First Civilizations

(airplane engine roars) Wow. This is incredible. (lively music) Looking down here there's no wonder this was the birth place of agriculture in Mesoamerica. I mean, this green, lush valley filled with rivers running through it but on the other hand it's hemmed in on both sides by these steep mountains. As these populations are growing and they're developing settlements along these rivers and adopting this new farming way of life, suddenly real estate is a big issue because space is limited. So, this poses a major problem. What happens if one year you have crop failure? Well, your whole village is gonna starve. One way of getting around this is by going over to your neighbor's village and raiding them and taking their land and this trend toward conflict doesn't just happen here in Mesoamerica but this is something that goes hand in hand with the shift to agriculture all over the world, this is a universal phenomenon. (dramatic music) -

Narrator

Farming creates a world of haves and have nots. The resources of some become a target for others. (dramatic music) You really get a sense from up here that Oaxaca isn't just a single valley, it's actually three valleys shaped like a Y that meet in the middle. So, this means potentially there's not just raiding between villages but there's the possibility of conflict between valleys, so it's almost like the geography of this area that set these people on a one-way path to warfare. (grunting) (screaming) (dramatic music)