Exploring Mysteries of Ancient Cities (Full Episode) | Lost Cities with Albert Lin | Nat Geo

0:01 ALBERT (over radio): The jungles of Colombia, South America...

0:05 This is where the legend of Eldorado was born.

0:09 Spanish conquistadors,

0:09 they heard these local tales of a king near here who was covered in gold dust.

0:14 And then the story, it just kept growing

0:17 to describe entire cities covered in the stuff,

0:20 deep in the jungle, high in the mountains.

0:23 While the Spanish never found those fabled civilizations,

0:26 they also didn't have the technology that we have today.

0:34 ALBERT: My name is Albert Lin.

0:36 And I look at the world in a unique way.

0:40 I use 21st century technologies to look back into the past.

0:46 Check that out, I can actually fly through the secret ancient world.

0:51 Lasers that scan deserts.

0:53 Strip away dense jungle canopy.

0:57 And scour the oceans to uncover the hidden worlds beneath.

1:04 We're wading into unchartered waters.

1:07 Now I have the military helping me find lost cities.

1:11 New discoveries in the most awe inspiring places on earth.

1:16 SANTIAGO: That's where pixels become reality.

1:18 ALBERT: That fill the gaps in our story.

1:21 Who we are.

1:23 Where we came from.

1:24 And the wonders we can achieve.

1:27 ELIEZER: Here we are in the 13th century.

1:30 ALBERT: Wow.

1:31 This is carved out of the earth huh?

1:34 This is the new golden age of exploration.

1:40 We know their secrets.

1:53 ALBERT (over radio): The mountains ranges are so steep that the whole area is

1:55 almost entirely cut off from the outside, like a lost world.

2:01 Over the past 50 years the whole area was

2:04 mostly dominated by local drug lords and the FARC guerrillas.

2:10 But now that archaeologists are beginning to make their way back

2:13 in, they're finding traces of these unbelievable

2:16 civilizations once thought totally lost.

2:22 Wow...

2:22 It's literally a city in the clouds.

2:28 Maybe those Spanish stories weren't just legends,

2:31 because that's what a real Lost City looks like.

2:33 PILOT (over radio): 9-1-0-1-2 ALBERT (over radio):

2:36 That's Ciudad Perdida, "The Lost City." ALBERT: Ciudad Perdida,

2:42 the "Lost City", is high up in Colombia's

2:45 most isolated mountain range, the Sierra Nevada.

2:53 Archaeologists have spent decades exploring this dense jungle to find

2:57 out about the people who lived here over 500 years ago.

3:03 Digital technology will help them reveal more, and faster.

3:10 Only the world's toughest archaeologists can handle this terrain.

3:14 Santiago Giraldo has been excavating here for 20 years.

3:18 (laughing).

3:19 It's a beautiful place.

3:24 It's amazing this place is still standing.

3:28 Who built all this?

3:29 SANTIAGO: It was a people that we call the Tairona, their predecessors.

3:32 It began to be built around 600 AD.

3:37 ALBERT: It's huge.

3:47 How many people would've lived here?

3:49 SANTIAGO: About 2,000 to 3,000 at its peak,

3:52 and then about 10,000 people living in the upper part of the basin.

3:55 ALBERT: 10,000?

3:56 SANTIAGO: Yeah.

3:56 All that forest that you see would've been all farmland.

4:03 ALBERT: Oh man, you can almost feel their energy here,

4:06 you know, like, all these people running around.

4:10 SANTIAGO: It's taken us over 40 years of work to clear out and survey the site,

4:15 trying to tease out what these people were thinking when they were building it.

4:21 ALBERT: 40 years?

4:23 The reason why, soon becomes clear.

4:32 The Tairona built their homes on the steepest

4:35 ridges of this thick, dense, jungle.

4:40 From here, they could see everything around them.

4:44 Safe in the mountains, they remained hidden for centuries.

4:51 They're one of the most mysterious people in all of South America.

4:55 And finding their ancient cities in this terrain is almost impossible.

5:11 These roots are incredible.

5:13 SANTIAGO: Yeah, it's a fig tree.

5:19 This is what I wanted to show you.

5:22 See that right there?

5:24 ALBERT: The rocks?

5:25 SANTIAGO: See that?

5:26 Yeah.

5:26 ALBERT: Is that a wall?

5:28 SANTIAGO: Yeah, it's a wall.

5:29 It's a wall, it's a Tairona wall.

5:31 ALBERT: Wow.

5:32 It's incredible.

5:34 SANTIAGO: Yeah.

5:35 ALBERT: I mean you barely recognize it.

5:37 SANTIAGO: Well you know,

5:39 we've got like 400 years of growth and leaf litter and soil.

5:45 ALBERT: I think there's a better way to do this.

5:48 We could use aerial LiDAR to do a digital model of the whole place.

5:52 And then we could remove the trees and see the ground.

5:55 We could find the pathways, the rockpiles, the walls.

5:59 SANTIAGO: That would be amazing.

6:00 If it does pick up these terraces, it would be really, really amazing.

6:04 It would be fabulous.

6:05 ALBERT: Maybe we'll even find some new ones.

6:11 LiDAR should be able to strip away the trees

6:13 to expose the ground beneath them across this whole area.

6:17 Including terrain that has yet to be explored.

6:24 The LiDAR scanner shoots about 400,000 laser pulses every second.

6:29 Each pulse creates an accurate distance measurement,

6:32 which we can use to build a 3D model.

6:36 This has never been tried here before, we're in totally uncharted territory.

6:44 We don't know what we'll find.

6:46 it could be more lost cities or it could be nothing.

6:50 But what we do know is that this chance is just too good to miss.

6:54 (whirring).

6:57 We mount an aerial LiDAR scanner with three lenses on a helicopter.

7:01 One lens faces straight down, the other two are at angles.

7:06 This maximizes the chance that some of the laser

7:08 beams will make it through the canopy to the ground.

7:14 The aerial LiDAR team gets to work,

7:16 scanning and processing billions of data points from the valley.

7:33 Using the LiDAR data, we've built a 3D model of Ciudad Perdida.

7:39 Here it is.

7:41 SANTIAGO: LiDAR data's in?

7:42 ALBERT: Yeah, this is the whole scan.

7:44 SANTIAGO: Oh my god, okay.

7:46 ALBERT: And look at this, ready?

7:48 Boom.

7:50 Without the trees, we can see Ciudad Perdida as it was 500 years ago.

7:56 Transported through time, we can move through the city following

7:59 the footsteps of the people that once lived here.

8:05 SANTIAGO: This is amazing.

8:07 You've got like the center part of the town and then all

8:11 these paths that lead out to it and connect to the other neighborhoods.

8:15 Imagine, you've got dogs, you've got kids playing,

8:18 you've got goldsmiths, weavers, you've got merchants...

8:23 Yeah.

8:23 This is Ciudad Perdida.

8:25 Everything you see in white, that's flat.

8:28 That's what we're looking for.

8:31 ALBERT: That's the signature of...

8:32 SANTIAGO: Yeah 'cause white means flat,

8:33 flat means humans and that means terracing.

8:36 So what we're looking for is white.

8:44 Oh look, look, you can see right there the path that leads up river...

8:50 Can you pull out a bit more?

8:52 ALBERT: Okay.

8:53 SANTIAGO: I want to see more.

8:55 I want to see more, see if we can find some new areas.

9:05 Oh, look, this is new, this is absolutely new.

9:08 ALBERT: Wooow!

9:09 SANTIAGO: Right there.

9:10 This is new.

9:12 This area right here.

9:14 Right there, right there, that ridgeline right there, this area right there.

9:20 See that, it's nice and flat,

9:22 it's highly probable that there is terraces right there...

9:26 This is...

9:26 this...

9:27 we've never been there.

9:28 ALBERT: So you're telling me that this area up

9:30 here could be an entirely new city or site?

9:32 SANTIAGO: Yeah, it could be a new site,

9:33 could be a new site, could be a new town.

9:35 This is this is fantastic data.

9:38 ALBERT: A lost city in the mountains, that you've never seen before?

9:41 SANTIAGO: Yep.

9:43 Could be.

9:44 But we need to ground truth 'em, we got to put boots on the ground,

9:52 and head out there and see for ourselves

9:56 whether there's terracing and walls and just manmade structures.

10:03 That's where pixels become reality.

10:10 ALBERT: Somewhere out there, there's a lost city waiting to be found.

10:23 ALBERT: This going to be tough.

10:26 We'll be bushwhacking through some of the world's roughest terrain.

10:30 Santiago and I head off with the camera crew.

10:33 We've got the Colombian military with us,

10:35 because bandits still roam this jungle and we can't take any chances.

10:41 Before we even can start the climb, there's a long trek on the old Tairona path.

10:48 Then it's hours of bushwhacking up the ridge we spotted on the LiDAR scans.

10:55 Our goal is to get to the top

10:57 of the ridge where the LiDAR showed large flat areas,

11:00 that we hope are the signs of a Tairona city.

11:10 It starts so well.

11:15 Wow.

11:16 It's just so beautiful...

11:22 But it's not long before the real challenge begins.

11:26 We're literally following a map made by lasers in the sky through

11:30 the thickest jungle I've ever seen to look for new lost cities.

11:35 SANTIAGO: Good fun.

11:37 Good fun.

11:41 ALBERT: We leave the old Tairona path

11:43 and start to fight our way up the mountain.

11:54 This climb is harder than we could have ever imagined.

12:02 Sorry.

12:03 Oh, oh oh!

12:05 You alright?

12:11 After a brutal climb, we finally have a breakthrough.

12:15 SANTIAGO: Oh, there we go.

12:17 (speaking Spanish).

12:19 We got lots of pottery up here.

12:21 ALBERT: Pottery?

12:22 SANTIAGO: Yeah.

12:23 ALBERT: You serious?

12:23 SANTIAGO: Yeah, yeah.

12:24 Yeah.

12:25 Look at that.

12:27 Bits and pieces of pottery right there.

12:29 ALBERT: Oh yeah.

12:29 Look at that.

12:30 SANTIAGO: See?

12:32 Can you get the trowel out please?

12:35 Here we go.

12:42 ALBERT: Ancient pottery.

12:44 SANTIAGO: See this one right there?

12:46 ALBERT: Where there's pottery...

12:49 SANTIAGO: There's human beings!

12:50 ALBERT: This is Tairona pottery.

12:53 This is so cool.

13:00 We follow the trail of pottery uphill.

13:11 SANTIAGO: Terraza, terraza.

13:11 We've got a terrace up here.

13:13 C'mon.

13:14 ALBERT: You got a terrace?

13:15 SANTIAGO: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

13:16 ALBERT: We found a terrace.

13:22 What!

13:23 SANTIAGO: Yeah yeah yeah.

13:24 ALBERT: Already.

13:25 SANTIAGO: Yeah.

13:25 You can see the wall right here...

13:28 can clear that a bit.

13:32 See right there?

13:33 ALBERT: Let me see.

13:39 SANTIAGO: Yeah, there it is.

13:41 See, wall, wall right here.

13:44 ALBERT: Let me see.

13:48 SANTIAGO: See the big blocks of stone right here.

13:51 ALBERT: Mmhmm.

13:52 SANTIAGO: You can hear the clink of stone, stone, stone, stone right here.

13:58 More stone right here.

14:01 Stone.

14:03 ALBERT: So you've never seen this before?

14:04 SANTIAGO: No, we've never seen this before.

14:07 We've found 3, 4, 5 terraces?

14:11 ALBERT: Yeah!

14:12 SANTIAGO: Alright!

14:15 ALBERT: These terraces are a sign that the Tairona were once here.

14:21 But the site we spotted on the LiDAR scan is still far above us.

14:24 We're not even halfway there.

14:32 This climb is unrelenting, we're all struggling.

14:37 It's merciless and unforgiving.

14:46 If there's a city here, then it will have been built on a huge,

14:49 artificially flat space, the white areas we saw on the LiDAR scans.

15:05 You see anything?

15:06 SANTIAGO: Oh yeah.

15:08 This is flattening out.

15:09 Watch out.

15:10 ALBERT: We're on a terrace?

15:11 SANTIAGO: Yeah.

15:12 It's, we've got a lot of forest over it but, yeah.

15:17 That's all nice and flat.

15:20 ALBERT: The flat area looks like it could be a Tairona terrace.

15:25 But to be sure, we need evidence: pottery,

15:29 cut stones, anything to show the Tairona actually lived here.

15:39 ALBERT: Without cold, hard proof that the Tairona were here,

15:42 we'll have done all this for nothing.

15:57 I see a rock right here.

16:03 This is a piece of cut rock, just like at Ciudad Perdida.

16:09 Following it, let's see if we can see it on the other side of this tree.

16:13 SANTIAGO: Do you see it over there?

16:17 ALBERT: Yeah, it continues over here.

16:24 SANTIAGO: Good.

16:25 Yeah, yeah.

16:25 ALBERT: This?

16:27 SANTIAGO: We got that one right there.

16:29 Yeah.

16:30 ALBERT: Another piece of cut rock.

16:32 You think this is the edge of a terrace?

16:33 SANTIAGO: Yeah, I mean the line goes that way, the line goes that way.

16:37 So that's why we've got that flat area right inside.

16:40 This is what we're looking for.

16:42 The edges of it.

16:43 ALBERT: There's stone after stone after stone.

16:46 SANTIAGO: Yeah, we've got another one over here.

16:48 ALBERT: You've got another one?

16:49 SANTIAGO: Yeah, we got another rock over here, yeah.

16:51 A bit of the wall has tumbled down...

16:53 ALBERT: I think we've found it.

16:56 SANTIAGO: I've got pottery!

16:57 ALBERT: What?

16:58 You serious?

16:59 SANTIAGO: I've got pottery, yeah, yeah.

17:03 Definitely.

17:04 It's a really small piece.

17:06 Can you get some water and clean it up but, yeah.

17:09 It's pottery for sure.

17:10 ALBERT: Wow, look at that.

17:12 The tiniest fragment, but it's enough.

17:17 SANTIAGO: This is going to be fun to excavate.

17:20 Pottery for sure.

17:22 ALBERT: This was once somebody's home!

17:28 This city would have been part of the great

17:31 Tairona civilization from mountaintops to the sea.

17:37 The LiDAR scans uncovered this extraordinary place,

17:40 reclaimed by nature and hidden under the jungle for hundreds of years.

17:45 And this is just the beginning.

17:48 With this technology we can discover dozens

17:50 of new cities and possibly the whole Tairona civilization.

18:10 Ever since I first saw this, the magical city of Petra in Jordan,

18:14 it just hasn't left my mind.

18:18 It's one of the most beautiful, unusual and iconic cities in the world.

18:25 But I've learned something surprising.

18:27 Petra is not the beginning of the story.

18:30 It's the end.

18:32 There's another lost city carved into the rock, somewhere near here.

18:36 I'm hoping to find the hidden origins of one

18:39 of the greatest cities the world's ever seen.

18:45 The people who lived here, in this city, they were originally nomads.

18:50 Traveling, trading across the Arabian desert.

18:53 Living in tents.

18:55 And then in a leap they built this.

18:59 What happened?

19:05 I wanna find out who they were, where they came from.

19:08 And what came before all this.

19:11 New clues about them are being discovered in the desert rocks.

19:32 ALBERT (over radio): We're now flying over the Jordanian desert.

19:35 In a Black Hawk.

19:37 Now I have the military helping me find lost cities.

19:45 ALBERT: Bob Bewley is an aerial archaeologist.

19:48 He traces the ancient water sources

19:50 and trade routes of the Nabateans from above.

19:57 ROBERT (over radio): Can you see the track there, Albert, on the left hand side?

20:00 ALBERT (over radio): Where?

20:01 ROBERT (over radio): Along the ridge there.

20:03 ALBERT (over radio): Right there.

20:04 ROBERT (over radio): Yeah, yeah.

20:09 And although we're looking at a modern road, it's built on the ancient road.

20:14 And now we're gonna follow it.

20:20 ALBERT: Ancient writings suggest that somewhere

20:23 along this highway lies a Nabatean city, hidden in the mountains.

20:28 One that pre-dates Petra by hundreds of years.

20:32 ALBERT (over radio): Oh it's gotta be this.

20:34 I can see the modern highway.

20:36 But you see the ancient highway running right next to it.

20:42 ROBERT (over radio): Level off, level off straight ahead.

20:44 That's it, lovely.

20:47 So that's the track running up the hill there.

20:49 ALBERT (over radio): So that'd be the road?

20:50 ROBERT (over radio): Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

20:54 ALBERT: We approach a barren mountain top.

20:56 Surrounded by steep valleys.

21:00 ROBERT (over radio): That's lovely.

21:01 ALBERT (over radio): 11:00.

21:02 Right here?

21:02 ROBERT (over radio): Yeah.

21:03 ALBERT (over radio): Okay I see it.

21:05 ALBERT: This rocky plateau doesn't look like

21:07 any lost city I've ever seen before.

21:12 But the ancient Greek writings describe

21:15 the nomadic Nabateans setting up home here.

21:18 Possibly for the first time.

21:22 ROBERT (over radio): Happy to land?

21:25 Yeah, yeah.

21:26 Fantastic.

21:28 ALBERT: The city is called Sela.

21:30 Hebrew for rock.

21:31 ALBERT (over radio): Incredible.

21:33 ROBERT (over radio): That's amazing isn't it?

21:34 Look at that, just...

21:41 ALBERT (over radio): We've just landed on the ancient highway.

21:50 ALBERT: Sela has never been scanned by lasers before.

21:54 I'm launching an expedition to the summit.

21:56 3000 feet above sea level.

21:58 With my LiDAR team.

21:59 To uncover the secrets of this mysterious place.

22:09 ALBERT: The LiDAR team and I are heading

22:10 to one of the last fully unexplored Nabatean sites.

22:18 And Jordan's acclaimed archaeologist, Mohammed Najjar, is leading the ascent.

22:23 (speaking Arabic).

22:25 ALBERT: How are you my friend?

22:26 MOHAMMAD: Hi, good to see you.

22:27 ALBERT: Yeah, it's been too long.

22:33 MAN: I've never carried LiDAR kit on a donkey before.

22:36 Or on a horse.

22:37 ALBERT: This is high tech meets ancient tech.

22:39 MOHAMMAD: Yeah, yeah.

22:43 ALBERT: Are you ready?

22:45 Let's go.

22:45 (speaking native language).

22:51 ALBERT: I don't know what to expect at the top.

22:54 What I do know is we're heading to 3000 feet

22:57 above sea level and it's gonna be a tough climb.

23:01 It's like a maze.

23:02 MOHAMMAD: Yes it is.

23:14 ALBERT: Those steps, are those...

23:15 MOHAMMAD: Yes that's our way up.

23:26 AHMAD: This is the only way to climb to Sela.

23:29 There's no other way.

23:34 ALBERT: The steps are the first hint

23:36 that this bare mountain has been shaped by people.

23:40 Gotta be 90 degrees out here right now.

23:42 MOHAMMAD: Yeah.

23:44 Watch what you do.

23:54 ALBERT: This is like an ancient skyscraper up here.

24:01 The terrain is brutal.

24:03 And the questions keep coming.

24:07 It just seems like an unbelievable amount of effort

24:10 to build your world on top of a mountain, in the middle of an arid desert.

24:17 Shall we take a break and drink some water guys?

24:20 Stay away from the mean donkey.

24:23 You know water is like, it's how you live.

24:27 But this desert is so dry.

24:29 How do you survive on top of a mountain?

24:32 Surrounded by dirt and no rivers nearby?

24:37 Nothing to farm.

24:39 How could you hold out?

24:52 Feels like we're getting close.

24:58 This way huh?

25:05 Finally we reach the top.

25:12 But how did this lifeless crop, with no water source,

25:16 become home to a city of people?

25:21 To hunt for clues we plan to LiDAR scan the whole plateau.

25:29 MAN: The access to so much of it is virtually impossible.

25:32 ALBERT: It also looks like sheer drops everywhere.

25:34 Deadly basically to explore.

25:36 MOHAMMAD: Absolutely.

25:37 ALBERT: So hopefully we can go places that wouldn't be safe to go otherwise.

25:41 MAN: Okay we're good to go.

25:47 ALBERT: This is a very dangerous place to fly.

25:49 MAN: It's a risky location yeah.

25:51 We're gonna have to have all eyes on the drone at all times.

25:53 ALBERT: This is like super advanced drone flying.

25:56 MAN: Yeah.

25:57 ALBERT: This is super, super expert model.

25:59 MAN: This is level ten sure.

26:04 ALBERT: It's hard to believe this barren place was once home to hundreds,

26:07 even thousands of people.

26:14 If they left any evidence I'm banking on my technology to find it.

26:24 So we hiked up here.

26:26 Right?

26:27 MOHAMMAD: Yes.

26:28 Right there.

26:29 ALBERT: It's a lot easier from a computer isn't it?

26:30 MOHAMMAD: Yeah it is actually yeah it is.

26:34 I think this is the way to look at the site

26:36 because if you look at small parts you cannot understand.

26:39 We need to look at the whole site together.

26:43 And then you can understand the dynamics.

26:46 ALBERT: Looks like it's starting to be shaped by human hands.

26:49 MOHAMMAD: That's true.

26:50 That's true.

26:51 I mean look at that.

26:53 Look at this picture.

26:55 ALBERT: The LiDAR data reveals water tanks cut into the rock.

26:58 Almost invisible to the naked eye.

27:01 After three days of scanning we've logged an incredible 51 underground tanks.

27:07 Here at Sela it's the first time anyone

27:09 has uncovered the extent of rain water harvesting.

27:13 MOHAMMAD: We have to channel the water,

27:15 the rain water the run-off from the face of the rock to the systems.

27:21 ALBERT: We can now estimate that these man

27:23 made tanks contained about 200,000 gallons of rain water.

27:27 Plenty to sustain over 1,000 permanent settlers.

27:31 It's an exciting discovery.

27:33 MOHAMMAD: They were nomads at the beginning.

27:35 They were like wind you know, and they...

27:37 And then they, there was a shift in their consciousness.

27:42 I mean they started to be attached to the land.

27:46 ALBERT: They're turning the landscape into a home.

27:49 A permanent home.

27:54 Our LiDAR data transforms what we know of Sela.

28:00 The Nabateans ingenuity and knowledge of water enables them to settle,

28:05 living together in a permanent city here in the dry, rocky desert.

28:13 It's a stepping stone to Petra.

28:17 The journey has begun.

28:29 Machu Picchu, once a, a vast ceremonial city perched high up in the Andes.

28:38 Built in the mid 15th century, it was the crowning glory of a vast Inca empire.

28:46 But its origins, they're shrouded in mystery.

28:52 The genius that led to the creation of this iconic city started somewhere.

28:59 Where there is an end, there is also a beginning.

29:02 And I intend to find it.

29:14 ALBERT: Were those mighty Inca warriors,

29:16 were they standing on the shoulders of giants?

29:18 Of earlier civilizations?

29:22 Armed with 21st century technology, I'm headed deep into the Andes to find out.

29:32 Before the Inca, Peru was inhabited by smaller, competing tribes.

29:38 Maybe finding evidence of these people will point me in the right direction.

29:44 I'm headed to an Inca site that's both

29:45 older and higher in altitude than Machu Picchu.

30:07 Oh, it's my caballo.

30:10 Hello.

30:12 We're headed to that peak at 13,000 feet of elevation, it's gonna be a trek.

30:19 And we've got a lot of gear.

30:22 The Inca buildings at Wat'a are around 100 years older

30:25 and at an altitude 5,000 feet higher than Machu Picchu.

30:31 Tom Hardy and Peruvian archaeologist Adan Choqque Arce are joining me.

30:37 There's horse poop everywhere.

30:44 Low tech transport empowers high tech gear.

30:48 To help us reveal why the Inca built and ruled here.

31:07 Wat'a is more than twice the height of Mount Rushmore.

31:11 The air is thin and the going is tough.

31:16 We're at 11,600 feet of elevation.

31:21 We got a ways to go.

31:30 Steep drop right off here.

31:51 About 1,000 feet from the top, imposing Inca walls loom into view.

31:59 The structure feels familiar.

32:09 Whoa.

32:10 Look at this place.

32:18 (gasping).

32:29 How could they build in such an intense environment?

32:33 You have to be born with super lungs.

32:35 THOMAS: Well, they got 'em.

32:36 When you're, when you're born here and you're raised here.

32:38 It's easier to move around, right?

32:40 ADAN: I think it was easier for me.

32:43 THOMAS: The hardest part for him was waiting for us.

32:46 ALBERT: Oh wow.

32:49 ADAN: Wat'a, it means in the local language, an Island.

32:53 ALBERT: An island?

32:55 ADAN: Yes.

32:56 ALBERT: An island in the sky.

32:58 THOMAS: Really is pretty impressive view from up here, isn't it?

33:02 The Inca came, put this wall up here.

33:05 They transformed the site, made it into an Inca place.

33:10 ALBERT: So this was all here before the Inca even showed up?

33:13 THOMAS: Part of it.

33:15 A lot of this is Inca construction on top of the earlier settlement.

33:23 ALBERT: We know from Machu Picchu

33:25 that the Inca built high to assert their authority.

33:29 And this place is high, more than one and a half times higher than Machu Picchu.

33:36 Look at this.

33:38 This is the top.

33:41 Look at this view.

33:43 THOMAS: This is pretty impressive.

33:52 ALBERT: Why would they build something like this?

33:55 This high up in the mountains?

33:57 THOMAS: Well, we have some ideas based on the relationship of the landscape.

34:02 ADAN: I think people living here thought that they

34:07 came from the mountains and the mountains was their ancestors.

34:11 ALBERT: The mountains being the ancestors?

34:13 The actual mountain being a being that humans

34:16 are born from is that, is that correct?

34:18 ADAN: Like a person it was their, their father,

34:22 their ancestor, their grandfather.

34:24 THOMAS: They become these objects of sacred veneration and respect.

34:28 ALBERT: Not only to the Inca but to the people even before the Inca then?

34:31 THOMAS: Probably.

34:32 Yeah.

34:34 ALBERT: We're standing here on a mountain top,

34:37 just like Machu Picchu was on a mountain top.

34:40 Yet, unlike Machu Picchu,

34:42 there might be evidence of activity here before the Inca.

34:46 THOMAS: Yeah.

34:48 ALBERT: So why don't we take our technology

34:50 and try to scan the entire mountain top?

34:53 Really make every little piece of evidence

34:55 of that existence pop back out to life.

34:57 THOMAS: Mm mm.

34:58 I think we should try.

35:08 ALBERT: The mountain has been surveyed before.

35:10 But this'll be the first time it's ever been scanned using LiDAR.

35:16 We hope to uncover new finds, both Inca and pre-Inca.

35:23 How does this look for our base to set up?

35:25 DUNCAN: Precarious.

35:27 ALBERT: Yeah, let's just be really careful about the edge here.

35:31 DUNCAN: Certainly good for LiDAR, I mean, look at the view off there.

35:33 You're looking straight down onto,

35:36 onto rock outcrops and bits of masonry already.

35:40 ALBERT: Look at those edges, it just falls off into nothingness, huh?

35:45 DUNCAN: It's gonna have to be so careful with the flights and stuff.

35:48 ALBERT: We have never used our drone based

35:50 LiDAR at an altitude of 13,000 feet before.

35:55 And you got thin air up here too, right, so it's trickier flying.

35:57 JOSEPH: Totally.

35:58 Super tricky, I mean, we've got the high altitude props on there, which help.

36:01 But still if you lose a done, it's a sheer drop.

36:07 ALBERT: Hopefully with this survey,

36:09 we can delete all of that grass and see what's really there.

36:13 What's hidden beneath that veil.

36:29 JOSEPH: It's up.

37:25 ALBERT: Our drone survives the extreme

37:26 altitude and data processing gets underway.

37:33 As darkness falls on Wat'a, the results are in.

37:39 JOSEPH: So this is all of the aerial LiDAR combined.

37:42 This is with the vegetation on, so

37:44 this is the point cloud as captured, basically.

37:46 ALBERT: Yeah.

37:46 ADAN: Mm.

37:47 ALBERT: Then let's delete it, ready?

37:50 Wow, look at that.

37:52 JOSEPH: Yeah.

37:53 ADAN: Wow, it's impressive.

37:55 increible.

37:59 ALBERT: It looks like the whole range has been carved.

38:01 JOSEPH: That's really cool.

38:04 ALBERT: The LiDAR reveals signature Inca terracing.

38:08 This area here, you think is mostly augmented by the Inca, is that right?

38:12 THOMAS: Yeah.

38:13 ALBERT: So, in the most simple terms,

38:16 what are we looking for feature-wise that might be from before the Inca?

38:20 THOMAS: The most basic signature that we would be

38:22 looking for would be the foundations of circular structures.

38:25 ALBERT: Mm mm.

38:26 THOMAS: And these, these could appear quite obviously but they also could be

38:29 a little more sort of destroyed or moved

38:32 around by vegetation growing through the stones.

38:35 ALBERT: You think we can actually use the machine

38:37 learning computer vision algorithm to look for circular features?

38:40 JOSEPH: Yeah, definitely we can highlight

38:41 the features based on a few different elements.

38:43 ALBERT: How long will that take?

38:45 JOSEPH: Should be able to spin something up for you right now.

38:47 ALBERT: I knew you would.

38:49 Look at that.

38:51 JOSEPH: There we go.

38:52 ALBERT: What is that?

38:52 THOMAS: It could be one of em.

38:54 Yeah, looks like it's on a bit of a terrace.

38:57 ALBERT: Does that look to you like something pre-Inca?

38:59 ADAN: Yeah, I think so.

39:05 ALBERT: I didn't see any of this today.

39:06 I couldn't have seen any of these features from walking the ground.

39:10 So if you can spot out any details that might look possibly pre-Inca,

39:14 then we should go there tomorrow.

39:18 We'll just geotag them and we'll go there with a GPS and find all of them.

39:22 ADAN: I think it'd help us a lot,

39:24 to archaeologists to find where the structures are.

39:28 ALBERT: Great work.

39:30 Good job guys.

39:46 The first ever LiDAR survey of Wat'a has

39:49 revealed intriguing features and they need ground truthing.

39:53 Is it circular?

39:54 ADAN: Yes.

39:55 ALBERT: Wow.

39:56 Look at this.

39:57 ADAN: It could be pre-Inca.

39:59 But we need to look.

40:01 ALBERT: Well, what we're trying to find,

40:03 is anything that tells us what happened here?

40:05 What would this have been for?

40:07 Is it like a well or something?

40:09 Or storage?

40:11 THOMAS: It could be storage.

40:12 ALBERT: Adan, you're like the ceramics whisperer, you find stuff everywhere.

40:15 Do you think you can find anything?

40:16 ADAN: OK, well, (inaudible).

40:17 ALBERT: Looks like there's bits of ceramic all right back down there.

40:20 THOMAS: Here's some, oh here we go.

40:22 Looking at the fabric and looking how eroded and soft it is,

40:27 I would guess it must be Pre-Inca because

40:29 the Inca stuff is really well fired, it's really hard.

40:31 It endures very well.

40:34 ALBERT: Well, let's see if we can find more.

40:35 If there's more points on the, on the data.

40:38 THOMAS: Yeah, let's do it.

40:42 ALBERT: We zero in on a large terraced area.

40:48 Oh this looks like one of their circular pits.

40:51 THOMAS: Yeah.

40:52 This is probably an opening.

40:55 So this could have been an entry point here.

40:58 And would have built up above it.

40:59 ALBERT: Look at that right there, what's that?

41:01 You got a piece of pottery?

41:03 ADAN: It's of a cooking pot.

41:05 THOMAS: It's like the burned up,

41:06 banged up metal pot you'll find in your mom's house, yeah.

41:09 ALBERT: Wow.

41:10 So food was cooked here.

41:12 You can almost smell it.

41:14 Where do you think it came from?

41:16 ADAN: I think it could be before the Inca.

41:19 ALBERT: This is pre-Inca?

41:20 THOMAS: This is pre-Inca, yeah.

41:22 ADAN: I think it was a house for a family.

41:25 ALBERT: Really?

41:26 ADAN: Mm mm.

41:27 ALBERT: So could this be the residential area for this entire site?

41:31 THOMAS: This certainly suggests that might be the case for the pre-Inca period.

41:37 ALBERT: Just on the other side of what looks like a plaza,

41:40 are some square buildings that appear to have been built later.

41:44 THOMAS: Look at this.

41:46 ALBERT: So this is Inca?

41:49 ADAN: Yes, definitely.

41:51 ALBERT: You could literally set up shop anywhere.

41:54 Why would they build this here?

41:55 Right on top of the prior?

41:58 ADAN: Before the Inca, it was a public place, public space.

42:02 The Inca came and interact with the pre-Inca.

42:06 THOMAS: The Inca would have been hosting here,

42:08 bringing in people to make them feel part

42:10 of the community with food and drink suggesting this area was

42:13 an important place for all sorts of events going all

42:15 the way back to the very beginnings of this site.

42:22 ALBERT: It's as if the Inca, they came, they saw people living here.

42:27 And they incorporated their beliefs but in a much larger scale.

42:31 And they completely modified the top of this mountain.

42:34 So when they were building Machu Picchu, they would have known about this place.

42:38 THOMAS: Yeah, a lot of the things we see here,

42:40 the way that the, the mountain side is completely terraced,

42:45 all of that is very similar to what we see at Machu Picchu.

42:54 ALBERT: There's a belief system that I've

42:56 learned that threads through time here.

42:59 A belief that people come from the mountains, people come from nature.

43:12 Through time, that belief has evolved into the architecture

43:14 that you see today here, at Wat'a.

43:22 It's an island in the sky.

43:32 For the first time, LiDAR data reveals the complete picture of the monumental

43:39 scale of Wat'a and the efforts of human hands that carved this mountain.

43:47 Once a pre-Inca, ancient mountaintop town.

43:52 Imagine this transformed by the Inca.

43:57 Imposing residential areas, ceremonial plazas.

44:01 And grand terracing.

44:03 This is the city of the living I have been searching for.