EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 29,547 words- 0:02 – 3:13
Michael Button’s breakout year and why “alternative archaeology” resonates
- SPSpeaker
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
- JRJoe Rogan
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- SPSpeaker
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music]
- JRJoe Rogan
Hey.
- SPSpeaker
Hey, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you, brother. What's going on?
- SPSpeaker
Good, man. It's been, um, it's been a wild year for me. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
I bet it has been.
- SPSpeaker
Since, um, since I was last here, I mean, I've seen my YouTube grow to numbers I couldn't have imagined before. I've met so many cool people. I've managed to get to a point where it's now my job to research and investigate ancient history and the vast mysteries of our past, and yeah, I mean, that's something I was doing for, for free before. So the fact that I'm now able to do that full time is just an immense privilege, and I'm so grateful to everyone that's helped me get there, including you. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you're putting out fantastic content.
- SPSpeaker
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so, it-- And it's such an interesting subject, and, uh, the giant blind spot that the, um, mainstream archeologists have left has allowed all these people to go through and get a much larger audience even than them.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's, it's really important when someone like you does it, because you're so thorough, and you're so objective, and you're so, the, you're so measured in the way you describe these things and talk about these things. There's no fantastic claims, no hyperbole. It's all very well laid out, and even when you go to, like, extreme possibilities of these things, it's very measured. So I really appreciate that.
- SPSpeaker
Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. And yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm always trying to make it as good as I possibly can, and I try and listen to what people say and try and improve, and I don't think I've reached, like, the peak of where I could possibly be, but you know, I'm trying my hardest. But it's not just that. I mean, as you say, I think there are so many people out there, and now that I'm in this position, I've seen it firsthand, there are, like, millions and millions of people around the world that are deeply fascinated by these questions, by the vast mysteries of our past, so yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
As well they should be. And they also know that we're getting a very narrow version of it from mainstream academics. They're, and they're so determined to cling to their timelines and cling to this notion that anything new that's discovered by people outside of their little circle, uh, can't be accurate, and I think that's so silly.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. I mean, I think someone like me has the kind of advantage of the fact that because I, you know, didn't continue my career in academia, or I wasn't in academia, but that was the pathway that I was on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- SPSpeaker
... because I've gone independent now, I kind of have the freedom, if you like, to talk about these ideas in a much more open way than maybe I would've been able to if I was, uh, well, wouldn't have been able to if I was still in academia because, you know, I'm not restricted by funding, or I'm not restricted by even the, the pressures of, uh, you know, people working in academia hating on me. I mean, I get a lot of hate anyway, [laughs] but I mean, I think I have that freedom to almost come at things from a completely open-minded perspective and speak about these ideas without any restrictions, and I think that is the advantage that I have that academics perhaps don't. Um, so yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm in, I'm in a great place. [laughs]
- 3:13 – 9:38
Three core mysteries archaeology can’t cleanly answer anymore
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. So let's get into it. So in the last year, a lot of wild stuff-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... has been discovered, which is really exciting.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so interesting how quick this stuff is moving.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. It's wild. I mean, there's been, I think, two papers in particular that have come out in the year since I was last here on the show that I think have huge ramifications for how we view history. Um, so I mean, I dunno where to start. I mean, I think, I think we should start like this. I think as things currently stand, there are three huge questions that archeology cannot answer, and the-- It's interesting because these three questions we used to think we had an answer to, but in light of new discoveries, in light of new evidence coming up, we no longer have the answer to these questions, and I think that's fascinating because it's almost like the rug has been pulled out from underneath our understanding of human history. But on the surface, it's kind of like business as usual. Do, do you know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
It's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
So what are these questions?
- SPSpeaker
So I mean, and this is just coming from me, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- SPSpeaker
So, like, and the caveat on the whole conversation, I'm not an academic. I'm not a professional archeologist. I'm just-- I mean, I have a degree in ancient history, but I think my main qualification is that I'm a super nerd for all this stuff, and I spent my whole life researching it. Um, so that's the caveat on everything, so don't take what I say as gospel, and I always encourage people to go and look at the actual archeology, go and read the journals, read the papers, and go investigate what yourself, for yourself. Like, listen to what I say, but don't take what I say as gospel, 'cause at the end of the day, I'm just a YouTuber, you know? So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- SPSpeaker
... that's the caveat I wanna put on it. But from my mind, these are the three questions that I think archeology can no longer answer but used to think it had an answer for. So the first question is, and we spoke about this a little bit last time, um, is the fascinating question of why, after hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of thousands of years of human beings like us being on this planet, why did it take so long for civilization to emerge? And then why, when it did, did it emerge in all these different unconnected locations all over the globe at pretty much the exact same time? So we see civilization flush, flourishing in Mesoamerica. We see civilization flourishing in South America, in Egypt, in the Indus Valley, in Mesopotamia, in ancient India, in ancient China, all around about the same time, give or take a, a, a thousand or so years. But compared to the time span of human beings on this planet, you know, 300,000 years plus for modern humans, and I would argue some of these papers are showing that it could be a lot longer than that. Why, after so long, did civilization suddenly crop up all over the place? And we no longer can answer that question, um, in light of new discoveries. So that's question one. Why does civilization emerge everywhere all at once after so long of not doing so? Question two is- How old is human intelligence? How long have humans been intelligent? How long has a mind like ours really inhabited this planet? And I think two papers in particular that have come out in the 12 months since I was here have huge ramifications for that question. And also combined into that is the question of other human species. How intelligent were other human species? 'Cause we used to think that we were the smart ones. I mean, our name, Homo sapiens, literally translates to wise man, which is a incredibly humble thing for us to say about ourselves. But, but yeah, so, so that's question two, how old is human intelligence? And again, I think the answer is we don't have the answer anymore. Um, so that's, that's really fascinating. And then question three is when did humans first reach the more isolated land masses? So that's the Americas, where we are right now, and also Australia, which is perhaps less important, but still interesting. And again, we don't have the answer for that anymore. And I think whatever the answer is to these three questions, why does civilization appear everywhere all at once, how old is human intelligence, and when did humans first reach the more isolated parts of the world? The answer to those questions, whatever it is, I think is fundamentally important because the, whatever the answer is is the reason we're all here, right? It's the reason we all live in this civilization. It's the reason we all enjoy the fruits of everything that, uh, we exist in today. And yet we don't know the answer anymore. But as I said, on the surface, everyone's kind of carrying on like it's business as usual, but we no longer know the answers to the most fundamental questions of how we got here. So...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. So for question number one, why did all of these civilizations emerge, uh, at roughly the same time? What do you think? Do you think that this is incorrect and that these civilizations, uh, probably existed far earlier than that, but there's no evidence of them because of time and just erosion and natural catastrophes and fill in the blank, all, all the factors? And, or we have not discovered some of these yet. Like some of the weirdness of the Amazon, you know, as they find these, what, what appear to be the grids of ancient cities that are hidden in the jungle that they're discovering with LIDAR and these other technologies that were unavailable until fairly recently. So we know that not only was the Amazon, uh, filled with people, but it was filled with millions of people, and that's crazy. That is a crazy shift in the way we used to look at the Amazon just a few decades ago. And we don't know who these people were. We don't know, like, w- if you go really far back, like the Olmecs is just a word. We gave them that word. We don't know what the fuck they were doing. We have no idea what they looked like. We know, uh, some of the heads look roughly either Polynesian or perhaps even African. It's very strange. Very strange. Big giant heads that are left behind and that's like the cornerstone of what we understand about the civilization.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. What? How long? 6,000 years we think. Who knows? It's just a rough guess. Like there's really nothing to, to go on. Um, do you think that, uh, this is just like as far back as we can find stuff, or do you think... Well, what do you think? [laughs]
- 9:38 – 12:27
What counts as “civilization”? Writing as a misleading milestone
- SPSpeaker
Well, I think, well in terms of the civilization question, I think it's just, it's, I think it's an old idea that we kind of drew this line. And it's the, the line is the invention of writing, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SPSpeaker
So it's around 3000, 4000 BC was the invention of writing, or supposedly was the invention of writing. And that in the 20th century was kind of given as the marker of civilization. We were finding all these civilizations in the 20th century like ancient Sumer, and so that was kind of given as the start of civilization. But I think in terms of like more recent stuff, so 3000 BC back to like 12,000 BC, I think the answer is that clearly civilization is older. I mean, considering we see things like Tashtypala, Göbekli Tepe 12,000 years ago, I think that is a civilization. I think over time that will come to be accepted as a civilization. And I think whatever you wanna define civilization as, I think we can now clearly say that it did exist 12,000 years ago rather than 6,000 years ago. So that's a kind of doubling of the timeline. In terms of going back much further than that, I think then you get into kind of like purely hypothetical scenarios, like is it possible? And that's when I think things like the history of human intelligence start to come into play because it was incredibly recently that we thought humans were, only got intelligent... Well, we thought humans were young, like only 100,000 years old, only a few decades ago, and now we know we're much older than that. And so this is how, what I mean about everything kind of being back on the table again because we now have a incredibly increased time span of human intelligence that I would argue, and I'll, I'll come to this later, stretches over a million years. And yet the old idea, which is still sort of in place but I think is breaking, I think most archeologists would accept that it's breaking, but the old idea was that humans only became intelligent around 50,000 years ago. And so because that idea kind of was in hold, it almost made sense, right? So humans only existed from 100,000 years ago, then got smart 50,000 years ago, then the climate got good around 14,000 years ago. We see the agricultural revolution and the emergence of the first civilizations. Like it was very neat, do you know what I mean? But now in light of new evidence and in light of new discoveries, suddenly everything's back on the table. Suddenly the whole time span of prehistory, or not the whole of prehistory, but I would argue, and I'll get onto why I think this later, I would argue that the time span of human intelligence has increased by 20 times from 50,000 to over a million years, and I'll explain why in a minute. But I think that puts everything back on the table. I think the, the possibilities of prehistory are, are so vast now because of our understanding has shifted so dramatically in the last few decades and- I don't think anyone's really talking about it, and that's kind of why I do what I do because I really wanna bang this drum, if you like, that everything's back on the table, as I say. And so yeah, I don't know. I kind of got a bit sidetracked there from the original question [laughs] but
- 12:27 – 22:47
Psychedelics, ergot, and altered-state creativity in ancient cultures
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's a... No, you, you... It's a great start. Um, Jesse Michaels was here yesterday, and he had a really fascinating theory. I don't know if it's... Is that his theory, or is it someone else's theory, the, the ergot theory? His theory was that, um, he believes that agriculture, and that as they started agriculture, wasn't just significant in that you, you, you could, like, stay in one place, and you would have food, and you always had a reliable diet. You didn't have to worry about starving to death. And then you, because you had that sort of relaxation that came with that, you could start inventing things and building things, and, and civilization would advance. He thinks it's also because ergot grows on these different wheats and barleys and grains, and that these people, whether knowingly or unknowingly, were probably ingesting this psychedelic substance, which is akin to LSD, and that this was, uh, a key part of what Brian Muraresku talked about in the Eleusinian Mysteries in his great book, "The Immortality Key," and that this was probably what led to a lot of invention, a lot of innovation, a lot of alternative thought, a lot of creativity, and a lot of, like, you know, what are the, whatever the wild advancements of the time were.
- SPSpeaker
Did you see that they just, um, not proved it, but they just, uh, they just did a study on the Eleusinian Mysteries where they kind of showed that they, they were doing, uh, they did have ergot?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
'Cause when Brian wrote that book, they hadn't proved that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- SPSpeaker
But something just came out that
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you see the, um, it was a puma bone pipe that they found that tested positive for DMT?
- SPSpeaker
Where, in Eleusis, Greece?
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I do not know. I think it was N- I don't... It might have been in the Ameri- No. Where was that?
- SPSpeaker
Peru.
- JRJoe Rogan
Peru, yes.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, really?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. How old is that, Jamie?
- SPSpeaker
[muffled speech]
- JRJoe Rogan
See if you can put that into Perplexity if it, it knows what this is all about, 'cause it's a fascinating subject. 'Cause not only does it, not only does it imply that they were willingly taking psychedelic drugs, that somehow or another they knew how to make DMT.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, okay, what? 'Cause that, that's a complicated process when you have to separate the molecule from whatever plant it's in, and then you have to figure out that you need to freebase it or smoke it. Like, how, what?
- SPSpeaker
This says it was actually in northwestern Argentina.
- JRJoe Rogan
Aha.
- SPSpeaker
The And- So it's still the Andes, but, um
- JRJoe Rogan
The Inca Cueva, a high altitude cave site in Jujuy, northwestern Argentina. Uh, the tubular smoking pipes were made from the long bones of a puma. They were found alongside, uh, Anadenanthara, Anadenanthara, Anadenanthara seeds, including the plant commonly associated with, uh, vil [sighs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Vilca, Sybil snuff traditions. Residue testing detected tryptamine alkaloids in the pipes. So they were figuring out how to take these seeds and smoke them. Um, the material's been dated to roughly 2130 BCE, over 4,000 years ago. That makes the find amongst the oldest direct archeological evidence for intentional use of psychoactive Anadenather- Anadenanthara, Anaden- Sorry, scientists, in [laughs] the Southern Andes. That's fucking crazy. The careful answer is DMT was detected in pipe residues. But, uh, Anadenanthera, uh, colubrina is not simply a DMT plant. Its psychoactive chemistry can include, uh, bufoten- bufotenin, DMT, N,5-MEO DMT in varying quantities. Depending on plant material and preparation, the archeological interpretation is that the pipes were used in a ritual context involving, um, one more time-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Anadenanthara rather than proof that people were using modern purified DMT. Either way, they're smoking whatever the fuck that stuff is. They're getting DMT from it. So they had figured out somehow or another that ingesting it through smoke... Now, the, one of the reasons why this is particularly significant is [lip smack] there's scholars out of, um, I think it's the University of Jerusalem, that, uh, believe that the burning bush, the Mo- that Moses encountered
- SPSpeaker
Some kind of psychedelic.
- JRJoe Rogan
The, the, that's what, what, that's exactly what they think. They think the translation was it was, they believe it was possibly the acacia tree, which is apparently rich in DMT. So that Moses has... Moses trips balls.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And gets some really good solid rules to live by and comes back with them and said, "Hey, this is what God said."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I mean, I, I think this is clearly the case that ancient cultures, not just in South America, but across the world, were using psychedelic substances. And yeah, that's interesting. I mean, the theory of whether that caused agriculture or whether that led to civilization or anything like that, I mean, I don't know. But it's certainly interesting that human beings seem to have been experimenting with psychoactive substances for a long, long, long, long, long time. Um, and yeah, that's fascinating.
- 22:47 – 28:40
Göbekli Tepe deep dive: scale, craftsmanship, and the burial debate
- JRJoe Rogan
So are those, where, where you see those pillars, are those sites where you have, like, the, those concentric circles?
- SPSpeaker
I assume so. Those are the famous ones anyway. Karahan Tepe, Göbekli Tepe, Sayfa Tepe. Those are the biggest ones.
- JRJoe Rogan
And only 5% y- of Göbekli Tepe currently has even been excavated, right?
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is pretty crazy when you think, like, well, okay, how many of them are also still underground? Like, how many do we know only exist because of ground-penetrating radar and all the other techniques?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I mean, it's wild. Like, Göbekli Tepe, if all of it was excavated, is something like 50 times larger than Stonehenge. And Stonehenge is obviously an incredibly famous site, and yet it's so much bigger and ... Li- like, to be clear, it is standard arca- um, archaeological practice to not excavate too much of a site, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
What are we, what are we looking at here?
- SPSpeaker
That's Göbekli Tepe.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what are we looking at in terms of these, these grids?
- SPSpeaker
I think maybe that's the kind of archaeological pit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SPSpeaker
I think. I'm not 100% sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems like it, right? 'Cause it, it seems like the grids go on top of these circles-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... which doesn't make any sense. So obviously they have to go very slowly. The, the risk of destroying some incredible find, some beautiful ancient thing because you're using tractors or something like that-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... is, is too great.
- SPSpeaker
It's valid. It is valid.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
But I would argue, and I've said this before, is that Göbekli Tepe is a site that has such important ramifications for our understanding of civilization and the origins of civilization that it should receive special treatment, right? Because it is the oldest site that looks like civilization. So I always think that maybe we should Not-- obviously you wanna be careful when you go in, and you wanna follow correct archaeological procedure, but at the same time, what if a relic, like equivalent to the Rosetta Stone, the, the one stone that we found that completely translated a l- Egyptian hieroglyphs and opened up ancient Egypt to our understanding. What if some kind of equivalent artifact is hiding in the unexcavated 95% of Göbekli Tepe?
- SPSpeaker
Right. Right.
- SPSpeaker
That could be waiting for there to, for us to find, and-
- SPSpeaker
Have we talked about this boar before, Joe?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I don't remember ever seeing it, but it's not new. But it was also found at Göbekli Tepe. It was painted.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh.
- SPSpeaker
I think, like, some of the mouth was painted red.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's crazy looking.
- SPSpeaker
It's life-size. Um, pretty close to life-size.
- JRJoe Rogan
The whole thing is really fascinating, because it's also, I think it's the first evidence of 3D carving in stone, too.
- 28:40 – 34:12
“We don’t know”: confidence, speculation, and evidence limits in deep time
- SPSpeaker
And that's the thing with so much of this stuff, is that no one knows, and especially the further back you get in time. Anyone that talks with any confidence around the past, and this is one of my main bugbears with archeology. Like, I, I love archeology, and I have a huge respect for the, for archeologists, and I think they do amazing work. But one of my main bugbears is the confidence in which people talk about the past and ruling out other possibilities. Because at the end of the day, none of us know what happened in the deep, deep past, especially when you start getting back to these crazy timescales. It's all speculation, and it doesn't matter if you're a YouTuber like me or if you're a professor. We're all just speculating based on the very limited evidence that we have. And so I don't like it when people say definitive things. I always try and say, "Maybe this is the case," or, "Maybe that's the case. We don't know." And I think everyone should approach history with that mindset, and that's kind of the-- if I can get any message across to people, it's that, that is the message. Like, we don't know, and here's a possibility, and here's a possibility, and here's the evidence that we think is true. But, you know, it's really hard to tell.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it also does stand to reason that biology and archeology, as they expand the timeline, as biology has expanded the timeline, archeology should probably tag along with that.
- SPSpeaker
Well, [laughs] yeah, that's what I mean about the fact-
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... that the rug's kind of been pulled out from underneath us.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Uh, what on purpose means here. There's good reason to think humans intentionally deposited at least some of the fill. Uh, ex- enclosure D alone contained roughly 500 cubic meters of rubble and cultural debris, and particular items, including broken anthropomorphic sculpture heads, appear to have been deliberately placed near pillars during refilling. But archeologists do not have definitive evidence for the often repeated popular claim that its builders intentionally buried the entire site at once to hide it, preserve it, or mark a single ritual closure. The mound is manmade in the sense that it consists of accumulated archeological deposits, but its formation involved both human actions and natural sediment movement ending around 8000 BCE. Yo. That's a long fucking time ago. I don't think people even really can wrap their head around how long we're talking. You know, especially, that's the other thing about, um, o- one of the things that, uh, I loved about, uh, your, your whole video series was the one where you were talking about what would be left if there was a human civilization 100,000 or more years ago. And that's not unreasonable if this biology assessment is correct, is that there have been humans far longer than we used to think. So if that's the ca- 'cause if we used to think it was 50,000 years, I think when I was in high school, they were talking, they were, they were saying h- Homo sapiens were like 50,000 years old or maybe 100, right? And now w- the conventional estimate is like, what, three?
- SPSpeaker
So the oldest fossils we have of anatomically modern humans are 315 to 360, uh, thousand years old. I mean, that's, it's the same-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- SPSpeaker
... fossil set from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. And, but this obviously is really hard to date accurately-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- SPSpeaker
... but it's between 300 and 350,000 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then I think it's really important to note that the fossil record is incredibly incomplete because most people don't leave a fossil.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, it's so hard to, like, it's so unlikely that you'd fossilize. It's something like one in a million.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's such a crazy metric to, like, try to figure out what the past is from these tiny scraps. It's like trying to read a book by a single shard of a piece of paper with a half a sentence in it, and you're like, "What do you think this book is about?" Like, fuck.
- SPSpeaker
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's not much evidence. That's the problem. But the s- the evidence that they do find is pushing the timeline way back, way back. And, um, that alone, you would think archeology would go, "Well, hey guys, uh, in light of this new evidence, maybe we should consider the possibility that civilization's quite a bit older than we think." If they are the same exact animal, what would take them 300,000 years to, uh, develop complex civilization and agriculture and all these different things? Like, why, why would it take so long? And is it possible that given the, I mean, the incredible possibilities when in terms of, like, what kind of nat- natural disasters took place, just asteroid impacts that we know, we find them all over the Earth, all over the Earth, and some of them are 20,000 years old, 50,000 years old. We find them everywhere. And like, what kind of an impact would that have had? What would be left of those civilizations? And all those questions, again, guys like you are, are the ones proposing them and, and putting them out there, and it's a really good question. It's, uh, especially in light of, you know, what we understand about humans biologically. Like, wouldn't, doesn't it make sense that these people, these just as, like, a- anatomically s- completely like us. Like, why would it take them hundreds of thousands of years to figure out a roof?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, exactly. But I think it's, it's, um, I think we have clear evidence now that what we call modern intelligence, behavioral modernity, goes back so, so, so much further than we think. Like, I would argue back over a million years in light of a, of a couple of papers that have come out in the last 12 months. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
And what are these papers?
- 34:12 – 41:47
A million-year-old seafaring problem: Sulawesi, Flores, Luzon
- SPSpeaker
So, I mean, there's been two really significant papers, I think, since we last spoke. Um, one of them I think has really big ramifications for human intelligence, and that's the paper that came out regarding the island of Sulawesi, which is in Indonesia, and this is in relation to human seafaring. So seafaring was always thought to be an exclusively sapient trait, exclusively modern human trait, because it's a really hard thing to do, right? You need to be quite clever to build a boat, to build something that's sophisticated enough to be seaworthy, to get across ocean boundaries, and to, to reach isolated land masses. And we always thought that was only sapiens until very recently. But a paper came out, uh, in August last year. You actually sent it to me. [laughs] Yeah, I don't think... You sent me a, a post that was about, um, stone tools that was found, and I was like, "That's interesting," then clicked on the paper. And then I was like, "Oh wow, look where these stone tools were found." And it was really, really interesting because they were found on Sulawesi. And Sulawesi is an island that crucially sits east of something called the Wallace Line, which is a biogeographic boundary, which means that it has been an island and separated from the mainland for tens of millions of years, and separated by deep ocean channels that are between, depending on the sea, the fluctuating sea levels at the time, between 50 and 100 kilometers across. So it's always been an island, and yet in August 2025, archeologists at a site called Callio found stone tools on Sulawesi. And that means that some type of human, probably not sapiens, but I guess you never know, some type of human managed to cross that ocean boundary and reach Sulawesi. And that's fascinating, but it's worth saying that it's not the only piece of evidence in the region. There's also a few... A, a decade or so ago, we found stone tools on Flores, which is just below Sulawesi. It's another island, and crucially, again, east of the Wallace Line. So again, you have to cross an ocean boundary to get to Flores. And they found stone tools there that are 1.02 million years old, and I didn't even say the Sulawesi tools are 1.04 to 1.4 million years ago- years old. So over a million years ago, some type of human was crossing ocean boundaries to get to these islands. And there's also Luzon, which is just above Sulawesi, same region, and they found stone tools there which are 700,000 years old. Now, the theory always was that this was an accident. When we just had Flores, the, uh, the theory was that it was accidental drift, so, and a couple of humans were swept out to sea and somehow survived the- The stormy ocean and the tropical sun cling to some driftwood and, and made it to, to Flores and, and somehow survived and colonized the island. But now that we've got Flores, Luzon, and Sulawesi, three islands all in the same region, all separated by this ocean boundary, I think it's starting to point less towards accident and more towards behavior, right? More towards a deliberate sea crossing. Because to, to colonize... I was, I was doing some research because of these discoveries, and there's actually been a few papers from NASA on how many humans you need to colonize an isolated land mass, 'cause, and NASA were doing it for, like, if you were going to Mars or something. And you, you need a certain amount of humans of breeding age to not, um, have, like, genetic problems in the population. To, so you need a, a certain amount of humans of a, of a breeding age to, to ensure viability, right? Because otherwise you're gonna inbreed and you're all gonna die out because of genetic issues. And they said it was something like, um, you need 160 people at least, and that is with strict breeding controls and genetic testing. We can probably assume they weren't doing genetic testing on themselves. And so then the number's somewhere near 500. So what are the chances that 500 individuals were all swept out to sea at the same time, all survived the, the crossing, and all landed on an island and colonized it? That's, that's a huge amount of humans for, for an accident. Do you know what I mean? And then three times, in three separate islands, all in the same region. At what point does accident start looking like behavior? Do you know what I mean? Because that is, how, what are the chances of 500 individuals all being swept out to sea, all surviving, all reaching these islands, and all colonizing in three separate occasions, all around about a million years ago? I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
Not good.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's not, it's not a high chance, is it?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- SPSpeaker
And I, I think if we apply Occam's razor to it, which is, you know, the simplest explanation wins, I think the simplest explanation is that these humans were intelligent enough to build boats, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SPSpeaker
And that's, I mean, and that is a controversial opinion. That's not accepted. It's accepted that the humans reached these islands. That, that's not, that's not controversial. Humans were on these islands a million years ago, 700K.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just not accepted that it was intentional.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's not accepted that they built boats.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that seems silly.
- SPSpeaker
But I think it's, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It doesn't make any sense.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not... 500 of them make it over-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... by floating and surviving.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- SPSpeaker
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
All at the same time?
- SPSpeaker
Exactly. And this is what I mean about taking data points from different kind of science.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So because I'm looking into what NASA are saying about humans colonizing somewhere, and I'm saying, "Well, look, 500 people, or more than 500 people of breeding age as well, not just people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- SPSpeaker
... all reaching an island thr- on three separate occasions, all in the same region. Are we sure this wasn't deliberate?" So I think that has huge ramifications for human intelligence, because that was always thought to be a exclusively sapiens thing, building a boat. Because that's really hard.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
To build a boat, you have to have planning, you have to have foresight, you have to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... be good enough at carpentry to, to construct something that's seaworthy. You have to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Trial and error.
- 41:47 – 45:53
North America’s ancient copper ‘industry’ and non-linear technology
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, uh, another weird one that, that's come up fairly recently, um, that I know you've talked about, is the copper mining-
- SPSpeaker
Oh, yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... in North America.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they-
- JRJoe Rogan
That one blew me away, just the volume of copper that was removed.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they had a whole copper industry in North America 9,000 years ago, which is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Just listen to that again.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Say that one more time.
- SPSpeaker
A whole copper industry in North America 9,000 years ago, and that's the same as the earliest date anywhere else in the world.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the volume.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's huge.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is where, this is what's gonna freak people out. Tell them how much copper was removed.
- SPSpeaker
I don't know off the top of my head, but it's a lot. And to be fair, there's lots of natural copper. I think it's in the kind of northern parts of the United States as it is now. Uh, I don't know how much they removed off the top of my head, but it is a, a lot of copper. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like a commercial-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... copper mine volume-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, that's why I said industry
- JRJoe Rogan
... of copper.
- SPSpeaker
Like, it's basically big.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
It's big.
- JRJoe Rogan
It, it is, it's so crazy, and I don't understand how they determined the amount of copper that was removed. But if that is correct, that seems to indicate that there was- Some sort of sophisticated metallurgy going on-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... in North America 9,000 years ago.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, which is as ear- as early as anywhere else in the world. And that completely flies in the face of what we used to think about people in North America. And, and it's interesting because what the evidence appears to show is that they did this for a few thousand years, but then they dropped it, and they stopped doing it. Now, I dunno what that suggests, but either it suggests something happened to them, or they decided they didn't wanna do it anymore. But either way, it kind of goes against this idea that we've always kind of assumed that technology is like an escalator, right? We always assume that technology is an es- yeah, [laughs] there you go.
- JRJoe Rogan
Here it is.
- SPSpeaker
1.5 billion pounds of copper.
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- 45:53 – 1:00:09
Megastructures, reused foundations, and ‘more advanced’ ancient layers
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, and that's what the, um, this is the alternative theory, is that we're, we're a reinvention of civilization currently, and that we're the most advanced reinvention that we're aware of. But it doesn't mean that there hasn't been some sort of a civilization before us that perhaps reached heights where we are or greater in a completely different direction.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I think when you look at some of the stone structures that exist, those are the best evidence 'cause they're so perplexing. The, the stones in Lebanon, what are they called? The trilithon stones.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, Baalbek, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Those are crazy. Like, what happened there? How? What?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd you get them up there?
- SPSpeaker
It's weird because obviously-
- JRJoe Rogan
How big are they?
- SPSpeaker
... they're attributed to the Romans, right? But there's no Roman records of them doing that, and it's ... And that's not particularly weird in itself until you realize that it's a bigger engineering project than anything the Romans did anywhere. I mean, the Colosseum is obviously an incredible thing, but the blocks aren't as big as these blocks at Baal- Baalbek. And yet they don't mention it anywhere, and you'd think that, you know, a, a civilization that documented as much as the Romans would at least mention their biggest engineering project [laughs] somewhere, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And I mean, I'm ... That doesn't mean it wasn't the Romans, but it's just a weird thing, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very weird. It's very weird, and it's also weird that the, like many places, the structures that are on top of it are not as sophisticated-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... or not as difficult to do.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's, that's how it is over and over and over again. That's Sacsayhuaman. That's a lot of these places. You see the base, the oldest stuff. It seems like they find stuff, and they build on top of stuff that was already there. And then you're dealing with thousands and thousands of years of civilization where people don't even remember who built it, you know? They're like, "Uh, the gods."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"The gods put these rocks here."
- SPSpeaker
It happens all over the world.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
People build on old sites because often the sites are the best site in the region because that's why someone's built there originally. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- SPSpeaker
... it makes sense to reuse them. But that doesn't mean that the latest civilization that used it was the first.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SPSpeaker
I mean, it could be, but it also doesn't mean that they are definitively. But often that's how we take it, and yeah, that's, uh, not necessarily the best way of looking at them, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think what you said earlier is really important, that, uh, we can't possibly know. And to make these definitive statements about things where you just don't have enough evidence, you don't have enough facts, you, you can't really say definitively we know. And that drives experts crazy 'cause they don't like to do that. They don't like to let that go, especially humans, especially men. They love, uh, you know, the ego that comes with being the one who has the information, the expert opinion, that appeal to authority, that I'm the one who can tell you, "Oh, this is nonsense, these Michael Buttons on YouTube with their bullshit, their archeological bullshit." They love doing that, but no one's listening to them. That's what's cute.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, and, um, yeah, I mean, I'm grateful that a lot of people listen to me [laughs] other than them, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, like I said, you're really good at it. And it is undeniably, just based on what we've said so far, this is undeniably strange.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- 1:00:09 – 1:42:07
China & India anomalies: jade machining claims, monolith statues, rock-cut temples
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, what were they doing? So it was built over 2,000 years, uh, from early walls in the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE through major work in the Ming dynasty, which ended in 1644. Have you ever seen some of the stuff that, uh, Cassy Coppersmith has, uh, talked about, uh, in regards to, uh, ancient technology evidence from China?
- SPSpeaker
Not specifically her stuff, but there's lots of weird, [laughs] there's lots of weird, lots of weird things in ancient China.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, weird stuff like jade artifacts-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... that seem to be machined, that don't make any sense, that are like super old, and that seem to be artifacts that were passed down from generation to generation. And the, you know, thousands of years, uh, ago, the, the civilization that was in possession of them, their current- Ability to make artifacts was, like, much cruder.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it seems like this was older stuff that they had somehow or another acquired.
- SPSpeaker
And they lost the knowledge of-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like wafer-thin jade, highly polished, seemed to be machined. Like, weird, weird stuff.
- SPSpeaker
I haven't seen that specifically, but that, yeah, that's interesting. I, I don't know about that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's, it seems like a, like a, a really clear pattern that exists everywhere, that there was something like the, these ancient vases that they find in Egypt.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That they find these in these old sites, and that these things that were carved out of diorite, which is insanely hard stone, and carved to w- you know, within less than a human hair of variance. Not only that, if it was on a lathe, how do you account for the fact that it has these handles-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... on the side? Like, how the fuck did they do this? And this was all stuff that was, like, really, really old by the time these people had it, and that these people, their current state of pottery and sculpture and this was much cruder than this stuff. So it seems like these are, like, really old things that are artifacts of a time where things were more sophisticated. So it's more evidence of this-
- SPSpeaker
Up and down nature of technology
- JRJoe Rogan
... up and down nature.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I mean, it's logical, right? That people learn things, discover things, excel at them, and then later people forget them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course, especially when you take into consideration natural disasters.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Natural disasters, wars, things along those lines. You know, look, Baghdad, you, before the, the Mongols got there, was, like, the center of science in the world.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. The Arabs, yeah, they were incredible at science, and then it- it's just the natural cycle of civilizations, and we see that throughout recorded history.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So why would it not be the case for human beings in the much, much, much, much, much larger period of time, which is prehistory? Um, but it's not just... Thing is, it's not just, like, natural disasters and things, and obviously that plays a part, but it's also just the sheer nature of preservation, right? Such a long amount of time that we've been around, human beings on this planet, this just, it's just almost impossible for things to survive when we talk about these 100,000 years, 200,000 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
It's so hard for things to survive that long.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Any objects, any things that would be left over. Like, you know, I'm sure you've seen those, uh, AI depictions of what New York City would look like in just 1,000 years.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like nothing. Everything's crumbling, gone.
- SPSpeaker
It's mental.
- 1:42:07 – 1:54:41
Lost artifacts, black markets, and how history can disappear
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly. They'll kill you. That was also my thought. I was gonna bring that up about Göbekli Tepe, about if they bring in more archeologists, more people to dig, if they really truly expand, they really have to keep track of what they find because the amount of money that someone can get for an artifact on the black market is pretty incredible.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is an issue with Egypt, right?
- SPSpeaker
And South America. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, and South America. But Egypt in particular, there's some inconsistencies with, uh, Zahi Hawass' versions of, like, what was discovered in some places, whether or not a skeleton was in a sarcophagus versus what he said later.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, like in the older versions there was a skeleton, and the newer versions they didn't find anything. So, like, did you sell a skeleton?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause people sell s- I'm not saying he did, but did somebody sell a skeleton? Because people sell skeletons, and if you are some rich guy who lives in some other country, and you're a billionaire from oil, and you're like, uh, "You know what I'd like?" You got a guy, he's like, you've got everything. You got a F- all the Ferraris. He's like, "You know what I want? I want Egyptian skeleton. Get me that."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Go get me a mummy."
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
"I want a fucking mummy."
- SPSpeaker
Or any kind of artifact or anything, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially something gold, some ancient gold.
- SPSpeaker
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
All that stuff was stolen out of there. So was it melted down? Like, for grave robbers, like, that must have been an incredible place to be before everybody discovered all those tombs.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause we know, like with King Tut, which was, uh, preserved, luckily nobody got into that until... What, what year was that they found it? Tutankhamun's.
- SPSpeaker
I'm not sure, but within the last couple decades, I think. I'm not sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, whatever it was, it was, I think it was a little longer than that, but the point is it's, like, fantastic gold sarcophagus cover, and massive fucking treasure trove of jewels and, and things. Like, how much of that stuff is scattered in private collections in the world? You know?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. And in South America, like, because they spent, like, underneath Cusco there's all these tunnels, right? And people have known about them for a long, long time, but it took a long time for archeology to kind of accept that they were there. But people have been going, like, people had, like, uh, tours and stuff down at the tunnels before it was, like, widely accepted. And back then it's just rife for people selling off to the black market because there's no control over it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SPSpeaker
There's no kind of a institutional control over it, so people could just kind of do what they want until it actually finally got, like, uh, you know, controlled by the authorities. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... who knows what went, and all over the world, as you say. Uh, yeah, there could be stuff that is really interesting that is just out there.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then there's the elongated skulls, the weird fucking skulls.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, there's always-
- 1:54:41 – 2:07:14
Peopling the Americas: from White Sands to controversial deep-time sites
- SPSpeaker
institutions reach out to me and say, like, you know, these are, like, actual archeologists, and they're saying like, "Michael, we, we value your work, and, like, we actually think you're an important voice," and stuff like that. And I, I find that really encouraging because these are, you know... It's easy for us to think about archeologists as, like, a kind of bogeyman, that are, like, wanna suppress all this stuff. But they're not all like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I think-
- SPSpeaker
Some of them are open to these things
- JRJoe Rogan
... particularly the young ones.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Particularly people that are coming up that really, the reason why they got into this in the first place is 'cause it's such a fascinating subject. And like you, when you've, you've spoken on this. When you were, um, in school and you were getting your degree, uh, you were confused as to why these alternative perspectives weren't entertained.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I think there's a lot of young people that feel confined by the gatekeepers. They conf- they feel confined by the career academics that are sort of in charge of who gets tenure, who gets jobs, who gets grants, and it's a very confusing thing. You don't wanna ruffle any feathers or step on any toes, and so you feel constrained in your ability to be, you know, curious.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's, that seems insane for something that is so inherently curious.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. And so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Curiosity-driven
- SPSpeaker
... so inherently unknown as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
We do not know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SPSpeaker
As we keep saying. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right, right. We're not talking about stuff that's, like, you know, established science where you can clearly... You know, it's not mathematics. This is something, like, weird.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
This, you know, you're, you're, you're looking at hints of the past. And, um, the more we look, the more we find older stuff. It's like Graham always says ... stuff just keeps getting older.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
It's crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's just so cool that you're out there making videos, and that you could do that for a living now.
- SPSpeaker
I know. It's wild. I, I feel, I feel so lucky that I get to, uh, do something I'm so interested in, and talk about these topics. And also to, like, create a- a not... To, to kind of like inspire this thinking in other people, that's really what I wanna try and do, is to get people thinking about history from this different perspective, and to think about the unknown, and think about the potential that what humans could have been doing now that we know that a mind like ours could have existed for a million years, that humans like us could have inhabited this planet for such a vastly longer length of time than we used to believe, and all the possibilities that throws up. More than anything, that's what I want people to, to think about when they watch my work. I don't want to tell them to believe this or tell them to believe that. I just want them to kind of think about it themselves, and open their minds to the possibilities that could have occurred. And that doesn't mean that... Like, people always say that I like saying that there's, like, advanced civilizations in prehistory. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it, there's a lot more on the table than we used to think, and I think that's really fascinating. I wish more people would, uh, kind of take that possibility seriously. Um, and that's why I get encouraged when I get these emails from people that are actually in the institutions, because they're the people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... that are gonna rewrite the textbooks. Like, I can say what I want. Like, I'm just a YouTuber. But we need the people that are actually working in the institutions to think in this way, and then, then I think we, we might, uh, update our thinking on these things.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think there's a lot of those young folks that are coming up now in archeology that, um, do have alternative perspectives, whether or not they're being suppressed. And it's also very encouraging for them to see a pathway outside of academics-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... ac- uh, academia, like what you're pursuing, and to see, like, not only is this viable, but you can do it with the, the proper approach, like the way that you're doing it.
- 2:07:14 – 2:20:22
Australia earlier than expected, Denisovan genetics, and prehistoric surgery
- SPSpeaker
Well, there's also the question of when humans reached Australia, which I think is another-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm
- SPSpeaker
... really interesting question because the conventional time is, is 65,000 years ago. Uh, and there's a site called Madjedbebe in northern Australia, and that's the earliest accepted site in Australia, and that's right in the north of the country. And it makes sense because you have to, you have to cross water to get to Australia. You have to build boats and cross water. But there's another really interesting site that's right in the south of Australia, where archeologists found, um, blackened stones again and charcoal and hearth-like structures, and they dated this site to 120,000 years ago, which is double, just about double the time that we think humans were in Australia, and it's in the very south of the country. And the archeologists that have working there actually wrote in their paper that the evidence supports a cultural origin over a natural origin. So they think that it's cultural, as in human, rather than natural, but they can't prove it because there's no associated artifacts and no associated skeletons. But they think that it, it kind of leans towards being a, a cultural origin. Uh, and obviously if that's correct, that means human beings were only in Australia twice as long as we thought, but also had inhabited the entire continent. Well, not inhabited, but had gone through the entire continent right down to the very south of the country, twice as old as we thought. And it's just another thing that's, like, pushing it older and older and older, and it's not accepted, but it's so hard to prove these things because we can't find skeletons, or we can find skeletons, but it's extremely rare. So the, the bar is so high for, for proof. But this site, uh, called Moyjill 120,000 years ago is, uh, I think very strong suggestive evidence that human beings have been in Australia twice as long as we think. And obviously that means that they had to have got there by boat, and, uh, yeah, that's another interesting one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wasn't there something that was done on the genetic connection between, uh, Australian Aboriginal people and, uh, Denisovans?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah. They think that maybe there was different migrationary, uh, pathways and different human species potentially also reached Australia. And it's not that wild, because if you think back to the, the seafaring thing we were talking about earlier, if people were reaching islands over a million years ago, then why couldn't they have reached Australia much earlier than we think?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Because if we had that capability for so long, why not?
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, w- when they do this, is this, uh... I mean, because obviously they didn't even know about Denisovans until 2010. So is this, like, a genetic analysis? And if, if so, like, do they have genes? Like, how do, how do they get genetic, uh, material from these Denisovan skeletons?
- SPSpeaker
I think you can take it from-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like a tooth or something?
- SPSpeaker
... from fossils, I think. I'm not quite sure, but I think you can. I think they know the kind of genetic makeup of, of the different human species, and so I think you can tell that way if you, if you've got, like, a trace of the, the DNA.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's what I was saying, like, if it's fossilized, do they have actual DNA from Denisovans? And if they do, like, how are they, how are they guessing that people, uh, Aboriginal people in Australia have some traces of it, just like Europeans have traces of Neanderthal?
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And also people in, uh, uh, I think, like, Nepal and these high altitude places, they have quite high, uh, traces of Denisovan DNA, and that's what they think, uh, allows them to live in high altitude environments. They think that Denisovans are, are more robust than, uh, modern humans and can live in, uh, more extreme environments.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And they think that people that live in, uh, those kind of high altitude regions of, uh, the Himalayas and stuff have that, uh, kind of gene, if you like. I'm, I'm not sure, sure that's the science behind it, but they think they have the traces of, of that, and that's what allows them to live in these more isolated, uh, high altitude environments.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they think Denisovans lived in high altitude mostly?
- SPSpeaker
Maybe. They don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Maybe?
- SPSpeaker
They don't know. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's only a few bones, right?
- SPSpeaker
Exactly, so it's really hard to tell.
- JRJoe Rogan
So fucking interesting, man.
- SPSpeaker
And also in that region they, they found, uh, recently the old- the oldest evidence of advanced surgery, which is, like, way older than we think. It's like 31,000 years ago. They found some surgery, uh, in Borneo, which is again in this same region. And I think Indonesia is such a fascinating region because it's the place of where the Sunda Shelf was, where obviously the sea levels have risen, have covered a huge expanse of land that used to be land, um, but now no longer is. And so many interesting discoveries here. But yeah, this surgery thing is, um, they found, uh, the skeleton of a, a child that had had his leg amputated and, but had lived for many, many, many, many years afterwards. And his, his whole, like, lower leg had been amputated off and, but had, like, healed, like, completely. And he'd lived, like... or she, I think it was a girl, lived, like, a lot longer after that. And obviously that's quite an advanced thing to, to do, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Because you have to understand how to prevent infection, you have to... It's a very humid place as well, so it's very hard to survive. It probably was very painful for that individual. But this pushed back our understanding of surgery by, like, 20,000... No, maybe not quite that long. I can't remember what. I think it was, like, 7,000 years ago. So yeah, uh, by a long way, 'cause this is 31,000 years ago. So again, it's showing prehistoric humans to be far more sophisticated than we think. They were performing surgery 31,000 years ago and surviving and living for years afterwards and-
- JRJoe Rogan
That is insane.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I wonder if they had any pharmacological interventions, like, to deal with the pain.
- SPSpeaker
Well, I think they would've used wild plants, because we've got so much evidence now of other human species and our human species using wild plants to, uh, as medi- for medicinal purposes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 2:20:22 – 2:31:47
Prehistoric proto-writing and global symbol systems older than civilization
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, there was something interesting that came out, uh, re- in regards to writing. There's a couple of interesting things regarding writing, 'cause obviously writing is the- ... kind of marker of civilization. Like writing began, civilization began. But we're starting to see evidence of symbolic m- meaning being transmitted through symbolic notation, like way back further in time than we believe. So obviously the earliest writing is still thought to be about 4000 BC with the ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform and stuff like that. But as you mentioned, Irvin Finkel, the, the kind of idea regarding Tash Depilla having a similar thing, and that's 12,000 years ago. But there's much, much older evidence of humans conveying information in a symbolic fashion. So there's, um, an archeologist called Genevi- Genevieve von Petzinger, I believe she's called, and she found evidence that on all these Ice Age paintings that we find in Europe with all these incredible, like, bulls and bison and stuff, and you've probably seen them. But next to them is, like, this kind of symbol of notation that people have kind of overlooked for years. But she found 32 recurring signs across a period of 30,000 years all across the continent, and these signs, she thinks, are like a, not a language as such, but a kind of a, a system of encoding meaning. Yeah, there you go. There are the signs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And she kind of makes the argument that these signs are, um, alm- not a language as such, but a kind of tradition of conveying information that lasted for 30,000 years, and that is such a long length of time. Like, if you think about the oldest language today is, I think it's ancient Chinese, and that's only a few thousand years old. And yet these signs appear all across the continent of Europe, across a time span of 30,000 years, are pretty much exactly the same, and just these signs. And they also find them in other continents as well. And she doesn't say there's any connection there. And I, I'm not sure there is any connection there, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
The spirals are really weird. They find spirals all over the place, right?
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. They find these signs all over the world that, Jamie, you might be able to find a-
- JRJoe Rogan
All over the world.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. There's like a cool map where they kind of point where, where it's all found. If you scroll down a little bit, uh, on the left. Uh, that one. Yeah. You see this. That's really blurry.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, that's kind of low. I think it's-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, once it loads. But it's, it's all over the world. There you go. And it's the same signs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. That's crazy. So the same signs in Europe, North America, Central Africa, South America, Southern Africa, Australia, Malaysia, East Africa, New Guinea. Wow. Borneo, Myanmar.
- SPSpeaker
And she thinks it's, like, a, a much older symbolic tradition that humans have kind of carried with them in the kind of migratory routes, and it actually goes back much older than the, the Ice Age art date of, like, 40,000 years, but actually comes from when humans first reached Europe out of Africa and spreading across the world, and we've kind of kept the same tradition of conveying information. And again, this has massive implications for human intelligence because even though it's not a full language, the ability to convey information in a symbolic way is a, is a marker of, of really sophisticated intelligence. And so it's another really interesting discovery that kind of points towards intelligence, and also the, the k- kind of the... To maintain that tradition over such a long length of time is really interesting because we don't really do that. Like, as I say, the oldest language is ancient Chinese, and it's only a few thousand years old, and yet these people somehow managed to pass on this language, quote-unquote, "for 30,000 years."
- JRJoe Rogan
Ha- have you ever heard anybody discuss the concept that human beings might have had some sort of, some sort of telepathy that atrophied when we started using language and writing and communicating with words?
- SPSpeaker
Well, what's really interesting is the human brain size has decreased since civilization began.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh.
- SPSpeaker
[chuckles] Which is strange because, because-- And it makes sense because if everything was oral before, you need more of your brain to hold all the information.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
But once you can kind of outsource it to physical objects, you don't need so much brain s- s- like, size and space.
- JRJoe Rogan
How much has it decreased?
- SPSpeaker
I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's, uh... I don't think that's even controversial. I think there's quite a lot of evidence that the human brain size has decreased a little bit in the last 10,000 years or whatever.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, what, weren't, weren't, like, there was some ancient people that thought writing was a bad idea and that you should, uh, you should remember everything.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that writing and writing things down was actually gonna degrade your memory.
- SPSpeaker
Well, is it something... I think, I think it certainly does because you don't n- need that brain, like, part of your brain anymore if you, if you're not memorizing all the information you have. Like, and it makes us smarter as, as a whole, as a civilization-
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course
- SPSpeaker
... but if it-
- JRJoe Rogan
And then if you extrapolate, so do hard drives.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- SPSpeaker
Exactly. Well, it's happening at-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
Episode duration: 2:31:48
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode rnt0wEc9YmI
