[Music] in the heart of the Brazilian wilderness lies a prehistoric rock shelter decorated with thousands of strange paintings South American archaeologists are finding unusual human remains the skulls aren't European but they aren't American Indian either they belong to none of the prehistoric races known to have set foot in the new world these skulls are as old as the Ice Age so who were these first people to discover the Americas and what became of them did they all disappear or did some of them survive [Music] [Music] this is serra da capivara a rocky outcrop of cliffs and valleys in a remote corner of Northeast Brazil local farmers have long known about these Rock shelters hidden behind the brush shelter walls are decorated with scenes from everyday life a net to catch deer a stick to collect honey from a beehive a hand shielding the eyes here three people are helping a pregnant woman give birth some of the paintings are harder to interpret these curious looking figures are thought to be men in disguise dancing with women [Music] other images show human figures with decorated bodies somewhere masks they hint at some kind of ritual [Music] no one yet has figured out what these scenes meet but local farmers claim to know who originally created them our elders used to tell us they'd been made by Indians known locally as the fierce ones Indians were the obvious candidates [Music] most of the people who live in northeastern Brazil today are descended from European settlers and African slaves [Music] but these ancestral groups arrived in Brazil just 500 years ago when the Portuguese first discovered Brazil they found that Indians were already here and a few of the local villagers are descendants of mixed marriages between Indians farmers and slaves [Music] Indians in fact had been in America for thousands of years scientists today can tell precisely when they arrived hopefully we're all native peoples in South and North America belonged to a racial type known as mongoloid they're descended from the ancient peoples of siberia during the Ice Age 12,000 years ago there was a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska mongoloid peoples were the first enter the new world or so experts thought the Brazilian finds point to a very different story of the discovery of the Americas [Music] the paintings on these Rock shelters are much older than the Indians here hunters chase giant armadillos an animal that flourished during the Ice Age long before the arrival of the Indians [Music] there's a playful feel to many of the scenes here a group of men are standing on each other's shoulders just like a circus act and here a rare romantic moment [Music] the scenes conjure up a lost world of innocence how long ago was this primeval paradise [Music] French archaeologists have just finished digging in pedra furada the largest of the rock shelters their aim was to go back in time to a period well before the arrival of American Indians [Music] every foot they dug took them thousands of years back into prehistory when they reached layers 40,000 years old they found these [Music] pieces of quartzite that look remarkably like stone tools the edges on one side of the stones were flaked off [Music] were these stones shaped into cutting tools by human hands if so then the history of the discovery of the Americas would have to be rewritten but if people had been here before the American Indians surely there would be other traces of their presence the archaeologists continued to dig down to depths 50,000 years old and then they found this [Applause] [Music] fragments of animal bone and charcoal [Music] for anne-marie pacy one of the archaeologists involved in the dig these fragments were proof of human occupation this worked you this with drilled if we found structures shaped like hearts I could do - elbow knocks - the charcoal depending on the period we sometimes found food leftovers of animals they may have eaten then you also may the Brazilian fine show that the new world was discovered tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed certainly well before the time of the American Indians [Music] but who were these pioneers a much earlier wave of Mongoloids or another race altogether [Music] clues to the identity of the first Americans are emerging in rock shelters in the northeast and southeast of Brazil [Music] archeologists there have recently unearthed human remains [Music] prehistoric skulls were found buried in layers of soil 9 to 12,000 years old they are the oldest skulls in the Americas [Music] and this is the oldest of them all the skull of a young woman nicknamed Lucia by scientists and she tell us who the first Americans were Walter nevus is a physical anthropologist at South Paulo University in Brazil he's been using a standard and reliable archeological measure the shape of the skull to find out what race she belonged to he fully expected luthier to be a mongoloid an ancestor of the American Indians but then he fed the measurements into the computer when we started running the computer and seeing the results it was amazing because we realized that the statistics the quantitative analysis we were doing was not showing just people to be mongoloid in fact the analysis was showing just people was anything except mongoloid so who was luthier and where did she come from to find out the skull was taken to a hospital in Rio de Janeiro to begin the process of reconstructing her face the first stage was to make a three-dimensional cat scan of Lucia's skull in order to build a replica [Music] the caste was then given to Richard Neave of the University of Manchester in England one of the world's leading forensic artists to recreate her features [Music] [Music] that to me is an eager face that has all the features that you associate with a negroid face the proportions of the face it doesn't say anything about it being a mongoloid luthier belongs to a race found historically along the rim of the Indian Ocean in East Africa in the islands of South Asia and in Australia and Melanesia was this then the face of a first American her reconstruction is confirmed by measurements Walter Navis has taken up all his skulls the first reaction was not to believe in it but as the results you know repeated repeated repeated so many times and the result is exactly the same thing they are very similar to nowaday abolitionists in Africa and no similarity at all with Mongoloids in Asia or with American engines [Music] but how could luthier be African and Australian according to Walter Navis there's a very simple explanation lluvia is a bit of both the first humans originated in Africa it's known that around 100,000 years ago waves of people migrated out of africa one such wave went east and 60,000 years ago it reached Australia [Music] lluvia it seems belong to a race of humans descended from Africans a race that eventually became today's Australian Aborigines but if the first people to enter the new world were the ancestors of present-day Aborigines how could they possibly have reached the Americas Australia and Southeast Asia are on the other side of the Pacific Ocean more than 8,000 miles away from South America it's true that during the Ice Age there was a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska in theory the ancestors of the Aborigines could have migrated north and crossed over into Alaska but they wouldn't have made it very far a permanent mass of ice at on Canada for thousands of years [Music] that wall of ice would have blocked the way into America to both animals and humans [Music] but could there have been another route to South America [Music] if forces consider a totally probability one has to consider all the probabilities it's much simpler to cross the ocean than to adapt to the cold of the North Pole after all you do need to develop a fairly sophisticated technology to survive in the cold but did the ancestors of the Aborigines have the technology to cross the Pacific these are the tiwiii people an Aborigine clan living on Bathurst Island just off the northern coast of Australia as far back as they can remember their way of life has always revolved around the sea [Music] and in these shallow tropical waters the old-fashioned spear is still the best tool to catch crabs but the team these are very much the exceptions most Aborigines live on the mainland and have no seafaring heritage [Music] what about the Aborigines very earliest ancestors might they have been able to navigate curiously the best clueless to the culture of the first Australians hardly found far away from the coasts this is the Kimberley a forbidding rock desert on the northern tip of Western Australia today the place is uninhabited but during the Ice Age twenty to fifty thousand years ago these were hunting grounds for the first Aborigines [Music] [Music] graham Walsh an Australian rock art specialist has devoted his life to finding and recording their earliest traditions the area is surrounded by rock shelters many of them decorated with images painted tens of thousands of years ago in one rock shelter Graham Walsh has discovered a painting that is about to rewrite the history of seafaring it's the oldest painting of a boat anywhere in the world the people in the boat have got very distinctive headdresses on and their associates are the top of figures that we call simple northern figures that are found in this area of the north Kimberley here they're associated with war scenes battle scenes where they're not using spear throwers and so we can date that type of figure by the top of technology that they're depicted with and it's very ancient because the spear throwers we've dated paintings with spear throwers on as predating seventeen thousand years and that's a minimum figure I think it will go back much much older than that up to fifty thousand years ago what's remarkable is that the boat seems to have been designed with a very specific purpose in mind you can see by the top of water craft with the high prey on earth it appears by sort of watercraft experts they tell me it's an ocean-going type craft with this high nose there's no need for all the sort of high prowess and that in still water so you're looking at some sort of craft that's been used for the open sea in this remote rock shelter is the first indication that the ancestors of the Aborigines did indeed have the technology to sail and perhaps even to navigate the oceans why would they have wanted to cross the Pacific the vastness of the ocean was surely a deterrent more and more scientists are convinced that the very first ocean crossings may have happened by accident it's not such a far-fetched idea yeah it was all three years ago five fishermen well only two made it out of the original five set off in the middle of a storm off Africa they arrived here in Brazil so what he decided to stay they didn't want to return to Africa it was an adventure an odyssey but they made it in just three weeks he's also figured they'd survived and if they survived others could have done so tune if the ancestors of the Aborigines did reach South America by chance they would have been the first people to settle the New World they would have become the American Aborigines but if this is what happened where are their descendants why are there none of these American Aborigines in North and South America today one possibility is that for a long time they lived alone in the continent leading an idyllic life free from invaders after all the land route from Asia into North America remained firmly blocked for thousands of years [Music] but around 14,000 years ago the climate began to warm up [Music] the Ice Age was coming to a dramatic end [Music] in Alaska an ice corridor opened up [Music] animals took advantage and crossed through [Music] chasing them will mongoloid hunters it's well known that around 12,000 years ago the ancestors of today's American Indians entered the New World the Mongoloids moved swiftly colonizing North and South America in just a few thousand years that's precisely the timeframe when scientists believe the American Aborigines begin to disappear could the Mongoloids have replaced the Aborigines this is very clear South America all populations I have in my data set from the whole South America okay from 7,000 to the present they're absolutely classic mongoloid and everything I have with more than 9,000 okay is absolutely no mongoloid so I would say just replacement accurate between accurate between nine and seven thousand years ago rock art experts have been studying the Brazilian paintings for clues about how that replacement might have happened here may be an explanation for how the American Aborigines became extinct [Music] this scene shows several men in midair they look as if they're flying at first scientists assumed they reflected the playful lifestyle of the American Aborigines [Music] but computers can shed new light images can be digitally removed and then we introduced one at a time [Music] the happy flying figures turn out to be just one figure a warrior leaping through the air to spear an enemy activist audition August asana l Messina German at first we thought this was a scene of harmony with various figures flying through the air now we no longer see it as a scene of harmony but as a scene of violence suddenly the meaning of the other enigmatic scenes becomes clear this is another act of aggression and this perhaps an execution [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] were the Mongoloids at war with the Aborigines tellingly these scenes only begin to appear after the arrival of the mongoloids risk enough me law or not of prison until nine thousand years ago we don't find a single scene of violence and this coincides with fines which show an increase in population it's like we're sued we can't draw any conclusions but there is an increase in small tribes vertical and violence becomes very conquest by the Mongoloids would explain why there are no Aborigines in the Americas today they were wiped out [Music] but persecuted people's often avoid extinction either through intermarriage with the invader or by escaping into the wilderness could some American Aborigines have survived in a remote corner of the new world at the southernmost end of the continent lies Tierra del Fuego a group of islands isolated from the mainland by the Strait of Magellan the oldest skull found in this part of the world is 9,000 years old it too was measured by Walter Navis Jesus skull also shows a strong similarity with Australians and no similarity at all with nowaday engines or manga lines okay so even in the extreme south cone of the Americas okay was inhabited by these people that has nothing to do with mongoloid it seems that some tribes of American Aborigines may have escaped finding sanctuary here at the far end of South America [Music] so what became of them where are their descendants [Music] when the first Europeans explored Tierra del Fuego they encountered bands of hunters and gatherers the flagons [Music] an Italian ethnographer recorded their way of life in the 1930s it seemed to heart back to a primordial era sisters Kristina and Ursula Calderon are children of those hunters and gatherers they were born just over 70 years ago in this small village now abandoned could these sisters be actual descendants of Lucia and the American Aborigines on the face of it no their appearance is not very different from that of other Native Americans [Music] but a more reliable marker of ancestry lies behind the face the shape of the skull the local museum houses several skulls of modern wagons recent ancestors of Christina and Ursula for the first time scientists have begun to measure these skulls as expected they have found some classic mongoloid traits such as flat faces but they also found unusual features pronounced ridges over the eyes a distinctly non mongoloid characteristic [Music] apparently Flavians were somehow related to the ancestors of the Australian Aborigines we think that flagons is the denominator Agins are historic wagons are the result of interbreeding between the non mongoloids and the mongoloid it seems that some American Aborigines may have avoided extinction by intermarrying with the Mongoloids seven to nine thousand years ago and then retreating to Tierra del Fuego where they lived in isolation until the 20th century [Music] but the Aborigines were originally a race adapted to life in the tropics Haggadah it survived in this cold and damp corner of South America [Music] Argentine archaeologists have pitched their tents on the shores of lakes and inlets in search of clues on this beach they found mounds of mussel shells fish every one of us you see that meet us the oldest layer is six to seven thousand years old is this ancient garbage left behind by American Aborigines mounds of shells have been found all over the beach the mounds are overgrown with grass but they have a distinctive shape each one is built up around a hollow according to ernesto Piana the excavation leader there evidence that this sheltered beach was the site of a very ancient settlement this kind of rounded structures you may see many in this archaeological site in Maya are actually the base of the heart this was done because people just put some poles around making a dome or some like a cone and live in throwing the debris refused outside of this brown things [Music] alongside the very same beaches similar huts were being built by the pagans until just 60 years ago these huts sheltered the American Aborigines through thousands of winters of wind rain and snow [Music] some tribes wore hides of guanaco a type of llama to keep the cold out but others wandered around virtually naked how did they cope with the cold [Music] Tierra del Fuego was surrounded by colonies of seals seal oil rubbed on the skin offered protection against the cold and damp he was also especially high in calories a spoonful a day provided extra resistance to the cold given spoonfuls of seal oil that's how I grew up healthy look at him you stole my worth oh and I guess that's why I'm still here today did he gave my word they said it was very good for the kids but only in winter not in summer because in summer your face comes out in a rash of spots the flag ins also kept fires lit indefinitely even when they were on the move they lived there for new how come the boat doesn't burn no no but California anything no but the fires were lit on a layer of danwon for us so long as the fire is small the canoe doesn't catch a fire isolated from the rest of the continent the descendants of the American Aborigines preserve their way of life for thousands of years but there's something else they appear to have also kept alive their rituals the 1930s expeditions recorded secret initiation ceremonies before boys could be led into the secrets of the tribe they had to face up to spooks and spirits [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] according to the ethnographic reports boys and women believe the ghosts will real could such rituals help decipher the enigmatic scenes on the Brazilian rock shelters the dancing spooks with their masks and stripes are strangely familiar [Music] [Music] the tribal wisdom talked to the Fagan initiates was secret it was only revealed to men women were kept in the dark any speculation about it was and still is strictly taboo they said it was a very secret Richard that's why we never talked about it only the men was supposed to know about what was so secret that it had to be kept from the women some of the Chiefs according to ethnographers explained that there was a time in a very distant past when women ruled society so the women must never know lest the men lose their grip on power perhaps the story was brought into the new world by the American Aborigines because similar legends have been recorded amongst Aborigine tribes in Australia [Music] amazingly traditions of the first peoples of Australia appear to have been preserved here at the utmost end of the earth by a small band of their descendants [Music] but after surviving 50,000 years the memory of those traditions is now at risk of being lost forever [Music] [Music] the arrival of white settlers in the late 19th century pushed the native people of Tierra del Fuego to the brink of extinction [Music] the guanaco was one of the main sources of food but when European settlers arrived they saw a land ideally suited for something else [Music] [Applause] gradually the guanaco hunting grounds were transformed into vast sheep stations it seems that the flagons thought they could simply switch to hunting sheep it was a tragic mistake European landlords thought nothing of killing poachers in cold blood [Music] Christian missionaries tried their best to help the natives adapt to the changing circumstances women and children were brought to the missions to be clothed and educated [Music] but this only made matters worse as the Pelagians came into contact with European diseases for the first time we have you know fair weather we went there was a very little disease and many died from that the way you're gonna see a few survived but then came a stomach illness and many more delete a clear little oh he was here buddy many babies and adults he can't eat yet I'm into him I was ill too but I pulled through [Music] the deaths eventually decimated the villages [Music] thirty years ago Christina and Ursula had to abandon the village where they grew up and move into a white settlement they return occasionally to visit the graves of their family [Music] Christina and Ursula are now the last surviving link to the culture of the pioneering Aborigines who first discovered the Americas for they are two of only a few full-blooded wagons left alive their children are the offspring of mixed marriages just as it did 9,000 years ago intermarriage this time with Europeans may save something of the American Aboriginal culture from complete extinction the flagons ancestors had set off from the other side of the world their arrival in Tierra del Fuego was the culmination of an epic journey across ocean and continent they were the first to discover the Americas fifty thousand years later their descendants have dwindled to a handful of survivors but who knows perhaps the plague Inns were not the only average needs to survive the arrival of the mongoloids maybe another tribe of long-lost American Aborigines is awaiting discovery in some remote corner of the Brazilian jungle [Music] [Music]
The first Americans were genetically similar to Siberian people from around the same time, and, even today, Native Americans share many genetic markers with Siberians and other Asian people.