The director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum.

The theme so far has been one of empires collapsing, new regimes and warfare. In South America there were no new empires and we still don't entirely understand the cultures that were thriving there.

Here, Neil shows off some of the remarkably well-preserved textiles discovered in the Paracas peninsula on the southern coast of Peru and tries to piece together what life might have been like for these people living in around 500 BC. The early Peruvians went to astonishing lengths to make and decorate their textiles whose colours remain striking to this day. What were they for and what do they tell us about beliefs of this time?