EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,026 words- 0:00 – 3:52
Post-debate fact-checking: shipwrecks, seafaring, and what preservation can’t prove
- NANarrator
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Good to see you, sir. What's happening?
- GHGraham Hancock
Good to see you too, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
I watched, uh, episode one and I'm into episode two of your new season. Uh, looks-
- GHGraham Hancock
Fantastic.
- JRJoe Rogan
... fantastic. Looks awesome. Fantastic information. But before we do anything, I think we should probably address what we know now about the debate that you had with Flint Dibble.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
So that was the last time we were here. Um, it was... I, I appreciate that he came on and I thought that was going to be an interesting discussion, but it turned out he played fast and loose with the truth, um, and, and distorted quite a bit of information that, um, were some key points that you had discussed. One of them being, uh, the amount of shipwrecks-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that were discovered. He greatly inflated the amount of shipwrecks that have been discovered. And then you released a video, uh, today.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, that went over a lot of this stuff, and one of the things that went over is the oldest shipwreck that we are currently available, it's about 4,000 years old?
- GHGraham Hancock
About 6,000.
- JRJoe Rogan
6000?
- GHGraham Hancock
The Nicos shipwreck, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But there's nothing left of the ship.
- GHGraham Hancock
No, that's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And this is what's important. The, you know, what he was trying to say was that it would be preserved-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... by the cold water. That turns out to not be the truth at all, and that these ships that are 6,000 years old, there's nothing left of the actual boat itself.
- GHGraham Hancock
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
The only thing that's left is pottery and coins-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and things of the like.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah. And especially when you consider the possibility of ships having gone through a cataclysm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's not likely. But there's a, there's a more central point than that, which, which really needed to be brought up by the archeologist in this, which is that, which is that archeology universally accepts that human beings were seafarers as much as 50,000 years ago.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
And I, I put the evidence on this into the, into the video. It's not even in dispute. Like the island of Cyprus, nearest Turkish coast is about 60 kilometers from there. Uh, it's always been surrounded by huge deeps. It's always been an island, even at the peak of the sea, uh, sea level, lowest sea level during the Ice Age. Cyprus was always an island. And yet there's evidence now that it was settled 14,000 years ago, certainly 14,000 to 12,500 years ago. It was settled, uh, in other words, during the Ice Age. And these were large planned migrations. When you're going to migrate to an island, you can't just go two or three people by accident-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 3:52 – 5:56
Agriculture and domestication: seed traits, reversions, and ‘knowledge vs. crops’ after cataclysm
- JRJoe Rogan
And the truth is kind... it's very fascinating. Another thing that was very fascinating that he discussed, uh, I didn't watch your whole video, but it was about seeds. Um, I asked the question, there's, there's a very distinct, um, noticeable difference between domestic seeds and seeds that are wild. And the difference is the seeds that are wild, they break off easier because it, it makes sense that it would, uh, help them prosper, it would help them be able to spread the seed if it broke off the plant easier-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and so they can recognize that. And then when they start using large scale agriculture, the seeds become more robust and stick to the-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to the, to the plant because it makes sense that it would, if you're gonna harvest all of the plants and then take the seeds off of it for the, the plant to prosper-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you would want the, the seeds to be more robust.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So there's these changes. And I said, "Have they ever noticed a, a domesticated seed going back and having the characteristics of a wild seed?" He said no.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But that's not true either.
- GHGraham Hancock
That's not true either, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's not. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's not true. And, and the whole notion of the, of the origins of agriculture, I think archeology has got a great deal more work to do on that. Often I'm misrepresented as saying that survivors of my supposed lost civilization, um, would have, would have brought crops with them. I, I think that's most unlikely in a cataclysmic situation. What they brought with them was the knowledge that crops can be domesticated, and it's precisely during the Younger Dryas that we see that shift from undomesticated to domesticated crops in the archeological record.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
And what I'm suggesting is that these were people who had already conquered that problem, they'd already solved that problem. They knew it could be done, uh, and they brought that knowledge with them and shared that, shared that knowledge with, uh, the people that they took refuge amongst, because I don't think we're looking at a, a mass migration. I think we're looking at a few survivors who are taking refuge after a global cataclysm.
- 5:56 – 8:35
Archaeology as a gatekeeping discipline: expertise, power, and public interpretation
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, you know, it's just very unfortunate when you have a debate and, uh, one person is an expert and they're not, they're not truthful, and that's just-
- GHGraham Hancock
I think it's very bad... I think it's very bad for archeology.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is 'cause it reinforces all the things that you've been saying.
- GHGraham Hancock
It, it, it does. Uh, I mean, to be honest, I felt beaten up after that, (laughs) after that debate.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
But looking back in, in, in retrospect on, on, on the whole thing, I think it actually, it actually makes the point that we have a very arrogant, very controlling discipline in archaeology, which has established a narrative about the past and which will fight tooth and nail to maintain that narrative, uh, including using dirty tricks. And I, I think instead of, you know, smearing people who talk about the possibility of a lost civilization or people who even talk about aliens, I think ev- in- instead of smearing them, archaeology should understand why people are asking those questions.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
So people are asking those questions because they're not satisfied with what archaeology is offering. It's not, it's not providing a nurturing, satisfying resolution to many of the problems that, that, that come from the past. And that's what drives me, is, is, is curiosity about anomalies in the past. I'm often misrepresented as saying that somehow I've proved that a lost civilization existed, and, and I don't claim to have proved that. What I do say is, join me on this journey. There are mysteries in the past. Let's see if they're explained by archaeology or if they're not explained. And I've found quite a number that are not explained by archaeology, and that's particularly to do with, uh, astronomical alignments with traditions that are shared all around the world. It's to do with, it's to do with things that archaeologists by and large don't study.
- JRJoe Rogan
This episode of the Joe Rogan Experience is brought to you by Call of Duty. You know, when a new Call of Duty drops, everyone's trying to find a way to squeeze in those extra hours of gameplay. I get it. Life is busy. But sometimes you just need ...
- NANarrator
Hey, Joe. It's the replacer. Yeah. No, you. Hey, I'm gonna take it from here so you can enjoy some Call of Duty Black Ops 6. Great. Now, listen up, folks. Life can be chaotic, but you shouldn't have to miss out on the latest Call of Duty just because you've got, I don't know, responsibilities. That's where I come in. I will handle the boring stuff like work, chores, even podcast ads, so you can dive right into the fight. Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is out October 25th. So dive in because I've got your back. Remember, I replace, you play. It's that simple.
- 8:35 – 20:26
White Sands footprints and early Americans: 23,000 years, deeper layers, and contested older sites
- JRJoe Rogan
Man, the replacer always gets it done. Seriously though, if you're hooked on Call of Duty, this is your time to jump in. Head over to callofduty.com/blackops6 to get in the game. Call of Duty Black Ops 6, pre-order now. Well, it's also one of the things that's fascinating is just even with conventional archaeology, the dates keep getting pushed further and further back.
- GHGraham Hancock
Further and further back. I-
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, this is the, one of the things, uh, the White Sands New Mexico stuff that you have-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... on episode one.
- GHGraham Hancock
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is-
- GHGraham Hancock
Which is, by the way, White Sands, have you been there?
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. No, I haven't. That's amazing.
- GHGraham Hancock
What an incredible, ethereal, otherworldly place. And Alamogordo is sitting right in the middle of that. This is where they did the nuclear tests-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
... and, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yikes.
- GHGraham Hancock
... the, the, the trinitite-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
... which was, which was created there. And there's gypsum sand. It's not normal. It's just the most amazing, amazing place. And there, yes, they found human footprints dated back more than 23- 23,000 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do they think that environment was like 22,000 years ago?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, it would still have been like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- GHGraham Hancock
It would have been gypsum dunes then in that, in, in that place. Otherwise-
- JRJoe Rogan
Gypsum dunes.
- GHGraham Hancock
... they wouldn't have left the footprints. I'm not exactly sure why the gypsum is there, but there it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that the same stuff they use for, like, gypsum board for construction?
- GHGraham Hancock
I reckon so, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's a very fine, very white sand.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
And, and it just goes on forever. And the dunes are sculpted and massive and huge. We had an amazing time there.
- 20:26 – 25:36
LiDAR revelations in the Amazon: geoglyphs, hidden earthworks, and the ‘man-made garden’ thesis
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not possible to. And as we develop more these, these fascinating technologies like LiDAR-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where you have the ability, ground penetrating radar-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... all these different things where you can look-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... into the soil itself and find things that aren't visible on the surface, see them through trees, see them through-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
That, we're gonna find more and, and obviously in Brazil they have done, in the Amazon they have done that.
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, that was part of our adventure with-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
... with season two of Ancient Apocalypse was the, was, was working with, with a really professional team in, in Brazil, uh, uh, led by a- a- an archaeologist, Martti Paasonen from the University of Helsinki, and a geographer from Brazil, Alceu Ranzi. Alceu, years ago, was the first person who noticed that there are these huge geometrical structures emerging out of the Amazon jungle. And he, and he, he noticed it on a, on, on a flight, on a commercial, on a commercial aircraft in an area that happened to have been cleared by local farmers for planting crops, uh, that there was this massive geometrical earthwork there. And that, he, he actually coined the term geoglyphs for these because he compared them in some ways with the Nazca lines, which again, are really only visible from the air. You get the suddenly the, the massive scope and extent of these things. And it's same with the geoglyphs in the, in the Amazon. And, and here's the thing, the ones we know about up 'til now have lar- we largely know about them because of these tragic clearances of the Amazon rainforest, which is a maybe short-term economic gain, but is long-term really not a very good idea. Um, but now with LiDAR, it's possible to find these things without damaging any rainforest at all. And we had a LiDAR expert with us and, and you can fly LiDAR off a drone now. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's amazing.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah, it's in- it's incredible. It's a pretty hefty drone, but, but they can fly anywhere. And, and we found, I say we, it was actually the, the LiDAR expert who found, he found wha- the... You can see the edge of the rainforest where, where the clearances stop and the rainforest hasn't yet been interfered with. And then he flies over there and within a matter of hours, he's found multiple, more of these, of these structures. Several.
- JRJoe Rogan
That are deep in the rainforest.
- GHGraham Hancock
That are deep in the rainforest.
- JRJoe Rogan
Covered completely.
- GHGraham Hancock
Covered completely. And LiDAR allows him to see through the canopy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- GHGraham Hancock
... and to see what's underneath it without damaging it. And there are these huge earthworks. And this raises the question, how much more is there in the Amazon to find? Especially which even, even the archaeologists who are most reluctant are now willing to accept that the Amazon had a huge population before the Spanish conquest. They're-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so wild. That is such a shift.
- GHGraham Hancock
Millions, cities.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
A whole different way of life, a whole different kind of civilization from the one that we have today. One that lived in a, a man-made garden, which is what the Amazon really and truly is, and lived in, and lived in harmony with that.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's an interesting thing, too. We've talked about that before, but for people who've never heard of those other podcasts, they've determined that the, the Amazon rainforest is at least partially man-made.
- GHGraham Hancock
Definitely. Uh, they've, they've determined that because of the, the preponderance of trees that serve human needs. Uh, they call them hyper dominant. And things like Brazil nut trees, which are, which, which are providing food for human beings are in massive dominance in relation to trees that aren't useful to human beings. Uh, and it's, it's clear that this is the result of a long term human project to make this jungle serve human needs.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was the other one? The ice cream bean... What was that?
- GHGraham Hancock
Ice cream bean and, and, uh, I, I, I'm forgetting all of the details, but there's a, there's a bunch of, there's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Food plants.
- GHGraham Hancock
Of food plants, which are, which are, which are hyper dominant in the, in, in the Amazon rainforest. And these, and these food plants show that human beings have been nurturing, have been massaging this natural wonder and turning it into something that really serves human needs.
- 25:36 – 32:24
Lost cities, disease collapse, and how fast the jungle erases civilization
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so interesting, especially when you consider the stories like the Lost City of Z, you know, which they turned into, uh, an interesting film.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But the- the book details these records of these incredible cities that these people had visited a long time ago.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then when they tried to go back, there was nothing there.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because everybody had died off because of European diseases probably.
- GHGraham Hancock
That's- that's exactly what happened. Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but those cities-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... were just consumed by the jungle.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And much like Detroit, if you go to Detroit now, you could see there's a, like, there's a bu- bunch of, uh, neighborhoods in Detroit that are essentially abandoned and trees are growing right through the houses.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the houses are ... I mean, that's just a few decades ago.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the houses are almost gone in some, in some ways.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you went back 200 years ago, there'd probably be nothing left of them.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And this is probably exactly what happened in the Amazon, except the trees just consume the landscape because it's such an incredible, dense rainforest-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that things grow so quickly there.
- GHGraham Hancock
That's what happened. I- I mean, before the Lost City of Z, we have this very interesting report, and, uh, I have mentioned it to you before in a prev- previous episode, the expedition of- of, um, Gaspar de Carvajal and- and his chronicler, Francisco de Orellana, um, which was an accidental expedition. They were just going hunting in a longboat, but the Amazon took them and wouldn't let them go back. And they traveled 4,000 miles across South America and ended up in the ... They started on the Pacific side and ended up in the Atlantic Ocean.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- GHGraham Hancock
And that's in the 1550s, 1560s. And they report seeing enormous, thriving, prosperous cities, highly civilized with advanced arts and crafts.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- GHGraham Hancock
Um, and they were not believed because 100 years later when other Spaniards made that voyage and went into the Amazon, they couldn't find the cities. And the reason they couldn't find them is precisely the reason that you give, which is that the jungle had eaten those cities because the human population had been wiped out by disease brought by the Spaniards. The Spanish didn't have to have direct contact with those indigenous peoples in the middle of the Amazon. The diseases just jumped from population to population and just killed everybody.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so wild that that happens. It's so crazy when most people probably aren't even aware, and they're ... Everyone knows there was a genocide of Native Americans in this country, but most people don't know that 90% of them were wiped out by disease.
- GHGraham Hancock
Absolutely.
- 32:24 – 37:59
Egypt’s engineering mysteries: pyramids, ‘lost tech,’ and the case for multiple functional theories
- JRJoe Rogan
Those were the most advanced human beings ever and what, we, we're in disagreement, or there's c- a lot of confusion and debate as to how long ago they were there. According to their hieroglyphs, they were there 30,000 plus years ago.
- GHGraham Hancock
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
But at the very least, those were people in Africa.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay? So, all the racism shit should be out the window, because no one's saying that was anybody else.
- GHGraham Hancock
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're saying it's-
- GHGraham Hancock
That was an Af- that was an African civilization.
- JRJoe Rogan
They literally have images of themselves. We know what they looked-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you know, all these drawings of what they looked like, we have statues of what they looked like.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was an African civilization. They were the most advanced people perhaps ever.
- GHGraham Hancock
I-
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm leaning towards ever.
- GHGraham Hancock
I'm leaning towards ever, too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
Um, because, because, look, uh, can we think of any other (laughs) civilization that has survived for 3,000 years?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, that you can go visit right now.
- GHGraham Hancock
That you can still- Right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Tour a site.
- GHGraham Hancock
But, but ancient Egypt, as a culture-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GHGraham Hancock
... survived for 3,000 years. It's, uh, it's, it's survived the, the Greek occupation, it survived the previous Persian occupation. It was only the Romans that, that brought it low. The, the, the, the Roman occupation of Egypt was the beginning of the end for, for Egypt.
- JRJoe Rogan
To put it into perspective, I always use this quote, um, I, I forget who, who came up with this, but it's a perfect analogy. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than she did to the construction of the pyramids.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Even if you use the conventional 2,500 BC dating of the, the construction of the pyramids, which is also, uh, under debate.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's under debate, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's aw- Well, look, even if that's true, even if it is 2,500 years ago, the most baffling thing is how did they do it? There's no simple answers. I don't give a fuck what anybody says. There's no simple answers.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- 37:59 – 58:35
Precision artifacts spotlight: stone vases and the Sabu Disk as ‘out-of-place’ craftsmanship
- GHGraham Hancock
... up inside there. Um, and that, you know, that begins to come close to the kind of, the kind of technology in some ways that Chris is, that Chris is talking about. I think, I think it's worth taking very seriously. I've always had great respect for Chris. I've traveled to Egypt with him, um, and, um, I think he's done very important work contributing, contributing to this. And also, looking at the stone, (sighs) the stone vases from ancient Egypt, um, I remember the first time I was drawn to this mystery, which was-
- JRJoe Rogan
You gave us one of them. This is a 3D print of one.
- GHGraham Hancock
That's a 3D print of one of those-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
... of one of those vases.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is a 3D print of an actual stone vase.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And th- it might be, like, not that exciting to people, like, "Oh, what's the big deal?" What the big deal is the precision in which-
- GHGraham Hancock
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... this was constructed with handles on it.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it couldn't have been spun on a lathe-
- GHGraham Hancock
Nope.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because it has these two handles that are also cut out of the stone.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And everything is precise to within thousands of a human hair-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... which is bananas.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense given what we are taught-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
... was the level of technology of Egypt at that time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, there is some dispute of where these came from.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
There is some dispute about the, uh, th- wh- what, what is, uh, have these been made in a modern way, and has someone tried to replace, you know-
- GHGraham Hancock
Uh, are we looking at fakes or-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GHGraham Hancock
... or hoaxes?
- JRJoe Rogan
Are we looking at hoaxes?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, perhaps in some cases we are, but, but certainly in others, including those in the, in, in the c- great museums in Cairo, they've now moved a lot of the content of the Cairo Museum out to a big museum at, at, at Giza, and some of it's in, in transition, but they have thousands of these things. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
The thing is, like, even if this was modern technology, we don't know what they did.
- 58:35 – 1:02:54
Myths, Atlantis, and the ‘memory bank’ argument: flood traditions as global inheritance
- GHGraham Hancock
It certainly did. Uh, the bounty, however, goes back much further. Uh, this is one of the reasons why I kept on trying to talk about the Sahara during the debate.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
Uh, this vast area, uh, which frankly has not been studied properly by archeology at all, uh, hardly a fraction of it has been studied, uh, this vast area... I'm often accused of creating a, what they call a god of the gaps argument. I'm saying, "You haven't looked enough in the Sahara. You haven't looked enough in the submerged continental shelves. You haven't looked enough, uh, in the Amazon rainforest." And, and the argument is that I'm, I'm trying to put my lost civilization into these gaps. But these are very special gaps. The (laughs) -
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
... the, the submerged continental shelves were prime real estate during the Ice Age. That was the, that was the place to be, just as it is today, to be, to be near coastlines. The Amazon rainforest w- was a bountiful, was, it was a bountiful place. And the Sahara Desert was green and rich for thousands of years during the Ice Age, with lakes, with rivers. Uh, it was the kind of place where a civilization might well have emerged, had-
- JRJoe Rogan
They find whale bones there.
- GHGraham Hancock
Whale bones. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whales.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So anybody who doesn't think there's a mystery in the Sahara Desert-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and anybody who really tries to dismiss the notion that most of it hasn't been really excavated.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it really hasn't been.
- GHGraham Hancock
No, it hasn't. It's, it's, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's too vast.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's too vast, and it's too expensive to excavate that-
- JRJoe Rogan
And excavation, like, you would have to... Y- you're dealing with a place where how many people even lived there?
- GHGraham Hancock
Nobody knows 'cause it's not been investigated properly. It's a desert. Uh, and, and, uh, it's had relatively little attention. We do know there's some amazing rock art from the Upper Paleolithic, uh, in, in Tassili in Algeria, in, in the Sahara, um, but not enough has been done. This is, this is the, this is the problem for me with saying archeology's basically got the story of the human past nailed down, is that there's huge areas which have not been investigated. And I reject the idea that that is a god of the gaps argument, because that's not why I'm proposing there was a lost civilization. And that's all I'm doing. I'm not insisting. I'm not demanding that people believe me. I'm just, I just want to inject this idea into the discussion-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well s-
- GHGraham Hancock
... so that it can, can be considered... W- when... Taken out of context was a little clip where you asked me, eh, eh, is, eh, eh, in, during the debate, um, "Is there any evidence for your lost civilization in what they've found?" Uh? And I said, "In what they've found, no." And then I went on to say, um, "But that brings us to the point of what they've looked for and what they've not looked for, what they've found and what they've not found." Um, that has been taken again and again as, as me saying that there's no evidence-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GHGraham Hancock
... for my lost civilization, whereas what I'm actually saying is there's no evidence in what archeologists have studied, uh, for a lost civilization, because I'm not studying what archeologists study. I am very happy to use material from archeologists, and I could not do what I do if I didn't use material from archeologists. It's a very important basis to my work. However, it's the astronomy, it's the astronomical alignments, it's the precision, it's the precision of the Great Pyramid. It's the myths, it's the myths of a global flood all around the world. This is a- th- it's a universal story of a massive cataclysm with a few survivors who bring their knowledge to others. The story... This is one of the reasons why I think the Atlantis story, which, which Flint Dibble is so opposed to, uh, deserves to be taken seriously, uh, because...It's part of a global tradition. It's yet another flood myth, in fact. It's the story, it's just like those 150 or 200 other flood traditions that come from around the world. And it's not enough for archaeologists to say, "Oh, people experienced a little local river flood, uh, or, or there was a tidal wave that day, and so they decided that the whole world was submerged with water." That doesn't satisfy me at all. The fact that this is found all around the world, to me, is a memory of something that happened to our ancestors, something so traumatic, something so huge, that it's been preserved better than almost anything else from our past.
- 1:02:54 – 1:07:45
Unresolved anomalies and cautious calls: Richat Structure and Montana’s Sage Wall
- JRJoe Rogan
What do, what is your take on the Richart struc ... Am I saying that right? Richart structure?
- GHGraham Hancock
Richart, Richart Structure.
- JRJoe Rogan
Richart.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mauritania. Um, I, I would not like to say one way or the other, because I've not been there. Um, I've not, I've not had boots on the ground there. I've not been able to look at it. Yes, it's very intriguing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Very.
- GHGraham Hancock
I, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Also, the salt all around it?
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where it shows that at one point in time, it was probably submerged. Like, something happened.
- GHGraham Hancock
Pro- probably was, but you might have to go back many millions of years to get, to get to that point. The honest answer to that question is I don't know. I'm, I'm open-minded on the Richat Structure. It's something that I would like to, I would like to study, um, but I have not, uh, had had time to yet. In, in future work, it's something that I may, that I may study, and after studying it, I may come to the conclusion that it's just a remarkable natural phenomenon, of which there are many. Or I may come to a different conclusion. It depends what the, what the evidence shows me. But I try not to, to spout off on things that I'm not personally acquainted with and don't really know about.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, good for you.
- GHGraham Hancock
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I like to spout off. Uh, it's also, like, there's so many of those things that people thought were myth, like Troy.
- GHGraham Hancock
Troy, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Then they find it, and they go, "Oh, it's from a place."
- GHGraham Hancock
Found by, fr- found by an amateur. Turns out to be, turns out to be a real place.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- GHGraham Hancock
I think the myths are the memory banks of our species, uh, and I don't think archaeology takes them seriously enough. There's a tendency to just dismiss them as fantasies, uh, as, as things that were made up-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
... by, by the ancients for some bizarre reason of their own. But they're the memories we have from the time before writing, from the time before documents were kept, uh, and they're a precious resource in, in understanding our past. So, it's, it's things like that, and then at the end of the day, (laughs) to say, to twist what I said, uh, that in, in what archaeologists have studied there's no evidence for my lost civilization, uh, is, is, uh, is completely wrong, because I've, I've, I've written thousands of pages of books. This is, this is one of the issues. Like, in that debate, I was supposed to prove everything about a lost civilization. I didn't even come here to prove it. I came here to explain why I'm interested in it, and why I want to share my interest and my curiosity about the past, uh, with others. But if, if I'm asked to prove it, I would say, "Don't refer to what I managed to say during a three-hour debate." I'd say, "Refer to, to the, the eight or so major books that I've written with thousands of pages and thousands of documented footnotes." That's where my, my argument is in place, and you'll find that that argument is not based on what archaeologists have studied. It's based prec- precisely on what they've not studied about the past.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, re- regardless of the argument that Flint tried to put forth, that there's, uh, no evidence of what you're saying, the, the, the exaggeration of the shipwrecks, the, the stuff about seeds, the, the fact is this resonates with a lot of people. This, this mystery is perplexing.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It, it's confusing, and there's a lot of it out there.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not, like, one site, like Egypt. There's a ton of sites.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
The, uh, Sage Wall in Montana.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you think of that thing?
- GHGraham Hancock
Again, I will withhold judgment until I have my boots on the ground there and have a look at it. And even then, that might not be enough. Uh, I do know that the property owners there are doing a lot of ground-penetrating radar, uh, and there may be results from that. But at the moment, I would not say, "That's definitely a manmade structure," nor would I say, "That's definitely a natural structure."
- 1:07:45 – 1:11:10
Access, censorship, and institutional friction: denied filming at mound sites and narrative control
- GHGraham Hancock
Is it part of the, part of the lost story of the Americas? There's so much that's been lost, particularly in, in North America, um, with the, the massive destruction that took place during the 19th and 18th and, and early 20th century. Um, it's reckoned that there were a million mound sites in North America, uh, if you go back to 1500. Uh, there's about 100,000 left, uh, which is a lot actually (laughs) , um, but most of them are massively destroyed and the other 900,000, uh, have gone, uh, just plowed under, turned into, into far- into farmland. And how much else of the, of the pre-history of North America has been lost as a result of a process where we're, first of all, there was a conviction that the Indigenous inhabitants had only been here for a very short time, whereas we now know they've been here for a very long time? Uh, and, and secondly, uh-... there was a propagandistic desire not to give too much credit to them. So, let's get rid-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
... of, let's get rid of some of their stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- GHGraham Hancock
I was very disappointed when we were shooting season two of Ancient Apocalypse that, uh, we were not allowed by the authorities to film in Cahokia, which is one of the great, uh, the great mounds that still survive, um, because they've been told that I'm a pseudo-archaeologist and that I'm going to mislead the public if I go there. So, so the best way is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
... just to stop me going there. We, we tried to film in Moundville in Alabama as well, and again, w- we were denied permission to, to film there. There's no doubt that archaeology has joined ranks, uh, to do their best to prevent me doing what I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Th- That's so awful to deny anyone the ability to s- especially when you're gonna put something like this on Netflix where millions of people are gonna see it.
- GHGraham Hancock
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Deny people the, just the access through video of experiencing-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... this site and the mystery that's attached to it. Like, who are these people?
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why, why did they build this? What, what artifacts haven't been discovered-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that are in- inside of this thing?
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah. And, you know, here's what archaeologists say.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
Here's an alternative point of view.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
You're an intelligent member of the public. Make up your own mind.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you mean, being reasonable? That's outrageous. (laughs)
- GHGraham Hancock
(laughs) It's, it's, it's a most unfortunate thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, um, it's, it's not unfortunate that there's a lot of people that are interested in it, though.
- GHGraham Hancock
More and more.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's an, it's a fascinating phenomenon. I, I, I do see it as an extension of our, of our interest in our own genetic origins, for example. A lot of people are... I haven't done it yet, but I, I'm kind of keen to do 23andMe or whatever it's called.
- JRJoe Rogan
I wouldn't do it.
- GHGraham Hancock
Nope.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not now. No.
- 1:11:10 – 1:18:38
Modern civilization as a fragile ‘teenager with godlike weapons’: why the past matters now
- GHGraham Hancock
So, you know, there is an interest-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- GHGraham Hancock
... in the past. There is interest in our personal past, our personal origins, our ancestors, who we are, and there's a much broader interest in the story of humanity that has brought us to where we are today. And this haunting feeling that something's missing and that we, that we have a, we have a civilization today... I, I often com- I, would like to compare it to a, a sort of furious... In, uh, in terms of the level of consciousness, our civilization today is like a furious, petulant teenager. But in terms of what it can do, in terms of the destructive power of nuclear weapons, it's a god. So, we have god-like powers with the consciousness of, uh, uh, an immature teenager.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
That's what we're looking at in the world today. And maybe by understanding our past better, by understanding our unity that comes down from the past, maybe we can learn something that will be helpful to us in not carrying on in this way, because we do live at an inflection point just now. This is one thing I'm pretty sure that, quote, unquote, "my lost civilization" didn't have, and that was nuclear weapons. But we have nukes today. And we have them in, in an enormous scale. And behind each of those nukes is a fragile human being with his own or her own ego and complexes and fears-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
... and paranoia.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
Uh, and, and we're reaching a point where those buttons are gonna be pressed. We are, as far as I know, the first human civilization that, uh, has the capacity to actually wipe itself out completely. We don't need a comet impact. We don't need a solar outburst. We can do it to ourselves. And that requires humanity to make a major step forward in consciousness. And I think making that major step forward in consciousness will be helped by better understanding our own past.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. I, I agree. I, I mean, it's just disturbing how many times we can travel to ancient places like Greece or any, any place where... You go to Rome and realize, oh, there was a thriving civilization here at one point and-
- GHGraham Hancock
You were in Greece recently.
- JRJoe Rogan
... now it's gone. Yeah, with Brian Muraresky.
- GHGraham Hancock
You went with Brian Muraresky. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Fascinating.
- GHGraham Hancock
Brilliant, brilliant guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Amazing. Brilliant guy.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it, uh, what a treat it is to have a tour of the Parthenon and the Acropolis with him.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, you know, we went to, uh, to see the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and all that. It was very, very, very interesting, but just also sobering because you realize, like, this civilization did not make it. You know, this, this insane, fascinating, complex civilization crumbled.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the idea that ours can't is one that we kinda hold dear.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, we're different. We got it figured out. We're better. But there's so much evidence that that's just a normal pattern of human history.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yep. Civilizations come and go.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
We could be gone in 20 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:29:00
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Transcript of episode qSLs1-KwasM
