within every single one of us there are

approximately 3.16 billion base pairs of

DNA which contain not only our genetic

information but also hold our deepest

biological Secrets including the darkest

most Twisted ones at least that's the

case according to a few studies which

have apparently found evidence that not

so long ago much of the known world was

Rife and violent bloody conflict that

was so brutal that his ramifications

have lasted until today it is completely

unknown to most and yet in some ways

represents the first global conflict

Humanity has ever experienced as it

spanned across much of the inhabited

world making violence near Universal and

Escape impossible it's not every day

that we find evidence for such a

destructive conflict let alone through

our very own DNA but that's supposedly

what happened after researchers analyzed

the genomes of modern populations

finding evidence of a very distinct

genetic bottleneck now bottlenecks in

general is what occurs when a population

experien a drastic drop in numbers

resulting in lower genetic diversity and

that is honestly somewhat common in

nature with even humans having endured

more than one with a particularly deadly

and famous One having took place

approximately 900,000 years ago due to

Mother Nature Shenanigans but the one

I'm talking about and that these

researchers identified was much more

recent and seemingly our own fault to be

exact a team took a look at chromosome

sequences in contemporary humans and

noticed evidence of a massive drop in in

genetic diversity only a few thousand

years ago during the late Neolithic

period in the old world I.E Europe Asia

Middle East Etc and suggesting that a

lot of people died or disappeared

relatively quickly now anything that

heavily impacts the population could

have been considered an answer to this

mysterious die off yet what was so odd

is that the bottleneck was only really

seen in why chromosome diversity which

is unique to males and passed on from

father to son while in the mitochondrial

DNA which has passed down through

females researchers found no matching

drop in diversity in other words

something had happened which clearly

affected a lot of men but not nearly as

many women leading to the researcher's

idea that unprecedented violence may

have had been the explanation because if

the perpetrator was a volcanic eruption

severe weather or some other form of

Mother Nature you'd expect the drop in

genetic diversity to be more or less

equal between genders not just in one

and really a drop is not the best word

to describe what happened to the men as

a more appropriate word would be

decimated with the scientists estimating

that this event was so horrific that by

the time it subsided the effective male

population in Africa Europe Asia and the

Middle East had been reduced by up to

95% meaning that theoretically only one

in 20 men survive this purge with women

possibly outnumbering men 17 to1 no

conflict in recorded history comes even

close to this kind of lethality by a

percentage not even World War I or World

War II and if you wanted to recreate

such a brutal conflict today then

there'd have to be a loss of

approximately 3.9 billion men leaving

only about 200 million standing

naturally when someone claims that our

DNA is proof that a terrible conflict

happened you'd expect to find at least a

couple of bodies lying around that we

could point to as hard evidence and as

it turns out there are lots and lots and

lots of them in fact it's actually hard

to miss them and we discovered well over

250 late Neolithic dated sites where

violent deaths have occurred and that's

just in Europe alone and even in general

Neolithic humans are notorious for being

found in Grim conditions in containing

unparalleled amounts of bodily harm

especially when compared to earlier or

later humans with one analysis of more

than 2,300 early farmers finding that

over 10% of the men and women displayed

injuries reflecting weapons likely from

raiding parties or competition that

attacked for their crops and livestock

another analysis of three 138

individuals in Spain found that 23%

showed signs of aggressive damage with

adult and Adolescent males especially

being heavily impacted making up 97% of

the unhealed individuals and 81% of

those that showed healed trauma

suggesting that it was very common to

experience more than one violent

encounter in a lifetime and obviously

these numbers are pretty darn high but

they're not the 95% inferred in the

study yet research points out that in

many cases violent attacks don't

actually leave marks in the bones with

only 15% of fatal melee attacks the

sharp weapons leaving any sort of bone

lesions behind and you also have to take

into account infections disease and

other indirect modes of death that are

associated with conflict now obviously

these weren't the first people to be

found murdered by their own but their

frequency was no doubt extreme and

scientists noted two things that became

exceptionally common during this period

battles and indiscriminate massacres

with multiple SIDS of brutality being

known of one of the most gruesome is the

tal Death Pit located in Germany which

is dated to about 5,000 BC here

scientists un Earth the remains of at

least 34 individuals who had been

brutally slain and what's crazy is that

none of the skeletons bore any kind of

defensive injuries which implies that

they were fleeing and not fighting the

attacking party and across the board The

Killing blows could all be placed in

just three categories those that were

made by a sharp side of an adzy likee

tool those by the blunt side and finally

the ones killed by arrows which only

accounted for three of the 34 victims

analysis on the skulls also showed that

Warriors back then often aimed for the

head with all but four of the skeletons

having lethal cranial injuries sometimes

on top of already deadly wounds and

among the dead 16 had been children nine

of them adult men and seven being older

females while younger women were

noticeably absent a popular theme

amongst Neolithic Massacre sites

suggesting that they were viewed as

valuable and likely as a trophy being

kidnapped by the victors

this particular attack took place within

a settlement to possessed fortifications

like Palisades which only further proves

that back then there was a strong need

to wall yourself off from other humans

and sure enough other Massacre sites

that took place in settlements also had

fortifications like the massacre of

schletz which likely took place in 5000

BC as well occurring not so far away in

Austria and this one was far deadlier

with 200 victims being known of they

were carelessly dumped in a mass grave

after a raid on a settlement like

talheim there was again a noticeable

lack of dead women and lots of dead men

but this Slaughter did differ in some

ways first off on top of presumably

kidnapping adult women they also might

have captured pre-teens and young

teenagers as they too were noticeably

few among the dead and another Grim

difference was that in this attack many

of the Dead were found without their

arms and legs while severed skulls were

located separately evidence of potential

torture and

dismemberment this could have also been

a tradition for the attacking party and

showcase that different combatants had

varying rituals for example in Asia head

hunting was particularly common and

another poignant case that further

demonstrates this happens to be the

largest known prehistoric Mass grave

herxheim in Germany and it occurred

between 5,300 and 4,950 BC but instead

of a ravaged settlement archaeologists

actually believe they found a community

that were the ravagers having created at

least 80 pits right outside their 15

acre large Village that were essentially

filled to the brim with victims which so

far is estimated to have exceeded 1,000

individuals possibly up to 1500 and

ranged in age from newborns to elders

and if we account for the population

difference between then and now it would

almost be like a city building a mass

grave with over 800,000 corpses right

outside their City walls nearly each one

was processed in a similar way with a

native population dismembering and

breaking bones while also cleaving their

skulls down the middle in fact so many

skulls were cut and seemingly def

fleshed that a researchers reckon that

this community were skull cultists that

used the heads in some ritual and most

likely ate pieces of them as well with

the brain being an especially prized

part considering its fatty content there

were also signs the tongues were often

removed from the dead and that the bones

were crushed for easy marrow extraction

and to sprinkle just a bit more

queasiness into this scientists further

realized that there were less spongy

bone elements than there should have

been and that certain bones like the

metapodials and hand falles showed

preferential biting in other words these

guys had their favorite parts of the

body to munch on plus many of the bodies

were cooked with some even showing signs

of having been spit roasted and then

when it was all said and done bones were

processed into cups other items or

turned into decorations as some were

found near were on spikes where the

entrance of the settlement was situated

suffice to say this was just about the

worst group you could get caught by but

avoiding them might have been harder

than you would think because despite the

lack of Transportation back then they

still managed to wage war on a large

scale with many of their victims having

come from vastly different cultures some

of which were only found 300 M or 482 km

away the dead also ranged in lifestyle

with some having Isotopes demonstrating

that they were hunter gatherers While

others have been farmers and then you

also had victims that came from up in

the mountains and those from the

lowlands which all points to the idea

that herim's natives were horrifically

bloodthirsty people who managed to carry

out successful raids that required not

only tactics but a certain level of

logistics and not to mention that while

their settlement was large by a

Neolithic standard it was still

significantly smaller than a thousand

and when I say a thousand I mean less

than 50 people so impressive in a very

dark way

that being said there are still some

Mysteries regarding this place like who

exactly were the dead captives of War

slaves or were some just unlucky

Travelers that got too close also no one

is really sure what happened to the

natives of herxheim with some test

suggesting that the settlement was

abandoned soon after the massacres took

place with a maximum settlement time of

50 years following the burials leading

people to wonder if another group came

seeking retribution so obviously it's

hard to argue against her's time as

being the most gruesome site we know of

but such weird specific brutality was

not isolated to just this case and many

more instances are known of Warriors

that collected heads you've got it

groups that systematically broke and

removed shins yep there was that too

xenophobic groups that hunted down and

mutilated newcomers boom done and then

finally you even had Fighters that

buried people alive because apparently

that was a thing as well in addition to

a diverse range of brutality

there was also a lot of diversity when

it came to the weapons themselves and

many kinds of blunt and sharp weapons

were used in battles such as adses

Spears bows and arrows axes clubs knives

scrapers sick and hose Hammers and the

list goes on and unfortunately for

combatants the level of armor back then

did not match the innovativeness of

their weapons with no standard

protection being known of and Fighters

likely didn't wear much besides animal

skin woven cloth imp plant material this

all made living exceptionally difficult

for anyone but especially for men

capable of fighting and simply growing

up was an accomplishment with a level of

violence resulting in a measly lifespan

of between 20 and 33 years old and thus

tying it for first place for the time

when modern humans died the youngest and

this is even accounting for infam

Morality as even if you made it to say

15 you'd still be expected to not make

it past 33 and so with all this

nightmare fuel considered it really just

leads to one simple question which is

what the hell was going on why was

everyone seemingly in a Non-Stop fight

with everyone else and sadly there isn't

one single clear answer to this but

there are a few different ideas and

ironically one of the top hypotheses

pins it off as humans flying too close

to the Sun to be exact not so long

before the violence kicked off Humanity

entered the Neolithic Revolution also

known as the first Agricultural

Revolution this period in history saw

many human cultures transition from

hunter gatherers to settlers and Farmers

this allowed for a boost in population

and the ability to establish

full-fledged settlements which in turn

led to progress in other areas as well

and this sounds great on paper but this

success also meant that humans could now

better organize large battle worthy

groups courtesy of said settlements and

had access to a wider range of weapons

than ever before additionally this shift

provided humans with new reasons to kill

that didn't really exist beforehand as

they now knew that settlements and Farms

equal guaranteed loot food and wom all

in one place furthermore by proximity

alone settlements might have been viewed

as hostile by others and potentially as

existential threats leading to the

notion that all neighbors are bad news

and had to go another more specific idea

that tries to answer how the white

chromosome in particular was so

obliterated Beyond just the violence

states that as the Revolution was

underway societal structures reorganized

with more and more people forming

patrilineal kin groups perhaps because

trust was a rare commodity and it was

easier to rely on those you were related

to and this resulted in unrestricted

movement for women but very much

restricted for men in other words no

Outsiders allowed if you were a guy this

would have made the Y chromosome very

vulnerable and explains why it was so

affected when these Clans waged war

against one another and ultimately

leading to the genetic bottleneck being

very much one-sided but like many ideas

there are those that disagree with this

hypothesis and instead actually propose

a peaceful explanation to this now

obviously as the abundance of skeletons

show violence was quite prevalent at the

time but in terms of the genetic

bottleneck one team of scientist thinks

the patrilineal Clans may have split up

often through a peaceful process called

lineal fision since these new clans were

made up of closely related males their

why chromosome lineages became more

vulnerable to disappearing over time

especially due to environmental

hardships this led to a gradual drop in

wi chromosome diversity as some male

lineages were very successful in

surviving and others slowly faded away

this was only further compounded by

reproductive Fitness where some groups

were much more successful which led to

more growing and splitting only

reinforcing their dominance While others

just couldn't keep up and eventually

vanished of course there is then the

possibility that actually both of these

ideas were on the right track with

peaceful and violent factors having

worked together to bring the effect

effective male population way down

whatever the case there's certainly no

denying that something happened and to

this day the legacy of this bottleneck

remains with certain populations still

not being at the same diversity as pre-

bottleneck levels and if this had never

happened it's fair to say that things

would be quite different still our

genetics overall have mostly recovered

and we don't kill everyone else on site

so at least there's that improvement

though it does lead to a second question

which is how did all this potential

bloodshed end well it didn't at least

not in an absolute sense because over

time from a pure numbers Point more

people did end up dying in Wars

especially thanks to new technology it

just so happens that we grew faster than

we died so things got relatively better

then sometime later as more complex

societies were created and trade and

diplomacy arose things cooled off

however when you look at the last 600

years you can see that this cooling off

was only very recently as it was only

the last 100 or so that we really

started to turn a new leaf with the

amount of conflicts starting each year

being on a mostly downward spiral since

World War I and while it may be hard to

believe these days we do live in an

extremely peaceful world compared to the

one they used to be and this is of

course reflected in our very long

lifespans which is over three times that

of the Neolithic ones and while we

certainly do have our very own problems

I for one am glad I don't have to worry

about skull Cults and shint takers

anymore at least for the for the most

part thanks for watching and until next

time onx Zoo