Documentary 30 Degrees North Latitude traces the origins of human civilization

The documentary 30 Degrees North Latitude recently aired on the CCTV-9 Documentary Channel, with the film beginning in China and moving across continents to offer a fresh look at civilizations that lie thousands of miles apart along the same line of latitude.

When we talk about world civilizations, we tend to begin with names: Chinese, Mesopotamian, ancient Egyptian, the Indus Valley, and so on. But when we piece them together, a striking pattern emerges — they all cluster near the 30 degrees north parallel. This belt cuts through Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze and Yellow River basins, binding humanity's earliest cities, writing systems and belief systems into one grand civilizational thread.

Produced by China Media Group, the eight-episode documentary sets out to reconnect these answers — scattered as they are across continents and eras — by seizing upon the key variables in the evolution of civilization and embarking on a quest that spans 10,000 years. 

The crew members devoted four years to the endeavor. They visited dozens of universities and research institutions in China and abroad for study, research, and planning, drawing on fields as diverse as field archaeology, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany, archaeological science, history, art history, philology, environmental studies, and economic history.

With the support of over 100 museums and archaeological sites worldwide — and more than 100 scholars from China and overseas — the production tells the story of how human civilization began, took shape, and developed in the spirit of mutual learning and coexistence among peoples.