Turn your focus to Peru and Mexico and the many cultures that left behind stunning examples of their now-vanished civilizations, from impressive pyramids and tombs to startling examples of artistic pottery, especially those produced by the Moche.

This episode investigates the dramatic iconography seen on Moche ceramics. First, learn about the complex rituals and practices of modern South American shamanism. Then study images on Moche pottery usually interpreted as depicting victory in war, and indications that they actually describe an elaborate culture of shamanic healing.

Recent discoveries indicate the presence of massive ancient civilizations in the Amazon. Survey the evidence, starting with the Beni region's elaborate systems of mounds, causeways, and canals. Continue with the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon, noting wide areas of human-enriched soil, towns ringed by moats, geoglyphs, and pottery dating to 6000 B.C.

Learn how to create beautiful ceramic vessels at home without a potter's wheel. California ceramicist and designer Linda Fahey shows you every step of setting up a studio at home, and then demonstrates three methods for hand-building pottery. Along the way, she covers creating and attaching handles and even provides an introduction to glazing and firing. This three-part course covers all of the essential information you need to know to play with clay...

See how, about 5,000 years ago, the creative, yet disparate, peoples of North America developed corn agriculture, permanent houses with storage and cooking pits, religion, art, pottery, ceramics, metallurgy, and basket weaving. Further explore the only innovation common to these many different cultures: an increase in cemetery sites and formalized treatment of bodies in burials.

Shift your attention to the islands of Japan. In this first of four lectures, you'll explore the nation's geography - notably its mountains, fertile plains, and surrounding sea. Then you'll discover the many rituals and achievements of several early cultures, including the Neolithic people who created what is perhaps the world's first pottery.

In the first of four lectures about Korea, Professor Benjamin surveys the nation's rugged terrain, its mountains and caves and rivers. He then uses archaeological evidence to trace the emergence of civilization in the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, when early clan-based villages produced distinctive pottery and had a fascinating variety of religious beliefs.

You might be tempted to skip the English Midlands, but if you have the time in your itinerary, the region has much to offer. Home to Josiah Wedgwood's pottery, quaint villages, and Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest, the Midlands have a fascinating heritage and offer an incomparable look into the British story.

12-year-old Siyue is heartbroken after the passing of her grandmother. Siyue and her mother, Mei, travel to the Chinese countryside to clean out grandmother’s house, preparing it to be sold. This is difficult for Siyue. She misses her grandmother dearly. Siyue runs off into her grandmother’s pottery studio, where her grandmother once made her the clay Ocarina that she treasures above all possessions. In the studio, Siyue encounters a magical creature...

A rare glimpse of life in the Lao People's Democratic Republic as it recovers its past and prepares to face its future. In 1991 Lao and Australian archaeologists journeyed up the Mekong to a remote village in north-eastern Laos. At Ban Xan Hai, "the village of the jar makers", they excavate the site of pottery kilns used for the mass production of ceramics more than 600 years ago. Since the revolution in 1975, Laos has had little contact with the...