Archaeology

Twenty-five years ago, the ancient Mayans were thought to be a mysterious and peaceful people governed by astronomer-priests. Today, researchers reveal stories of Mayan blood sacrifices as they uncover a world so foreign as to defy our understanding of it.

Romantic visions of the Explorer Hernando de Soto continue to celebrate the conquistador's arrival in North America 450 years ago as one of the most important events in the history of mankind. But archaeology tells a darker story, a story of death and destruction from the Gulf Coast to the mouth of the Mississippi.

In 1856, workmen in a cave in the Neander valley near Dussseldorf, Germany, unearthed a human skeleton. Its skull had a low, protruding brow, large teeth, and a massive bone structure. And from this discovery began a lengthy dispute: did the Neanderthal man represent an abnormal modern human? Or an extinct ancestor?

Rising out of the highlands of Sub-Saharan Africa are the ruins of the long-secluded, spectacular Great Zimbabwe. Dismissed by racist explorers as the work of some ancient black civilization and stripped by ignorance and prejudice of many of it's priceless artifacts. Can archaeologists undo the years of preceding damage?

Here, for the first time, is the story of how archeology was used not only to manipulate information about the past, but also to legitimize the genocidal regime of the Nazis.

One of America's most famous historical landmarks is The Little Bighorn, a site where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and more than 250 troopers of the 7th US Calvary rode to their deaths on June 25, 1876. Though detailed facts of the event were unknown, the battle became shrouded in tales of myth and mystery that have endured for over a century. Until now.