First Civilizations (2018) s01e01 Episode Script
War
1 There is a paradox at the heart of civilization.
To be civilized is to be cultured, enlightened.
But enlightenment comes at a price.
The cost of civilization is war.
These people, they were on a one-way path to warfare.
We have evidence of raiding, warfare, violence.
War is not simply an unfortunate byproduct.
It's the driving force in the development of civilization.
Why is conflict such a powerful agent of change? How does good come from bad? For 99% of our time on earth, humans had no armies or generals.
But then we settled down, grew food, worshipped gods, wrote stories, sold goods, built cities And waged war.
This is the story of that transition, stepping stones on the road to civilization.
It's a story set across the globe, in the middle east, central America, Southern Asia All seabeds of civilization.
Here our ancestors shaped the ideas by which we still live our lives.
This is where the modern world began.
Mesoamerica, stretching from Nicaragua to Mexico, one of the cradles of civilization.
But nowhere was civilization born with so much blood.
The rainforests of Guatemala.
Here in 2010, archaeologist Tom Garrison made the discovery of his life.
When you get into archaeology, you dream about having one of those king Tutankhamen moments, and for me, this was it.
While exploring the ruins of a temple, Garrison and his team uncovered a dazzling array of ancient mesoamerican art.
They then started digging deeper to see what lay beneath.
It was the tail end of a very productive season for us.
And we really started to wonder what was this temple all about.
So we decided to excavate down right on this spot.
We excavated down for about a meter and a half, and then the ground gave way into an open void.
And the first sense that we get is this waft, this smell.
It smelled like death.
They had discovered a hidden chamber that had been sealed shut for 1,600 years.
We shined a light down into the hole, and we start seeing marvelous things: Textiles, ceramic vessels, Jade, all of these wonderful objects, and we knew that we had found a royal tomb.
It was the last resting place of a king.
He had been laid out and buried in splendor His tomb decorated with the finest artifacts.
But alongside his body were ceramic ornaments containing a shocking secret.
There was a line of ceramic vessels that ran the length of the chamber.
As we removed the lid from the first one We see burned bone, and as we look closer, it's little ribs and little teeth that we're seeing.
And we realized these are the unmistakable remains of a human child.
It turns out there are 6 children that have been sacrificed as an offering to this king.
Two of the children had clearly been decapitated.
This was a shockingly gruesome discovery.
Since unearthing this scene of depravity, Garrison has been exploring the surrounding jungle.
Hidden among the roots and vines, he's found a huge defensive structure.
We came upon this massive ditch and rampart system about two days ago.
It's probably the largest such feature that we've ever seen.
This is a 9-meter-high rampart.
It's a serious piece of military engineering.
It reminds me of the way that one might fortify a medieval castle.
It's as if the lowlands are locked in this endless cycle of violence and sacrifice.
Conflict is endemic.
War has always been the bedfellow of civilization.
But how and why does one lead to the other? The first seeds of civilization in Mesoamerica were sown in the Oaxaca valley of Southern Mexico.
Archaeologist Jeff Rose has come to where it all began: The cave of Guilá Naquitz.
Here, 6,000 years ago, people made the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.
They stopped foraging for wild food and started growing domesticated crops.
One of the most important foods from this valley is this.
So this is called teosinte.
Now, teosinte is a wild grass.
It's not very big, but it's got these kernels that are loaded with carbohydrates, with fiber, with proteins.
It's incredibly nutritious.
However, what the archaeologists digging in this cave found wasn't pure wild teosinte.
It had slightly bigger kernels that held onto the cob a little bit better, and what this tells us is the process of domestication had begun.
Now, with domestication you choose certain plants, certain animals with desirable traits, so in this case, they wanted bigger kernels, they wanted more food out of it.
And this process took thousands of years, but eventually you end up with giant corn on the cob.
This is the same process the world over in every early civilization.
In Mesopotamia, it's cereal grains like wheat and barley and rye.
In the Nile valley, it's sorghum and millet.
And they all do the same thing.
They all provide enough easy food to fuel the entire civilization.
But with domestication comes a new relationship to the land.
Once people here started growing crops, there's no going back.
I mean, this was a one-way ticket forward.
They could no longer be these free nomads wandering the landscape looking for food.
They have to sow the crops, they have to harvest the crops, store them away for the season.
So they are now tied to the land, tied to this place.
This becomes their land.
They own it.
Good farmland is always at a premium and needs to be defended at any cost.
This was true throughout the ancient world, but here in Oaxaca, the effects were exaggerated by geography.
Wow! This is incredible.
Looking down here, there's no wonder this was the birthplace of agriculture in Mesoamerica.
I mean, this green, lush valley filled with rivers running through it.
But on the other hand, it's hemmed in on both sides by these steep mountains.
As these populations are growing and they're developing settlements along these rivers and adopting this new farming way of life, suddenly real estate is a big issue because space is limited.
So this poses a major problem.
What happens if one year you have crop failure? Well, your whole village is gonna starve.
One way of getting around this is by going over to your neighbor's village and raiding them and taking their land.
And this trend toward conflict doesn't just happen here in Mesoamerica, but this is something that goes hand in hand with the shift to agriculture all over the world.
This is a universal phenomenon.
Farming creates a world of haves and have-nots.
The resources of some become a target for others.
You really get a sense from up here that Oaxaca isn't just a single valley; it's actually 3 valleys shaped like a "Y" that meet in the middle.
So this means potentially there's not just raiding between villages, but there's the possibility of conflict between valleys.
So it's almost like the geography of this area set these people on a one-way path to warfare.
Aah! Peter Turchin is an evolutionary scientist with a difference.
He applies the theory of evolution to the study of human culture and believes the violent beginnings of civilization in Mesoamerica are echoed across the world and throughout time.
Think about the Romans, imperial China All great civilizations and all all left mountains of dead bodies behind them.
It's not an accident.
War and civilization are intertwined.
War is not simply an unfortunate byproduct; it's the driving force in the development of civilization.
I call this force destructive creation.
The Hindus got it right.
The god Shiva is both a destroyer and a creator.
That's destructive creation.
For Turchin, civilization is a struggle for existence.
Societies that flourish are those that come out on top in the theater of war.
When you look back at history, almost any kind of situation that involves competition lead to conflict.
If you settled down in a farming village, you must be prepared to defend yourselves.
Winning or losing depends on who can bring the most warriors to the battlefield.
But the waging of war requires us to put aside our instinct for self-preservation and think about what's best for the group.
Mainstream evolutionary theory suggests that we all should be selfish.
We have been programmed to look out for number one.
And from this selfish point of view, war does not make any sense.
You are much better off skipping the battle because getting killed means you will not be able to pass on your genes to the future.
So the challenge for the village is to persuade its potential warriors to forsake their individual interests for the good of the group.
All of them must cooperate and join the fight.
For sure some of them will die, but their sacrifice will mean the survival of their village, their way of life, their culture.
According to Turchin's theory, nothing binds a group together more strongly than the cycle of violence.
There's almost this snowball effect.
As farmsteads band together to protect themselves from other farmsteads next door raiding each other.
So a farmstead turns into a Hamlet, turns into a village, and before you know it, you've got fortified towns having to protect themselves from their marauding neighbors.
The Oaxaca valley has 3 rival branches arranged in a "Y" shape.
3,000 years ago, all 3 were inhabited, but one settlement in the north of the valley came to dominate.
San José Mogote.
Fortified towns are easier to defend than villages and better at waging war.
Around 700 B.
C.
, there were 4,000 people living in Oaxaca valley.
Up to 1,000 of them were in San José Mogote, which was the most important place in the valley.
There were public buildings in the center of the settlement with elite family houses and simpler homes further away.
There were 20 satellite settlements under the protection of San Jose Mogote, providing a workforce for agriculture and construction.
Archaeologist Yuki Hueda has excavated the site and thinks this was a community bent on domination.
In this corridor formed between two public buildings, we found a carved stone known as monument 3.
This monument formed a step at the entrance to the passage.
Hueda believes it conveyed a warning: The warriors of San José Mogote would show no mercy.
Monument 3 shows a man with his eyes shut.
In the center of his chest is a circular symbol with 3 loaves, which represents his heart, and there is all this blood, which is gushing out.
It is very likely that this character was a prisoner, a chieftain from another village, and that he was sacrificed.
The monument was placed in the corridor so anybody who passed through would literally walk over the prisoner.
It represented the power of San José Mogote.
Between his feet there are two symbols representing his name: One earthquake.
The symbols are 2 1/2 thousand years old, some of the oldest writing discovered anywhere in the Americas.
Here recorded history began with an act of war.
It's the same throughout the world.
Tales of war and conquest fill the texts of the first civilizations in the near east, ancient Egypt, China.
History is written by the Victors.
To them go the spoils of war.
Historians often ask, when was the most violent time in human history? The 20th century with its two world wars? Or perhaps the middle ages with the crusades and mongol conquests.
Peter Turchin wants to settle the debate once and for all.
He's put together a network of experts to collect and analyze centuries of archaeological knowledge.
We are building a global data bank that we can search through time and geography.
The goal is to test theories about the development of civilizations.
We have collected data on all kinds of indicators, from the rise of fortifications to trauma on ancient bones.
And the evidence suggests that the most violent period in human history was once people have settled down to farm.
It was a kind of war of all against all and ideal conditions for destructive creation.
Turchin's argument is that all over the world, the onset of agriculture and the emergence of village life brought violence.
But the prize Was civilization itself.
That's the logic of destructive creation.
In Oaxaca, civilization arrived 2 1/2 thousand years ago with the founding of a new city One of the first cities in Mesoamerica.
Monte Albán.
Archaeologist Mark Levine wants to understand how and why this city emerged not on the floor of the valley, but at the highest point on top of the hills.
Monte Albán is this enigmatic site.
We still have so many questions about it, particularly about its origin.
His team is using an array of sensing techniques on the complex.
This is a virtual excavation, exploring the foundations of the site without breaking ground.
The geophysical perspection that we have today allows us to look beneath the ground and really target features and areas that we think are interesting rather than opening up really broad areas.
It's akin to doing keyhole surgery as opposed to tearing open the ribcage.
Levine's team has discovered a large subterranean structure under the main Plaza as old as the city itself.
What we know is that there wasn't any settlement up here on the top of Monte Albán prior to 500 B.
C.
We know there was bedrock on top of this mountain, and that it was uneven, and then in some areas, they cut the bedrock to make the stones to make the buildings that you see around you, and in other places, they would have had to fill in low areas.
That earth would have been brought basket by basket by people because there were no beasts of burden here.
People bore the burden.
We no longer think that there were despotic rulers who were, you know, whipping commoners and making them build these pyramids.
We now understand that these would have had to be collaborations and that commoners and elites must have worked together.
Not only would it be men carrying earth and cutting stones, but we would have had architects involved as well.
It must have been a massive effort.
But why did the ancient people of Oaxaca take on such an endeavor? Abandoning their villages to build a city up high, away from farmland and water? At the top of Monte Albán, you can see the entire valley below.
In fact, you can see all the 3 sub valleys 360 degrees around.
Prior to Monte Albán's finding, we have evidence of raiding, warfare, violence, so we think that the people that came and eventually founded Monte Albán must have had defense in mind.
Militarily they would have had a great advantage over anybody else in the valley.
The people of Oaxaca had turned their new home into a citadel.
Monte Albán became the dominant city state in the valley, the first society in Mesoamerica to become a fully fledged civilization.
After the initial founding of Monte Albán, this capital grows to become something special.
It's an urban center with rulers and nobles and commoners.
It's really something that is of a different type than the political organization that preceded it.
It becomes one of the first state-level societies in Mesoamerica.
And it's one that we refer to as Zapotec civilization.
And there is a direct connection with people today in the valley of Oaxaca with this important ancestral capital.
Indigenous peoples of the region are still known as Zapotecs, descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Monte Albán.
But the Zapotec citadel was more than a defensive fortress.
Its warriors weren't content to stay behind city walls.
A monument in the central Plaza suggests this new civilization was expert in the art of conquest.
This monument corresponds to the expansion of Monte Albán.
See these slabs? They are covering the walls.
They contain 3 elements: The Zapotec symbol, meaning place; above it, another symbol for the name of the place; and below it, an upside down head with its eyes shut.
This is probably the chief of the place that was conquered.
Each of the slabs bearing these symbols seems to relate to a place conquered by Monte Albán.
A celebration of Zapotec dominance.
But the spread of any civilization is about more than military might.
Conquest brings with it new ways, new ideas, a new culture.
Alex Badillo is scouring the Oaxaca valley, tracking the spread of Zapotec civilization.
Here in the Southern mountains of Oaxaca, archaeologically we just don't have a lot of data, and the question is, you know, how can we tell the story about Monte Albán and the rise and growth of civilizations without knowing more about the people that may have come in contact with them? Working in wild terrain 50 miles from Monte Albán, Badillo begins each expedition with a reconnaissance flight.
Every time I come out here, I see so many unexplored archaeological sites.
It's just amazing how much material is out here to study.
Like, for instance, right here, you can see a terrace, the terrace just kind of looks like a stairstep right in the side of a mountain.
Terraces are structures that are made by people in the past.
Definitely something we want to take a closer look at.
So far, Badillo has found 91 new sites to explore.
Most have turned up evidence of Zapotec culture.
All over these mountains, we find ceramics, serving vessels sometimes, ritual vessels.
These features right in here, these beautiful designs, can allow us to link this place to Monte Albán based on ceramic similarities.
We really wouldn't expect to find it here where we are in the mountains.
We're up in kind of the middle of nowhere, but the people here were producing these ceramics or at least bringing the ceramics in, which just shows that they were interacting with people in Monte Albán, that there was a connection there.
Badillo's research shows how civilization is reinforced by soft power.
Around the ancient world, it was always this way.
Culture, trade, ideas.
These can be as effective as any army.
Alongside the pottery in the hills of Oaxaca, Badillo has found more evidence for the spread of Zapotec culture.
One time when I was out looking and exploring one of the sites, the locals in town had told us about these rock carvings to check out.
And so of course we check out the rock carvings, and we see a shape that kind of looks like this.
This looks just like a capital "I" from above, right? And it's a very distinctive feature that screamed to me, "this is Zapotec civilization.
" Because to me, this looks just like the ball court at Monte Albán.
Badillo believes the ball court was used as a brand by the Zapotecs Like the Roman amphitheater, an iconic symbol of their civilization and power.
The courts were built for a game central to Zapotec culture.
We don't know exactly what the rules were, but we know there were two opposing teams.
They played with their elbows, hips, or feet to get the ball from one end of the court to the other.
A version of the ball game is still played in Oaxaca as a competitive sport.
But for the ancient Zapotecs, it had a ritual significance.
The game was an outlet for the competitive instincts While strengthening the bonds between them.
The game would have been played mostly by chiefs.
It would have brought together communities from different places to resolve political arguments and conflicts.
George Orwell once described sport as war minus the shooting.
Just as in war, victory depends on striking the right balance between completion and cooperation.
The fundamental point about the game of soccer is that one team wins and another loses.
This is the essence of competition.
In each team, there is a kind of intense loyalty, the team spirit that drives them to compete.
But these competitive instincts must be channeled towards cooperation.
Consider a player in a situation where he must either shoot for the goal or pass the ball to a teammate who has a better chance of scoring.
Shooting brings the prospect of individual glory.
But passing is better for the collective good.
If you look at soccer statistics, you will find that teams that pass the ball more often win more games.
They're better cooperators, which makes them better competitors.
But in sport or war or civilization, nothing lasts forever.
When the group becomes too dominant, it grows complacent.
The rot sets in and undermines its internal cohesion.
They may not realize it until it's too late, but they're ready to be overrun by a more effective, better organized outfit.
And then a new cycle of destructive creation can begin.
2,000 years ago, Monte Albán had it all: Location, power, cohesion.
But Zapotec civilization was about to fall.
Archaeologist Marcus winter is trying to piece together the events that led to the end of Monte Albán's dominance.
The structure where we are now looks right out onto the Plaza, which was the main ritual and market area for Monte Albán.
We think that this was a gatehouse that was occupied by Zapotec guards and soldiers who guarded the access to the main Plaza.
We did a lot of excavation in this area, and we found about 70 projectile points.
This one is almost complete.
It's broken a little bit on the sides.
These are snapped off.
The tips are missing.
So they would have been thrown at the enemy and either entered the enemy's body or, if they missed, hit a wall, and they broke off.
The interesting thing about the points is that they're made of obsidian.
No obsidian occurs naturally in Oaxaca.
So that means that this material comes from some other place in Mexico.
And the fact that we found so many points here suggests that it wasn't just a sneaky raid by a few people, but a military attack against the Zapotecs by a large group of people that wanted to take over Monte Albán.
Obsidian is volcanic glass formed as lava cools.
It is only found near volcanoes.
And the most active volcano in Mexico is Popocatépetl, 180 miles from Oaxaca.
Alejandro Pastrana is a specialist in obsidian and its use in ancient Mesoamerica.
We're 30-40 meters deep on dangerous ground.
These mines are prone to collapse.
Traditional miners made it all the way down here in search of high-grade obsidian, green obsidian.
Chemically this rock is unique.
Its color is unique.
It's only found here in this part of the volcanic belt.
This obsidian is unmistakable.
It's the obsidian of power.
Obsidian is one of the hardest and most brittle materials in the natural world.
Sharper than a surgeon's scalpel.
It's a unique rock.
Very beautiful.
It produces a perfect fracture.
It has a very fine edge, a very sharp edge.
In Mesoamerica, they didn't have steel.
They had soft metals like copper, tin, lead, gold, silver.
So obsidian was excellent for making weapons.
Obsidian was the hallmark of one particular civilization.
Teotihuacan.
This city of temples was 10 times larger than Monte Albán.
Its armies enjoyed an overwhelming advantage thanks to their obsidian-tipped weapons.
They worked out how to propel their spearheads using a wooden throwing device known as an atlatl.
It's a great weapon.
It's easy to carry, relatively easy to make, and deadly to use against your enemies.
It can be thrown a long way, and with practice, it's very accurate.
You can imagine an army of warriors throwing a huge number of Spears with great speed and force.
It would inflict terrible damage on the enemy.
As a projectile weapon, the atlatl and spear could deliver a lethal force without the need for hand-to-hand combat.
Ah, the tip is broken.
It's lodged in the bone.
Imagine the bleeding and all the blood that would have been produced.
It really is a great weapon.
They would have been lethal with their atlatl armies.
Aah! And so it seems the conquerors were themselves conquered, outcompeted by a stronger civilization with a greater lust for power and a technology to match.
This pattern is repeated century after century all over the world.
The horse, the bow The gun, the bomb.
As war drives technological progress, civilization spreads.
Mesoamerica is a perfect example of destructive creation.
It's just one example of a much more general process that goes on in human history in all parts of the world.
Societies that are better at playing the game swallow other societies and thereby become larger.
And this process goes on and on and on.
But as civilizations grow, they reach a point where they can't expand by brute force alone.
They need allies.
This is exactly what happened in Mesoamerica.
Having conquered Monte Albán, the Teotihuacanos set their sights to the east, to the rainforests of modern-day Guatemala Home to the Maya people.
1,700 years ago, the Maya were forming their own city states, divided against each other.
The Teotihuacanos would use this division to their own advantage.
Tom Garrison has continued excavating at the hilltop site of El Zotz, where he uncovered a royal burial in 2010.
We've been using aerial LiDAR technology, which allows us to digitally peel back the jungle and see the Maya ruins underneath.
In this area, the northern part of the valley is just covered with structures that we've never seen before.
The goal of this season is to go check out some of these.
We've come across this temple here in the jungle, and unfortunately as you can see by this gaping cut and holes, looters have been here first.
But what this destruction allows is for us to see the profile of the building as it would have been in Maya time.
So here in our drawing we can see this very interesting architectural feature that we call talud and tablero, or slope and tablet.
This isn't Maya architecture.
This is the style of Teotihuacan.
And what this means is that the Maya in this region are starting to adopt the Teotihuacano culture.
It's showing the influence that's coming down into the Maya lowlands from the west.
This wasn't the first clue that the Teotihuacanos were exerting an influence on the Maya.
The burial rituals in the royal tomb involved the sacrifice and decapitation of babies.
It was a signature of Teotihuacano culture.
Proof the rulers of El Zotz had adopted the ways of the Mexican superpower.
They decided to ally themselves with the fortunes of Teotihuacan.
They took a gamble that this was the right destiny for their kingdom.
But what was the ulterior motive for the Teotihuacanos? Why were they so willing to share their culture and offer their protection? Their real goal was to establish a foothold in the jungle, a base from which to continue their expansion.
We're looking out here on the Buena vista valley, the valley of good views.
From up here, the El Zotz kings would have been comfortably fortified in their hilltop palace, but why the need for this protection? Well, if we look over here, just 12 miles to the east is Tikal, the greatest Maya city state ever built and a real threat to the kingdom of El Zotz.
We know what happened next because it was recorded in ancient Maya text.
In 378 the Teotihuacanos moved against Tikal.
The 14th king of Tikal, Chak Tok Ich'aak, great misty claw, is the most powerful Maya king anywhere at this time.
But his world's about to change.
A force is arriving.
That force is led by a man named Siyaj K'ak', born from fire.
He's a general from Teotihuacan, and he's bringing his forces to Tikal to overthrow that dynasty.
Ah! On the day born from fire arrives in Tikal, Chak Tok Ich'aak I enters the water.
Ah! This is the Maya metaphor for death.
A new order is in place in the Maya lowlands.
This was destruction on a grand scale, but once again, a catalyst for change.
From conquest came progress.
It brings chaos to this region, but it results in peace.
In the end, this peace is a beneficial thing.
One by one, these communities start to pledge their loyalty to Teotihuacan, and it creates this breathing room for culture to flourish.
Under the rule of Teotihuacan, the Maya lowlands enjoyed a golden age.
Astronomy, engineering, and trade all benefited from the peace imposed on the region.
This is one of the universal narratives of civilization: A repeating cycle of chaos, violence, and order.
The old dies so the new can be born.
The main reason we study the past is so we can better understand the present and the future.
And one message comes loud and clear through our analysis of history.
Aah! War and civilization are intertwined.
You cannot have civilization without war.
Whether we like it or not, civilization has always needed war.
It drives technological progress And tightens the bonds that hold us together.
Little wonder we find it so hard to kick the habit.
Where we have put down our weapons, we still behave as if we're at war through sport, politics, business.
The same rules apply.
Cultural evolution requires the logic of destructive creation.
But warfare is just one type.
People don't need to be killed in order to achieve its result.
Since ancient times, the blueprint has not changed.
Cooperation, competition Conquest, ah! This is civilization.
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To be civilized is to be cultured, enlightened.
But enlightenment comes at a price.
The cost of civilization is war.
These people, they were on a one-way path to warfare.
We have evidence of raiding, warfare, violence.
War is not simply an unfortunate byproduct.
It's the driving force in the development of civilization.
Why is conflict such a powerful agent of change? How does good come from bad? For 99% of our time on earth, humans had no armies or generals.
But then we settled down, grew food, worshipped gods, wrote stories, sold goods, built cities And waged war.
This is the story of that transition, stepping stones on the road to civilization.
It's a story set across the globe, in the middle east, central America, Southern Asia All seabeds of civilization.
Here our ancestors shaped the ideas by which we still live our lives.
This is where the modern world began.
Mesoamerica, stretching from Nicaragua to Mexico, one of the cradles of civilization.
But nowhere was civilization born with so much blood.
The rainforests of Guatemala.
Here in 2010, archaeologist Tom Garrison made the discovery of his life.
When you get into archaeology, you dream about having one of those king Tutankhamen moments, and for me, this was it.
While exploring the ruins of a temple, Garrison and his team uncovered a dazzling array of ancient mesoamerican art.
They then started digging deeper to see what lay beneath.
It was the tail end of a very productive season for us.
And we really started to wonder what was this temple all about.
So we decided to excavate down right on this spot.
We excavated down for about a meter and a half, and then the ground gave way into an open void.
And the first sense that we get is this waft, this smell.
It smelled like death.
They had discovered a hidden chamber that had been sealed shut for 1,600 years.
We shined a light down into the hole, and we start seeing marvelous things: Textiles, ceramic vessels, Jade, all of these wonderful objects, and we knew that we had found a royal tomb.
It was the last resting place of a king.
He had been laid out and buried in splendor His tomb decorated with the finest artifacts.
But alongside his body were ceramic ornaments containing a shocking secret.
There was a line of ceramic vessels that ran the length of the chamber.
As we removed the lid from the first one We see burned bone, and as we look closer, it's little ribs and little teeth that we're seeing.
And we realized these are the unmistakable remains of a human child.
It turns out there are 6 children that have been sacrificed as an offering to this king.
Two of the children had clearly been decapitated.
This was a shockingly gruesome discovery.
Since unearthing this scene of depravity, Garrison has been exploring the surrounding jungle.
Hidden among the roots and vines, he's found a huge defensive structure.
We came upon this massive ditch and rampart system about two days ago.
It's probably the largest such feature that we've ever seen.
This is a 9-meter-high rampart.
It's a serious piece of military engineering.
It reminds me of the way that one might fortify a medieval castle.
It's as if the lowlands are locked in this endless cycle of violence and sacrifice.
Conflict is endemic.
War has always been the bedfellow of civilization.
But how and why does one lead to the other? The first seeds of civilization in Mesoamerica were sown in the Oaxaca valley of Southern Mexico.
Archaeologist Jeff Rose has come to where it all began: The cave of Guilá Naquitz.
Here, 6,000 years ago, people made the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.
They stopped foraging for wild food and started growing domesticated crops.
One of the most important foods from this valley is this.
So this is called teosinte.
Now, teosinte is a wild grass.
It's not very big, but it's got these kernels that are loaded with carbohydrates, with fiber, with proteins.
It's incredibly nutritious.
However, what the archaeologists digging in this cave found wasn't pure wild teosinte.
It had slightly bigger kernels that held onto the cob a little bit better, and what this tells us is the process of domestication had begun.
Now, with domestication you choose certain plants, certain animals with desirable traits, so in this case, they wanted bigger kernels, they wanted more food out of it.
And this process took thousands of years, but eventually you end up with giant corn on the cob.
This is the same process the world over in every early civilization.
In Mesopotamia, it's cereal grains like wheat and barley and rye.
In the Nile valley, it's sorghum and millet.
And they all do the same thing.
They all provide enough easy food to fuel the entire civilization.
But with domestication comes a new relationship to the land.
Once people here started growing crops, there's no going back.
I mean, this was a one-way ticket forward.
They could no longer be these free nomads wandering the landscape looking for food.
They have to sow the crops, they have to harvest the crops, store them away for the season.
So they are now tied to the land, tied to this place.
This becomes their land.
They own it.
Good farmland is always at a premium and needs to be defended at any cost.
This was true throughout the ancient world, but here in Oaxaca, the effects were exaggerated by geography.
Wow! This is incredible.
Looking down here, there's no wonder this was the birthplace of agriculture in Mesoamerica.
I mean, this green, lush valley filled with rivers running through it.
But on the other hand, it's hemmed in on both sides by these steep mountains.
As these populations are growing and they're developing settlements along these rivers and adopting this new farming way of life, suddenly real estate is a big issue because space is limited.
So this poses a major problem.
What happens if one year you have crop failure? Well, your whole village is gonna starve.
One way of getting around this is by going over to your neighbor's village and raiding them and taking their land.
And this trend toward conflict doesn't just happen here in Mesoamerica, but this is something that goes hand in hand with the shift to agriculture all over the world.
This is a universal phenomenon.
Farming creates a world of haves and have-nots.
The resources of some become a target for others.
You really get a sense from up here that Oaxaca isn't just a single valley; it's actually 3 valleys shaped like a "Y" that meet in the middle.
So this means potentially there's not just raiding between villages, but there's the possibility of conflict between valleys.
So it's almost like the geography of this area set these people on a one-way path to warfare.
Aah! Peter Turchin is an evolutionary scientist with a difference.
He applies the theory of evolution to the study of human culture and believes the violent beginnings of civilization in Mesoamerica are echoed across the world and throughout time.
Think about the Romans, imperial China All great civilizations and all all left mountains of dead bodies behind them.
It's not an accident.
War and civilization are intertwined.
War is not simply an unfortunate byproduct; it's the driving force in the development of civilization.
I call this force destructive creation.
The Hindus got it right.
The god Shiva is both a destroyer and a creator.
That's destructive creation.
For Turchin, civilization is a struggle for existence.
Societies that flourish are those that come out on top in the theater of war.
When you look back at history, almost any kind of situation that involves competition lead to conflict.
If you settled down in a farming village, you must be prepared to defend yourselves.
Winning or losing depends on who can bring the most warriors to the battlefield.
But the waging of war requires us to put aside our instinct for self-preservation and think about what's best for the group.
Mainstream evolutionary theory suggests that we all should be selfish.
We have been programmed to look out for number one.
And from this selfish point of view, war does not make any sense.
You are much better off skipping the battle because getting killed means you will not be able to pass on your genes to the future.
So the challenge for the village is to persuade its potential warriors to forsake their individual interests for the good of the group.
All of them must cooperate and join the fight.
For sure some of them will die, but their sacrifice will mean the survival of their village, their way of life, their culture.
According to Turchin's theory, nothing binds a group together more strongly than the cycle of violence.
There's almost this snowball effect.
As farmsteads band together to protect themselves from other farmsteads next door raiding each other.
So a farmstead turns into a Hamlet, turns into a village, and before you know it, you've got fortified towns having to protect themselves from their marauding neighbors.
The Oaxaca valley has 3 rival branches arranged in a "Y" shape.
3,000 years ago, all 3 were inhabited, but one settlement in the north of the valley came to dominate.
San José Mogote.
Fortified towns are easier to defend than villages and better at waging war.
Around 700 B.
C.
, there were 4,000 people living in Oaxaca valley.
Up to 1,000 of them were in San José Mogote, which was the most important place in the valley.
There were public buildings in the center of the settlement with elite family houses and simpler homes further away.
There were 20 satellite settlements under the protection of San Jose Mogote, providing a workforce for agriculture and construction.
Archaeologist Yuki Hueda has excavated the site and thinks this was a community bent on domination.
In this corridor formed between two public buildings, we found a carved stone known as monument 3.
This monument formed a step at the entrance to the passage.
Hueda believes it conveyed a warning: The warriors of San José Mogote would show no mercy.
Monument 3 shows a man with his eyes shut.
In the center of his chest is a circular symbol with 3 loaves, which represents his heart, and there is all this blood, which is gushing out.
It is very likely that this character was a prisoner, a chieftain from another village, and that he was sacrificed.
The monument was placed in the corridor so anybody who passed through would literally walk over the prisoner.
It represented the power of San José Mogote.
Between his feet there are two symbols representing his name: One earthquake.
The symbols are 2 1/2 thousand years old, some of the oldest writing discovered anywhere in the Americas.
Here recorded history began with an act of war.
It's the same throughout the world.
Tales of war and conquest fill the texts of the first civilizations in the near east, ancient Egypt, China.
History is written by the Victors.
To them go the spoils of war.
Historians often ask, when was the most violent time in human history? The 20th century with its two world wars? Or perhaps the middle ages with the crusades and mongol conquests.
Peter Turchin wants to settle the debate once and for all.
He's put together a network of experts to collect and analyze centuries of archaeological knowledge.
We are building a global data bank that we can search through time and geography.
The goal is to test theories about the development of civilizations.
We have collected data on all kinds of indicators, from the rise of fortifications to trauma on ancient bones.
And the evidence suggests that the most violent period in human history was once people have settled down to farm.
It was a kind of war of all against all and ideal conditions for destructive creation.
Turchin's argument is that all over the world, the onset of agriculture and the emergence of village life brought violence.
But the prize Was civilization itself.
That's the logic of destructive creation.
In Oaxaca, civilization arrived 2 1/2 thousand years ago with the founding of a new city One of the first cities in Mesoamerica.
Monte Albán.
Archaeologist Mark Levine wants to understand how and why this city emerged not on the floor of the valley, but at the highest point on top of the hills.
Monte Albán is this enigmatic site.
We still have so many questions about it, particularly about its origin.
His team is using an array of sensing techniques on the complex.
This is a virtual excavation, exploring the foundations of the site without breaking ground.
The geophysical perspection that we have today allows us to look beneath the ground and really target features and areas that we think are interesting rather than opening up really broad areas.
It's akin to doing keyhole surgery as opposed to tearing open the ribcage.
Levine's team has discovered a large subterranean structure under the main Plaza as old as the city itself.
What we know is that there wasn't any settlement up here on the top of Monte Albán prior to 500 B.
C.
We know there was bedrock on top of this mountain, and that it was uneven, and then in some areas, they cut the bedrock to make the stones to make the buildings that you see around you, and in other places, they would have had to fill in low areas.
That earth would have been brought basket by basket by people because there were no beasts of burden here.
People bore the burden.
We no longer think that there were despotic rulers who were, you know, whipping commoners and making them build these pyramids.
We now understand that these would have had to be collaborations and that commoners and elites must have worked together.
Not only would it be men carrying earth and cutting stones, but we would have had architects involved as well.
It must have been a massive effort.
But why did the ancient people of Oaxaca take on such an endeavor? Abandoning their villages to build a city up high, away from farmland and water? At the top of Monte Albán, you can see the entire valley below.
In fact, you can see all the 3 sub valleys 360 degrees around.
Prior to Monte Albán's finding, we have evidence of raiding, warfare, violence, so we think that the people that came and eventually founded Monte Albán must have had defense in mind.
Militarily they would have had a great advantage over anybody else in the valley.
The people of Oaxaca had turned their new home into a citadel.
Monte Albán became the dominant city state in the valley, the first society in Mesoamerica to become a fully fledged civilization.
After the initial founding of Monte Albán, this capital grows to become something special.
It's an urban center with rulers and nobles and commoners.
It's really something that is of a different type than the political organization that preceded it.
It becomes one of the first state-level societies in Mesoamerica.
And it's one that we refer to as Zapotec civilization.
And there is a direct connection with people today in the valley of Oaxaca with this important ancestral capital.
Indigenous peoples of the region are still known as Zapotecs, descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Monte Albán.
But the Zapotec citadel was more than a defensive fortress.
Its warriors weren't content to stay behind city walls.
A monument in the central Plaza suggests this new civilization was expert in the art of conquest.
This monument corresponds to the expansion of Monte Albán.
See these slabs? They are covering the walls.
They contain 3 elements: The Zapotec symbol, meaning place; above it, another symbol for the name of the place; and below it, an upside down head with its eyes shut.
This is probably the chief of the place that was conquered.
Each of the slabs bearing these symbols seems to relate to a place conquered by Monte Albán.
A celebration of Zapotec dominance.
But the spread of any civilization is about more than military might.
Conquest brings with it new ways, new ideas, a new culture.
Alex Badillo is scouring the Oaxaca valley, tracking the spread of Zapotec civilization.
Here in the Southern mountains of Oaxaca, archaeologically we just don't have a lot of data, and the question is, you know, how can we tell the story about Monte Albán and the rise and growth of civilizations without knowing more about the people that may have come in contact with them? Working in wild terrain 50 miles from Monte Albán, Badillo begins each expedition with a reconnaissance flight.
Every time I come out here, I see so many unexplored archaeological sites.
It's just amazing how much material is out here to study.
Like, for instance, right here, you can see a terrace, the terrace just kind of looks like a stairstep right in the side of a mountain.
Terraces are structures that are made by people in the past.
Definitely something we want to take a closer look at.
So far, Badillo has found 91 new sites to explore.
Most have turned up evidence of Zapotec culture.
All over these mountains, we find ceramics, serving vessels sometimes, ritual vessels.
These features right in here, these beautiful designs, can allow us to link this place to Monte Albán based on ceramic similarities.
We really wouldn't expect to find it here where we are in the mountains.
We're up in kind of the middle of nowhere, but the people here were producing these ceramics or at least bringing the ceramics in, which just shows that they were interacting with people in Monte Albán, that there was a connection there.
Badillo's research shows how civilization is reinforced by soft power.
Around the ancient world, it was always this way.
Culture, trade, ideas.
These can be as effective as any army.
Alongside the pottery in the hills of Oaxaca, Badillo has found more evidence for the spread of Zapotec culture.
One time when I was out looking and exploring one of the sites, the locals in town had told us about these rock carvings to check out.
And so of course we check out the rock carvings, and we see a shape that kind of looks like this.
This looks just like a capital "I" from above, right? And it's a very distinctive feature that screamed to me, "this is Zapotec civilization.
" Because to me, this looks just like the ball court at Monte Albán.
Badillo believes the ball court was used as a brand by the Zapotecs Like the Roman amphitheater, an iconic symbol of their civilization and power.
The courts were built for a game central to Zapotec culture.
We don't know exactly what the rules were, but we know there were two opposing teams.
They played with their elbows, hips, or feet to get the ball from one end of the court to the other.
A version of the ball game is still played in Oaxaca as a competitive sport.
But for the ancient Zapotecs, it had a ritual significance.
The game was an outlet for the competitive instincts While strengthening the bonds between them.
The game would have been played mostly by chiefs.
It would have brought together communities from different places to resolve political arguments and conflicts.
George Orwell once described sport as war minus the shooting.
Just as in war, victory depends on striking the right balance between completion and cooperation.
The fundamental point about the game of soccer is that one team wins and another loses.
This is the essence of competition.
In each team, there is a kind of intense loyalty, the team spirit that drives them to compete.
But these competitive instincts must be channeled towards cooperation.
Consider a player in a situation where he must either shoot for the goal or pass the ball to a teammate who has a better chance of scoring.
Shooting brings the prospect of individual glory.
But passing is better for the collective good.
If you look at soccer statistics, you will find that teams that pass the ball more often win more games.
They're better cooperators, which makes them better competitors.
But in sport or war or civilization, nothing lasts forever.
When the group becomes too dominant, it grows complacent.
The rot sets in and undermines its internal cohesion.
They may not realize it until it's too late, but they're ready to be overrun by a more effective, better organized outfit.
And then a new cycle of destructive creation can begin.
2,000 years ago, Monte Albán had it all: Location, power, cohesion.
But Zapotec civilization was about to fall.
Archaeologist Marcus winter is trying to piece together the events that led to the end of Monte Albán's dominance.
The structure where we are now looks right out onto the Plaza, which was the main ritual and market area for Monte Albán.
We think that this was a gatehouse that was occupied by Zapotec guards and soldiers who guarded the access to the main Plaza.
We did a lot of excavation in this area, and we found about 70 projectile points.
This one is almost complete.
It's broken a little bit on the sides.
These are snapped off.
The tips are missing.
So they would have been thrown at the enemy and either entered the enemy's body or, if they missed, hit a wall, and they broke off.
The interesting thing about the points is that they're made of obsidian.
No obsidian occurs naturally in Oaxaca.
So that means that this material comes from some other place in Mexico.
And the fact that we found so many points here suggests that it wasn't just a sneaky raid by a few people, but a military attack against the Zapotecs by a large group of people that wanted to take over Monte Albán.
Obsidian is volcanic glass formed as lava cools.
It is only found near volcanoes.
And the most active volcano in Mexico is Popocatépetl, 180 miles from Oaxaca.
Alejandro Pastrana is a specialist in obsidian and its use in ancient Mesoamerica.
We're 30-40 meters deep on dangerous ground.
These mines are prone to collapse.
Traditional miners made it all the way down here in search of high-grade obsidian, green obsidian.
Chemically this rock is unique.
Its color is unique.
It's only found here in this part of the volcanic belt.
This obsidian is unmistakable.
It's the obsidian of power.
Obsidian is one of the hardest and most brittle materials in the natural world.
Sharper than a surgeon's scalpel.
It's a unique rock.
Very beautiful.
It produces a perfect fracture.
It has a very fine edge, a very sharp edge.
In Mesoamerica, they didn't have steel.
They had soft metals like copper, tin, lead, gold, silver.
So obsidian was excellent for making weapons.
Obsidian was the hallmark of one particular civilization.
Teotihuacan.
This city of temples was 10 times larger than Monte Albán.
Its armies enjoyed an overwhelming advantage thanks to their obsidian-tipped weapons.
They worked out how to propel their spearheads using a wooden throwing device known as an atlatl.
It's a great weapon.
It's easy to carry, relatively easy to make, and deadly to use against your enemies.
It can be thrown a long way, and with practice, it's very accurate.
You can imagine an army of warriors throwing a huge number of Spears with great speed and force.
It would inflict terrible damage on the enemy.
As a projectile weapon, the atlatl and spear could deliver a lethal force without the need for hand-to-hand combat.
Ah, the tip is broken.
It's lodged in the bone.
Imagine the bleeding and all the blood that would have been produced.
It really is a great weapon.
They would have been lethal with their atlatl armies.
Aah! And so it seems the conquerors were themselves conquered, outcompeted by a stronger civilization with a greater lust for power and a technology to match.
This pattern is repeated century after century all over the world.
The horse, the bow The gun, the bomb.
As war drives technological progress, civilization spreads.
Mesoamerica is a perfect example of destructive creation.
It's just one example of a much more general process that goes on in human history in all parts of the world.
Societies that are better at playing the game swallow other societies and thereby become larger.
And this process goes on and on and on.
But as civilizations grow, they reach a point where they can't expand by brute force alone.
They need allies.
This is exactly what happened in Mesoamerica.
Having conquered Monte Albán, the Teotihuacanos set their sights to the east, to the rainforests of modern-day Guatemala Home to the Maya people.
1,700 years ago, the Maya were forming their own city states, divided against each other.
The Teotihuacanos would use this division to their own advantage.
Tom Garrison has continued excavating at the hilltop site of El Zotz, where he uncovered a royal burial in 2010.
We've been using aerial LiDAR technology, which allows us to digitally peel back the jungle and see the Maya ruins underneath.
In this area, the northern part of the valley is just covered with structures that we've never seen before.
The goal of this season is to go check out some of these.
We've come across this temple here in the jungle, and unfortunately as you can see by this gaping cut and holes, looters have been here first.
But what this destruction allows is for us to see the profile of the building as it would have been in Maya time.
So here in our drawing we can see this very interesting architectural feature that we call talud and tablero, or slope and tablet.
This isn't Maya architecture.
This is the style of Teotihuacan.
And what this means is that the Maya in this region are starting to adopt the Teotihuacano culture.
It's showing the influence that's coming down into the Maya lowlands from the west.
This wasn't the first clue that the Teotihuacanos were exerting an influence on the Maya.
The burial rituals in the royal tomb involved the sacrifice and decapitation of babies.
It was a signature of Teotihuacano culture.
Proof the rulers of El Zotz had adopted the ways of the Mexican superpower.
They decided to ally themselves with the fortunes of Teotihuacan.
They took a gamble that this was the right destiny for their kingdom.
But what was the ulterior motive for the Teotihuacanos? Why were they so willing to share their culture and offer their protection? Their real goal was to establish a foothold in the jungle, a base from which to continue their expansion.
We're looking out here on the Buena vista valley, the valley of good views.
From up here, the El Zotz kings would have been comfortably fortified in their hilltop palace, but why the need for this protection? Well, if we look over here, just 12 miles to the east is Tikal, the greatest Maya city state ever built and a real threat to the kingdom of El Zotz.
We know what happened next because it was recorded in ancient Maya text.
In 378 the Teotihuacanos moved against Tikal.
The 14th king of Tikal, Chak Tok Ich'aak, great misty claw, is the most powerful Maya king anywhere at this time.
But his world's about to change.
A force is arriving.
That force is led by a man named Siyaj K'ak', born from fire.
He's a general from Teotihuacan, and he's bringing his forces to Tikal to overthrow that dynasty.
Ah! On the day born from fire arrives in Tikal, Chak Tok Ich'aak I enters the water.
Ah! This is the Maya metaphor for death.
A new order is in place in the Maya lowlands.
This was destruction on a grand scale, but once again, a catalyst for change.
From conquest came progress.
It brings chaos to this region, but it results in peace.
In the end, this peace is a beneficial thing.
One by one, these communities start to pledge their loyalty to Teotihuacan, and it creates this breathing room for culture to flourish.
Under the rule of Teotihuacan, the Maya lowlands enjoyed a golden age.
Astronomy, engineering, and trade all benefited from the peace imposed on the region.
This is one of the universal narratives of civilization: A repeating cycle of chaos, violence, and order.
The old dies so the new can be born.
The main reason we study the past is so we can better understand the present and the future.
And one message comes loud and clear through our analysis of history.
Aah! War and civilization are intertwined.
You cannot have civilization without war.
Whether we like it or not, civilization has always needed war.
It drives technological progress And tightens the bonds that hold us together.
Little wonder we find it so hard to kick the habit.
Where we have put down our weapons, we still behave as if we're at war through sport, politics, business.
The same rules apply.
Cultural evolution requires the logic of destructive creation.
But warfare is just one type.
People don't need to be killed in order to achieve its result.
Since ancient times, the blueprint has not changed.
Cooperation, competition Conquest, ah! This is civilization.
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