Unearthing an Ancient Civilization (Full Episode) ｜ Rise & Fall of the Maya ｜ National Geographic)

In the forests of southern Mexico and Central America lies the territory of the ancient Maya, a civilization that was formed well before the Roman Empire existed and persisted much longer. The Maya have been studied intensively, exposing the secrets of the society's heyday and unmasking the semi-nomadic people who lived before the Maya. But the events that would transform these people into a true civilization remain a mystery. When do the Maya become Maya? That's a good question. Now, archaeological discoveries are shedding new light on this important moment in Maya history. This would be almost like a social reactor. We have a very complex story here of the growth and development of Maya civilization. Investigators are exposing the key stages that led to the civilization's formation, using the latest technology to discover new monuments. Pyramid to our right and another pyramid over here. And re-examining ancient sites to discover the origin of Maya identity. It's probably the biggest pyramidal structure in all Central America. From the technological secrets of their colossal architecture to the emergence of a social elite. That's a huge moment in history. And development of writing. There are 3,400 pieces in this puzzle. The history of the Maya is being traced back to its very start. What we have are all of the major elements that then become classic Maya civilization. Transforming long-held beliefs about the start of the Maya civilization. The Maya were a people renowned for their vast stone pyramids, elaborate art and culture, and their sophisticated writing and understanding of astronomy. Their territory stretched from the so-called Maya lowlands of southern Mexico and Belize to the highlands of Guatemala and beyond. This is where the famous lost cities are found and where Maya descendants still thrive today. But despite decades of research, the mystery of how and when the ancient Maya became a true civilization has long puzzled historians. And the riddle has only got more complex with new discoveries. In the Mexican state of Tabasco, archaeologists have unearthed an immense lost monument. A ceremonial platform 1.4 kilometres long and 400 metres wide, known as Aguada Fenix. It's the largest monument in the entire Maya region and it's also the oldest. Construction probably started around 1100 BC. The size of Aguada Fenix is very surprising because the early site that we had up until now, it's much smaller. The discovery of Aguada Fenix is truly phenomenal. So if you think about the coordination and the hours and days and months and years that would have taken to create such a monumental site. That tells us a lot about human nature, human capability of organising themselves. So this is a really exciting time for archaeology, which is showing really a fundamental change in our understanding of development of human society. Aguada Fenix was built well over a thousand years before the so-called classic age of Maya civilisation, during the early pre-classic era. The people who built Aguada Fenix are thought to be the ancestors of the Maya, but historians don't always label them as the Maya civilisation. That's because the builders, around 1000 BC, were missing some key characteristics. There are no traces of permanent cities with monumental stone architecture. There's no evidence of defined social hierarchy headed by powerful leaders. And there's no sign of writing or other cultural traits that would come to define the Maya. So how did the Maya develop these hallmarks of civilisation? And when did it happen? Clues lie 500km away from Aguada Fenix, in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Beneath its dense forest canopy, Yucatan is home to incredible lost Maya cities, like Chichen Itza, with its immense Temple of Kukulkan. Many of the famous sites in the Yucatan date to the Maya classic era, and beyond to the arrival of the Spanish on these shores. But recently, archaeologists have begun to suspect that the region holds much older clues. We used to think that Yucatan was kind of the later part of Maya civilisation, but recent archaeology has changed that view. So Yucatan archaeology is fundamental for understanding the beginnings of Maya civilisation. What traces of early Maya life are hidden amongst the jungle here? In the west of Yucatan is an area called the Puuk region. Puuk means low hills in the local Maya language, Yucatec. Archaeologist Evan Parker is hunting for the small villages where early Maya people began to settle. He discovers his first clue hidden in the thick vegetation. We see, walking right along here, an alignment of stones. So what we're looking at here is an ancient house. So we have this pretty big stone right here, this stone right here. These are the two corners of this house. The stones mark out the location of a small hut. The hut's builders laid a floor of hardened earth between the stones. They made a framework using wooden poles. Walls were made from earth, and the roof was thatched. This isn't an isolated hut. It was part of an entire village formed from around 80 similar houses, named today as Paso del Macho. The buildings didn't look anything like what we had seen at other Puuk sites. There were no carved stones, there were no masonry buildings. But why such differences in structure and material? How old is this village? Evan unearths fragments of pottery nearby that provide the answer. Their form and composition allow him to find a date for when they were made. Paso del Macho expanded rapidly around 600 BC. That's a time during the middle of the pre-classic Maya era when the civilization was developing. So there's definitely a population boom that seems to occur beginning around 600 BC. For a long time, we didn't think that there was a middle pre-classic occupation of this region. Finding such an old settlement here is surprising because the Puuk region is one of the more inhospitable areas of the Maya territory. Its land is fertile, but its hilly terrain is formed from porous and fragile limestone soil. So rain that falls in the wet season quickly drains away. In the Puuk region, there are some issues that the ancient Maya would have faced with regards to water use. The Puuk is raised up by several hundred meters, which means there is no surface water to be found here. So how did early Maya settlers find water here? Evan has found clues at an abandoned quarry nearby. So we can see that this is a natural outcrop of limestone. So most likely what they did was after utilizing it as a quarry, they laid down either a layer of clay or marl and built a wall surrounding it so that whenever rain comes, this would fill up with water. This would be an ancient water reservoir. They're still experimenting with hydraulic technology at this point. The development of water storage techniques and permanent villages are the early stages of Maya civilization. And now a discovery a few kilometers away is uncovering evidence of larger cities. Archaeologist George Bay runs one of the largest excavation sites in the Puuk region. He's worked at the ancient city of Kiwik for the last 23 years. Kiwik, like many Maya sites in this region, thrived during the classic era of the Maya. During the late classic, the Puuk region was intensely occupied. There were hundreds of thousands of people, there were dozens of sites, there were hundreds of villages, and a great deal of wealth was accrued both by people of moderate power and people of great power. So between 800 and 1,000, this was one of the centers of the Maya world. The ruins of the city of Kiwik are dominated by a large pyramid and nearby the remains of a palace. George has dated these two monuments to 650 AD. He wants to understand how Kiwik developed and when it was founded. And when his team search between the two central monuments, they unearth an older structure hidden beneath. The discoveries take them much further back in time than they expected. This building up here is a late classic structure, probably dating to around 650, 700 AD. But as we continue to excavate the unit, we came down on a fourth floor, which was very exciting because suddenly the ceramics indicated we'd jump back in time around 600 BC, a huge leap in time. The deeper George's team digs, the further they travel into the past. The sixth floor represents the original construction of the Kiwik plaza. And if you look down here, I'm standing on bedrock. George's team has unearthed six successive stages of construction. Each archaeological layer takes them back several centuries. The lowest one is the oldest, forming a platform, or plaza, 14 metres wide and one metre thick. Investigations show the site dates back to at least 900 BC, the early Middle Preclassic era, and is home to the oldest ceremonial plaza ever found in the Puuk region. Kiwik is 1,500 years older than the remains at the site's surface. So we now were astounded because Kiwik shows that there was major Middle Preclassic occupation. The Maya had moved deep into the Puuk hills and were building substantial platforms like this. So now we recognise that the Puuk region was first occupied as early as 900 BC. And we have a very complex story here of the growth and development of Preclassic Maya civilisation. This settlement might have been one of the first Maya sites in Yucatan, proving the Maya were here and beginning to settle in villages and cities much earlier than archaeologists once believed. Now investigations nearby are uncovering the scale of the settlement across this area. In the forests of Mexico's Yucatan, archaeologist Bill Ringel is looking for evidence of Maya settlements. So you can see on the GPS pyramid to our right and another pyramid over here, the bigger structures are farther along. These structures haven't been excavated yet, but are believed to date to between 700 and 450 BC. Today, all that remains visible are piles of stones that were once Maya monuments. This particular site is right at the edge of a large, what we call a plenada, plains, very fertile soil. So this is an excellent place to grow crops and one reason these people decided to stay here was probably to claim ownership of that area. So we are very interested to see how people dispose themselves across this landscape. To understand how the first Maya settled in this area, Bill uses LiDAR technology. It's an airborne laser system that scans the ground through the densest vegetation. If you survey a landscape like this that's totally overgrown and you have to cut your way through, it's incredibly laborious, and that's what we can do with LiDAR. We can see the sizes, the extents of entire sites. Just like that, we can do 30, 40 years of work in maybe a couple of days with the LiDAR. Bill used this technology to scan a large area around the site and the results expose widespread occupation of the region. So this is our original LiDAR sample. It covers about 237 square kilometers, and within that we have about 75 sites. The red dots are smaller sites, and the red triangles are bigger sites. The blue dots here are reservoirs, which seem to have been at least partially artificial, constructed by humans. The one at Yasholm is almost 300 meters in length. We estimate to be around 21 million liters of water, which could have supported thousands of people for a long period of time. Bill's discoveries show that early Maya were beginning to settle and farm here on a large scale. The reservoirs were capable of supplying water to thousands of people, city-sized populations. But settlements and cities are only part of the developments needed for a group of people to form a civilization. To become a cohesive society, the Maya would need a shared identity. At a laboratory in the town of Oshkutz-Kab, Evan Parker is investigating artifacts he discovered in the village of Paso del Macho. He's joined by archaeologist George Bay. Some of these offerings are dated as early as 800 BC. The treasures assembled here were ritually deposited in the settlement, offering Evan a clue about the beliefs of these early Maya. They want to ideologically mark this space, and one way that you can do that is by doing a placemaking ceremony, and in this case, they are reenacting the creation of one of the most important deities in Maya religion, and that's the rebirth of the maze god. The maze god plays a central role in Maya mythology. Maze was key to Maya survival. As long as there was water, the crop grew well in the climate, and crucially, the grains could be stored for many months. An important step in the formation of a civilization, as food security affords a society time to focus on culture and religion. Maze became religiously significant. The Maya believed that the gods created humans from ground maze. The objects here suggest that this creation myth existed among the Maya from early in their civilization's formation. So this is one of the earliest instances of Maya religion, as we've understood it for a very long time, appearing during the Middle Preclassic. Right, so it's not just religion, it's a very specific set of ideas associated with Maya religion. The discovery exposes the spread of religious ideas that would become a central pillar of Maya society, a common link that helps define groups of people as a single civilization. Now, Evan thinks that these artifacts hold clues about where some of these religious ideas might have originated. So these objects all have drilled holes in them. So you could have run a cord through them, you could have worn them as pendants, you could have worn them on a belt, they could have been displayed at eye level, tied to a post or something like that. Every one has perforations. Every single one of these has perforations. If we look at these different objects, we see that they're crafted in a style that has often been described as Olmec. So, for example, this piece here is what's been called Olmec blue jade. Beautiful. These are thought to be objects that have been carved in the Olmec area and then moved here. What's so amazing about it is that these artifacts were brought this great distance. They were interacting directly with people hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away. The discovery suggests that these early Maya had contact with the Olmec civilisation and shared aspects of their religious beliefs. The Olmec are the oldest society in this part of the Americas, predating the Maya. Now, discoveries at an Olmec stronghold suggest that this civilisation shared more than religious beliefs with the Maya. 500km from the Puc region, in the Mexican state of Tabasco, is La Venta, the most prominent Olmec city of its time. Archaeologist Rebecca Lorque has been studying this area for almost 40 years. La Venta was definitely a very important city for its time in the first millennium before Christ. It was a city that had no comparison. People would come to see it or to visit it either for religious reasons or for the economy, for the trading, or maybe for political reasons. La Venta was occupied between about 1200 and 400 BC. In the middle of their city, the Olmec built an innovative new monument, an architectural revolution that would become an iconic part of Maya culture. At the heart of La Venta lies a mysterious vegetation-covered mound. But this is no natural hill. It's thought to be the oldest pyramid in Mexico, built almost 3,000 years ago by the Olmec, a mega-monument soaring some 32 metres high and built of clay. It rests on a 120-metre-wide platform and is formed from 90,000 cubic metres of material. It's probably the biggest pyramidal structure in all ancient Mexico and Guatemala and Central America. It is the oldest pyramid of this size. The original form of it, we think, was with four staircases, one in each side. The Maya would eventually learn to build giant stone pyramids that could withstand the elements. Archaeologists believe that the pyramid form had mythological significance. Pyramids were conceived of as artificial hills or mountains. The later pyramids of the Maya at Chichen Itza or Copan or Palenque were specifically identified as mountains. Mountains are important places. It's a high place, these places that are mountaintops, a place that you're closer to the other world, the celestial world. And so the concept of a sacred mountain seems like it's a very long, deep tradition. Just like at La Venta, the pyramids of the Maya cities are often composed of two superimposed elements, a massive base on which a pyramid temple is built. The pedestal elevates the temple, showing that the divine king is superior to his subjects. This symbolic function already existed at the time of the Olmec. La Venta was probably a sacred place of pilgrimage to which people from all over the area would have come to attend lavish ceremonies. From the top of the pyramid, priests could see for dozens of kilometres and be seen themselves by those in the plazas below. The fact that you're standing at the top here, you have a view of 360 degrees around, and that's very powerful. And not only can you control what goes around you, but people can see you. I think only the people who were performing the ceremonies were in this area. And the lead might be in the platform at the base of the pyramid and then the really normal people in the plaza. Olmec social structure was itself pyramidal, based on a deeply unequal society with a powerful leader at the top. La Venta, in terms of architecture, represents the concentration of power. It does show planning, organisation, the management of manpower and the management of resources, of being able to gather earth from wherever they gathered earth to bring it here and build this. The Maya shared many traits with their Olmec neighbours. But when did the first traces of hierarchical organisation appear amongst the Maya? When did an all-powerful Maya elite emerge to rule over their cities? In the Yucatan, archaeologists have spent decades looking for clues. Now, at the ancient Maya city of Kiwik, George Bay has made an astonishing discovery near the upper layers of the platform he unearthed. Beneath the temple and palace of the site are the remains of two buildings dating to around 600 BC, once built of wood and palm leaves. They are elevated on small individual raised platforms, facing each other at either end of a much larger platform. Their layout is identical to that of the temple and palace that was built during the Classic Age. This could be evidence of the emergence of a social hierarchy in this Maya city. So that building would have been facing out onto this plaza and would have been the focal point. It could have been that in the pre-classic, you had a temple on one end and maybe a house for emerging social stratification, a chief or tribal members who are higher status. I think what you're starting to see is increasing social complexity. George's discovery exposes an early example of elite people controlling a Maya city. Now, new evidence unearthed nearby is exposing the lives of one of these elite early Maya people. In Paso del Macho, Evan Parker has found clues that suggest that there were elite Maya even earlier than at Kiwik. He unearthed the remains of a male teenager who was buried with a necklace and bracelet made of seashells around 800 BC. One of the interesting things about grave goods like this is that they oftentimes reflect the status or the role of whatever individual they're buried with. Paso del Macho is an inland settlement, so these would have had to have been obtained either through an expedition to the coast or through trade routes. This would have taken a high amount of labor in order to carve these. Alongside the jewelry, Evan found another unusual object. We have not found anything like this in all of northern Yucatan with any burials before. This is a form of white jadeite that seems to be like an axe, but the color is unique, and what really makes it unique are these series of inscribed lines. Evan thinks the artifact might have been worn on the head of high-status people. So the fact that they're young and that they are buried with an incredibly rare object, which we've never seen anywhere else before, suggests that there is some degree of hereditary inequality or ascribed inequality. That's a huge moment throughout history, whenever we go from people being able to simply achieve high status to being able to have it ascribed to them. With the emergence of a hereditary social elite, the groundwork was laid for the powerful kings and lavish palaces that the Maya civilization would become known for. But hierarchy and social structure is only part of what makes a civilization. Now archaeologists are unearthing evidence of the rise of a shared culture amongst these early Maya. 20 kilometres from where he found the elite skeleton, in the Forest of the Puuk region, Evan is investigating the remains of a structure. What we're looking at right here is the corner and backside of an ancient Maya ball court. So it's one of the oldest ball courts in all of northern Yucatan. It's where a ball game was played, one of the most iconic cultural markers of the Maya. So most likely what would be under the ground here would be a single retaining wall for the backside of the ball court, and then there might have been a series of steps. There might be additional architecture on top of the mound, perhaps a covered area. So this would be a place of spectatorship, it would be a place for celebration, for partying. Maybe we could imagine that there would be people here serving food or drink to those ready to enjoy the ball game. The remains of this site date to between 600 and 500 BC, and across this area, archaeologists have unearthed another 25 ball courts from the same period. The Maya ball game might have originated in this region. The fact that there are so many ball courts in this region suggests that it was integral, it was foundational to the social fabric of the city. And because ball courts are so prevalent here compared to other areas of the Maya world, should we begin to ask ourselves, is this where the prototypical Maya ball game really starts off, and then it spreads throughout the Maya world more broadly during the Classic period? This game would become integral to Maya cultural identity until the present day. The ball game is still practiced in Maya communities. The goal is to return the ball to the opponent's side without using hands or feet. It's more than a simple leisure sport. It's a game of symbolism. The ball represents the movement of celestial bodies. The game embodies the balance of the cosmos. In the puke forests, Evan thinks that the ball courts aren't just a marker of Maya civilization. Perhaps they were a driver of it. Whenever you have such prominent architecture like a ball court and a site, this maybe suggests that it is the focal point of community identity. This is a game that is creating communal ties, so this would be almost like a social reactor. Around 500 BC, through the development of culture and common identity, the emergence of permanent cities, and the growth of powerful elite, the Maya civilization was beginning to emerge. And soon they would start to build the grand and lavish stone cities that would make the Maya world famous today. In the puke region of Mexico, archaeologist Tomas Galareta is excavating a site known as Choqnac. A pyramid made of stone sits at its heart. Tomas believes this was the focal point of large-scale ceremonies that attracted worshippers from across the region. Around 450 BC, this place must have been impressive, especially for the peasants who didn't live here, all those who came from rural areas. When they came here, they probably realized that this was a really important place. During its heyday, it was an impressive site. The 20-meter-tall stone pyramid was at the heart of a huge ceremonial complex, with eight smaller structures flanking it, all built on top of a platform made from 150,000 cubic meters of material that formed a wide and open plaza, a colossal monument for its time. This is one of the greatest. It's monumental. It's about 130 meters on each side, so if you look at the volume of this building, it's really incredible that they built it at such an early time. Given the size of the main square, it was able to accommodate the whole community. I mean, it's as big as a stadium, so it was probably a gathering place for different kinds of festivities or commemorations. To build in stone at such scale, the Maya would need to figure out how to support the weight of the giant pyramid. To solve the mystery of how the Maya managed it, Tomas and his team excavate an 8-meter-deep investigatory shaft, exposing the platform's ingenious internal structure. Under the surface of the plaza, Maya builders constructed a network of interlinking walls, forming a series of rigid stone cells. These foundations spread out the weight of the monuments they built above. This cellular technique is known in the monumental constructions of many other important sites. It's a technique that becomes widely used during the classic period. It shows that there was a lot of investment here. The lords of this place managed to be so powerful that they were able to sponsor and support the construction of work as large as this. The ingenious construction of this giant monument was overseen by powerful city leaders. Evidence of the constant progression of this society towards increasing hierarchy, but also a sign of a technological shift in the Maya civilization towards the use of cut stone. This technology is much more advanced than the type of earthen architecture that we have before the Middle Preclassic, places like La Venta, for example, where most of the buildings are made of just packed clay or earth. And so because the Maya were able to use limestone and mortar, they could create more vertical buildings. The change that happened from these small settlements to these late Preclassic sites was truly a remarkable time. If you think about a span of a few centuries and all of a sudden you have these large constructions. The race for monumentality would increase over the centuries, becoming one of the markers of the classic era of Maya civilization. It was their mastery of stone that enabled Maya builders to construct a series of magnificent cities over a remarkable 1,500-year time span. In Chocanac, Tomas has discovered evidence that shows how building techniques were gradually improved and perfected over time. Here we can see the last two stages of the construction of the pyramid. In the first one, they built this type of wall, which although it's slightly inclined, is rather vertical. Then another ruler came and decided it was better to cover it with other types of stones like these. At the same time, the advantage was that it gave the walls greater resistance to collapsing or being pushed out. From their reinforced foundations to their perfection of building techniques, stone became the most important building material for the Maya. By at least 450 BC, the Maya were living in large cities with powerful rulers and monumental architecture in the form of stone pyramids. They were practicing ball games that gave people living in cities far apart a common identity and culture. But one mark of a civilization remains, writing. And understanding exactly how and when the Maya developed this crucial skill has eluded investigators for decades. Today, the Maya are revered as the greatest ancient society in the Americas, and their writing and art plays a huge part in how they have captured popular imagination. It's allowed ancient ideas to span the centuries. Now an incredible discovery is transforming long-held ideas about the development of this crucial element of Maya identity. 300 kilometres from Mexico's Yucatan state, in the Petén region, on the border of Guatemala and Belize, a site called San Bartolo has transformed archaeologists' understanding of the Maya civilization. Investigators unearthed a priceless treasure here within a temple known as Las Pinturas. Buried several metres underground, they uncover evidence of ancient Maya paintings and writing. David Stewart is part of the team who excavated this site. This was one of the great surprises of our excavations in San Bartolo. Not only did we find early writing in the murals of San Bartolo at 100 BC, but earlier architecture beneath that building, going back to about 300 BC, also revealed fragments of walls. If the older walls were inscribed too, they would be the oldest examples of Maya writing ever found. Among the fragments, one piece catches David's eye. When I was at the site looking at a number of these fragments in our rustic jungle camp, there was one of them that had little painted hieroglyphs, and I looked at it and I was like, there is a date, an ancient date, and it was the number 7, and it was the head of a deer. Seven deer. Seven deer is writing that designates a day in the sacred Maya calendar. Radiocarbon dating shows that the inscription was made between 300 and 200 BC. The discoveries transform long-held ideas about when Maya writing emerged. An absolutely stunning discovery that we had no preparation for, really. Our thinking before San Bartolo was the earliest Maya writing was maybe at the beginning of the Classic Period. Maya writing from the Classic Period of 250 to 900 AD is well understood. They used symbols to represent whole words or syllables. The evidence at San Bartolo exposes the origin of the system. It's clearly the same writing system we have from later Maya civilization. The discovery tells us that, I think the Maya were developing their own writing. They didn't borrow it from somewhere else. Archaeologist Heather Hurst was involved in the excavation of the site alongside David Stewart. At the University of Texas at Austin, archaeologists have reconstructed a section of the images found at San Bartolo. It's almost 12 metres long. Every time we look at this thing, we see new things. There's some new bits. It took 10 years to conserve and reassemble the images. There are 3,400 pieces in this puzzle. Every detail is painted, so the lines of the bird, the arc, the figure's body, even the strands of the hair. This tells us that the painters were expert painters, truly master artists. The incredible thing is, 1,000 years later, they're using the same techniques. The paintings and writing from San Bartolo help historians understand Maya beliefs that were developing at the time. Well, what we're seeing on the walls that are preserved is an overwhelming array of images of Maya deities and scenes of Maya mythology. To see what the Maya were believing and seeing in their own world in colour, it's truly unique. The early Maya prepared these walls using a material known as stucco. It's a plaster that the Maya used to cover walls before painting with coloured pigments. The same technique would allow the Maya to adorn the walls of their cities with incredible decorations a few centuries later. The discoveries at San Bartolo help put a date to the emergence of the Maya as a true civilisation. One of the things that I think it tells us, this early writing, is that there is a remarkable degree of cultural unity among the pre-classic Maya of that time, say, starting around 500, 400 BC. That's probably when this crystallises, when we see a unification in this expression of culture and civilisation. The development of writing and art allowed the Maya to become one of the most advanced and enduring civilisations of Central America. Piece by piece, the mystery of how the Maya civilisation began is finally being assembled by archaeologists. So how do we envision the transition from a simple, egalitarian society and a more complex, stratified society? It's not just a single jump. The material culture shows us that these small cities had far-flung connections and they were trading with others both regionally and from very far away. There are lots of changes that take place in that period. What we have by the end of that are all of the major elements that then become classic Maya civilisation. So monumental architecture, the writing system is there, the calendar is already there. So the pre-classic is really what set the stage for everything that came after. Archaeological excavations and discoveries across Mexico and Central America are offering new clues about how the great Maya civilisation developed, exposing the process by which the Maya began to settle and learn to make the immense stone monuments they would become famous for, and how their culture and shared identity evolved through ballgames, art and writing, the foundations of a society that would endure until the present day.