You know, it is.
35:00Because, you know, in our excavations we find pots with residues of asphalt on the interiors.
35:07And then drip marks actually on some of the exteriors.
35:09Suggesting that they would have heated it in pots, processed it, and then poured it out, you know, for application.
35:15All right.
35:15Just as we're going to do.
35:16So let's get cooking.
35:17Let's do it.
35:18So we're going to pour this in there, right?
35:21This recipe is more complicated than it looks.
35:24Carl says he threw out hundreds of batches that were too runny, too sticky, or too brittle to use.
35:29There we go.
35:32Good stuff.
35:33All right.
35:33Go ahead and put it on fire.
35:36And then how long does this have to heat for?
35:38You know, we'll probably heat this for about maybe 20 minutes or so.
35:41And then we can take some out and we'll actually test it and see how it's turning, how it's changing.
35:47Cooking changes the tar's chemical bonds, transforming it into a pliable substance that dries strong.
35:53And so this is starting to thicken the mixture.
35:55I can kind of feel it change from that airy whipped cream to almost like yogurt.
35:59Yeah.
36:00Yeah.
36:00It's going to start changing a little bit.
36:01And what we're going to do is we're going to cook it for just a little bit longer.
36:04Okay.
36:04So it really kind of fuses with the other material.
36:08It's starting to bubble around the sides.
36:11And what's going to happen is it's going to probably just about double in size.
36:14Okay.
36:14And if we don't watch it, what's going to happen is it's going to overflow, hit the fire, and we're
36:19going to have a fireball.
36:22Unfortunately, our lawyers say no fireball.
36:24Maybe next time.
36:27The next step is waiting for a little bit until we can cook off some of the water that, you
36:31know, when we collected it was kind of in there.
36:33And then what we'll do is we'll add our additive, which is this leaf, this oja blanca.
36:37But does it thicken the mixture? Is that how it works?
36:39It does.
36:39So that, you know, it doesn't, the asphalt then won't melt in the sun.
36:43Well, I'm melting in the sun right now.
36:45This is a hot business.
36:48Yes, indeed.
36:50The Olmecs used any leaf that was handy, or sometimes sand or dirt.
36:58Adding other materials to the mixture while it's cooking reduces the time it takes to thicken and the amount of
37:04wood needed to fuel the fire.
37:08There's little difference between the asphalt the Olmecs made 3,000 years ago and the stuff we pour on our
37:13roads today.
37:17So what type of design are you using? I mean, what kind of canoe could the Olmecs have had?
37:22Well, since everything rots here, we really don't have any idea if they had plank canoes like this.
37:32Carl explains that the Olmecs probably had rafts or dugout canoes.
37:36Today, large trees are hard to come by, so he's experimenting with different ways of building.
37:45Beautiful. All right.
37:47You know, they would have still had to seal the canoes in some way or the watercraft in some sort
37:51of a way.
37:54Let's try out our asphalt.
37:55This is the same way they would have done it, too, huh?
37:58We're using it to make our boat watertight.
38:02The Olmecs could have made plank canoes, too.
38:05Carl has found asphalt with the impression of royal palm wood, a tall, straight tree that splits easily.
38:16Even if the dugouts were their only canoes, they may have been painted with asphalt to make them resistant to
38:21rot.
38:23Now, how long does this take to harden?
38:25The mixture we have right now is going to harden pretty quick, but, you know, we need some time to
38:29let it sit and dry.
38:30Okay.
38:32That looks really good.
38:33Nice stuff, huh?
38:34So what works well with this?
38:36Baby oil.
38:37Really?
38:37Or diesel for the really adventurous type.
38:39Hopefully we can clean up.
38:43This doesn't look much like a Stone Age boat, but it works for our purposes.
38:49Will our Olmec boat carry its load, or will we be swimming with the Caymans?
39:023,000 years ago, the Olmecs were moving 40-ton blocks of stone over miles and miles of swamps and
39:08rivers.
39:08And they would have needed watercraft big enough to float a giant rock.
39:17We don't know what these boats looked like, but we do have an idea of their size.
39:27Archaeologist Carl Wentz and I built a canoe using the same asphalt recipe that the Olmecs used 3,000 years
39:33ago.
39:35Will it seal our boat well enough to float a rock?
39:50We're at the Chiquito River near San Lorenzo.
39:53River snake all through this region.
39:56A water route might have meandered, but it would have been a lot more efficient than dragging over land.
40:04Archaeologists have even suggested that the Olmecs floated their rocks into the Gulf of Mexico and then up the Coatzacoalcos
40:11River.
40:29First, I just want to see if this thing leaks.
40:33So far, so good. It's waterproofed, huh?
40:35How do you feel about putting a big stone in here?
40:38Oh, I don't know if that's a good idea yet.
40:40I think if we put the stone in, you'll have to go by yourself.
40:44This is about the size of a small utility vessel.
40:49But the Olmecs may have had canoes up to 50 feet long for their trade routes.
40:54Still, floating a 20-ton rock would require an even bigger boat than that.
41:01Our small canoe can't even support this relatively small stone.
41:05We need a lot more buoyancy.
41:07I think what we'll have to do is we'll put a couple of these together, you know, lash them somehow.
41:12Okay.
41:12We'll get some rope and then we can maybe get some sort of a platform, you know, built.
41:17And that'll spread the weight out over a greater area there.
41:19I think so, yeah, because I don't think we're going to do anything with this.
41:22No, this is a whole unstable.
41:23By itself, right.
41:24All right, some work to be done. Let's get to work.
41:26Let's do it.
41:31Man, check this out.
41:33Now this is a boat.
41:34Man, this is sturdy.
41:36They did a nice job.
41:37Yeah.
41:37Yeah, it is taller.
41:38Now, how many people can they put inside of each of these canoes?
41:42I'd say probably safely around five, six maybe.
41:45Okay, so that's roughly, you know, we're dealing about 750 each and just over 2,200 pounds or so.
41:50Think we can move a big stone this way?
41:52You know, I'll tell you the truth, this feels pretty solid. I'm pretty optimistic.
41:55Should we put it to the test?
41:56Let's do it.
41:57All right.
41:58Okay.
41:58Let's do it.
41:58Let's do it.
42:03Let's do it.
42:03Let's do it.
42:05Let's do it.
42:08Let's do it.
42:09This is where we turn it over to the experts.
42:18What's happening now is what happens all over the world.
42:21Everybody has an opinion on how it should be done.
42:24So they're sorting it all out and we'll see the results.
42:30.
42:30Let it down, let it down.
42:34Let it down.
42:39Go up, go up.
42:44Go up, go up, go up, go up.
42:46Go up, go up, go up.
42:47People have felt real.
42:47There is.
42:48There it is.
42:48There it is.
42:49There it is.
42:50Unbelievable.
42:51Oh my gosh, can you imagine the stone 20 times that size?
43:08Our calculations were close to dead on, but we're a little unbalanced.
43:12Between the stone and three guys, we're on the verge of taking on water.
43:18But the Olmecs knew what they were doing.
43:21Once we load the stone onto the raft, it not only moves along easily, it also requires a
43:26much smaller team.
43:29Now the number crunching can begin.
43:34Our half-ton stone required three 15-foot canoes.
43:41A stone 80 times this size would need 240 of these canoes lashed together.
43:52But if the Olmecs had 50-foot dugout canoes with a capacity of three tons, then they'd
43:58only need 14 boats.
44:01That's a little bit easier to picture.
44:05It would utterly dwarf our boat.
44:113,000 years ago, the Olmecs brought their colossal rocks down from the volcano.
44:19Their rulers were the first to organize and inspire a population to attempt gargantuan public monuments
44:25that would project their newfound power.
44:31They created the first great civilization in Mesoamerica.
44:35One that influenced the Maya and the peoples who came after.
44:42The colossal heads are artifacts the likes of which had never been seen before.
44:48Or since.
44:52Even today, they're all that many of us know of the Olmecs.
44:56The immortal ambassadors of the kings of the Stone Age.
45:17The immortal者 of the
45:18the old warriors.
45:18The immortal man of the church.
45:19The immortal man of the stone is a glorious advertisement.
45:21The immortal man of the Empire.
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