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PBS Documentary | First Peoples - Americas Part1/5 — Transcript

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0:03two hundred thousand years ago
0:06a new species emerged on the african
0:09landscape
0:10[Music]
0:11homo sapiens modern humans
0:15us
0:17[Music]
0:19today there are seven billion of us
0:22living across
0:23planet earth this is the story of our
0:27journey
0:28from continent to continent
0:31how we left africa crossed asia
0:34reached australia and colonized here
0:40the final frontier was america
0:44the last continent to become
0:48it's one of the great
0:50[Music]
0:56how mysteries get here
0:59[Music]
1:03as they moved further and further south
1:05they would know that they were truly
1:07the first people to experience those
1:10landscapes
1:12these rivers would have provided all the
1:13resources that coastal peoples needed
1:16to explore deep into the interior and
1:18ultimately colonize
1:19all of north america as a scientist it's
1:23super exciting
1:24if there is a controversy because the
1:26result matters
1:27it means something it's important
1:40who were these first americans
1:44and what became of them
1:47their story is our story
1:55[Music]
1:57[Applause]
1:57[Music]
2:02first peoples was made possible in part
2:04by a generous grant from the anne ray
2:06charitable trust
2:07the corporation for public broadcasting
2:10and by contributions to your pbs station
2:12from viewers like you thank you
2:19the yucatan peninsula mexico
2:2313 and a half thousand years ago
2:28a ceremony takes place deep within a
2:31cave
2:33a young woman is being buried by her
2:36clan
2:39archaeologists know her as eva
2:46when alive she was a hunter-gatherer
2:50[Music]
2:51like any other prehistoric person
2:55but eva is special to us
3:00she can lay claim to being the first
3:03american
3:06no other remains have been found
3:09anywhere in the americas
3:11as old as eva
3:24eva's bones were discovered under water
3:29in a vast cave system beneath the
3:31forests of yucatan
3:36there are chambers here the size of
3:38cathedrals
3:41and tunnels so small it's barely
3:43possible to pass through
3:49mexican archaeologists have been
3:51excavating in these caves
3:52since 2008
3:57leading the team is arturo gonzalez
4:02for me it's like the best way to make
4:04archaeology because
4:06you don't you don't need to dig you
4:08don't you don't have a dust
4:10and everything is clear
4:15[Music]
4:17most of the bones they find are from
4:19animals
4:21but in among them are the remains of
4:24prehistoric
4:26humans
4:29we spend a lot of time diving
4:33exploring when finally you find
4:36some human reminds this is like a
4:39lottery
4:41it's uh wow thanks god no
4:45you have this great opportunity to touch
4:47this evidence
4:50it's like a connection between the past
4:52and the future
4:54in the present but why are there human
4:58bones
4:58under water
5:01[Music]
5:02they weren't washed in they must have
5:05been left here
5:07when the caves were dry
5:13during the ice age so much of the
5:16world's water was frozen
5:18in great sheets of ice that sea levels
5:21were lower than today
5:24up to 400 feet lower pushing back the
5:27coastline
5:29changing the shape of the americas
5:32[Music]
5:35at that time the cave system in the
5:37yucatan would have been dry enough
5:39for people to enter and bury their dead
5:43[Music]
5:47the dry phase ended 8 000 years ago
5:52since then the caves have been submerged
5:56sealing in and protecting any human
5:58remains
6:05in total gonzalez and his team
6:08have recovered eight skeletons from the
6:10cave system
6:13it's the largest collection of
6:15prehistoric humans
6:16found at any one site in north america
6:23the star find is this one
6:26eva of najaron
6:31this was the first skeleton that we
6:33found
7:00a she was four foot seven inches tall
7:05when alive and still in her twenties
7:08when she died
7:11radiocarbon dating of her bones suggests
7:15that happened
7:16thirteen and a half thousand years ago
7:19[Music]
7:25archaeologists believe eva was part of a
7:28larger
7:28clan of nomads
7:31they lived in the forests up to 40 miles
7:35from the cave system
7:38[Music]
7:42they only came into the caves to bury
7:45their dead
7:46[Music]
7:53when eva was discovered her skeleton was
7:56intact and undisturbed
8:00she'd been deliberately placed there a
8:03quarter of a mile
8:04from the nearest opening
8:13the evidence suggests eva was laid to
8:15rest
8:16in some kind of ritual burial
8:19[Music]
8:20it's the earliest sign of spirituality
8:23anywhere in north america
8:28but why go to such lengths and perform a
8:31ceremony in the dark
8:33a quarter of a mile into the cave
8:37[Music]
8:38normally it's the deepest part of the
8:40cave normally is
8:41very far from the entrance but we don't
8:43know we
8:44we don't know specifically why they
8:46choose these specific places
8:57[Music]
9:06he believes the deepest chambers were
9:08portals to a spirit world
9:15where shamans communed with the spirits
9:18using psychotropic drugs
9:24today arturo gonzalez is simulating the
9:27effect
9:28with a compound extracted from the
9:30glands
9:31of a mexican toad
9:38[Music]
9:48wow
9:54[Music]
10:02i'm an anthropologist i'm a
10:03paleontologist i'm very very
10:06sure about the rationalism but now i
10:09understand better
10:10why they choose specific places to in
10:13order to
10:13make this burial so or make these uh
10:16connections with the source no
10:23such rituals thirteen and a half
10:25thousand years ago
10:27are the earliest flickerings of a
10:29culture anywhere in the americas
10:33but for archaeologists that's a problem
10:38eva was in the yucatan centuries before
10:42anyone was meant to have entered north
10:44america
10:50for decades it's been assumed that the
10:52first americans
10:53arrived from siberia by foot
10:56[Music]
10:58during the ice age sea levels were so
11:01low
11:02there was a land bridge where the bering
11:04straits are today
11:06but once people entered alaska they
11:09could go no further
11:11because canada was covered by two great
11:14ice sheets
11:15an uncrossable barrier
11:17[Music]
11:21it was only when the world warmed and
11:24the ice sheets started melting
11:27that a route to the south emerged
11:30[Music]
11:36in alberta the evidence of that southern
11:38route
11:39is easy to find a series of giant
11:43boulders
11:44scattered across the plains
11:48they're known as erratics because they
11:50don't belong in this landscape
11:53so this enormous rock shouldn't actually
11:56be here
11:57in fact its original home is about a
11:59hundred miles north of here
12:01but it got trapped between these two
12:03enormous ice sheets
12:05and it pushed this rock south
12:09as those ice sheets eventually melted it
12:11deposited this rock here
12:14rocks like this one they seem isolated
12:17but when we actually map them out on the
12:19landscape they provide us an
12:21excellent idea of where corridor would
12:23have opened up
12:24between these two giant ice sheets they
12:26really mark a passageway
12:28into north america
12:32once an ice-free corridor opened about
12:3513 000
12:36years ago people could walk south
12:39into what is now the united states
12:49on either side of you our enormous ice
12:51sheets
12:52that are pulling apart from each other
12:54and melting
13:00you would have heard the rush of the
13:02melt water you would have probably heard
13:04cracking ice and large chunks of ice
13:07breaking off of these sheets
13:11[Music]
13:12as they moved further and further south
13:15they would have emerged into a landscape
13:17that no humans had ever trodden on
13:20before
13:22there would be no signs of human life
13:25they would know that they were truly
13:27the first people to experience those
13:32landscapes
13:39this new world was home to herds of
13:43great beasts
13:45none greater than the colombian mammoth
13:52weighing up to nine tons it was a
13:55bonanza
13:56for any hunter who could kill one
14:04the first evidence mammoths were hunted
14:07by early americans
14:09turned up in the 1930s
14:13at a series of sites in the southwest
14:16archaeologists found spearheads
14:19alongside mammoth bones
14:24these spearheads became known as clovis
14:27points after one of the sites in clovis
14:30new mexico
14:35ever since they've been discovered
14:37across the united states
14:42they're so common archaeologists
14:44describe the people who made them
14:47as clovis people
14:57this rock shelter in the ozarks is a new
15:00archaeological site
15:03excavations have only just begun but it
15:06seems clovis people
15:08used the shelter as a campsite
15:16thirteen thousand years ago a family
15:19group may have stayed here a few days
15:21before moving on
15:22[Music]
15:24life was dominated by food
15:27finding it processing and eating it
15:32hunter gatherers are so active they
15:35consume up to four times more protein
15:38than people today
15:42metten aaron is one of the directors of
15:44the archaeological site
15:46and an expert flint knapper he can make
15:50a clovis point
15:51as it would have been made by early
15:53americans
16:00this is a clovis point and it's an
16:02amazing piece of stone age technology
16:04no one in the stone age had seen
16:06anything like this by the time it was
16:07made
16:08over 13 000 years ago incredibly razor
16:11sharp edges along the entire blade
16:13and because it's got these grooves on
16:15both sides it's easily
16:17hafted onto the end of a spear shaft and
16:19thus it could have also easily taken
16:21down the
16:22largest stone age beasts in a lot of
16:24ways you can consider this to be the
16:26first
16:27american invention
16:32[Music]
16:34this is a clovis point that i made and a
16:36clovis person would have hatched
16:38it onto a piece of wood to which they
16:40would have attached it to a large spear
16:42like this made out of cane they could
16:45have then
16:45attached the spear to what's called an
16:49atlatl or spear thrower
16:50and with the spear thrower they would
16:52have had just a ton of oomph
16:54with which to hit any large ice age
17:02animals
17:07so that's definitely a kill
17:19oh wow this clovis point went all the
17:22way through
17:23this three inch target so you can easily
17:25imagine
17:26the sort of damage that this would have
17:27done to the prey that clovis people were
17:30going after
17:31it's an incredible weapon
17:47but how did clovis people manage to
17:49blaze a trail
17:52where to go what to do in a vast
17:55unknown land
17:59bob stevens is an apache indian
18:02a hunter a tracker and an expert
18:05in survival
18:07[Music]
18:09being out here in a while amongst this
18:12landscape
18:15i feel the wind and the wind blows right
18:18through me
18:19all the sounds become a part of me
18:21become
18:22a rhythm with my heartbeat not only do i
18:26become the world around me
18:28but the world around me becomes me and
18:31we become one
18:32[Music]
18:36clovis people have no instruction manual
18:40no one to tell them where to hunt they
18:43had to work it out for themselves
18:47the first thing you would do is look for
18:48a high vantage point somewhere
18:50and once you get to a high vantage point
18:52then you can see more of the terrain
18:53around you
18:54and the land speaks to you
18:59all the animals are going to come down
19:01to these areas here in the bottom of the
19:03canyon and they're going to need
19:04pathways to come down
19:05to get water they're going to
19:07concentrate in this area here
19:09because anywhere up the canyon from here
19:11and down the canyon from here
19:12is a box canyon there's no excess in or
19:14out you know they're going to come down
19:16to this one very spot
19:19so this would be a good centralized
19:20location to
19:22establish a little semi-residence and
19:25then
19:25work your way out from here and start
19:26exploring the land a little bit further
19:28out
19:29[Music]
19:32the first people that come from the land
19:34bridge up by alaska
19:36it's amazing at the speed that they come
19:38through here
19:39perhaps it's that urge to explore
19:42maybe there was something that light
19:44just beyond the next rise
19:46beyond the next hillside
19:49so what i do when i come out here is i
19:51have that same urge to want to know
19:52what's
19:53just beyond that last hill that i can
19:54see and to be able to go over there
19:57peek over the other side and say i know
20:00what's there
20:01and what do i see i see another hill and
20:04it keeps that drive alive to keep me
20:05going
20:06beyond further and further
20:12[Music]
20:14part of the appeal of the story is how
20:17nicely it reflects some classic
20:20ideas about the american west
20:24this idea of rugged individuals driven
20:27into a new landscape
20:28only to successfully sort of conquer it
20:31and colonize it
20:35but is the story really true
20:39were clovis hunters the first people in
20:42america
20:46the oldest archaeological evidence they
20:48left behind
20:50goes back 13 000 years
20:55but in yucatan eva was alive 13 and a
20:58half thousand years ago
21:01she's hundreds of years older than
21:03clovis
21:04[Music]
21:07if eva and her kind managed to reach the
21:10southeast of the continent so
21:11early people must have entered north
21:14america
21:15long before 13 000 years ago
21:20[Music]
21:21[Applause]
21:22so when did they arrive and how did they
21:26get here
21:38jacqueline gill believes she can date
21:40the arrival of people in north america
21:43not by studying bones or tools
21:46but done
21:49[Music]
21:52there's a type of fungal spore known as
21:55sporomyla
21:57that thrives in the nutrient-rich dung
22:00of large grass-eating animals
22:03the more animals the more dung and the
22:06more dung
22:06the more spores and what's so fantastic
22:09about these spores is that
22:11they last for thousands or tens of
22:13thousands of years
22:14so you can literally dig down into the
22:16soil
22:17and go back into the past to work out
22:20how many animals were on the landscape
22:29jacqueline gill takes samples of mud
22:31from ancient lake beds
22:35she adds a solvent and spins them
22:38in a centrifuge to extract the fungal
22:42spores
22:46she can then count the spores to work
22:49out how many animals were around
22:52in prehistoric times
22:55animals like mammoth and mastodon
22:57[Music]
23:01after many hours counting these spores i
23:04noticed something interesting
23:06fifteen 000 years ago there were a lot
23:09of spores
23:10which means there were a lot of animals
23:11on the landscape but then something
23:13happened
23:14by about 14 800 years ago the number of
23:18spores
23:18started to go down and then by about 13
23:22500 years ago they were completely gone
23:27the disappearance of these spores
23:29suggests
23:30animals were being hunted long before
23:33the first clovis points
23:37by the time columbus hunters show up in
23:39north america the landscape is already
23:42pretty depleted of large animals
23:45which means that there had to have been
23:46people here much earlier than we
23:48previously thought
23:52but if people were hunting animals
23:53before clovis
23:55where's the archaeological evidence
24:01this is a rib bone discovered in
24:04washington state
24:05on the olympic peninsula it belongs to a
24:09mastodon
24:10an elephant-like species related to the
24:16mammoth the unique thing about this
24:19rib bone is this massive bone embedded
24:23into the rib itself
24:24and we wondered what this was so we did
24:27high-resolution ct scanning across the
24:30bone
24:30and created a 3d model of what this
24:33object looked like
24:37the object is clearly man-made
24:40not a clovis point but a more basic type
24:43of spearhead
24:44that's penetrated the rib
24:49it's a bone projectile point that would
24:52have been hurled at this elephant
24:54it would have then penetrated through
24:56the tough height of the mastodon
24:58gone about 20-25 centimeters into the
25:01mast
25:01done through its tissue and the tip-in
25:04just fortuitously
25:05ending up becoming embedded into the rib
25:09of this animal then what happened is the
25:11animal was wiggling around the tip end
25:13broke off into the rib itself
25:19we didn't know the age precisely so we
25:21radiocarbonated the bone
25:23and it came out 13 800 years ago this
25:28animal was hunted and killed by humans
25:31almost eight centuries before clovis
25:34appears in north america
25:43[Music]
25:52it's becoming increasingly clear
25:56the earliest americans were not clovis
25:58hunters
25:59who came through the ice-free corridor
26:0113 000
26:02years ago there had to be
26:06another way into north america
26:19john erlinson believes the first
26:21americans
26:22came by boat as early as 16
26:25000 years ago
26:27[Music]
26:29while the land at that time was still
26:31blocked by ice
26:33the coast of the pacific northwest was
26:35mostly ice free
26:41it was possible to find a route south
26:45bypassing any icebergs and living from
26:47the bounty of the sea
26:51one of the reasons the coastal route is
26:53so attractive is this stuff
26:55this is bull kelp and one form or
26:58another kelp forest extended all around
26:59the pacific rim
27:01these kelp forests are super productive
27:04they put out billions of spores they can
27:06grow as much as a
27:07meter a day and they ultimately support
27:10very complex food webs
27:12fish shellfish marine mammals
27:15and ultimately it's edible
27:19and quite tasty
27:23pretty good actually rather than
27:27walking through an ice-free corridor the
27:29very first americans
27:31could have paddled down a kelp highway
27:34[Music]
27:36there are kelp forests along the pacific
27:38coast
27:39from north to south america all the way
27:42to patagonia
27:49traveling down the highway would have
27:52been quicker
27:52and easier than coming over land
27:57always going through the same terrain
28:00always
28:00at sea level
28:02[Music]
28:05anthropological theory suggested that
28:06people didn't start really fishing
28:08and develop boats until 10 000 years ago
28:11it was always inexplicable to me the
28:14coastlines are so productive why would
28:16humans ignore them
28:17for 99 of history
28:19[Music]
28:22i still think people may have come down
28:24the ice-free corridor
28:26i just think at this point it's more
28:27likely they came down the coast
28:29earlier and that the very first
28:31americans were coastally adapted
28:36any archaeological evidence for a
28:38coastal migration
28:40has been washed away by the rising seas
28:47but according to this theory the pacific
28:50seaboard
28:51was dotted with makeshift camps
28:56people would have moved from headland to
28:58headland
28:59catching fish and marine mammals and
29:02harvesting kelp
29:06then they would move on always hugging
29:09the coast
29:10staying in sight of land
29:14it must have been a truly amazing
29:15journey to come down the coast
29:17and explore these places where humans
29:19had never been before
29:27these seafarers may then have headed in
29:30land
29:32following any large river they came
29:34across
29:36in this way they could have navigated
29:39into the heart
29:40of the continent
29:43for people moving down the coast these
29:45rivers would have been like detours on
29:47the kelp highway
29:49it would have provided all the resources
29:50that coastal peoples needed
29:52to explore deep into the interior and
29:54ultimately colonize
29:56all of north america
30:01the u.s river system provides a
30:03potential map
30:04of their journey
30:07if they came inland along the columbia
30:10river
30:11they could have joined up with the
30:13missouri
30:15which flows into the mississippi
30:19and finally into the gulf of mexico
30:23in this way people like eva could have
30:26crossed the continent
30:28long before the ice-free corridor opened
30:34up
30:40but if people came along the coast and
30:43then the rivers
30:45where are their remains
30:49who were they and what became of them
31:00one of the most complete prehistoric
31:02skeletons in north america
31:04is kept in this museum
31:10it is of a man who may have been an
31:12early coastal migrant
31:14traveling the kelp highway
31:18but it's impossible to film his bones
31:21because they're a security risk
31:24there's several layers of uh locked-in
31:27alarm doors
31:28and security cameras and that sort of
31:30thing
31:31and this particular skeleton is two
31:33layers deeper
31:34into its own security system it's the
31:37vault
31:38inside the bank inside the secure city
31:42i would say
31:46it would be very very difficult to break
31:48in and get the remains
31:51[Music]
31:55the skeleton was discovered in 1996.
31:59it's a man who was buried over eight and
32:01a half thousand years ago
32:03beside the columbia river near kennewick
32:06washington
32:08he's become known as kennewick man but
32:14right away
32:15local tribes wanted him re-buried
32:22native americans have a federal right of
32:24return
32:25on ancient remains
32:30if they can prove an ancestral link the
32:33authorities are meant to hand over any
32:35bones for re-burial
32:38a process known as repatriation
32:42[Music]
32:43but with kennewick man it has never
32:45happened
32:48despite the efforts of tribal leaders
32:50like armand minthorn
32:53our way of life is different
32:56we have unwritten laws that we pass
32:59generation
33:00to generation but in the meantime
33:03we have to follow the letter of the law
33:06we work with the federal agency we
33:10were ready for repatriation and then
33:12that's when the scientists
33:14stepped in and they wanted to do studies
33:18and then this is where it went to court
33:24anthropologists believe the fossil
33:26is too important and intriguing
33:30to be reburied
33:34they took out a lawsuit to stop the
33:36repatriation
33:37[Music]
33:39ever since kennewick man has been in a
33:42state of limbo
33:46his fate undecided
33:49hidden from view
33:57in 2004 the courts allowed the bones to
34:00be scrutinized
34:01by doug owsley based at the smithsonian
34:05he's one of the world's leading forensic
34:07anthropologists
34:11his team was given two weeks with the
34:13body to do a definitive
34:15examination
34:19they generated so much data it took
34:22nine years to publish the results
34:27when we summarized kenwood man for one
34:28thing we'd say he's about 160 pounds
34:30he's five feet seven and a half inches
34:32he's about 40 years of age
34:38he's a very sturdy man he's very strong
34:39he has very robust bones
34:41he's very wide body he has a much
34:45larger much stronger right arm than left
34:49[Music]
34:51we link that up to the use of an atlatl
34:56that's a very quick rapid motion
35:00as you do this you've got to catch
35:01yourself so you'll throw your left leg
35:03forward and that's going to be the one
35:04that'll catch you
35:05and it's amazing but you can actually
35:07see a difference in the strength of the
35:09left leg
35:10versus the right leg
35:16[Music]
35:18but the same weapons a spear and atlanta
35:22[Music]
35:23seem to have been used against kennewick
35:25man
35:28when you look at his pelvis his right
35:29hip bone
35:31has an embedded spear point
35:34[Music]
35:39it would have just knocked him down hard
35:44[Music]
35:49it sliced into the right pelvic bone it
35:52sheared off part of the pelvic crest
35:55but as far as being a lucky shot it
35:57really was because if it had gone just a
36:00little bit more in it would have gone
36:01into the internal organs
36:03certainly would have killed him
36:06he also had five broken ribs
36:11he may have got them at the same time as
36:14the spear
36:16the type of injury that you see in the
36:17ribs is the kind of thing that i see in
36:19my forensic
36:20case identification when somebody kicks
36:24somebody
36:26whoever the assailant was could have
36:28been close enough to him to actually be
36:29able to give him a good
36:30stomp and then break these ribs
36:42but she was just tough as nails and
36:43survived
36:45he was able to get away and he lived a
36:47good 20 years after this happened
36:54what more can the bones of kennewick man
36:56reveal
36:58owsley has analyzed their chemical
37:00content
37:01their isotope signal this can show what
37:05kennawick man
37:06ate and where his food came from
37:13when we run his isotope signal he's got
37:17a marine signature and the first thing
37:19you'd think of is there's lots of salmon
37:21going up and down
37:22the columbia river drainages and this
37:23fellow is found along the columbia river
37:25you'd think that's a natural thing
37:28but some of the carbon levels are so
37:30high
37:31they cannot have come from eating any
37:34amount of river fish
37:38instead generic man seems to have lived
37:40on a diet
37:41of marine mammals
37:45this man is coming actually from the
37:48coast
37:49and he's heavily dependent in terms of
37:51his isotope signal
37:53reading his isotope signal he's heavily
37:54dependent on seals
37:57he is coming from as far north as
38:00central alaska
38:04according to the forensic evidence
38:06kennewick man had a lifestyle
38:08similar to other early coastal migrants
38:13feeding himself from the sea
38:17he would only have headed inland to the
38:20columbia river
38:21later in life that surprises the dickens
38:25out of me
38:26i would have never predicted that
38:27anybody that looked at this would think
38:30this is his home it is not his home he's
38:32not from there
38:35native americans reject this idea
38:39they call him the ancient one and
38:41believe he was one of their own
38:45his burial at the columbia river
38:47suggests he was not
38:49a lone traveler but part of an
38:52established community
38:54[Music]
38:56we believe the ancient one
39:00lived similar to how we live today as
39:03far as
39:04eating the same kinds of foods speaking
39:07the same language
39:08fishing from the same river
39:13and more than likely he was buried with
39:16ceremony
39:19there were other people
39:22they took care of him and they put him
39:24in the ground
39:26just like we do today
39:32us as indian people believe that when
39:35our body goes to the ground
39:37that's where it's to stay until the end
39:39of time
39:43that's what we believe
39:47and even if it's nine thousand years ago
39:51it doesn't matter when a body
39:54is taken out of the ground like the
39:56ancient one
39:58their journey is interrupted
40:03it stopped
40:11to prevent any further excavations
40:13federal authorities covered up the
40:15gravesite at the columbia river
40:17with rubble
40:22but they've not yet returned any bumpers
40:29tribal groups claim that kennewick man
40:32is their ancestor
40:34and the scientists cannot accept the
40:36fact that just because it's not written
40:38down in a book
40:40it's not fact it's fact to me
40:44because i live it every day
40:47[Music]
40:48doug owsley disagrees he
40:52thinks there's no ancestral link between
40:54modern day
40:55native americans and kennewick man
40:58their skulls are the wrong shape
41:03this is a skull of a native american and
41:06it has
41:06very broad cheeks you combine that
41:10with a fairly short broad cranium
41:14it's very different from what we see in
41:16these skulls like kenworkman
41:20man instead of being a short broad
41:21cranium tends to be
41:23much longer and narrower
41:27and when you look at his face the width
41:29of his face here
41:30it's just not quite as heavily built
41:32that's what we see in modern day native
41:34americans
41:36and we can ask for instance well who is
41:38kenwick man most like who in the world
41:40does he fit with
41:42when we do that when we ask those
41:43questions what we see
41:45is that on a worldwide basis this is
41:47what we see in polynesians
41:51the facial reconstruction of kennewick
41:54man
41:55is modeled on polynesian looking people
41:58known as the inu
42:02they are traditional hunter-gatherers
42:04from northern japan
42:06who were all but wiped out in the 20th
42:08century
42:12their skulls were long and narrow
42:15similar to that of kennewick man
42:17[Music]
42:19well you have to realize i'm not saying
42:20he's polynesian what we're saying
42:22instead is that
42:2310 000 years ago 15 000 years ago this
42:26is what people look like in the coastal
42:28asia
42:30maritime these are maritime hunter
42:32gatherers and this is what people look
42:33like
42:36the skeletons from yucatan are the same
42:40eva's skull is long and narrow like ken
42:43wickman
42:47she's not a match with modern day native
42:49americans
42:53according to this theory the first wave
42:56of migrants into the americas
42:58were those people like kennewick man and
43:00eva
43:01with long narrow skulls
43:04[Music]
43:05but around 8 000 years ago another wave
43:09must have swept
43:10in with wide round skulls
43:15they wiped out the first wave and went
43:18on to populate the americas
43:24if true then today's native americans
43:26are not directly related to kenwick man
43:29[Music]
43:30and have no claim on his bones
43:35but there is a surefire way to test
43:38ancestry
43:40using dna
43:50the bones of kennewick man were thought
43:53to be too degraded to provide
43:55any genetic data
44:00but eska willerslev is a pioneer in the
44:03field
44:04of ancient genomics
44:09his team has managed to extract some
44:11usable dna
44:12which could prove whether or not
44:15kennewick man
44:16was related to today's native americans
44:22as a scientist it's super exciting if
44:24there is a controversy
44:26because that means that the result if
44:28that can solve that controversy
44:30the result matters right it means
44:33something it's important
44:37once they have the dna they make
44:40millions of copies
44:41and feed them into a high throughput
44:43sequencing machine
44:50[Music]
44:53by bathing them in dyes the machine sets
44:56off a series
44:57of chemical reactions
45:01constellations of light from across the
45:03genome
45:04can be photographed and analyzed in
45:07fantastic detail
45:10i mean i am of course a geneticist so i
45:13am biased but but i really do think that
45:16that genetics today especially genomics
45:19as we are
45:20undertaking here is a very very powerful
45:23tool
45:24to address these kind of questions of
45:27ancestry
45:31willerslev has invited armand minthorn
45:34and other tribal leaders to visit his
45:36laboratory
45:38and find out the latest about the
45:40sequencing of kennewick man
45:43but first he takes them to the clean
45:45room to show them how dna is extracted
45:48from ancient remains
45:53today they're working with a 500 year
45:55old tooth
45:57of a there viking very very
46:00little dna in such materials and in
46:03order to really be able to read
46:05the genetic code then you will have to
46:07crush it and then you are
46:09extracting so to speak the dna from it
46:12it's similar to the process that the
46:15ancient one went through but
46:16of course for the ancient one it was
46:18bone rather than tooth
46:33[Music]
46:40it bothers us a bit to be here
46:44and to see this what's being done
46:47[Music]
46:49that human remains like this are treated
46:52this way
46:53human remains need to be treated as
46:55sacred
46:56[Music]
47:03but it is science and us as tribes
47:07we're still coming to understand what
47:09science is
47:12this meeting of science and tradition
47:15ends with a prayer
47:17we're always thinking of the ancient one
47:20wherever he may be
47:21whatever whatever when i saw how much it
47:24meant to them
47:25i actually got really emotional about it
47:29i'm sure they are feeling that they're
47:31making a sacrifice
47:33even with me taking samples of the
47:35kinematic man but it's a sacrifice
47:38that needs to be done for them to
47:40potentially
47:41get the remains back basically what i
47:44have in this tube here
47:47whatever doubts they have about genetic
47:49research
47:50the tribes are about to get some good
47:52news
47:53this is the dna of the ancient one
47:57and we have sequenced parts of the
47:59genome already
48:02and based on those analysis of that part
48:05that's where we can see that the ancient
48:06one is closer related
48:09to contemporary native american people
48:12than to any other peoples in the world
48:14[Music]
48:18and i think this is really important in
48:20regards to what has been claimed
48:23about the ancient one because it has
48:25been claimed that the ancient one
48:27you know is something different than
48:30present-day native americans right and
48:33if that was the case if that was really
48:35the case
48:36then the dna of the ancient one should
48:38group with other peoples in the world
48:40for example with other asian groups
48:42or something like that and that's not
48:44the case
48:47okay he's basically falling spot on
48:50into native americans it's really
48:53encouraging
48:54to to hear you say that
48:58us as indian people we've always known
49:00that
49:02and it only confirms and reconfirms
49:06what we've said all along if any of this
49:08stuff
49:09we find out can be of help to you
49:12in terms of getting the ancient one back
49:16i'll be happy to do what i can you know
49:19and also go out there to the court or
49:22whatever and
49:23and argue for the reliability etc of the
49:28results
49:35the dna could be a game changer
49:39once kennewick man's genetic sequence is
49:41complete
49:43it will be new evidence in the campaign
49:45for his repatriation
49:47[Music]
49:53if the genetics is right there weren't
49:56two separate waves of migration into the
49:59americas
50:00just one
50:03eva the clovis people kennewick man
50:08they're all from the same gene pool as
50:10modern-day native americans
50:12[Music]
50:14they are all one people
50:17[Music]
50:20today's native americans may look
50:23different to their ancestors
50:25but that's not unusual
50:29around the world almost everyone looks
50:32different
50:33from their prehistoric forebears
50:37none of us are the people we once were
50:56[Music]
50:59john hawkes has studied the way human
51:02biology has changed
51:04over the last 10 000 years
51:09the first peoples fascinate us which is
51:11natural because
51:12they are us ancestors of everybody today
51:16but we've come to realize that when we
51:18look at their skulls their faces
51:20they're not our faces we've changed
51:23the obvious question is why
51:29[Music]
51:30hawks believes that humans are acutely
51:33responsive to changes
51:34in lifestyle
51:37once we stopped hunting and gathering we
51:40started eating
51:41different foods that alone was enough to
51:45change
51:46the shape of our skulls
51:50and living in cities our brains aren't
51:53having to work so hard
51:56we rely on the intelligence of others
52:00[Music]
52:02it may be surprising but when we started
52:03to settle down
52:05our skulls not only changed in shape
52:07they began to shrink
52:09presumably our brains shrank as well the
52:12first peoples
52:13they lived in very tiny groups anything
52:15that they wanted to make
52:17they had to know how to make it any food
52:19that they needed to find
52:20they needed to know where it was in
52:22their environment the knowledge
52:23accumulated over generations
52:25they had to have it all right here
52:31living by their wits these pioneers
52:34opened up a new world
52:37[Music]
52:38whether they came by sea or by land
52:42we now know they arrived at least 2 000
52:45years
52:46earlier than previously thought and
52:49populated the americas
52:51at breakneck speed
52:55[Music]
52:59the same spirit of exploration was
53:02shared by other first peoples of the
53:04world
53:05[Music]
53:08geneticists believed they were driven by
53:11their genes
53:12to take risks embrace change
53:16and seek out what's new
53:20some have called these exploring genes
53:25and they're still in our dna today
53:29the first peoples were explorers they
53:31were blazing trails
53:32they created the world that we're now
53:34living in
53:37and that genetic link between us and
53:40them
53:41is what has come down through the years
53:43connecting us to them
53:44and pushing us out to where we haven't
53:46been before
53:48[Music]
53:52no other species does what we do
53:56move explore and inhabit
53:59every corner of the globe
54:04and we do it because they do
54:09our ancestors the first peoples
54:26you

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