WEBVTT

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- [Instructor] The western
or northwestern coast

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of South America has
been an interesting place

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for ancient civilizations.

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We believe it to be one of the places

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that agriculture developed independently,

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and as we'll see in this
video, and we've talked

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about in other videos, it's a place where

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we have many significant cultures

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and civilizations and empires developing.

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Now what's interesting about it,

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it is not your classic
river valley civilization

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like we have in Mesopotamia
or in ancient Egypt

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or along the Yellow River in China

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or the Indus River in India and Pakistan.

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Instead, this area is really defined

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by the Humboldt Current.

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The Humboldt Current is
a current that comes up

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from the south and off the coast

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of what is modern-day
Peru for the most part,

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it brings all these nutrients
from the bottom of the ocean.

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And what it does is it makes
it a very powerful fishery,

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so there's a lot of fish in the ocean

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in this part of the world.

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And it also has interesting
effects on the climate on land.

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So in this region, you
can see even on this map,

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there's this thin strip of
desert, and then you get

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into the Andes Mountains,
and on the other side

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of the Andes Mountains, you start to

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have the tropical rainforest.

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So if you go to Peru,
especially on the western part

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of Peru, the ocean will look like this.

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This is actually a picture I took

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from a recent family trip to Peru.

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Then, as you get right onto the coast,

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it will be pretty arid
desert, and then when

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you get up into the mountains,
they're fairly high altitude,

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you'll have these mountain valleys,

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some of them are at
7,000, 8,0000, 9,000 feet.

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This is actually another
picture that I took

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from my recent vacation
in Peru a few months ago.

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And what's interesting

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about the ancient civilizations there is

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some of them might have
settled on the coast

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to take advantage of the
fishing that was available.

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There were some rivers, or there
continue to be some rivers,

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that go from the mountains
through the desert,

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so some early agriculture
developed around that.

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But there's also
civilizations that developed

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around these high altitude valleys.

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And what's really interesting
about these civilizations

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is because of the terrain,
they weren't as unified

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as things we might see in Mesoamerica.

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So one of the first
civilizations in the all Americas

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that we have archeological evidence

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of is the Caral or Norte
Chico civilization.

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And one thing to keep in mind,

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as I give the names of
these civilizations,

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this is not what they called themselves.

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The civilizations tend to be named

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after the most significant archeological

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locations that people have found.

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And now as we get into
the first millennium BCE,

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we have what's called
the Chavin civilization.

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Once again, it wasn't their name.

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This was about 3,000 years ago.

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And to be clear, this
is when we just start

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to see that civilization
getting quite advanced.

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There's evidence that
people had been settled

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in this area around
modern-day Peru and Bolivia

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and northern Chile and
Ecuador for potentially

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thousands of years before that.

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But just to get a sense of
the Chavin civilization,

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here are some archeological
artifacts discovered.

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And they were discovered
at Chavin de Huantar,

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thus the name Chavin civilization,

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sometimes called Chavin culture.

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And what's interesting is
we have these artifacts,

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it looks like it was a
religious cultural center.

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Some people refer to
it as a religious cult

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that really took off in this area,

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but we don't believe that
it was a formal empire.

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We don't know for certain,
because we don't have

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written records, so we're
just trying to figure out

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what we can from the
archeological evidence.

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Now, near the time that the Chavin culture

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started to decline,
and what's interesting,

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we believe that a lot of
these cultures declined

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either from warfare between themselves

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or some type of climate change,
whether it was the El Niño

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or some type of drought or
famine and maybe that could

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actually cause a lot of the conflict

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within a society as well, but
those are some of the leading

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theories as to why the Chavin
culture ended around 200 BCE.

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Now around that time, we start to see

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the emergence of several other cultures.

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You have the famous Nazca culture emerge

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right over here in southwest Peru.

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And they're most famous,
perhaps, for the Nazca Lines,

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these huge, I guess you say drawings,

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or patterns, that are made in the land.

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Some of them are 300 meters,
a third of a kilometer,

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and you really can't even
appreciate what they represent

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unless you're looking at it
from a significant altitude.

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Some people have theorized that
this is some type of message

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they're trying to send to the sky gods.

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Some people have even thought,
hey, maybe this has something

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to do with trying to
communicate with aliens.

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This is famously called the Space Man.

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Who knows, it's interesting
to theorize about that Nazca

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civilization, which started
to emerge around 200 BCE.

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Once again, we don't have written record,

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so we can just look at their architecture,

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these patterns that they created.

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Now a little bit later, we
start to see the emergence

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of the Moche civilization or
the Moche culture in this area

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in light blue over here,
sometimes called Mochica.

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And this is one of the
significant structures they built,

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Hauca del Sol, known as
the Temple of the Sun,

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and it's been damaged a
lot, oftentimes by people

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who are trying to loot it or excavate it

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in irresponsible ways, but
it was the largest structure

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we have found from pre-Colombian America.

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When we say pre-Colombian America,

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we're saying before Christopher
Columbus got to America.

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The Moche are really interesting.

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Even though they didn't have writing,

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we can learn a lot from their art

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and this is some examples of it and

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frankly this is some of the
less graphic examples of it.

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Now, as we get into the first millennium,

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especially the middle part
of the first millennium,

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we start to see some other significant

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cultures and civilizations emerge.

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So, for example, around 500
CE, so roughly 1500 years ago,

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you see the Wari civilization emerge,

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and that's here in red.

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And there's some debates and you'll see

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these debates a lot as
we study ancient history.

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Was it an empire or was it just

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a culture that had a lot of influence?

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Some of the arguments for empire are

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it seemed like there was
wealth, it seemed like

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they were able to build
large infrastructure works,

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there was consistency across
different settlements.

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Now there's also the Tiwanaku,

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and we believe it was truly an empire,

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but we can say the Tiwanaku civilization,

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right over here in yellow, really centered

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at off the coast of Lake Titicaca,

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which is right in that
area right over here.

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But the big take away here is this is

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just a sample of some of the civilizations

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that you had in this part of the world.

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Now what's really interesting
is, as I mentioned,

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a lot of them weren't able
to form formal empires,

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people think because of
the valley, the mountains,

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the terrain, that were keeping
people from maybe trading or

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being able to control each other
a little bit more strongly.

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But eventually we do have the emergence

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of fairly strong empires,
as we see in the Incas,

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which emerges in the 15th
century, around 1438.

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And then the Inca empire ends

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with the European
colonization of the Americas.

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And we also believe that the Tiwanaku

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were a significant empire,

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despite some of the geographical hurdles.