National Geographic: Adventures in Time Page #3

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And I'm gonna miss him a hell of a lot."

The way we live our lives is often shaped

by our attitude towards death.

But few embrace the dead

as wholeheartedly as the Ngaju Dayaks

of central Borneo.

Anthropologist Anne Schiller has spent

almost 15 years studying the death rites

of the Dayak peoples.

She takes part in a ceremony called

Tiwah during which the villagers dig up

the bones of their dead parents

spouses and children.

They do this so the spirit of

their loved ones might go

in the afterlife to

what they call the prosperous village.

"If the head of a family

hasn't been able to hold a Tiwah

he is very troubled and unsettled

in his mind.

He asks himself,

how can I save my parents

so they can go to the

prosperous village?"

"This is all about taking care of

their parents

I mean what these people are doing is

they're- they're giving life to

their parents in the way their parents

gave life to them...

so they're caring for them the way

you care for a child.

You- you're washing it...

and you're nurturing it and

you're making sure it's comfortable."

Now that the bones have been exhumed

the Tiwah progresses

to the ritual blood sacrifice.

"Blood protects you from illness

it protects you

from evil supernatural beings

that might bother you

and so sacrifices are held

because you need that blood of the chicken

or the pig or the cow or the water

buffalo in order to anoint people

and to anoint things to make sure

that the people and the things remain safe.

From a culture that honors death

to the death of cultures themselves...

All over the world unique societies

are under threat

their cultures as vulnerable as

endangered plants or animals.

According to some estimates nearly half

of the world's six thousand languages

will disappear in the next century.

The realities of an emerging global

culture and economy

often provide little incentive

for preserving them.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning children.

How do you do?"

"How do you do? Thank you."

"Sit down."

"Thank you, sir."

How does a people hold on

to its own identity

its own traditions and still remain

open to the outside world?

Disappearing cultures

have much to tell us.

If only we can take the time to listen.

Long before maps and compasses

those who ventured into unknown places

would leave a sign for those

who followed that said "We were here".

The idea of being first

of leaving one's mark in time and space

inspires modern explorers as well.

They helped to define

and describe our world.

The exploits of 20th century adventurers

continue to fascinate and inspire.

Many indeed have achieved a measure of

immortality.

Among them, Admiral Robert Peary and

pioneering African-American

explorer Matthew Henson -

considered to be the first men

to reach the top of the world.

Admiral Richard Byrd

was credited as being the first

to fly over both poles.

Hiram Bingham discovered

the fabled lost city of Machu Picchu.

While William Beebe and Otis Barton

were the first to probe the deep ocean.

In our own era, Jacques Cousteau

allowed us all to be explorers

of a wonderful new realm

and championed our need to preserve it.

Today,

being first is the passion of many.

But the goal is often not a place

on the map.

For these brave souls

it's not so much where they're going

as how they get there.

Mount Everest, first conquered in 1953

has been climbed by the hundreds.

Still for every seven that reach

the summit one climber will die.

"It's a mountain that you regard with

considerable respect."

"I don't know anybody who has a feeling

of affection uh, for the mountain."

"You could climb it...

three times, five times, a hundred times

you don't conquer it, you survive it."

"If there is a cold day

it's not twenty below, it's forty below.

Forty-five, fifty below say of Celsius...

and this is hard for human beings.

If there is a storm coming

it's much stronger

because you're much higher up."

"Windy... very cold. Strong.

Really cold.

Is difficult."

"It's really very difficult to do anything.

All you wanna do is lie down and even

that's hard work."

"Physically I experienced an awful

lot of problems.

I had a- an ulcerated toe with the bone...

showing, an intestinal parasite

I lost thirty-five pounds in five days

going to the summit."

"I'm nearly at the summit.

Just a few more steps... not far now."

"But this overwhelming feeling...

incredible difficulty, pain, suffering

is suddenly over."

"Well I'm on top! I've made it!"

"It's difficult to really understand

how important it is to be there.

And I know instinctively

I really wanted to stand...

on the highest point of earth

as I think most climbers do."

"I'm on the summit."

"You're both great heroes.

We're absolutely proud to death."

If the roof of the world

is becoming a little crowded

much of the deep ocean remains a mystery

to scientists like Dr. Robert Ballard.

His early expeditions

included the first exploration of

the mid-Atlantic ridge and

the discovery in the eastern Pacific

of hot water vents surrounded

by incredible new life forms.

But Ballard is perhaps best known

for exploring the most storied shipwreck

of the 20th century.

And since Titanic he's been probing

further and further back in time.

"We're sitting right now in- in ruins

that are on the island of Sicily.

To travel from civilization

to civilization here in the Mediterranean

you must cross the Mediterranean

and many of those ships didn't make it.

Many of those ships went to the bottom

and many of them went into the deep sea.

Between ancient Carthage and Rome

it's twelve thousand feet deep."

Using the remotely operated vehicle

Jason, and a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine

Ballard has led a team of archeologists

to the largest concentration

of ancient shipwrecks ever found

in the deep sea.

Almost a half a mile below

an ancient trade route

thousands of artifacts from eight ships

were found strewn all over the sea bed.

Later they returned to the site

and recovered Roman clay jars

that once contained ancient trade goods

like olive oil and wine.

There's glass. I-I'm just...

Among the bounty were glass cups traded

by Arab merchants

who sailed these same waters

fifteen hundred years later.

What has surprised me the most is that uh

we thought this was one event

that this was a fleet of ships

a group of ships that sank together

and it's not at all.

We have... ships spanning over

one thousand five hundred years of history.

"I feel very good, I-I feel that

this really is a historic expedition.

This is the first major deep sea

archeological expedition."

The Age of Exploration is still

far from over.

Ian Baker and Ken Storm are in search of

a hidden waterfall that others claimed

to have glimpsed from afar

but none have ever mapped or measured.

They follow footsteps from the past.

"In 1924, British botanist

Frank Kingdon- Ward, led an expedition

to Tibet searching for a waterfall

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