Finding sites of battles and weapons and armor leftovers could support the warring theory well, although you never really know if you don’t solve the puzzle, the big picture.

Inscriptions of separated body parts and some guys with knives?
Could be a sign for warfare – but also for religious sacrifice, or the way they punished certain crimes, or even cannibalism.
Simple pottery and sculptures? Maybe this civilization just didn’t focus on improving this art, but others – like monumental architecure.
No fortifications? Perhaps there were just no enemies to fight.
Oldest city? Far from it! There are much older sites than this one – for example the underwater city in the Gulf of Cambay, India, which must have been built long before 10,000 BC before it sunk. Not to speak of much older settlements found all over the world – like Hueyatlaco, dating at 250,000+ years.

As some of the commenters asked, why has civilization to be based on warfare? ‘As above so below’. If we look at simple organisms we will quickly find that joining a group and specialization is for the benefit of every part of the bigger organism, something that we find in our current society as well. Aggressive acts only occur when something from outside threatens the survival of the whole organism, or if a part of the organism turns against it.

All in all this documentary is a long series of assumptions, mostly based on mainstream dogma, and the music – although bombastically emphasizing even the most unimpressive findings – doesn’t hide this very well.

On a sidenote, the fact that we are fighting wars humans against humans is imo based on the lack of awareness that we are all part of the same organism. Greedy and corrupt people who try to gain power over everything are like cancer cells, and they have to be either reintegrated or eliminated. Otherwise our oh so civilized society will die, since we will become/are the cancer for the bigger organism called ‘Earth’ – and it will find a way to get rid of us!

PS: Just for the ones who were asking – the music is mainly movie soundtracks, for example ‘The Thing’ by Ennio Morricone.

Regarding theories on the start of civilisation, I would say that Caral is only the oldest known stone built city in the south Americas, not neccessarily the oldest civilisation in the world. Come on, I think thats going a bit too far! What about wooden built cities? These likely go back much further, perhaps even tens of thousands of years. Also, I dont like the idea that civilisation began because of trade, which allowed wealth. That sounds like very 1970s Archaeological theory. I reckon trade probably played a very small role in the creation of monumental architecture and the beginning of civilisation. Trade more likley has its foundations in a sedentary lifestyle other than full grown civilisation..In all ancient cultures the foremeost catalyst in the creation of giant architecture is always spirituality and religious beliefs and a priestly elite. The Caral people very likely had a pantheon of gods. Anyhow, it will be interesting how the archaeology of the Caral complex evolves once more finds and features become exposed.

Glad to see archaeology prove itself wrong. :-)

But what I´d like to know is how far back this goes beyond the c14 dating? I mean, the knowledge needed to build a city and temples on this scale must have developed for quite some time. Centuries certainly, even a millennia maybe.

Geodetic skills, mathematics, logistics, agriculture, architecture on a monumental scale with perfectly cut blocks of stone weighing 20-40 metric tonnes…..you name it, it doesn´t just spontaneously “fall into place” in 5-10 years.

And, if modern humans have been around for at least 100.000 years, why all of a sudden start building cities 5000 years ago? What have we been doing the other 95.000 years? Huddling in caves? :-)

We´re to find older cities than this one, I´m sure.

@8thgradereadinglevel
“The music was appalling.”
Regardless as to one’s taste in music, the very presence of continuous background ‘music’ is indeed appalling. To my lights, a ‘documentary’ requiring this sort of distraction is no documentary at all but rather simple (or should I say ‘simplistic’) entertainment. I have discovered only a smattering of documentaries in my life.
But the search goes on.

@Peg
I offer as a correction, for your consideration, the following:
“War has been present in [heterosexual male] hominids since hominids began.”

If Caral was indeed an exception, it must have been an exception of epic unlikelihood: a civilization governed by women.

“It would be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it.”
~ James Joyce

Sometimes, while reading comments, I am reminded

of a statement made by a Psychiatrist during an interview

at a Los Angeles TV station in the 60′s —

He stated that the Author of the book “Jonathan Livingston

Seagull” “hatched the story in his anal tract”—

Oh Well ———–

Love Ya all anyway.

Sandy