Latest / Spotlight English: Advanced / The City that Rewrote History (Advanced Program)

Transcript

The City that Rewrote History (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Marina Sante.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm Roger Bassick. Spotlight Advanced uses a special English
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: no matter where in the world they live.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: The Upano Valley is a place in southern Ecuador. For
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: as long as people can remember, it was covered by
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the Amazon Rainforest. Few people lived there, but the forest
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: held a secret. Below the trees was a group of cities.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: No one knew they were there for over a thousand years.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: To day's Spotlight Advanced is on these hidden cities of
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: the Upano Valley. A recent discovery. These cities changed the
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: way that experts see the peoples of the Amazon. They
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: display a special culture that is new in the history
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: of the world.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The cities of the Apano Valley were first discovered in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: late twenty twenty three. Experts knew that there were structures
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in the area, However, they did not know how many
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: or how large the structures were. To find out, they
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: examined the ground with a technology called lidar. Lidar uses
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: lasers to measure the distance between objects. An airplane can
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: examine the ground with lidar. It can make a very
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: precise map of what is there.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: The lightar examination showed a large complex of cities. There
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: were temples, houses, and roads. The structures were not made
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: from stone like other cities in South America. The buildings
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: were dirt hills. Some of these buildings were created by
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: moving earth. Some were once hills that the people there
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: shaped into structures. The light our examination discovered over six
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: thousand of these structures in the area.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Experts estimate that these structures are thousands of years old.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: They believe that the culture that built them lived in
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the area in five hundred BCE. They deserted the cities
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: around six hundred CE. This means that the cities were
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: in use for one thousand years. This is longer than
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: most other cultures in the area, and it is a
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: longer time than even the Inca or Maya cultures.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: One of the most interesting parts about these cities is
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: their roads. Most roads in ancient times followed the landscape.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: They went around hills because it is easier to build
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: that way. But the roads in the Upano Valley are
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: perfectly They go over and even sometimes through hills. The
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: people there dug some of them as deep as five
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: meters This is a difficult thing to do even today.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Stephen Roustan is an archaeologist at the National Center for
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Scientific Research in France. An archaeologist is someone who studies
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: ancient cultures. He led the studies that discovered the Ipano
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Valley cities. He spoke to the British Broadcasting Cooperation about
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the mysteries of these roads.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Why would you build these straight roads five meters deep
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: You can easily walk through the hills. I think they
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: built them to mark their identity. They are symbolic roads.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: The people of the Upano Valley also constructed their cities
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: in a unique way. In almost every culture, cities are centralized,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: a concentrated group of people live within closely built structures.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: People who grow food, such as farmers, live outside cities,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: but in the Upano Valley civilization, farms were part of
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the city. Large pieces of farmland separated different home groups,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: but the buildings are still close enough to be called
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the single city. Other civilizations pushed the environment outside of
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: their cities, but the people of the Upano Valley built
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: their cities within it.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It is difficult to know what the society of the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: people of the Upano Valley was like but evidence suggests
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: that they had a complex society. Again, Rosten spoke to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the British Broadcasting Cooperation about what the people may have
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: been like.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: The people living in these societies did not move around.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: They were not lost in the rainforest looking for food.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: They were not the small tribes of the so the
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Amazon we know today. They were a highly specialized people.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: They were earth movers, engineers, farmers, fishermen, priests, chiefs or kings.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: It was Allaiant society. It was a specialized society. It
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: was something like ancient Rome.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: This picture of a cultured society is quite different from
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the stereotypes of Amazonian people. Often people portray Native Amazonian
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: people as lesser than they are, or they believe that
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: they are less intelligent than others because they live by
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: hunting and gathering their food. Historians sometimes backed up this
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: unfortunate way of thinking because no one found a complex civilization.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Some did not think these native people capable of one
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: people wishing to take native land use this as an excuse,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: but the Upano Valley civilization proves this false. Native Amazonians
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: were just as capable of making complex societies as their
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Western counterparts, and they did it in a unique way
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: that let the environment in.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: We do not know why the people of the Apanno
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Valley deserted their cities. There may have been wars or
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: other conflicts, but experts believe it was probably due to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: natural disasters. The Ipano Valley lies below the Sungui volcano.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: The ash from the volcano would have helped the city's
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: crops grow quickly, but volcanoes are dangerous to live near.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: A large explosion could have made it difficult to survive there.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Ash from a large explosion could have made sunlight difficult
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to reach, and it may have killed off crops and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: even changed the climates.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: The discovery of the cities of the Upano Valley is
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: an important scientific discovery. Until recently, experts believe there were
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: were no large cultures in the Amazon. They believed that
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the native population lived as they do today, as hunters
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: and gatherers. This discovery shows that there is a larger
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: history of the native population that we have yet to learn.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: That history is more interesting and complex than anyone could
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: have understood before.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: The discovery is also important for understanding native culture. It
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: shows that the native people of the Amazon could build cities,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and they were able to do so in a special way.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Instead of destroying the land, they created living spaces within nature.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: This may help us understand how to design cities in
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the future. It will be important to listen to native
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: leadership when it comes to this. Manari Ushigua is a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: leader from the Sapara nation. He spoke to the Art
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: newspaper about the discovery of the Apano Valley cities.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: These are holy sites. Protecting them is important. It is
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: not just for our communities. These sites are important for
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: all humanity. They contain secrets about climate change. These secrets
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: can help the Amazonian environment, but they can also help
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: the whole planet. We are suffering from the effects of
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: unrestrained development and environmental destruction everywhere, but if we look
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: to the forest and these ancient places, we can learn
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: a lot.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Do you know much about the people of the Amazon?
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Does this discovery change your opinion? You can leave a
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: comment on our website at www dot Spotlight English dot com.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, NX.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: You can also get our program delivered directly to your
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: was Mitcheo Asaki. The voices you heard were from the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlights. No AI or
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence was used in this program. Spotlight programs are written, voiced,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and produced by real people for real people, no matter
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: where in the world they live. This program is called
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: The City That Rewrote History.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Spotlight Advanced Program. Goodbye,