Lost Civilizations Archaeologists Can't Explain
Imagine ancient civilizations that straight-up vanished, leaving behind nothing but mysteries and unanswered questions. We're talking about places like the lost city of Atlantis or the enigmatic Nazca lines in Peru. These places have got archaeologists scratching their heads and diving deep into the history books, trying to piece together what went down. And let's not forget about the Mayans and their mind-blowing temples hidden deep in the jungle—how did they build those things without modern tech? It's like stepping into a real-life adventure movie, and we're all just along for the ride! Animation is created by Bright Side.;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------;Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/; ;Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV; ;Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------;Our Social Media:;Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside;Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official;TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en; ;Stock materials (photos, footages and other):;https://www.depositphotos.com;https://www.shutterstock.com;https://www.eastnews.ru;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------; For more videos and articles visit:;http://www.brightside.me; ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------;This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00 Strange and amazing items are discovered often, but figuring out what our ancestors were up
00:06 to is pretty tough.
00:09 Especially when all you have are just some rusty cups and cave drawings.
00:13 It's no surprise that even the experts in lab coats sometimes make mistakes.
00:18 But it's not just about dusty plates and huge stones.
00:22 Sometimes there's even humans with large heads.
00:24 So grab your digging tools and let's travel back to ancient times to explore incredible
00:29 societies that even scientists can't fully explain.
00:35 Sardinia may look idyllic now, but I'm not gonna lie, I wouldn't fancy visiting it
00:40 three thousand years ago.
00:42 Rumor has it, terrible giants roamed around this island back then.
00:47 People even talk about finding human skeletons over 13 feet tall there, although nobody's
00:52 ever shown anything to prove it.
00:54 The stories will make you wonder, because some weird stuff has definitely happened.
01:00 In 1974, over 5,000 pieces of broken stone artifacts were found in a part of the island
01:06 called Monte Prama.
01:08 But instead of being displayed in a museum, they were locked up in an underground vault
01:12 for about 30 years.
01:14 Sounds a bit suspicious, doesn't it?
01:17 When they were finally displaced in 2005, scientists put the pieces together to find
01:22 statues of 38 giant men standing 8 feet tall.
01:26 Not quite as tall as the legendary skeletons, but still pretty huge.
01:31 It's thought these statues were made by the Nuragic people, who lived on the island a
01:35 long time ago.
01:37 Besides giant statues, they also built over 8,000 massive stone buildings.
01:43 Perhaps Nuragic weren't giants themselves, but they definitely liked their things big.
01:48 I do too.
01:49 I like a big number of likes on our videos, that'd be pretty great.
01:53 Thank you if you liked this and subscribed!
01:56 Now back to the video.
01:58 You and I are pretty smart, but we might not be the smartest humans ever.
02:02 Actually, we might not even be the smartest species.
02:06 Since 1913, some skull fossils found in South Africa have hinted at a possibly smarter contender
02:12 called Boskot Man.
02:15 This human-like species might have lived as recently as 10,000 years ago.
02:20 Their skull suggests they had really big heads, which means their brains could have been 30%
02:25 bigger than ours.
02:27 Wow, their average IQ could have been around 149, making them among the smartest 0.05%
02:34 of people today.
02:36 But if a Boskot Brainiac was so much smarter, why are they not around and we are?
02:42 Well, bigger isn't always better, you know.
02:45 Our brains are a lot bigger than our ape relatives, mainly in the prefrontal cortex.
02:51 This part helps with high-level tasks like making decisions, remembering things short-term,
02:55 and being aware of ourselves.
02:57 The parts of the brain that handle our senses and movements haven't really grown much.
03:02 So, maybe the Boskots spent too much time dwelling on the past rather than doing practical
03:08 things like hunting.
03:10 But this is all just guessing.
03:12 We really don't know what happened to these clever cousins of ours.
03:16 Some people even argue that Boskots weren't any different from us, with the only evidence
03:20 being parts of skulls.
03:24 The jungle is huge.
03:26 Did you know the Amazon rainforest is home to about 30% of all the world's plant and
03:31 animal species?
03:33 That's impressive!
03:34 However, the history of one native species, humans, has long puzzled scientists.
03:40 The mysterious Kassarabet people lived here for hundreds of years and then vanished around
03:45 1400 AD.
03:48 People thought the Amazon only had a few scattered tribes, but recently we discovered big, unusual
03:54 shapes in the ground called geoglyphs.
03:58 These might look like simple shallow ditches, but they're actually the remains of a vast
04:02 civilization that spread over 5,000 square miles and includes about 450 markings, some
04:09 as wide as 1,300 feet.
04:12 That's insane!
04:14 They likely contained ceremonial buildings and could have hosted up to a million people
04:19 as recently as 550 years ago.
04:23 Thanks to new technology like LIDAR, which uses a safe laser to map the forest without
04:28 harming it, we can explore deeper.
04:31 In 2019, some scans showed miles of raised roads and pathways and even pyramids over
04:37 70 feet tall.
04:39 They found 26 separate settlements, two of which were at least 250 acres each.
04:46 Damn, that's like 330 soccer fields!
04:50 It's not certain what happened to the Kassarabet people.
04:53 Maybe European conquistadors drove them out.
04:58 Maybe the most baffling ancient civilization is one we've never actually found a trace
05:03 of.
05:04 I'm talking about Atlantis, the grand city that supposedly sank into the ocean.
05:10 The first mentions of Atlantis come from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who talked
05:14 about a great city near the Strait of Gibraltar.
05:18 But for ages, everyone just thought Plato made up Atlantis as a perfect version of his
05:22 own Athens.
05:25 So why, about 12,000 years after it supposedly vanished, do we still wonder if it might be
05:31 real?
05:32 Well, in the 19th century, US Congressman Ignatius Donnelly wrote a book giving 13 reasons
05:38 why he thought Atlantis was more than just a myth.
05:42 Then in 1965, some folks thought they actually found Atlantis when they discovered the Richat
05:48 Structure, a massive 25-mile-wide dome in Mauritania, Africa.
05:54 It's so big that you can see the whole thing from space.
05:58 Two astronauts flying over the Sahara Desert spotted this giant eye staring back at them
06:03 and thought they'd made the discovery of a lifetime.
06:06 Unfortunately, there's no solid evidence linking this structure to Atlantis.
06:11 It's believed to have formed from volcanic activity about 100 million years ago.
06:15 But it does look suspicious, doesn't it?
06:18 Still, we're no closer to knowing the truth.
06:23 Again going back to about 3,300 BCE and finding yourself in South Asia, welcome to the Harappan
06:31 civilization.
06:33 These people were way ahead of their time.
06:35 They had cities like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, complete with baked brick houses, sophisticated
06:41 drainage systems, and even public baths.
06:44 This place might have had over 5 million people, making it one of the densest regions at the
06:49 time.
06:50 They also invented a system of standardized weights that was incredibly useful for traders.
06:55 And trading they did.
06:56 These people had connections stretching all the way to the Middle East, thanks to their
07:00 great skills in metallurgy.
07:03 They even had a form of ancient branding.
07:05 The seals were used to stamp "clay" on tray goods.
07:09 Despite being so advanced with a thriving urban life, there's a whole bunch of mystery
07:14 shrouding their language and script.
07:17 We've got bits and pieces of their writing, but no one's deciphered them yet, even with
07:21 all the technology we have today.
07:25 We also still don't know how exactly their society worked.
07:28 It looks like they didn't flaunt their social status as much as other civilizations.
07:33 No grand palaces or massive monuments.
07:36 Instead, their largest buildings might have been granaries.
07:39 They sure were practical.
07:41 Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.
07:45 Around 1800 BCE, this bustling civilization started to decline, possibly due to shifts
07:52 in river patterns.
07:53 As the environment changed, the Harappans packed up, moving towards more hospitable
07:58 lands.
08:00 Ever heard of the Minotaur?
08:03 The beast with a bull's head and a man's body, hunting the bravest travelers in a massive
08:08 maze?
08:09 Well, this wasn't just any old tale.
08:11 It was one of the most popular dramas of the ancient world, and it was inspired by this
08:16 place.
08:17 The island of Crete.
08:19 The Minoans lived here during the Bronze Age.
08:21 They had stunning palaces, amazing frescoes, and a culture so rich it still fascinates
08:27 historians to this day.
08:29 They built places like Knossos, which was so complex with its multi-story buildings
08:34 and elaborate hallways that it might have inspired the whole labyrinth myth.
08:39 Their engineering was so ahead of its time that even their drainage systems were more
08:42 advanced than what many of us have today.
08:47 Let me know in the comments which of these stories you find the most fascinating!
08:50 And thanks for watching!