THE VANISHED CIVILISATION OF HONDURAS
An international team of archaeologists makes some spectacular discoveries. In eastern Honduras, on the Caribbean coast, they uncover a long-forgotten, highly developed civilisation.
In eastern Honduras on the Caribbean coast, a once highly developed civilisation is said to have existed. The people who lived here a long time ago were neighbours of the legendary Aztecs and Mayas. However, the arrival of Christopher Columbus’ ships in the Bay of Trujillo in 1502 precipitated their rapid and cruel decline. The people and everything that had once characterised their culture were wiped out. They died from imported diseases, were enslaved or murdered – even the name of this civilisation is no longer known today. An international team led by renowned archaeologist Markus Reindel sets off to the Caribbean to retell a long-forgotten story with the help of local people. They make some spectacular discoveries. They unearth dozens of settlements, and with the help of a special algorithm, reconstruct a mighty, widely ramified economic area covering almost 8000 square kilometres, which apparently enabled the people of the forgotten civilisation to trade closely with extensive parts of the Caribbean and southern Central America. With excavations and expeditions to the region surrounding Trujillo, the researchers prove that a self-sufficient civilisation flourished here for centuries or even millennia – an area only very sparsely populated today.