00:00A comfortable abode with a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean Sea will serve as a perfect rain shelter.
00:07Well, this is what a real estate advertisement might have looked like for Neanderthals 100,000 years ago.
00:13Welcome to the weird and wonderful caves you could live in. Or not.
00:17Of course, back then, neither real estate and advertising had been invented yet.
00:21Never mind the fact that Neanderthals couldn't build houses and often lived in caves.
00:26Yet, one of those caves looks an awful lot like a residential building.
00:31It's situated inside a high limestone cape called the Rock of Gibraltar.
00:37If the Neanderthals had had an economy, the caves inside this rock would have cost a bundle.
00:42Navigators discovered it in 1907. They just spotted a big hole inside the fortified rock.
00:49For many years, scientists have studied this place and found some traces of Neanderthals.
00:54They discovered ancient tools in the cave and bones of old animals.
00:59But the coolest thing was, they found four caves inside the rock.
01:03It was like a residential complex.
01:06Neanderthals lived alongside neighbors and helped each other hunt and fish.
01:10They created feather decorations and painted abstract drawings on the walls.
01:15Imagine our ancient predecessors hanging out in these caves 100,000 years ago.
01:19And now, scientists hang out there and study the primeval past of Neanderthals in detail.
01:26At the end of 2021, archaeologists uncovered a gap inside one of the caves leading to an unknown tunnel.
01:34They crawled through this hole and opened a new space under the cave roof.
01:38This place has been closed off from the outside world for over 40,000 years.
01:42And it seems it was one of the most prestigious apartments in the entire mountain complex.
01:48It has high ceilings with ancient stalactites.
01:52The ruined stone curtains divided the apartment into several rooms.
01:55Scientists also found the remains of ancient animals and scratches on the walls.
02:00It seems that Neanderthals had never lived here.
02:03But they used to visit this place.
02:06Archaeologists found the shell of a sea snail called dog whelp.
02:09One of the Neanderthals brought it here for some reason.
02:13But the primary owners of this place were hyenas.
02:17These caves show that Neanderthals were closer to humans than to monkeys.
02:21They had a way of life and even some customs.
02:24There's still a lot of work ahead, and scientists hope to find new rooms inside this rock.
02:30Meanwhile, in 2003, archaeologists discovered another early dwelling on the Isle of Flores in Indonesia.
02:37Among the green jungle, they found a cave with ancient tools.
02:41At first, everyone thought the human ancestors lived here.
02:44But then, scientists discovered an unusual skeleton of an adult.
02:49A thorough analysis showed the skeleton belonged to a 30-year-old woman,
02:543 1⁄2 feet tall, just above the waist of an average adult.
02:58The woman's weight was equal to the weight of an adult shepherd.
03:01The skeleton didn't belong to Neanderthals or Australopithecines.
03:06It was a new unknown species, which scientists called Homo fluorosensis, or simply the hobbit.
03:12Also, there were remains of unusual ancient animals in the cave.
03:17It was an elephant the size of a cow, some large storks, and giant rats.
03:22Archaeologists have found out that hobbits were not the owners of this place.
03:26The main inhabitants were the rats the size of a cat.
03:30Maybe they were fighting the hobbits.
03:32Some analysis shows that Homo florenciensis wasn't our direct ancestor.
03:37They were in a separate branch of evolution.
03:39The hobbit skeleton looks more like that of a monkey than of modern humans.
03:44In 2009, in the dense jungle of Vietnam, archaeologists discovered Song Don, the largest cave in the world.
03:51If you go inside the cave and shout, you'll hear your echo a long time.
03:57In some places, the height of this cave reaches half the height of the Empire State Building.
04:02And the total area is larger than one central block of New York.
04:07Song Don is one of the three caves in the Vietnamese jungle.
04:10Many intricate mazes connect these caves.
04:13Inside, you can find unique plants and trees that live separately from the outside world.
04:18It's a real underground jungle.
04:20In some places, you can find collapsed ceilings that let the sunlight in.
04:25Besides unusual trees and plants, ancient stalactites hang there.
04:30Some limestone deposits are more than 450 million years old.
04:34They were here even before dinosaurs appeared.
04:37There are also many rivers in the cave.
04:39Rainwater coming down from holes in the ceiling has formed them.
04:43Fast streams resemble slides in a water park.
04:46They lead to unknown underground labyrinths.
04:48Scientists have studied only a small part of all these caves.
04:52The next unusual cave is in New Zealand.
04:55Hundreds of thousands of fireflies live inside.
04:58Each of them glows with a blue light.
05:01Together, they light up the cave.
05:03It may seem to you that you're on another planet.
05:05But you can't stay there for a long time.
05:07Special air measuring devices are everywhere.
05:11Scientists monitor the level of carbon dioxide necessary for the normal existence of fireflies.
05:17These insects are sensitive to the environment.
05:19If there are many people in the cave, or they stay there too long, the park staff will ask them to leave the place.
05:26It's like you're literally stealing oxygen from the fireflies.
05:29We've seen some pretty amazing caves so far.
05:32But how about a scary one?
05:35We're going to the desert of Yemen's Almara province.
05:38What we're looking for is not a cave.
05:40It's just a black hole in the ground, right in the middle of the desert.
05:44It's big, the size of a basketball court.
05:47It's not its size that could scare you, but what's inside.
05:51Scientists are still not sure what it is.
05:53From the depths of this black abyss, a disgusting smell of rotten eggs constantly comes out.
06:00And sometimes, you can hear some strange, frightening sounds.
06:05The blackness of the giant hole in Yemen absorbs all the sun's rays.
06:10So you won't see what's there even with a powerful flashlight.
06:14People flew over this place by helicopter.
06:16They filmed using drones and the most powerful lenses, but they didn't catch anything except darkness.
06:22It looks like a big ink spot in the middle of golden sand.
06:26The locals are afraid to approach this place.
06:29They believe the cave leads to another dimension where evil creatures live.
06:34At the moment, the giant hole in Yemen is one of the most poorly studied and mysterious phenomenon of nature.
06:41How did it appear?
06:42How old is it?
06:43Where does it lead?
06:44Scientists are trying to find the answers to these questions.
06:48There are theories that the hole appeared because of construction work.
06:51Geologists drilled the soil nearby in search of minerals.
06:55It could have caused fluctuations in the Earth's crust and collapsed the surface.
06:59But no one can prove this theory.
07:02Yet.
07:02And now, imagine a place where sunlight has not penetrated for more than 5 million years.
07:08There's little oxygen, and it's cold and damp.
07:12Still, life is born in this place.
07:14Not only microbes and bacteria, but also something bigger.
07:18The living conditions in this cave are very different from the usual ones.
07:22So, in a sense, this cave is like another planet.
07:26It's the Movil Cave in the southeast of Romania, near the Black Sea.
07:31The entrance is a small hole in the ground.
07:33Inside, a tunnel leads deep below the surface.
07:36The levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide are above normal inside the cave.
07:42The air here is half as much oxygen as on the surface.
07:46People can't be here without an oxygen mask.
07:49But other creatures living here can.
07:52The cave is home to 48 species of living organisms.
07:5633 of them are unknown.
07:57Here, you can meet some unusual insects.
08:00White snails and white spiders.
08:03Millipedes with huge whiskers.
08:05Transparent shrimp.
08:06And unique species of leeches.
08:08They all live here, thanks to the little bacteria autotrophs.
08:13They absorb carbon dioxide and release food particles.
08:16Bacteria feed on it.
08:18Other larger organisms feed on these bacterias.
08:21And some bigger organisms eat those little ones.
08:24In the end, everyone gets food.
08:26In this cave, evolution has created a biological system separate from the rest of the world.
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