Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

>> The Joe Rogan Experience.

>> TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY

NIGHT. All day.

>> Hey, good 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 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

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.

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,

>> 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?

>> 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 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

>> 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 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 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

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 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,

>> 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.

>> 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.

>> 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 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.