12 Most Amazing Archaeological Discoveries | Ancient Antiquities

If you want to find out what's happening in the world at the moment, watch a news program. If you want to find out what happened in the world hundreds or even thousands of years ago, speak to an archaeologist or a historian. They have fascinating stories to tell, and so do the incredible discoveries they've made over the years, as you're about to find out in this video. In the context of the existence of our home planet, human beings have only been around for the blink of an eye. Many other forms of life have been around for far longer, and trees have been here the longest of all. A tree can survive for thousands of years given the right circumstance, but there's a petrified tree trunk in Arizona that's much older than that. After testing it, scientists have confirmed that it's been in situ for over 225 million years. Many of the trees in Arizona's petrified Forest National Park are ancient, but this one is by far the oldest of them. Back when it was a sapling, this part of Arizona was next to the sea, and the land was covered in active volcanoes. As the waters receded, the trees sunk into the wet ground and stayed there, protected against microbes and other agents of decay by thick layers of sediment. Over thousands of years, the plant substance of the tree has been replaced by minerals like pyrite inside the sediment, crystallizing and forming quartz. It's a beautiful thing to look at, and one that took a very long time to arrive at its current form. One of the most exciting aspects of archaeology is that it's a field of science that has the potential to rewrite history as we know it. Discoveries capable of doing so are rare, but one such discovery was made in South Africa in March 2020. It's a huge stone city covering almost 1,000 square miles, and it's believed to have been built somewhere between 160,000 and 200,000 years ago. All that remains of this ancient metropolis today is a series of stone circles, half buried in the sand and only visible with the assistance of satellite imagery. These stone circles are close to terraced agriculture sites, seemingly implying that whoever lived here was considerably more advanced than any other ancient humans anywhere on the planet during their era. There's even evidence of ancient gold mines nearby, so we can't rule out the possibility that these unknown humans were the first to mine gold. The established narrative of history tells us that the first major human civilizations on Earth appeared in Mesopotamia around 6,000 years ago, and yet here's evidence of a civilization that existed far earlier. Who were they, and where did they go? We're all familiar with the concept of astronauts landing on the moon and bringing back samples of lunar rock for scientists to study, but did you know the process has also happened in reverse? A recent study of rock from Earth's only natural satellite, collected by the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, has revealed that it doesn't come from the moon at all. It's a chunk of Earth rock, presumably expelled from our planet after a collision with a comet or asteroid, which must have made the short trip through space and landed on the lunar surface. The rock contains small traces of zircon, feldspar, and quartz, all of which frequently occur on Earth but are highly unlikely to do so on the moon. The same study confirmed that the rock is approximately 4 billion years old, so the incident happened when the Earth was still young, long before life first appeared. Further studies of the rock will hopefully tell scientists much more about what conditions were like on Earth while the planet was still in the process of forming. The civilization of ancient Egypt was so advanced and unique that many people suspect that they had contact with extraterrestrials. It's easy to write off such talk as nothing more than conspiracy theories, but some of the carvings and artwork the ancient Egyptians left behind make us wonder whether there might be something to the theory. In numerous Egyptian drawings and carvings, sphere-shaped objects are seen in the sky, with rays emanating from the spheres and reaching humans on the ground. It's tempting to dismiss the drawings as representations of the sun, but if they're intended to be sun rays, why do they all end with what appear to be tiny hands? The Egyptians tended to thank star gods for many of their technological advancements, a practice that they shared with the ancient Incas, Sumerians, Hopis, and Maya. That seems like too many different civilizations thanking mysterious beings in the sky for it all to be a coincidence. One of the most compelling pieces is this engraving, known as King Akhenaten's Offering to Aten, in which we see the pharaoh and his wife Nefertiti making offerings to the sun god known as Aten. Was Aten really just the sun, or might there have been something more to it? Brains aren't very good at surviving the fossilization process. They're made of materials that simply don't fossilize. So when we find the fossils of ancient creatures, we generally find very little in terms of brains or organs. That's why discoveries like this five-million-year-old fossilized brain inside a Cambrian-era arthropod are so valuable. The find was a fortuitous one. It just so happened that the Cambrian deposits it was found inside were perfectly formulated to perfectly preserve the remains of the tiny creature for millions of years after it died. Paleontologists found the whole nervous system still in place, with an elongated brain structure running from the front of the arthropod's brain all the way down to its upper back, with connections to the eyes and segmented sets of nerves. Even the ancient Egyptians weren't able to work out how to preserve the brain during the mummification process, so this is an example of nature being able to do things that humans cannot. The scientists responsible for the discovery are now hoping to re-examine old Cambrian-era fossil discoveries to see if any brain tissue may have been missed. Aside from being skilled surgeons and scientists for their era, the ancient Egyptians were also talented astronomers, and a recent discovery suggests that they might have known or seen things that we haven't. During a clean-up operation at Esna Temple on the west bank of the Nile, close to Luxor, researchers carefully stripped away layers of soot, bird droppings, and general detritus from the walls. When they were done, they found a previously unknown collection of drawings and paintings created 2,000 years ago, some of which appear to show constellations that we don't recognize. It might just be that the Egyptians saw different shapes and patterns in the skies when they looked up to the stars than we do today, but it's strange that the constellations aren't named or recorded in any other ancient Egyptian records. That might suggest that there was a cult of some kind active at the temple 2,000 years ago, or that the temple itself, which is thought to have taken around 200 years to build, was a particularly important centre for astronomy. We've already discussed the possibility that there were civilizations older than the one that began in Mesopotamia 6,000 years ago. Here's evidence of another one in Bulgaria, which appears to have flourished around 7,000 years ago. We know about them because in May 2020, archaeologists unearthed a pair of kilns in the northeast of the country. We've known for some time that the area was occupied as long ago as the Chalcolithic Age, but this latest discovery proves that there were people settled there even longer ago than we originally thought. The presence of the furnaces points to the existence of a pottery-making centre in the region of Bazovets settlement during ancient times. The kilns are relatively advanced for their era, with an upper chamber for baking pottery separated off from a lower chamber, which would have hosted the fire. Wood waddled plastered with clay was used to make the walls, and each kiln has a groove for heat regulation. More than 50 other artifacts were found during the dig, including animal bones, ceramics, horns, and broken figurines fashioned from flint. There's even a possible hint of an even older building that was destroyed by fire, although more analysis will be required before that can be confirmed. You know that feeling when you wait a long time for a bus, and then two or three of them turn up at once? Apparently, the same thing happens with extinct species of walrus, or at least it does in Orange County, California. The discovery of three previously unknown species was first reported in November 2020 after studies were carried out on 12 samples of fossilized walruses that had been unearthed in the area. One of the new species has short tusks that look more like teeth than the long tusks we see on walruses today, whereas the other two have no tusks at all. The development of tusks on modern-day walruses is thought to have occurred after the species moved to the frozen conditions of the Arctic. These ancient walruses, which lived between 5 and 10 million years ago, lived in the much warmer climates of the southern Californian coast. Only one species of walrus has survived to the modern age, but these new discoveries confirm that millions of years ago, they were far more diverse and varied. Further study of the fossils will hopefully help us to find out what happened to them and why they moved to colder places. The majority of our most ancient ancestors had no written language, so the only attempts at communication we have from them are their cave paintings. Cave paintings vary in style and composition from one country to another, but some of the most interesting can be found in Australia, where a team of archaeologists has recently announced the results of a 10-year study into cave painting in Arnhem Land. The team located an amazing 572 previously undiscovered paintings spread across almost 90 sites in the area, ranging in age from 6,000 years old to 9,400 years old. The majority of them are Maliwawa figures, large depictions of humans and macropods painted in red, with the humans seemingly naked apart from headdresses. Interestingly, there are no examples of human figures appearing without macropods, but the scenes don't appear to depict the animals being hunted. There might have been a ceremonial or symbolic relationship between the humans and animals of the time that can't be understood through modern eyes. Some of the animals depicted appear to be bilbies or macrotas, which these days can only be found in more arid environments to the south. Either they used to cover much more territory, or the humans who made these paintings were well-traveled. Smoking is a bad habit, but it's also an ancient one. It's generally understood that Westerners picked up the habit of smoking tobacco from Native Americans, but more recently it's become apparent that tobacco wasn't the only thing that Native Americans enjoyed smoking. In June 2016, tests carried out on ancient pipes discovered in the Washington State area revealed the presence of rues glabra, a plant that also goes by the name of smooth sumac. It's the first time the residence of any non-tobacco plant has been detected in an ancient American pipe. Smoking wasn't just a recreational hobby for Native American tribes, they had smoke ceremonies, and smoking often took on a spiritual or religious aspect. Rues glabra was probably introduced into tobacco mixes either to improve the flavor of the smoke or for its perceived medical qualities. In another one of the pipes, the presence of the tobacco species and rustica was detected. This strain only grows on the east coast, seemingly confirming that different Native American tribes traded tobacco with each other. These days, sending a bullet in the post would be perceived as a threat, but during the 18th century, receiving a shipment of musket balls would have been enormously helpful for Bonnie Prince Charlie in Scotland, as he hoped to lead the Jacobite Rebellion to victory in reclaiming the British throne from George II. Unfortunately, the shipment in question never reached him, and wasn't found until 2020. The musket balls, along with other artifacts, were found in a field in the Scottish Highlands by archaeologists Paul MacDonald, Gary Burton, and Gary McGovern. There were 215 of them, along with gold and gilt buttons and a coin collection, all of which appear to have been buried deliberately close to an old croft house next to Lac-Nan-Ouam. It just so happens that the croft house once belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie himself. It's thought that the shipment was sent from France, which was sympathetic to the young would-be king's attempt to reclaim the throne for the supported the cause, the parcel arrived about two weeks after the Battle of Culloden in 1745, marking the end of the uprising and the prince's defeat. The more digging is carried out by archaeologists in Mexico, the more traces of the Mayans we discover. We're not talking about small-scale discoveries either. In December 2019, a whole new, previously undiscovered palace in Coluba was unearthed. The 20-foot-high, 120-foot-long palace in Yucatan State was built by the ancient and mysterious civilization approximately 1,500 years ago and remained in use for around 400 years, surviving both the Late Classic and Terminoclassic periods of Mayan history. That's a long time, even by Mayan standards, so it must have been enormously important. It's so well-preserved that even the staircases that provide access to the palace's upper portions are still standing, but almost as soon as the archaeologists found the palace, they had to begin urgent work to preserve it. It's survived for this long because it's been partially buried and covered, but now it's exposed to the elements and it's at risk of decaying quickly. The restoration project will include reforesting the area to provide shelter from wind and rain, hopefully keeping the ancient site safe for another 1,000 years to come. We've rolled out the red carpet for you at Cinemysteria, where you'll be gripped by the highs and lows of Hollywood legends. We dig deep into movie mysteries, unveiling the secret subtext in epic films and the failures that make franchises flop. It's a terrific tour of silver screen success and cinematic catastrophes. Subscribe to Cinemysteria, where Hollywood's hidden stories come to light. 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