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Explore the fascinating story of Earth's lost continents and the evolution of humanity in this captivating video.
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00:01Do you know how many continents there are on Earth?
00:04That's an easy one, seven.
00:06But wait a second, aren't Europe and Asia one large continent, Eurasia?
00:11It looks so when you look at the world map.
00:14Well, scientists think differently.
00:16They don't just look at bodies of land sticking out of the sea.
00:20Geoscientists study the types of rock that continents are made from.
00:23When you see the world from their perspective, the number of continents actually increases.
00:28Yes, they are not a myth.
00:30Lost continents exist.
00:32Or at least they used to.
00:34They are hiding under other landmasses.
00:37Peek-a-boo!
00:38Researchers have recently discovered one continent just like that.
00:41It's called Greater Adria.
00:44Sound familiar?
00:45Yes, it has something to do with the Adriatic Sea.
00:48This lost continent is completely buried under Europe.
00:52It collided with Europe and started to sink under it a long time ago.
00:56Today, it lies beneath Italy, Greece, and the Baltics.
01:00Its size and even shape match that of Greenland, the world's largest island.
01:05But how did geoscientists find Greater Adria?
01:08It's no longer visible, but it left some clues.
01:12Parts of it were embedded in the Alps.
01:14Other chunks were incorporated into present-day Italy and Croatia,
01:18on the other side of the Adriatic Sea.
01:20Limestone rocks from the former continent started to change
01:24once they were under the European landmass.
01:27Tremendous heat and pressure spread over tens of millions of years
01:31changed their structure.
01:33Out goes the limestone.
01:34In comes the marble.
01:36All the Greek and Roman temples you admired on your summer vacation
01:39were constructed using this marble.
01:42It was sort of a going-away gift from a long-lost continent.
01:48Greater Adria camouflaged itself well for thousands of years.
01:52But other lost continents were hiding in plain sight.
01:55Have you heard of Earth's 8th continent, Zealandia?
01:59Probably not, because it sits under the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
02:0395% of Zealandia is now underwater.
02:06Can you guess where exactly?
02:08Its name is a good hint.
02:10Under New Zealand.
02:11If you open Google Maps, you can see its outline.
02:14Look for a lighter shade of blue in the ocean.
02:17It should stretch from New Caledonia to New Zealand.
02:20This bump in the ocean floor used to be above sea level.
02:24It was about two-thirds of Australia
02:26and more than twice the landmass of Greater Adria in size.
02:30We can spot Zealandia today because it hasn't sunk too low.
02:34And that's the best way to discover other lost continents.
02:38Imagine the Earth without the oceans.
02:40The bottom of the sea isn't flat.
02:42There are mountains and trenches.
02:44You could put Mount Everest in the deepest of them,
02:46and there would still be 7,000 feet between it and sea level.
02:51This trench got so deep because of a geological process called subduction.
02:56The Pacific plate got under the Philippine plate.
02:59Earth's crust is made out of those plates that float in a sea of molten rock.
03:04Then they bump into each other.
03:06One goes down while the other one rises.
03:09That's how Greater Adria ended up under the European continent.
03:13Our planet is constantly on the go.
03:16We don't notice this process because it happens deep beneath our feet.
03:20120 million years ago, Australia and Antarctica were a single piece of land.
03:26Yep, the coldest and one of the hottest places on Earth were once the same territory.
03:31Antarctica said goodbye to Australia, but it didn't leave empty-handed.
03:37Today, there is an oceanic plateau in the Indian Ocean.
03:40The word plateau comes from French, and it means elevated flatland.
03:45And the name of this land sounds like the title of a Hollywood movie, Broken Ridge.
03:50Long ago, it was connected to another lost continent.
03:54Scientists believe that it made a land bridge between India and Antarctica.
03:58What was this land like?
04:00The answer possibly lies in a tiny archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean.
04:06These islands are all that is left of an ancient landmass.
04:10They have a cold climate.
04:12The islands feature glaciers because they're so close to Antarctica.
04:15But in the past, the climate must have been temperate with plenty of rainfall.
04:20The animals and plants would have been similar to those that we find in tropical regions today.
04:25The lost continent's landscape probably resembled that of New Zealand.
04:30Now, while we're in the area, can you guess which continent the island state of Madagascar once belonged to?
04:37If you guessed Africa, sorry, you were wrong.
04:40Hey, don't feel bad.
04:42Look up and to the right of the map.
04:43The correct answer is India.
04:46Some 120 million years ago, I wasn't around then, India separated from the African continent and went northeast.
04:54Madagascar wasn't quick enough and ended up as an island off the southeast coast of Africa.
04:59But there is evidence of an even greater landmass.
05:03The lost continent of Mauritia.
05:06Scientists found traces of the ancient landmass under the island of Mauritius.
05:10Today, it's a tourist hotspot.
05:13But millions of years ago, it was a real hotspot.
05:16Volcanoes and all.
05:18That's how scientists were able to retrace the steppes of Mauritia.
05:21They found a mineral that exists in rocks, which lava spews out after an eruption.
05:27The long-lost land once covered the area from Mauritius to the west coast of India.
05:32Imagine if that land existed today.
05:34It would form a great mix of Indian and African cultures.
05:38The local dishes would definitely be spicy.
05:41Now, speaking of spicy, have you had Indonesian food recently?
05:45Just 50,000 years ago, southeast Asia looked much different.
05:49There was no Sumatra, Borneo, Java, or even Australia.
05:54Just Sunda and Saul.
05:56Two continental masses that were divided by a deep water trench.
05:59You had the extension of mainland southeast Asia on one side, and the greater Australia on the other.
06:06Back then, Bali stood at the southernmost tip of Asia.
06:11Biologists were among the first scientists to notice the split.
06:15Species developed differently on Sunda and Saul.
06:18That's why Australia has unique animals, such as the kangaroo, wombat, and platypus.
06:24And did you know that a giant kangaroo once roamed the island of New Guinea?
06:28That's because, up until the end of the last age, there was a land bridge to Australia.
06:34Today, the two islands are separated by the Torres Strait.
06:37But it's quite shallow, less than 65 feet.
06:40It's a reminder that this was once a single landmass called Saul.
06:45Another ocean strait that isn't too deep separates Asia from North America.
06:50The Bering Strait sits today in the place of Beringia.
06:53This ancient landmass wasn't that big.
06:56It stretched 1,000 miles from north to south.
06:59That's just a third of the driving distance from Los Angeles to New York.
07:04Beringia was important for another reason.
07:06During the Ice Ages, it connected the whole world.
07:09Water levels were 300 feet lower than they are today.
07:13If they went even lower, you could walk from the Cape of Good Hope in Africa
07:17all the way to Cape Horn in South America.
07:20Talk about the ultimate backpacking route.
07:24Today, you can hop on an airplane and fly to pretty much any place on the globe.
07:29The world has never seemed smaller, has it?
07:32Well, it has.
07:33Some 300 to 200 million years ago, we were all one world, literally.
07:39Pangaea was a supercontinent that included all of the continents.
07:43Its name is in Greek, and it simply means all Earth.
07:47But Pangaea started to crack up.
07:49The biggest gap formed between the Americas on one side and Europe and Africa on the other.
07:55Seawater soon started pouring in, and that's how we got the Atlantic Ocean.
08:00This process is by no means over.
08:03While you were watching this video, North America is drifting further and further away from Europe
08:08at the rate of one inch per year.
08:11Doesn't seem much when compared to the average human lifespan,
08:15but in the end, all the continents will reconnect with each other, forming a supercontinent.
08:20And it wouldn't be the first time in Earth history that this happens.
08:24Honestly, I'm not going to wait around for that.
08:29There's an amazing place in Ethiopia, East Africa, called Hadar.
08:34This place is a treasure trove.
08:36We found tons of old animal fossils there.
08:38And among those remnants, we discovered something very special.
08:42The fossils of a creature called Australopithecus afarensis.
08:47One of these guys was found almost complete.
08:49You might know it today by the name Lucy, after a famous song by the Beatles.
08:54Lucy was a small lady, only about as tall as a kitchen counter.
08:59She lived 3.2 million years ago, and became a huge celebrity when we found her in 1974.
09:05She helped us learn more about our early ancestors, creatures called Australopithecines.
09:12Around 10 to 12 million years ago, there was a group of animals that broke into two branches.
09:17One of the branches led to modern apes, while the other led to humans.
09:22This separation happened because one group decided to stay in trees, and became what we
09:27now call gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans.
09:30They moved around using all four limbs and lived in forests.
09:33But the other group decided to live on the ground and try walking on two legs.
09:38Because of that, their brains started getting bigger over time.
09:41And over millions of years, they became bald monkeys who watch videos on YouTube.
09:47Yeah, you know who you are.
09:48Lucy, like other Australopiths, was a bit different from us.
09:52She still looked like an ape and lived during a transitional stage.
09:56She could walk on two legs, but didn't do it all the time.
10:00Sometimes she climbed trees, just like a monkey.
10:02She and her buddies were the first step in human evolution.
10:07Then came a new branch of evolution, Homo habilis, or handyman.
10:12They were the first members of the Homo genus because they were the ones to start developing
10:17stone tools and first show human creativity.
10:21They probably used these tools for scavenging and processing food.
10:24We found the first clues about them back in the 1960s.
10:28They walked around East Africa about 3 million years ago.
10:31They were pretty small, about 4 feet 7 inches tall.
10:35They didn't climb trees anymore, and mostly walked on the ground.
10:39Their skull shape already resembled ours, unlike the more pear-shaped heads of Australopiths.
10:45That's because they had larger brains.
10:48After them, we had Homo erectus, the upright man.
10:52They lived about 2 million to 70,000 years ago.
10:56The name hints that this was the first hominin species that walked on two legs almost all the
11:01time.
11:02They were also the first to migrate out of Africa, spreading to Asia and Europe.
11:07And here, we had the real breakthrough.
11:10Representatives of Homo erectus had even larger brains and learned to make more creative and
11:15advanced tools.
11:16They created the first choppers, cleavers, and hammers, and used flakes as scrapers and
11:22knives.
11:22They probably used a lot of things — wood, bark, and even grass — to make the first strings
11:27and ropes.
11:28With all that, they learned how to hunt large animals, and probably hunted together a lot.
11:34They were also the first ones to start using fire, which changed our history forever.
11:39Over time, more Homo species emerged, including the famous Neanderthals.
11:44They're known for their European roots.
11:47They split from our common ancestor around 400,000 years ago.
11:51Now, even though we share one common ancestor, we didn't evolve from Neanderthals.
11:56They were a separate branch.
11:58All Neanderthals went extinct.
12:00But our evolutionary branch coexisted with them a long time ago.
12:05Neanderthals were resourceful, hunting both land and sea creatures.
12:09They left behind thousands of stone tools and even decorated caves with paintings.
12:14They had their own ceremonies, too.
12:16They started to bury those who passed away.
12:19They probably noticed that leaving them in the wild leads to spreading diseases and attracting
12:24scavengers.
12:25But they also showed care and love in their burial rituals.
12:32Then, it was time for archaic Homo sapiens.
12:35They lived around 500,000 to 200,000 years ago, emerging in Africa and Europe.
12:41This was the last leg between our ancestors and our modern species, Homo sapiens.
12:46The brain just kept getting bigger.
12:49They started to show more complex behaviors.
12:51Not only burial and interesting stone tools, but also smart hunting strategies and planning
12:57for the future.
12:58They probably had a diverse diet that included both hunting and gathering.
13:04And finally, we reached the anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
13:09They emerged around 200,000 years ago in Africa.
13:12They had a similar skeletal structure and brain size to modern humans.
13:16And their behavior was pretty close to ours.
13:19They had complex social structures, started thinking in symbols, and so on.
13:24They migrated out of Africa around 60,000 years ago, spreading across the globe and eventually
13:30replacing other homonym species, such as Neanderthals.
13:33They started to create their first languages and form their first words.
13:38The first words were probably very simple, like ah, to call someone, and ma, for babies.
13:45After evolving into our final stage, we started advancing in our cultural and technological
13:51development.
13:52This development became very rapid over the last 200,000 years.
13:56About 12,000 years ago, the Neolithic period, also known as the New Stone Age, began.
14:03It marked the end of the glacial period.
14:05Humans started living in settled villages, instead of constantly moving around.
14:10This change was brought about by the advent of agriculture, which allowed people to grow
14:15crops and raise animals, like goats and sheep.
14:18Early humans started to domesticate animals, such as sheepdogs, for herding.
14:22We also started making the first art, leaving famous drawings in caves, handprints, animals,
14:29mostly cows, hunting, and many others.
14:32We even created the first currency.
14:34We began using clay tokens for transactions.
14:37This marked the beginning of commerce and the use of money.
14:41And finally, we started writing.
14:44And now the events could be recorded and passed down through written records.
14:48This is when history officially began.
14:50From that point on, we saw the development of agriculture, the rise of complex societies,
14:57the invention of writing and the wheel, and the emergence of civilizations.
15:01Our tools became more and more sophisticated.
15:04Languages appeared, leading to the diverse cultures and societies seen today.
15:09So, why have we stopped evolving?
15:11The truth is, we haven't.
15:13Human evolution is an ongoing process, although it's not as dramatic as it used to be.
15:18We adapt to different environments, have different skin tones, appearances, body sizes, and genetic mutations
15:26that have influenced traits like lactose intolerance or resistance to certain diseases.
15:31But the world we live in today is very different from the one our ancestors inhabited.
15:37We don't suffer as much because we've developed technology, culture, and social systems.
15:41Thanks to this, evolution slowed down, seeing that we're doing okay as we are now.
15:47What we started experiencing is cultural evolution rather than a physical one.
15:53Plus, 200,000 years is a pretty short time period, considering the time span of the universe or even of
15:59our Earth.
16:00We should see what happens to us in hundreds of thousands of years.
16:04I won't be around then.
16:05But there are some theories about that.
16:09There's a big idea that, in the future, humans and machines might merge into one super-being.
16:16We call it technological singularity, a state where we humans lead our technologies to the point
16:22where we won't be able to control their development anymore.
16:25For example, if AI gets so advanced, it will change everything about how we live.
16:30Despite the current rise of AI, we shouldn't be too worried about it taking over the world,
16:36at least not in the next few decades.
16:38All we've developed now is weak artificial intelligence, little simulations.
16:43They might look scary to those who don't know much about AI,
16:47but the truth is, they have yet far to go before they reach the grand complexity of the human brain,
16:53not to mention consciousness.
16:54However, many people believe it's only a matter of time before AI reaches this level of intelligence,
17:01and then our world might change forever.
17:04There are other possibilities still.
17:06For example, one day, we might reach a level where we merge with machines
17:10and learn to upload our consciousness in the cloud.
17:14In that case, we might become a hive mind,
17:17taking over the Internet using our brains,
17:19becoming one giant consciousness.
17:21No matter what happens in the future, one thing's certain,
17:25technology is changing fast,
17:27and it's going to affect all of us sooner or later.
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