Forgotten Megaliths of Colombia: Ancient Architects of the Andes

This is pure exploration. What have you found? There's an underground tunnel, man. What? Look. Whoa, look at this. Look at the archaeology. That is a dolmen. Oh, look at the artwork. Oh, wow. Look at that, man. That's amazing. Oh, my good lord. Look at this. Whoa, the size of that rock. In our third installation of this documentary series, we've found hardcore archaeology lost in the Andean highlands of Colombia. In our relentless search for lost archaeology along the ancient shorelines of Paleo Lake Humboldt, an ancient Ice Age lagoon that once covered central Colombia, we unearthed a curious 1960s paper describing enormous collapsed megalithic structures overlooking the modern Tomini Reservoir, just 60 kilometers north of Bogota. In 1962, British-born American-trained anthropologist Sylvia Broadbent published Megalithic Constructions in the Chibcha Territory, documenting her rediscovery of mysterious megalithic dolmens. Often tied to ancestral lineages, territorial markers, and celestial alignments, these portal tombs, or passage graves, marked by towering slabs and massive capstones, are common in northern France, Britain, Ireland, and around the Mediterranean. And they're found as far afield as Indonesia, China, and Korea, with the oldest dating back to around 5000 BC. But Broadbent's discovery was different, because only a handful of dolmens have ever been found in South America. Guided by her work, we mapped the site and expanded our research within a one-kilometer radius, including the shores of the Tomini Reservoir. What we've found, revealed in this history documentary, is an exceptionally rare network of intact prehistoric dolmens and unrecorded rock art, unlocking lost secrets of prehistoric settlement, forgotten rituals, and ancient astronomers. Jay, I found something we need to film. There's like a path or steps of stones that leads up to this rectangle, with one tiny monolith set right in the middle. Look at that. Look, it's like a rectangle. It's all about following the stones. Like if a cap was over that, that's a dolmen. Yeah, I'd agree with that. That's the only reason I'm giving it a moment, because it does look quite rectilinear. And look, these steps kind of lead up to it. Let's look, Ash, and see what's through here, man. The path seems to be going this way. Yeah. There's the rectangle of stones. What have you found? There's an underground tunnel, man. What? Look. Whoa. Look at this. That is a dolmen. Oh, look at the light coming in the roof. Look at the size of this. Look at the archaeology. This is pure exploration. Look at this. Gee. Mate, it's incredible. Look at that orthostat. Whoa, look at this chamber at the back with enormous flat stone on the roof. Look how they've built this, man. Do you know something? We're going to take a wind here, Jay. We've tracked this down. Yeah. In the middle of the Glatavita landscape, figured out the north alignment, and here we are. So it does resemble a classic dolmen from Wales or Ireland with these vertical orthostats supporting two enormous horizontal little stones. Look. It's got lines on it, mate. It's got these. Look. And look, it's got vertical and horizontal lines all over it. We'll film them close up and then we'll run them through de-stretch and that'll tell us if they're pictograms or not. Okay. We've got a line coming down here, which has two lines intercrossing. There's two parallel lines here. And I mean, they're old. Here as well, we've got more lines. It's like a cup shape with a line. We've got more coming down this side as well. Vertical and horizontal lines that intercross. We've got three horizontal lines and a vertical line and they intercross here. And the same further down here. Well, if you think they're pictograms, we'll check behind because we sometimes hit them. You be careful now, don't you? Good. Can you imagine? No, there's no pictograms on this one at the back, but those are really, really curious now I see how close up, Jay. Finding the tomb is one thing, but if we find art, that's another level, Jay. Well, I think we have actually. Here, we've got some diagonal lines flying off. I mean, it's very geometric. Look at that top level, Jay, above you. 15 tonne of stone above us right now that could go down any second. Being supported by some little rocks. Jay, if you look at these three little rocks here supporting this orthostat, it suggests that they have levelled the horizontal alignment of the top plinth using that. Yeah. What do you think? I think that's incredible, actually, but there's no question in it. Can you see it from a distance? There's another one here inside. There's another couple of small little rocks, kind of just holding it on that horizontal platform, isn't it? There it is from the outside with the lintel there, and that is all dependent on that stone and that little ledge, that shelf here. That's wild. It's just incredible, Jay. Look at the archaeology heading in the Colombian forests up in the high Andes. Incredible, man. Absolutely breathtaking. Let me just come back from you. Look at you in that tomb. That's fantastic. How wide? 250. Perfect. Let me just pick up the alignment of the passage and we're off. I'm going to film the alignment from the back of the tomb in the centre, down the passage, over to the lagoon. 175 degrees southeast. And what's the altitude here, Ash? 2,600 metres, give or take 100 metres. Yeah. Which is approximately on the shoreline of Lake Humboldt, the Ice Age Lagoon. We can't say it's Ice Age. I mean, it's definitely pre-Mexico. Right, Jay. You ready with your measurements? Do you want to move on? Yeah, let's go, man. I mean, Jay, I'm only guessing it's this way. I think we should follow the path, Ash, to be fair. That path or that path? Look, there's stone. Yeah. You'd hardly call it a path. What? Oh yeah, look. What's this? Looks like a collapsed one. A definite rectangular impression again. See? Yeah. Is it in this way? There's your blocking stone. That enormous boulder. So that would... Ah, look, Jay. Here's the raised stones on the roof with supporting rocks underneath. Is this a collapsed one? I think it's a collapsed one, man. I think you can see the supporting stones and the shape, the leading into it. So this is like the triangular stone to the right of the first dolmen, suggesting this is collapsed, do you think? Yeah, definitely. Look at this. Oh, look at the artwork. Oh, wow. Look at that, man. That's amazing. This is old. You can see it's got the lichen and the moss growing over it and it's faded. Yes. This is original. That's old. That's real archaeology. Yeah. Yeah, that is. That's pre... Well, you can't say pre-Chybcha, but it doesn't look like anything that the Moiskes created, does it? No. It's more primal. Yeah, definitely. Jay and I have found ourselves on the edge of, once again, Lake Humboldt, the Ice Age lake, that came up to about this level 10,400 BC. We found a series of archaeological structures and these match the British, the Welsh, the Irish and the Scottish dolmens. A large lintel stone over an earthen chamber in this enormous boulder. There we go. Yeah. Mate, here's another massive dolmen. Yeah, you can see the supporting wall. That's collapsed. That's collapsed because... But look at the size of this stone. Do you want me to get down and look for some pictograms in there, mate? Go for it. Jay, come out. I can see a big one over there on the right. Let's go there first in case it's a collapsed tomb. Look up here. Let's just film this raw. Oh my good lord. Look at this. I've never seen any kind of structure like this before. Look at the size of that rock. Yeah. And it's got three little things holding it up, man. Look at that. All right, Jay. Let's measure up. That's just incredible. Oh, look in here. It's a deep, dark tomb, Jay. It is. Can you see that now that it's almost midday, the sunlight is coming straight down this passage and in a few minutes, this is going to light up the whole tomb inside, man. You can see it starting to come in already. Yeah. This is raw Indian archaeology. I wouldn't touch that if I were you, man. Yeah, I just am so tempted to. So the depth of the cave is 2.2 meters and the width of the cave, this is a lot wider than the others. This is just over three meters. Yeah. That's exactly one meter. Okay. All right, Jay. Let's move on. In our third installation of this documentary series, we've found hardcore archaeology lost in the Andean highlands of Colombia. It truly is a remarkable day. Jay, mark it at 10 for the day we're having. 50. Yeah.