Examines the formation of Central America and the Caribbean Sea and the arrival of wildlife and then people.

The Maya developed from simple hunters and farmers into the greatest civilization of the Americas. Then, some 1,100 years ago, they mysteriously and suddenly abandoned their great jungle cities.

The Tainos came from South America to the islands of the Caribbean, where they evolved into a highly peaceful marine society. But within 50 years of greeting Columbus, they were all but gone—nearly eradicated through slavery and torture.

The Aztecs, renowned for blood-thirstiness, sacrificed human victims to the gods in honor of the gods' own sacrifice of themselves in fire to create the sun for the "fifth world"—the world of the Aztecs.