How Native Americans Read the Stars (And Built a Civilization) | Full Episode | Native America

0:07 NARRATOR: It is another world thriving with a hundred million people,

0:14 connected by elaborate roads, bridges,

0:17 and social networks spanning continents...

0:20 (puffs) with some of the world's largest cities aligned to the heavens.

0:30 It is the birthplace of some of the greatest civilizations on earth.

0:34 (conch horn trumpets) This is the Americas, more than 500 years ago.

0:45 Native Americans create America's first democracy

0:49 that later inspires the United States Constitution...

0:53 (man chanting) ...shape Mississippi swampland

0:58 into the largest pyramids on the planet.

1:02 Carve Andean mountain slopes into fields that feed millions.

1:08 They domesticate plants that provide 60%

1:11 of the food consumed in the world today.

1:17 Native Americans invent a way of life intimately connected to earth,

1:23 sky, water, and all living things.

1:30 JIM ENOTE: Being in the Grand Canyon to me is like a womb.

1:36 CHRISTOPHER DAVIS: What this art represents is very sophisticated thinking.

1:42 LEIGH KUWANWISIWMA: These ancient people were keen observers of everything.

1:51 NARRATOR: At the intersection of modern scholarship

1:54 and Native knowledge is a new vision of America, and the people who built it.

2:01 This is "Native America."♪♪ NARRATOR: In a remote canyon in New Mexico,

2:21 more than a thousand years ago,

2:23 Native Americans build one of the largest cities in North America, Chaco.

2:36 Today, all that remains are crumbling stone structures,

2:41 long abandoned and largely forgotten.

2:48 But some Native Americans maintain a strong connection to Chaco.

2:54 KUWANWISIWMA: We make pilgrimages to Chaco because it's

2:57 a way of connecting back to our ancestral places.

3:01 NARRATOR: Leigh Kuwanwisiwma is a Hopi keeper of knowledge.

3:07 (speaking Hopi) The Hopi are one of the Pueblo communities,

3:14 the most ancient peoples living in the Southwest.

3:24 Leigh is taking tribal members to a sacred cave shrine above the ruins of Chaco.

3:30 It's a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage for many of these elders.

3:36 (Leigh speaking Hopi) The Hopi have never

3:43 shared this private ceremony outside their community.

3:49 They offer cornmeal and eagle feathers in gratitude.

3:54 KUWANWISIWMA: Today is a very important day for all

3:57 of us to be here among our own ancestral people.

4:05 RONALD WADSWORTH: Chaco is a very significant place.

4:09 A lot of people with high spiritual power and knowledge settled there.

4:14 It was a place where a lot of great teachings happened.

4:21 NARRATOR: Through the eyes of the Hopi and other Native peoples,

4:24 this city is still alive.

4:30 These ruins are ancient skyscrapers, filled with hundreds of rooms...

4:38 Their walls carefully aligned to the sun and stars.

4:42 (birds chirping) They transform the surrounding

4:47 desert into gardens and fields of corn.

4:50 (thunder rumbles) The Hopi believe Chaco was a place where

4:53 thousands of people came to learn about earth's natural forces.

4:59 They share secret knowledge, prayers and practices about how to influence

5:05 the elements— wind, clouds, and rain.

5:10 Here, a thousand years ago, in the desert of the American Southwest

5:14 was a thriving center of science and spirituality.

5:24 Chaco was a place where clans came together to share their knowledge,

5:29 to share the wisdom of being caretakers of the earth.

5:40 NARRATOR: Now, an archaeological discovery is

5:42 showing the extent of Chaco's influence,

5:46 and just how far people would travel to come here.

5:51 Archaeologist Patti Crown led the investigation.

5:56 PATRICIA CROWN: This is room 28, a small room,

5:59 but one that has been critical in our understanding of Chaco.

6:07 NARRATOR: First excavated in 1896, Room 28 contained dozens of cylindrical pots.

6:15 CROWN: They really seemed to be drinking vessels,

6:19 I just wasn't sure what they might have been drinking in them.

6:24 NARRATOR: Patti took a closer look using forensic technology,

6:27 and what she found was a complete surprise...

6:34 Chocolate.

6:38 Chocolate comes from the cacao bean,

6:40 and cacao only grows on trees in the tropics of Central America,

6:45 more than 500 miles away.

6:48 Here, chocolate was considered food for the gods,

6:52 used in ceremonies where it was poured between vessels,

6:56 shaped like those found in Chaco.

7:02 CROWN: The cylinder jars are actually created in sets,

7:05 and so one might be placed on the ground

7:07 and the other used to pour from a height,

7:10 creating this cascading waterfall of chocolate with bubbles at the bottom.

7:18 (chocolate splashing) NARRATOR: Chocolate and its sacred drinking ritual must

7:26 have travelled from Central America to Chaco.

7:33 And chocolate is just one of many sacred objects discovered here.

7:40 Carved shells from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

7:45 Precious metals and minerals, like turquoise from far-off mountains.

7:52 Colorful tropical birds from Central American

7:55 jungles over a thousand miles away.

7:59 (birds calling) All objects of ritual significance brought from great distances.

8:06 CROWN: It made Chaco part of this very, very deep and distant belief system.

8:19 NARRATOR: Remains of an ancient city.

8:21 Hopi traditions about a center of great knowledge.

8:27 Sacred artifacts connecting Chaco to distant cultures.

8:35 A new picture is emerging of this remote ruin.

8:43 In a world of cities teeming with people,

8:46 immersed in the science and spirituality of earth and sky...

8:53 Chaco is a metropolis of ideas and beliefs that span two continents.

8:59 (puffs)♪♪ Where did these ideas come from?

9:11 (waves lapping) The story begins far from Chaco.

9:22 Archaeologists Anna Roosevelt and Chris Davis

9:26 are searching for the earliest evidence

9:29 of people in the Americas in the Amazon rainforest of western Brazil.

9:37 Their destination is a cave on this mountaintop rising out of the jungle.

9:49 This is the Caverna da Pedra Pintada,

9:52 Portuguese for the "Cave of the Painted Rock." DAVIS: That's amazing.

9:59 There's art going from the base all the way up to the ceiling.

10:02 NARRATOR: The cave is covered with paintings inspired by animals and the sky.

10:08 In this case there's a round object

10:10 in the middle of the depiction of the turtle.

10:13 DAVIS: Yeah, a lot of them are very abstract.

10:15 ROOSEVELT: The local people,

10:16 speculated that these were suns or moons— And that might match with the turtle,

10:22 because also turtle myths were related to the sun as well as a creation spirit.

10:27 NARRATOR: This cave in the Amazon is rewriting

10:30 the history of when and how people settled the Americas,

10:34 and who those people are.

10:43 For decades, textbooks presented only one view—

10:47 around 11,000 B.C., during the Ice Age,

10:51 big game hunters cross a frozen land bridge from Asia into Alaska,

10:57 a region known as Beringia.

11:03 After the ice melts,

11:05 they migrate down into the virgin territory of North and South America,

11:10 (animals growling) hunting mammoths, giant sloths,

11:15 and caribou, with finely fashioned stone spear points.

11:22 (birds squawking) The standard view is that people

11:26 reached the Amazon about a thousand years ago.

11:29 But what Anna excavated in the Cave of the Painted Rock changes everything.

11:35 ROOSEVELT: The remains we found and dated in the cave show

11:38 that people were living deep in the Amazon forest at 13,000 years ago.

11:45 This is some of the earliest art in the world and it's definitely,

11:48 so far, the earliest art in the hemisphere.

11:54 NARRATOR: Thousands of years before the Romans or Greeks,

11:58 8,000 years before the Egyptians,

12:00 at least 13,000 years ago, people arrive in the Amazon.

12:08 And their stone tools and paintings reveal

12:11 these first Americans are not only mammoth hunters,

12:15 they are foragers, fishermen, artists, and perhaps scientists.

12:25 (birds chirping) Chris is a specialist in archaeoastronomy,

12:34 the study of how ancient peoples looked at the sky.

12:38 (birds chirping) DAVIS: Something is going on here that they were observing,

12:45 and probably tracking, and tallying with this grid.

12:51 Because this is an open-air site, maybe they were counting something in the sky,

12:56 and this big grid represents something of a calendar.

13:01 NARRATOR: To Chris and Anna,

13:03 these images are calculated observations of the sky and nature.

13:08 DAVIS: What this art represents is very sophisticated thinking.

13:12 ROOSEVELT: This art links people with their environment through its animals,

13:18 its plants, and the heavenly bodies of the sky.

13:24 NARRATOR: These paintings are the earliest art ever found in the Americas.

13:30 They suggest that people 13,000 years ago had already developed ideas

13:35 and beliefs about the world that centered on the sky, caves, and nature.

13:46 But what exactly are these First American artists trying to say?

13:54 Part of the answer may lie a continent away

13:56 in an ancient ceremony performed by the Hopi back at Chaco.

14:02 (indistinct chatter) KUWANWISIWMA: The reason we do these pilgrimages is

14:16 to continue our connection to places like Yupköyvi,

14:20 which is the Hopi name for Chaco.

14:25 NARRATOR: Built in northwest New Mexico between 900 and 1150,

14:31 Chaco grows to cover an area roughly the size of modern San Francisco.

14:40 At its core are 12 Great Houses.

14:49 Five stories high, and up to 800 rooms, these are the biggest buildings in what

14:54 will be the United States until the 1800s.

15:06 Throughout the city they also construct cave-like gathering places.

15:13 They were once covered, but their roofs have collapsed with time.

15:20 They are called kivas.

15:23 Back home in Arizona, the Hopi still use them today.

15:30 The kivas are very special settings where

15:32 both men and women conduct different ceremonies.

15:39 So, a kiva that is a thousand years old is a very special setting for us.

15:47 NARRATOR: Prayers and rituals inside center on rainmaking, healing,

15:52 and hunting, all to ensure the continuation of life.

16:03 (chatter in Hopi) Today, the Hopi are conducting a smoking ceremony.

16:12 (chatter in Hopi) It has been passed down for thousands of years.

16:22 (speaking Hopi) (lighter clicks) (puffing) WADSWORTH:

16:41 Smoking is a form of prayer.

16:44 We meditate.

16:45 We silently pray as we smoke.

16:49 We pray for rain.

16:50 We pray for long life, good health, abundance.

17:12 KUWANWISIWMA: The prayers are to the environment.

17:15 You take time to contemplate the power

17:21 around us— (wings fluttering) the bird world,

17:26 the reptilian world, the animal world, the insect world.

17:34 They are part of who we are as Hopi people.

17:49 NARRATOR: For the Hopi and other Pueblo peoples, corn is their lifeblood.

17:54 And cornmeal is a sacred offering to Mother Earth.

18:00 As the smoke carries prayers to the winds,

18:04 Leigh sprinkles the meal for birds and insects

18:06 to spread to all four corners of the earth.

18:10 (bird wings flapping) It is a ritual

18:13 that connects the Hopi to their origin story.

18:19 (chanting in Native language) WOMAN (speaking Hopi):

18:37 (chanting in Native language) (chanting

18:50 in Native language) WOMAN (speaking Hopi):♪♪ NARRATOR:

19:20 Many Native American peoples share a belief that they emerged from the earth.

19:27 Hopi and Pueblo tradition say that place of emergence

19:31 is beneath America's best-known natural wonder— the Grand Canyon.

19:43 Five million people visit each year.

19:49 They come to connect with its natural beauty.

19:54 But Pueblo people have an even deeper connection.

20:00 This is their birthplace.

20:03 ENOTE: When we come to a place of water, we take the water,

20:07 we put it on our head, and we splash that water,

20:11 we lift it and throw it into the air in the direction of Zuni,

20:16 to encourage rain, four times, and then we drink the water.

20:22 NARRATOR: Jim Enote is an elder of the Ashiwi,

20:25 a Pueblo group in what is now New Mexico, known as the Zuni.

20:31 Jim is mapping ancient images of the Zuni's origins,

20:35 carved in stone by his ancestors.

20:39 FRANCESCA BOB: Just one hefty push.

20:41 There we go.

20:44 Thank you, Jim.

20:46 NARRATOR: He is joined by river guide Francesca Bob,

20:49 who is part Zuni, and Zuni story keeper Octavius Seowtewa.

20:54 There's some panels up here on both sides.

21:11 (indistinct chatter) NARRATOR:

21:16 Maps show this place separate from the Grand Canyon, and call it Glen Canyon.

21:21 The Zuni just have one name for the whole area.

21:26 SEOWTEWA: We call it Kuhmin A'lakkwenne.

21:30 In Zuni that means the place of emergence,

21:33 the place where the Zuni people came from.

21:36 (birds squawking) BOB: We're coming up to shore.

21:46 (speaking Native language) SEOWTEWA: A lot of people call it rock art,

21:54 but for us it's history.

21:57 Wow.

22:00 SEOWTEWA: It's a memory of our people being here.

22:02 It's not just a story, but actually an experience...

22:04 Right.

22:05 Yeah.

22:04 It's like a diary.

22:06 NARRATOR: The petroglyph, more than a thousand years old,

22:11 depicts a row of descending bighorn sheep.

22:15 It is an ancient lesson: to find water, follow the animals.

22:20 SEOWTEWA: You follow their tracks,

22:22 you will eventually find a way down to the river.

22:30 NARRATOR: The Zuni want to both preserve and share these sacred symbols.

22:36 So Jim began hiring native painters to turn Zuni history into illustrated maps.

22:44 We looked at these kinds of petroglyphs and other kinds of images on ceramics.

22:53 Things that were woven in tapestries.

22:56 We thought about the songs and prayers we have,

23:00 and we decided that we can make our own kinds of maps.

23:04 NARRATOR: Their maps are unlike any others.

23:07 Not limited by lines or topography,

23:10 they depict cultural landscapes and living memories.

23:15 ENOTE: The Zuni maps represent the world without defined boundaries.

23:22 Many people are familiar with geometric maps with streets and roads.

23:27 And then when they see Zuni hand-painted maps,

23:31 they realize there is a different way of looking at the world.

23:40 NARRATOR: This different way of looking

23:41 at the world is shared across Native America.

23:47 It is a reverence for place— Sacred caves,

23:52 underground sanctuaries, grand canyons, real physical connections to earth.

24:01 It's why many call it Mother Earth.

24:12 ENOTE: Being in the Grand Canyon to me is like a womb.

24:20 This is the place we came from.

24:22 So the river is like an umbilical cord.

24:26 It's all part of the Mother, and Mother is the place where we begin.

24:30 It's our ultimate reference point.

24:36 NARRATOR: Pueblo tradition requires them to honor Mother by taking care of her.

24:44 WOMAN (speaking Hopi):♪♪ (knocking sound) WOMAN

25:15 (speaking Hopi):♪♪ WOMAN (speaking Hopi):♪♪ NARRATOR: In their origin story,

25:46 after they emerge from the earth,

25:48 the Pueblo are given a sacred quest— find the Center Place.

25:56 KUWANWISIWMA: So, some clans went

25:58 clockwise and some clans went counterclockwise.

26:06 And as the clans migrated, they placed an insignia of where they were

26:12 at that particular time and place, which is a spiral.

26:20 It's about the people moving from one place to another, living in some place,

26:25 testing it, moving on and on until they finally find the right place.

26:41 NARRATOR: Finding the right place— the Center

26:44 Place— lies at the heart of Pueblo belief.

26:49 It is more than a physical location.

26:52 It is about living in balance with the natural world.

26:59 This search for the center place is built right into the kivas.

27:05 Every kiva is aligned to the four compass directions:

27:08 north, south, east, and west.

27:12 That's true north, and this one is true south.

27:14 So the sun rises here in the east, and then sets to the west there.

27:18 NARRATOR: There are two more sacred directions: up and down.

27:26 (fire crackling) Climbing a ladder out of a kiva

27:29 is symbolic of emerging into this world.

27:36 The Hopi believe the six directions give kivas great power.

27:49 The sacred power of six directions is

27:51 shared by many peoples across Native America.

27:55 One of its purest expressions was recently

27:59 discovered in a man-made cave near Mexico City.

28:04 Here, almost 2,000 years ago,

28:07 is the largest city in the Americas, Teotihuacan, population 125,000.

28:18 The name of its builders is lost to history,

28:21 but it would take more than 1,500 years for a U.S.

28:26 city, New York, to surpass its population.

28:33 Its biggest pyramid is one of the largest in the world,

28:36 after Egypt's Great Pyramids of Giza.

28:42 Yet archaeologist Sergio Gomez is more interested in what lies underground,

28:47 a previously unknown man-made cave.

28:51 (Sergio speaking Spanish) SERGIO GOMEZ (translated):

28:54 In almost every Mesoamerican culture,

28:56 caves have a deep significance in cosmological thought.

29:00 That is why this discovery is so important.

29:04 NARRATOR: In 2003, a monsoon rainstorm created a sinkhole near

29:09 a pyramid known as the Temple of the Feathered Serpent.

29:12 (Sergio speaking Spanish) (translated):

29:14 The entrance to the tunnel is located under the white tent,

29:17 at a depth of 14 meters.

29:21 NARRATOR: Sergio was the first to rappel down the sinkhole.

29:24 (machine whirring) It led to a tunnel, carved 2,000 years ago.

29:33 Inside, he found artifacts brought here from vast distances, just like at Chaco.

29:40 (speaking Spanish) (speaking Spanish) (translated):

29:53 This is one of the thousands of pieces,

29:55 of artifacts that we have discovered in the interior of the tunnel.

29:58 It's a representation of the principal deity

30:00 of both the underworld and the celestial region.

30:05 NARRATOR: Sergio believes many of the offerings symbolize heaven and earth,

30:09 and are carefully positioned in the tunnel.

30:13 (speaking Spanish) (translated): We believe that the placement of each

30:16 object throughout the tunnel had a particular meaning.

30:21 They were not just placed there randomly.

30:25 NARRATOR: The tunnel ends in a human-made cave.

30:31 Its floor is sculpted to represent the underworld.

30:36 Its ceiling is covered in artificial starlight, mimicking the cosmos.

30:50 (Sergio speaking Spanish) GOMEZ (translated):

30:52 The entire tunnel was originally covered in a dust of shiny metallic mineral.

31:01 They covered the walls and ceiling of the tunnel so it's

31:04 as if you were seeing the sky and the stars twinkling.

31:10 NARRATOR: In this cosmic sanctuary of stars, Sergio finds two stone figures,

31:18 statues that depict the first man and woman in the city's origin story.

31:25 Sergio laser scans the tunnel.

31:28 It descends 50 feet underground, extends for 340 feet,

31:35 and ends directly beneath the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent.

31:41 Here, the Teotihuacanos place the founding couple,

31:45 within 16 inches of the exact center of the pyramid.

31:52 (Sergio speaking Spanish) (translated):

31:55 We are positioned exactly under the intersection

31:57 of the north-south axis and east-west axis.

32:01 And above us is the peak,

32:02 the central point of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent.

32:06 Right in this spot.

32:11 They believed there was a conduit that connected

32:13 this region from the underworld to the celestial region.

32:21 NARRATOR: The builders went to extreme lengths using precise math and masterful

32:26 engineering to align their sanctuary of stars to the six directions.

32:34 Just like the kiva builders at Chaco,

32:36 the early Mesoamericans share a belief that the six

32:40 directions represent finding balance in the universe.

32:45 It is a quest to find the center between the world below and the one above,

32:52 between caves and the cosmos.

33:00 (Sergio speaking Spanish) GOMEZ (translated): In the southwestern United States,

33:04 including Central America and South America,

33:06 there are a series of ideas that form a general concept of the cosmos.

33:17 I've heard and read of the ideas the Hopi

33:19 have about the cosmos and how the universe was created.

33:28 These ideas are shared throughout many indigenous communities,

33:31 including indigenous communities in Mexico today.

33:38 NARRATOR: Teotihuacan is part of something bigger going on across the Americas.

33:44 The Maya, Aztec, and Inca,

33:46 all build monumental cities aligned to compass directions

33:50 and with an eye to the worlds above and below.

34:04 And at Chaco, the builders extend the science of six

34:08 directions to apply not only to place, but also to time.

34:14 WADSWORTH: Alignment was very important to these people at Chaco.

34:19 It helped them to determine the times of year,

34:22 the cycles of their crops, when they plant certain seeds.

34:26 And it also determines the months, the moons when the certain ceremonies happen.

34:35 NARRATOR: At the very center of Chaco,

34:38 builders create a sacred space to unify time and place— Pueblo Bonito.

34:44 (echoing chants) It is the largest of the city's 12 great houses,

34:55 with over 800 rooms and 30 ceremonial kivas.

35:04 We can talk about this as a building,

35:06 we can talk about it as a storage unit and a ceremonial center.

35:09 And we can also talk about it as a clock.

35:14 NARRATOR: Park Ranger GB Cornucopia came to Chaco

35:18 to study the stars 30 years ago and never left.

35:26 To GB, Pueblo Bonito and the sky are intricately linked.

35:33 The great house is aligned to the six directions.

35:38 One wall runs east-west.

35:41 And another north-south.

35:48 Each day, as the sun gets higher in the sky,

35:51 its shadow creeps closer to the north wall.

35:54 Here we can see the shadow is almost gone.

35:57 And in just a few moments it will disappear.

36:02 There...

36:03 This is solar noon, when the sun is at it's highest point in the sky.

36:11 NARRATOR: Pueblo Bonito is a clock that tracks the sun during the day.

36:16 It's also a calendar that tracks it during the year.

36:24 Every day, the sun sets in a different place on the horizon.

36:30 The solar year starts on the winter solstice, when it sets in the south.

36:36 On the summer solstice, it sets in the north.

36:40 The two days halfway in between them are called equinoxes.

36:46 And today, on the fall equinox, the sun lines up with the east-west wall.

36:56 CORNUCOPIA: We're between the two extremes when it's really hot in the summer,

36:59 summer solstice, and when it's really cold in the winter, winter solstice.

37:02 We're at that midway point.

37:06 The north wall tracks the day.

37:12 The west wall tracks the year.

37:17 Built to the six directions, Pueblo Bonito unites place and time.

37:28 CORNUCOPIA: People tell time by their relationship with the sky.

37:33 Now most of us have forgotten that, because we have devices that represent time,

37:37 we've got watches and calendars and clocks.

37:39 But if you've got good markers on your horizon, you can predict the seasons,

37:45 so that you can prepare for ceremonies, agriculture, all manner of things.

37:52 NARRATOR: The people of Chaco look to the sky

37:55 to guide their agriculture and their ceremonies.

37:59 Their city is the physical embodiment of their worldview.

38:04 It is a way of living that is both

38:08 a scientific understanding of the cycles of the earth,

38:12 sun, and stars, and a spiritual quest to find their place within it.

38:29 WOMAN (speaking Hopi): WOMAN (speaking Hopi):♪♪♪♪ NARRATOR: Sky watching,

39:09 the six directions, and a search for people's place in the world.

39:16 These ideas are found throughout the Americas.

39:22 They are part of a foundational belief

39:25 system shared between distant and diverse cultures.

39:33 Where does this common belief come from?

39:38 The Chumash may have an answer.

39:41 Their ancestors were the first coastal

39:43 settlers of what is now Southern California.

39:48 My ancestors were far better paddlers, far better navigators,

39:52 far better fishermen, far better craftsmen than I will ever be.

39:58 (singing in Chumash) NARRATOR: Today,

40:02 these Chumash men are taking to the water in a flat-bottomed canoe,

40:06 like that of their ancestors.

40:07 (singing continues) REGINALD PAGALING: Water is life.

40:16 It's such a great teacher of respect.

40:19 It's a great teacher of power.

40:22 It's a great teacher of...

40:27 calmness.

40:30 NARRATOR: Long ago, water taught the Chumash a lesson they still

40:34 practice— (crickets chirping) the best time to paddle is at night.

40:40 SALAZAR: That's when the ocean is the calmest.

40:44 (water lapping) It's so dark that you can

40:49 barely see the paddler in front of you.

40:51 You feel your paddle hit the water and come out.

40:56 It's powerful.

41:00 NARRATOR: Far at sea, in the dark of night,

41:03 the Chumash look to the stars to guide them.

41:09 Just as their ancestors did.

41:15 PAGALING: At a very early stage we saw the Milky

41:18 Way as a way to chart our way across the islands.

41:29 My ancestors were masters at building canoes that could travel great distances.

41:42 NARRATOR: Their mastery of the stars and seafaring enabled the very

41:47 first Americans to move quickly down the coast and across the continents.

41:55 Can the way America is settled explain

41:58 why Native Americans share so many core beliefs?

42:03 New DNA evidence suggests that all

42:07 Native Americans are descended from one people.

42:12 They live together for 25,000 years,

42:15 stuck behind a wall of ice in an area called Beringia.

42:21 Perhaps here, over thousands of years,

42:24 people observe cycles of the earth, sun, and stars,

42:29 and plant the seeds for a worldview that will be shared across the Americas.

42:38 Can these ideas really have been developed so far back in time?

42:46 If so, they may be expressed in the earliest art found here.

42:52 It dates back 13,000 years to the very beginnings of Native America.

43:04 Anna Roosevelt and Chris Davis re-examine

43:07 the rock paintings in Brazil's Amazon rainforest.

43:12 ROOSEVELT: It's been assumed that hunting and gathering people

43:16 were primitive and wouldn't be into art very much.

43:20 But everywhere you go in this rocky area, you find a painting.

43:28 NARRATOR: Chris believes the paintings may relate to the sky.

43:32 DAVIS: All of the rock art is facing the west.

43:36 So maybe there was something important in the west, maybe sunsets.

43:42 NARRATOR: The cliff wall extends a half mile.

43:47 It is covered in paintings of animals, grids,

43:51 and circles all the way to its far south end.

43:57 DAVIS: This is the southernmost image of the painting sequence.

44:01 And there's two concentric circles— one above, and another one below.

44:08 NARRATOR: Chris thinks these circles could depict stages of the sun setting.

44:13 And their location here to the far south even suggests a specific day:

44:19 the day when the sun is at its farthest southern point,

44:24 winter solstice— the shortest day of the year.

44:29 DAVIS: And as it angles downward, it starts to rest on a pedestal.

44:36 NARRATOR: Chris suspects that pedestal represents

44:38 a rocky outcrop on the horizon.

44:42 He has come here on the winter solstice to see

44:45 if the sun will line up with the platform.

44:52 If there's a match, we should see it today.

44:55 (birds chirping)♪♪ NARRATOR:

45:14 The winter solstice sun sets behind the rocky platform,

45:18 just as depicted on the southern cliff face.

45:30 What's more, art on the northern end of the cliff marks the summer solstice.

45:38 DAVIS: At the northern end we have a match with the summer solstice.

45:46 In between, there are images of animals,

45:48 perhaps constellations, and other important resources.

45:55 They are recognizing connections, associations,

45:59 that when the sun is at this particular point in the sky,

46:03 these animals are most active, or these changes occur in the environment.

46:09 NARRATOR: 8,000 years before England's celebrated Stonehenge,

46:15 Native Americans paint a cliff face to transform

46:19 a mountain into a three-dimensional solar calendar.

46:24 It is the earliest evidence of tracking astronomical events in the Americas.

46:34 DAVIS: They created a calendar that you can walk through,

46:38 a pictographic almanac that encapsulates this landscape.

46:46 NARRATOR: The calendar expresses an intimate knowledge of their new world.

46:49 Caves and mountains provide shelter,

46:53 plants and animals teach them lessons of survival,

46:57 and the sky helps them find their place in the world.

47:01 These same foundational ideas, shared across two continents,

47:06 are already established at the very beginning of Native America.

47:13 DAVIS: They were not just living off of the land,

47:16 they were actually trying to figure out

47:17 how to better place themselves in the landscape.

47:29 NARRATOR: The Pueblo people seek the same thing:

47:33 to find their place in the world.

47:42 They discover it in America's Southwest.

47:47 WADSWORTH: The migration stopped here in this American Southwest.

47:54 We came here to the center, and this is where we all conduct our ceremonies,

47:59 and to bless the world like Maasaw instructed us to do.

48:02 NARRATOR: The Hopi fulfill the covenant they made when they entered this world:

48:08 they find the center place.

48:17 Along the way, they create Chaco,

48:20 balanced between the underworld and the heavens,

48:25 six directions aligned to the cosmos.

48:31 Chaco becomes a beacon, drawing people from thousands of miles away.

48:37 Visitors bring hallowed objects like turquoise stones,

48:42 tropical bird feathers, sea shells, and chocolate.

48:53 Both cacao and scarlet macaws are tropical species

48:56 that were brought from a great distance into Pueblo Bonito.

49:03 There's no question that there was this very

49:06 large area of shared beliefs in ritual activities.

49:13 (chanting, drumming) (scraping) (chanting, drumming continue) NARRATOR:

49:34 Chaco was a place where people came together from vast distances.

49:40 KUWANWISIWMA: Chaco was a culmination of many years of learning and knowledge,

49:46 and perfecting their ceremonies.

49:50 NARRATOR: People share knowledge and beliefs based

49:53 on thousands of years of observing their world.

49:57 Ceremonies to influence the very forces of nature.

50:04 They are still practiced today.

50:10 In the ancient kiva at Chaco,

50:12 the Hopi elders conduct their smoking ceremony to make rain.

50:17 (puffing) KUWANWISIWMA: You offer your own private prayer,

50:25 and you speak to the spirits of our ancestors.

50:28 (wings fluttering) You offer these prayers in hopes

50:35 they in turn bless us with rain.

50:43 The smoke comes out from the pipe, emerge to that cloud,

50:48 make a big cloud, and then rain comes from that.

50:58 The Hopi prayers for rain are answered.

51:02 (rainfall pattering)♪♪ Just like Hopi tradition says,

51:18 Chaco was a special place to study the forces of nature.

51:25 It grows out of a deep connection with the earth, planted in time immemorial,

51:32 developed over tens of thousands of years,

51:39 and shared across two continents by the pioneering people who create this world.

51:48 They are Native Americans.

51:51 Their teachings remain as relevant today as ever.

51:58 WADSWORTH: We were taught to live in balance with nature.

52:03 Each individual has tremendous power to change his world.

52:09 We are a microcosm of the universe itself, so how we behave,

52:13 how we take care of ourselves, reflects in the earth.

52:21 ENOTE: The world lives with us.

52:23 We live with it.

52:27 We have to take care of it in order for it to provide for us.

52:31 (birds chirping) SALAZAR:

52:36 To me it's essential to my survival that I am part of the earth,

52:40 I am part of the family of plants

52:42 and animals and bugs and birds and all the mammals.

52:46 I'm just a part.

52:49 ENOTE: Deep inside the teachings of Chaco

52:53 Canyon resonate and still continue today.

52:57 (birds calling) NARRATOR: Native Americans find their place among earth,

53:06 sea, sky, and all living things.

53:11 Through careful observation, over tens of thousands of years,

53:15 they form an intimate relationship with their world...

53:22 A world that continues to this day.