1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:14,739 This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. 2 00:00:14,739 --> 00:00:19,274 The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily 3 00:00:19,274 --> 00:00:27,662 the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. 4 00:00:27,662 --> 00:00:40,185 A long ago on the Midwestern plain, men and women gathered to watch the skies. 5 00:00:40,185 --> 00:00:54,835 In a sacred ritual led by a priest of the sun, these people made the ultimate sacrifice. 6 00:00:54,835 --> 00:01:19,880 All that is left of these earthen mounds, they may conceal the secret of a Mayan legacy. 7 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:28,028 Long before the first explorers came to America, an extraordinary civilization arose in southern Illinois. 8 00:01:28,028 --> 00:01:34,730 The people had no metal tools, no written language, but their lives were ordered by a profound 9 00:01:34,730 --> 00:01:50,825 understanding of nature and the universe. 10 00:01:50,825 --> 00:02:00,337 On these mounds once stood the temples of a great metropolis, home to 40,000 men and women. 11 00:02:00,337 --> 00:02:07,120 The Indians flourished for 500 years, then they disappeared. 12 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:16,954 Beneath the mounds, scientists uncovered a fascinating clue to the origins of a lost city of Cahokia. 13 00:02:16,954 --> 00:02:26,506 In 1961, Dr. Warren Wittry of the University of Illinois began an excavation on the outskirts of the mounds. 14 00:02:26,506 --> 00:02:31,724 In a series of deep pits, he found remnants of wooden posts. 15 00:02:31,724 --> 00:02:38,106 At first he thought they were part of a giant stockade surrounding the city. 16 00:02:38,106 --> 00:02:44,809 As more poles were unearthed, Wittry became convinced that a grand design lay behind their arrangement. 17 00:02:44,809 --> 00:02:53,077 He began to reconstruct the ancient site, sinking new posts in the original holes. 18 00:02:53,077 --> 00:03:01,385 What anthropologists knew about the Indians of Cahokia did not prepare him for what would be revealed. 19 00:03:01,385 --> 00:03:10,135 The posts seemed to form a giant circle, like a circle of stone erected 3,000 years before at Stonehenge. 20 00:03:10,135 --> 00:03:20,811 We believe that the American woodhenge functioned in somewhat the same way as the famous site in England known as Stonehenge. 21 00:03:20,811 --> 00:03:29,561 These sites were used by ancient people to observe sunrise at various times of the year. 22 00:03:29,561 --> 00:03:35,300 And the observation of sunrise served as a kind of calendar. 23 00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:40,678 Woodhenge was built with a precision that is astonishing even today. 24 00:03:40,678 --> 00:03:50,472 It was analyzed on the same computer used for Stonehenge, and the circle at Cahokia proved more accurately aligned to the sun. 25 00:03:50,913 --> 00:04:00,706 From Wittry's discovery, anthropologists were able to reconstruct the pattern of Cahokian life. 26 00:04:00,706 --> 00:04:06,085 They found that here was a culture different from other tribes of North America. 27 00:04:06,085 --> 00:04:16,922 Their society revolved around a calendar that linked men on earth with the gods who ruled the skies. 28 00:04:16,922 --> 00:04:24,467 Before beginning any new enterprise, the people sought the guidance of the sun. 29 00:04:24,467 --> 00:04:29,043 Each morning, a priest of the sun went out to greet the dawn. 30 00:04:29,043 --> 00:04:36,588 Like the chiefs of other tribes, his power was absolute, for only a priest could communicate with the gods. 31 00:04:36,588 --> 00:04:42,488 Inside the mounds was evidence that the sun priest was even more powerful than other chiefs. 32 00:04:42,488 --> 00:04:49,191 His death carried great import for the whole of Cahokian society. 33 00:04:49,191 --> 00:04:55,091 A team of archaeologists made an astonishing discovery that set Cahokia apart. 34 00:04:55,091 --> 00:05:00,791 Fifty-three young women were buried in a mass grave. They had all been strangled. 35 00:05:00,791 --> 00:05:04,323 Nearby were the partial remains of four young men. 36 00:05:04,323 --> 00:05:09,661 It appeared that their heads and hands had been deliberately severed. 37 00:05:09,741 --> 00:05:17,247 The key to these mysterious deaths lay in yet another tomb where a priest had been buried with a horde of possessions. 38 00:05:17,247 --> 00:05:26,438 The lavish burial told of men and women sacrificed to ensure their priest a safe journey to the gods. 39 00:05:26,438 --> 00:05:33,863 Nowhere in the story of the ancient Americas was there ever such a massive ritual sacrifice. 40 00:05:33,903 --> 00:05:39,924 Were the Cahokians inspired by ideas from another place and time? 41 00:05:44,941 --> 00:05:55,376 Deep in the Mexican jungle, La Teotihuacan, a remarkable culture whose religion required such sacrifices was flourishing by 500 AD. 42 00:05:55,376 --> 00:06:01,196 They were the Mayans. Their society was the most advanced on the entire continent. 43 00:06:01,236 --> 00:06:05,852 Their cities reveal a surprising knowledge of architecture and engineering. 44 00:06:05,852 --> 00:06:11,872 Their tower observatories map the skies as accurately as the telescopes of today. 45 00:06:14,682 --> 00:06:21,706 The Mayans developed the earliest written language and a system of mathematics and geometry that had no equal. 46 00:06:22,709 --> 00:06:30,736 While it is difficult to imagine a relationship between their culture and the early Indians of America, thousands of miles to the north, 47 00:06:30,736 --> 00:06:37,760 beneath the mounds there may lie the connection between Cahokia and the ancient cities of Mexico. 48 00:06:39,767 --> 00:06:42,777 Dr. Witri explains, 49 00:06:42,777 --> 00:06:53,815 We have identified a tentative Cahokia yard, a unit of measurement that was used over and over again in even multiples. 50 00:06:55,822 --> 00:07:01,842 The Cahokia yard is nearly identical to the standard measurement used by the Mayans throughout their empire. 51 00:07:02,845 --> 00:07:08,866 An intriguing correspondence in time may connect their societies. 52 00:07:08,866 --> 00:07:21,910 The turning point in Cahokia's development came around the year 900, precisely as the Mayan civilization was drawing to an end in Mexico. 53 00:07:22,914 --> 00:07:31,944 The Mayans have vanished. No one knows where they fled when their cities began to die. 54 00:07:35,958 --> 00:07:40,975 Do the similarities in religion and astronomy tell us the Mayans went far to the north? 55 00:07:42,982 --> 00:07:50,006 Could they have traveled 5,000 miles to the Indians of Cahokia with their ideas and culture intact? 56 00:07:53,016 --> 00:08:01,043 It's incredible to imagine that the ideas of one culture could be transferred across an entire continent in a single century. 57 00:08:01,043 --> 00:08:05,057 How can we account for the mysterious parallels that seem to exist? 58 00:08:05,057 --> 00:08:11,077 Was there a bridge between the jungle strongholds of the Mayans and the mounds in Illinois? 59 00:08:11,077 --> 00:08:16,094 We may find an answer in the southwestern desert that lies between them. 60 00:08:17,098 --> 00:08:27,132 A thousand years ago, a desert tribe called Anasazi erected a city of stone towers unlike anything else seen in this country. 61 00:08:27,132 --> 00:08:34,156 The secret of these strange towers in Utah has eluded scientists for many centuries. 62 00:08:34,156 --> 00:08:38,169 If they were storehouses, why do they have windows? 63 00:08:40,176 --> 00:08:44,190 If they were watchtowers, why are the windows so small? 64 00:08:46,197 --> 00:08:51,214 Recently, an astronomer from the Smithsonian Institution has advanced a new theory. 65 00:08:54,224 --> 00:08:58,238 Dr. Ray Williamson thinks they were built to observe the heavens. 66 00:08:58,238 --> 00:09:04,258 What's particularly exciting about this room is that there are three sun alignments in it. 67 00:09:04,258 --> 00:09:12,285 Now we consider this combination of three alignments to be an excellent calendar room. 68 00:09:12,285 --> 00:09:18,306 It's an excellent place even today where we could, if we stayed here long enough throughout the year, 69 00:09:18,306 --> 00:09:26,333 actually put marks on the walls to tell us what day it is and to be very accurately determined 70 00:09:26,333 --> 00:09:31,350 the summer solstice, the winter solstice and the equinox. 71 00:09:32,353 --> 00:09:37,371 Several of the towers have strategic windows that line up with the rising moon. 72 00:09:38,374 --> 00:09:43,391 It would have taken many generations of careful study to make them so accurate. 73 00:09:45,398 --> 00:09:51,418 Dr. Williamson believes the alignments would provide the basis for predicting eclipses, 74 00:09:51,418 --> 00:09:56,435 a complex procedure understood by only a few cultures. 75 00:09:57,439 --> 00:10:04,463 We have indications here that they were going in the direction of developing a calendar 76 00:10:04,463 --> 00:10:07,473 that was as complicated as a Mayan calendar. 77 00:10:07,473 --> 00:10:12,490 That's a guess, that's a hypothesis. It's one that we're working on right now. 78 00:10:13,493 --> 00:10:16,504 These towers have been mysteries for years. 79 00:10:16,504 --> 00:10:22,524 Some people have suggested that these towers are reminiscent of the Mayan towers. 80 00:10:22,524 --> 00:10:24,531 I'm not sure. 81 00:10:26,538 --> 00:10:33,561 Mayan observatories took a circular form, an expression in stone of the wind and the cosmos. 82 00:10:33,561 --> 00:10:37,575 Did they inspire the tower observatories of the Southwest? 83 00:10:44,599 --> 00:10:50,619 We found recently some small evidence of Mexican influence up in this area. 84 00:10:51,623 --> 00:10:55,637 And perhaps that's associated with the towers that are here, I don't know. 85 00:10:55,637 --> 00:10:57,643 I think there's still mysteries. 86 00:10:58,647 --> 00:11:07,677 300 miles from the Anasazi and other ancient people erected a temple to the skies. 87 00:11:07,677 --> 00:11:12,694 They too have disappeared, but they left behind an important clue. 88 00:11:15,705 --> 00:11:22,729 The observatory at Casa Grande, Arizona remains as evidence that these Indians sought to understand the universe. 89 00:11:23,732 --> 00:11:30,756 Of an entire Pueblo, only a few walls have survived the centuries. 90 00:11:35,773 --> 00:11:41,793 Despite the protection of its sheltering roof, the observatory may not last for another 50 years. 91 00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:49,821 Robert Hicks of the University of Arizona has been investigating Casa Grande. 92 00:11:50,824 --> 00:11:58,851 The alignments are very similar to Mayan astronomical alignments at the Cotacol Observatory in Mexico. 93 00:11:58,851 --> 00:12:05,875 We find the same alignments here as we do in the Cotacol, and we feel that there was an influence from Central America. 94 00:12:05,875 --> 00:12:12,899 We feel that a representative of this Mayan elite, somebody with a specialized knowledge about astronomy and also site planning, 95 00:12:12,899 --> 00:12:15,909 may have come up to direct the construction of this building. 96 00:12:16,913 --> 00:12:19,923 Most anthropologists do not accept this theory. 97 00:12:19,923 --> 00:12:26,947 But recently, scientists have uncovered new evidence that may redefine the extent of the Mayan legacy. 98 00:12:26,947 --> 00:12:33,971 In the deserts of the Southwest, this country's prehistoric astronomy reached its greatest heights. 99 00:12:33,971 --> 00:12:40,995 If there was a link between the ancient Mayans and the Indians of Cahokia, a continent away, perhaps we will find it here. 100 00:12:40,995 --> 00:12:48,018 A Pueblo in New Mexico, the Indian Ocean, is the largest and most important place in the world. 101 00:12:48,018 --> 00:12:55,042 If there was a link between the ancient Mayans and the Indians of Cahokia, a continent away, perhaps we will find it here. 102 00:12:55,042 --> 00:13:01,063 A Pueblo in New Mexico may well be the crossroads in that ancient connection. 103 00:13:01,063 --> 00:13:10,093 It is Chaco Canyon, built out of stone and brick by the Anasazi, architects of the mysterious towers in Utah. 104 00:13:11,097 --> 00:13:20,128 In a massive ceremonial structure called the Great Kiva, astronomers found evidence of a scientific knowledge that rivals anything we know today. 105 00:13:23,138 --> 00:13:28,155 At the summer solstice, Dr. Williamson has come to observe the dawn. 106 00:13:28,155 --> 00:13:34,175 Every year on the 21st of June, the sun repeats a timeless pattern. 107 00:13:34,175 --> 00:13:40,196 Now that will just about get the sun coming over. 108 00:13:40,196 --> 00:13:42,203 There it comes. 109 00:13:44,209 --> 00:13:58,257 We're here in Chaco Canyon in a Great Kiva, Casarine, Canada, to determine the astronomical alignments of this building that we're in. 110 00:13:58,257 --> 00:14:12,305 We're here on the solstice because on the solstice the sun comes through this port that you see and falls on that low niche over there. 111 00:14:14,312 --> 00:14:19,329 The solstice was a special time for the Indians who constructed this building. 112 00:14:19,329 --> 00:14:25,349 They needed to know when the solstice occurred to set their calendar. 113 00:14:29,363 --> 00:14:37,390 At the winter solstice, a ritual of fire ushered in the new year. 114 00:14:40,400 --> 00:14:44,414 In December, the sun seemed to stop in its winter house. 115 00:14:44,414 --> 00:14:52,441 The Indians mounted an elaborate display of fire and light to prompt their god, the sun, and set the year in motion. 116 00:14:53,445 --> 00:14:57,458 The ceremony of fire can be traced to the ancient cities of Mexico. 117 00:14:57,458 --> 00:15:00,469 How did it come to the Anasazi? 118 00:15:03,479 --> 00:15:07,492 A thousand years ago, the dwellings at Chaco were dug into the ground. 119 00:15:07,492 --> 00:15:13,513 Then, quite suddenly, an extraordinary chain swept the canyon. 120 00:15:16,523 --> 00:15:20,537 The Anasazi began to build a city of towering pueblos. 121 00:15:21,540 --> 00:15:27,561 Almost overnight, Chaco became an active center of agriculture and trade. 122 00:15:27,561 --> 00:15:32,578 Its wealth based on the rich deposits of turquoise that lay nearby. 123 00:15:32,578 --> 00:15:39,601 The population grew to 25,000 men and women as the Indians learned to mine the stone. 124 00:15:40,605 --> 00:15:45,622 The turquoise attracted merchants from far away. 125 00:15:45,622 --> 00:15:52,646 Some believe that Mexican traders came north seeking the sacred stone for the worship of their god, Quetzalcoatl. 126 00:15:54,653 --> 00:15:59,670 Turquoise is the godstone for Quetzalcoatl. It was also important to some of the other Mexican... 127 00:15:59,670 --> 00:16:02,680 Dr. Jonathan Raymond of Illinois State University. 128 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:06,694 Quetzalcoatl is going to be the first to be built in the world. 129 00:16:06,694 --> 00:16:10,707 He's got to have the turquoise that he demands. 130 00:16:10,707 --> 00:16:13,717 Mexico had turquoise, but not enough. 131 00:16:13,717 --> 00:16:18,734 The southwest had abundant turquoise, and so the merchants of Quetzalcoatl and the other deity cults... 132 00:16:18,734 --> 00:16:23,752 came out of north Mexico into the southwest looking for turquoise. 133 00:16:23,752 --> 00:16:27,765 The merchants were men of high status called Pochteca, 134 00:16:27,765 --> 00:16:32,782 employed by the courts of Mexico to supply their temples with turquoise. 135 00:16:33,786 --> 00:16:38,803 To Chaco they brought new crops, more productive corn. 136 00:16:38,803 --> 00:16:41,813 Was it simple trade or something more? 137 00:16:41,813 --> 00:16:46,830 For here were the peoples of two distant cultures speaking different languages. 138 00:16:46,830 --> 00:16:51,847 Did they achieve a deeper communication that reached beyond trade? 139 00:16:51,847 --> 00:16:54,857 Was information part of the exchange? 140 00:16:54,857 --> 00:16:59,874 At the head of the canyon, the Indians came to the port of Chaco. 141 00:16:59,874 --> 00:17:06,898 At the head of the canyon, the Indians constructed an elaborate road system stretching for 300 miles. 142 00:17:06,898 --> 00:17:11,915 Was it built to welcome travelers from the south? 143 00:17:11,915 --> 00:17:16,932 Did the merchants also receive more than the sacred stone itself? 144 00:17:16,932 --> 00:17:21,949 Raymond believes the Anasazi not only supplied the raw turquoise, 145 00:17:21,949 --> 00:17:25,963 but actually worked it into finished products. 146 00:17:25,963 --> 00:17:31,983 The beads and ritual mosaics used by the Mexican culture thousands of miles away. 147 00:17:31,983 --> 00:17:39,007 And in time Chaco and the other areas around it came under the heavy influence of Mexican exploitation, 148 00:17:39,007 --> 00:17:47,035 economic exploitation for the betterment of these religious cults of north Mexico. 149 00:17:47,035 --> 00:17:51,048 In an excavation for the National Science Foundation, 150 00:17:51,048 --> 00:17:56,065 Raymond unearthed dramatic evidence to support his claim. 151 00:17:56,065 --> 00:18:03,089 He discovered two tombs that were like no others seen in this country. 152 00:18:03,089 --> 00:18:13,123 Two skeletons were found, laid out on thousands of turquoise beads. 153 00:18:13,123 --> 00:18:20,147 Twelve men had been beheaded to accompany them in death. 154 00:18:20,147 --> 00:18:24,161 To Raymond, the implications were clear. 155 00:18:24,161 --> 00:18:28,174 These were the graves of important visitors from another land. 156 00:18:28,174 --> 00:18:35,198 They're not your ordinary Pueblo people. These are someone special. I think Pocheteca. 157 00:18:35,198 --> 00:18:42,222 If the Pocheteca did bring new crops to the north, they undoubtedly would have taught the Indians how to grow them. 158 00:18:42,222 --> 00:18:47,239 Passing along the astronomical knowledge necessary for a seasonal calendar. 159 00:18:47,239 --> 00:18:51,253 Knowledge not only of the sun and the moon, but of the stars as well. 160 00:18:51,253 --> 00:18:57,273 Using the computer, Dr. Raymond has found evidence to substantiate his theory. 161 00:18:57,273 --> 00:19:04,297 What we think the Anasazi watched is based on what we know the historic Pueblos, 162 00:19:04,297 --> 00:19:08,311 like the Zuni and the Hopi watch. We have good historic records for this. 163 00:19:08,311 --> 00:19:14,331 We know that they watched Orion. We know they watched the Pleiades. We know that they watched Gemini twins. 164 00:19:14,331 --> 00:19:20,352 If you take the stars that are used in the southwest and the stars that are used in Mexico, 165 00:19:20,352 --> 00:19:23,362 we find that they are using many...