All language subtitles for Ice Age America (2023).ro

[narrator] It's one
of the greatest mysteries

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

of the human journey.

When did our ancient
ancestors first arrive

in the Americas?

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

There should not be people
on the continent

before 15,000 years ago.

[narrator] But what if
the history books are wrong

by thousands of years

and early humans crossed
a forbidding ice sheet

to get here?

Renegade archeologists
across the Americas

are making shocking
discoveries.

In a cave in Mexico,

evidence of humans living
here deep in the Ice Age.

Bone, that changes history.

[narrator]
In the Canadian Yukon,

evidence suggests that
humans survived the Ice Age

alongside now extinct beasts.

That's something. Everybody.

[narrator] And in the deserts
of New Mexico,

ancient footprints
baffle experts.

[Kim] Look at what
Bonnie found.

Speechless.

[narrator] History will have
to be rewritten.

It's just gonna change
everything we think

about the people
in the Americas.

It's mind blowing.

I am walking
where they were walking.

[dramatic music playing]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] On the plains
of Central Mexico,

in mid-February,

the dust-filled air
is scorching.

On the parched Earth

beneath
the Zuloaga Mountains,

there's nothing but cactus
as far as the eye can see.

Ciprian Ardelean,

a Romanian-Mexican
archeologist

has been scouring
this harsh landscape

for over a decade.

He's on a controversial quest

that could change history.

[Ciprian] I'm in search
for the earliest humans

on the American continent.

When I say early,

I am talking
about the Ice Age.

That's what I'm searching for.

[narrator] The mystery
of when ancient humans

first reached the Americas

has gripped archeologists
for centuries.

[Ciprian]
When did they get here?

That's the biggest question
you can have on a continent.

This is the last holy grail
of prehistoric archeology.

People in the Americas
truly matters

if we want
to understand human origins,

how we emerged,
how we evolved,

and how we got everywhere.

From the Arctic
to the tropics to Antarctica.

The peopling of the world
during the Ice Age,

that was the beginning
of this trajectory

that so much defines
who we are as a species today.

[narrator] The Ice Age began
2.6 million years ago

and lasted
until 12,000 years ago.

But the temperature
wasn't constant.

Ice levels rose and fell

across Earth's landscape
numerous times.

We are searching
for the humans of the LGM,

of the Last Glacial Maximum.

That's when the Ice Age
was at its highest.

[narrator]
The Last Glacial Maximum

was 20,000 years ago,

an age so inhospitable

that it stopped
both humans and beasts

in their tracks.

It's a mysterious era
that takes us deep

into pre-history,

tens of thousands of years

before the fall of Rome,

the first Chinese dynasty

and before the pyramids
of Egypt.

It is a time
of relentless ice and snow

ruled by monstrous beasts.

Ardelean's quest
to find people

who survived
this frozen world

goes against everything
we've been taught.

Most textbooks
say humans left Africa

at least 60,000 years ago,

some traveling northeast,

eventually reaching
the Bering Land Bridge

that connected
what is now Asia

with the Americas.

Here, they hit a roadblock,

an impenetrable wall of ice.

Any ability for animals,
even humans,

to migrate through Canada
would've slammed shut.

Humans would not
have been able

to, um, make that journey.

[narrator] The ice sheet
was massive,

stretching
from what is now the Yukon

all the way to New York.

It was nearly
10,000 feet high

and would've towered
many times

over our tallest skyscrapers,

a six million square mile
desert of ice.

No plants, no animals.

Attempting to cross it, the
thinking goes,

meant certain death.

[Ciprian]
But there were corridors

that were potentially
becoming ice free

as early as 15,000 years ago

after the Last
Glacial Maximum

that humans could
have migrated through.

[narrator]
Ardelean doesn't buy it.

He says early humans crossed

over many thousands
of years earlier

and traveled all the way
to Mexico,

putting them
in North America

long before
the end of the Ice Age.

How is it possible
for them to be here?

[narrator] Ardelean's theory
was developed by accident.

He didn't come here looking
for traces of early people.

He started out searching
for something

far less controversial,

Ice Age plants and animals.

[Ciprian] I thought this
would be a good site

to obtain paleo-environmental
information,

like, how the climate was,
to extract pollen

and other sort of evidence,

try to reconstruct
the Ice Age environment.

[narrator]
Ardelean asks villagers

if there are any caves
in the area.

They point him
in the direction

of one of the highest
mountains

in Central Mexico.

Locals called it
Chiquihuite Cave.

It was at almost 3,000 meters
of altitude.

One has to walk,
like, nine hours up the hill.

[man] Oh!

Oh, my God.

Very difficult logistics.

I started excavations.

[narrator] He takes samples
of the sediments in the cave

and sends them away
for radiocarbon dating.

[Ciprian] The most
recent layers at the top,

basically under your feet
as you walk

were 12,000 years old.

Everything we excavated
was Ice Age.

[narrator] A rare sight,
ideal for learning

about the Ice Age
environment.

As he digs, he makes
a surprising discovery.

[Ciprian] Suddenly, started
to note small pieces of stone

with modified edges.

So when ancient people
make tools out of stone,

they hit the stone

and they obtain these pieces
of stone that they can use

as cutting tools
or scraping tools.

[narrator]
But how is that possible?

No humans are supposed
to have arrived

in the Americas yet,

let alone so far south.

I really didn't
expect humans there.

You realize
that indeed the cave

is actually full of tools.

[narrator]
But you can't have tools

without humans to make them.

I still had no idea how old.

[narrator]
Stone can't be dated.

So he collects sediment
around the tools

and sends it
for radiocarbon testing.

He dates each layer
from the surface of the cave

to the very bottom
of his excavation.

The results are startling.

When I started to receive
the first, uh, results,

and it was...

The dates suggest 27,000

plus minus 2,500 years.

So that layer
could be as old

as 30,000 years old.

That goes pretty much

against everything
that's accepted.

We are in Central Mexico,

not on the coast,

not right next
to the Bering Strait.

We are many thousands
of kilometers

from any possible entry point
to the continent,

whether by land or sea.

And yet for thousands
and thousands of years,

you have humans living there.

[narrator] In 2020,
he publishes his findings,

making headlines
around the world.

[reporter] Ciprian Ardelean

is here on the show with us.

[Ciprian]
Good morning, everybody.

[man 1 in French]

[man 2 in English] This is
a, uh, a major find

of human prehistory.

[in other language]

[in English]
What blew everybody's mind,

if the evidence is,
uh, accurate,

it's gonna change everything
we think

about the people
in the Americas.

[narrator] The discovery
is published

in the journal Nature.

Chiquihuite did make
a big impact

when it was published
in Nature in 2020.

It was huge.

Ciprian Ardelean
has been working there

with a multidisciplinary team

using all of the barrage
of techniques

that archaeologists have
at their disposal these days,

which is really exciting.

[narrator] But the excitement
is tinged with skepticism.

The evidence from
Chiquihuite gets scrutinized

by the best in the field

and questions are raised.

They called this discovery
a misjudgment of data.

[Ted] The problem is
whether or not

the artifacts
are truly artifacts,

whether or not those
are naturally produced

from rocks falling

and crashing
into one another,

or could these
truly be things

that were the products
of humans.

For somebody looking
at all this evidence

from far away

and not necessarily
being on the site

and working directly
with the artifacts,

it's understandable.

But the tools,

they were not accidents.

Ardelean's discovery fails
to shift the official date

of human arrival
to the Americas.

It remains
at 15,000 years ago.

But convinced he's on
to something

that could rewrite history,

Ardelean doubles
his efforts.

I said, there must be
some other cave,

so let's expand the search.

[narrator]
To convince the skeptics,

Ardelean needs more proof

like a fire pit or bones.

[Ciprian] As soon as
I stood on the edge

of the entrance here,

I said, "This is it."

[narrator] Sixty miles
from Chiquihuite Cave

is what locals call
Sima de las Golondrinas,

the Chasm of Swallows.

It's a huge hole
with a 40-foot vertical drop

into a large cavern.

For Ardelean,
it's the perfect way

to travel back in time.

[Ciprian] Every grain of dirt
that goes in,

as well as animals,
humans, whatever,

never comes out, right?

So it's like a time capsule.

[narrator] The team builds
a scaffold into the dark hole

that will be their dig site
for the next three months.

And they set up camp
on the slopes

of a cactus-lined valley.

[Ciprian] We are far away
from civilization here.

There is no phone signal,

strong winds, heavy rains.

It's very difficult
to build a camp here.

[narrator] But the terrain
isn't their only challenge.

Sitting at the intersection

of major drug trafficking
routes,

this region has become
a violent battleground

between Mexico's
most dangerous cartels.

It has one of the highest
murder rates in the world.

So every time Ardelean goes
on a supply run,

he's risking his life.

[dogs barking]

[Ciprian] Don't film
on the street.

-[producer] No?
-[Ciprian] No,
on the street, no.

[producer] From inside
the truck we can do?

No, no. I mean, don't film
the street.

Because there are people there

and who knows
what they're doing right now.

[narrator] Archeologist
Ciprian Ardelean

is risking everything
to find evidence

of the earliest people
on the American continent.

Don't film the street.

There are people there

and, uh, who knows
what they are doing right now.

[narrator] He's even risking
his life.

[Ciprian] You will see a lot
of destruction here,

the houses there

and, uh, that's where
we stop talking English

in loud voice.

The drug cartels,
they are all around us,

and that's why you need
a hardcore crew.

So it's better to be hidden
in the mountains

than visible
near the villages.

It's better
to have an isolated camp.

We are about 60 kilometers
away from the town.

And, uh, there is no road
to get here.

It's just like a path.

[narrator]
Once safely out of town,

he returns his focus
to the ancient past.

[Ciprian] We are driving
right around the edges

of an ancient lake
that was active

during the Ice Age.

This region
was very different

from what you
see behind me.

[narrator] During
the Last Glacial Maximum

20,000 years ago,

Central Mexico was lush
and green.

Where there is now cactus,

towered majestic pine trees,

the cracked earth
was once soaked with water,

forming lakes and marshes

that fed Ice Age plants
and animals.

But did humans
live among them?

[Ciprian] Only one person
at the same time

on the flight of stairs.

Twelve meters of free fall.

[narrator] To change
the history books,

Ardelean needs more
than bits of stone.

He's looking
for butchered animal bones.

[Ciprian] Cut bone
beats stone tools

because there
is, uh, a stronger argument

towards human presence

when you have
a human intervention

on an animal part.

[narrator]
When hunters de-flesh

and butcher an animal,

they leave telltale
cut marks on bones.

A bone dates itself

because you can take
tiny samples of it

and do radiocarbon.

[narrator] Ardelean's team
meticulously excavates

each layer of sediment
in the cave

and records every bone
and stone they find.

[Ciprian]
This is a quiet place.

This is a place
where you have time

to dream with the world

that you are uncovering.

When you expose
a buried walking surface

in a cave,

a surface
that you can actually see

the ancient topography

and you can imagine
human feet on it,

that's time travel.

You are sitting
on the same surface

as the ancient ones.

[narrator] After five weeks
of digging,

he hits Ice Age sediment

in a lower cavern
of the cave.

A thin layer of charcoal

that he's dated
to 16,000 years ago.

It's here, at least three

major extremely thin lenses
of charcoal.

It is the very end

of the Last Glacial Maximum.

So the whole story,
we are... We are telling here

has to do with this layer.

[narrator] If the history
books are right,

there should be no evidence
of humans below the charcoal.

But if Ardelean is right,

the cave would've been
an ideal place

for people to find shelter
from the elements

and clean water to drink,

if they were really here.

Oh, damn. Holy [bleep].

A bone sitting
on the next layer.

A big rib.

It's maybe the rib

of a small herbivore.

There's new bone coming out.

Didn't expect this
to show up here.

It looks like a leg...
A leg bone.

There it goes.

-It's cut.
-[woman gasps]

[Ciprian] Cut.

And is V-shaped.

There was a cutting edge
that went through.

-Man, it's cut.
-[woman chuckles]

[Ciprian] This is an old cut.

[narrator] Ardelean thinks
it's the ankle bone

of a big horn sheep.

The faint etchings appear
to have been made

by a stone blade.

[Ciprian] Maybe of two blows,

could be a first clue,

the presence of humans

at the very end
of the Glacial Maximum

in this cave.

And if they were here
in the middle of Mexico,

they were probably roaming
around the continent

throughout the entire
Glacial Maximum.

That one millimeter cut
changes history.

[narrator] If the cut
was made by a human,

it means people
were here in Mexico

at least 16,000 years ago.

If so, how did they make it

across the vast ice sheets
in the north?

We can't know the how
until we know the when.

So the when's gotta be
known first.

[narrator]
Figuring out exactly

when people arrived
in the north

across the Bering Land Bridge

might explain
how they could have made it

all the way to Mexico.

French archaeologist
Lauriane Bourgeon

is also searching
for the answer.

She's sifting
through tantalizing clues

from the Yukon Territory
in Canada

from a decades old
excavation site

called Bluefish Caves.

When I started learning

about, uh, the prehistory
of the Americas,

I was told
that people arrived

to the Yukon
15,000 years ago.

I heard about Bluefish Caves

when I was doing my master
in France,

and I was told that
there were some stone tools

and some possibly
modified bones,

possibly 25,000 years old.

But it was contested.

[narrator] The evidence sat
in boxes, ignored,

until Bourgeon decided
to take a fresh look.

The archaeologist
who unearthed it

in the 1970s

was, like Ardelean,
a renegade.

Jacques Cinq-Mars
disputed common wisdom,

arguing the stone and bones
he found

at Bluefish Caves

had been used by humans
deep into the Ice Age.

This is a mammoth, uh,
leg bone, a long bone,

which shows as elements

of, uh, reduction
by human beings.

And the age
is about 23,500 years ago.

[narrator] His 30 years
of research

were mired in controversy.

Critics questioned
his dating techniques.

Funding eventually dried up
and he died in 2021

before completing his work.

But his story
intrigued Bourgeon.

I decided to test
his entire bone collection.

I thought that
Jacques Cinq-Mars

might have been wrong.

Were people there
at Bluefish Caves

20,000 or 30,000 years ago,

or is it all incorrect?

[narrator] Bourgeon searches

through 40,000 ancient
animal bones,

caribou, woolly mammoths,

and extinct species
of bison and horse.

And then,
I found cut marks on bones.

One bone in particular,

a horse mandible
with cut marks.

There's a series of cuts,

very thin, very deep.

A carnivore wouldn't leave
such marks.

[narrator] Archeologist
Lauriane Bourgeon

discovers a horse jaw
in the archives

with mysterious cuts on it.

[Lauriane]
There's a series of cuts,

very thin, very deep.

[narrator] Could they have
been made by humans?

[Lauriane] A carnivore
wouldn't leave such marks.

Very clear human intervention
on this horse mandible.

[narrator]
To determine its age,

Bourgeon sends the bone

to one of the world's
best radiocarbon labs

at Oxford University
in England.

[Lauriane] And that's when I
got the date of 24,000 years.

So that's when I completely
changed my mind.

I was like, "Okay.

I have cut marks on this bone

and I have clear date
for that bone."

So it means that people
were there 24,000 years ago

and it means
that Jacques was right.

[narrator]
Now she is following

in Cinq-Mars' footsteps,

launching a new excavation
at Bluefish Caves

to find out when early people
were really here.

This is Lauriane
at Bluefish Camp.

We copy.

[man] Uh, one minute out.

[narrator]
Bourgeon comes armed

with cutting edge technology

that her predecessor
didn't have in the 1970s.

She's also brought an elder,

a former chief of the local
Vuntut Gwitchin community.

Bruce Charlie worked
with Cinq-Mars as a teenager

during the original
excavation 40 years ago.

[Lauriane]
So we came here,

uh, in the hope to vindicate
Jacques Cinq-Mars

and find more evidence.

We are hoping to find bones,

uh, artifact, stone tools,

uh, evidence
of a human presence.

-Hello.
-Oh, we made it.

[Lauriane] You made it today.

[narrator]
Rolfe Mandel is director

of the Odyssey Research
Program that funded the dig.

[Rolfe] This site

represents a potential
paradigm buster

and could change,
uh, our thinking

about when people
were in the Americas.

So, Bruce, this is K4

and, uh...

[Bruce] I'm very happy
to be here today.

And, uh, I want to go
do some digging

and, uh, and, uh, try to, uh,

think about the past
when it began.

[narrator] The area
around Bluefish Caves

was an Ice Age anomaly.

Most of what is now
Canada was under ice,

but the Northern Yukon
was an ice-free plane,

thick with shrubs
and grasses.

[thunder rumbling]

[narrator] A huge lake
filled the valley.

And large mammals
came here to drink and feed.

The caves above it
would've been an ideal perch

for hunters
to spot the game below.

-Number?
-Elevation [indistinct]

-Okay, and that was east?
-[woman] Yup.

[Lauriane] Perfect.

[narrator]
Despite the mosquitoes

and the constant threat
of bears,

the team excavates
a rock shelter known as K4.

Cinq-Mars described it
in his field notebook,

but never had the chance
to excavate.

Oh, hopefully
from all of... You know,

from all the deposits here,
we find something.

[Rolfe] Mmm-hmm.

Yup. So, did it look sort
of like this when you were...

-[Bruce] Yes.
-...here?

[Bruce] Exactly the same.

-[Rolfe] Mmm-hmm.
-[Bruce] Yeah.

The, uh, Vuntut Gwitchin word
for Bluefish Caves

is... [speaks in
native language]

[in English] Um, our people
called it in that sense,

they called it
as to what they saw.

The rock, the water coming in

and swirling around
and creating that...

The caves or the dens.

The argument of how long
we were here. It's...

Is we never had that argument

because we just felt
and know that we've been here

for, again, forever.

[Paulette Steeves]
Our people say
we have been here forever.

They have every right

to tell their story
in their way,

whether it's literal
or whether it's metaphorical.

I weave together
archeological knowledge,

indigenous knowledge,

environmental knowledge
to create...

[narrator] And indigenous
archeologist and professor,

Paulette Steeves,
believes the story

of when and how humans
arrived in the Americas

is tainted
by a colonial worldview.

[Paulette] What you
learn in this class,

um, that people have been
in the Western Hemisphere

for much longer
than Western archeologists

say, um, you're not going
to hear that in many classes.

I'm Cree Metis,

I was born
in Whitehorse Yukon.

When I was
in elementary school,

I wasn't taught anything.

It was if, you know,
indigenous people
didn't exist.

When I was in university,
I was taught

that we'd maybe been here
12,000 years

and we were
Asians from Asia.

Racism is embedded
in American archeology.

It has been since day one.

[narrator] Theories about how
and when indigenous peoples

got to the Americas have gone
through four phases.

When European explorers
landed in the New World

and found marvels like
the Mayan pyramids

and Incan stone walls,

they immediately came up
with origin stories for them.

Early European settlers
just assumed

they couldn't have been made
by the indigenous inhabitants

of the... of the continent.

That it was something like
the lost tribes of Israel

who got really lost
and found theirselves

in, um, the Americas

and developed some miraculous
pyramids or it was aliens,

but it couldn't possibly have
been indigenous inhabitants.

[narrator] Two hundred
and fifty years later,

archeologists concede
that indigenous peoples

must have built
these wonders.

But the timeline
was dictated by the Bible.

[Luiseach] There are ideas
from the Bible

that the world
has created in 4004 BC.

This held something
of a stranglehold on the idea

that there is deep time,

that things
are much older than that.

[narrator]
By the early 20th century,

Darwin's theory of evolution

popularized the idea
of prehistory

and enormous ice age mammals
called megafauna.

Then at Blackwater Draw,
near Clovis, New Mexico,

a spearpoint
is found embedded
in a mammoth skeleton,

a species that died out
at least 10,000 years ago.

These ancient hunters
are named the Clovis people,

and they're thought
to have migrated

from Asia into
the heart of North America

around 13,000 years ago.

Clovis is really nicely
packaged, I would say,

to appeal
to your European scientists,

because you have this
lovely combination

of beautiful stone tools.

These fluted points

combined with evidence
for big game hunting.

[narrator]
The archeology establishment

declares the Clovis people
are the first and only

ancient peoples
in the Americas.

What archeologists did when
they created the Clovis people

was they created a group
as big as a hemisphere.

That doesn't exist
anywhere in the world.

[narrator] History books
rarely acknowledge

the prehistoric diversity
of indigenous peoples.

There are now thousands
of different cultural groups

in the Americas,

and there were likely many
more before European contact

decimated those populations.

[Paulette]
Calling it the Clovis people
is really dehumanizing

and it's a way of erasing
indigenous cultural diversity,

even in prehistoric times.

[narrator] But the idea took
hold that the Clovis people

were here 13,000 years ago

and were the sole inhabitants
of the entire hemisphere.

The establishment
dismissed growing evidence

of much older sites
from the Yukon

through America
and into Brazil.

And then,
a history-making discovery

is made on a farm
in southern Chile in 1977.

[insects chirping]

I did not set out
to disprove or prove Clovis.

I was working
on my dissertation work

in the mid-'70s in Chile.

During that time,
a student told me that a large

cow's tooth had been found
on the property of his uncle.

And I said,
this is not a cow's tooth,

it's a mastodon tooth.

And I, um, said,
"Where is this place?"

[narrator] Archeologist
Tom Dillehay is working

during the same period
as Jacques Cinq-Mars,

but unlike Bluefish Caves,

Monte Verde is poised
to change everything.

He finds a wooden hut,
clothing and food

perfectly preserved
in a peat bog.

He assumes they're a couple
of thousand years old.

[Tom] Geologists came
to the site and said,

"You're gonna have a problem
with this site."

And I said, "Why?"

He says, "That overlying
peat area,

we have radiocarbon dated

in about 40 other sites
in south Chile,

and it's dating
about 14,000 years ago,

14,500 years ago."

I said, "It can't be.

You can't have human
artifacts that old."

[narrator] Convinced
geologists are wrong,

Dillehay sends
the human artifacts

for radiocarbon dating.

And they came back
14,500 years old.

And I thought, "Oh, no.

Oh, hell.

I don't wanna
deal with this."

Because I had seen what other
people had gone through.

[narrator] But at the time,
Clovis is gospel.

No one has been able to
convince the scientific world

that anyone arrived earlier
than 13,000 years ago.

Knowing the scholarly world
will try to tear him down,

Dillehay fiercely defends
his evidence.

We excavated it
very cautiously,

and we're going to stick
with our data

and stick with our word.

[narrator]
But the cost is high.

[Tom] Twenty colleagues
signed a letter

and sent it to the president
of the university

saying I should be dismissed

for bringing up
an archeological site

like Monte Verde

and stating
in that letter too,

that I never got a PhD,
which is an outright lie.

And I just kept thinking,

"To the hell
with these people,

they don't know
what they're talking about.

They're just defending
their paradigm."

I learned, you attack me

and I'm going to
attack you too.

[narrator]
Dillehay collects hundreds
of radiocarbon dates,

backs up everything
with supporting evidence,

and invites his critics
to come see for themselves.

It takes 30 years
to shift the tide.

Monte Verde
broke the paradigm,

broke the barrier,
so to speak.

[narrator] Monte Verde
is a turning point.

The date of human arrival
gets shifted

from 13,000
to 15,000 years ago.

But Ardelean's discoveries
in Mexico are double that,

30,000 years ago.

Now, his evidence
is under threat.

This time,
it's not the cartel,

-but the weather.
-[thunder rumbling]

A wind storm is moving in

and it threatens
to tear the camp apart.

A story 30,000 years
in the making

could be blown away
in a single day.

[tense music playing]

[narrator]
Prehistoric archeologist,
Ciprian Ardelean

is on a quest
to rewrite history

to prove humans
were in North America

thousands of years
before previously thought,

but the evidence he needs
is under threat.

[Ciprian] You need to be
obsessed to do this.

I mean, how can you do this
year after year,

decade after decade,

storm after storm
without being obsessed?

[narrator]
The sunset brings good news.

The storm passes.

I think we are safe
to go back to work.

Let's go.

[narrator]
Deep in the ice age layers,

Ardelean finds two more bones

with potential
human-made cuts.

And the damage
on these borders
is not anatomical.

Something damaged this bone.

[narrator]
The cut marks could be 17,000

to 20,000 years old,

but did a human make them?

He can't say for sure.

[Ciprian] Need a more
detailed microscopy

on a cleaned specimen.

This is not treasure hunting.

This is rewriting
the history of human species.

If you rush conclusions
and if you celebrate

before all the possible
alternatives are consulted,

uh, you are doing
a serious harm to science.

[narrator]
Looking for answers,

he flies the bones

to an electron microscopy
lab in Mexico City.

This microscope
can magnify a bone

down to the atomic level.

It should tell them

if the cut marks were made
by ancient humans

or the teeth and claws
of another predator.

[Ciprian] So if
this is really, uh,
a human-made cut,

this is a threshold.
This is a real threshold.

It would be a really, really
big, big thing.

[narrator] They're hoping
to see this signature mark

of a spearhead or blade cut,

a crisp straight line

that proves
it was human made.

We're starting
to see something.

-[woman] Yup.
-[Ciprian] Here it comes.

[laughs]

-That's where it entries.
-[woman] Yeah.

[Ciprian] I'm almost certain
this is the cut.

[man] Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.

Yeah.

This is all we need.

This is the evidence we need.

-[woman laughs]
-Okay, so.

[man laughs] Right.

[woman] Congrats.

[Ciprian] Congrats to you.

It's ten years since
the discovery of Chiquihuite.

-[woman] Wow.
-[man] Is that right?

That opened it all.
It's a crucial moment.

It's, um, an emotional moment

that my voice is breaking

because I'm gonna cry.

[woman laughs]

No, I'm seriously
gonna cry.

[narrator]
But his work is not done yet.

Now we have to date
that layer.

So we still don't know
at this moment

how old the bones are.

[narrator] If he can
radiocarbon date the bones

to 20,000 years or more,

he'll have sealed the deal.

A human was hunting
on the plains of Mexico

deep into the Ice Age.

The implications
are profound.

If humans inhabited
Mexico this early,

they may well have been in
the far north even earlier.

[Lauriane] Got something.

Everybody.

What do you think?

Exciting. It's a horse tooth.

-[woman] You got a horse?
-Yeah.

[woman] You got a horse?

[laughs]

[Lauriane]
Horse tooth is exciting

because it tells us
that we are definitely

in a place that's in
a deposit,

uh, possibly older
than 14,000 years.

[narrator]
The tooth could belong

to an extinct species
of horse from the Ice Age.

I just want keep, uh...

I don't even want to talk.
I want to keep digging.

-[laughs]
-[woman] Okay.

What about
the, um, piece of bone

sticking out of the wall here?

Very good. That's encouraging.

So hopefully
the frequency of those

will start to increase
as you go deeper.

[narrator] Soon they find
other Ice Age animals.

Finding some bone fragments
here and there.

This complete bone here.

[narrator] Like extinct
species of caribou.

It's a food bone.

That's a good thing for us,

and we are hoping
to find more.

Another one.

[narrator] Could this pile of
bones have been left behind

by humans after a hunt?

[woman]
Lauriane, do you wanna see it?

[Rolfe] We're encountering,
uh, bones of animals

that are no longer,
uh, occurring today.

They're extinct,

including, um, uh, extinct
forms of caribou.

Uh, there's extinct
American horse,

uh, and other animals
that would've thrived in a...

In a Ice Age environment.

And so, uh, I think
we're probably down

to about close
to 20,000 years ago.

So that's caribou size.

Yeah, I could see
the, uh, the marrow.

[Rolfe] Mmm-hmm.

[narrator] Moving with animals
is a key part

of Vuntut Gwitchin history.

Every year
for thousands of years,

they followed the porcupine
caribou herd,

famous for migrating farther

than any other land animal
on the planet,

traveling over 1500 miles
in a season.

They use the caves here.

They use the hills
and the mountains behind me.

They use the river
and the creek,

and that brought them
to navigate

all from the west,
following the animals.

[narrator]
Vuntut Gwitchin oral history

is rich with stories
of tool making,

hunting,
walking great distances,

and hunting mammoths.

So there's a lot of reasons

why I know that people
have been here a long time.

We know that, um, mammals
have been using land areas

to cross
between the continents

for millions of years.

They had to have land
that was dry, that had food,

and they wandered across it.

[narrator] Before and even
during the Ice Age,

animals migrated
across continents

as the climate fluctuated.

The ice that covered
Canada reached its peak

about 20,000 years ago,

but go farther back in time,

30,000, 40,000,
50,000 years ago.

And it gets warmer
and warmer.

So we're told that
even though early humans

were very capable

and they walked from Africa
to northern Asia,

they just stopped
when they got there.

And they never crossed,
like, the mammals were coming

and going all this time,

and humans
never came over here?

That doesn't
make any sense.

[narrator] If herds
of animals crossed

into North America
before the ice wall formed,

maybe humans did too.

Maybe they followed the food.

The final proof could
be here in New Mexico...

in a restricted area
of White Sands National Park,

park ranger David Bustos
surveys an area

that's been freshly exposed

by high winds
and heavy rains.

He notices
something unusual,

huge imprints in the sand.

[David] First prints
we seen in the park

was after a large,
uh, flood of it.

I was walking around and,
uh, started looking

and seeing these enormous,
uh, mammoth prints.

I was, "Holy cow, it's huge."

About 13 foot strides.

Just, um, really,
really large stride.

And there's no other animal
anywhere,

no other tracks
that are that large,

just an enormous animal.

[narrator] The storm
had ripped off surface layers

of sand, uncovering
ancient gypsum soil,

densely packed and covered
in fossilized footprints.

[David] And then,
you know, started seeing,

um, what looked
like elongated prints.

Am I crazy?

Is this... Is this real?

It would be really
amazing if it was a human,

but, what are the odds?

[narrator] At White Sands
National Park,

something extraordinary
is showing up in the sand.

Really incredible footprint.

It just doesn't seem possible
to have human prints

alongside with the...

with the mammoth prints.

[narrator] Mammoths were one
of many giant animals

known as megafauna
that all went extinct here

10,000 years ago.

We know humans
used to hunt them,

but how far back
does their interaction go?

I didn't know
anything about it.

I wondered how common
is that to see that,

or is that even...

Should we be
seeing that here?

[narrator] Uncertain
of what he's discovered,

Bustos reaches out
to one of the world's

leading experts
in footprints.

I'm ready.

Off we go then.

Yeah.

[narrator] Matthew Bennett
has studied

fossilized footprints
all over the world.

The images he sent me
at that time

were quite intriguing.

I wasn't convinced,

but I was certainly
very interested.

[narrator] Bustos found
the footprints in an area

where the general public
is not allowed.

The only way to access
the site is by ATV.

White Sands was once
the bottom

of an ice age lake.

Thousands of years
after it disappeared,

wind formed the dunes.

[birds chirping]

[narrator] The clay-like mud
underneath preserved

the prints of animals
that came here to drink

and feed on the plants
that grew

along the shoreline.

Maybe humans
were here too.

I can see that one.

[narrator] Now, the lake bed
is exposed,

offering its secrets.

And it carries on there,
doesn't it?

Yeah.

What about...

What about down there?

Those are toes.

And the heel is there.

So amazing. Look at that.

This beautiful sort
of sole print

of this human
was sitting there.

And at that point
I thought,

-"Well, there were expletives,
shall we say?
-[David laughs]

[Matthew] In the corner here,

under the shadow,
you can see toes.

There's a human print.
Holy cow.

And you know that was it.

That's another one, you see,
the heel's just in here.

I don't get excited
about a lot of things.

It's not really
in my nature.

I'm sort of British
after all.

But there was excitement.

Gorgeous little track.

[narrator] The footprints
generate headlines

all over the world,

but leave the archeological
establishment

scratching their heads.

We have no experience,
no realm of experience

whatsoever to measure, study,

let alone interpret

the significance
of these footprints.

[narrator] To uncover
the full story

of these remarkable
human prints,

Bennett and Bustos invite
a team of experts

to have a look.

One of them is indigenous
archeologist Ed Jolie.

[Ed] Just the number out here.

It's astounding.

You... Once you realize
what you're looking at,

it's hard not
to step on one.

It's very much a visceral
experience being there

at White Sands and literally,
you know, walking,

you know, potentially
in the footsteps

of my ancestors.

You know, these were people
that walked and talked,

got mad and sad
and angry just like us.

It's a pretty powerful
experience.

[narrator] But how old
are these footprints?

Kathleen Springer
and Jeff Pigati

are here to confirm the age.

Their findings could
reshape our understanding

of human history,
but it won't be easy.

So we were asked
to come and sort of do

what we do everywhere
and help the team

understand the timing
of all of it.

When were the people
and the animals

hanging out together?

There's a number
of sites all...

Sites all throughout
the Southwest
that have documented

interaction between human
and the megafauna.

But they're typically
in the, you know,

13,000-year-old range
in that...

In that kind of ballpark.

So, you know, before we got
any numbers or anything,

-that's kind of the default--
-The frame of reference.

Exactly. The frame
of reference is that,

yeah, these are...
These are probably...

You know, probably something
very similar.

The question
is how do you date
a footprint?

You can't date
the footprints themselves.

It's at the surface.

And so to be able
to date something,

you have to be able
to constrain it in time

below and above.

And so if the footprints
are always at the surface,

we can't do that.

[narrator] Pigati
and Springer decide

to dig underneath the prints

to excavate material
that could be dated.

We gotta make an exposure.

We have to...
We have to dig a trench.

Yeah.

[narrator] They're looking
for animal or plant remains.

Anything containing carbon.

[Kathleen] And we are
painstakingly,
bit by bit,

50 centimeter chunks
at a time,

describing the walls
of the sediment.

[narrator] As they scrape
at the trench walls,

each layer marks a different
period of history.

Every four-inch layer

represents roughly
100 years in time.

In many of the layers,

they notice
tiny black dots

the size of pinheads.

We were able to find
seed layers,

layers of seeds
that were positioned

above and below,
uh, various track ways.

And there were prints down
all over the place, right?

And so...

And there were prints
at the surface, so it...

We basically said,
you know, this, this,

this could cover
a fair bit of time.

And they...
These ones are oxidized.

There's oxygen in,
but these are the seeds.

Then right here
you see seeds...

and they just layers upon
layers of...

And in some
places, actually,

we were able to find seeds
in the footprints themselves.

So these people were walking
around on a landscape,

um, you know, stepping
on these plants,

which were alive
at the time.

[Kathleen] They were walking
on a margin of a lake.

So it was wet and dry
in places and these plants

that need water
for their lifecycle,

were growing in the wet parts
of this environment.

[Jeff] And we used
radiocarbon dating

of those seeds
to constrain them in time.

So since that time
when the people stepped

on the plants,

-the plants haven't moved,
the footprints...
-[Kathleen] Mmm-hmm.

...haven't moved,
and so they're...

-They're directly
associated in time.
-[Kathleen] Right.

There's a lot of layers here.

So we're really documenting
all of them.

And then of course, putting it
all together in time

to sort of tell the story
of all of these layers.

[narrator] The deeper
they dig, the more they find.

-[Jeff] There's footprints
everywhere.
-[Kathleen] Oh, I know that.

[Jeff] Let me...
Let me show you.

[Kathleen] Well,
there's a mammoth here.

[Jeff] Oh, yeah,
there's a mammoth right here.

Wow. Oh, my God.

[Jeff] There, one.
And there's a whole bunch

of humans all through.

They're in the subsurface.
We're, like, "Yes."

[narrator] Animal prints
mingle with human ones.

Each layer takes them
further back in time,

and many contain the organic
matter needed to date them.

[David] It's not just
one time frame,

one, you know,
stamp in time.

There's multiple layers
over and over and over again

where you have the megafauna
and the human prints.

So there's some places
where we have mammoth prints,

a meter above, uh,
human prints down below,

and there's also mammoth
prints down below.

You can tell there's been
a long history of people

through the stratigraphy,
walking along

with the megafauna
for thousands of years.

[narrator]
After a week of digging,

they're three feet down

and still no end
to the prints.

The possibilities
are staggering.

[Matthew] It's the sheer
volume of tracks there.

Thousands,
tens of thousands of tracks.

We can actually go back
in time

as if we were, you know,

trackers and track
the animals and the humans

through the landscape
over large areas.

And that gives us, uh,
an insight into the way

these different animals
are interacting

with one another.

[narrator] The team
will have to wait for weeks

before they get dates back
for the tiny seeds.

But now there's evidence
of another giant beast

who left its mark
in the sand.

These massive beasts,
you know, that roamed
through here.

[growling]

[narrator]
After finding thousands

of human footprints...

Hey, look at that.

...scientists
discover the tracks

of another
giant ice age beast.

These massive beasts,
you know,

that roamed through here.

[growling]

[David] A lot of animal
prints in nature

are round prints,
especially the predators.

Um, you know,
a bison is sort of a,

a round print and a camel,
you know, a round print.

But humans,
they have an elongated print

and also giant
ground sloth.

They also have
an elongated print.

The sloth prints
are absolutely fantastic.

[narrator] This was one
of the most

bizarre-looking megafauna
of the Ice Age.

The ground sloth
stood ten feet high

and weighed 2,200 pounds.

They spent their lives
eating plants

and lumbering
through grasslands

searching for water.

They were strong, but slow

and could have been
easy targets

for Ice Age hunters.

[David] When you start looking
at the prints,

it does come to life.

You know, every slight little
movement and it becomes real.

And you see a story
in the footprints.

[Matthew] Reading
a detective story,

we can see how somebody

stepped in the tracks
of the sloth print

one after the other,

harassing or stalking
this sloth,

making it angry
so that it would turn around

and flail with its arms.

And you can see
all those flail motions

and it can read
all of that story.

To think about
and contemplate interactions

between humans and sloths,

uh, and all these
extinct fauna.

Uh, it's, like, something
out of a movie.

[narrator] It's a rare glimpse
back in time

when humans lived
side by side with giants.

But what was their world
really like?

And how could it help us
understand how

and when humans moved
across two continents?

The answer could lie
over 4,500 miles away

in South America,
where a groundbreaking

investigation is underway
in Brazil.

Thais Pansani is
a Brazilian paleontologist

whose research focuses
on the giant sloth

and its relationship
to ancient humans.

So I love the whole megafauna,

but I'm particularly in love
with the giant sloth.

The interaction of humans
with the megafauna

is something that
makes me really interest.

[narrator] Giant sloth
evolved in South America

30 million years ago,

but there is little
information

about when they first
encountered people.

Pansani is doing
a deep examination

into sloth bones that might
hold clues to this mystery.

They were unearthed
from an archeological site

in central Brazil
in the 1980s.

There are 8,000 sloth bones
in the collection,

most of which
are called osteoderms.

These small bones
were embedded in the skin

beneath the sloth's fur.

For a slow moving beast,

this armor may have been
their best defense

against predators.

In a box marked
27,000 years old,

Pansani finds several bones
that stand out.

[Thais] I have three
giant sloth osteoderms

that are perforated
and polished.

So it is something
that makes possible

the hypothesis of, "Okay.
Someone did that.

It's not natural."

[narrator]
Could these tiny bones

have been reshaped
by ancient humans

making ornaments or jewelry?

Nobody did
a deep investigation

on these ornaments yet.

So I started
two main questions.

If these ornaments
were made by humans,

and two, provide evidences
that these modifications

were made in fresh bones,
in fresh carcass.

[narrator] If she's right,
it will place people

in the heart of Brazil
27,000 years ago

at the same time
Ardelean claims humans

are in Mexico
and could be further proof

that humans made it
past the ice

long before we ever thought.

The name of the site
where they were found

is Santa Elina in Brazil.

It was discovered by
husband and wife team,

Denis and Agueda Vialou
in 1984.

Agueda is a Brazilian
archeologist

who's an expert
in prehistoric stone tools.

[in French]

[in French]

[narrator in English]
Denis Vialou
is a well-known

French specialist
in prehistoric art.

[in French]

[narrator in English]
Santa Elina stands
in the shadow

of a massive cliff wall
covered with breathtaking

ancient artwork,

depictions of humans,
animals,

and mysterious
geometric symbols.

[Denis in French]

[narrator in English]
Extensive excavation
spanned 20 years.

Evidence of human occupation

is found at every layer
in time.

Clothing, tools,

and ritualistic garb.

The Vialous claim the site

spans from 2,000 years,

all the way back
to 27,000 years ago.

[in French]

[narrator in English]
This would mean
an unprecedented 25,000 years

of human occupation
in the center
of South America.

The region is Mato Grosso,

a rare oasis,

almost unaffected
by the Ice Age.

It was a microclimate
that remained habitable,

unlike the icy landscape
surrounding it.

Santa Elina could have been
a safe haven

for people and animals.

At several time periods,

the Vialous find evidence

of humans living
with giant sloth.

[in French]

[narrator in English]
In 2011,

the Vialous published
their astonishing results,

a site in the Americas
claiming to have people

living in the same location
for 25,000 years.

But like Bluefish Caves
and Chiquihuite,

questions are raised about
the validity of the dates.

There is the issue that
a lot of these are cave sites,

so they do suffer
from preservation,

sediments blowing in,
things coming into the caves,

things going out.
The difficulty
of dating stone tools,

a lack of, you know,
organic, um,

material culture that could
be more easily dated.

[Ted] It's gonna take
our South American colleagues

in Brazil,

convincing us firsthand,

not just through
their publications,

that this is evidence
that we need

to be paying attention to.

[narrator] Twenty years later,

Pansani brings Santa Elina

back into the spotlight.

She spent
the last four years

analyzing the
tiny osteoderms

with electron microscopes

and performing experiments.

There's a lot,
a lot of evidences

that this was...
made by humans.

[narrator] If she can prove
these bones

were modified while fresh,

shortly after
the beast died,

it directly places humans

on the site 27,000 years ago.

At the same time,
humans could be

in central Mexico

and in the north.

If people are settled
in every corner

of both continents
this early,

how much earlier would
they have had to arrive?

See? It can be done.

[narrator]
In Sao Paulo, Brazil,

an experiment is underway

that could determine
if ancient humans

were making ornaments
from giant sloth bone.

Thais Pansani uses
original stone tools

from Santa Elina
to carve holes

in an armadillo bone,

the only modern mammal

with an osteoderm shell.

See? It can be done.

[narrator]
Armed with her final results,

she presents her findings
to Agueda Vialou,

one of Santa Elina's
original researchers.

[in French]

[in English] They scanning
electron microscope.

We have photo
luminescence that shows

all of these modifications
were made in fresh bones

by humans during
contemporaneous interaction

with the giant sloth
around 27,000 years ago.

[in French]

-[in English, chuckles]
Bravo, bravo.
-[chuckles]

And now finally,
she has these results,

just one more piece
that shows

the significance
of Santa Elina.

[narrator] The Santa Elina
site in central Brazil

is further evidence
the date of human arrival

could have been
thousands of years

before the ice barrier
was formed.

[in French]

[Thais in English]
I'm trying to do
a really good work,

but at the same time,

I am just waiting

to hear the critics

because I know that
some people will not believe.

And this is bad actually,
because in science,

we don't need to believe
in things,
we need to discover.

[narrator] A constellation
of sites is now threatening

to rewrite
the history books.

From the south in Chile
to the heart of Brazil,

and from the center
of Mexico

all the way north
to the Yukon.

But the official story
won't change

until the scientific
community

is convinced
beyond a doubt.

[Ted] Changing a paradigm
in science

is a monumental effort,
for sure.

And in archeology,
it definitely means

that the lines of evidence
all have to converge,

to come together,
to present

a very cohesive story

about the age
and the significance

of an archeological site.

And that's a very
difficult thing to do.

[narrator] For now,
the prevailing theory says

humans entered North America

no more than
15,000 years ago.

The email Ciprian Ardelean

is about to open
could change that.

Radiocarbon dates
for his human

cut bones have just landed.

Will they finally prove
humans made the marks

as far back
as 20,000 years ago?

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no.

This is not good.

No. This is not good.

They didn't work.

The samples didn't work.

They couldn't date them.

I thought that should date

to the glacial maximum,

something like 22,000,
23,000 years old.

So that was at stake
with these dates.

[narrator] The bones
have been exposed

to thousands of years
of water,

leaching out the collagen
needed to date them.

I cannot prove it.

I cannot publish this.

[narrator] And then,
at White Sands, New Mexico,

an extraordinary turn
of events is unfolding.

The date of the organic
material is in,

and this time,
there is a clear date.

The oldest known
human footprints

in North America have
been discovered in New Mexico.

Scientists identified
approximately
60 fossilized footprints.

Recent study detailing
what archaeologists believe

are the oldest
known footprints
in the United States

is sparking new questions

and upending long-held
assumptions.

The ages were between 23,000

and 21,000 years ago, right?

These are...
It's really old. Really old.

The jaws dropped, right?
That's the...

It was... It was stunning.

-It's... [laughs]
-Well, it's 8,000

-to 10,000 years
older than Clovis.
-Yeah.

[Jeff] It's maybe 5,000
to 7,000 years

-older than
most pre-Clovis sites.
-[Kathleen] Yeah.

[Matthew] And people
were here

before the Last Glacial
Maximum.

That's the key thing because

it's that ice sheet barrier

and saying,
"Well, they were here

before that
ice sheet barrier."

So it fundamentally
changes the way

that we look at the peopling
of the Americas.

It changes it entirely.

It's a completely
new paradigm.

[Luiseach] You cannot deny
there are human footprints.

Really, this looks like humans

in New Mexico around the time
at the Last Glacial Maximum.

And people need
to grapple with this now.

[narrator] The radiocarbon
dates of the ancient seeds

at White Sands
are unequivocal.

Hundreds of samples
and direct contact
with the footprints,

proof of humans deep
in the continent

over 20,000 years ago.

I never anticipated

or prepared myself for it.

And I still feel that I'm not
really prepared for it.

It's just mind-blowing

that they're at least
twice the age

that I ever figured
they would turn out to be.

We're all gonna be going back
to the drawing board,

trying to understand

how these footprints
could exist there

at such an early time.

So there's the potentiality
that humans

migrated through one
of these corridors

before the Last Glacial
Maximum.

[Paulette] I think what
the White Sands site does

for American archaeology
is it wakes archaeologists up.

I think we're
at a turning point,

you know, and I think
we're really going to see

a lot of change
in the next ten years.

You wanna sit
in the front, Bon?

I can sit in the front.

[Ed] Native peoples
have been saying

for what feels like forever
that they have been here

since time immemorial,
that we have this deep

venerable connection
to the landscape

that many people can't claim.

White Sands
validates everything

that native peoples have known
for a long time

and been telling everybody,

but no one's really paid
attention or listened.

And so it... Deep down,
it feels great

to be able to say,
"See, we told you so."

[narrator] Bonnie Leno
and Kim Charlie are elders

whose ancestors have hunted
in New Mexico

for thousands of years.

Their oral histories
can shed light

on who these
ancient people were.

We are from a Pueblo tribe

and we are
from the Pueblo of Acoma.

[Kim Charlie]
David Bustos got ahold of me
and told us

that they had found
some trackways,

trackways of mammoths, humans.

-There you go.
-Okay.

-Good to go.
-There you go.

Native Americans believe,

when you go somewhere
where you found,

you know, evidence of people

living in the past,

you always ask permission.

When you go
to a place like this,

you have to really
fully go there

with an open heart.

[Kim] Right.

[Bonnie] And that's how
you're able to connect

with whose ever
is still there.

We know that
they're still there.

[narrator] Soon after
the elders arrive,

the excavation team makes
another discovery

working in the bottom
of the trench.

They expose a layer

that hasn't been dated yet,

but what they see here
is unprecedented.

[Matthew] Just come down
and have a look at it.

I mean, I'll help you down
so you can see close in.

Wow. [gasps]

Right here.
There's no words to describe

when you see
things like this.

[narrator] In White Sands
National Park,

ancient footprints
have rewritten

the story of human migration
to the Americas.

It changes it entirely.

It's a completely
new paradigm.

[narrator] And the team
uncovers something else.

Just come down
and have a look at it

'cause there's amazing

-child prints here where--
-[Kim] Really?

-[Bonnie] Yeah.
-One or two-year-olds,
probably.

A small set of footprints
that were once

inhabited long time ago

and embedded into the soil...

-[Bonnie] Mmm-hmm.
-...which turned into rock.

No words to describe

when you see
things like this,

it's breathtaking. It's...

You only think about
your own children,

the tiny toes
that you would see.

It makes you wanna cry.

That is so nice to...

-And to touch it.
-I mean,
there was people here.

-[Kim] There was life
that day.
-Life here.

[Matthew] Evidence of
at least two children.

Probably the youngest one
may be only a one

or so in age
based on its size.

And it... It's got all
of these superimposed prints.

You can create
the scene yourself

that it's a parent out there
placing the child down.

It's making
the first few tentative,

wobbly steps
to become a toddler.

It's very, very emotional.

[in native language]

[Kim] I found
another print, Patrick.

[Kim] Matthew.

-[Bonnie] Look
what I found right there.
-[Matthew] Oh, my goodness.

-Look at that.
-[Bonnie] I took all

that dirt off and I said,

"Oh, there's something
coming up over here."

All these prints all over.

[narrator] The evidence
suggests hundreds

of generations
of ancient humans

made the journey here.

Where did they come from
and where were they going?

The elders tell a story
that could provide answers.

We have heard
our migration stories

passed down from generation
to generation to generation.

Thousands and thousands

of great grandmas,
grandfathers.

-[Bonnie] Mmm-hmm.
-[Kim] They've walked.

Pathway that
we're talking about

coming from all the way
from the north,

and it leads straight
in the same direction

as to where White Sands is.

And it comes
in the same pathway

as we see from the north.

And it continues
all the way into Mexico.

And it keeps going.

[Ciprian] White Sands
has everything

to change the game,

that shows us
that we as species

have arrived on the continent

many, many,
many thousands of years

before what the accepted
paradigm

at the moment is claiming.

[narrator]
Ardelean is compelled

to see the footprints
firsthand.

He drives 1,200 miles
from Mexico to White Sands

to bear witness.

[Ciprian] I found it
really important

to drive all the way
up here to see...

To see
the footprints. And...

it's quite emotional
for me to be here.

I don't think
there's any other site

in the whole continent
discovered

so far that has this power.

You walk on them,
you actually walk

on Ice Age sediments
that were exposed

by thousands of years of wind
blowing the sediments

and forming the dunes.

[dramatic music playing]

Speechless.

Thousands of them everywhere.

Busy every day
with their tasks,

with their chores.
That's not the life

of somebody
who has just arrived.

That is the life of someone
who's always been here.

[narrator] Modern science
and oral histories combine

to paint a riveting picture,

a human journey that spans
thousands of years

from the far north
into New Mexico,

from Mexico,
all the way to South America.

The beginning of that story
is yet unknown.

Ardelean is hoping the elders
can help him understand

what he's discovered
in Mexico.

[Kim]
Our ancestors will show us.

-[Bonnie] Mmm-hmm.
-When you go to these areas,

there's some kind of...

It comes from your heart
and they will show you.

It's like they let you
find things.

-Right.
-[Bonnie] Exactly.

That's the same thing
I feel...

-[Kim] Mmm-hmm.
-...when I'm on field work.

-[Bonnie and Kim] Mmm-hmm.
-And somehow,

that's how I think
I was taken to the cave

that I found in Mexico,
and that's why I'm here.

So for me,
this is a learning trip.

Mmm-hmm.

What would be the link

between what we have here,

what your ancestors
taught you,

and what I
have found there?

And the connection we have is
through our migration stories.

We were always traveling,
walking.

-[Ciprian] Back and forth.
-[Kim] Right. Right. Right.

[Ciprian] And all those tracks
that are just...

one on top each other.
Just back and forth.

-[Kim] Right. Right, exactly.
-[Bonnie] Yes. That was--

[Ciprian]
For thousands of years.

When we came down
from the north,

as we migrated down south,

according to our stories,

our people went as far
as to South, uh, America.

Now, I feel really,
really motivated to go...

to go to Brazil,

to see the materials
from those sites in Brazil.

I have the feeling that
those stone tools somehow

are connected
more or less directly

with my case in Mexico.

[narrator] Ardelean travels to
the University of Sao Paulo

in Brazil,
where the collection

from Santa Elina is housed.

There are 8,000 artifacts
to sift through.

He focuses
on the materials excavated

from the oldest layers,

between 23,000
and 27,000 years ago.

Like Chiquihuite's tools
in Mexico,

they are made of limestone,

but the similarities seem
to go far beyond that.

[Ciprian] I thought
that coming here to
see the Santa Elina materials

would show me some sort
of technological connections,

but only that.

An absolute shock to me.

[narrator]
Deep in the archives

of a museum in Sao Paulo,
Brazil,

Ciprian Ardelean
is uncovering

an extraordinary connection.

[Ciprian] I thought
that coming here

to see the Santa Elina
materials

would show me some sort

of technological connections,

but only that.

But I identified shapes

that are shared between Santa
Elina and Chiquihuite.

There are several here that
you look at them and you say,

"Oh, my God,
is this from my collection?"

An absolute shock to me.

It's just like looking at
Chiquihuite all over again.

[narrator] After two days
of intensive comparison,

Ardelean calls in the Vialous

to show them
what he's discovered.

And I knew that Santa Elina
was the right place to come,

-right?
-Thank you.

But I didn't expect this level
of analogy, honestly.

[speaking French]

[in English] I saw this.
I went, "Oh my God,

this is a really
spectacular blade."

I mean, it's exactly
what I have at Chiquihuite.

[in French]

[laughter]

[speaking French]

[Ciprian in English]
Just... have a look at this.

[speaking French]

[responds in French]

[narrator in English]
Not only are
the blades and scrapers

the same shape,

but they seem
to have been made

using the same techniques.

-Wow.
-[in French]

-[in English] They obtained
the symmetry of the point...
-[speaking French]

...by retouching
one or two edges

of a transversal flake.

That's a pattern.

[in French]

[narrator in English]
Blade after blade,
tool after tool...

[in French]

[narrator in English]
...they find small and large

technical details that match.

[in French]

[in French]

[in French]

[in English] I came here
and I rediscovered

the same types of tools
as a Chiquihuite.

So it's not just
a vague resemblance.

-[Agueda] Mmm-hmm.
-But probably

it's the same culture.

No.

[in French]

Oui.

[in English]
So analogous sites
does not mean necessarily

the same nation

or the same
tribe or the same people.

They mean
the same culture.

The tools have similar
technology.

[narrator] A closer look
also reveals clues

about when
and how these ancient people

may have moved
across the landscape.

[Ciprian] I also realized
something very interesting.

The foundations
for those behaviors

were set here in the south

and then these people
moved north

and stayed there
for longer.

[narrator] If the tool making
techniques Ardelean sees

originated in the south

and were further developed
in the north,

could this indicate
a south to north migration?

Once again,
turning established paradigms
upside down.

It's a turning point.

Not only for me,
for the American prehistory.

I have received
more than I hoped for.

[in French]

[in English] If the evidence
from Santa Elina is accurate,

then it blows the genetic
models out of the water.

It blows
the archeological models

out of the water
as well.

If we can agree
as a community

that they provide
unequivocal evidence

of early humans 30,000 years
ago in South America,

then that's gonna change
everything.

There's no question.

[narrator]
The notion that it started

with a single northern
entry point

is now up for debate.

Everything is.

What about multiple
entry points at the same time,

from all angles?

People moving north,
people moving south,

people moving east to west,
west to east.

That's what people do
around the world.

What about seafaring?

I mean,
we are open. That...

That's what makes
archeology exciting.

There's absolutely
no reason to think that humans

around this period
in the last 20,000 years

couldn't have had boats.

People might have taken
island hopping

between small islands.

We know that
there were Pacific voyagers,

certainly within the last
few thousand years old,

settling Pacific islands.

And that is incredibly
advanced maritime technology.

There's no reason
to underestimate
indigenous peoples.

[Ted]
I very much had tunnel vision

and everything to me
had to do

with the Bering Land Bridge.

By broadening my horizons
into coming into contact

with archeologists
and indigenous peoples

and I'm much more
willing to accept

other ways of thinking
about this problem

than I certainly
ever used to be.

I'm encouraged to say
that we'll come back next year

and basically pick up
where we left off

and ideally extend
the excavations

back into the rock shelter
and deeper.

[Lauriane] I'm very happy that
I can carry on this work.

And hopefully,
I will vindicate

the work
of Jacques Cinq-Mars

and what
the Vuntut Gwitchin
have kept

telling all their stories.

[narrator]
Archeologists, all of us,

must grapple with the idea
that our earliest prehistory

may have to be rewritten
over and over again.

[Rolfe]
Just sitting down here,
honoring our ancestors.

When I started with this,

I was searching
for the oldest, the first.

Let's be open to whatever
that science brings us.

Dig deeper and deeper.

Don't stop
where your current paradigm

tells you to stop.

Go all the way
to the bottom.

Maybe there's people there,
maybe there's people there.

There is no oldest
and earliest...

anymore.

[soft music playing]