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隐藏在亚马逊

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00:11The Amazon.
00:13More than two million square miles of dense forest,
00:17penetrable only by its rivers.
00:22Long considered a pristine forest,
00:25seemingly too hostile to have ever been inhabited
00:28by people prior to the arrival of Europeans.
00:33And yet, in recent years,
00:35several discoveries have been made,
00:38evidence of human habitation,
00:40hidden in caves,
00:43under the canopy,
00:46buried in the ground.
00:49What if, contrary to long-held belief,
00:52the tropical forest was not as untouched by human hands as we thought?
00:56What if wide-ranging, complex cultures thrive throughout the jungle,
01:01long before European conquest?
01:06As scientists delve deeper into the exploration of this difficult terrain,
01:11they are convinced the Amazon was home to numerous well-established communities.
01:19Archaeologists, archaeobotanists, and anthropologists
01:22are studying the artifacts these people left behind
01:26in an attempt to understand the ancient world of the Amazon.
01:31Who were they?
01:33How many of them were there?
01:35How did they manage to live in the forest?
01:38And what do these ceramic figures say about their beliefs
01:42and their vision of the world?
01:47Thanks to new investigative technologies,
01:50researchers are making great strides in understanding
01:53these highly developed communities
01:55and piecing together their existence in the years before the conquest.
02:07From the depths of the jungle to the shores of the Amazon River,
02:12the full story of this isolated part of the world
02:16is only now being brought to light.
02:21Hidden in the Amazon.
02:38These images, recently shot by ethnologist David Green and his team in northern Brazil,
02:44not far from the border with Guyana, are of an exceptional discovery.
02:55David was led to this cave, hidden in the hills of Amapa,
02:59by following indigenous guides who have special knowledge,
03:03and accompanied him through their territory.
03:25I'm here at Batcave.
03:28Some really beautiful works of art.
03:33This is a great place.
03:35It's a mysterious site because it's still unknown.
03:38So this is really an important place to continue archaeological work
03:44before it gets destroyed.
04:00Acutely aware of the value of his discovery, David left everything untouched,
04:05only filming and photographing the artifacts until a proper archaeological assessment can be made.
04:15A few weeks later, he enlists the help of archaeologist Stefan Rostan.
04:20An expert in pre-Columbian cultures in the Amazon,
04:24he is one of the few people who can immediately identify what David found
04:28and place the items in historical context.
04:31At his base in Guyana, Stefan learns of the discovery.
04:37Did you see only one anthropomorphic urn or some more?
04:43There are probably nine or ten urns, but they have all been broken.
04:54I've noticed there's a lot of different handles and different zoomorphic forms.
05:03Sometimes it's really hard to understand what animal they are.
05:07They seem to be like a composite of different creatures.
05:12But I believe there's a lot more.
05:14This is just, you know, really, we just looked at a small part.
05:19For the archaeologist, these remains are characteristic of the Ariste,
05:24one of the cultures present before the arrival of Europeans.
05:30These are typical of the anthropomorphic funerary urns found all along the Amazon.
05:36They are made from pottery with a sculpted human face, usually on the neck.
05:41The ashes of the deceased were placed in them or even their bones after decomposition.
05:47The most important thing is that we have the main part of this pottery,
05:51which is familiar from other excavations at other sites.
05:56So we can extrapolate and reconstruct the urn into something like its original form as it initially was.
06:05So we have a representation of a funerary urn from the so-called Ariste culture,
06:11located in the region straddling French Guayana in Brazil.
06:15It is a huge territory, some 300 kilometers long.
06:19The culture dates from around the year 1000 until the early centuries of colonization.
06:24Anyway, it's a very interesting discovery because these burial caves are extremely well hidden.
06:30More broadly, the discovery belongs to a vanished world,
06:34the traces of which remain buried in the largest tropical rainforest on the planet.
06:41It's the forest itself that has made it so difficult to learn about the peoples living there in the pre
06:46-Columbian era.
06:47The dense vegetation makes moving through it almost impossible,
06:51and has long stopped scientific exploration.
06:56And there was little evidence to suggest that there was much to be studied.
07:01The forest's vegetation consumes everything, breaking it down or growing over it.
07:09And early accounts of exploration, like that of conquistador Francisco de Oriana, have been forgotten.
07:17The year was 1542.
07:20The Spaniards were engaged in the conquest of the Incas of Peru.
07:24But Oriana wanted to push further into the forest in search of mythical lands of gold and cinnamon.
07:32He ventured inland, following the Amazon River from its source in the Andes.
07:37Aboard two small ships, carrying a total of 56 men,
07:42he was the first European to cross the entire Amazon forest,
07:46and to encounter the people who inhabited it.
07:50All night long, we passed through a series of very large towns.
07:55By daybreak, we had covered more than 20 leagues.
08:01But the further we advanced, the more densely populated the country became.
08:11The problem is that a hundred years later, there was no one left on the banks of the Amazon.
08:19The microbial impact of Western diseases had done its work.
08:23So disbelief prevailed and persisted for five centuries right up until the 1980s,
08:29when archaeologists began to take an interest in the Amazon.
08:34Stefan has studied the Amazon for more than 30 years
08:37and is a pioneer of Amazonian archaeology.
08:40His goal is to provide a better understanding of the cultures that existed before 1492.
08:48Obviously, we only have a very sketchy knowledge in certain regions,
08:52so we're trying to piece together a puzzle that still has many pieces missing.
09:01Stefan is eager to collect and connect scattered pieces of knowledge
09:04in order to paint a complete picture of the pre-Columbian Amazon.
09:11What do today's tribes know about the mysterious designs
09:14their distant ancestors used to decorate the urns?
09:18To address the question, Stefan meets with Native Americans
09:22who still practice the art of pottery.
09:29The Palikurs are an indigenous group whose territory is the same
09:33as the now extinct Ariste culture, straddling Guyana and Brazil.
09:42The Palikurs, as we know, have inhabited this region since at least the European conquest,
09:48and probably before.
09:49So they were very possibly in contact with Aristes,
09:53and indeed may themselves have been Ariste.
09:56So maybe they can help us understand the designs
09:59and see if they still have meaning today.
10:08Doralise is part of a family that has been creating pottery for several generations.
10:18The exchange takes place in the Palikur language through an interpreter.
10:26This is an urn that was found recently, and I wanted to know if, in the drawings,
10:32it means anything to her or nothing at all.
10:42This one I recognized, and that one.
10:48Definitely, I just noticed this one.
10:50Ah, good, that's good.
10:52So this became the Palikur style which has evolved until today.
10:57I had another question.
10:58For me, this pottery represents death.
11:02So we have a new body, and the soul will be at rest.
11:06So to find out the ethnicity...
11:09She says she can't confirm anything.
11:15That one is unfamiliar.
11:21We think there must have been a cultural upheaval throughout the Amerindian world
11:26at the time of the European conquest, resetting the ethnic map of the Amazon,
11:30and the meaning of certain designs disappeared with these populations.
11:36So you have to look at other vestiges, other sites, other signs left by the Amerindians
11:42in this great rainforest.
11:51The next phase of exploration will be done by air.
11:57Michael Mestra is in charge of the operation.
12:02This plane is equipped with a LIDAR system,
12:04an airborne laser able to penetrate the canopy
12:07and precisely map the contours at ground level.
12:12To that end, the survey must be carried out from the sky.
12:19To cover the entire section under investigation,
12:21the small plane must make more than 50 tight turns.
12:29In an operation that lasts several hours, there's no room for weak stomachs.
12:37In this way, dozens of square miles can be observed, as if the area had been deforested.
12:53The data acquired during the flight is processed in Cayenne, by the company that operates the LIDAR.
13:03Thousands of data points are assembled and transformed into a model that restores the contours in the terrain,
13:10from the undulations of the canopy to the tiniest variations in relief at ground level.
13:17If we can zoom in here, on that zone, it could be a site with ditches, a circular layout.
13:27We have a trench dug at the top of the hill, marking out a central reservation.
13:32These sites are typical of pre-Columbian occupation, particularly in French Guayana.
13:38These are known as crowned mountains.
13:41Crowned mountains.
13:43Mikael has been studying this type of terrain for a long time.
13:47And the use of LIDAR has made a series of archaeological discoveries possible.
13:54Today, the figure is something close to 100.
13:57It is a very widespread phenomenon.
14:00Several cultures seem to have produced this kind of layout.
14:03But for what purpose? We're not yet sure.
14:17The sites could be almost anything.
14:20Residential buildings.
14:22Defensive structures.
14:24Places of worship.
14:30A few weeks later, Mikael has the opportunity to excavate one of the crowned mountain sites, spotted by LIDAR.
14:39I think there's another ceramic right underneath the first one.
14:44A second one right there.
14:46The shapes are common. Large, undecorated basins.
14:50We've seen them before.
14:52Ordinary ceramics can be reused in a funerary context, too.
14:56They may be objects that belong to the deceased.
15:00These perfectly intact large vases were deliberately buried at the top of the crowned mountain.
15:06A form of offering that suggests a link to the beliefs of certain pre-Columbian peoples.
15:19Because they are so inaccessible, thorough excavations of hidden jungle sites like this are very rare.
15:26Often, archaeologists can only access them when construction work happens, as was the case on the outskirts of Lake Tefe,
15:34more than 1200 miles from the mouth of the Amazon, during building work on a school.
15:40While digging, the residents discovered a ceramic funerary urn nestled at the bottom of a pit.
15:46Aware of the importance of this type of find, they immediately informed archaeologists at the Mamerao Institute.
15:54First we found one.
15:56Then we unearthed two.
15:58Three, four.
16:00We thought that was already a lot.
16:02Then five, six, seven, eight, nine appeared.
16:04The village accompanied us at all times.
16:07It was a truly special moment for all of us.
16:17Carefully collected, one by one, the urns then traveled more than 600 miles by boat, through the forest to the
16:24laboratory at the University of Santarém.
16:35There, archaeoanthropologist Ann Rapp is charged with analyzing the urns, and the material contained inside.
16:46Here we now have a group of nine urns collected together.
16:50We cannot say whether all the individuals died at the same time, but we may be sure that they were
16:57all buried during the same period.
17:00That's to say, before the arrival of the first Europeans in the region.
17:07For the scientists, it is a unique opportunity to examine the funeral rituals of pre-Columbian societies.
17:15The first step is to x-ray the artifacts at a hospital.
17:20Ann is the first to see the results.
17:25Is that all bone?
17:26Bone, yes.
17:29It's very interesting.
17:31We really have a huge amount of material in this container.
17:35Yes.
17:36How does it compare to the others?
17:38Yes, it's impressive.
17:40It's going to be an interesting dig opening it up and getting it all out.
17:50To access the contents of this small ceramic jar, the lid, which has not been moved for at least 500
17:56years, must first be detached.
17:59It's an extremely delicate operation, with the container itself weakened by its long stay underground.
18:11You lift, I'll put my hand here and pull.
18:15This time, we'll try in the opposite direction.
18:24There it is.
18:29Examination of the urn can finally begin.
18:40Ann and her assistant are about to meet former inhabitants of Lake Tefe.
18:48Here, we may have the grandparents, or great-grandparents, of people who encountered Oriana in the 16th century.
19:01To ensure she doesn't lose any material, Ann must proceed very slowly.
19:09It will take at least two days to clear away the sediment and reach the first significant remains.
19:21We have an exceptional amount of preserved material, especially in the context of the Amazon, where we generally see a
19:28very limited preservation of organic material.
19:37Examination of the first bones immediately reveals what kind of ritual the bodies were subjected to.
19:47You can actually see evidence of cremation.
19:51You can actually see evidence of cremation.
19:54The grayish areas are clearly marks of fire.
20:00But the scientists' first objective is to sort and organize the bones.
20:06Do they come from the skeleton of a single individual, or of several?
20:18That's probably one of the last bones in the chest.
20:22Here, we have an idea of the sections of the skeleton present.
20:26There are no duplicate bones, so it appears there's only one individual inside.
20:34A single individual, and a complete one at that.
20:38The funeral ritual is becoming clearer.
20:43We can see the two-stage process of the funeral.
20:46First the cremation, followed by the bone material being placed inside the urn with extreme care.
20:58Once the remains were inside the urn, it was decorated with a unique pattern meant to represent a new skin
21:04made of pottery.
21:11But for the anthropologist, the investigation is not over.
21:16The remains of the individual have more to share about their owner's identity.
21:24Several parts are very marked.
21:27These are joints and muscle insertions that have worn over time.
21:31So we may be sure that this is a fairly old adult.
21:35We always tend to think that in the past, people died young.
21:38But that isn't the case with what we've seen in the Amazon.
21:42There are several clues to indicate that people live to advanced ages.
21:46Maybe up to 50 or even 60 years.
21:52The scientist notices other characteristics too.
21:57Here is the archaeological femur.
22:00If we compare it with our model, which is from a 1.68 meter tall individual,
22:06this is definitely from someone much smaller,
22:09measuring between 1.5 and 1.55 meters, based on the size.
22:14It may be a female individual.
22:19So the occupant of this urn seems to have been an elderly woman.
22:28And the story continues.
22:31The urn itself, particularly some of the patterns Anne is uncovering,
22:36shed more light on its significance.
22:45Here we begin to see the area around the eye, the mouth, and what appears to be a drawn cheek.
22:54This is the eyebrow, the nose, a tiara, and here, the area around the ear.
23:02A face, perhaps to evoke that of the old woman, or the spirit of the deceased.
23:10In reality, this pottery cannot be separated from the individual.
23:15The study of the ceramics in the urns is based on a particular individual.
23:20So we try to tie it all together.
23:26Cristiana Barreto is an expert on Amazonian iconography, working at the Emilio Goeldi Museum in Belém.
23:34She has a particular interest in the drawings on the urns recently discovered at Tefe.
23:40Her objective is to understand what the peoples who shaped and decorated these objects wanted to communicate with them.
23:48These ceramics were meant to have a great visual impact.
23:52They are ritual ceramics made to be used in funeral ceremonies.
23:56There is always a white background to increase the contrast of red and black.
24:01The high contrast is a way to attract the gaze of observers, drawing them into the labyrinths,
24:08into the iconography, where they see snakes, jaguars, and animals, often somewhat disguised and hidden.
24:19While mysterious in the eyes of the layman, to the initiated, these forms make perfect sense.
24:26It looks symmetrical and geometric, but it's actually the geometric representation of a jaguar.
24:33We have the jaguar's eyes and the face.
24:36They are in the background, but suddenly they come forward, then go back,
24:40giving the idea that the jaguar is moving, maybe coming forward towards us.
24:52Here we have a cobra, the movement of a cobra, but it isn't filled in. It could be in the
24:57background.
24:58This also gives us a sense of movement from the inside to the outside of the urn, as if it
25:04were coming out of the urn.
25:06It isn't surprising. It's a visual process of animation, where everything seems to be moving.
25:12Everything in Amazon visual logic has to do with movement.
25:19Patterns and symbols representing cultural beliefs, and showing the role these urns played in funeral ceremonies.
25:28You have to imagine these urns as the focal point of a funeral ritual, with its dances, musical rhythms, alcoholic
25:38drinks, and other drugs.
25:40It's all geared to attaining an altered state, etching these symbols in people's memories.
25:58Plants and animals from the natural world can be found on pre-Columbian objects throughout the Amazon.
26:06Now, scientists are interested in learning more about these traditions, and these people.
26:26Stefan meets with Christiana in Belém in a bid to better understand the tribes of the Amazon and their conception
26:35of the world.
26:39Belém is a large city at the mouth of the Amazon, and very interesting for its Museum of Amazonian Archaeology.
26:46The first of its kind in the world, set up in 1905 by Emilio Goldi.
26:51It has an absolutely fascinating collection of urns, pieces of enormous beauty that you won't find anywhere else.
26:58Some really innovative things for my investigation.
27:03Today, the institution's collection contains more than two million artifacts.
27:08Taken together, they are like a huge clay book on the shared history between humanity and the world's greatest rainforest.
27:23Based on their similarities, some of the more recent additions to the collection seem to suggest that multiple Amazonian tribes
27:31shared a common belief system.
27:38Here we have set aside some of the funeral urns from different cultures.
27:43They are almost all from the Amazon estuary.
27:47They reflect the identity that each people wanted to give to its clan, to its ethnic group.
27:52It is resounding proof of the human diversity that has existed in the Amazon.
28:06Ceramic styles and details have helped researchers identify hundreds of different cultures that existed in the Amazon basin.
28:15But it's the characteristics common to all of these artifacts that shed new light on the world view of those
28:22who created them.
28:25There are also similarities. For example, arms are represented as snakes, and here animals are also used.
28:39They use scorpions to represent the eyes.
28:48We can also say that the use of animals to represent the human body is a pan-Amazonian tradition.
28:56There is a certain analogy to it all.
28:59An analogy between images and the natural world.
29:07It's this idea of not differentiating between nature and culture, of it all being part of a whole.
29:14It's a complex concept for us Westerners to grasp.
29:19We have a very naturalistic society.
29:21We need to separate culture and nature to know where civilization is and where it isn't.
29:27But with the Amerindian, there is a continuous thread and ultimately no frontier.
29:35According to anthropologist Philippe Descola, animism was the predominant belief system for many Amazonian cultures.
29:47Animism is something I discovered during my fieldwork, when I resided for a few years among the Achuar people, in
29:53the deep Amazon.
29:56It is also when I discovered that most of the plants and animals were conceived by them as having an
30:01interiority, a soul, or in any case a subjectivity, a capacity for reflection.
30:14There is no nature in their world.
30:18There are simply social partners with feathers, fur, leaves, bark, etc.
30:25With which the Achuar people exchanged daily, through magical incantations, dreams in which they saw these non-human beings addressing
30:34them, in the form of a person, in order to start conversations, dialogues, etc.
30:47I realized that this was something very common in the Amazon, and in other parts of the world.
30:54There is no conquest of the wild by the domestic, which is the most characteristic way for us to conceive
31:00of our relationship to nature.
31:03There are social relationships that are permanently established between humans and non-humans, that are not necessarily easy relationships.
31:13After all, the woolly monkey that comes to see you during a dream, the next day we will try to
31:21kill it and to eat it.
31:24The relationships between humans and non-humans are relationships of mutual accommodation, very powerful relationships of attachment, competition and solidarity.
31:36A spiritual union of people with the natural world was typical for Amazonian cultures.
31:43But scientists want to find the culture's creation myths, stories that explain the origins of a people's worldview, in order
31:51to better understand the significance of the urns and their patterns.
31:58Handed down by oral tradition, these stories are difficult to piece together and understand today.
32:05But Stefan is keen to track them down among some of the peoples of the forest.
32:13This is the Moroni River, which separates Guyana from Suriname.
32:18Here, the forest crowds the riverbanks, except in spots where it's been pushed back by the villages of the Wayana
32:25people.
32:28Stefan hopes they can tell him more about the ceramics and other artifacts.
32:35The Wayanas continue to represent their founding myths through symbolic figures.
32:40So this is an opportunity to find out more about the stories behind them.
32:49The chief of the village where Stefan stops has something to show him.
32:53And leads him to the large community shelter, known as the Tikusipan.
33:03This is what the archaeologist is looking for, a ciel de casse, or Malawana in their language.
33:10A wooden disc decorated with strange beasts that represents the Wayanas belief system.
33:16What is the name of the person who did this?
33:19Aymawale.
33:22Aymawale is one of the few people still able to reproduce this type of design.
33:28It is a very old art form that he learned from his grandfather.
33:33One he keeps alive using ancestral painting techniques.
33:38I prepare my paintings, how to put it.
33:41It takes patience.
33:42It takes a long time to paint a ciel de casse.
33:47But he also knows the stories and the myths that inspire them.
33:55And that is what interests the archaeologist the most.
34:02What is the ciel de casse for?
34:04A ciel de casse is an object that protects the community and the village.
34:10There are six main patterns.
34:12So there's the jaguar, for example here.
34:16The caterpillar.
34:18Then there's the fish animal, the tapir.
34:20Which is often on the ciel de casse too.
34:23Plus the turtle and the fish.
34:25Do you choose all the patterns?
34:28Yes, of course.
34:30Here I was inspired by my grandfather.
34:34Each pattern represents a legend, a story.
34:38That's the giant anteater.
34:40What does that do?
34:43Legend has it that the giant anteater killed its baby.
34:48Then went to the aquatic monsters and killed a water spirit.
34:53So the shamans know how to harness its power to take revenge.
34:58For example, on evil spirits.
35:02What about the turtle?
35:04The turtle is the wife of God.
35:06The supreme God called Kuyuli.
35:09When there was the flood, the God transformed his wife into an underwater turtle.
35:14And his children are like eggs.
35:17That's what the story says.
35:20And you tell these stories to children?
35:23Yes, of course.
35:25Then there are other patterns, like the squirrel.
35:27It's actually a squirrel monster.
35:31It's small, but it has supernatural power.
35:35There are plenty of monsters in the stories, and lots of legends.
35:39With us, yes, the Wayana.
35:43What the Native Americans describe today, when they tell us about their legends, is this close interaction between humans and
35:51nature.
35:51We can better understand the relics they left behind.
35:58Philippe Descola has collected and studied these myths to try to understand if they connect to a broader story.
36:07What we find absolutely everywhere are these little stories.
36:11Five-minute stories, which give a good indication of what the mythical times were like.
36:19How, at such and such a time, such and such a species of hallucinogenic plant became what it is.
36:25The sorts of small events that will cause so-called natural species to emerge, little by little.
36:32And these are small stories.
36:34These are small pieces of this great story of speciation.
36:43The great story of speciation.
36:46How all living things, plants and animals, came to exist.
36:56There is an original unity.
36:58A great culture that unites humans and non-humans, who are not really distinguished from one another.
37:09The myth allows us to at least understand this.
37:12The golden age if you will.
37:14A golden age where animals and plants behaved like humans.
37:18Cooking.
37:19Hunting.
37:20Playing music.
37:21Music.
37:24Amazonian mythology is a story that starts from culture and goes towards nature, while we are doing the opposite.
37:31This singular relationship Amazonians developed with their environment is at the heart of everything they do.
37:38But how long have humans been living in the Amazon rainforest?
37:42Is it possible to trace when these creation myths were first told?
37:49A tiny fragment of pottery of inestimable value offers a clue.
37:58This history of ceramics is a long one with very early origins.
38:03Some of the fragments of ceramics we have here are 7,000 years old.
38:08It is the oldest dated pottery ever found in the Americas.
38:18These fragments come from the Monte Alegre region, in the heart of the Amazon, where this art form was born.
38:30Reaching the area requires a 400-mile journey upriver from the mouth of the Amazon.
38:35And then a connection with one of the river buses that travel to isolated villages.
38:44Archaeologist Edith Pereira has been making the trip regularly for more than 10 years.
38:49And each time, it's a journey back to Amazonian prehistory.
38:56The very first traces of human settlement can be found here.
39:01Drawings on the rock face that date back to 12,000 BCE.
39:11But these decorations that have lasted millennia are now in danger.
39:27The biggest problem here today is wasps.
39:33A type of wasp makes its nest very close to the paintings.
39:40And sometimes, on top of the paintings.
39:46It's a very real risk for the paintings and for the scientists.
39:51Several stings from these large insects can be fatal.
40:00No loud talking or sudden movements.
40:08These are the only paintings in the area that have been successfully dated.
40:13And they are much older than was previously thought.
40:19We carried out a project to try to better understand not only the cave dwellings, but also life in the
40:27villages.
40:28We found raw materials for making pigments with usage marks.
40:34The oldest traces in the shards was dated to some 12,000 years ago.
40:43They are the oldest observable traces of human presence in the whole of Amazonia.
40:52It is further proof that humanity has lived here for thousands of years.
40:57In this environment that, until only recently, was thought to be completely free from human impact.
41:06But where is the evidence that is usually left behind by thousands of years of human activity and occupation?
41:13And how did the ancient peoples inhabit it?
41:17Finding the answer requires a flight to a point seemingly as far away from any form of human activity as
41:23possible.
41:25Nourag, a CNRS research station set up deep in the heart of this green ocean, accessible only by helicopter.
41:44Stefan has come here to meet ethnobotanist Guillaume Odon.
41:50Here we are in the forest. We can look around for any signs of human presence, but at first sight
41:56it's only plants, lots of different vegetation.
41:59It's tempting to think that it might be very difficult to find any evidence of the presence of Amerindians from
42:05500 or 1,000 years ago.
42:07We have always known that the region around the research station was occupied by Native Americans.
42:12But until now, it was thought that human occupation was rather tenuous, with a low impact.
42:20But in fact, no. This forest has been much more impacted than previously thought.
42:26We have clearly shown that there have been massive occupations over a long period of time.
42:31It is difficult to find sites without any trace of man.
42:38It takes a great deal of work across multiple fields of research to achieve results like these.
42:47Guillaume leads the long-time project, a wide-ranging multidisciplinary study.
42:53Tropical soil specialists, botanists, ecologists, and anthropologists are all working to identify the plant species living in this corner of
43:02the jungle,
43:02which could help them find evidence of ancient human presence.
43:08To determine all the species present at this site, Guillaume called on professional climbers.
43:15Their mission is to collect leaves from 130 feet above the ground so that these giants of the forest can
43:23be studied with accuracy.
43:26The feedback from the botanists will allow the ecologists to say, for example,
43:31that in this section, 40% of the trees have edible fruits,
43:35or 25% of the trees can provide timber for the construction of traditional houses.
43:42Mapping the tree species reveals significant concentrations of palm trees,
43:47bearing edible fruits like the kamus and the patawas.
43:52All these numbers in red are palm trees.
43:55There are five bakava, around 50 patawa.
44:00When we scroll the map, we can see that they are very present.
44:03If we go to this other plot, long time two, there is only one patawa.
44:12Here.
44:14The presence or lack of certain tree species is a strong indicator as to whether the land was ever occupied
44:20by people.
44:23As you see, we're in this transition zone between the top of the hill, which was occupied,
44:28and the bottom of the hill, over there, where there was clearly no occupation.
44:34Back here is the area known as the vine forest.
44:38Lots of tangled vines here.
44:40This is a low canopy forest, with less than 10 meters of tree height.
44:46Everywhere we are surrounded by vines.
44:49They are often on the sites of former villages.
44:56When cross-referenced, all this information allows scientists to pinpoint the location of villages,
45:03and also areas that were set aside for agricultural use, where the vegetation was cleared.
45:11The way it works is, when a village is set up,
45:23Little by little, people clear the area around it, where useful species, food species, can be established.
45:37Then, the year after, there will be another clearance, where further species will also become established.
45:47Once the village is abandoned, all that remains are the planted species,
45:55or the food species that have become concentrated.
46:01Likewise, they also end up becoming established on the site of the abandoned village.
46:08We then end up with an enriched zone.
46:12So, we have these changes in vegetation, these developments, these new formations.
46:18Can they be dated? Can we pinpoint an approximate time when these stages actually occurred?
46:24From around 50 datings, taken from all the sites, we can identify two main periods of occupation in the area
46:33around Nurag.
46:34The first was between 1,000 and 1,200 years ago, and the second between 400 and 600 years ago.
46:43The moment of contact.
46:44Exactly. All these phenomena seem to have stopped abruptly at the moment of contact.
46:49All over the Amazon, we have this proliferation of evidence, particularly in the vegetation, which demonstrates a strong pre-Colombian
46:58occupation.
46:59Almost everywhere, whether along the Amazon, along the Orinoco, in the western Amazon, or the upper Amazon, we see significant
47:08concentrations of human activity.
47:09All the data points towards that.
47:15Analysis shows traces of 83 different species of domesticated native plants, including cassava, coca, and pineapple.
47:30This abundance and diversity has, however, long puzzled researchers.
47:36Most soil in the Amazon is not suitable for agriculture.
47:41And yet, the gigantic forest actually thrives, despite very poor conditions.
47:49Domestic crops cannot grow in the acidic soil, a result of heavy rains.
47:55How did the people of the Amazon manage to cultivate food?
48:01Archaeologists have recently discovered that pre-Colombian people in the Amazon developed a method for transforming the soil into very
48:09fertile land.
48:10Terra Preta, or Black Earth.
48:15Brazil is where the most spectacular Terra Preta sites can be found.
48:20In some places, it is several feet thick, and is the subject of serious archaeological excavation.
48:28Know that this Terra Preta here formed with this soil.
48:32So they look very different, and they are very different in a way, but that's the matrix for that.
48:37We have to have human action interfering in the yellow soil in order to create the Terra Preta.
48:44Scientists believe Terra Preta is an indication of the onset of domesticity.
48:50But how did the uncultivatable soil become something fertile enough to sustain human occupation?
49:01Analysis of the soil's composition can provide answers.
49:08Researcher Manuel Arroyo Calin regularly brings back samples of Terra Preta for study in his London laboratory.
49:18What I can see here very clearly is large quantities of bone fragments.
49:26We also see here large numbers of fine, rounded fragments of pottery artefacts.
49:38And here it's very interesting because these soils are absolutely full of charcoal.
49:45And that already begins to unravel part of the story.
49:49For one, the large amounts of charcoal have got to be associated to burning.
49:54The sort of thing that you'd find associated to domestic production of food and the large number of fires used
50:03to fire the pottery.
50:05And then you have waste management activities, simply to pile it up and to burn it slowly.
50:11Indigenous people mixed everyday waste products and other materials into the acidic soil to create Terra Preta.
50:19But in scientific terms, what makes this mixture so fertile?
50:23Charcoal helps to attract stuff.
50:27It has a role in contributing to higher organic matter retention.
50:33The secret ingredient was the organic matter left after trash was burned.
50:38All of these fragments of bone and potentially some of the pottery is providing a pool of calcium and phosphorus
50:47which act as plant micronutrients that are absorbed by plants and so that helps plant productivity.
50:54The result is a living soil rich in bacteria which contribute to the absorption of nutrients by the vegetation and
51:02ensures lasting fertility.
51:07While the Terra Preta still has its secrets, pre-Columbian people were able to transform uncultivatable land into one of
51:14the world's most fertile soils.
51:16The Terra Preta is an outcome of a process which only through various phases of occupation have created the thick
51:25expanses that have subsequently been used as agricultural expanses.
51:33They are at the very least signatures of higher demography and possibly sedentary settlement in the Amazon basin, probably kicking
51:43in around 1500 BC and intensifying and growing in population as we go along.
51:53If markers are placed on a map of the Amazon where Terra Preta has been found, they create an outline
52:00of territories known to have been inhabited by Amerindians.
52:06Using this data, scientists estimate the total population of the greater Amazon was somewhere between 8 and 10 million people
52:14when Europeans arrived.
52:17You have to imagine a very diverse, very populated pre-Columbian Amazon, where all these worlds were interconnected.
52:25They were sedentary populations, but very mobile.
52:31After seven months of travel, Orellana recorded his final thoughts on the peoples of the forest.
52:41As we said, all those we have met on this river are people of great reason and ingenuity, as can
52:48be seen from all their works, as well as their vivid drawings and paintings of all colors, which are a
52:55wonderful thing to see.
53:00A hundred years later, there was no one left. What happened?
53:06It's simple. When the Europeans landed on the continent and came to the Amazon, they brought with them viruses and
53:12germs for which the Amerindians had no natural defenses.
53:18These viruses spread, and many Native Americans died before Europeans had even encountered them.
53:27Explorers arrived in villages to find only dead bodies and skeletons in hammocks. They hadn't even had time to bury
53:33their dead.
53:35With its population decimated by disease, the Amazon was left uninhabited.
53:42A vast land seemingly available for newly landed settlers.
53:48And a blank page in the history of humanity that scientists are only now beginning to write.
53:58This is a territory of some seven million square kilometers, which still holds many mysteries for scientists.
54:05We discover new things about the flora and fauna every day.
54:08In the case of human settlements, there are as many discoveries to come as have been made so far, if
54:14not more.
54:20Opportunities to explore new territory are often the result of modern development.
54:29In northwestern Brazil, deforestation has revealed tiny geometric structures spotted from the air and scattered over tens of thousands of
54:38square feet.
54:43In Colombia, following the dismantling of the armed groups that occupied the forest, archaeologists discovered a huge wall of pictures.
54:53Tens of thousands of paintings, animals, humans, and nonhumans, at Chiribiquete, which was recently listed as a World Heritage Site
55:03by UNESCO.
55:04The first official acknowledgment that these rich and mysterious cultures are part of our invaluable heritage.
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