Tuesdays at 7 p.m., beginning Aug. 24
Fridays at 3:30 p.m., beginning Aug. 27
Weaving history and science with living Indigenous traditions, this four-part series brings to life a land of massive cities connected by social networks spanning two continents, with unique and sophisticated systems of science, art and writing. Made with the active participation of Native American communities and filmed in some of the most spectacular locations in the hemisphere, “Native America” illuminates the splendor of a past whose story has for too long remained untold.
Narrated by Robbie Robertson (Mohawk and member of the famed rock group The Band), each hour of “Native America” reveals history long hidden in plain sight. In what is now America’s Southwest, indigenous people built stone skyscrapers and transformed deserts into fertile fields. In upstate New York, warriors renounced war and formed America’s first democracy 500 years before the Declaration of Independence. Just outside Mexico City, the ancient city of Teotihuacan is home to massive pyramids built to align with the sun and moon.
The series highlights intimate Native American traditions and follows field archaeologists using 21st century tools such as multispectral imaging and DNA analysis to uncover incredible narratives of America’s past, venturing into Amazonian caves containing the Americas’ earliest art and interactive solar calendar, exploring a massive tunnel beneath a pyramid at the center of one of ancient America’s largest cities, and mapping the heavens in celestially aligned cities.
The producers of “Native America” were given remarkable access by Native American communities, including a pilgrimage to ancestral ruins at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and an investiture ceremony for a chief in the Pacific Northwest. Tribal members and descendant communities share their stories, revealing long-held oral traditions as the thread that runs through the past to these living cultures today.