Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.
>> The Joe Rogan Experience.
>> TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY
NIGHT. All day.
>> Hey, good [music] to see you, brother.
What's going on?
>> Good, man. It's been um it's been a wild
year for me.
>> I bet it has been
>> since [clears throat] um since I was
last here. I mean, I've seen my YouTube
grow to numbers I couldn't have imagined
before. I've met so many cool people.
I've managed to get to a point where
it's now my job to research and
investigate ancient history and the vast
mysteries of our past. And yeah, I mean,
that's something I was doing for for
free before. So, the fact that I'm now
able to do that full-time is just an
immense privilege. And I'm so grateful
to everyone that's helped me get there,
including you.
>> Well, you're putting out fantastic
content. Thank you. So it and it's such
an interesting subject and uh the giant
blind spot that the um mainstream
archaeologists have left has allowed all
these people to go through and get a
much larger audience even than them.
>> Yeah.
>> And it's it's really important when
someone like you does it because you're
so thorough and you're so objective and
you're so you're so measured in the way
you describe these things and talk about
these things. There's no fantastic
claims, no hyperbole. It's all very
welllaid out. And even when you go to
like extreme possibilities of these
things, it's very measured. So, I really
appreciate that.
>> Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying
that. And yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm always
trying to make it as good as I possibly
can and I try and listen to what people
say and trying to improve. And I don't
think I've reached like the peak of
where I could possibly be, but you know,
I'm trying my hardest. But it's not just
that. I mean, as you say, I think there
are so many people out there. And now
that I'm in this position, I've seen it
firsthand. There are like millions and
millions of people around the world that
are deeply fascinated by these
questions, by the vast mysteries of our
past. So,
>> as well, they should be. And they also
know that we're getting a very narrow
version of it from mainstream academics.
They and they are so determined to cling
to their timelines and cling to this
notion that anything new that's
discovered by people outside of their
little circle uh can't be accurate and I
think that's so silly.
>> Yeah. I mean I think someone like me has
the kind of advantage of the fact that
because I you know didn't continue my
career in academia or I wasn't in
academia but that was the pathway that I
was on. because I've gone independent
now. I kind of have the freedom if you
like to talk about these ideas in a much
more open way than maybe I would have
been able to if I was uh well wouldn't
been able to if I was still in academia
because you know I'm not restricted by
funding or I'm not restricted by even
the the pressures of uh you know people
working in academia hating on me. I
mean, I get a lot of hate anyway, but I
mean, I think I have that freedom to
almost come at things from a completely
open-minded perspective and speak about
these ideas without any restrictions.
And I think that is the advantage that I
have that academics perhaps don't. Um,
so yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm I'm in a
great place.
>> Yeah. So, let's get into it. So, in the
last year, a lot of wild stuff has been
discovered, which is really exciting.
Yeah,
>> it's so interesting how quick this stuff
is moving.
>> Yeah, it's wild. I mean, there's been, I
think, two papers in particular that
have come out in the year since I was
last here on the show that I think have
huge ramifications for how we view
history. Um, so I mean, I don't know
where to start. I mean, I think I think
we should start like this. I think as
things currently stand, there are three
huge questions that archaeology cannot
answer. And the it's interesting because
these three questions we used to think
we had an answer to, but in light of new
discoveries, in light of new evidence
coming up, we no longer have the answer
to these questions. And I think that's
fascinating because it's almost like the
rug has been pulled out from underneath
our understanding of human history. But
on the surface, it's kind of like
business as usual. Do do you know what I
mean? It's like
>> so what are these questions?
>> So I mean and this is just coming from
me, right? So like the caveat on the
whole conversation. I'm not an academic.
I'm not a professional archaeologist.
I'm just I mean I have a degree in
ancient history. But I think my main
qualification is that I'm a super nerd
for all this stuff and I spent my whole
life researching it. Um so that's the
caveat on everything. So don't take what
I say as gospel. And I always encourage
people to go and look at the actual
archaeology. Go and read the journals,
read the papers, and go investigate what
yourself for yourself. like listen to
what I say but don't take what I say as
gospel cuz the end of the day I'm just a
YouTuber you know so
>> that's the caveat I want to put on it
but from my mind these are the three
questions that I think archaeology can
no longer answer but used to think it
had an answer for so the first question
is and we spoke about this a little bit
last time um is the fascinating question
of why after hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
years of human beings like us being on
this planet it? Why did it take so long
for civilization to emerge? And then why
when it did did it emerge in all these
different unconnected locations all over
the globe at pretty much the exact same
time. So we see civilization flourishing
in Meso America. We see civilization
flourishing in South America, in Egypt,
in the Indis Valley, in Mesopotamia, in
ancient India, in ancient China, all
around about the same time, give or take
a a thousand or so years.
compared to the time span of human
beings on this planet, you know, 300,000
years plus for modern humans. And I
would argue some of these papers are
showing that it could be a lot longer
than that. Why after so long did
civilization suddenly crop up all over
the place? And we no longer can answer
that question um in light of new
discovery. So that's question one. Why
did civilization emerge everywhere all
at once after so long of not doing so?
Question two is
how old is human intelligence? How long
have humans been intelligent? How long
has a mind like ours really inhabited
this planet? And I think two papers in
particular that have come out in the 12
months since I was here have huge
ramifications for that question. And
also combining to that is the question
of other human species. How intelligent
were other human species? cuz we used to
think that we were the smart ones. I
mean our name Homo sapiens literally
translates to wise man which is a
incredibly humble thing for us to say
about ourselves but but yeah so so
that's question two. How old is human
intelligence? And again I think the
answer is we don't have the answer
anymore. Um so that's that's really
fascinating. And then question three is
when did humans first reach the more
isolated land masses? So that's the
Americas where we are right now and also
Australia which is perhaps less
important but still interesting. And
again we don't have the answer for that
anymore. And I think whatever the answer
is to these three questions. Why did
civilization appear everywhere all at
once? How old is human intelligence? And
when did humans first reach the more
isolated parts of the world? The answer
to those questions, whatever it is, I
think it's fundamentally important
because
whatever the answer is, is the reason
we're all here, right? It's the reason
we all live in this civilization. It's
the reason we all enjoy the fruits of
everything that uh we exist in today.
And yet, we don't know the answer
anymore. But, as I said, on the surface,
everyone's kind of carrying on like it's
business as usual, but we no longer know
the answer to the most fundamental
questions of how we got here. So, yeah.
So for question number one, why did all
of these civilizations emerge
roughly the same time? What do you
think? Do you think that this is
incorrect and that these civilizations
uh probably existed far earlier than
that, but there's no evidence of them
because of time and just erosion and
natural catastrophes and fill in the
blank. all all the factors and or we
have not discovered some of these yet
like some of the weirdness of the
Amazon, you know, as they find these
what would appear to be the grids of
ancient cities that are hidden in the
jungle that they're discovering with LAR
and these other technologies that were
unavailable until fairly recently. So,
we know that not only was the Amazon
uh filled with people, but it was filled
with millions of people. And that's
crazy. That is a crazy shift in the way
we used to look at the Amazon just a few
decades ago. And we don't know who these
people were. We don't know like if you
go really far back like the Mex is just
a word. We gave them that word. We don't
know what the they were doing. We
have no idea what they looked like. We
know uh some of the heads look roughly
either Polynesian or perhaps even
African. It's very strange. Very
strange. Big giant heads that are left
behind. And that's like the cornerstone
of what we understand about the
civilization. Okay. What how long? 6,000
years, we think. Who knows? It's just a
rough guess. Like there's really nothing
to to go on. Um do you think that uh
this is just like as far back as we can
find stuff or do you think what do you
think? Well, I think well in terms of
the civilization question, I think it's
just it's I think it's an old idea that
we kind of drew this line and it's the
the line is the invention of writing,
right? So, it's around 3,000 4,000 BC
was the invention of writing or
supposedly was the invention of writing
and that in the 20th century was kind of
given as the marker of civilization. We
were finding all these civilizations in
the 20th century like ancient Sumer and
so that was kind of given as the start
of civilization. But I think in terms of
like more recent stuff, so 3000 BC back
to like 12,000 BC, I think the answer is
that clearly civilization is older. I
mean considering we see things like
Tashapella, Quebec 12,000 years ago, I
think that is a civilization. I think
over time that will come to be accepted
as a civilization. And I think whatever
you want to define civilization as, I
think we can now clearly say that it did
exist 12,000 years ago rather than 6,000
years ago. So that's a kind of doubling
of the timeline. In terms of going back
much further than that, I think then you
get into kind of like purely
hypothetical scenarios like is it
possible? And that's when I think things
like the history of human intelligence
start to come into play because it was
incredibly recently that we thought
humans were only got intelligent. Well,
we thought humans were young, like only
100,000 years old, only a few decades
ago, and now we know we're much older
than that. And so this is how what I
mean about everything kind of being back
on the table again because we now have a
incredibly increased time span of human
intelligence that I would argue and I'll
I'll come to this later stretches over a
million years. And yet the old idea
which is still sort of in place but I
think is breaking. I think most
archaeologists would accept that is
breaking. But the old idea was that
humans only became intelligent around
50,000 years ago. And so because that
idea kind of was in hold, it almost made
sense, right? So humans only existed
from 100,000 years ago, then got smart
50,000 years ago. Then the climate got
good around 14,000 years ago. We see the
agricultural revolution and the
emergence of the first civilizations.
Like it was very neat. Do you know what
I mean? But now in light of new evidence
and in light of new discoveries,
suddenly everything's back on the table.
Suddenly the whole time span of
prehistory or not the whole of
prehistory but I would argue and I'll
get on to why I think this later I would
argue that the time span of human
intelligence has increased by 20 times
from 50,000 to over a million years. And
I'll explain why in a minute but I think
that puts everything back on the table.
I think that the possibilities of
prehistory are are so vast now because
of our understanding has shifted so
dramatically in the last few decades.
And I don't think anyone's really
talking about it. And that's kind of why
I do what I do because I really want to
bang this drum if you like that
everything's back on the table as I say.
And so yeah, I don't know. I kind of got
a bit sidetracked there from your
original question.
>> Well, that's a no you it's a great
start. Um Jesse Michaels was here
yesterday and he had a really
fascinating theory. I don't know if it's
is that his theory or is it someone
else's theory? The the Urgot theory. His
theory was that um
he believes that agriculture and that as
they started agriculture wasn't just
significant in that you you could like
stay in one place and you would have
food and you always had a reliable diet,
you didn't have to worry about starving
to death and then you because you had
that sort of relaxation that came with
that, you could start inventing things
and building things and and civilization
would advance. He thinks it's also
because Urgot grows on these different
wheats and barleys and grains and that
these people whether knowingly or
unknowingly were probably ingesting this
psychedelic substance which is akin to
LSD and that this was uh a key part of
what Brian Morescu talked about in the
Illusinian Mysteries in his great book
the immortality key and that this was
probably what led do a lot of invention,
a lot of innovation, a lot of
alternative thought, a lot of
creativity, and a lot of like, you know,
what are the whatever the wild
advancements of the time were. Did you
see that? They just um not proved it,
but they just they just did a study on
the Alissian mysteries where they kind
of showed that they they were doing uh
they did have a go because when Brian
wrote that book, they hadn't proved
that, but something just came out that
>> Did you see the um it was a puma bone
pipe that they found that tested
positive for DMT
>> where in Elis?
>> I do not know. I think it was I don't it
might have been in the America. No.
Where was that?
>> Peru.
>> Peru. Yes. Really? Yes.
>> How old is that, Jamie?
>> See if you can put that into perplexity
if it it knows what this is all about
cuz it's a fascinating subject. Cuz not
only does it not imply that they were
willingly taking psychedelic drugs, it's
somehow or another they knew how to make
DMT.
>> Mhm.
>> Like, okay, what? cuz that that's a
complicated process when you have to
separate the molecule from whatever
plant it's in and then you have to
figure out that you need to freebase it
or smoke it like how what
>> this says there's actually a
northwestern Argentina
>> the and so it's still the Andes but um
>> the Inca qua a high altitude cave site
in Jujoy northwestern Argentina
uh the tubular smoking pipes are made
from the long bones of a puma they were
found alongside uh anantherra
anadanthra
ana denanthra seeds including the plant
commonly associated with uh v [laughter]
vila cibil snuff traditions residue
testing detected tryptoamine alkyoids in
the pipes. So, they were figuring out
how to take these seeds and smoke them.
Um, the materials been dated to roughly
2,130
BCE, over 4,000 years ago. That makes
the find amongst the oldest direct
archaeological evidence for intentional
use of psychoactive
anadenth anadenther
anad sorry scientists in the southern
Andes. That's crazy. The careful
answer is DMT was detected in pipe
residues. But uh anadanththerera
uh colubrina is not simply a DMT plant.
Its psychoactive chemistry can include
uh buffet buffetin DMT and 5me DMT in
varying quantities depending on plant
material and preparation. The
archeological interpretation is that the
pipes were used in a ritual context
involving
one more time anantherra
rather than proof that people were using
modern purified DMT. Either way, they're
smoking whatever the that stuff is,
they're getting DMT from it. So, they
had figured out somehow or another that
ingesting it through smoke. Now, the one
of the reasons why this is particularly
significant is there's scholars out of
um I think it's the University of
Jerusalem that uh believe that the
burning bush the mo that Moses
encountered
>> some kind of psychedelic
>> that that's what what that's exactly
what they think. They think the
translation was it was they believe it
was possibly the acacia tree which is
apparently rich in DMT. So that Moses
has Moses trips ball and gets some
really good solid rules to live by and
comes back with them and said, "Hey,
this is what God said."
>> Yeah. I mean, I I think there it's
clearly the case that ancient cultures,
not just in South America, but across
the world were using psychedelic
substances. And yeah, that's
interesting. I mean the theory of
whether that caused agriculture or
whether that led to civilization or
anything like that. I mean I don't know
but it's certainly interesting that
human beings seem to have been
experimenting with psychoactive
substances for a long long long long
time. Um and yeah that's fascinating.
Yeah. And much like uh in our culture
today and you know especially what
happened in 1970 where all that stuff
was demonized and put on schedule one
back then during the Illinian mysteries.
The reason why those mysteries stopped
is cuz the powers that be were like hey
these guys are a problem. These
trippy dudes with their weird ideas who
uh invented democracy uh they're going
to this whole thing up. We're not
going to be able to run it and tell
everybody what to do and force them into
going into war.
>> [laughter]
>> Yeah, I know. Yeah, but the powers that
be always want to restrict any kind of
like thought that's outside of the uh
what they want people to think. They
don't want people to think uh as freely
as as they can. And I guess
>> anything that limits their control.
>> Yeah.
>> Um you know, cuz everybody wants
control. And there's always new groups
that say, "You don't know what the
you're doing. Let me take the realm."
And that's always been the case. um
which is probably good for people you
know it probably is what leads to I mean
not the war part of it but probably
these new ideas is what leads to an
advancement of civilization rather than
stagnation that we find in some places
in the world where they haven't had a
chance to do that
>> you know like my friends that have been
to Afghanistan um they had to serve over
there essentially saying that like this
they're living like people lived
thousands of years ago there's warlords
and they they control regions and uh
that's how they've always done it and
they they live this weird nomadic
lifestyle in the mountains and it's not
much different than the way it was
thousands and thousands of years ago.
>> Very clan-like uh living. Yeah.
>> And if you don't have if that guy and
the these groups just stay in control
forever, like it's like there's no
motivation for them to change and evolve
and grow. Nothing.
>> There's no innovation or anything like
that.
>> Nothing's happening. Also, they're stuck
in the mountains. So, it's like you're
just trying to live.
>> Yeah.
>> But, you know, when you we think of
these places, these very fertile places
on Earth where like particularly Turkey,
Turkeyy's fascinating,
>> you know, and um many people are now
speculating that that if there is a
singular place that but that might have
been one of the birthplaces of true
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Yeah, I mean I think it undoubtly is. I
think Tashtapella, which is in modern
day Turkey, is the earliest evidence in
my view of something akin to
civilization. And now archaeologists
will say it's not civilization because
it doesn't quite tick off every check
part of the checklist. But I I think
that's neither here nor there. But I
think it's clearly a very sophisticated
culture. I mean, you have like 14 sites
there that are now clearly shown to be
interlin, shared symbolism, shared
religious traditions, same architectural
styles, very impressive architecture,
clearly organized labor, stratified
society because how do you achieve that
without someone at the top and someone
below? And these are all things that we
used to think were civilization, right?
And yet people aren't happy with us
calling Tashapella a civilization. But I
think it will get there. But don't you
think that's just because of them trying
to protect their timeline that they've
been teaching?
>> Yeah. And I think it will change. I
think it will change with
>> I don't think there's any other
explanation other than that. I mean, it
fits, as you said, all the criteria for
civilization that we used to apply. And
the fact that they are moving the
goalposts just because they didn't know
it existed.
>> And they're finding residential
buildings at Gletly now. And that was
always one that used to say, look,
people didn't live there. They must have
migrated there. But now they're finding
that people did live there like I guess
permanently or at least
semi-permanmanently. Look. Yeah, there's
all the sites. And
>> quite a vast area all connected. And so
the only ones they haven't got now is is
writing. And there's an interesting uh
discovery regarding writing at GBCE and
agriculture.
>> Yeah, we talked about that yesterday.
>> The the earthing thing. Yes. So yeah,
really interesting. So are those where
you see those pillars are those sites
where you have like the those concentric
circles?
>> I assume so. Those are the famous ones
anyway. Kahan, Gabbecley, Safete, those
are the biggest ones.
>> And only 5% of Gobeclete currently has
even been excavated, right?
>> Which is pretty crazy when you think
like, well, okay, how many of them are
also still underground? Like, how many
do we know only exist because of ground
penetrating radar and all the other
techniques?
>> Yeah, I mean, it's wild. Like, Gbecepe,
if all of it was excavated, is something
like 50 times larger than Stonehenge.
Stonehenge is obviously an incredibly
famous site and yet it's so much bigger
and like like to be clear it is standard
ar um archaeological practice to not
excavate too much of a site. But
>> what are we what are we looking at here?
>> That's Quebec.
>> And what are we looking at in terms of
these these grids?
>> I think maybe that's the kind of
archaeological I think. I'm not 100%
sure.
>> It seems like it right because it seems
like the grids go on top of these
circles which doesn't make any sense. So
obviously they have to go very slowly.
The the risk of destroying some
incredible find some beautiful ancient
thing because you're using tractors or
something like that is too big.
>> It's valid. It is valid. But I would
argue and I've said this before is that
Gabbec is a site that has such important
ramifications for our understanding of
civilization and the origins of
civilization that it should receive
special treatment. Right? because it is
the oldest site that looks like
civilization. So I always think that
maybe we should not obviously you want
to be careful when you go in and you
want to follow correct archaeological
procedure, but at the same time what if
a relic like equivalent to the Rosetta
Stone, the the one stone that we found
that completely translated Egyptian
hieroglyphs and opened up ancient Egypt
to our understanding. What if some kind
of equivalent artifact is hiding in the
unexavated 95% of Quebec? That could be
waiting for there to for us to find.
>> I talked about this boar before, Joe.
>> Yeah, [clears throat]
>> I don't remember ever seeing it, but
it's not new, but it was also found at
Gobec. It was painted.
>> Oh,
>> I think like some of the mouth was
painted red.
>> It's crazy looking.
>> It's life. I'm pretty close to life
size.
The whole thing is really fascinating
because it's also I think it's the first
evidence of 3D carving in stone too.
>> Yeah. Raised relief I think it's called.
Yeah. Or that's the statue. But
>> what what we're saying about that is in
like these boores and snakes and all
these different animals that are on
these incredible pillars.
>> They're not carved into it. The the
stone is carved around it which is
advanced. That's, you know, it it takes
sophisticated use of tools and an
understanding of how to work stone to be
able to do something like that.
>> And crucially, specialization, right?
That's someone's job. They're not out
there gathering food. That that's their
job. That's their how they spend their
time.
>> And it's also, hey, how did you move
those? [laughter]
>> What? Those stones are huge. What? The
biggest ones are like how many how
heavy?
>> I think most of them are like 10 tons,
but they f I think they found one that
hadn't been moved by the quarry that was
something like 50 tons. And obviously
they would have um assumed that they
would have had a method to move that
otherwise they wouldn't have carved it
out.
>> Yeah. 50 tons is high and um stubby
little peckers.
>> Says clutching
>> clutching their peckers. Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Whatever you're into, bro. Must have
been a weird world back then. And then
the real question is, is this the oldest
civilization or is this the oldest
reboot of civilization that was
destroyed by the great flood and by the
younger dus impact and whatever the
could could have happened to whatever
civilization previously existed. That's
where things get real squirrely.
>> Yeah. Well, exactly. Because if if that
is a civilization, which I think it's
becoming clear that it is, and it
doesn't really matter how you define
civilization, it's clearly incredibly
sophisticated. Like it's a very
sophisticated
>> Yeah. That word is a problem.
>> Yeah. Exactly. Just like who cares? It's
clearly very sophisticated culture. It's
>> like when Fouchi was talking about gain
of function like hey
>> you know what we're talking about.
>> Exactly. Exactly. But but yeah that
means that
>> you know the timeline of civilization
whatever you want to call it has doubled
from 6,000 years to 12,000 years. So
then the question becomes how much
further back does it go? Because clearly
Tashapella Gbeclete it's not the first
thing these people built. They didn't
they weren't starting from scratch. They
weren't just hunter gatherers that
thought, let's try something new and
build this. Like it's clear there's
clearly a long procedure up to that
point. So how far back does that go?
That's
>> and for people that don't know, we
should probably explain that one of the
reasons why they're able to accurately
carbon test Gobeclete
is because, and this is where it gets
really weird, the dirt is uniform in
that it was intentionally covered. So
these sites weren't covered, you know,
just over time like maybe the Sphinx was
in Egypt. They were covered
intentionally and they were covered
11,600ish
years ago. So how old were they before
they were covered?
>> Yeah, of course. I mean that's only the
the earliest date we have, but that
doesn't mean it's the date that they
were constructed.
>> And why were they covered?
>> Yeah, I mean there is debate over that,
but that's what Claus Schmidt thought.
The original
>> What is the debate? Well, some people
say it wasn't intentionally covered and
it was just kind of like a a landslide
over
>> like a crazy landslide that all happen
at once
>> because I mean it's really hard to prove
and
>> what an amazing landslide that covers
everything.
>> Yeah. I mean I don't know. I I would
still lean towards the original
interpretation from the original
archaeologist Claus Schmidt. But
obviously
>> and why did he think they covered it?
>> I don't know.
>> A conquering civilization or like
these people and their beautiful
pillars. No, I think he thought the
people that built it covered it or I
guess he can't you can't tell, can you?
And that's the thing with so much of
this stuff is that no one knows. And
especially the further back you get in
time. Anyone that talks with any
confidence around the past and this is
one of my main bug bears with
archaeology. Like I I love archaeology
and I have a huge respect for the for
archaeologists and I think they do
amazing work. But one of my main bug
bears is the confidence in which people
talk about the past and ruling out other
possibilities. Because at the end of the
day, none of us know what happened in
the deep, deep past. Especially when you
start getting back to these crazy time
scales. It's all speculation. And it
doesn't matter if you're a YouTuber like
me or if you're a professor. We're all
just speculating based on the very
limited evidence that we have. And so I
don't like it when people say definitive
things. I always try and say maybe this
is the case or maybe that's the case. We
don't know. And I think everyone should
approach history with that mindset. And
that's kind of that if I can get any
message across to people, it's that that
is the message. Like we don't know and
here's a possibility and here's a
possibility and here's the evidence that
we think is true. But you know, it's
really hard to tell.
>> But it also does stand to reason that
biology and archaeology as they expand
the timeline as biology has expanded the
timeline, archaeology should probably
tag along. Well, that's yeah, that's
what I mean about the fact that the
rug's kind of been pulled out from
underneath us.
>> Uh, what on purpose means here? There's
good reason to think humans
intentionally deposit at least some of
the fill.
>> Uh, ex enclosure D alone contained
roughly 500 cubic meters of rubble and
cultural debris, and particular items,
including broken anthropomorphic
sculpture heads, appear to have been
deliberately placed near pillars during
refilling. But archaeologists do not
have definitive evidence for the often
repeated popular claim that its builders
intentionally buried the entire site at
once to hide it, preserve it, or mark a
single ritual closure. The mound is
man-made in the sense that it consists
of accumulated archaeological deposits,
but its formation involve both human
actions and natural sediment movement
ending around 8,000 BCE. Yo,
that's a long time ago. I don't
think people even really can wrap their
head around how long we're talking, you
know, especially that's the other thing
about um one of the things that I loved
about uh your your whole video series
was the one where you were talking about
what would be left if there was a human
civilization a 100,000 or more years
ago. And that's not unreasonable.
if this biology
assessment is correct is that there have
been humans far longer than we used to
think. So if that's the case because if
we used to think it was 50,000 years I
think when I was in high school they
were talking they were they were saying
the homo sapiens were like 50,000 years
old or maybe 100 right and now the
conventional estimate is like what three
so the oldest fossils we have of
anatomically modern humans are 315 to 30
60 uh,000 years old. I mean, that's it's
the same fossil set from Jabellarud in
Morocco. And but this obviously is
really hard to date accurately, but it's
between 300 and 350,000 years.
>> And then I think it's really important
to note that the fossil record is
incredibly incomplete because most
people don't leave a fossil. Oh,
>> it's so hard to like it's so unlikely
that you'd fossilize. It's something
like one in a million. So, it's such a
crazy metric to like try to figure out
what the past is from these tiny scraps.
It's like trying to read a book by a
single shard of a piece of paper with a
half a sentence in it and you're like,
"What do you think this book was about?"
Like,
>> Exactly.
>> There's not much evidence. That's the
problem. But the evidence that they do
find is pushing the timeline way back.
Way back. And um that alone, you would
think archaeology would go, "Well, hey
guys, in light of this new evidence,
maybe we should consider the possibility
that civilizations quite a bit older
than we think. If they are the same
exact animal, what would take them
300,000 years to uh develop complex
civilization and agriculture and all
these different things? Like why why
would it take so long? And is it
possible that given the
I mean the incredible possibilities in
terms of like what kind of n natural
disasters took place just asteroid
impacts that we know we find them all
over the earth. All over the earth. And
some of them are 20,000 years old 50,000
years old. We find them everywhere. And
like what kind of an impact would that
have had? What would be left of those
civilizations? and all those questions
again guys like you are are the ones
proposing them and and putting them out
there and it's a really good question.
It's especially in light of you know
what we understand about humans
biologically like wouldn't doesn't it
make sense that these people these just
as like anatomically
completely like us like why would it
take them hundreds of thousands of years
to figure out a roof?
>> Yeah, exactly. But I think it's it's um
I think we have clear evidence now that
what we call modern intelligence,
behavioral modernity, goes back so so so
much further than we think. Like I would
argue back over a million years in light
of [laughter] a couple of papers that
have come out in the last 12 months. Um
>> what are these papers?
>> So I mean there's been two really
significant papers I think since we last
spoke. Um, one of them I think has
really big ramifications for human
intelligence and that's a paper that
came out regarding the island of Sulowi
which is in Indonesia and this is in
relation to human seaf fairing. So
seafaring was always thought to be an
exclusively sapient trait, exclusively
modern human trait because it's a really
hard thing to do, right? you need to be
quite clever to build a boat, to build
something that's sophisticated enough to
be seaorthy to get across ocean
boundaries and to to reach isolated land
masses. And we always thought that was
only sapiens until very recently, but a
paper came out uh in August last year.
You actually sent it to me. I don't
think you sent me a post that was about
um stone tools that was found and I was
like, "That's interesting." I clicked on
the paper and then I was like, "Oh, wow.
Look where these stone tools were
found." And it was really really
interesting because they were found on
Silowi. And Silowacei is an island that
crucially sits east of something called
the Wallace line which is a
biogeographic boundary which means that
it has been an island and separated from
the mainland for tens of millions of
years and separated by deep ocean
channels that are between depending on
the sea the fluctuating sea levels at
the time between 50 and 100 kilometers
across. So, it's always been an island.
And yet, in August 2025, archaeologists
at a site called Calio found stone tools
on Sulowi. And that means that some type
of human, probably not sapiens, but I
guess you never know. Some type of human
managed to cross that ocean boundary and
reach Silowi. And that's fascinating.
But it's worth saying that it's not the
only piece of evidence in the region.
There's also a few a decade or so ago,
we found stone tools on Flores, which is
just below Silhouia. It's another island
and crucially again east of the Wallace
line. So again, you have to cross an
ocean boundary to get to Flores. And
they found stone tools there that are
1.02 million years old. And I didn't
even say the Silhoui tools are 1.04 to
1.4 million years a years old. So over a
million years ago, some type of human
was crossing ocean boundaries to get to
these islands. And there's also Luzon
which is just above Silowi, same region.
They found stone tools there which are
700,000 years old. Now the theory always
was that this was an accident. When we
just had Flores, the uh the theory was
that it was accidental drift. So and a
couple of humans were swept out to sea
and somehow survived the the stormy
ocean and the tropical sun clinging to
some driftwood and and made it to to
Flores and and somehow survived and
colonized the island. But now that we've
got Flores, Luzon, and Silowi, three
islands all in the same region, all
separated by this ocean boundary, I
think it's starting to point less
towards accident and more towards
behavior, right? more towards a
deliberate sea crossing because to to
colonize I was I was doing some research
because of these discoveries and there's
actually been a few papers from NASA on
how many humans you need to colonize an
isolated land mass because NASA were
doing it for like if you're going to
Mars or something and you you need a
certain amount of humans of breeding age
to not um have like genetic problems in
the population to so you need a a
certain amount of humans of a of a
breeding age to to ensure viability,
right? Because otherwise you're going to
inbreed and you're all going to die out
because of genetic issues. And they said
it was something like um you need 160
people at least and that is with strict
breeding controls and genetic testing.
We can probably assume they weren't
doing genetic testing on themselves. And
so then the numbers somewhere near 500.
So, what are the chances that 500
individuals were all swept out to sea at
the same time, all survived the the
crossing and all landed on an island and
colonized it? That's that's a huge
amount of humans for for an accident. Do
you know what I mean? And then three
times in three separate islands, all in
the same region, at what point does
accident start looking like behavior? Do
you know what I mean? Because that is
how what are the chances of 500
individuals all being swept out to sea,
all surviving, all reaching these
islands and all colonizing in three
separate occasions all around about a
million years ago.
>> I think it's not it's not a high chance,
is it? And I I think if we apply Okam's
razor to it, which is, you know, the
simplest explanation wins,
>> I think the simplest explanation is that
these humans were intelligent enough to
build boats. Right.
>> Right.
>> And that's I mean, and that is a
controversial opinion that's not
accepted. It's accepted that the humans
reached these islands. That that's not
that's not controversial. Humans were on
these islands a million years ago, 700k.
>> It's just not accepted that it was
intentional.
>> Yeah. It's not accepted that they built.
>> That seems silly.
>> But I think it's it's
>> it doesn't make any sense. It's not 500
of them make it over by floating and
surviving.
>> Yeah.
>> What?
>> Exactly.
>> All at the same time.
>> Exactly. And this is what I mean about
taking data points from different kind
of science. So
>> because I'm looking into what NASA is
saying about humans colonizing somewhere
>> and I'm saying well look 500 people or
more than 500 people of breeding age as
well not just people
>> all reaching an island on three separate
occasions all in the same region. Are we
sure this wasn't deliberate? So I think
that has huge ramifications for human
intelligence because that was always
thought to be exclusively sapiens thing
building a boat because that's really
hard to build a boat. You have to have
planning you have to have foresight. You
have to be good enough at carpentry to
to construct something that's seaorthy.
You have to
>> trial and error.
>> Yeah. Trial and error. And you have to
have the imagination as well to dream
about what's on the other side of the
horizon. And the bravery and the
incredible reckless courage to go for it
and to go out there across the horizon
and reach an island and
>> and possibly navigate through the stars
like they knew how to do that.
>> Maybe.
>> Maybe they otherwise why would you sit
out, you know?
>> Right. And how would you repeat it?
>> Exactly. Yeah. How are you? Do you
remember which way you went? That way.
You're like, how do you [laughter]
>> some dude with a giant brow
ridge, furry face is telling you, I I
remember going this way. Like, are you
sure?
>> How are you doing? Are you using the
stars? Like, what are you doing?
>> And but humans weren't even meant to
have complex language back then. They
weren't meant to they weren't meant to
be capable of this. I mean, we're seeing
these things.
>> Organization. There has to be some sort
of organization. Mhm.
>> If you're getting a group of people to
agree to get in the boat, if they can't
communicate with each other, that seems
ridicul that seems even more ridiculous
cuz let's say at the the minimum of 50
km, how long does it take you to row 50
km? Seems like it would be days.
>> It would be tough, wouldn't it? An ocean
as well, like a tough,
>> right? If you even survive,
>> how long is it going to take before you
get across? I mean, maybe they figured
out when the stormy season was and they
time it for when it's not so stormy, but
I mean, now, how are they doing that? Do
they have a calendar a million years
ago?
>> Whatever they were doing, if if it was
deliberate, which I think the evidence
points towards, it's a clear sign of
what we call modern intelligence
>> and organization and most likely
communication.
>> Mhm. Which we always used to think only
emerged 50,000 years ago.
>> That's crazy. And so now if it's over a
million years old, you know, that's like
a that is a 20 times and it could be
1.4. The solar waste tools are dated to
1.04 to 1.4. So that's I don't know
what's that like 25 times older than we
think.
>> That's so funny that that point4 that's
a lot.
>> It's [laughter] huge. It's absolutely
gigantic. Yeah. And this is what you
were saying about like people can't get
their heads around the sheer enormity of
these time scales that we're talking
about. Like it's so long.
>> It's so long. Well, uh, another weird
one that that's come up fairly recently,
um, that I know you've talked about is
the copper mining.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> In North America,
>> that one blew me away. Just the volume
of copper that was removed.
>> Mhm. Yeah. They had a whole copper
industry in North America 9,000 years
ago, which is
>> Just listen to that again. Say that one
more time.
>> A whole copper industry in North America
9,000 years ago. And that's the same as
the earliest date anywhere else in the
world.
>> And the volume, this is where this is
what's going to freak people out. Tell
them how much copper was removed.
>> I don't know off the top of my head, but
it's a lot. And to be fair, there's lots
of natural copper. I think it's in the
kind of northern parts of the United
States as it is now. I don't know how
much they removed off the top of my
head, but it is a lot of copper. And
>> like a commercial copper mine volume.
>> Yeah, that's why I said industry like
it's big. It's big.
>> It It's It's so crazy. And I don't
understand how they determined the
amount of copper that was removed. But
if that is correct, that seems to
indicate that there was some sort of
sophisticated metallurgy going on
>> in North America 9,000 years ago.
>> Yeah. Which is as as early as anywhere
else in the world. And that completely
flies in the face of what we used to
think about people in North America.
And it's interesting because what the
evidence appears to show is that they
did this for a few thousand years, but
then they dropped it and they stopped
doing it. Now, I don't know what that
suggests, but either it suggests
something happened to them or they
decided they didn't want to do it
anymore. But either way, it kind of goes
against this idea that we've always kind
of assumed that technology is like an
escalator, right? We always assume that
technology is an Yeah, there you go. 1.5
billion pounds of copper.
>> What? So wrap your head around this
folks. Archaeology and date mining and
copper tool use, but it's generally
cannot calculate annual or century
specific production 9,500
years ago. One older broad estimate puts
a total archaic period extraction in the
Lake Superior region at up to about 1.5
billion pounds of copper, roughly
680,000
metric tons, but that covers many
millennia, not the century, 9,500 years
ago. So that means that they were doing
it for thousands of years.
Is it? They're saying it covers many
millennia.
>> Yeah, they were doing it for Yeah. As it
says, the peak between 7,000 and 5,000
years ago.
>> That's crazy.
That's crazy. So, at least 9,500 years
ago, they started doing this somewhere
around there. And they did it for
thousands of years. They removed copper
for thousands of years.
>> A bunch of was [clears throat] just
sitting on the top. They called it float
copper. I think
>> like that. Like float. Here you go.
Float. That's probably how they first
started finding it and then they
probably started digging. Isn't it
interesting how
>> like precious what we call precious
metals just they exist in weird
deposits. It's like erratic. It's all
over the place. It's like come find me.
>> Yeah.
>> And these people uh use this stuff for
weapons. They use this stuff for
jewelry. They used it for all kinds of
things. Arrow points. I'm sure they
probably used it for all sorts of
things. They had to use it for weapons,
right?
>> Probably. Yeah. I think they found like
spear points and stuff.
>> Yeah, maybe it makes sense.
>> But then they dropped it and then they
just they stopped doing it and we don't
know why they did that. But
>> as I was kind of there's the copper head
uh arrow.
>> It goes against this idea that we have
that that technology is like an
escalator and you just take one level of
technology and you keep going up. It
shows that people can invent something
or discover something and then stop
doing it and forget about it. And that I
think that has implications for how we
look at prehistory as a whole because it
suggests that people,
>> you know, rather than just going
straight line, this linear path upwards.
Yeah.
>> We can go up and down and forget things
and rediscover things and
>> Right. And that's what the um this is
the alternative theory is that we're
we're a reinvention of civilization
currently that we're the most advanced
reinvention that we're aware of. But it
doesn't mean that there hasn't been some
sort of a civilization before us that
perhaps reached heights where we are or
greater in a completely different
direction.
>> And I think when you look at some of the
stone structures that exist, those are
the best evidence because they're so
perplexing. The stones in Lebanon, what
are they called? The trilithon stones.
>> Yeah. Balbeck. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Those are crazy. Like what
happened there? How what how did you get
them up there? It's weird because
they're attributed to the Romans, right?
But there's no Roman records of
>> them doing that. And it's and that's not
particularly weird in itself until you
realize that it's a bigger engineering
project than anything the Romans did
anywhere. I mean, the coliseum is
obviously an incredible thing, but the
blocks aren't as big as these blocks at
Balbeck, and yet they don't mention it
anywhere. And you'd think that, you
know, a civilization that documented as
much the Romans would at least mention
their biggest engineering project
[laughter] somewhere, you know. And I
mean that doesn't mean it wasn't the
Romans, but it's just a weird thing.
Like
>> it's very weird. It's very weird. And
it's also weird that the like many
places the structures that are on top of
it are not as sophisticated, not as
difficult to do.
>> Mhm.
>> That's that's how it is over and over
and over again. That's Sakai Wan. That's
a lot of these places you see the base,
the oldest stuff. It seems like they
find stuff and they build on top of
stuff that was already there. And then
you're dealing with thousands and
thousands of years of civilization where
people don't even remember who built it.
>> You know, they're like, uh, the gods,
the gods put these rocks here.
>> It happens all over the world.
>> Yeah.
>> People build on old sites because often
the sites are the best site in the
region because that's why someone's
built there originally. So, makes sense
to reuse them, but that doesn't mean
that the latest civilization that used
it was the first. I mean, they could be,
but it also doesn't mean that they are
definitively, but often that's how we
take it. And yeah, that's uh not
necessarily the best way of looking at
them. I think
>> I think what you said earlier is really
important that
we can't possibly know and to make these
definitive statements about things where
you just don't have enough evidence. You
don't have enough facts. You you can't
really say definitively, we know. And
that drives experts crazy because they
don't like to do that. They don't like
to let that go. Especially humans,
especially men. They love, you know, the
ego that comes with being the one who
has the information, the expert opinion
that appeal to authority that I'm the
one who could tell you, "Oh, this is
nonsense. These Michael Buttons on
YouTube with their their
archaeological bullshit." They love
doing that. But no one's listening to
them. That's what's cute.
>> Yeah. And um Yeah. I mean, I'm grateful
that a lot of people listen to me.
>> Like I said, you're really good at it.
And it is undeniably just based on what
we've said so far. This is undeniably
strange. It's undeniably weird and it's
undeniably at least to me and you
interesting,
>> you know, and that's uh that's why the
subject will, you know, hopefully will
continue the pathway that it's on
because there's so many people like you
now that are looking at this stuff and
they're very credible people who are
very objective. The the Ben van
Kirkwicks of the world and Jimmy
Corsetes, all these people that are
looking at stuff and go, "Hey, there's a
lot going on here, people. There's a
lot." Yeah. I think it's interesting
that it see like the more we uncover,
the more we discover, the more new
evidence that comes out. I think what
we're starting to realize is that the
limits on our own knowledge are vastly
bigger than we ever used to think. Like
we used to think we kind of had it
figured out. And this is what I'm
talking about with those three questions
I mentioned mentioned at the start. Like
we used to think we had the answer to
these big questions, but with each new
discovery, we're starting to realize
just how vast the unknown is. I think I
think you I think there's two subjects
where this kind of applies. I think the
first is physics. And obviously I'm not
smart enough or clever enough to talk
about physics in any meaningful
capacity. But I think it's fair to say
that the more we learn about the nature
of reality and the universe, the more we
realize just how big it is and how crazy
it is and how little we understand about
our place in it. And but I think the
other subject is history. I think the
more we learn about history, the more we
realize how huge the amount of time
humans have been on this planet is. How
long a mind like ours has been on this
planet. How long humans that are very
similar to us have been on this planet
is. And I think it's a vital thing
because it's physics is kind of the
question of where are we, but history is
kind of the question of who are we and
where did we come from? And that's why
I'm so interested in it because it's a
it's a fundamental question to
civilization and to who we are. And I
think it's really important. And so
that's why I talk about this stuff.
>> Yeah. And and [clears throat] also it's
cool.
>> It's very cool. It's so fascinating,
man. I love it. And I know you love it,
too. And it's it's great.
>> Well, it's it's it's so weird, you know?
It's so it's so weird to think like what
was it like thousands and thousands of
years ago? What what did they know?
Where did they learn it? And was are
these stories, these flood myths that
exist in all these ancient cultures? Is
this an echo of uh a historical record
of people trying to keep track of this
event that took place that crushed us
and brought us down to, you know, a few
thousand people all over the world and
we had to rebuild. And that's if it's
also when you you go back thousands of
years in the conventional timeline,
people were so barbaric. They were so
horrible just a few thousand years ago.
If they were capable 5,000 years ago of
building ancient Egypt or probably
earlier than that, but if Why were they
so brutal 2,000 years ago? Cuz I think
those are the people that survived.
>> I think the people that survived were
probably terrible
>> cuz they had to be. You know, if there's
only like we know that like the Toba
volcano, which was like um is that
Indonesia
>> um 70,000 years ago got us down to what
just a few thousand people globally?
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Imagine that life.
>> It would have been Imagine what you had
to do to stay alive. Imagine even the
thought of raising children in a world
where there's only 7,000 people left and
limited amounts of food and you know
most of the population of Earth is dead.
>> What?
>> Yeah.
>> Like this is crazy.
>> We've been through some crazy things as
a species.
>> Yeah. You did a didn't you do a video of
um there there's some ev evidence that
at some point in history most people
were killed off in war. Yeah. So that is
related to what you were just saying
about so just after the agricultural
revolution
the theory is that because humans then
had like property and were kind of
defending things that people got a lot
more violent. And there's a lot of
evidence that around 6,000 years ago,
basically all the men died. There's like
evidence that 95% of male bloodlines
were removed. And we can see this from
the the Y chromosome in in genetics. And
there's a massive drop off of the
diversity, the genetic diversity in male
bloodlines. And something like 95% went.
And no one quite knows why this is, but
we see lots of mass graves around this
time and violent graves. And like all
these people were killing each other. It
might not have been that, but it's weird
that it only affected men because if it
was a natural disaster, it would, you
know, it wouldn't be specific to e
either gender, but it's only men. So,
some people think it's like a big amount
of violence and but no one really knows.
But it's really interesting.
>> Well, doesn't it make sense though? I
mean, think if you go from hunter and
gathering where you're constantly moving
nomadic tribes, people, bunch of people
that stick together, you're in tents or
whatever, and then all of a sudden
you're stationary and uh you've
developed agriculture and you stay put
and then there's huntergatherer tribes
that still exist because guess what?
They still exist today. So, it's not
like it was a uniform discovery of
agriculture. Everybody adopted it and
there was no more huntergatherer tribes
and there's no more tribes of wandering
marauders. Mhm.
>> So there's still these tribes of
wandering marauders and so now you have
to defend this spot because you're stuck
there
>> cuz you're you're dumbass built a house.
Well, like the Mongols used to make fun
of people that lived in houses. They,
you know, they they thought they were
fools and they they lived in felt tents,
period. That's how you're supposed to
live. Keep moving. And this idea staying
put. Like look at these idiots. Like
we're just going to go sack their city.
Like they really had no respect for
people that were so stupid that they
they stuck themselves behind walls. was
like, "You can't even run away.
We're going to launch lit human beings
on fire with catapults onto your
thatched roofs and set everything
ablaze."
You know, turns out people are like
really good at starting fires when you
light them on fire cuz we're fatty.
>> Yeah, [laughter]
>> Mongols figured out a lot of cute stuff.
But, you know, I mean, makes sense that
that's when war would become ubiquitous.
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>> Yeah. Once we settle down or once we
owned
>> you stay put. You become a target.
>> Exactly. And you have something to
defend with be it livestock or crops or
houses as you say. and and so yeah,
there's quite a lot of evidence that
violence did increase massively as we
entered the kind of agricultural age
that we're we're still in. Um so that is
interesting.
>> It's very interesting and it also is
logical. It's a logical progression of
how people would behave given the fact
that now all of a sudden they have
resources that they've accumulated. They
have a very specific location. They have
to defend that location. That's when
people figure out walls and and some
bigger, you know, whatever. The weird
thing is the the Great Wall of China
like the arrow turrets are facing the
wrong way.
>> Are they?
>> Yeah. I don't know.
>> Yeah. A lot of it a lot of the Great
Wall the arrows are facing inward
>> to try and keep people in rather than
out or
>> or try to keep people from China
>> escaping
>> going to wherever whatever's on the
other side. It might have been some
sections of it weren't constructed by
the people that we think were con
constructed it. You never seen that?
>> No, I never seen that.
>> It's very weird. Like people have
pondered like why do the arrow because
there's these um slots where they can be
protected but shoot arrows through
>> but they're facing towards China.
>> Yeah.
>> They're not like China defending the
wall against the Huns.
>> It's weird.
>> That is strange. That is strange. See if
you can find some of that.
>> I'm looking it up. It doesn't It's not a
not a really great answer in this.
>> So part of it is and part of it isn't.
Uh mostly the Great Wall's defensive
features face north outward towards the
step, the usual direction of major rays
innovation. But many surviving sections
have arrow slits and parapets facing
both north and south, including
seemingly inward towards China. Why face
inward? Defense after a breach of
attackers crossed the wall or captured a
tower so they prepared to be invaded. H
Chinese garrisons needed to shoot and
counterattack from the south side as
well. control of movement both ways. The
wall was a network of forts, gates,
signals, roads, not just a one-sided
barrier. Also regulated border
crossings, trade, and movement. It is
crazy that they've invented a wall that
you could see from space. I know it's
wild. It's like one of the biggest
engineering projects ever.
>> Like, how long is that? Is it like like
a thousand miles or something crazy?
>> I have no idea, but it's big.
>> How long is the Great Wall of China?
Take a guess. I say 1,000 miles. It's
probably more
>> easily. I have China is so big in itself
and the fact it's the whole like
>> Yeah. What do you think, Jamie? Tell you
guys
>> 6,000 kilometers.
>> 6,000?
>> Yeah.
>> Wow. Jesus, Jamie.
>> Huh?
>> You would uh be really good on the Price
is Right. [laughter]
>> Yeah. I'm not
>> Oh my god.
>> 21,000 kilometers.
>> Holy
>> Oh my god. Oh my god. 13,171
miles,
That's crazy.
>> Have you ever been there?
>> No.
>> I've been there. It's crazy. It's It's
amazing. It's so beautiful. The whole
region around there. I mean, obviously,
it's really long, but
>> the famous continuous looking Ming era
wall that most visitors picture is much
shorter. Still, 8,850
km when associated structures and
natural barriers are included. UNESCO
describes the overall Great Wall complex
as more than 20,000 kilometers long. So,
at the very least, the part that you
visit, the uh Ming era wall, 8,850
kilometers, which is wild. That
is so much wall. [laughter]
>> Yeah.
>> Like, what were they doing? So, it was
built over 2,000 years uh from early
walls in the 5th to 3rd centuries B.C.E.
through major work in the Ming dynasty
which ended in 1644. Have you ever seen
some of the stuff that uh Cassie
Coppersmith has uh talked about in
regards to uh ancient technology
evidence from China?
>> Not specifically her stuff, but there's
a lots of weird [laughter] weird lots of
weird things in ancient China.
>> Yeah. weird stuff like jade artifacts
that seem to be machined that don't make
any sense that are like super old
>> and that seemed to be artifacts that
were passed down from generation to
generation and the you know thousands of
years uh ago the this civilization that
was in possession of them their current
ability to make artifacts was like much
crudder. Mhm.
>> So it seems like this was older stuff
that they had somehow or another
acquired
>> and they lost their knowledge.
>> Wafer thin jade, highly polished, seemed
to be machined, like weird weird stuff.
>> I haven't seen that specifically, but
that Yeah, that's interesting. I I don't
know about that. Yeah, it's it seems
like a
like a really clear pattern that exists
everywhere that there was something like
the these ancient voses that they find
in Egypt. Yeah.
>> That they find these in these old sites
>> and that these things that were carved
out of diorite, which is insanely hard
stone, and carved to, you know, within
less than a human hair of variance. Not
only that, if it was on a lathe, how do
you account for the fact that it has
these handles on the side? Like, how the
did they do this? And this was all
stuff that was like really, really old
by the time these people had it. And
that these people, their current state
of pottery and sculpture and much
crudder than this stuff. So, it seems
like these are like really old things
that are artifacts of a time where
things are more sophisticated. So it's
more evidence of this
>> up and down nature nature.
>> Yeah. I mean it's logical right that
people learn things, discover things,
excel at them and then later people
forget them.
>> Of course, especially when you take into
consideration natural disasters, natural
disasters, wars, things along those
lines, you know, like Baghdad before the
the Mongols got there was like the
center of science in the world.
>> Yeah. Yeah. The Arabs. Yeah. They were
incredible at science. And then it's
just the natural cycle of civilizations
and we see that throughout recorded
history. So why would it not be the case
for human beings in the much much much
much much much larger period of time
which is prehistory. Um but it's not
just thing is it's not just like natural
disasters and things and obviously that
plays a part but it's also just the
sheer nature of preservation right such
a long amount of time that we've been
around human beings on this planet
>> there just it's just almost impossible
for things to survive when we talk about
these 100,000 years 200,000 years it's
so hard for things to survive that long
>> right any objects any things that would
be left over like you know I'm sure
you've seen those uh AI depictions of
what New York City would look like in
just a thousand years. It's like
nothing. Everything's crumbling, gone.
>> It's mental.
>> No buildings, no glass. Everything gets
absorbed in the earth. You got a jungle
where Manhattan is. And maybe you would
stumble upon a piece of metal one day.
>> Yeah. But even then, like I mean, I've
done quite a lot of research on material
degradation. And almost all our modern
materials other than stone are gone in a
few millennia. And a few millennia is a
long time, but not compared to these
time scales that we're talking about.
>> No. If these time scales are accurate in
terms of the human brain, in terms of
the ability to logically like view the
world, invent things, creativity, if
they possessed this 300,000 years ago,
like why why wouldn't they have figured
a lot of this stuff out?
>> They definitely did. That's the thing.
Like the seafaring thing over 1 million
years ago, okay, you can debate it. It
could have been an accident, I suppose.
I don't think it is, but you can debate
it. But I think that we have completely
undisputable evidence that human beings
were this intelligent 500,000 years ago
with the Columbbo structure which we
spoke about a lot last time. Like that
is undeniable evidence that some kind of
human was unbelievably smart 500 or
476,000 years ago.
>> Yeah. Was building houses.
>> Mhm. Or building something
>> some sort of structure.
>> Whatever that is requires incredible
levels of intelligence. It is clear
evidence of what we define as modern
behavior. Right. And it probably wasn't
a one-off.
>> Definitely not.
>> And so this is what you found. So then
it means were they teaching each other?
>> Did did So okay, so if they were
teaching each other, what kind of
language do they have? What what kind of
concepts could could they grasp?
>> You're not doing that without abstract
thinking, without symbolic intelligence,
>> right? And how far did it go? Because if
it's very rare that we find a piece of
wood from that long ago that we can
carbonate and that we can test. So, how
much how much do we not find? Most of
it.
>> Yeah. Almost all of it because the
chances of that surviving is so
unbelievably unlikely.
>> I'm a but uh I had a thought. Uh
my thought was if AI can get so
intelligent that it can do an accurate
account of all of the objects on Earth,
all of the people on Earth, all of the
things on Earth, essentially every
molecule that exists on Earth, and then
extrapolate back to how they got in that
position in the first place, whether
through natural ore deposits It's
natural disasters, volcanoes, all these
different things. Like I wonder what
kind of a version of a timeline we would
be able to construct with like a super
advanced artificial intelligence. I
wonder if it's possible to get a
framework that is much more definitive
than what we're looking at now. I don't
know if it's pos I mean you'd have to
have enough technology that you would be
able to literally like scan the entire
outer crust of the earth which seems
daunting today but ground penetrating
radar seemed ridiculous 500 years ago
right so as we continue to expand
>> I mean AI is solving math equations that
have perplexed mathematicians for 50
years they're solving it like that so
this is a new thing it's it's very very
rapidly ly emerging thing.
I wonder what kind of a ver what kind of
a version what kind of a a map of
history at least in terms of like rough
timelines of things we'll be able to
get.
>> That's the great hope for archaeology,
right? Is that modern technology allows
us to discover things that we previously
would not have been able to discover.
And as you say, LAR is the the current
example of that. But if you just
extrapolate forward, what else could we
possibly
>> use to to discover things that we
haven't? Of course, something like that
will emerge because nobody even
considered life again. 500 years ago,
what are you talking about? 500 years
from now, who the knows? Who knows?
We we literally can't imagine what kind
of breakthroughs are available.
>> Mhm.
>> That's the hope. But um but again, I
think
>> part of what makes me um think that
perhaps we're not going to discover
stuff is this preservation problem
because so much of it is just gone. I
mean, I guess if like what you say, if
we can like somehow extract or time
machines.
>> Yeah. I mean,
>> they could figure out a time machine
that that'll throw the whole monkey
wrench right into the gears.
>> Well, I think that whatever happens, our
current understanding of history, that's
that cannot be the the kind of end point
that what we currently think about
history is is just there's no way that
we've like reached the
>> there's no way we're done. And that's
why it frustrates me so much when people
are so definitive about it because it's
like you really think that we're not
going to adv because I mean that's the
science is always advancing in every
single field all the time and we we're
never at the point where we've
discovered everything and yet there's
always people in every period of history
that think this is the kind of upper
limit.
>> What would be around from 300,000 years
ago
other than what we found so far? Stone
tools, like that. Like metal would
all be gone.
>> Well, that's the thing. everything would
be gone unless it's like incredibly
unlikely preservation like the Columbbo
structure like incredibly unlikely for
it to happen. But I mean there could be
other things like that out there and
there almost certainly is but
>> most things exciting. It's like God you
don't want to dig up the whole world but
you kind of do.
>> Yeah it's not that old but this is a
jade sword with or sorry the handle's
jade. The sword would have been probably
metal that's why the metal is all
up but the handle is not.
>> Wow. So, anything with cool rocks or
crystals or
>> Right. Right. [clears throat] The
handle.
>> Yeah, the handle is kind of all that's
left. The sword is a rotten piece of
>> There's a few other old uh
See,
>> yeah, that's the one. These these discs
were really weird.
>> 3000 BC to 2000 BC.
>> But they [clears throat] have I was just
doing the research up until the Ming
dynasty. I think it was like 16. They
have a book someone wrote about how they
were doing this.
>> Oo.
>> But this that's that's in 1600.
>> What did they do?
>> I mean various various things. Um
>> in 1600. But some of these are 3,000
years older than that
>> which is weird.
>> Jade artifacts.
>> Wow.
>> Um weird.
>> This is the cooler though.
Nefright.
>> Oo.
But the description on how they did
this. almost not I'm I'm I have to take
it as they say it, but like the
description of how they did it was like
they would put abrasives on string and
slowly wear away the jade part.
>> How did they do these three-dimensional
little carvings?
>> Yeah, it's just like they would put
they'd get this slurry of water and
>> that kind of makes sense. That one that
you just showed, how old is that one?
>> I don't I don't even know what it is.
>> That's weird. It says, "How did
ancient Chinese carve?" What's the word?
>> That's the question I asked.
>> Without metal tools?
>> This is the link, I think.
>> What is that image?
>> That is crazy, man. What's that
>> right?
>> Where's that from?
>> Carving.
>> What year is that?
>> Oh, that's a modern master.
>> Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense
cuz I was like, how how could you do
that? That's like the flower petals and
everything like that. That seems like
you need metal tools. Oh, so this is
just an article on the evolution of
Chinese jade carving.
>> Yeah, that is so this is a modern Okay,
that's why it's other stuff. That's
older.
>> Yeah,
>> a griffin.
Um, obviously older.
[snorts]
>> Some of these are drills, like these
little holes that if you look and zoom
in real close, you can see evidence of
drills, but that's not, you know,
>> you could have hand drills.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. I mean, you could have harder
stone that you've figured out how to
work into a position and you could have
sand and there's a bunch of things they
could use.
>> So, I guess something like this, I mean,
it's very crude.
>> Mhm. Yeah. I mean, all that is like you
could attribute that to ingenuity and,
you know, craftsman with years of
learning how to work these different
things. It's when you get to large stuff
that you're like, "Okay,
>> yeah.
>> How'd you get these stones from Aswan?
How'd you uh how'd you get a 50tonon
block of granite and move it through the
mountains with no roads? Help me out.
[laughter]
>> Yeah, but they rolled it apparently.
>> How'd you get hundreds of them?
Thousands of them, millions of them.
How' you do it?
>> Wild.
>> Yeah, it is [clears throat] very wild.
And uh it and like some of these things
I I'll send you the Cassie Coppermith
episode that I did with her
>> cuz some of the stuff is like it's very
confusing cuz the timeline's pretty
clear that this is older stuff and the
older stuff is more complex and more
difficult to create
>> and it seems to indicate the use of
machinery. You know, one of the things
she pointed out was this crazy um statue
of a Buddha. Is that in India?
uh where the guy achieved enlightenment
by standing still
>> and it's
>> how tall was it? Is it 90 feet tall?
>> Oh yeah, I remember the one sticking out
of the
>> largest individual standing statue
thousands of years old. Um looks like
it's machined.
>> Mhm.
>> Like really weird. Like really weird
statue.
>> There's so much weird stuff in India.
>> And how did they get it there? Did you
guys did you move it there or carve it
out of there?
>> Or was it a stone that you said, "hm,
wouldn't it be dope if we just Yeah,
look at that with a big giant
hog." [laughter]
>> But I mean, it's really detailed. It's
like See if you can find a good image of
it, young Jimmy.
>> There's some uh
>> her photos still on my computer.
>> Yeah, it's really wild. And she said,
"You see it from a long way away."
>> Somebody put their watermark right over
his dong. How rude. Yeah, that's insane.
>> They knew you going to be looking right
there.
>> Me? [laughter]
>> No, everybody. Humans.
>> There's also like the the Kalasa temple
thing. The one they carve, right? Yeah.
Carve right down somehow. Uh hammer and
chisel apparently.
>> Yeah.
>> Who knows? It's incredible.
>> The one where they an army went to try
to destroy it and they tried for years
and they came up.
>> Really?
>> Yeah. They barely put a dent in
it. They scratched a few things up, but
they they worked on it for years to try
to destroy it.
>> Why?
>> Because some new guy came along and
said, "Fuck these people in the temple."
>> Yeah. This isn't my like religion. This
doesn't suit my story.
>> Like what the Taliban did to those
ancient
>> they blew them up.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, there's over a thousand years
old. And they're like
>> an ISIS to Palmira.
>> Yeah.
>> Sad, man.
>> I know. It's really sad. And if that's
human inclination to do that kind of
stuff, like how long
>> how long have we been doing that?
>> Like how much how much stuff is Yeah.
But this stuff is not around anymore
because some came along and
wanted it removed.
>> Yeah. Because it doesn't suit your
narrative. And it doesn't because
everyone's always building a story.
Humans have always done that. Built a
story around
>> to legitimize uh power and rule. And if
it doesn't suit your story, you destroy
it and then
>> Yeah,
>> exactly.
>> Would I be able to have some of that
coffee?
>> Hell yeah, dog. Get on in there.
>> Thank you. I got to wake myself up.
[laughter]
>> Yeah, you're uh jetlagged. Trip across
the pond.
>> Yes, exactly. Uh, here he is. This is
what it looks like. Isn't that wild,
dude?
>> That's incredible.
>> Yeah.
>> What's the um date on this? The
conventional date. Do we know?
>> That's a good question.
>> They're going to have to carbon date his
dong.
>> We don't know, but I'm sure it's known.
>> Uh, there's a guess, right? Like, what
is the guess of the timeline?
Whatever it is, it's very perplexing.
It's a 57 feet tall monolithic statue of
Lord Bahubali.
Uh
>> 106 983.
>> Okay. So 983
CE.
>> That's they believe AD. Yeah.
>> Yeah. AD current era.
>> Uh regard as the tallest Jane statue
until 2016. Construction of the statues
commissioned by the Ganga dynasty
minister. Okay. So, how how'd you make
that? Where'd you get it? How'd you get
it there? You did that what? You did
that over a thousand years ago.
And how do you how do we know that?
That's the timeline.
I mean,
>> it's weird. It's weird because it looks
machined when you look at it. Go back to
uh some of the images, please. When you
look at like the detail of the fingers
and the toes and the uniformity of the
face, it's weird, man.
It's like these people had a lot of
resources. Look at the size of
that dude standing next to it. Like for
real, how do you get that if you if
that's not a big giant contiguous block
that was sitting there? What is it made
out of?
>> Granite, I think. So, if that's not a
just a giant perfect slab of granite
that happens to be roughly in the shape
of a guy and you're like, "Wouldn't that
be dope if we made a dude out of that
with a giant dong and just had him just
staring over our kingdom?"
>> But we don't do that anymore. That's
what's weird. We don't No one's building
things like this anymore.
>> Certainly not out of stone.
>> No.
>> Yeah. Because we like to make money and
it takes too much time to do a
pyramid when you can make a nice
skyscraper in just a couple of years and
put a big trump on the roof.
>> Yeah. [laughter]
>> Uh no surviving technical manual records
uh records rather the exact construction
procedure. Archaeological and art
historical understanding is that the
artisans shaped the statue in situ,
removing stone around the intended
figure, roughing out the body, then
refining the face, limbs, hair, and
distinctive vines, climbing the legs.
Imagine if you that up.
[laughter]
This approach avoided the near
impossible task of quaring,
transporting, and raising a 17 meter
finished sculpture onto a hill. Yeah. So
if they moved it, if there was
definitive proof that it was moved
there, then the there's another monkey
wrench gets thrown into the whole thing
and then you have to go, okay, how?
>> But it does make much more sense if you
just carved it out. But also like how
long would that take?
>> What kind of tools are we talking about?
What kind of shitty ass tools did people
have at 900 CE?
>> Well, then here's the rest of, you know,
stuff they did in India. They did weird
stuff in India where they just carve
stuff right out of the stone. Like what
what was the motivation to build these
temples? Just carve them right out of
volcanic stone.
>> It's insane.
>> Crazy.
>> So detailed as well.
>> And insanely detailed. And also some of
the sculptures are three-dimensional.
Like how did you get behind them and
carve that out? And how did you make all
these like weird things? Or have you
ever seen some of them where they go
over it with a light and you could see
how threedimensional?
>> Yeah. And of the Barabar caves, do you
know about them also in India where it's
like completely mirror polish surfaces?
And yet the conventional explanation for
that is that they were just shelters,
>> right?
>> But why are they so precise? They're
like completely precise and they've got
this weird mirror polishing.
>> Yeah.
>> You don't need that if you're just
building a shelter.
>> And how about those pillars that look
like they were cut on lathes?
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah. Like what? How did you What's
going on, guys?
>> I know.
>> What did you We're missing so much.
We're missing so many details about the
past. It's it's so frustrating if you're
really interested in it because it's
like
>> how much do we know versus how much are
we just assuming?
>> Well, that's the thing. We're assuming
so much. And that's why it bugs me when
it's presented as fact or presented as
we have the all the answers because we
clearly don't.
>> Yeah. Um what are the other papers that
have come out that have been um
>> so there was the paper about the 1
million year old skull, human skull that
was found in China uh last year. Um, and
this is super interesting because this
is a a human with a modern sized brain,
but that was found a million years ago.
And so again, that has implications for
what was really going on a million years
ago. And if you link that to the what I
would argue is modern behavior with the
seafaring in Southeast Asia, then you
have a million-y old skull found in
China in in Northeast Asia. um
you know, put those two things together
and you suddenly got human beings with
modern brains doing modern things a
million years ago and I think it's
fascinating. So I mean the paper came
out uh I think in October last year and
what they did was they took there these
fossils from a place called Yungian in
China. Uh and they were discovered
actually in the 1990s I think it was
1989 and 1990. There's two skulls Yung
Xan one and Yung Shang 2. Um, but they
were badly deformed. Yeah, there you go,
Jamie. Right on Q. Um, badly badly
deformed. And they were always thought
to be homoerectus because of where they
were found, China, and how old they
were, over a million years old, because
that was the only type of human that
should have been in China or in that
area at that time at that at that age.
They always assumed to be uh
homoerectus. But a few researchers from
a university in China along with uh the
natural history museum in London, a
professor named professor Chris
Stringer, they applied modern
reconstruction techniques to Yung Xang
2, the second skull. And uh so they use
something called CT scanning to
reconstruct it. And what they discovered
was that they think it's actually uh a
homongi skull, which is this part of the
same clad as Denisan, Dennisovven. And
why that's important is that Dennisovven
is kind of like a sister.
>> How do you say it? Do you say Denisovven
or Denise? I say Dennisovven, but I keep
hearing Denise. My I'm trying to change
it.
>> Yeah. All the scientists say Denise, but
the cave is Dennisova cave. So it should
be Denisovven, you would think.
the scientist.
>> It doesn't matter. Dennisovven, Denise,
whatever. Either way that these
scientists think this skull is um is
homolongi which is a cloud of denisphan
which is crucially a sister species to
Neanderthal and us sapiens which means
that if this skull is a million years
old and if it is homolongi that means
that the divergence of our species must
have happened before then so when humans
split into neanderthal denisan and homo
sapiion if this human was already
walking around 1 million years ago that
means that whatever became us had
already diverted at that point. So, we
were already a distinct species, Homo
sapiens, 1 million years ago, which is a
staggeringly long amount of time and so
much older than what we thought before.
We used to think this was around 500,000
years ago. So, it's like a 400,000 or
more than that jump from what we thought
before. Have you heard the theory about
Neanderls that they believe that
Neanderls were not just a separate um
group of human, but were actually
created by humans interbreeding with
other ancient primates?
Um, how do you mean?
>> So, instead of Neandertols existing
previously, that homo sapiens pre-date
Neandertols and that homo sapiens
breeding with some other ancient
primate, some other one of these created
Neandertols,
>> maybe. I haven't heard that. I don't I
don't know.
>> Yeah. Um, I don't know if it's right. I
I read it and I was like, what? I was
like, okay, this is this is a crazy
theory. Yeah. And it's um you know
because the the thought is that Neander
dolls were bred out with you know that
there was interbreeding between humans
and Neandertols but that might have
actually like predated Neanderls
themselves like it might be the cause of
Neandertols is that humans homo sapiens
bred with something else.
>> Well we definitely bred with
Neanderthals and probably Denisven and
Neanderthals and Denise bred together as
well. We're all so similar. The fact
that we can have kids together is
incredible. They actually recently found
evidence of uh
>> humans and as in sapiens and
Neanderthalss actually coexisting for a
long long time in the same place and
like living in the same place. And
because you could always argue before
that perhaps it was, you know,
non-conensual uh breeding, right,
>> between like a Neanderthal male, a
sapion woman, but now we have evidence
that we did live like alongside each
other cooperatively. I can't remember
where the site is, but that was found
recently. So yeah, that's interesting as
well because
>> see if you can find any what whatever
the hell I found about um Neanderls
possibly a result of humans breeding
with other primates
>> with other primates. So is it not even
>> I mean not other other humans.
>> That's what it said
>> were not created by modern humans. They
were closely related extinct branch of
the human family.
>> This is a very recent proposal. Yeah, I
might have asked the question too in a
different way than ask that Neonil is
created by humans, which isn't really
what you said.
>> No. Um,
see if the if you search is there, put
this in.
Is there a theory
that Neanderthalss
were a result
of human uh maybe we see Homo sapiens?
Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens
breeding
with other
>> primates.
>> Primates. I guess you wouldn't say
primates though because that's a monkey.
Other
>> homos.
>> Other homos. [laughter]
Other ancient humans. Write that.
Ancient humans.
>> Ancient human species.
Let's see what Perplexity has to say
about this.
I wish I'd saved that
because it was really interesting. It
says no, not as the main scientific
explan. That's but that I don't mean the
main scientific explanation. I'm saying
is there a theory? I want to know if
there's a theory.
>> Uh well then that has to now I mean
that's about how we're using this actual
thing because I'm using it in a general
way,
>> right? But not as the main scientific
explanation. Absolutely. But is there a
theory? Has anyone has anyone theorized
that this is possible? Ask that.
>> All right. Um
>> theorized
that this is possible.
>> It's going to have to crawl if it's new.
I mean, it has to crawl the websites to
find that information. You know, it
might not have
>> I wanted to crawl.
>> I'm out. We can't make it crawl. That's
>> crawl,
[laughter] They're going to take over,
man. They're going to ruin the problem.
>> Yes. Here it goes. Researchers have
proposed hybridizationbased ideas, but
generally not the exact claim that
Neandertos originally formed from Homo
sapiens plus another species. What has
been proposed? Paleolontologists
proposed that particularly late
Neandertol or early modern human fossils
might be Neanderthal homo sapien hybrids
or descendants of populations that mix
repeatedly. No, this is not quite what
I'm saying.
This is what's up when you watch
too many videos and you read too many
articles and you don't save them
[snorts]
>> because this was quite a few months ago
too.
>> Let me ask
it.
>> Um the the Dennis Oven thing is weird
because um there's recent proposals. So,
I think there's a a paper I sent it sent
you in um a podcast where they're
discussing this paper that as of August,
like this month, there's some
speculation about the height of the
Dennisovvens and that they think they
might have been much larger than Homo
sapiens at the time.
>> Yeah, they found a bone. They found a
bone, a thigh bone, I think, under the
sea. Uh suggest that Dennisovvens and
everything we found about Dennisovvens
is um that they were bigger than us. So
the teeth we found, we haven't got much
from them, but the tooth is bigger, the
jawbone is bigger, the dragon man skull,
which is being classified as very
similar to Dennisovven, is bigger, and
then they found this uh thigh bone that
suggests that they were considerably
over six foot tall. Now, obviously
that's not like a massive giant, but
compared to, you know, the average
height of a human today is something
like a male human is something like 5'8
or 5'9. And so a Denise of being over
six foot is like quite a considerable
jump from that. So, it's not like a
mythical giant, but it's still bigger
than you'd expect an ancient human to
be.
>> And it's also, we're going with a
limited amount of fossils, right?
>> So limited. So limited.
>> So just from what we know, they existed
and with larger skulls. Uh gen recent
genetic research confirms that modern
humans, homo sapiens, and repeatedly
interbred across a period spanning
roughly 200,000 to 250,000 years ago.
While it's long believed that
interbreeding occurred during a brief
window of about 50 to 60,000 years ago,
advanced genomic mapping shows multiple
waves of contact occurred much earlier.
200,000 to 250,000 years ago, an early
wave of homo sapiens migrating out of
Africa encountered and mated with
Neandertols in Eurasia. So what this guy
was saying was that it might not have
been that but that even earlier than
this Neanderls were a result of human
beings interbreeding with others
or homo sapiens interbreeding with
others.
>> I don't know. Thank you though.
>> Sure.
>> Um
where we just at? Oh, Denov Denisovvens.
So just that one alone was way bigger
than most humans at the time. And just
even the size of the head, the bones are
bigger. It's a bigger brow. It's it's it
seems like a more robust, larger version
of a human. And then when you take into
account the range and size of human
beings given the um the correct amount
of resources and food and protein, like
we got seven foot plus humans that are
all over the place today. And imagine if
these Dennisovven skulls, which seem to
be like a completely different structure
than a homo sapiens, we might this the
might be the giants of the Bible is the
point. Yeah.
>> Like this might be what they were
talking about. Like there might have
been a race of much larger people that
were physically dominant over homo
sapiens.
>> Mhm. They could have been they could
have been considerably bigger. And they
don't even need to be that big for the
the myths to kind of perpetuate. Do you
know what I like someone to be a little
bit bigger and you encounter a group of
them and you're like a small homo sapien
community,
>> you're going to remember that as
>> well whenever I do the UFC weighins and
I'm standing next to massive you
know these huge heavyweights
>> like some of these guys are just
gigantic humans, you know,
>> 6'7, 6'9, 265 pounds and they have to
cut weight to make 265. These are giant
people.
>> Yeah. You know, and then you think this
is, you know, whatever percentage of
people that are around today that are
that big. If the Dennisovvens, if we
just have a limit, we might have caught
just a a few small ones.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> I mean, that's all we don't know. I
mean, I wonder what the would
happen if they found some bones that
indicated there was a man that was 9 ft
tall.
>> And we know that primates can get that
big. And obviously, we're a primate. I
can't remember what it's called, but
>> that's the one. Yeah. absolutely
gigantic as as per the name.
>> Yeah.
>> So they can primates our kind of line of
of of animals can get really big. So
>> and that along the same lines of like
the the timeline of discovery of that is
fascinating too cuz I think it was in
the 1920s an archaeologist was in a in
an apothecary shop in China and he found
molers that were from a primate that
didn't make any sense. They were really
big.
>> Yeah. Huge. He's like, "Where did you
get this?"
>> And he went there and then that's where
they found jawbones and things. So,
there's some um we used to think that
they were bipedal cuz I I've read that
before, but now they're thinking that
not not necessarily and that they might
have been cuz like a lot of people
thought that's Bigfoot, you know, that
there's this
>> myth that persists throughout Native
American cultures for everywhere else.
Yeah. I think it might have been an
enormous
uh orangutan
like that movie. What was it? The Jungle
Book.
>> Jungle Book. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
So, a 10-ft tall orangutan. Like, what?
>> I mean, it just makes sense if there's
the people you you brought up Flores
before. Now, we also know about those
little hobbit people that lived on the
island of Flores that were these three
foot tall tiny little people. So the
island dwarfism and then there's they're
they're a totally different version of
human beings of of you know the human
chain the human tree who knows who knows
what these doans look like
>> and island gigantism is also a thing in
nature we see that and we see reptiles
right so it could apply to to primates
and to humans
>> sure as long as they had enough food.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's just um the idea of a Dennis
Oven. I mean, they they only discovered
them in 2010, right?
>> Oh, yeah. So, and we have hardly
anything about them. So,
>> how many are we missing? You know what I
mean?
>> We literally have like a tooth, a
jawbone, and this thigh bone and a few
other
>> Right. And how many other versions of
humans are we missing?
>> Yeah, there's ghost populations in our
DNA. We know we're missing humans. Like,
there are other types of humans that we
just have nothing for. And
>> yeah, that's weird.
>> That's so weird.
>> That show Human, have you ever seen that
show? It's on um God, is it a BBC show?
>> Oh, yeah. No, I watched that. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Very interesting.
>> It's good.
>> Um but she was on a podcast recently
talking about um this ghost DNA and how
weird it is that a few hundred thousand
years ago
>> some something happened and there's this
DNA that's in there that's like what is
this? What's this stuff?
>> Yeah. There's so many populations of
humans that we think existed because of
our DNA, but we don't know who they
were. We've never found them. And they
could be, you know, very close to us but
also with significant differences. And
it's just it's all up in the air. And
same with so much of prehistory. We just
we don't know.
>> Yeah. And I wonder like what kind of a
society what kind of if do do they find
stone tools with Dennisovvens? Do they
know that yet?
>> It's really hard to attribute stone
tools to anything because if you just
have the tools, you you don't know what
human used them, what human made them,
right? because you have to find like a
skeleton and it's so hard to find a
skeleton next to the tools and even then
you don't actually know if it was that
that made the tools. So, we don't know.
>> Yeah. Um, what else has been fascinating
for you recently?
Um, so I think the question that I
mentioned at the start, the one like
when did humans reach isolated land
masses such as uh America and Australia
is a really interesting question because
again the old ideas we have have proven
[snorts] to be incorrect and I think
especially in the case of the Americas I
think it's super interesting because
obviously as you know we used to think
it was Clovis first 13,000 years ago but
so many sites now seem to be pushing
that back much much much much older into
the past. Um,
>> so yeah, that's a really interesting
question. I mean, obviously now we know
that humans have been in the Americas
for at least 22,000 years with white
sands footprints, which I'm sure you've
you've heard of that, right?
>> 22,000 years. It's crazy. So that's the
oldest accepted evidence, but I think
there's loads of interesting sites that
potentially push it quite a lot further
back than that, which are a bit more
controversial, but when you take them
all together, the kind of Yeah, there's
white sands. So that's now accepted, I
think, uh, by most archaeologists. And
what why that's important is it because
it kind of opens it all up again because
because of when the the kind of the
glacial maximums happen, it kind of the
the opening of the the corridor because
that's pre that. It means that we now
don't know how long humans have been in
the Americas. It could go back way
further. And then you start looking at
these other sites and you think maybe
it's a lot lot older. So there's one in
Mexico called Chikawita Cave. Uh
apologies for the pronunciation. It's
probably wrong, but this is uh 33,000
years old. And high in the mountains of
northern Mexico, they found like 2,000
stone tools. Um
and they did like 50 separate dates. And
the date isn't controversial. What's
controversial is if they were humanmade
tools. Um, but the scientists working at
the site think that this is evidence of
humans in the Americas 33,000 years ago.
Then there's a site in Brazil called
Pedra Farada which is 50,000 years old.
Um, is that Chikaw? [clears throat]
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, exactly. So, I mean it looks just
like a tool, but I mean people argue
that they're natural. Um, so it's up in
the air. It's not accepted yet, but I
think that's the
probably the most uh the least
controversial. Um
>> 26,000 years ago.
>> Yeah. But it goes up to it's like 30 to
33,000 years I think. Um but yeah,
there's a site called Pedra Furada in
Brazil where they found uh hearthlike
structures. So people making fire, they
found charcoal, they found blackened
stones, uh heated stones rather. Uh and
that they dated that to like 50 or
60,000 years ago. So that's like a lot
older than than White Sands obviously.
Um so that's a really interesting site.
Again, not fully accepted by
archaeologists, but the people working
there are quite convinced that it's
evidence of human presence in Brazil,
which is obviously quite far south. Um
50 over 50,000 years ago. Um but the
thing is you can't prove it because you
haven't they need so many things to say
it for sure. They need like a a fossil
of a human basically because otherwise
you can say it's natural. Yeah. Uh I
don't know what those paintings are. I'm
assuming they're more recent because
otherwise that would be pretty clear
evidence. Um but I think the the
hearthlike structures and the the the
heated stones and the charcoal are dated
to over 50,000 years ago.
>> Crazy. Go back to that last one, please.
>> Right there. That is wild.
>> That is wild. I'm assuming that is much
more recent because otherwise that would
be very clear evidence of human
presence.
But I think the oldest layers go back I
think it's been continuously or they
think it's been continuously inhabited
for for thousands and thousands of years
with the oldest being over 50,000 years
old.
Yeah. Are they the tools? They might be
the tools that because so so critics say
that it's natural, right? Um but
>> that those are natural things, not
tools.
>> Yeah. But a paper came out in 2023 that
really made the case that it's it's
human presence. So
>> napping. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Um and I I think it it's I think
it's leaning that way, but it's just so
hard to prove it, right? So it's not
accepted yet. But
>> Jamie, uh I just sent you a link that I
found yesterday. I thought it was pretty
bizarre. A completely different part of
the world, but also really interesting.
>> It's a link to an Instagram video.
There's so much of this stuff now.
That's what's so cool. It's like, and if
you're in a good algorithm,
you get inundated. Give me some volume
on this
jurian Sahara with 5,000 rooms and we
still haven't seen all of them. It's
called Sephar. No roads lead to it. No
vehicle can reach it. The only way in is
on foot through a maze of stone pathways
that all look identical. On the walls
inside, there are 15,000 paintings,
animals that no longer exist here,
rivers that dried up thousands of years
ago, and then things no one can
identify. Floating figures with no
faces, beings with round heads wearing
what looks like suits. A figure over 3 m
tall that the man who discovered it
simply called a god. Most of Sephar is
still unmapped. Whatever else is in
there, no one's seen it yet. I could do
without I could do without that guy's
voice. [clears throat]
>> He's a little ridiculous.
>> I gota take the radio head out.
>> Yeah. Settle down, putty. It sounds like
a AI voice, right? Like a super
enthusiastic AI voice. Is that what it
is?
>> Well, uh it could be. It very well could
be. It definitely is going to be in the
future, but
um I don't What was it called? I don't
>> I don't remember.
>> Sephar.
>> It's just uh Yeah.
>> Okay. Let's try to look it up.
>> See if you can look it up. And um
subsaharan Africa is another weird one,
right? Because
>> especially the the Sahara itself, like
that used to be vast green grassy trees,
jungle, like who knows what it was. And
now no one's really has really any
understanding of what's under that sand.
>> Yeah. But it was fertile and green right
up until literally right up until the
point that the conventional timeline has
civilization starting like around 4,000
BC is when it flipped to to desert. Um
so yeah, I mean I'm sure there's there
there has been archaeological work done
in the Sahara, but compared to the size
of the Sahara, there's there's just got
to be loads of stuff under there that
could potentially change our
understanding of
>> the origins of civilization for sure.
Um, very interesting region, but yeah,
extremely hard to excavate for many
reasons such as the climate and also
political instability. A lot of those
countries are pretty up, so it's
hard to like go in there and do
archaeology, but very interesting region
of the world and obviously that is where
Egypt emerged just after this period.
So, you know, what were the people that
kind of went to the Nile River doing
before? There's many interesting things.
There's um what's it called? There's an
interesting site, Naplier, I think it's
called.
>> Yeah, it's going to be a little hard to
get to. It's the middle of the Sahara
Desert. Boy, in Algeria.
Gez. Buried.
Oh, yeah. I have heard of this actually.
Somewhere in there. [laughter]
Imagine you're an archaeologist and you
you're tasked with uh you know, someone
gives you some funding. Hey,
>> Sahara Desert, bro.
>> We want you to get in there and uh go
look around. [snorts]
>> What?
>> Yeah. you. It's probably not the ideal
place to go.
>> You can't even go without getting
killed.
>> Yeah. You don't want to get shot.
>> You could literally die.
>> So, no.
>> Yeah. [laughter]
>> Imagine just imagine if you found
something cool. Imagine you found a
bunch of cool
>> Yeah. You go.
>> Good luck.
>> Just good luck taking it out. They're
like, "Oh, where'd you get that?" Yeah.
>> Exactly.
>> Thank you. Thank you.
>> Exactly. They'll kill you. That was also
my thought. I was going to bring that up
about Gobecape about if they bring in
more archaeologists, more people to dig,
if they really truly expand, they really
have to keep track of what they find
because the amount of money that someone
can get for an artifact on the black
market is pretty incredible. This is an
issue with Egypt, right?
>> And South America.
>> Yeah.
>> Yes. And South America. But Egypt in
particular, there's some inconsistencies
with uh Zahi Hawas's versions of like
what was discovered in some places,
whether or not a skeleton was in a
sarcophagus versus what he said later,
>> you know, like in the older versions
there was a skeleton. And the newer
versions, they didn't find anything. So
like, did you sell a skeleton? Because
people sell I'm not saying he did, but
did somebody sell a skeleton? Because
people sell skeletons. And if you are
some rich guy who lives in some other
country and you're a billionaire from
oil and you're like, "Uh, you know what
I'd like?" You got a guy. He's like,
you've got everything. You got a all the
Ferrari. Like, you know what I want? I
want Egyptian skeleton. Get me that. Go
get me a mummy. I want a mummy.
>> Or any kind of artifact or anything like
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Especially something gold. Some ancient
gold. All that stuff was stolen out of
there. So, was it melted down? Like for
grave robbers, like that must have been
an incredible place to be before
everybody discovered all those tombs
because we know like with King Tut,
which was preserved. Luckily, nobody got
into that until
>> what what year was that they found it?
>> Tuton Commons.
>> I'm not sure, but within the last couple
decades, I think. I'm not sure.
>> Whatever it was, it was I think it was a
little longer than that. But the point
is, it's like fantastic gold sarcophagus
cover and massive treasure trove
of jewels and and things like how much
of that stuff is scattered in private
collections in the world, you know?
>> Yeah. And in South America, like because
they spent like underneath Cusco,
there's all these tunnels, right? And
people have known about them for a long
long time, but it took a long time for
archaeology to kind of accept that they
were there. But people have been going
like people had like uh tours and stuff
down into the tunnels before it was like
widely accepted. And back then it's just
rife for people selling off to the black
market because there's no control over
it. There's no kind of institutional
>> control over it. So people could just
kind of do what they want until
>> it actually finally got like uh you know
controlled by the authorities. So
>> yeah,
>> who knows what went and all over the
world as you say uh yeah there could be
stuff that is really interesting that is
just out there. And then there's the
elongated skulls, the weird
skulls, and a long history of people
discovering those. Like, how many people
got the good ones? How many of them were
removed a long time ago and sit
somewhere?
>> Mhm.
>> It's almost like you have to go raid all
the rich guys of the world. [laughter]
>> See what you got hiding in your
basement.
>> Find some guy like what's your Google
search like? [laughter]
>> Let's let's find out who's got the
stuff. Cuz I mean, if you're a person
with a private museum, if you if you got
that kind of money and like there's
people in the world that have private
zoos, right? So they have so much money
in other countries that they've, you
know, they have basically the wild
kingdom
>> in their backyard,
>> you know, and that guy's like, "Well, I
got that. Now I want
>> I want something even more weird." Yeah.
>> I want you to build like I went to the
Cairo Museum once and I I like the way
it looks. I want that in my house, you
know?
There's got to be people like that in
the world.
>> This guy, [clears throat]
>> he's one of them.
>> There he goes.
>> 91y old Don Miller from Indiana.
>> He had thousands of artifacts removed
from his house.
>> Oh, wow.
>> I think he had Egyptian mummies.
>> Whoa.
>> I'm trying to find the good pictures in
the list of
>> psycho. So, they seized his stuff. How'd
they find out about Did he Was he on
Instagram? [laughter]
A delegation from China went to Indiana
to claim their
>> Whoa. A delegation from China. I wonder
if they showed up with guns. Give me
your ship back. FBI raided a 91year-old
missionaries home and found thousands of
stolen Native American bones. Whoa.
>> Amazon River canoe.
>> Wow. The Ming Dynasty jade an Egyptian
sarcophagus and a dugout canoe that had
traveled down the Amazon River.
Wow.
>> Just in his house. There's a picture of
his house and another thing I had.
Imagine it's just all
>> How' this guy get the scratch? Where's
he getting the money for all this? What'
this guy do?
>> I don't know why there's not a movie
about him.
>> After 10 years, FBI returned 7,000 rare
artifacts
looted by Indiana grave robber. Oh, he's
a grave robber.
>> That's, you know,
>> that's what they call him.
>> So, it's just a a dude who is a
collector. He's might not necessarily be
a grave robber.
>> I don't think this is the same guy. They
found FBI found 42,000 relics and 2,000
human bones in a man's home. [laughter]
>> What is that?
>> Whoa. What the
>> What is that? A horse?
>> Maybe like a pengalin or something.
>> A sloth. Yeah, it looks like a pengalin,
right?
>> 42,000 relics.
>> Oh, same guy.
>> No,
>> Don Miller.
>> Whoa, it is the same guy. That's crazy.
Oh, this guy's a nut. He died in 2015.
Too bad.
Uh, he was 91 when agents first knocked
on his door in 2014. Wow, he only lived
a year later. The 42,000 artifacts
hoarded by Miller represent what may be
the largest ever seizure from a private
collection. So, this is what's
interesting. It's like how are they
saying that he's not allowed to acquire
them? Like do we have rules in terms of
like say if you found some stuff?
>> I know we have rules about Native
Americans, right?
>> FBI became involved when they learned
thousands of items were obtained in
violation of antiquities laws and
federal and state statutes. According to
the FBI, Miller went on digs around the
world and illegally brought his fines
home to the United States. I think Nick
Cage had to give back that skull he
bought because it was stolen from
somewhere or something.
>> He bought a skull.
>> Uh like a T-Rex skull.
>> Oh, you didn't hear about that?
>> Oh, he had to give back his T-Rex.
>> I think so cuz they found out that it
was like stolen
so gave it back. I don't know what
happened with the money, but
>> Whoa.
>> Um
>> how much is the T-Rex cost?
>> Also, I was thinking this guy got
>> They found this guy. There's got to be
we just I brought him up because I knew
about it. Uh he, you know, probably
talked about it at the bar and all that
kind of
>> Yeah.
>> What about the people who don't?
>> He's on Facebook.
>> Yeah. What about the people who don't?
>> Those old dudes are all on Facebook. Um
have you seen the dinosaur that way to
Well has
>> Yeah.
>> Ways to Well legally purchased a
dinosaur.
>> What? Like a
>> So they have a like a dinosaur bone,
some aquatic dinosaur that they have
suspended in their ceiling.
>> Really?
>> Yeah. You can buy dinosaur bones. Um,
>> he bought a skull for $276,000.
>> Mongolian government.
>> Wow.
>> The Gobi Desert.
>> He voluntarily returned the fossil to
the Mongolian government after US
authorities found it was smuggled.
>> Oh no.
>> Wow. Um, see if you can find the ways to
weld dinosaur.
>> Yeah, you can buy dinosaur bones.
>> That's pretty cool.
>> There's a lot of people that don't
believe in dinosaurs lately. This is
very confusing.
>> Why? What? What's their reasoning?
>> Oh, just they've been lied to about
everything. Maybe dinosaurs, too. And
there's people that think that dinosaurs
were actually the dragons of ancient
history
>> and that that's uh that's all
>> It's the dumbest theories. I mean, like,
you know, we have I there there's the
waste world dinosaur. That's what it
looks like.
>> That's pretty dope.
>> Yeah, it's pretty sick. Some sort of an
aquatic dinosaur. Uh how much of that is
actual bone and how much of is replica?
I don't know. Some of them are replica.
I think that's actual bone. But like uh
they have t T T T T T T T T T T T T T T
T T T T T T-rexes. I think the most
complete T-Rex is
I want to say 80%. What is the most
complete T-Rex skeleton ever found?
>> That one just sold um recently
uh at an auction.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Yeah, it was 62% complete.
>> Is that the most complete one ever?
>> Pretty sure.
I thought there was a
>> Oh, there's one that's 90%. Sorry.
>> There you go.
>> Well, discovered with 90% of it skeleton
recovered.
>> Yeah, we know a lot, folks. This idea
that dinosaurs aren't real is is really
silly.
>> Definitely real.
>> Sue.
>> Yeah.
>> Whoa. Okay, so that's real. Guys,
stop. That's a real skull. The the
problem is there's been deception. And
one of the one of the big pieces of
deception is when you go to a lot of
museums and you see a dinosaur skeleton,
you assume that's how they found it and
they put it back together again. Whereas
a lot of the pieces of those bones are
not real. A lot of the pieces are
recreations and entire entire um some
entire skeletons that are in museums are
all a recreation. There's no actual bone
that you're actually looking at. And so
then people are like, "Hey,
[laughter]
>> it's the same with uh it's the same with
ancient sites though.
>> 67 million years old, 80% intact." So
like just that alone, 80% of that is
real.
>> Um that's amazing.
>> They are real. It's a a real
thing that existed just like
crocodiles are still real today. There
was a real group of large reptiles that
roamed the earth
>> for a long time. But the crazy thing, I
think dinosaurs really highlight the the
kind of fragmentaryary nature of the
fossil record, right? Because
>> they existed for 160 million years or
something like that, but we only have
like a few thousand
>> fossils from that huge amount of time.
>> Exactly.
>> And it just shows how little survives,
right?
>> Yeah. Exactly. And that the fossil
record is just really weird. It's a It
takes a lot to make a fossil. So we have
a tiny fraction of the actual data
>> and we have to extrapolate out from from
that and just that's our understanding
and that's why it's we do not know what
happened in the deep past. We're just
>> Isn't it cool?
>> It's so cool. I love it. That's why I do
what I do, man. I I love
[laughter] it.
>> Yeah. I don't know anybody who when you
first learn about this stuff, anybody
that I want to talk to, when you first
learn about this stuff, you don't go
whoa,
>> you know, because it's it is so
interesting. And um that's why to me the
um reaction to Graham Hancock's ne
Netflix series was so strange, like so
unhinged, like why why are you guys
freaking out about this and calling it
the most dangerous show?
>> Yeah. I mean, I've experienced this
firsthand now because I mean, last time
I was here, I wasn't really known about,
but now I'm a kind of people know who I
am and I get so much hate. Like
[laughter] so much hate and it's it's
weird because people like paint me out
to be something I'm not like. And it's
just so strange because I'm me and I
know what I think and I know what I
believe and yet obviously you've like
experienced that on a whole different
level. But
>> yeah, I've experienced it from the
government.
>> Yeah, [laughter] exactly.
>> But it's just wild. It's so weird how
when people like paint you out to be
someone that you're not and put words in
your mouth and like it's strange, but
>> you'll get used to it. Um the the key is
just don't read it.
>> That's the key. Like you're going to be
aware of enough of it peripherally.
people will bring it to your attention
if it's really important or if it's like
significant,
>> none of it's gonna really be important.
But as long as and you're a very
conscientious guy and you do a really
good job, like I said, of being
objective and measured and that's all
you need to do. Just keep doing that.
Just don't read the comments.
>> Yeah.
>> Cuz there's a bunch of people out there
that are just very unhappy, period. No
matter what. And when someone is getting
a lot of attention, they're very angry
always. And there's whatever that number
is, one out of a hundred, one out of a
thousand, it doesn't matter. When they
reach you, that negativity is never good
for you. It's only bad for
>> and it sits with you a little bit more.
Like you get all the positive comments,
but you don't really you don't like
and then the negative one sticks in your
brain. But you know what's really
interesting is like people have done
like hit pieces on me and but and
obviously loads of negative stuff comes
through, but also I've had like actual
archaeologists and actual people working
in actual institutions reach out to me
and say like, you know, these are like
actual archaeologists and they're saying
like, "Michael, we we value your work
and like we actually think you're an
important voice and stuff like that."
And I I find that really encouraging
because these are, you know, it's easy
for us to think about archaeologists as
like a kind of bogey man that like want
to suppress all this stuff, but they're
not all like that.
>> No. Some of them are open to these
things,
>> particularly the young ones,
particularly people that are coming up
that really the reason why they got into
this in the first place is because it's
such a fascinating subject. And like you
when you've you've spoken on this when
you were um in school and you were
getting your degree, uh you were
confused as to why these alternative
perspectives weren't entertained.
>> And I think there's a lot of young
people that feel confined by the
gatekeepers. they can they feel confined
by the career academics that are sort of
in charge of who gets tenure, who gets
jobs, who gets grants, and it's a very
confusing thing. You don't want to
ruffle any feathers or step on any toes.
And so you feel constrained in your
ability to be, you know, curious. And
that's that seems insane for something
that is so inherently curious,
>> curiosity driven,
>> so inherently unknown as well that we do
not know as we keep saying.
>> Right. Right. Right. We're not talking
about stuff that's like, you know,
established science where you can
clearly,
>> you know, it's not mathematics. This is
something like weird. This, you know,
you're you're you're looking at hints of
the past. And um the more we look, the
more we find older stuff. It's like
Graham always says, stuff just keeps
getting older.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah.
>> It's crazy.
>> Well, it's just so cool that you're out
there making videos and that you could
do that for a living now.
>> I know. It's wild. I feel I feel so
lucky that I get to uh do something I'm
so interested in and talk about these
topics and also to like create not to to
kind of like inspire this thinking in
other people. That's really what I want
to try and do is to get people thinking
about history from this different
perspective and to think about the
unknown and think about the potential
that what humans could have been doing
now that we know that a mind like ours
could have existed for a million years
that humans like us could have inhabited
this planet for such a vastly longer
length of time than we used to believe
and all the possibilities that throws up
more than anything. That's what I want
people to to think about when they watch
my work. I don't want to tell them to
believe this or tell them to believe
that. I just want them to kind of think
about it themselves and open their minds
to the possibilities that could have
occurred. And that doesn't mean that
like people always say that I like
saying that there's like advanced
civilizations in prehistory. I'm not
saying that. I'm just saying
there's a lot more on the table than we
used to think. And I think that's really
fascinating. I wish more people would uh
kind of take that possibility seriously.
Um, and that's why I get encouraged when
I get these emails from people that
actually in the institutions because
they're the people that are going to
rewrite the textbooks. Like I can say
what I want. Like I'm just a YouTuber,
but we need the people that are actually
working in the institutions to think in
this way. And then
>> then I think we we might uh update our
thinking on these things.
>> I think there's a lot of those young
folks that are coming up now in
archaeology that um do have alternative
perspectives whether or not they're
being suppressed. And it's also very
encouraging for them to see a pathway
outside of academics academia like what
you're pursuing and to see like not only
is this viable, but you can do it with
the the proper approach like the way
that you're doing it where you're not
making crazy claims, not saying the
aliens did it. You're not saying
anything nutty. You're just saying,
"Hey, um there's uh there's a lot going
on here and to pretend that we have an
accurate map of the territory seems
silly."
>> Yeah. I think I just think there's so
much more on the table now than there
used to be only a few decades ago. And I
think that's so exciting when we look at
our past because as I say, it's the
reason we're all here, right? It's the
reason we live in this civilization is
the answer to these questions and we
don't know the answer to these questions
anymore. So, let's uh let's talk about
it, [laughter] you know.
>> Yeah. What else have you found recently
that's interesting?
>> Um yeah, so I mean I was still there's
still um there's older American sites.
So um so there's obviously the Seri
Maston site which is 130,000 years old
which is controversial but I think
people
>> the mastadon bones where they appeared
to be it's appears signs of human
smashing the bones to get the marrow.
>> Yeah. Just after like fresh freshly
smashed after the animal had died and
they found like these anvils like these
things that look like tools next to the
bones. And
>> it's controversial because we can't
prove that that was human activity but
it looks like human activity. It was
even published in Nature in 2017. So,
you know, it's another little data point
that pushes back human presence in the
America potentially to over a 100,000
years ago. And there's even more.
There's a site called uh Calico where I
think this one's a little bit I don't I
don't really buy this one, but a very
famous archaeologist called Lewis Leaky
who was like one of the top names in the
archaeology in the 20th century. He
believed that Calico showed evidence of
human presence in the Americas over
100,000 years ago as well. So, so
another data point and then there's um
then there's way at Larco which um I
think you've heard of. Have you heard of
way at Laco? It's this site in Mexico
where they had this volcanic ash over
these human tools and they dated the ash
to like crazy numbers. I'm talking like
300,000 400,000 500,000 years ago and
the tools were below this layer.
>> What?
>> Yeah. So,
>> no, I'm not aware of that one. So in the
1950s
there was a a Mexican archaeologist who
was doing some work in [snorts] the
Vasculo basin in Mexico near the city of
Pubella and he was finding all these
extinct pleaene animal remains there
alongside human activity. So he called
in some American archaeologists and they
did some work and they identified this
site called wayco which is an
archaeological site there and they found
these very sophisticated stone tools.
They're like bacial stone tools which
means they've been worked on on two
sides and it's quite a sophisticated
level of tool. And so they found this
and they were like okay this is an
interesting site. Let's bring in some
geologists. So the geologists came in
and they were expecting to date the kind
of sediment around the tools to around
8,000 to 10,000 years ago because they
knew about a volcanic eruption that had
happened at that time and so they
expected the volcanic ash to be from
that. So they did all this testing, but
then they found that the ash was giving
these crazy dates like 200,000 300,000
up to 600,000 years old. And that was
completely mental because the tools were
below this layer of ash. And then they
dated a a camel pelvis, I think, that
was um insitu with the tools. And that
camel pelvis came back to 250,000
years old as well. And that was in the
same layer of the tools. So they kind of
brought all their different dating meth
methods together. And there's multiple
kind of uh geological dating methods on
the sediment, the ash, and and also the
camel pelvis. And they kind of collected
all this to a date of 250,000 years ago
for this site for where these tools were
found. And um yeah, so they tried to
publish this and um they received like
immense push back because obviously this
was the the time of the Clovis first
paradigm and you know people weren't
ready for Clovis to be broken let alone
by such a huge margin like hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of years old and
they couldn't publish for like 20 years
and by that time many of the artifacts
had gone missing and they they didn't
know where they were and the site
actually got raised like it kind of
removed. Yeah. And I don't and I'm not
trying to say that's like some
conspiracy or anything, but it just
means that you can't really prove it,
but they did eventually publish and they
the geologists have always stuck by this
date. And there's multiple lines of
evidence that suggests that the tools
were found below this layer of roughly
250,000 years old. And that's obviously
like hugely older than we think humans
have been in the Americas. So, it's a
very interesting site. Um,
uh, I want to give a shout out to Will
Brown, uh, who's got a channel called
Incredible History. he's actually been
to the site and he kind of like nudged
me in the direction of looking into this
one. Uh he's got a great channel. Um but
yeah, it's it's super interesting
because we can't prove it because the
tools have gone missing. The site no
longer exists, but there's a paper out
there written by serious scientists
saying that, you know, there could be
human presence in the Americas over
200,000 years ago, potentially even
older than that. And that would just
radically change our understanding of
humans in America. So then when you put
all these sites together, so obviously
White Sands is the earliest at 22,000,
but then when you add that to Chikuete
Cave as I mentioned earlier, 33,000,
Pedra Furada in Brazil over 50,000. Seri
Mastadon 130,000.
I don't really think Calico is I I think
that's natural. But then Larco at
250,000, you know, it only takes one of
them to be right for our understanding
of when humans reached America to
radically shift. And I think it's only
logical that humans were in America a
lot longer than we think because, you
know, when we're talking about the vast
span of time that we've been on this
planet, why couldn't we have reached
these places?
>> Right? And then the question is how did
we reach them and from where?
>> Mhm.
>> You know, from where
>> exactly
>> that's the the weird thing is some of
the when you look at like pyramid
structures for instance, like where did
that idea come from? How did that idea
make it to the Aztecs? Mhm. All over the
world we find pyramids. Yeah.
>> Weird. It
>> is weird. I mean, you could say that
it's just like a a logical way of
building things, but
>> maybe
>> who knows.
>> Well, there's also the weirdness in the
fact that the Aztecs themselves didn't
build build the pyramids.
>> Oh, some of them. Yeah. like uh Teot
Touakan was there before and they said
it was they the name literally means
place where the gods lived and they
found it there
>> and uh so it was before them and they
don't know who built it,
>> right?
>> They gave us lots of our names. They g
they gave us the name. Almech means uh
the rubber people uh because they knew
about themes. They knew they existed
before them but they didn't really know
who they were but they just called them
the rubber people.
>> Is it because they lived around rubber
trees?
>> I think it's cuz they use rubber or
something. I'm not 100% sure. Um,
>> so what's the conventional theory about
who built these Aztec temples?
>> Um, I think the theory is that it was a
a culture that came just before the
Aztecs um that we don't have a name for,
[laughter]
but they don't I mean they don't know.
They don't know.
>> Imagine you don't know anything about
them. You don't have a name for them.
But they made insanely sophisticated
>> architecture with stone.
>> Mhm.
>> That mirrored the cosmos.
>> Yeah. And no one knows who built the
pyramid of the sun. I think that's what
it's called at Teuakan. But it's it's
ginormous and it's incredible and it's
all these different layers to it and
incredibly sophisticated. We don't know
who built it. We don't really know when
they built it. I mean, we think we know
kind of the region, but
we don't know. As is the case with so
much of this stuff, we do not know.
>> Is there a conventional timeline?
>> Yeah. Did they like and what are they
basing it on? Um,
>> if they think it came right before the
Aztecs, because I had read as as long as
a thousand years before them.
>> Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what I mean
by right before because I'm thinking in
these big long it's a long time. Yeah.
>> The United States is not even 300 years
old.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. But um
Yeah. But what I'm trying to say is I
don't think it's like, you know, way way
>> right. Right. Right. So somewhere around
a thousand years before, but that's the
thing. is like how many of these things
happened where there was some sort of a
civilization and then it collapsed
>> and then new people came along.
>> Like the idea that you would have a
civilization that was capable of
building something as fantastic as some
of those Aztec constructions
and then they would just go away.
>> We just lost all memory of it. All
memory of it. And then people just
wandered up there one day, the Aztecs,
and they're like, "Whoa, what [laughter]
is this?" You know, like
>> And it was probably covered with jungle.
Mhm.
>> Right.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, how many of those things were
just absorbed by, you know, the just the
just nature?
>> It's no wonder that they think it was
built by gods, right? Because you see it
and you're like, that is incredible. Who
built this? It must have been the gods
>> and there's no one living in it.
>> Mhm.
>> And just so show shows how easily human
civilizations can reach a really high
peak level of sophistication and then go
down again and collapse and just all
memory of them is gone.
>> Yeah.
Um, any other cool things you've
discovered recently?
>> Well, there's also the question of when
humans reached Australia, which I think
is another really interesting question
because the conventional time is is
65,000 years ago. Uh, and there's a site
called Majed Bay in Northern Australia
and that's the earliest accepted site in
Australia. And that's right in the north
of the country. And it makes sense
because you have to you have to cross
water to get to Australia. You have to
build boats and cross water. But there's
another really interesting site that's
right in the south of Australia where
archaeologists found um blackened stones
again and charcoal and hearthlike
structures. And they dated this site to
120,000 years ago, which is double just
about double the time that we think
humans were in Australia. And it's in
the very south of the country. And the
archaeologists that have working there
actually wrote in their paper that the
evidence supports a cultural origin over
a natural origin. So they think that
it's cultural as in human rather than
natural, but they can't prove it because
there's no associated artifacts and no
associated skeletons, but they think
that it it kind of leans towards being a
a cultural origin. Uh, and obviously if
that's correct, that means human beings
weren't only in Australia twice as long
as we thought, but also had inhabited
the entire continent. Well, not
inhabited, but had gone through the
entire continent right down to the very
south of the country twice as old as we
thought. And it's just another thing
that's like pushing it older and older
and older. And it's not accepted, but
it's so hard to prove these things
because we can't find skeletons or we
can find skeletons, but it's extremely
rare. So the the bar is so high for for
proof. But this site uh called Moyel
120,000 years ago is uh I think very
strong suggestive evidence that human
beings have been in Australia twice as
long as we think. And obviously that
means that they had to have got there by
boat. And uh
>> yeah, there another interesting Was
there something that was done on the
genetic connection between uh Australian
Aboriginal people and uh Dennis Sovvens?
>> Yeah. Yeah. They think that maybe there
was different migrationary uh pathways
and different human species potentially
also reached Australia. And it's not
that wild because if you think back to
the the seaf fairing thing we were
talking about earlier, if people were
reaching islands over a million years
ago, then why couldn't they have reached
Australia much earlier than we think?
>> Yeah. Because if we had that capability
for so long,
>> why not?
>> Um, when they do this, is this uh I mean
because obviously they didn't even know
about Dennis Ovenans until 2010. So is
this like uh genetic analysis? And if if
so, like do they have genes? Like how
how do they get genetic uh material from
these Dennisovven skeletons?
>> I think you can take it from
or something. I'm not quite sure, but I
think you can. I think they know the
kind of genetic makeup of of the
different human species. And
>> so I think you can tell that way if you
if you've got like a trace of the the
DNA.
>> Yeah, that's what I was saying. Like if
it's fossilized, do they have actual DNA
from Dennis Ovenans? And if they do,
like how are they how are they guessing
that people uh Aboriginal people in
Australia have some traces of it just
like Europeans have traces of
Neanderthal?
>> Yeah. And also people in uh uh I think
like Nepal and these high altitude
places they have quite high traces of
Denisan DNA and that's what they think
allows them to live in high altitude
environments. They think that Denise are
more robust than uh modern humans and
can live in more extreme environments
>> and they think that people that live in
uh those kind of high altitude regions
of the Himalayas and stuff have that uh
kind of gene if you like. I'm not sure
that's the science behind it, but they
think they have the traces of of that
and that's what allows them to live in
these more isolated uh high altitude
environments.
>> So, they think Dennisovven's lived in
high altitude mostly.
>> Maybe. They don't know.
>> They don't know, but
>> well, there's only a few bones, right?
>> Exactly. So, it's really hard to tell.
>> So interesting, man.
>> And also in that region, they they found
recently the old the oldest evidence of
advanced surgery, which is like way
older than we think. It's like 31,000
years ago. They found some surgery. uh
in Borneo which is again in this same
region. I think Indonesia is such a
fascinating region because it's the
place of where the Sunda shelf was where
obviously the sea levels risen have
covered a huge expanse of land that used
to be land um but now no longer is. So
many interesting discoveries here, but
they had this surgery thing is um they
found uh the skeleton of a child that
had had his leg amputated and but had
lived for many many many years
afterwards and his his whole like lower
leg had been amputated off and but had
like healed like completely and he'
lived like or she I think it was a girl
lived like a lot longer after that and
obviously that's quite an advanced thing
to to do, right? because you have to
understand how to prevent infection. You
have to It's a very humid place as well,
so it's very hard to survive. Probably
was very painful for that individual.
But this pushed back our understanding
of surgery by like 20,000 No, maybe not
quite that long. I can't remember what I
think it was like 7,000 years ago. So
yeah, by a long way because this is
31,000 years ago. So again, it's showing
prehistoric humans to be far more
sophisticated than we think. They were
performing surgery 31,000 years ago and
surviving and living for years
afterwards. And
>> that is insane. Mhm.
>> I wonder if they had any pharmacological
interventions like to deal with the
pain.
>> Well, I think they would have used wild
plants because we've got so much
evidence now of other human species and
our human species using wild plants to
uh as medic for medicinal purposes,
right?
>> We see Neanderthalss doing that a long
long time ago, like cultivating wild
plants and using them as painkillers and
stuff like that.
>> What what's going to kill the pain of a
amputation?
>> Well, probably not much, but
>> of a bone saw.
>> I know.
Right? And like what kind of tools did
they have? Like what were they doing it
with? How how' they stitch people up?
Did they have needles? Did they have
thread? Did they just leave the wound
open? Like what did they do? But
whatever they did, it worked and they
were sophisticated enough to to keep
that person alive and to care for them
and for them to live years afterwards.
>> Excuse me.
>> It's wild. It's wild. So it's yet more
evidence of people being just super
sophisticated so much longer in time
than we thought. And uh it all pointed
in one direction, man, which is humans
have been here longer. They've been more
intelligent than we thought for a long,
long time.
>> If you had a guess, what do you think is
the oldest real true civilization?
>> H
>> how long when do you think it started?
So I think in terms of like what we call
civilization in terms of our current
like cycle of it if you like I think it
is tashapella and whatever came before
that but I don't think it would probably
been that far further before that but I
think that from the onset of the holene
I think we basically started right away
all over the globe and you know uh
developed civilization because it
happens everywhere right back to
question one why did it happen
everywhere all over the time because I
think that's what humans do I think once
we get a stable period of climate we we
innovate because agriculture and
civilization can't have been a very hard
invention to do because everyone did it.
It happened everywhere all over the
world. So, it's not like a really unique
hard thing to do because people did it
everywhere. So, that makes me think what
about all the other periods of stable
climate that we've had. And now that we
know that human beings have been around
for so long, we've had it's something
like four stable warm periods in the
time that we have modern sapient
fossils. So, 300,000 years. But then if
you extrapolate that out to this
million-year time scale of modernized
brains and modern behavior with the
seafaring, it's something like 11 warm
periods that we've lived through of
stable climate conditions that have
lasted for over 10,000 years. So you
look at each of those warm periods and
you think if agriculture and
civilization isn't that, you know, hard
seismic of an invention to to do, why
couldn't it have happened in those
previous warm periods, 11 of them going
back to a million years and possibly
beyond? There's also that very weird
phenomenon when when someone somewhere
figure something out even if people
aren't connected other places in the
world people figure it out at the same
time that we know that to be the case
today.
>> Rupert Sheldrake has a term for it. I
think it's called is it morphic
resonance? So his his term is is also
based around theories that they've done
with uh rats and mazes that if you teach
a rat a maze on the east coast, rats on
the west coast learn it quicker.
>> Really?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. He's got lots of interesting work,
hasn't he? About kind of
>> almost telepathic
>> Yeah. Weird stuff.
>> Yeah. very
>> that there's probably some sort of
aashic record that there's probably some
sort of shared field of information that
whether or not it's tangible and you
can, you know, write it down verbatim or
whether or not it's some sort of implied
concepts and ideas that are transmitted
through the species.
>> Mhm.
>> That like creativity itself is almost
like something that we tap into like
uniformly
>> as a species. It's like you can like
almost like we're in an antenna or
something.
>> Yeah.
>> And that like when Michael Button
figures something out, someone on the
other part of the world is like, "Oh, I
feel it."
>> Yeah.
>> Which is very weird. It's a very weird
idea.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, and it's it's impossible to
prove or I mean you can you can imply it
and the rap thing is very interesting
and I think they've done them with some
other things as well.
>> Mhm. You know, so it's uh it's
it's interesting because like if that's
not the case, then what do you have a
seaf fairing civilization that travels
the entire globe? Do you have something
that that so
so advanced they figured out how to
traverse continents and they're bringing
all this information with them? Is it
one group? No. It seems like they all
kind of figured out the same time or
roughly.
>> Mhm.
>> Roughly.
>> But it is pretty much the same time in
comparison to the amount of time that
we've been on the planet. Right. It's
not a coincidence. It's an explosion.
>> Exactly. Yeah. So why because the the
reason given is the climate. That's the
old reason. But I think that is the
reason because you know the climate got
warmer. So agriculture civilization and
yeah that makes sense. But then why not
before? Why not in all of these 11 warm
periods where humans have been here and
been smart? If it's such a common
invention, why didn't it happen before?
>> Right?
>> Maybe it did.
>> Maybe it did. It's also interesting how
much stuff like if you think about the
global temperature, like where is it
always warm? Well, it's always warm
around the equator. Kind of always stays
warm around there.
>> And well, what's around there? Well, the
Amazon.
>> Yeah, exactly. And even in periods of
Yeah. Like the fully glaciated periods.
Some places on the Earth were perfectly
habitable,
>> right?
>> So, who knows? But then I mean, and that
goes back into like you say the Amazon,
it goes into the question of how long
have humans been in America because if
we've been in America and the Americas
for a lot longer than we think, then
people have been in the Amazon a lot
longer, we think. And then you look at
the discoveries in the Amazon and how
there's been civilizations there a lot
further back in time than we thought.
Well, how far back in time? Obviously,
the evidence we've seen so far doesn't
point like crazy back in time, but we
don't know.
>> Well, there's so little evidence. That's
the problem. I mean, they're just
recently discovering these grids, right?
And so, how much archaeological work has
been done on all these grids?
>> Oh, yeah. Exactly. It's so hard. And
also the the rainforest is such like a
extreme recycling kind of natural
machine that it's going to destroy
anything that's that's older than than
uh a few thousand years ago. So
>> it doesn't mean there's not stuff that's
older than a few thousand years ago. It
just means there's nothing left.
>> Mhm. And they could have built in
organic materials that have just decayed
and you would never see it.
>> And they could have been doing that
hundreds of thousands of years ago and
who knows.
So it's wild, man. It's so wild. Uh, and
I think this the potential is enormous.
Just absolutely enormous. And that's why
I do what I do because I think it's so
fascinating and I love talking about it
and I love uh getting other people to
think about it. And that's the great
privilege of me being able to do this
job. Um, so yeah. Well, it's an
important job. It really is because
those videos although they are, you
know, just YouTube and they're
entertaining. They're just, you know,
something that anyone can digest,
there's so much valid, fascinating
information on them and so many valid
questions
>> that we really can't quite answer and
expands the like when people watch them,
you get this understanding like, oh wow,
this is a big puzzle. This this thing is
really complicated. Like it's a lot more
complicated than we've been told,
especially by, you know, people that
want you to believe that they have they
have the answers.
>> Yeah. That's why I just I hate it. I
hate the certainty that people talk
about the past cuz I never talk about
with certainty. I'm not saying this is
necessarily true. I'm just saying, you
know, poss possibilities everywhere. So
many different possibilities. And uh
yeah, everything we seem to discover
pushes it in one direction that's older
and more intelligence back in time. And
yeah, there's there's so many
interesting things. Um, and we haven't
even we barely scratched the surface
today.
>> I know. Well, we could do this for days.
Um, before we wrap it up, though. Is
there any any other really interesting
ones that you'd like to talk about?
>> Yeah, there was something interesting
that came out uh in regards to writing.
There's a couple of interesting things
regarding writing. So, obviously writing
is the kind of marker of civilization.
like writing began, civilization began,
but we're starting to see evidence of
symbolic
meaning being transmitted through
symbolic notation like way back further
in time than we believe. So obviously
the earliest writing is still thought to
be about 4,000 BC with the ancient
Mesopotamian ununiform and stuff like
that. But as you mentioned fin the the
kind of idea regarding Tashapella having
a similar thing and that's 12,000 years
ago but there's much much older evidence
of humans conveying information in a
symbolic fashion. So there's um an
archaeologist called Genev Genevie
Vonettzinger I believe she's called and
she found evidence that on all these ice
age paintings that we find in Europe
with all these incredible like bulls and
bison and stuff and you've probably seen
them. But next to them is like this kind
of symbol of notation that people have
kind of overlooked for years. But she
found 32 recurring signs across a period
of 30,000 years all across the
continent. And these signs she thinks
are like a not a language as such but a
kind of a a system of encoding meaning.
Yeah, there you go. There are the signs.
>> And she kind of makes the argument that
these signs are um
not a language as such but a kind of
tradition of conveying information that
lasted for 30,000 years. And that is
such a long length of time. Like if you
think about the oldest language today,
it's I think it's ancient Chinese and
that's only a few thousand years old.
And yet these signs appear all across
the continent of Europe across a time
span of 30,000 years and pretty much
exactly the same and just these signs.
And they also find them in other
continents as well. And she doesn't say
there's any connection there. And I'm
not sure there is any connection there,
but
>> the spirals are really weird.
They find spirals all over the place,
right?
>> Yeah. They find these signs all over the
world that Jamie, you might be able to
find uh
>> all over the world.
>> Yeah. There's like a cool map where they
kind of point where where it's all
found. If you scroll down a little bit
>> uh on the left uh that one. Yeah. You
see that? That's really blurry.
>> Yeah. Once it loads, but it's it's all
over the world. There you go. And it's
the same signs. Wow.
That's crazy. So the same signs in
Europe, North America, Central Africa,
South America, Southern Africa,
Australia, Malaysia, East Africa, New
Guinea. Wow.
Borneo,
Myanmar.
And she thinks it's like a a much older
symbolic tradition that humans have kind
of carried with them in the kind of
migratory roots. And it actually goes
back much older than the the ice age art
date of like 40,000 years, but actually
comes from when humans first reached
Europe out of Africa and spreading
across the world. And we've kind of kept
the same tradition of conveying
information. And again, this has massive
implications for human intelligence
because even though it's not a full
language, the ability to convey
information in a symbolic way is a is a
marker of of really sophisticated
intelligence. And so it's another really
interesting discovery that kind of
points towards intelligence and also the
the kind of the to maintain that
tradition over such a long length of
time is really interesting because we
don't really do that like as I say the
oldest language is ancient Chinese and
it's only a few thousand years old and
yet these people somehow managed to pass
on this language quote unquote for
30,000 years. [snorts] Have you ever
heard anybody discuss the concept that
human beings might have had some sort of
some sort of telepathy
that atrophied when we started using
language and writing and communicating
with words?
>> Well, what's really interesting is the
human brain size has decreased since
civilization began.
>> Uhhuh.
>> Which is strange because because and it
makes sense because if everything was
oral before, you need more of your brain
to hold all the information. But once
you can kind of outsource it to physical
objects,
>> you don't need so much brain like size
and space.
>> How much has it decreased?
>> I can't remember off the top of my head,
but it's I don't think that's even
controversial. I think there's quite a
lot of evidence that the human brain
size has decreased a little bit in the
last 10,000 years or whatever. Well,
what weren't like there was some ancient
people that thought writing was a bad
idea and that you should uh you should
remember everything
>> and that writing and writing things down
was actually going to degrade your
memory.
>> Well, I think it certainly does because
you don't need that brain like part of
your brain anymore if if you're not
memorizing all the information you have
like and it makes us smart as a whole as
a civilization but
>> and if you extrapolate so to hard
drives.
>> Exactly. Well, it's happening on an even
bigger scale now with AI and stuff like
that.
>> Exactly. Same process though. Like
people have talked about chat GPT
decreasing people's intelligence.
>> Well, because it's it outsources
thinking itself which is a crazy step
and
>> and we're going to just go like a
raisin.
>> Exactly. So I mean [laughter] it's Yeah.
So I mean maybe we're regressing but I
think as a civilization we're we're
learning more and
>> yes collectively but as the individual
>> maybe we're regressing
>> and our potential to learn and just
remember things like when I just from
when I was a boy I knew everybody's
phone number.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And now I don't know any I know like
three people's phone numbers
>> because we don't have to memorize
anymore.
>> Exactly.
>> It's wild.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. And there was also another paper
that came out regarding language uh
which is they found um over 200 objects
and this around the same date around
40,000 years ago and they basically
found like a protoriting script that had
the same level of complexity as the
early Sumerian scripts from 3,000 BC but
from 40,000 years ago in Ice Age Europe
again. So it's it's like another kind of
proto language symbolic uh thinking and
and conveying meaning through symbols. I
don't know if may I can't quite remember
off the top of my head, Jamie, but if
you type in like it was this year, so if
you type in PNAS protoiting
uh 40,000 years ago or something, they
found it loads of like symbols engraved
on bones and they argued that it was the
same level of complexity as the early
Sumerian scripts. And again, this was
the marker of civilization 3000 BC, but
now it's this capability is so much
older now because of these new
discoveries.
>> Yeah, I saw that. It's really weird like
when you're looking at the writing like
okay what are they like the little
scratches on the bones and clay and
whatever it is
>> like what are they what are they
conveying? Do we even understand what
they're conveying or just assume they're
conveying something?
>> Well, I think they they categorized it
and they they seem to think it is a a
kind of protocript.
weird man. Like that's a script.
>> Well, a pro Yeah, like a protocript. So
like the kind of thing that became
language but
>> right so there had to be a precursor to
language
>> but if it a written language but if it
um if it existed 40,000 years ago it's
so much older than we used to think this
capability emerged.
>> Yeah.
>> And what does that what does that kind
of entail?
>> Can I see that again Jamie the images?
How weird.
And so at the bottom that looks a lot
like ununiform.
>> I think the I think these ones are
examples of more advanced but they're
saying it's at the same level as this
>> but 40,000 years ago
>> which is vastly older than kuniform.
>> It's so interesting.
I'm sure you've seen the we talked about
this yesterday as well. The Italian um
guy who came up with this concept of um
erosion dating.
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's another weird
one. It's like at the high end he thinks
it might be 20 plus thousand years old.
It's like okay what?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Because he compared the
erosion because there was an earthquake
like 500 years ago that kind of shook
all these casing stones off
>> and he compared the erosion
uh with the blocks that had always been
exposed with the ones that had recently
become exposed. And yeah, he got this
data. I mean
>> I'd like to see that method like tried
and tested on sites we know the age of
and you know proven that way before I
take that too seriously. But, you know,
it's interesting and
>> it's all interesting.
>> Listen, your show's super interesting.
I'm so glad you're around. I'm so glad
that someone like you that's willing to
do that kind of work because obviously
Jamie and I are not going to do it.
[laughter]
>> Not this week,
>> but we're [clears throat] super happy to
have you in anytime you've got some new
stuff you want to talk about. And I'm
really excited that your channel just
keeps growing because it's really good,
man. It could you could really tell you
put in so much work and so much effort
and research and it's just excellent.
It's super entertaining and it's right
up my alley. So,
>> I appreciate it, Joe.
>> Thanks for being the man.
[laughter]
>> Thank you, man. Well, straight back at
you and I really appreciate like all the
support you've shown me. Like, it
doesn't go unnoticed, man. Like, it it
it really means a lot. And uh yeah, if I
could just do a little self plug real
quick, like I've got my channel, Michael
Button. Search it up, everyone, and
check me out. But I've also I just
started a second channel uh called
Patterns of History because I'm really
interested in once we move into recorded
history. It's really interesting to see
how when the silence lifts and we have
these ruins we can cross-check and these
dates we can kind of match to different
civilizations. It's so interesting how
civilizations seem to follow the same
patterns all over the world of rise,
collapse, fall and things like that. And
it applies today. I think we see the
same patterns happening and
civilizations always think that they're
more advanced and there we go. Thanks.
[laughter] and better than the ones
before. But
>> I mean, it's another I could go
on for another 3 hours on that,
[laughter] but it's so it's so
interesting how we see the same
recurring patterns happen throughout
civilizations across recorded history as
well. So, that's like another little
project that I'm I'm working on, but I'm
still uh I'm still going to go as hard
as I possibly can on the kind of
archaeological lost history side.
>> Well, it's beautiful that you have so
much time to do two different channels,
too. It's awesome.
>> Yeah. Well, I'm trying my best.
>> Well, you're kicking ass, dude.
Congratulations. It's awesome. Always
great to have you. Thank you for being
here. Uh, one more time, people want to
see your channel. They want to find you.
What's the best place? I know you're on
Spotify now as well, right? So, just
audio.
>> Yeah. Well, it's the videos as well.
Yeah. I just put them up there so people
can if people some people prefer to
listen. They let me know that. So, I put
it out there. Um,
>> so yeah, I've got both my channels. I'm
also about to make some music. People
should check out my music. Really? Yeah.
I'm in a band. This is my band.
>> Oh, that's the alien head.
>> That's why I keep wearing the alien
head. Yeah.
>> Oh, what's the name of your band?
>> We're called Headache. Uh, if [laughter]
people You get it? It's like the the
headache. Yeah. Um, so people want to
check that out as well.
>> What kind of music?
>> Punk rock.
>> Oh, you're a punk rocker.
>> Yeah, punk rocker, bro. We used I used
to do that all the time and then co kind
of us up and we couldn't perform
live and our drummer moved to Australia.
Um, but we're going to try to make some
music again in the near future. So,
>> that's awesome.
>> This is headache.com if people want to
check that out. Um, but yeah,
>> check it out. All right, Michael. Thank
you.
>> Appreciate it, Joe. Look at that.
>> There you go.
>> Moody looking
>> The boys. Yeah, the blue guy in the
back. Get your hair out of your eye,
bro. Can't see you like that. [laughter]
All right, bye everybody.
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