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The Lost Pyramids of Caral

This is a pyramid that ranks as one of the largest in the world, period. It’s one that covers on the surface of the mound it covers like 15 football fields. The volume of it is some, we calculate something like two million cubic meters of material. The magnificent ancient city of pyramids at Caral in Peru hit the headlines in 2001. The site is a thousand years older than the earliest known civilization in the Americas and, at 2,627 BC, is as old as the pyramids of Egypt. Many now believe it is the fabled missing link of archeology – a ‘mother city’. If so, then these extraordinary findings could finally answer one of the great questions of archeology: why did humans become civilized?

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  1. So the big question left unanswered is where did they all go? Why did it end up an abandoned city?

    Of course the BBC pushes the peace love and harmony narrative.

  2. oh its by the BBC – i will give it a miss thanks

  3. So basically this is like Vegas of the ancient world …

  4. Caral a very interesting place. I was there with my girlfriend in January or 2015. Caral and many other places around Peru that we visited really make you go hmmmmm did we as humans really do all of this? Really makes you wonder.

  5. Why do movie makers have to have the back ground music tree times louder than the narrator? This practice may work well in action movies, but documentaries? ….Come on.

  6. Re the oldest signs of civilization. To date this area is located in modern Turkey and is 11000 years old!It is named Gobekli Tepe. Interestingly enough, this is not far from the area that some have said is the location of ‘Noa’s Arc'(mythical or not) notice the animal themes in the carvings.Oh, and try again if you are sure of the underlying theory of this film.Still, very interesting to say the east! Gobekli Tepe-
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oki4MbJr_Ls

  7. “Gee I am so afraid! I have An idea! Let’s build a perfect pyramid so perfect even people 4000 years from now won’t be able to equal!And let us build many amazing structures across the world all globally coordinated towards this structure, and let us show future man that we used 360 degrees in a circle and that we understand pie yet have no need for it in our calculations, all from the experience of hunter gatherers”! NOT! How about “Hey Og what is strange fire in sky”? Amazing find though.Very enjoyable film.

  8. A great documentary. What a shame we now have warfare in the world and not peace.

  9. Um…..this entire show was speculation and fantasy delivered as if it were fact, how they came to the conclusion that the people who built and lived at this site (Caral) were the first to create population centers, use trade routes and have an alphabet and written language. They dated it at about 5000 years old. Now if we pretend that evidence was actually presented to support that conjecture, which there was not, the age of this site (Caral) is well short of other ancient sites, in Peru alone there are two, TioTiwakahn being one and Puma Punku the other.

  10. just words.  No evidence describing its size.  just some rocks, some plants, and a few bones.  It is great they found something, but from the evidence shown, nothing spectacular.

  11. I am not saying it was Aliens…
    But it was Alien.

  12. Yes you do get a thousand years of peace if no one is around to challenge it. No need for defence if no one is threatening you. If you have a trade and properteiry rights, and such,  what need?

  13. No instruments of war or battlements because they were the first and, if anything, the ‘barbarians’ were joining them. They made life easier. All you needed was a patch of ground, to set up a merchant shop for imported goods if that’s what you desired.

  14. No aliens, no divine intervention, simply the same problems confronted by people every time they reach a certain density/mass. Same resolution.

  15. No aliens, no divine intervention, simply the same problems confronted by people every time they reach a certain density/mass. Same resolution.

  16. This has always fascinated me about the status of modern archaeolgy; they always overlook the obvious. Cities and civilization are due to population density. If everyone else is farming, you can make a living producing pottery, jewelry, art, weapons, harnesses, fences,etc. Invent something. Not so different 8k yrs. later. This takes the agreement of the citizens to standardize, so you get a religious/political establishment. With agriculture you get excess population. What to do with the extra manpower? Build something. If all you have is stone or mud-brick and no structural steel what do you do with it? Stack it up! The pyramid is the most enduring.

  17. Oh nooooo! my worldview is shattered!!!