First Civilizations

For any civilization to succeed,

it must meet the needs of its people,

to provide them with the stuff of life.

This requires a system of exchange

where demand for goods is met by supply.

In other words, civilization has always required trade.

But how did trade shape the course of civilization?

From the very early period,

trade and exchange was really important.

It's part of the economic and social glue that stitches people together.

Trade is the elixir.

It's the thing that creates collaboration and connection.

It's what enables the society to progress.

That's, in the end, what sets us apart

and which has eventually enabled us

to build a civilization that is so complex.

We didn't always live this way.

For 99% of our time on earth,

humans had no merchants or traders.

But then... We settled down, grew food,

worshiped gods, fought battles, wrote stories,

built cities, and created markets.

This is the story of that transition,

steppingstones on the road to civilization.

It's a story set across the globe

in the Middle East, Central America,

Southern Asia...

All of them seabeds of civilization.

Here, our ancestors shaped the ideas

by which we still live our lives.

This is where the modern world began.

In the mountains of Oman,

archaeologist Jeff Rose has made a remarkable discovery...

An ancient rock painting,

a petroglyph, over 4,000 years old...

50 feet up a canyon wall.

So here it is, the Tanuf mural.

I've seen rock art all up and down these canyons,

and so I didn't really think that much of it,

except that when I looked at it up close,

I saw that there's actually this motif

which I'd never seen before in any other rock art in Oman.

So you have this figure here, and he's grasping these...

These two opposed bulls like this, and he's surrounded by animals.

But then, when you look at the bulls themselves,

they've got humps, so these are... these are zebu cows

from thousands of miles to the east,

and it makes you wonder what the heck is going on here.

The zebu is a type of cow found

not on the Arabian peninsula, but in Southern Asia

on the Indian subcontinent.

Why would their image be on a rock wall in Oman,

a thousand miles away?

Was it carved by people from India?

Close to the canyon are the remains

of an ancient burial site

with more evidence of foreign contact.

This is called a beehive tomb.

I'm standing here right at the mouth of the canyon,

so for all we know, those petroglyphs could be telling us

the story of the guy or girl buried here in this tomb.

Beehive tombs are common in Oman,

but archaeologists have found pottery here

that's not local.

Again, the origin seems to be from across the Indian ocean.

When we add it all up together, it looks like we've got

the fingerprint of a foreign culture

from the Indian subcontinent.

How did these objects from Southern Asia

end up in this remote, mountainous region?

In a word, trade.

Well, the first metal that's used on any industrial scale

in the ancient world is copper...

And these mountains here are loaded with copper.

Copper was one of the first commodities

to be exchanged in large quantities,

traded over hundreds of miles.

It fueled the rise of civilization.

Today, copper is still one of the most important commodities in the world.

Each year, over $90 billion worth

is bought and sold through a global trade network

centered on the London metal exchange.

Business strategist and author Rachel Botsman

believes trade was vital to the birth of civilization.

Since humans existed, we have traded.

It's a necessity, but it was pretty basic.

It was local, it was with people that they knew,

so I might exchange a metal pot

for my neighbor's animal skins;

you might exchange some food for a weapon.

And then what happened over time is

that trade became more and more sophisticated

in terms of the goods that people were trading,

but also the distances that they were trading over.

We transitioned from local trade...

Trade with people that we knew, trade with people that we trusted...

To trusting strangers.

It was a revolution

when we started to trade long distances.

The ancient copper from Oman ended up

beside one of Asia's great rivers... The Indus.

It's the river after which India is named.

But today, most of its water flows through Pakistan.

People have been living alongside the Indus

for thousands of years...

Although it's only now

archaeologists are understanding the sophistication

of the ancient civilization once here.

Built 4,500 years ago, this was a great city...

Mohenjo-daro.

The site, in a very rough estimate,

is 250 hectares, which is over 600 acres.

It would be about 40,000 people.

Some estimates also go as high as 60,000.

Mohenjo-daro was at the center of a civilization

in the Indus valley that was as old as any

in Egypt or Mesopotamia.

It was the first civilization in Asia.

Archaeologist Uzma Rizvi believes

the Indus civilization was built on trade,

more so than any other first civilization.

What the Indus did really, really well was

really get in on what it was that people wanted, right?

So what does an elite want?

Everyone wants the beautiful carnelian beads

that are etched and are just gorgeous to look at.

They did a fantastic job cornering that market,

and they also did a fantastic job knowing exactly

where the resources were, the best resources.

They're not using mediocre material.

It's almost like having a brand,

you know, like in the contemporary sense.

One of the key finds we have is the figurine.

It's a small figurine, but it is quite beautiful when you look at it close up.

It seems like a seated figure

with sort of almond-shaped eyes.

You have a band across the top,

beautifully manicured hair and beard.

The lines are quite pristine.

The carving is actually quite exquisite.

Exemplary craft, exemplary raw material,

and exemplary trade networks that really allow for these cities to blossom.

The city is so vast that much still lies unexcavated...

But archaeologists have uncovered large areas

dedicated to the manufacture of specialist crafts,

such as the smelting of copper.

So every one of these black, sort of gray-black stones

that you're seeing here, is actually the waste material

from a secondary smelting process.

So you can tell just by the density

of what we're seeing here that this was a very active place

for production of metals, of copper, of bronze.

We can actually isolate the various isotopes,

and so we know, then, the lead isotope signature from different regions,

and we can say, "oh, a certain amount of copper is coming from Rajasthan",

a certain amount of copper is coming from Oman."

There is a very clear sense that exchange is happening,

and things that are being made in these kinds of production centers

are being used in that wider network.

One of the things made at Mohenjo-daro

is this statuette crafted from bronze,

produced by combining copper and tin.

It's 4,500 years old.

A woman with immense beauty

and poise and posture, and she's standing there

and she's just like, "here I am."

She has her bangles,

and there is a certain kind of pride to her.

And you can see it's been crafted with that same kind of perfection.

That craftsmanship is something that is unique to the Indus.

How did the people of the Indus valley

achieve such expertise so long ago?

Pa.

The discovery of a small, corroded amulet

may provide an answer.

In France, physicist Mathieu Thoury is examining the amulet

at the synchrotron particle accelerator near Paris.

Using a process known as photoluminescence spectroscopy,

he can work out how it was made.

The amulet is 25 millimeters wide,

so we are working with a microscope,

which resolution, the smallest object that you can see,

is a fraction of micron,

and a micron is a fraction of an hair.

A powerful beam is projected at the amulet.

Its electrons emit their own light in response,

allowing Thoury to analyze those parts of the amulet

hidden by corrosion.

I knew that considering this pattern was invisible

and extremely organized, it was very interesting information.

The microscopic analysis reveals the amulet is

the oldest evidence in the world

of a technique known as lost-wax casting.

Specialist metal workers use the same technique today

for doing precision work.

Archaeologist Benoit Mille is an expert

in its ancient history.

Lost-wax casting allows us to make very complex objects.

The first part of the process is

to create the object you want to cast