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00:01Mysterious stones appear to be making their way across one of the hottest deserts in the world.
00:07Visitors begin to notice something bizarre along the surface of the cracked lake bed.
00:11These strange rocks seem to have all traveled with ease across the flat.
00:16An expansive ancient site is revealed in a remote Chinese desert.
00:21This site is 500 years older than the first length of the Great Wall.
00:27What is this place?
00:30And enormous Ice Age bones are discovered in the high desert of New Mexico.
00:35This could rewrite everything we know about human history and about ancient migration patterns all across the world.
00:43Astonishing discoveries on Earth from the depths of the desert.
00:50Ancient lost cities.
00:52Forgotten treasures.
00:55Mysterious structures.
00:58Extraordinary curiosities once lost to the sands of time are finally revealed.
01:05As new technology uncovers remarkable tales hidden beneath the deserts of the world.
01:11The secrets in the sand will finally be exposed.
01:28On the border of California and Nevada, in the heart of Death Valley National Park, lies the remains of a
01:35long dead lake.
01:37Death Valley is the hottest place in North America, with the record temperature reaching an incredible 57 degrees Celsius.
01:44As the name implies, not much can live or grow here.
01:47This lake is almost entirely dry throughout the year.
01:53It has a cracked mud surface, except for during periods of heavy precipitation, and even that quickly evaporates.
02:01The area is unbelievably flat.
02:04It's almost seven square kilometers, roughly the size of Gibraltar, and has less than a four centimeter elevation difference from
02:12its north to south end.
02:13Over multiple visits to this rare site situated in the Mojave Desert, visitors begin to notice something bizarre along the
02:20surface of the cracked lake bed.
02:21What they see is entirely impossible.
02:25Only after returning again and again to verify the facts with their own eyes could they be sure.
02:31The rocks are actually moving.
02:35Understand that these are not rocks rolling downhill or stones being pushed around by waves.
02:42These are rocks of varying sizes moving along the flat earth as if by magic.
02:47No one has actually seen the rocks moving in real time, but the trails left behind the stones and the
02:53changes to their location over time make it clear that they actually do move.
02:57What is going on here?
02:59The lack of vegetation in this region means that there's really no wildlife here capable of pushing stones of this
03:06size around.
03:07Nor are there footprints or machine made tracks alongside the stones indicating that people were pushing them around.
03:14So we know it's not a hoax.
03:17The rocks really stand out on top of the light dusty mud surface.
03:21They look almost alien to the landscape like they could be an art installation project.
03:26The rocks moving across the lake bed originate from the dolomite cliffs located to the south.
03:32Freeze and thaw periods in winter cause the cliffs to crack, sending rocks hurtling to the ground.
03:38These strange rocks can weigh as little as 85 grams or be as heavy as 315 kilos.
03:44And they seem to have all traveled with ease across the flat.
03:48Regardless of their size, the rocks appear to bulldoze the lake bed creating raised edges along their path while leaving
03:56smooth trails behind them.
03:59It's called the Racetrack Playa, after the deep trails etched into the mud by the traveling rocks.
04:06This strange and mysterious phenomenon has drawn the attention of the science world.
04:12Death Valley is a place of extremes, featuring rarities like Badwater Basin, the lowest point on the continent, and the
04:202,000-year-old Yuba Hebe Crater.
04:25These rock trails can be several centimeters to several meters wide, and anywhere from under a meter in length to
04:31well over 30 meters long.
04:33One rock was even found to have traveled an astonishing 450 meters.
04:38The rocks leave a very shallow impression, only about two and a half centimeters deep, and usually take on a
04:45zigzag design.
04:46And interestingly, most of these trails begin far from the edge of the lake, as if they appeared out of
04:52nowhere.
04:53While the trail seems to run in all directions and vary in lengths, each distinct trail leads to a stone
05:00with a low pile of dried mud at the end.
05:03Rocks positioned together at the start of their path might travel in tandem for a while before randomly diverging and
05:09changing direction.
05:11And even stones that share a similar size and shape might not travel the same distance.
05:16There are many variables that affect the movement of the rock, such as size, weight, shape, composition, and that movement
05:25can clearly be tracked by the trails.
05:28But how? How are they doing it?
05:30They are commonly called sailing stones, so perhaps, like their name implies, they are being blown by the wind.
05:38Powerful and persistent winds carrying fine grains of sand can transform landscapes, even carving away a rock's surface over time.
05:48But can wind really push a rock like a sailboat?
05:53The Coyote Buttes, lying between Utah and Arizona, are sandstone waves that undulate along the horizon, created over hundreds of
06:03millions of years by wind and rain.
06:06The hoodoos in the Alberta Badlands are striking sandstone pillars, capped with rock tops that have been whittled away by
06:14high wind and weather.
06:15Winds and weather absolutely affect landscapes, altering their appearance over time, especially when those landscapes feature sandstone.
06:22But examples like the hoodoos refer to the wind moving along the rock, not the rocks being moved by the
06:27wind.
06:29So wind alone doesn't seem responsible.
06:31But could water make the mud of the lake bed slippery enough to cause the rocks movement, even though the
06:36racetrack playa is flat?
06:3910,000 years ago, Death Valley went through a period of extreme climate change that left the lake completely dry.
06:47While it's referred to as a lake, it's not part of your average lake system, where you have rivers and
06:53streams moving water from high to low elevation.
06:57This lake is actually an endorraic basin with no outflow, meaning the water can only escape through evaporation.
07:06It's possible that a heavy rain could create a muddy slip and slide, but without an external force acting on
07:12it, the rocks still wouldn't be able to move.
07:15One theorist wondered if high winds could provide enough force to move the rocks along the slippery mud.
07:20They even went as far as bringing a light plane to the flat to test how much wind it would
07:25take.
07:26After wetting a small area of the terrain to smooth the cracks in the mud, an airspeed of 68 kilometers
07:32per hour was used to try to blow the stones along the playa.
07:36He found little to no success. Even when they observed the rocks sliding a bit, the wind caused so much
07:44rippling in the surrounding mud that it altered and obscured the rocks' telltale trail.
07:49Not only that, but the presence of the dry, flaky earth built up in front of the rocks and the
07:55continued presence of the cracked earth along the trail indicates the movement was happening when the lake bed wasn't entirely
08:01muddy.
08:01Ultimately, it was calculated that the force of wind necessary to move a three kilogram stone would be a whopping
08:09180 kilometers per hour, a velocity well above the average wind speeds recorded here on the playa.
08:18So if it's not high wind or mud creating a slip and slide, what else could be causing this astounding
08:24movement?
08:24Speed is difficult to observe from a distance, and the racetrack playa is a heavily protected natural wonder that limits
08:33visitation for fear of tampering and disturbance.
08:37Researchers wanting to place GPS tracking systems on the sailing stones to accurately track their movements were denied by the
08:46authorities, so they were forced to get creative.
08:50They returned to the playa armed with time-lapse cameras, wind gauges, and thermometers.
08:56They even brought dummy rocks equipped with tracking devices in the hopes of capturing the faintest of movements.
09:03These 15 dummy limestone rocks were from the Darwin Canyon, which is an area of similar geological age to the
09:10playa.
09:12Though Death Valley is the hottest place in North America, its winters can be quite cool and wet, relatively speaking.
09:20Over the season, the playa can be covered in a few centimeters of snow, and snow can be slippery.
09:25So perhaps the snow has something to do with the rock movement.
09:29Experts use time-lapse photography to capture the sun melting the ice and snow, creating shallow, clear ponds.
09:37These ponds then thaw during the day, only to freeze at night, repeating the process again and again over a
09:44period of weeks, creating small ice flows.
09:47An ice flow usually refers to a large sheet of free-flowing ice, at least 20 meters wide and up
09:54to 2 meters thick.
09:55Some ice flows can get bigger than 10 kilometers.
09:58Clearly, what's discovered here is different, and on a much smaller scale.
10:02Eventually, after decades of unanswered questions and failed theories, the team finally recorded evidence of the Racetrack Playa Rocks moving.
10:25Researchers working in Death Valley, Nevada, were amazed when they finally captured evidence of what appeared to be rocks moving.
10:38The movement occurs when the thin 3 to 6 millimeter ice sheets begin to melt.
10:44As they melt, they break apart under light wind.
10:48The wind is then able to push the ice sheets, taking the attached rocks along for the ride.
10:55The winds are blowing at a mere 18 kilometers per hour, a tiny fraction of the hurricane-force gales that
11:02were part of the earlier hypothesis.
11:05These extremely thin panes of ice, up to tens of meters across, freeze around the rocks and then drag or
11:11pull them along, which explains how the parallel trails are created.
11:16Not only that, but the size of the ice sheet and depth of the melt water around each rock impacts
11:21the direction, speed and duration of time the rock moves.
11:24This helps explain changes in direction and length variability of the trails.
11:29These rocks are moving, but at a near imperceptible snail's pace.
11:35This rare occurrence only happens once or twice a year, when the conditions are perfect.
11:43In the end, it was never simply one thing.
11:46It was a perfect storm of elements that all have to be present for the rocks to move.
11:51Water, sun, ice and wind.
11:56I guess you could say, they solved a rockin' mystery.
12:10100 kilometers from the city of Yulin, on the southern edge of China's Ordos Desert, are the dusty hills of
12:17the Loess Plateau.
12:19The Loess Plateau is named for its silt-like sediments that are deposited over time by the wind.
12:24It's unlike any place else in the world.
12:29The arid countryside supports little vegetation and looks nearly uninhabitable.
12:34Yet it is home to many people who have been tied to these lands for generations.
12:40Archaeologists working in the region heard rumors that along the west bank of the Yellow River, rare stones were found
12:47in the crumbling Great Wall of China and went to investigate.
12:52Taking a closer look, experts noted something strange.
12:55Locals have been aware of the crumbling rock walls around the area for as long as they can remember.
13:01They live among them, but they never gave them much thought.
13:04They were always assumed to be a section of the ancient structure known as the Great Wall of China.
13:09Built over 2,000 years, the Great Wall is the longest man-made structure on the planet.
13:16It traverses over 21,000 kilometers of northern China and southern Mongolia and is a wonder of the ancient world
13:24that has stood the test of time.
13:27It's a perfect illustration of the innovation and engineering prowess of the Chinese people.
13:35The ancient barrier of the Great Wall does cut its way across this dusty plateau, traversing more than 1,500
13:41kilometers through the Loess.
13:43But this crumbling structure is not part of the Great Wall. So what can it be?
13:49The Great Wall is made of brick, stone, wood and other materials, including a mortar that's made with sticky rice.
13:57However, in this region, it also includes rammed earth and stones composed of dusty Loess soil, making it look very
14:06similar to this strange wall.
14:09Not connected to the Great Wall, these walls are two and a half meters wide and sit one meter above
14:15the ground in areas where they haven't been entirely buried by the dust.
14:20While examining an area of the wall that had collapsed many years ago, they found strange and rare stones that
14:27don't appear to be part of the structural build.
14:30These are jade pieces that have been embedded in the wall.
14:34For many years, there were rumors of the stone being stolen by looters.
14:39The placement of the jade pieces in the wall is not construction related and definitely not a practice used when
14:46building the Great Wall.
14:48These jade pieces, many of which fell into the hands of distant collectors, can be traced back to the Liangzhu
14:54culture, which existed between 5,300 to 4,300 years ago.
15:00The Liangzhu culture was centered over 1,600 kilometers away from the site, and the jade is an indication of
15:08ancient commerce, as well as evidence of a connection to distant lands.
15:14Experts believe that the jade was placed as a symbol of spiritual significance, perhaps for protection or to ward off
15:21evil.
15:22The walls are not only made of stone, but are also reinforced by huge cypress beams, a practice that's believed
15:30to have started during the Hun dynasty.
15:33But carbon dating of the beams indicates that the wood is in fact from 2,300 BCE.
15:40That is 2,000 years before the Han dynasty ruled.
15:44They uncovered structures spanning over 400 hectares of land.
15:50The outer wall makes a 4,200 meter crescent shape around the site, while the interior wall has a 5
15:58,700 meter circumference.
16:00Whoever built these walls took advantage of the natural hilly terrain, allowing it to act as a barrier where needed.
16:08These walls would have required a combined 125,000 cubic meters of stone.
16:15It's an incredible undertaking for the time, so they must have had really good reason to build it.
16:22This region of northern China has a history of conflict between the farmers of the Chinese lowlands and the herders
16:30of the Mongolian steppe that still goes on today.
16:34Eventually, the Great Wall was built here, protecting China from the nomads to the north.
16:40But whoever built this place clearly already felt threatened, long before the Chinese decided to build it.
16:48It's not just a fortified outer wall, but there are rammed earth platforms, gatehouses and watchtowers.
16:56They indicate this place was designed for security and defense.
17:00So, perhaps the walls are part of a fortress or military outpost.
17:06Archaeologists uncovered a main access point along the wall at the northeastern edge, known as the East Gate.
17:13The entrance is surrounded by gate towers and guardhouses that would have been manned around the clock.
17:20The gate covers an area of about 2,500 square meters and sits at the highest point of the wall,
17:27making it highly visible and providing clear views of the plateau and anyone making an approach.
17:34Interestingly, the gate was designed in a one-way entry, a style known as a baffle gate, using a curtain
17:40wall to control the flow of traffic.
17:42On either side of the entry, there are bastions, structures built at an angle to allow for defensive measures in
17:50several directions at once.
17:54They too were formally understood to have been innovations of the Han Dynasty.
18:00While examining the gate, researchers found two rectangular pits containing a cache of human skulls, but no other remains.
18:09Tests revealed that the majority of the skulls were female.
18:13These pits were hidden beneath the foundations of the East Gate, with 24 skulls per pit.
18:19They were likely sacrifices made at the time of construction as a blessing for the project.
18:25If so, they are the oldest evidence that we have of human sacrifices in China.
18:30The Shang Dynasty reigned from 1600 to 1046 BCE and practiced human sacrifice.
18:39Their kings, acting as both political and spiritual leaders, oversaw the rituals of beheading, burning and boiling people alive.
18:51At a site in Inshu, archaeologists uncovered hundreds of human and animal remains, and based on physical evidence, as well
19:00as ancient texts, they estimated that over the course of 200 years, over 13,000 people were sacrificed there.
19:08Making them over 1200 years older than the skulls discovered at this site, which has revealed practices and innovative designs
19:17previously unknown to scholars of Chinese history.
19:20The design of the gate and the outer wall makes it clear that this site was built for defense, like
19:28a fortress.
19:29But the equally fortified interior wall suggests that there was something requiring another layer of protection.
19:37But what was it protecting?
19:40Moving along the site, archaeologists made a groundbreaking discovery.
19:45Towards the center of the interior wall, along the eastern edge of a hill, they uncovered an extraordinary structure.
19:53It's a pyramid, an enormous rammed earth and cut stone structure that rivals the pyramids of Egypt, which were built
20:01around the same time.
20:02Standing 73 meters tall, it's only half the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza, but its base is four
20:11times the size, spanning 240,000 square meters.
20:15This immense and imposing structure would have been visible from every point of the surrounding plateau.
20:23The pyramid has 11 tiers, with buttresses supporting each level.
20:28The top has an area of 80,000 square meters, surrounded by walls measuring between three and seven meters high,
20:36and contains evidence of a stone reservoir, roof tiles and pillars.
20:41The highest step of the pyramid was likely home to elites who lived under the protection of the site.
20:48It's believed that at one time, a large palatial complex made of packed earth and wood was built along the
20:55pyramid's highest tier.
20:57The surrounding grounds within the inner wall revealed several residential areas, temples, cemeteries and workshops.
21:06This is not just a fortress, but a monumental Neolithic city.
21:12And at over 4,300 years old, it would have been the oldest and largest in China at the time,
21:19perhaps even in the world.
21:22And yet, there is little to no written record of its existence.
21:26Beyond the remarkably crafted structure, evidence like the jade pieces, including molds for bronze blades, suggest that this was a
21:37bustling metropolis with an extensive economic reach.
21:41Historians long believe that Chinese civilization began many hundreds of years later in the Central Plains.
21:48But this site, now called Shimao, has shifted their understanding by 500 years.
21:55Only a small fraction of Shimao has been fully excavated, and it's assumed that new discoveries will continue being made
22:03in the future.
22:05But Shimao is already giving archaeologists a new way of looking at the development of early Chinese civilization.
22:20The high desert of New Mexico is part of a vast plateau, significantly larger than the Australian state of Victoria,
22:28which covers extensive parts of four different American states.
22:32This high desert is part of a huge geologic formation called the Colorado Plateau. It's an incredibly interesting place.
22:41The Colorado Plateau is most famous for the Grand Canyon, but the entire area is just a feast for the
22:47eyes.
22:48The pale colors of the land speak to the fact that it only receives a few hundred millimeters of precipitation
22:53a year.
22:54In 2014, while hiking the plateau in an area between La Jolla del Pedrigal and Rio Pueco, about 2,000
23:04meters above sea level, a hiker spotted what looked like a pointed bone protruding from the dry earth.
23:11Along with the pointed bone are four others, a jaw bone as well as three ribs.
23:17These bones are big, so obviously they belong to a very large animal.
23:22The area used to be home to animals such as the grizzly bear, grey wolf, wolverine and bison, all of
23:30which are mostly gone due to human activity.
23:33However, these bones don't appear to be from any of those animals.
23:37So if not them, then what animal could it be?
23:48After a hiker in New Mexico discovered the bones of a very large animal, archaeologists were called to the site
23:56to investigate and immediately found more bones.
24:00The pointed bone is not so much a bone as it is a tusk, and a very peculiar, easily identifiable
24:09one at that.
24:10That tells me that this tusk likely belonged to prehistoric megafauna that once roamed across the American steppe.
24:18That leaves us two possibilities, the mastodon and the mammoth.
24:24The mastodon's tusks were straight, while the mammoth's tusks curled in towards each other.
24:29So it's likely that these bones belonged to a mammoth.
24:33The archaeologists find that many of the bones have been broken and quickly determine that they actually belong to not
24:39one, but two woolly mammoths.
24:42Discovering the remains of one mammoth would be a rare occurrence, but two, that's really a once in a lifetime
24:48thing.
24:49The remains were found to be of a young female, who was most probably the mother of the second mammoth
24:55in the bone pile, a calf.
24:58Mammoths would have called high plateaus like this one home.
25:01But around 10,000 years ago, they suffered a catastrophic habitat loss as a result of climate change.
25:08This caused their eventual extinction.
25:10But how did these two mammoths die?
25:14Only a few meters away from where the bone pile was found, the archaeologists also discovered an obsidian projectile point.
25:22This is basically a weapon made from volcanic rock.
25:25It likely would have been attached to a shaft to make a spear or an arrow.
25:30They quickly determined that it has the telltale shaping of a Clovis period projectile, meaning that it was skillfully crafted
25:37with grooves cut into the surface along the edge, and it's shaped like a leaf.
25:41And given its design, it is of course incredibly sharp.
25:45The Clovis era refers to roughly a 300-year period between 13,500 to 12,700 years ago.
25:54This is when the culture and its technology appeared and spread across the Americas.
25:59In archaeological terms, the Clovis period is defined by the spread of this particular kind of technology, projectile points that
26:06were fashioned in a very specific manner.
26:08This seems to be an ancient kill site.
26:11So could this mammoth have been brought down by Clovis hunters?
26:15The archaeologists Carbon dated the bones, and were astonished to discover that they were approximately 38,000 years old.
26:24And therefore, these mammoths couldn't have been killed by Clovis era hunters.
26:30This is truly remarkable, because the general consensus has been that humans only arrived in the Americas some 16,000
26:37years ago.
26:38So how would this be possible?
26:41The accepted theory is that humans first arrived in the Western Hemisphere via the Bering Land Bridge that connected today's
26:47North America with East Asia.
26:49We have long tried to map out migration patterns into the Americas, and often ignored the evidence present in indigenous
26:56oral histories.
26:58But academic perspectives are changing when it comes to the value and accuracy of oral histories.
27:04Even so, we always look for other supporting evidence to back up our theories.
27:09In order to be certain that this is a kill site, the archaeologists need to inspect the bones looking for
27:16telltale signs of butchering or processing of the two animals.
27:21CT scans revealed that the bone breakage was highly patterned.
27:25A technical term meaning that specific force had been applied to specific places, causing shards to break off.
27:34The shards are what are called butterfly fragments.
27:37It's a term used to describe when blunt force is applied to one side of a bone, but the opposite
27:43side breaks, sending fragments flying.
27:47Butterfly fragments are an essential find here, because only humans are capable of causing such damage.
27:54Every bone except for one showed perimortem damage, meaning damage caused at the time of death.
28:00In other words, there was no indication that the bones had time to heal.
28:06Finally, the CT scans reveal that several bones have been punctured, likely in order to drain the marrow.
28:12And in order to do so, you would need a good fire to melt that marrow into grease.
28:19They also found signs of a sustained burn, meaning that someone was likely watching over it.
28:25It's clear that the mammoth was butchered by humans, and this would have taken place 20,000 years earlier than
28:32what was previously thought possible.
28:34This is truly a fascinating turn of events.
28:37This could rewrite everything we know about human history and about ancient migration patterns all across the world.
28:45Archaeologists must question when humans may have arrived in North America.
28:50The oldest human remains and DNA found in the Americas to date were found near Wilsall, Montana.
28:57In 1968, a construction worker unearthed scores of prehistoric tools, as well as the skull of a child, at a
29:06location known as the Anzix site.
29:08It turned out that the tools were all patterned in the familiar Clovis style.
29:13The skull itself was roughly 12,700 years old, and it belonged to a child of the ancient Clovis culture.
29:21This little boy would have been the descendant of an Asian population that migrated across the Bering land bridge around
29:2816,000 years ago.
29:31Meaning, most indigenous groups in the Americas today can trace their ancestry back to these specific people.
29:38But how could people have been in the Americas almost 40,000 years ago when these mammoths were around? Who
29:44were they?
29:45Despite most of those indigenous to the Americas descending from an Asian population group that arrived around 16,000 years
29:52ago, they weren't the only ones to have populated this hemisphere.
29:55So who else did?
29:57Researchers have found that the Surui and Caritiana, people indigenous to the Brazilian Amazon, carry traits more closely related to
30:06Australasian population groups than they do to Asian groups.
30:10This is fascinating. This means that the same people that migrated into Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the Andaman Islands
30:18would also have made it across the Bering land bridge and into the Americas.
30:23And they would have done so thousands of years before the second group.
30:28Exactly when this would have happened is unknown.
30:31But this genetic signature is not present at all amongst the indigenous populations of the people descended from the Anzic
30:37child.
30:38So there must have been at least two groups and two separate periods of migration into the Americas.
30:44And the ones who killed and ate these two mammoths in the high desert of New Mexico likely had distant
30:50relatives in Australia.
30:51As time progressed, this initial group was replaced by a secondary one from Northeast Asia, the one that has to
30:59date been seen as the first to populate the Americas.
31:03When it comes to discoveries like this, we would be better served by listening to the descendants of the people
31:08we are discussing in order to obtain a fuller picture of long ago events.
31:13This story is also an important reminder that some of the theories we profess as absolute aren't necessarily accurate.
31:20And that we need to approach this topic, and really any topic, with a healthy dose of humility and curiosity.
31:37Naptoplaia is situated 100 kilometers from the nearest settlement of Abu Simbel, deep in the Egyptian desert.
31:46Absent from its endless beige horizon are any signs of life, little stirs across the enormous, empty expanse of sand.
31:55This inhospitable landscape receives as little as one millimeter of rain a year.
32:00It is crisscrossed by wadis.
32:02These are dried up ravines or riverbeds, indicating that at some point there was water here.
32:07But now it is bone dry.
32:09While traversing the desert, a Bedouin nomad came upon a mysterious collection of stones scattered across the area.
32:19The megaliths lay at seemingly random intervals, extending some two and a half kilometers across the desert.
32:26Megaliths are huge stone slabs and wouldn't just appear in this environmental context.
32:32So it's obvious they were placed here with intent.
32:35It would have required serious thought and muscle to bring them all here.
32:40The Bedouin related what he had seen to the archaeologists studying the region.
32:44And sure enough, with their curiosity piqued, they arrived at Naptoplaia with the purpose of solving the mysteries posed by
32:50the stones.
32:53This is an incredibly hostile environment.
32:55There is not enough water here to sustain the kind of work needed to erect these massive stones.
33:00So how could anyone have done this?
33:02Despite its current harsh conditions, the presence of wadis indicate that at some point, water did flow through this area.
33:11Probably with enough volume to sustain plants, animals and humans.
33:17Throughout prehistory, megaliths were used singly or in groups to create monuments, often to mark a site with supernatural or
33:25spiritual significance, or to indicate the location of a grave.
33:29So the archaeologists suspect that some of them could be sitting on top of one or several tombs.
33:37Digging into the ground reveals no human bodies.
33:40However, initial excavations reveal ancient flora that would require much more water than is currently available here.
33:48Finding organic matter like this is extremely helpful for archaeologists.
33:52It allows them to not only understand what kind of environment would have existed here, but also allows them to
33:58date the plants fairly accurately.
34:00Based on the plant species found during the excavations, the area was probably receiving anywhere from 30 to 200 millimeters
34:07of rain a year between 11,000 and 6,000 years ago.
34:11This means that it was much wetter and able to sustain life and human occupation.
34:16Annual monsoon rains arrived from the south, creating seasonal lakes, otherwise known as playas, that could sustain human and animal
34:26life for a few months a year.
34:28The humid weather would have turned the area into grassland.
34:34Underneath some of the megaliths, the archaeologists do find bones, but not human bones.
34:39Instead, they find a bunch of cattle bones.
34:42This is interesting, because in this region, cattle are still a central part of existence.
34:49Cows provided wealth and status to those who owned them, thereby forming an essential part of a hierarchical system that
34:57has existed for thousands of years.
35:00The more cows one had, the more status and power they attained.
35:04The Beja of the eastern Egyptian desert, for example, are pastoralist people that use them not so much for meat,
35:11but as a constant source of sustenance, obtaining milk from their bodies to feed them in an otherwise barren, harsh
35:18environment.
35:19Thousands of years ago, at the time the cattle bones were deposited, it's possible that people had a similar relationship
35:27to their cattle, meaning they were valuable commodities that served spiritual, political and practical purposes.
35:35It seems the creation of this site would have been done by ancient pastoralists who held cattle as sacred.
35:41As the archaeologists continued to explore the area, they uncovered 15 circular depressions, with the remains of cooking fires in
35:50the centre, indicating that each depression was a separate dwelling.
35:54By dating the charcoal from the cooking fires, they found that these houses weren't occupied simultaneously, but at different periods,
36:01starting as far back as 9,000 years ago.
36:04So could this have been an ancient village?
36:07The houses are aligned along what used to be a water source, so they had access to water.
36:13And archaeologists also found a number of wells, some up to two and a half metres deep.
36:19So, beyond the unique circular formation, we have evidence of cattle, as well as the remains of several homes that
36:26had access to water.
36:28So this was definitely a temporary village.
36:31But what purpose would all these stones have served?
36:35As they continued their investigation, the archaeologists found what appeared to be ten mounds lined up against the western bank.
36:44As they excavated them, they uncovered something that left no doubt as to what this specific site was.
36:52There aren't human remains here either, but cattle, goats and sheep.
36:56Most importantly, they find an entire young female cow skeleton, which shows no signs of having been butchered or used
37:03for food.
37:05Considering how valuable these animals would have been, could this be a sacrificial site?
37:22Archaeologists had discovered animal remains, buried at the site of ancient rock megaliths, in the middle of the arid Egyptian
37:30desert.
37:30After finding the remains of a sacred cow, they were left to wonder if they'd uncovered a place of sacrificial
37:37worship.
37:38The cow is found lying on its left side, oriented with her head towards a cell, which incidentally is where
37:44the monsoon rains come from.
37:45The cow's burial is in the wadi, which at the time would have brought water into the playa.
37:50So it was probably a good place to ask the gods for rain, or to thank the gods for having
37:56brought the rains in the first place.
37:59Radiocarbon dating of the plant matter found in the cow's grave indicated that she'd lived around 5,270 BCE, almost
38:087,000 years ago.
38:10Considering that the houses were around 9,000 years old, this place must have seen continuous occupation for at least
38:172,000 years.
38:18Other than a seasonal village, this was an important site. Not just for practical reasons, but for spiritual purposes as
38:27well.
38:27It seems it could have been a holy site for these ancient pastoralists moving through the desert.
38:34It would make sense that it carried religious significance. It was a frequently and reliably watered place with feed for
38:41the cattle.
38:42And it would have stood in stark contrast to some of the inhospitable surroundings.
38:47There are a number of puzzling megaliths marking the wider area, but on top of a small knoll is a
38:54curious circle of stones half buried in the sand.
38:57It's made of upright, narrow slabs of stone, and it looks like a gathering of tombstones.
39:03The question is, what could this place be?
39:06At first they think this is a cromlech, which is a circle of standing stones, often used to indicate a
39:11tomb.
39:12Yet there are no human remains found inside the circle.
39:16So if it's not the site of a tomb, stones placed in a circle like this could also suggest a
39:21connection with celestial events.
39:23A monument can be used to track changes in the sky, whether as a sundial or a calendar used to
39:29track the movement of the stars, or even indicate the arrival of the summer solstice.
39:35Stonehenge in England is one such example.
39:38We still don't know for certain, but it is thought that this monument of megaliths was used either as a
39:44celestial observatory, like some sort of calendar, or it could have been used as a religious site where rituals and
39:51ceremonies were conducted.
39:54Regardless of its specific use, it was definitely tied to the heavens.
39:57So could this stone circle be something similar?
40:01If so, it would predate Stonehenge by thousands of years.
40:05Puzzled by what this could be, an archaeoastronomy specialist was called in to bring his expertise to bear upon these
40:13magnificent finds.
40:17Archaeoastronomy is the study of astronomical practices in the ancient past, meaning the study of how people used the heavens
40:24in their respective mythology, folklore and religion.
40:28By knowing the age of the organic matter, the specialists could then calculate when this circle of stones would have
40:33aligned with the stars.
40:34So they radiocarbon dated samples of organic matter from fires and from plant material found inside the circle.
40:41The research revealed that the stone circle would have aligned with Arcturus, Sirius and Alpha Centauri around 4,800 BCE,
40:52almost 7,000 years ago.
40:54This is really fascinating.
40:56Arcturus is one of the five brightest stars in the night sky.
41:00Sirius is the brightest and Alpha Centauri is the fourth brightest.
41:04He quickly realized that all the megaliths were part of a greater structure.
41:07All the stone constructions across the entire area were interrelated, including this stone arrangement.
41:14So like Stonehenge, this too is likely an ancient sundial.
41:18It was found in a wadi which at the time would have been partially submerged in water for a few
41:23months a year.
41:25Two of the stone pairs in the circle align along an east-west axis.
41:30They're calculated to have been in line with where the sun would have risen and set during the summer solstice.
41:36The stone circle was a means by which these people observed and marked changes in the celestial night sky.
41:44At the time, one could see the reflection of the stars in the water and in turn see how the
41:51stones lined up with those very stars.
41:54For these ancient semi-nomadic people, the stars would not only have been a place where the gods resided, but
41:59also the means by which they navigated and survived in the desert.
42:05Nabtaplaya was an ancient gathering place where people came from far and wide to observe the stars, pray for rain,
42:13and welcome the summer solstice, which would then mark the start of the annual monsoon.
42:18It's one of the earliest pieces of evidence we have of celestial observation and reflects an incredibly sophisticated understanding of
42:28both time and space.
42:30Sometime between 5000 and 3000 BCE, the climate changed and the area dried up.
42:36Nabtaplaya was abandoned and fell victim to time, slowly being buried by the shifting sands of the desert.
42:44Since its discovery, the Egyptian authorities have gone through the painstaking process of moving the stones to a safe site
42:51and replicating their alignment in order to preserve it for future generations.
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