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-[man 1] Happy?
-[man 2] Yep.
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-[man 1] All right, here we go.
-And take one.
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[interviewer] How would you
describe yourself?
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[chuckles]
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How would I describe myself?
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You've been described
as a pseudo-archaeologist.
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-I have.
-Someone who cherry-picks your data.
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Your books are read by millions,
but dismissed by academics.
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Did you know that you were
picking a fight with academia?
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Because a lot of people
don't want to hear this.
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You have been
at the front of the line for decades
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and you exposed me
to a lot of these controversial ideas
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that have now been substantiated.
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Well, I'm Graham Hancock.
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I don't claim to be
an archaeologist or a scientist.
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I am a journalist,
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and the subject that
I'm investigating is human prehistory.
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My suspicion is
humans are a species with amnesia.
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We have forgotten something
incredibly important in our own past.
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And I think that
that incredibly important forgotten thing
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is a lost,
advanced civilization of the Ice Age.
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I've spent decades searching
for proof of this lost civilization
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at sites around the globe.
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Oh, wow.
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Now my aim is
to piece together these clues…
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And that seems extremely strange.
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…to show you evidence that challenges
the traditional view of human history.
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It pushes back these dates, far, far back.
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[Graham] Ancient structures
built with surprising sophistication…
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It's the most amazing
archeoastronomy site in North America.
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…revealing the fingerprints
of an advanced prehistoric civilization.
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This pillar is like our Rosetta Stone.
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The possibility of civilization
emerging earlier than we think
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gets stronger.
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It's going to absolutely demand
a rewrite of history as we know it.
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Yeah.
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Of course, this idea is upsetting
to the so-called experts
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who insist that the only humans
who existed during the Ice Age
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were simple hunter-gatherers.
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That automatically makes me
enemy number one to archaeologists.
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Why not say, "We don't know.
This is a spectacular mystery,"
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and leave it at that.
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It's my job
to offer an alternative point of view.
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Perhaps there's been
a forgotten episode in human history.
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But perhaps the extremely defensive,
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arrogant and patronizing attitude
of mainstream academia
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is stopping us
from considering that possibility.
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I'm trying to overthrow…
the paradigm of history.
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[Graham] For 30 years,
I've been looking for something
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I was told couldn't possibly exist.
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An advanced human civilization,
much older than our own, lost to history.
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The mainstream version of history,
says that after the end of the Ice Age…
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on their own initiative,
our hunter-gatherer ancestors
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suddenly began farming
and raising livestock,
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creating settlements
and eventually cities,
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until the first civilizations emerged
around 6,000 years ago.
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But new discoveries
keep on pushing that horizon back.
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One such discovery
has been made here in Indonesia.
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On the most populated island, Java,
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about four hours south of Jakarta,
near the village of Karyamukti.
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I've come here to investigate
one of the most remarkable
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and controversial
archaeological discoveries of our time.
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The initial evidence
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has utterly confounded
mainstream archaeologists
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because it calls into question
everything they've taught us
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about the prehistory of humanity.
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It's a site that raises
a disturbing question.
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What if an advanced civilization
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flourished here in Indonesia
during the Ice Age?
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A civilization that was lost to history
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until now.
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This is Gunung Padang.
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The name means "mountain of light"
or "mountain of enlightenment"
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in the local Sundanese dialect.
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Local people speak
with awe of its mysterious atmosphere…
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and pilgrims come from far and wide
to honor the spirit of the mountain.
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They purify themselves
at an ancient spring at the base…
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before heading up the hill…
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three hundred and sixty feet.
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The climb up it is steep and hard work.
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But worth it once you reach the top.
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Because Gunung Padang
is like no place else on Earth.
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For a long while, archaeologists thought
it was just another hill in the jungle.
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But there was a problem with that view.
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You get to the summit and you see these
blocks scattered across the landscape.
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Oddly hexagonal stone slabs
strewn about everywhere.
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Thousands of them.
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It's quite a spectacle.
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But not out of place
in Indonesia's volcanic landscape
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where blocks like these
are naturally formed.
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They're called columnar jointing
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and are created when volcanic rock,
in this case, basalt,
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cools and cracks into distinctive shapes.
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At first sight,
this open terrace could be mistaken
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for a natural formation of volcanic rock,
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which is why archaeologists
were so slow to investigate it.
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But take a closer look,
and it becomes obvious
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that these rocks have been cut,
repurposed as building materials
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and placed by human hands.
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Among the jumbled masses of fallen stone,
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traces of structures
show up all over this hill.
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Mounds, rectangular rooms, and long walls
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on carefully laid out terraces,
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all clearly man-made.
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When archaeologist Ali Akbar and his team
began working here in 2012,
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they assumed that
any structures on this hill
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would prove to be
less than 2,500 years old.
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[thunder rumbles]
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We don't know
about the absolute dating in this site.
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This site was abandoned
for so long and perhaps forgotten.
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[Graham] The team also assumed that
the ancient builders of Gunung Padang
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had found the blocks of columnar jointing
naturally present at the site.
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But then
they discovered something strange.
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The columnar joint
is imported from another region,
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from another location.
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[Graham] That means that every one
of these blocks, up to 50,000 of them,
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and each weighing up to a third of a ton,
were carried up this hill.
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When Dr. Akbar's team
first surveyed the site,
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they quickly found evidence
that humans had been present,
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in what's called a cultural layer,
but not where they expected.
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We are very surprised that this site
consists of two cultural layers.
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The first layer on the surface,
it's from 500 BC.
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But at four meters depth,
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we found another cultural layer.
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It is from 5,200 BC.
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It is very surprising.
We are very shocked.
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It is very old.
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[Graham] Seven thousand years ago,
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far from being builders
on such an epic scale,
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there's no evidence
that the people of this region
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were anything other than
simple hunter-gatherers.
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What could have motivated them
to make the immense effort
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of bringing all these blocks here?
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I'm not really sure
about the function of this site.
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However, we've still not found
a skeleton or human bone,
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so this is not a burial site.
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Perhaps it is for ceremonies or rituals.
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We're dealing with truly a mystery here.
A mystery that needs to be explained.
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It wasn't until another investigation
looked even deeper into the site
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that an extraordinary new possibility
began to force itself on the researchers.
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That they might be confronted
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by the work
of a civilization lost to history.
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Dr. Danny Hilman Natawidjaja
studied at Caltech,
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but now works for
Indonesia's Geotechnology Research Center.
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As a geologist, Dr. Hilman knew
there was something very strange
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about Gunung Padang.
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Exploring the site,
he found that the columnar basalt blocks
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don't just blanket the top of the hill.
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They also wrap around its terraced slopes
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covering an area of at least 37 acres.
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This exposed section
between two of the terraces
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appears to be some sort of retaining wall.
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There are some archaeologists who
are convinced this is entirely natural.
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I know this is natural rock,
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but they're suggesting the whole layout
of the thing is natural as well.
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They are natural, but the position now
is not in the natural position.
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-[Graham] And normally vertical.
-Vertical, yes.
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-That's right.
-Here it's laid on its side.
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-Also, it's not cut like this.
-Yeah.
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Here, all is cut into one
or one-and-a-half meters.
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[Graham] Right.
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There's something else unusual
that Dr. Hilman noticed
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between the blocks.
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[Dr. Hilman] The natural position,
there is no ground mass in between.
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It will be very tight together.
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But here, in between these columnar rocks,
there is a mortar
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-that holds them together, like cement.
-Yeah.
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The thickness is, like, five centimeters,
and it's very consistent.
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[Graham] Right, so they're kind of
leveling out the construction blocks
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with the mortar between them.
Put there deliberately by human beings
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-as part of a construction process.
-Yes. Yeah.
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So Danny began to investigate this,
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and this is where
the surprises began to appear.
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What Dr. Hilman started to realize
as he put together all his data,
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was that Gunung Padang
is much more than just a hill.
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This is the ancient site of Gunung Padang.
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The north side features a stairway
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climbing more than 300 feet,
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until it reaches
the first of five terraces.
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Over an area
about 490 feet long by 130 feet wide.
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The entire hill is ringed
by retaining walls of columnar basalt.
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Using an estimated 50,000 blocks,
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it's a massive terraforming project
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that remodeled a volcanic hill
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into what can best be described
as a step pyramid.
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So this is all man-made terraces here.
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[Dr. Hilman] Yeah.
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It's not the same shape of pyramids
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like Mayan or Giza pyramids.
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No. It's a similar idea that it rises
in terraces to a pyramid-shape, yeah.
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-Yeah. But it has circular features.
-Indeed.
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There's a question of definitions here.
How do we define a pyramid?
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But if we define it as a structure that
rises in a series of terraces to a summit,
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that's what we're looking at
at Gunung Padang.
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And the fact that
such an ancient pyramid exists here at all
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could radically alter what we know
about the capabilities of our ancestors.
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Archaeologists currently believe
the oldest pyramid in the world
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dates to around 4,700 years ago.
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And it's not in Egypt, but in Peru.
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But Dr. Hilman has found evidence
that Gunung Padang could be even older.
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So how old is it really?
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Who built it? And why?
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Dr. Hilman and his team
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turn to technology
usually deployed in geological surveys
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to look for answers
deep inside the structure.
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So, we have three methods here.
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-The GPR.
-Yeah, that's ground-penetrating radar.
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-Ground-penetrating radar, yes.
-Yeah.
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-And resistivity tomography.
-[Graham] Yeah.
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[Dr. Hilman] And also
the seismic tomography.
211
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[Graham] Previously, archaeologists had
dug down into the site only a few meters
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and in a few isolated trenches.
213
00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:20,760
This new technology
covers much more ground…
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-Thirty meters, yeah.
-Thirty meters.
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…and goes far deeper.
216
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We're going to do
the ground-penetration radar,
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the GPR surveys.
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[Graham] Ground-penetrating radar
219
00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:36,000
emits pulses of radio waves
into the ground.
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When they hit something, they bounce back,
and that data is recorded and analyzed.
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We chose the frequency of 40 megahertz
to penetrate down to 30 meters.
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Okay. Let's go.
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[Graham] The more Dr. Hilman and his team
learn from their scans of the interior,
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the more mysterious it's become.
225
00:16:14,280 --> 00:16:17,280
The nature of the structures underground
became more and more complex.
226
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:19,480
Although the columnar basalt
is always there,
227
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always used as a construction material.
228
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Seismic tomography, in particular,
has uncovered an intriguing spot
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00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:29,400
deep inside the hill.
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[Dr. Hilman] It has a seismic velocity
of about 200 meters per second.
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Right. Which in layman's terms
means what exactly?
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00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:39,720
That's a void.
233
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:43,720
-A void. An empty space.
-Empty.
234
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:46,200
And you can get a sense
of the shape of that empty space?
235
00:16:46,280 --> 00:16:48,440
Yes, as you see here, it's rectangular.
236
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-[Graham] It's a rectangle.
-Yes.
237
00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:51,920
-And the spot is just right…
-Yeah.
238
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:54,160
-…because in the center of this site…
-Right.
239
00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:57,960
…beneath the Terrace One,
there is also a chamber…
240
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:02,280
-Yes.
-…connecting to this chamber
241
00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:04,160
beneath the second terrace.
242
00:17:07,360 --> 00:17:09,960
[Graham] What Dr. Hilman
and his team have discovered
243
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:14,040
are at least three
large rectangular chambers.
244
00:17:14,720 --> 00:17:17,200
One around ten meters down,
245
00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:19,720
perhaps an entrance hall of some kind,
246
00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:23,680
it seems to have an access tunnel
leading to a larger main chamber.
247
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:28,440
And another passage
connecting to a third chamber,
248
00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:30,520
between 20 to 30 meters deep.
249
00:17:31,319 --> 00:17:35,040
All three located
right along the central axis of the site.
250
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:40,440
I'm very intrigued by all these chambers.
251
00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:43,200
I so much wish
you could get the archaeologists
252
00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:44,840
to actually excavate this site.
253
00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:47,640
When we see these chambers…
254
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:48,880
-Yeah.
-…three chambers,
255
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:51,600
it's just like, we were amazed.
256
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:57,480
You know you've found
something significant at that point.
257
00:17:57,560 --> 00:17:59,640
-Sure.
-Yeah, it's unmistakable.
258
00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:00,600
Yeah.
259
00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:09,240
But to historians and the archaeologists
who first excavated this site,
260
00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:12,560
Dr. Hilman's discovery
just doesn't make sense.
261
00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:18,560
The accepted timeline of human history
262
00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:20,760
tells us that the tribe
of hunter-gatherers
263
00:18:20,840 --> 00:18:23,600
living atop the hill
around 7,000 years ago
264
00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:28,080
wouldn't have been capable
of building a structure
265
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:30,440
of this colossal size and complexity.
266
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:33,600
And yet, here it is.
267
00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,800
A mystery crying out for investigation.
268
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:46,000
To put a date on this hill
that's not a hill,
269
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:50,080
Dr. Hilman and his team
turned to another geological tool,
270
00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:52,400
core drilling.
271
00:18:56,400 --> 00:19:01,640
As expected, samples of the top two layers
dated from 3,000 years ago…
272
00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:06,120
back to around 8,000 years ago.
273
00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:12,040
But when they drilled to 15 meters,
around 50 feet or so,
274
00:19:12,120 --> 00:19:14,520
they found something
completely unexpected.
275
00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:22,080
Those sections had been laid out
around 11,600 years ago…
276
00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:28,320
pushing the origins of this site back
to the end of the last Ice Age.
277
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:34,880
And Dr. Hilman's discoveries
didn't stop there.
278
00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:41,560
Going further down, around 100 feet or so,
he hit the earliest layer of construction.
279
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:44,000
Let's try and put dates
on when this was shaped.
280
00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:47,040
Okay. Layer four could be before 20,000.
281
00:19:47,120 --> 00:19:49,120
-Could be before 20,000.
-[Dr. Hilman] Very old.
282
00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:52,800
[Graham] Those drill cores
were pulling up datable materials
283
00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:56,000
that dated way back
as far as 24,000 years ago.
284
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:03,840
Organic materials clearly associated with
structural elements now deeply buried.
285
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:08,520
And this convinced Danny,
and I must say it convinces me,
286
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:11,960
that Gunung Padang goes back
to a remotely ancient origin.
287
00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:20,000
Danny's findings are
utterly extraordinary and bewildering.
288
00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:24,880
Hitherto, archaeologists had regarded it
as a long established fact
289
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:28,720
that no large-scale structures
were built anywhere in Southeast Asia
290
00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:30,840
until around 4,000 years ago.
291
00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:39,320
Your datings of this structure
put it right back to the Ice Age.
292
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:42,080
So for me, this raises a sense
of enormous excitement.
293
00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:43,600
-Yeah.
-I can't help wondering
294
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:47,040
whether those chambers contain
some evidence or information
295
00:20:47,120 --> 00:20:49,000
that might have a bearing…
296
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:51,480
-Yeah.
-…on my search for a lost civilization.
297
00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:55,440
-I think we know little about our history.
-Right.
298
00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:57,720
I think we miss a big thing here.
299
00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:04,840
[Graham] This is an idea mainstream
archaeology finds very hard to accept.
300
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,760
The notion that it's a man-made structure
301
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,240
is no longer
seriously disputed by anybody.
302
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:14,360
But what archaeology finds very hard
to swallow and very hard to accept
303
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:18,120
is that the origins of this structure
could date back as much as 24,000 years.
304
00:21:20,360 --> 00:21:22,120
To the depths of the last Ice Age.
305
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,840
What the scholars seem reluctant
to get to grips with
306
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:38,760
is that the Ice Age
was a very special time
307
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:42,320
when the world was very different.
308
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:50,760
You see, back then, 20,000 years ago,
Earth didn't look the same as it does now.
309
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:53,480
The island of Java wasn't an island.
310
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:59,600
It was the southernmost part
of a vast Southeast Asian continent.
311
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,800
A continent
that geologists call Sundaland.
312
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:07,800
During the last Ice Age,
313
00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:13,480
sea levels were about 120 meters,
400 feet, lower than they are today.
314
00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:19,640
So what is now the Java Sea
was actually an enormous landmass
315
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:22,080
extending out from the mainland of Asia.
316
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:28,240
Sundaland covered an area
around 695,000 square miles,
317
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:32,280
about the size
of the western United States.
318
00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:34,800
It was an entire subcontinent.
319
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:43,600
We know that tribes of hunter-gatherers
thrived on Sundaland's abundant wildlife,
320
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:48,760
as far back as 45,000 years ago,
and probably much further back than that.
321
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:54,360
Why shouldn't another
more technologically advanced culture
322
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:56,040
have been present here as well?
323
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:02,440
In a cold and forbidding world,
this huge Southeast Asian landmass
324
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,640
would have been amongst
several warm and inviting locations
325
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,320
where early humans
might have had a real stab
326
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,280
at developing an advanced
and sophisticated civilization.
327
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,640
I think that whoever built Gunung Padang
328
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:17,880
shared our planet
with the hunter-gatherers,
329
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,520
who we know were
also widely present at that time.
330
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:27,560
It's not such a wild idea.
331
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:32,360
Even today, the technologically advanced
nations of the world
332
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:36,360
coexist with hunter-gatherer societies,
like the San in Namibia,
333
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:38,840
or the Lacandón in Mexico,
334
00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:42,480
or the Kazakhs in western Mongolia.
335
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:47,040
Different cultures
at different levels of development,
336
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:49,720
have always lived alongside one another.
337
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:52,680
Gunung Padang suggests
338
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:57,560
that some culture was around
in the area of the Sunda Shelf,
339
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:01,760
which was capable of creating
a gigantic megalithic structure.
340
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,080
One that specialized in building
with blocks of columnar basalt.
341
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:14,800
It's a style of construction
I've seen before in this part of the world
342
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:21,800
on the tiny Pacific island of Pohnpei,
at a site known as Nan Madol.
343
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,160
It too was constructed
using volcanic basalt blocks
344
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,640
laid out one atop the other,
just as at Gunung Padang.
345
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:34,880
Archaeologists believe
most of the construction
346
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:39,240
visible at Nan Madol today
dates to around 900 years ago,
347
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:42,040
when the blocks were quarried
at a neighboring island.
348
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,880
But during my explorations
on previous visits,
349
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:52,320
I found several of its megalithic pillars
extending out below the water line,
350
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,800
suggesting that earlier versions
may have been constructed
351
00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:00,400
when sea levels were lower,
during the last Ice Age.
352
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:05,560
Could Gunung Padang's architects
353
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,880
have made it across
the South Pacific to Micronesia?
354
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:13,240
And if so, what happened to them?
355
00:25:17,360 --> 00:25:20,360
Well, I believe it has something
to do with what happened
356
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,080
around 12,800 years ago,
357
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:28,440
when the Ice Age suddenly
and quite dramatically shifted gears.
358
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:34,480
Things had gradually been getting warmer
for quite a long period of time.
359
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,160
And then suddenly,
two things happen at once.
360
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:40,640
First, global temperatures plunge
361
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,440
to the level that they were
at the peak of the Ice Age,
362
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,320
and they do so almost literally overnight.
363
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:51,560
And secondly, there's a sudden
and inexplicable rise in sea level.
364
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:58,560
Now, normally, in an Ice Age,
when you enter an episode of freezing,
365
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:02,080
you do not expect to see a large amount
of water dumped in the world ocean
366
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,320
because that water
has been turned into ice.
367
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:09,240
What happened was a literal great flood.
368
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:16,720
Between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago,
the oceans of the world rose dramatically
369
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:21,560
in a series of immense deluges
one after another.
370
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,760
Eventually, the great continent
of Sundaland
371
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,920
was engulfed by the sea, a lost world.
372
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,240
It prompts the obvious question.
373
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:37,440
Could there be more temples and structures
out there in the Java Sea
374
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,080
still waiting to be discovered?
375
00:26:42,120 --> 00:26:45,720
Goodness knows what was lost
to the rising sea levels.
376
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:47,320
[tribal music playing]
377
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,160
[man singing in Javanese language]
378
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:02,640
[Graham] This epoch of immense floods
would have traumatized all of humanity.
379
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:04,520
[speaking in Javanese language]
380
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,760
And indeed there's testimony that it did.
381
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,040
[speaking in Javanese language]
382
00:27:09,120 --> 00:27:12,600
Nearly every ancient culture
preserved traditions of a great flood
383
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:14,120
that swallowed up the Earth.
384
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:16,080
Here in Indonesia,
385
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,760
the Batak people have their own version
of this global flood myth.
386
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:21,600
[speaking in Javanese language]
387
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,680
Once, long ago,
the Earth grew old and dirty.
388
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,920
So the creator god, Debata,
sent a great flood
389
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,240
to cleanse the Earth
of every living thing.
390
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,160
The last human pair had taken refuge
on the highest mountain.
391
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:43,560
But just as the waters
were about to drown them,
392
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,000
the god repented from ending humankind.
393
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,200
He conjured a clod of earth into being,
394
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,120
laid it on the rising flood
forming the islands of Indonesia,
395
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:55,760
and thus the pair were saved.
396
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,240
And the pair had children together
to repopulate the Earth,
397
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:03,760
becoming the ancestors
of the Batak people.
398
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:11,080
It's a story of an ancient apocalypse
that one finds again and again
399
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:16,360
in traditions from all over the world,
passed down for thousands of years.
400
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:19,640
Of course, there's the account
of Noah in the Bible.
401
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:24,160
But Indian folklore
also tells of a fisherman, Manu,
402
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,560
who survived a great flood
after being warned by a god.
403
00:28:28,360 --> 00:28:34,760
From the Sumerians to the Babylonians,
the ancient Greeks to the Chinese,
404
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,080
all have similar versions
of the same tale.
405
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,160
The notion that all of this
is just a coincidence,
406
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,880
just invented independently
by individual cultures doesn't make sense.
407
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:51,320
All these things
are probably tales of stories
408
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,720
that people passed down
from generation to generation
409
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,360
that survived this time.
410
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,280
Yeah. Truly global cataclysmic events
411
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,920
-involving rapid rises in sea level…
-Yeah.
412
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,960
…did occur, and suddenly,
the worldwide tradition of a global flood
413
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,040
stops being just a myth
and starts being a memory.
414
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:08,640
-Yeah.
-An account of real events.
415
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,640
I'm fascinated
by Indonesia's ancient history,
416
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:18,960
and the secrets it's beginning
to reveal to us at Gunung Padang.
417
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:21,880
But the way archaeology works,
418
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,600
there is going to continue to be
huge resistance to new evidence,
419
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:27,080
and that's really problematic
420
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:29,360
because science
should be open to new evidence
421
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,480
and it should be
willing to change its mind
422
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,600
when new evidence suggests
that a change of mind is needed.
423
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,720
What sort of reaction have you had
from the archaeological profession?
424
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,440
-They are still not accepting it.
-Right.
425
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:43,760
I regret because archaeologists,
426
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:47,040
or any other researchers,
just stop researching.
427
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,240
That's very sad, because at the very least
there's an intriguing mystery here,
428
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:53,600
which archaeology
should be paying attention to.
429
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:56,800
If we could prove clearly,
430
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:01,880
and accept there is
advanced human cultures before 11,000 BC,
431
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:03,200
that will be a big step.
432
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:04,440
[thunder rumbling]
433
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:07,360
I've been arguing
434
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:11,200
that there was a massive global cataclysm
about 12,500 years ago
435
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:14,720
that wiped out almost all traces.
436
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,160
We're left with these haunting memories…
437
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:25,680
which we try to dismiss
and say, "No, they're not memories.
438
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,080
"They're just folklore.
They're just a myth, just tradition."
439
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:31,200
I think they're memories.
440
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,720
I think they're real memories
of something terrible
441
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:37,120
that happened to our ancestors
at the end of the last Ice Age.
442
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:41,520
Preserved in legends, in art and in stone.
443
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,600
And they don't just talk of a great flood.
444
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,800
They also reference survivors
of the cataclysm,
445
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:53,000
wise travelers who sowed the seeds
of humanity's rebirth.
446
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,040
It's a tradition
that's particularly strong
447
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:58,680
in the same ancient culture
448
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,880
that created the largest
man-made pyramid on Earth.
449
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:05,600
It's where I'm headed next,
450
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:08,560
and it's not Egypt.