The series begins with Earth’s oldest mountains — the Appalachians. We see how continents over millions and millions of years collide in a slow dance which ultimately results in the formation of the mountains we now know as the Appalachians. We trace the evolution of the Great Forest which blankets the region in green, forming a home for a unique mosaic of plant and animal species We watch as the first humans who arrived as early as 12,000 B.C. develop a complex and sophisticated relationship with the natural world. In Appalachia, we soon discover, geology is destiny. We see portraits of Appalachia’s Principal People at the time of European contact: the Cherokee, Shawnee, and Iroquois — vibrant, adaptive cultures with finely tuned relationships to their environment, a complex ecological community with amazing biological diversity. The arrival of the Europeans signals vast cultural and biological upheavals.

• Sissy Spacek