EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 30,561 words- 0:00 – 13:27
The True History of America
- CWChris Williamson
Yesterday was the anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America.
- GHGraham Hancock
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
How fitting.
- GHGraham Hancock
(laughs) I guess it is, but of course he didn't discover it. Um, in fact, uh, the Americas may have been discovered as early as 130,000 years ago, uh, which, uh, makes 1492 AD pale in-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- GHGraham Hancock
... insignificance. Uh, of course, this is a matter that's disputed by archeologists. Nevertheless, there's a highly professional team from the San Diego Natural History Museum, uh, who've excavated what is called the Ceruti Mastodon site just south of San Diego. Um, and I've been there and to the museum and talked to the, the leading expert, Tom Demaré. And what they found was mastodon bones that had been crushed systematically and in an organized way using some kind of stone tool to extract the marrow, uh, and the only interpretation they're able to put upon this is that this was human beings. Whether it was other kinds of human species like Denisovans, perhaps even Neanderthals, or whether it was anatomically modern humans, all of us were around 130,000 years ago. But it's human behavior that we're looking at, the systematic killing of an animal and then the fracturing of its bones to extract the, the marrow. Now of course this is regarded as some kind of terrible heresy by archeologists who've been wedded to the idea of a very recent settlement of the Americas for, for a very, very, very long time. Um, but gradually, reluctantly kicking and screaming, spitting nails as they go along, archeologists have begun to accept that the peopling of the Americas, uh, happened a lot earlier than they had, than they had thought. And presently, the kind of date that is being considered, uh, accepted in fact by, by the majority of archeologists is around 23,000, 24,000 years ago, that's White Sands, New Mexico, and the human footprints there which we, which we feature in, uh, episode one of, uh, season two of Ancient Apocalypse. But, uh, there's a recognition that it could be older than that, could be 30,000 years old, and then there's sites in South America which may be even older, 36,000, 40,000, 50,000 years old. Uh, so the whole issue is very much up for grabs, but the one guy who was really late to the party was Columbus.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Is the Americas often overlooked when it comes to the history of human civilization?
- GHGraham Hancock
Yes, because, because there's been this, this prejudice that, that, uh, the Americas could have had nothing to do with the origins of civilization because human beings supposedly weren't in America until... It- it was called the Clovis First model, it was held until really about 10 years ago that, that no humans had been in the Americas before 13,000 years ago. Uh, so you can see that the Ceruti Mastodon site multiplies that by 10 to, to 130,000 years ago. But, but there's gradually been an acceptance of a, of, of an- an earlier settlement than that. And they're still fighting over the Ceruti Mastodon site, whether to accept that or not. There's been a back and forth of papers in, uh, Nature, uh, a reasonably respectful discussion going on between archeologists who disagree over this. But yes, the, the, that model of a very late settlement of the Americas, I mean, the view is that anatomically modern humans came into Europe about 60,000 years ago, maybe, maybe 50,000 years ago. Uh, we have anatomically modern humans in Australia between 50 and 60,000 years ago as well. Uh, and of course anatomically modern humans were in Africa going back 300,000 years. The, the, um, the earliest known, uh, anatomically modern human remains are from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco and they date to 310,000 years ago, uh, and they're, uh, identical to, pretty much identical to, to, to modern humans today. And we can assume that their brains were, uh, pretty much identical as well. It may be that earlier examples of anatomically modern humans will be found. This is why one of my pet sayings is, "Stuff just keeps on getting older." Because it's not that long ago when, when, uh, the view was, I mean back in the '90s, when, when the view was that, uh, there were no anatomically modern humans before 50,000 years ago, and then new discoveries kept pushing that back, and then it switched to about 110,000 years ago with a discovery in Ethiopia, and now more than 300,000 years ago. So who knows how far that timeline will go back. Um, but, but, um, the, the, the, the general view has been, uh, we will not look for the origins of civilization in the Americas 'cause they were recently settled. Uh, and these new discoveries are, have to change that picture. O- archeology is very slow to change its paradigms, but, but this is one that is going to need to be changed, and the result is that the Americas have not been seriously studied for the specific issue of the origins of civilization, that thing that we call civilization.
- CWChris Williamson
What was or is the established history? What, what was the story that's been told by archeologists up to now about how the Americas were settled, when, what mode, et cetera?
- GHGraham Hancock
Right. Well, the, the, the story that stuck for a very long time, like 30 or more years, um, was the notion that a people who archeologists call the Clovis culture, uh, entered North America across the Bering Land Bridge, we call it the Bering Straits today, but during the Ice Age, and 13,400 years ago was during the Ice Age, sea level was much lower and it was possible to cross by land from Siberia, um, into Alaska, and thus to enter the Americas without making a, a, a sea voyage. And part of the prejudice that archeologists did have against our ancestors is they didn't think they were capable of making sea voyages, uh, and therefore this seemed like the most likely way that, that they came into the Americas. And that stuck for a very long time, and that was called the, the Clovis First hypothesis, and it became the subje- if I can just complete, it became the subject of a bitter battle amongst archeologists because there was a, a, a group of archeologists, very powerful, very influential, very widely published, who clung on to this Clovis First doctrine, that there was no culture here before the Clovis culture, for a very long time. And anybody who brought new evidence to the table suggesting an older human presence in the Americas w- were running the risk of having their careers destroyed.... and, and this happened in several, the case of several individuals, were, were running the risk of being, of being humiliated, of having funding withdrawn from their research, and so on and so forth. So that, that doctrine, the Clovis First doctrine, stuck until the evidence became utterly overwhelming. For example, Tom Dillehay finally managed to, to demonstrate, even to the most skeptical of his colleagues, that Monte Verde in South America, uh, had, uh, dated at least 14,000 years ago, well before Clovis, and maybe 15 and more thousand years ago. Um, and, and Jacques Cinq-Mars, uh, this classic example, brilliant man, excavated Bluefish Caves in the Yukon, uh, back in the 1970s, uh, and found evidence that humans had been there 24,000 years ago. And he received the full machine gun fire of the entire archeological profession, and they literally destroyed his career. But back in twenty-s- uh, in 2017, he was finally proved to be right. He was absolutely 100% right. Humans were in the Yukon.
- CWChris Williamson
Is he still around?
- GHGraham Hancock
He is still around, but, but, but very, very, uh, old now and retired-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GHGraham Hancock
... um, and, and, and broken by, by what happened to him.
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting, you talk about coming over the Bering Land Bridge into north, the northeast of North America-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then trickling down from there.
- GHGraham Hancock
Trickling down from there, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But if, if you were to suggest that that happens around about 13,000 years ago, let, let's say that the, um, markings that were found in South America that you just mentioned-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... were found i- u- shortly after that, that is a long way-
- GHGraham Hancock
It's a long journey.
- CWChris Williamson
... to travel.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's a long-
- CWChris Williamson
If you're starting at the top and coming down-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you would presume that the disbursement would be more centered at the top as opposed to at the bottom.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yes, you would. And, and, and archeologists are, are beginning now to open up to the idea that, that our ancestors were seafarers. (laughs) Uh, I mean, they have to be open to that idea because even at the peak of the Ice Age when sea level was at its lowest, it was not possible, uh, to get to Australia without a sea voyage. Um, you just couldn't do it. And, uh, particularly when you're settling a new land, you can't just go by accident with two or three people. You have to go with a substantial group who bring the means of survival with them at that point. Otherwise, they'll become extinct very, very rapidly. And Australia was systematically settled about 50,000, maybe as much as 60,000 years ago, and undoubtedly, boat, boat journeys were involved, and, and the same goes for Cyprus. Uh, of course, Cyprus is an island today, but it was an island during the Ice Age too. It's surrounded by colossal deeps at that end of the Mediterranean, and it was never connected to the land. And yet Cyprus was settled around 14,000 years ago, and the evidence is it was a highly organized project, uh, which involved, uh, sophisticated shipping and large numbers of people carrying animals with them who s- who settled in Cyprus. So, there shouldn't be an argument that our ancestors could, could, you know, could use ships, and it's beginning to happen now. Now that Clovis First has finally died the death it long ago deserved, archeologists are beginning to accept that, that maybe human beings did use ships to come to the Americas, but they don't like the idea of them doing something like crossing the whole Pacific Ocean directly. They prefer the idea that they kind of island hopped from Siberia down the coast of Alaska and thence into North America, and finally into South America. But this, um, raises one highly significant problem, which is, first of all, that the South American sites, by and large, are older than the North American sites. And secondly, and again we, we feature this in season two of Ancient Apocalypse, there's intriguing DNA evidence which, which connects the peoples of, um, Melanesia, uh, uh, New Guinea and Australian Aborigines, uh, and certain peoples who are indigenous in Taiwan as well, which connects them directly with three tribes, uh, in the Amazon rainforest, in the west of the Amazon rainforest. And that particular genetic signal is not found anywhere in North America at all, and it should be if they got there by a land route coming through North America. It's only found in South America, and, and the most parsimonious way to explain it, even leading geneticists admit this, although they know that it's not an idea that archeologists are going to accept, the easiest way to explain it is that there was a direct crossing of the Pacific Ocean by sea. And since those re- those remains that have been found are already very old, more than 10,000 years old, uh, we're, we're looking at a sea crossing that could have happened thousands of years before that. It's just an accident of discovery that complete skeletal remains were found that are 10,000 years old, which have this DNA signal, which is still present in the modern populations.
- CWChris Williamson
Pretty big ocean on either side of the Americas. The-
- GHGraham Hancock
Big ocean on either side of the Americas.
- 13:27 – 22:00
Why the Amazon is So Extraordinary
- GHGraham Hancock
- CWChris Williamson
What's interesting about the Amazon from a history-
- GHGraham Hancock
Everything is interesting about the Amazon. Um, I lo- I love the Amazon. It's, it's a god, or I would prefer to say a goddess. Uh, the Amazon is a, a force. It's, uh, an amazing and extraordinary thing. It's very tough. Uh, the heat and the humidity are intense. The insects, the snakes, uh, the creatures that will eat you up, the piranhas in the river, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
It sounds pretty inhospitable as a place that you're going to settle.
- GHGraham Hancock
But at the same, at the same time, it's a, it's a garden in which humans can flourish and which humans did flourish. So what's interesting about the Amazon, first and foremost, this is one of those areas of the world that is massively under-researched by archeology. And I don't say that that's, uh, uh, a, an act of irresponsibility on the part of archeology, that's because it's incredibly expensive to go and research in the Amazon. And when you are of the opinion that you're not gonna find much there, then, then, uh, undertaking that research has never seemed worthwhile. But new information keeps on coming in, which is, which is changing that. I mean, statistically, we're, we're looking about five to six million square kilometers that are still under dense canopy rainforest, and, uh, as a res- and again, this is, this is an issue that we've gone into in season two of Ancient Apocalypse because e- I think everybody knows that the Amazon is under attack at the moment, that large parts of the Amazon are being cut down, uh, and turned into soya bean farms and cattle ranches, and the soya beans are primarily to feed the cattle. Um, as a result of these clearances, uh, strange things have begun to emerge into plain sight, uh, and these include gigantic, perfectly geometrical earthworks. Now if we talk about the earthworks in the UK, when, when ev- I mean, everybody's heard of Stonehenge or, or, or, or Avebury. A henge actually is an earthwork. It's the, it's the ditch that surrounds the stone circle. It's not particularly prominent in the case of Stonehenge, but it's massively prominent in the case of A- Avebury, uh, a big deep ditch with an embankment on, on either side. These, these earthworks in the Amazon, they don't have the standing stones in the middle of them 'cause there is no stone in that part of the Amazon, but they do have these, these huge earthworks, which can take very intriguing geometrical forms, uh, for example, a perfect square with a perfect circle inside it, but on a scale of hundreds of meters, uh, rectangles, um, square enclosures with sort of scallops cut out of one corner of them, uh, the, the whole thing, and lots and lots of circles. Uh, many of these, these structures appear to be aligned to the cardinal directions, um, and-
- CWChris Williamson
What's the cardinal direct-
- GHGraham Hancock
North, south, east, and west. N- and, and it's very important to be clear on that. North, south, east, and west on a compass are not the same as true north, south, east, and west. Uh, there's an error of about 10 or 11 degrees in compass, which is a magnetic reading. True north is defined by astronomy.
- CWChris Williamson
And which one does this follow?
- GHGraham Hancock
Uh, this follows true north, yeah, yeah. True north, south, east, and west, the true cardinal directions. So anyway, um, as a result of the clearances, we've started to see these puzzling earthworks a- appearing, and, and that has led a, a team who we cooperated with in Ancient Apocalypse. Uh, the lead archeologist is Martti Parsinen from the University of Helsinki, uh, and his partner in the project is Alceu Ranzi who's a very distinguished geographer, uh, from Brazil. Um, and it was actually Alceu who was the first to spot these geoglyphs, uh, uh, that's what he called them, bi- because it, it struck him that there was a similarity to the Nazca Lines. These things are so big that you can only really see what they are when you're up in the air. And he was on a flight over and suddenly thou- saw this, and he thought, "What the hell is that?" And that led him to begin to investigate and find there wasn't just one, there were dozens of them that had already been produced by the clearances. And now what Alceu and Martti are doing is a detailed lidar study, uh, in the areas touching on those parts that have already been cleared, they're going deeper into the jungle. And while we were there, they, they found half a dozen new structures under the canopy rainforest. You see, lidar will allow you to see through the rainforest canopy and to see relief features underneath it without destroying anything, and then you can go in very, very low tech, you can just go in, not destroy anything, and begin to investigate what the lidar has picked up. And what the lidar's picked up is these just extraordinary geometrical structures extending into the jungle as far as the range of the drone on that day. And, and, um, both Martti and Alceu are of the opinion that there are thousands of these things still waiting to be discovered and indigenous people, um, I- I spent time with, uh, with an elder of the Apurina people who, who, tf- for whom these geoglyphs are, are sacred. Um, they, they s- they say that there are thousands of them throughout the jungle, and they still venerate them and value them today, and that they are places that shamans use, um, to work healing medicine on the people.
- CWChris Williamson
How old are they?
- GHGraham Hancock
The ones that have been, uh, found up till now, uh, go back about 2,000 to 3,000 years, and that's based on dating of organic material found in the earthworks, it's a- it's a rough guess. Uh, however, what they've- what they've found, that those preci- precise areas on which the earthworks now stand, once you go down- once you excavate down deeper than about two or three meters, you find that they have been intensely used by human beings, and there's an enormous amount of- of charcoal and carbon down there. And those- those dates... So what they're saying is that these sites actually appear to have been selected and appear to have been sacred to people for at least 10,000 years, uh, and we see the latest incarnation of them, uh, in the earthworks that- that have survived, uh, to this day. So there's a big project now going on in the Amazon to open it up and to find out... I don't mean to open it up by destroying the rainforest. I mean to use LiDAR to find out what's going on there, and- and- and other results of this have- have included absolute confirmation that there were huge cities in the Amazon, that the Amazon did have a population, before the Spanish conquest, of tens of millions. This was- this was a completely different place from the place that we imagine, this kind of pristine rainforest inhabited by a few tribes of hunter-foragers. No, uh, there were large-scale permanent settlements in the Amazon, uh, and they were joined by perfectly straight roadways that ran, in some cases, for hundreds of kilometers. Uh, we are seeing the traces, literally, of a lost civilization in the Amazon, and the work is just beginning to get to grips with the- with the dates on these, and this is just tiny bits of the Amazon that have been looked at thus far. So I'm of the opinion that the Amazon has a great deal more to tell us, uh, and, uh, I've done my best to- to bring the case for that to the viewers in- in Ancient Apocalypse. And besides, what a privilege to spend time in the Amazon.
- CWChris Williamson
Over the span of about a year, I tried pretty much every green drink that I could find, trying to work out which one was best. I came across AG1 and have stuck with it for three years now because it's the best. It's the most rigorously formulated, highly tested, and comprehensive green drink that I've ever found, and that's why I put it into my body and I've got my mom to take it and my dad to take it, and a ton of my friends as well. And if I found anything better, I would change, but I haven't, which is why I still use it. Since 2010, they've improved their formula 52 times in the pursuit of making the best foundational nutrition supplement possible through high-quality ingredients and rigorous standards. Best of all, there is a 90-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it and try it every single day for three full months, and if you do not like it for any reason, they'll give you your money back. So, you can try AG1 completely risk-free for three months, plus get a year's free supply of vitamin D3, K2, and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription at the link in the description below, or by going to drinkag1.com/modernwisdom. That's drinkag1.com/modernwisdom.
- 22:00 – 35:10
Graham’s Experiences With Ayahuasca
- GHGraham Hancock
My first visit to the Amazon was in 2003. I was working on a book, uh, that I published in 2005 called Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind. It's- it's recently been retitled as- as Visionary. Uh, it's still out there, but- but, um, I was interested in the notion, uh, for which credit must be given to the late great Terence McKenna, uh, that, uh, sampling psychedelics, uh, played a key role in the evolution of- of human consciousness, um, and that we can see the evidence for the use of psychedelics. Uh, and here I want to pay tribute to the work of Professor David Lewis Williams of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. We can see evidence for the use of psychedelics in cave art all around the world, and in rock art all around the world, and we can see that evidence in the Amazon very, very strongly. And furthermore, shamans in the Amazon who are drinking ayahuasca, drinking the powerful visionary brew ayahuasca, after their visionary experiences, if they have painting skills, and quite a number of them do, they paint their visions. And those paintings of those visions are astonishingly similar to the paintings that you see on ancient rock faces, such as in Colombia, in the Amazon, going back more than 12,000 years, and paintings that you see, uh, even in Europe, in caves like Lascaux, where the same geomat- geometric patterns and the same strange beings that are part mixture- a mixture of part animal, part human, uh- uh- appear. It's as though the visionary realm is being manifested in art, um, and I wanted to investigate that and- and I had not experienced ayahuasca before but I didn't feel I could write about it authentically without drinking ayahuasca. So went to the Amazon, first of all, in 2003 to drink ayahuasca with an indigenous shaman, um, and- and his name is Francisco Montes Shuna. Uh, and I had my first 11 sessions with- with-
- CWChris Williamson
11 sessions?
- GHGraham Hancock
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
First 11 s-
- GHGraham Hancock
First 11, yeah. I've- I've- I've-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- GHGraham Hancock
... had subsequently had about another 70. Um, but that was... The first 11 were for research purposes. The- the-
- CWChris Williamson
Of course.
- GHGraham Hancock
... the other- the other 70 is because ayahuasca has helped me to, uh, get to grips with issues in my life that, uh, I didn't even know I needed to get to grips with. But it's- it's- it's- it's helped me to do that. So I- I- I still feel... I think they're right in the Amazon to refer to ayahuasca as a teacher, uh, and I have- I have learned many useful and im- and important lessons to it. So the- from it... so the last time I had an ayahuasca session was actually while we were filming, um, uh, in, uh, Peru, in the Peruvian Amazon for season two of Ancient Apocalypse. Um, and it was with-
- CWChris Williamson
You peeled off from a day of shooting to go and...
- GHGraham Hancock
And... Yeah. And it was the- the same shaman, Francisco Montes Shuna, who I'd drunk with 20 years before. So it was fascinating to- to be back there and to be in the midst of that-... majesty and surrounded by that, that wildness. There's, there's... Of course, you can drink ayahuasca pretty well anywhere in the world today, but, uh, it's better to do so, uh, in the hands of a shaman who really knows what he or she is doing. I'm not saying that there can't be Western shamans, there can and there are some, uh, but they need to sit down at the feet of shamans in the Amazon and learn techniques from them, because people can get into a very bad place on an ayahuasca trip and that needs to be handled. Uh, shamans see it as keeping dark forces at bay, that's, that's what their role is primarily in this. So it was very, very interesting to have, uh, to have another session there, and I was, I was joined by my good friend, uh, Luis Eduardo Luna, uh, who's a Colombian anthropologist, who is now based in Brazil. He's an ex- one of the world experts on, on ayahuasca, and we had some very interesting discussions about the mysteries of this brew. And the mysteries of the ayahuasca brew also touch upon the question of civilization in the Amazon.
- CWChris Williamson
How so?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, um, because ayahuasca is a very (laughs) complicated thing to make. Uh, it's, it is, um, a mixture of two ingredients. The best known form, which is actually called ayahuasca, and that's not even an Amazonian word, that's a Quechua word, it's an In- Inca word. The Incas were also using ayahuasca and they named it, and that name, th- th- they, they, there are many local names for it, but the, the Inca name stuck and everybody calls it ayahuasca now, which means the vine of souls or the vine of the dead. The vine itself, um, has almost no visionary properties. Uh, if you were to drink a tea made of th- v- brewing up smashed up portions of the vine and, and you could drink gallons of it and you wouldn't have any visions whatsoever. The other ingredient is a leaf from a bush, and that bush is botanically Psychotria viridis. Uh, in the Amazon, they call it chakruna. And those leaves contain substantial qualities, quantities of, of arguably the world's most powerful psychedelic, which is di- dimethyltryptamine, DMT, the type of DMT that's called N,N-DMT. And this where it gets complicated because, because DMT is not normally, uh, accessible orally to the brain. In other words, you could eat, munch several kilos of those leaves or cook them up in a tea and drink them, it wouldn't have any effect on you, um, and, and this is because of the, the m- an enzyme called monoamine oxidase that we have in our gut. Uh, it destroys DMT on contact, uh, that's why people who want to have the straight DMT experience today have to smoke it or vape it, smoke it in a pipe or, or, or, or vape it, and then it gets right through the blood-brain barrier and into the brain, but through the gut, you can't absorb it, uh, orally. Uh, so how do you conquer that problem? What you need, in scientific terms, is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, you need something that will shut down that enzyme in the gut, and that's precisely what the ayahuasca vine provides. It provides a monoamine oxidase inhibitor that shuts down the enzyme in the gut and allows the DMT in the leaves that are part of the brew, uh, to be active and then instead of having the usual 10 or 12 minute, or even less, trip to the other side of reality, which is what happens with, with smoked or vaped DMT, you have a four-hour journey to the other side of reality, um, and it's much slower paced and you have time to get to grips with what is happening and to investigate the visions that you're experiencing and, and, and the teachings that you're receiving. Sometimes you receive nothing, sometimes all you do is just vomit and have, have diarrhea, and that's, I mean, that is, that is one of the physical consequences of ayahuasca. I can say as, as a result of being working with ayahuasca for more than 20 years now, I can say that as a result of long term exposure to ayahuasca, the, the vomiting and diarrhea side of it have got less and less as time has, as time has gone on, um, but the, the visionary experiences, uh, continue to be extremely powerful. However, sometimes you don't get anything, and they, they, they call it the nada, uh, in, in, in Peru, where you have a nothing. But that, they, uh, the view of shamans in Peru is that nothing is the really most important one that you're downloading stuff subconsciously that you're not getting consciously, it's really, they celebrate these nadas, they're good things to have.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the implication of having the similar cave paintings from potential psychedelic cave paintings in the Amazon, in Europe, elsewhere in the world? What, what do you sort of-
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, the implica- the, the-
- CWChris Williamson
... the story you're drawing from them?
- GHGraham Hancock
... the implication is that psychedelics were involved in, in every case, different psychedelics, uh, but they, th- they were involved in every case. Just to finish on the case of ayahuasca, there, the, the other form of ayahuasca, um, um, is called yaje, which is spelled Y-A-J-E with an accent over the E, yaje, um, and, and a lot of people think that is ayahuasca, and indeed it does include the ayahuasca vine, that that is a common element to these two versions of the brew, um, however, the dimethyltryptamine element is not. It's provided actually from another vine, from the leaves that grow off that vine, and they contribute not only N,N-DMT but also 5-MeO-DMT. Both of them are in the brew, uh, with the monoamine oxidase.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you tried this yaje?
- GHGraham Hancock
Yes, I have.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Can you compare the two for me?
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah. Uh, I would say it's significantly more powerful, uh, than, than ayahuasca on its own and, uh, really in- intense, overwhelming, uh, visions and, and the sense of contact with, with an intelligence. And I know that skeptical, uh, nuts and bolts scientists will say, "Of course you're not having contact with any intelligence, it's just, it's just your fantasies, it's just, just a hallucination," but I suggest they go and have a dozen sessions of ayahuasca first and see if that is still their view. There's something very mysterious about it and this is a result of-... literally Amazonian technology. Go figure, how they, how they choose, out of more hundred thousand different species of plants and trees, they find the bush with the leaves that contain DMT, and they find the vine, uh, whi- which contains the monoamine oxidase inhibitor, and they put them together.
- CWChris Williamson
What are you suggesting-
- GHGraham Hancock
To do that by trial and error is no easy task.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, it's no easy task, but also, given enough time and not much else to do, it seems-
- GHGraham Hancock
It could be done. It could be done.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GHGraham Hancock
And when I observe shamans in the Amazon today, what I n- notice is that they are constantly sampling plants, that they're constantly sampling admixtures of plants. Um, Francisco, on, on th- this, this latest journey that I had, was dropping little bits of different flowers, uh, in- in- into the plant as well.
- CWChris Williamson
God knows what that's gonna do.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah. Well, all I can say is that I did have an extraordinary night, um, and- and it was- and it was very, very interesting. And, you know, nobody in their right mind is going to drink ayahuasca for kicks. It's not some kinda ... it's not s- some kind of lighthearted high.
- CWChris Williamson
Recreation.
- 35:10 – 46:56
Is the Amazon Man-Made?
- CWChris Williamson
What's this r- uh, rumor, meme that I've heard about the Amazon being a manmade jungle?
- GHGraham Hancock
Oh, it is. Uh, it is- it is a manmade jungle.
- CWChris Williamson
What does that mean?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, what it- what it means is that when you analyze the millions of trees in the Amazon, and you find that they boil down to about 16,000 different species, that species like the Brazil nut tree, which are incredibly helpful to human beings, which are food-producing trees, are hyperdominant in the Amazon, and they shouldn't be if it were just, uh, the result of natural selection in the Amazon. It's clear that human beings have been involved in turning the Amazon to their purpose and making it an environment that is useful to them, uh, that can feed them, that can nurture them, uh, and for that reason, just as the, uh ... Clearly, a brilliant kind of shamanic science went into the creation of ayahuasca. An equally brilliant kind of shamanic science went into the creation of curare, which involves 11 different plants. Uh, can ... You know what curare is?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- GHGraham Hancock
Curare is a nerve poison, um, which is used to tip arrows. Uh, if you're hunting a monkey and that monkey is 100 foot up a tree, uh, and you want it for dinner, um, what you don't want to do is for it to ... As it- as you shoot an arrow into it, its natural instinct will be to wrap its tail around the tree, and suddenly, the monkey that you want for dinner is hanging by its tail 100 feet above you in the tree. You don't want that. So you want something that paralyzes its muscles, and that's what curare is. Uh, that's why, you know, cu- curare was later used in- in anesthesia as well. They- they, uh, shoot the monkey with a curare-tipped arrow-... its muscles go limp and it falls from the tree, and dinner is, dinner is ready. But to create curare, you need 11 different ingredients all put together. And if you don't have even one of them, it won't work anymore. So that's a, that's a scientific project, again, from a people who have lived in their environment for thousands, I believe, tens of thousands of years, and are so familiar with it, and so comfortable with it, they know what to do with it. Um, but I, I would add to that one other Amazonian science, which again we go into in the, in, in season two, which is, which is called terra preta, which is patches of astonishingly fertile soil that are found dotted throughout the Amazon, and which are still sought out by modern settlers today, um, because the rest of the rainforest isn't particularly fertile. That's why it's also such a tragic waste to cut the rainforest down. It's doing much better things for the world by being left as a rainforest than it is being turned into a cattle ranch. Um, but terra preta has allowed bits of the Amazon to be incredibly fertile, and that also is an Amazonian invention. People in the Amazon are still making terra preta today. But the oldest examples so far found go back more than 8,000 years. And it's a, it's a- it's almost a- it's almost a miracle soil. Um, it regenerates its own fertility. It's full of bacteria. Uh, it's full of biochar. It's been deliberately created by human beings. They, they, they put a lot of, a lot of refuse in it as well, and it just works and multiplies, and it keeps on rejuvenating its own fertility. So patches that are 8,000 years old are still fertile today.
- CWChris Williamson
The thing that I keep coming back to is... I, I, I understand that there is, uh, the, the technology or the trial and error that's happened in order to make the Amazon, uh, very useful-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to humans in a way that other, uh, areas on the planet wouldn't have been. Also understand that you can, uh, curate the jungle, Brazil nut trees-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, becoming more prevalent, et cetera. It's still, to me, thinking about what were sort of anthropologically modern humans built for. Persistence hunting, open plains. It just seems so inhospitable.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
I wonder why, why would you decide to... I, I don't know what America was like 50-
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, that's where you have- that's where you have to ask yourself, what was the Amazon that we're now looking at, what was it like during the Ice Age? What was it like 12, 13, 14-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, tell me more.
- GHGraham Hancock
... thousand years ago? And what it was like was more like, uh, the savannas, uh, of East Africa, uh, than it looks today. Uh, it became a rainforest later, after human beings were in it. And I suspect human beings were... of course, climate change was involved as well, but I suspect the human beings were involved in the creation of the Amazon right from the beginning. Tran- transforming a savanna extending over millions of square kilometers into a giant rainforest. The rainforest isn't, itself is probably not much older than 14,000 years.
- CWChris Williamson
Because how would you have been able to make thousands and thousands of circles inside of squares if every two feet there's another tree?
- GHGraham Hancock
Exactly, exactly. That's, that's, that's right. Uh, and certainly, at the very least, you'd have to clear the area that you wanted to build your earthwork in. Uh, so it's, it's just one of those great unexamined areas, uh, whe- where the human story has not been followed through enough. And when we do follow it through, we find, we find intriguing hints of great sophistication in the past, and, and, and of finding a way of life. We shouldn't imagine that everything that we would call a "advanced civilization" has to look like us, uh, you know, with iPhones, and cars, and rocket ships, and things like that. It doesn't have to look like that. There are lots of other ways to be, to be being advanced, and I would say an advanced civilization actually should not be defined by its possessions, by, by its material wealth. It should be, it- it should be defined by its spiritual wealth and its ability to live in harmony with the environment in which it is surrounded. And our civilization, despite all its tech achievements, is not living in harmony with the environment at all, whereas Amazonian civilization, for thousands of years, was, and still, and still is.
- CWChris Williamson
I, I, I get what you mean there. I'm hesitant sometimes of sort of laying at the feet of modern humans this, uh, disregard for the world around us.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
I think it would be difficult if you were to give people of 13,000, 14,000 years ago the convenience, and the opportunity, and the availability of all of the things that everybody has in the modern world. I, I'm not, I'm not convinced by the idea that humans are being, uh, callous in their usage of most things in the modern world.
- GHGraham Hancock
Oh, no.
- CWChris Williamson
I-
- GHGraham Hancock
I don't think so either.
- CWChris Williamson
Had they have had the opportunity to, it would've been difficult in the past to have not become fat because of the beautiful cheesecake-
- GHGraham Hancock
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... and all of the chips, and-
- GHGraham Hancock
No, I don't think, I don't think individual humans are being callous at all. Um, w- we operate at the scale of a hive mind, a very large-scale organism. That's what humanity is in, in the world. And, and, um, the plain fact is, we, we, we aren't looking after the world well enough. Uh, this is our, this is our home.
- CWChris Williamson
We're very detached from it.
- GHGraham Hancock
And, and, and, yes, ver- very detached from it, and there, and there's no sense of spiritual value in it. Th- this is one of the problems with modern science, in its, in its desperate desire to separate itself off from superstition. Um, it's become, it's become, um, totally focused on weighing and measuring and counting, on, on, o- on a so-called rational approach to reality, whereas reality itself is not really very rational. Um, and, and, um, I think that, I think that this is what's missing in our society today, is, is the spiritual element, a sense of connection to this beautiful garden of a planet that the universe has gifted us with, and a connection to the, to the wider universe. And, and that's why things happen in the way they do. But it, it can change. I don't think any of the mainstream religions in the world today are helpful in this respect. Uh, I, I, I, I realize that, that some people do get profound spiritual experiences within the mainstream religions. But I, I think what's, what's happening today is people are beginning to seek spiritual directions in, in, in other ways. And perhaps that's one of the reasons why...... ayahuasca has, has become so well-known, uh, and so popular, uh, in, in the West because it does seem to open a doorway to other dimensions and other realms.
- 46:56 – 1:01:43
What Graham Learned About the Mayans
- CWChris Williamson
What did you learn about the Mayans?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, this is another extraordinary civilization of the ancient world, which, um, I think has much more ancient origins than are given to it. We have to trace the origins of Mayan civilization back through the people who were called the Olmecs, uh, and then we have to look at the incredible sophistication and complication of Mayan mathematics and Mayan astronomy, and the enormous numbers that they used and how they were recording dates on stele that go back 30 million years into the past.
- CWChris Williamson
Where are they? Modern- uh, on a modern map, where do you point to where the Mayans were?
- GHGraham Hancock
The Yucatan Peninsula, primarily, but then going on into Guatemala as- as- as well. Th- that's- that's- that's the Mayan area, and, um, for- for season two of Ancient Apocalypse, we filmed specifically in Palenque, which is down at the bottom of the Yucatan. The- the nearest large- large town is, uh, Villa Hermosa. Uh, Palenque is a- a magnificent Mayan site dating back to the eighth or ninth century AD, um, and, uh, it's got a- a series of pyramids built around a beautiful plaza with what appears to be an astronomical observation tower in the middle of a structure that is probably lo- wrongly referred to as the palace. Uh, and, um, uh, I was able to discuss the site at length with an- with an archeologist. Not all archeologists hate me. Uh, quite- quite a number of archeologists are- are- are interested in what I do and are- are willing to work with me. Don't necessarily agree with me, um, but are willing at least to have a civil conversation with me, and- and I was so lucky to have Ed Barnhart as- as- as a guest when we were in Palenque.
- CWChris Williamson
He seems cool. I watched him on Lex's show.
- GHGraham Hancock
He's a brilliant guy, and he- and he's fun, and he's- he's- he's just so enjoyable to be around (laughs) , and, uh, just a mine of information about the Mayan calendar and about, uh, Mayan astronomy and about Mayan mathematics.
- CWChris Williamson
So he can read Mayan?
- GHGraham Hancock
He can, yes. He can read the Mayan glyphs, and he- he- he did a bit of that for us. He's- he's- he's just really good at it, but also, you know, interpreting what- what Mayan culture was- was all about, and- and one of the things we touched on, uh, was the- the fact that there's a very-... specific idea about what happens to the soul after death, and that idea is found all around the world. It's found very powerfully in the Americas; South America, Mexico, Central America, and North America. Uh, but it's also found in Egypt, and it's found in Mesopotamia, and it's found in ancient India. And the idea is that upon death, the soul makes a, a leap to the heavens, and where it specifically leaps to is the Milky Way. And this is referred to in many cultures as the path of souls, and it's... The deceased individual then... or the soul of the deceased individual then makes a journey along the path of souls, and there will be confronted with all the errors and mistakes, and also all the good that that person's done.
- CWChris Williamson
Like a judgment day.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's like a judgment scene. And, and, and that judgment is represented by, by monstrous beings and locked gates that you have to be able to confront. And, and this idea is just found all around the world, and it's one of the reasons, one of the reasons that I find very persuasive to the notion that we've lost an episode of the human story. I don't think this is a coincidence that this i-... I think we're looking at the remnant of a very ancient spiritual system which was passed down in many different parts of the globe and, and subsequently reinterpreted and developed by the people it was passed-
- CWChris Williamson
You're saying that because it sounds like there's echoes of that in some modern religions, that you don't think they've independently arisen separately. You think that it's a single lineage.
- GHGraham Hancock
I, I think it's a s- a single lineage, yeah. I think w- when we come to specific ideas like that, uh, plus the, um, a- a- availability and the focus upon and the sacred nature of specific numbers, uh, in many different cultures around the world, uh, is-
- CWChris Williamson
What, like?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, um, there's a p- there's a phenomenon which has been very important in my work over the last 30 years called the, the precession of the equinoxes. Um, and, uh, it, it, it's, it's not a phenomenon that e- that everybody knows about, so I'll, I'll, I'll try to explain it. It's actually an observable effect, but it's hardly observable within a human lifetime. Um, if you... The best way to observe it, if you could extend your life by a few hundred years and just stay, just be at the same spot every spring equinox when the sun rises perfectly due east, and you be there before dawn, a good hour before dawn, a constellation of the zodiac is gonna be lying on the horizon in the place where the sun rises. And that constellation was seen by ancient cultures as, as housing the sun, uh, on the equinox, and it defined the character of an age. Um, but if you could be there for several hundred years, you would notice that it's gradually shifting along the horizon, and eventually another constellation will slip into place behind the sun on that same key day.
- CWChris Williamson
And what's happening there from an, uh, uh, astronomical perspective?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, what's happen- what's happening is the earth is our viewing platform from which we observe the stars, and not only is it rotating on its own axis, as we know, but it's also wobbling. And that w- and that wobble, uh, one of the most noticeable effects over long periods of time is it changes the pole star. So because the... What is the pole star except the star that the extended north pole of the earth points most directly at? Uh, and at the moment, it's Polaris, but it's been Thuban. It's been Draco. It's been many other stars in the, in, in, in... Thuban is in the constellation of Draco in the past.
- CWChris Williamson
(clears throat) What's the cycle? How long does it take for you to get back?
- GHGraham Hancock
25,920 years. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) I'm glad that you know it.
- GHGraham Hancock
25,920 years, and, uh, the process unfolds at the rate of one degree every 72 years. Uh, so that is-
- CWChris Williamson
It's gonna be tough to track in the space of a 72-year lifetime.
- GHGraham Hancock
It is. It is. So you need, you need long-term observation, you need record keeping, and you need the information being passed on from, from generation to generation. But sooner or later, you're going to notice. If you're an avid watcher of the heavens and if these things matter to you as they did to ancient cultures, you're gonna notice that this is shifting along the horizon. Whether you've gotta figure out exactly why that observable is happening, that's another matter which I can't give you a definite answer on. But that the o- that the, the observable was observed going back a very long way into the past is, is clear. And, and, uh, I can't touch on this subject without paying tribute to the work of Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Deschend. Uh, Giorgio was the professor of the history of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology back in the 1960s at a time when I think people were more open-minded than they are today. And Hertha was a professor of the history of science at Frankfurt University, and they published this, um, astonishing, groundbreaking book called Hamlet's Mill. Um, and Hamlet's Mill, uh, is about the ancient recognition of precession. They completely dis- th- these are leading academic figures. They completely dismiss the notion that the Greeks discovered precession just 2,000 or 2,300 years ago. They're confident that it goes back thousands of years before that, and they trace it back to what they call some almost unbelievable ancestor civilization. Uh, the fact that this is found all around the world in many, many different cultures.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
Classic example, the, uh, bridge between... The, the bridge over the, the moat leading to Angkor Thom in the Angkor complex has 54 statues on either side, and each of those is pulling on the, uh, the body of a serpent. Uh, and, and if you add 54 to 54, you get 108. Uh, 108 is 72 plus 36, half of 72. 72 is the heartbeat of the precessional cycle. Uh, and then there's precessional imagery. What they're doing by pulling on that serpent is they're churning the milky ocean, uh-There's also reliefs in Angkor Wat which show the same scene, but in, on Angkor Thom, it's actually in three dimensions. They're churning the milky ocean, uh, and- and as a result, they're producing the Amrita, the elixir of immortality. But that churning motion, that's why the book is called Hamlet's Mill, um, Lody's Mill. That same idea of something whirling and turning and changing is locked symbolically into this number system, uh, all around the world.
- CWChris Williamson
What are some of the other numbers? You mentioned 108.
- GHGraham Hancock
The- they're all multiples of 72 or additions to 72, which are related to the number 72, like 72 plus 36, being 108, is a processional number. It's a very widely respected number found in sacred traditions all around the world. Uh, 43- 43,200, uh, is another processional number. Th- that's 72 times 600. Um, and- and, uh, that is a number that's found everywhere. There are 432,000 syllables in the Rigveda. Uh, it's the same number again and again, the same, based on the same system of ideas that- that keeps on coming up.
- CWChris Williamson
What were the numbers that the Mayans were obsessed by?
- GHGraham Hancock
The Mayans were very much involved in the equinoxes and in processional numbers, but they were also going far beyond that. They were plumbing the depths of time. They were- the- the- the- I can't think of any other ancient culture which- which had a focus on periods that were millions of years.
- CWChris Williamson
The five million year.
- GHGraham Hancock
It's a- it's a really quite remarkable thing. And- and- and they could tell you- they could tell you- (laughs) they could tell you what the phase of the moon was on a particular day five or ten million years ago.
- 1:01:43 – 1:11:45
The Psychology of Ancient Humans
- CWChris Williamson
say, so let's just linger on that for a second because, you know, I- I've heard you on Joe's show and talking about this for a long time.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I always think about, uh, you kn- that's magical. Like, it sounds to me... Like, it's, it's so cool.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
That's so beautiful. I- it's evidently something sacred. It's taken this sort of lovely blend of art-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and astronomy and archeology and, uh, architecture and all, all of this together. But can you just think for a second about what the psychology of those humans was like? Like, what, what's their relationship to this thing?
- GHGraham Hancock
As above, so below. Uh, it's as simple as that. The, the, um... There was an ancient system in the old world, uh, developed out of ancient Egypt called the, the, the Hermetic tradition. The, the god, the Greek figure Hermes is a Greek version of the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom Thoth. Uh, and in the Hermetica texts attributed to Hermes-Thoth, uh, there is this phrase, "As above, so below." And that, what that phrase is saying is that it is our burden and our responsibility to replicate upon the earth the perfection and beauty and magnificence of the heavens, uh, that if we fall out of harmony with the heavens, if we disconnect from the heavens, uh, we fall to pieces. Uh, and, and, and we must constantly maintain and reinforce and honor and respect our connection to the wider universe. That's what "As above, so below" is about. That's why I a- and the brilliant genius discoverer of the Orion correlation theory, Robert Bauval, um, are, uh, reject completely the, uh, skeptical attitude of Egyptologists. What Robert Bauval discovered was that the three great pyramids on the ground at Giza replicate the three stars of the belt of a constellation of Orion, uh, in the sky, um, but th- they don't do so precisely in 2,500 BC when the pyramids are supposed to have been built. The perfect match is, uh, in 10,500 because-
- CWChris Williamson
Because of wobble?
- GHGraham Hancock
... because of the precessional wobble, exactly. That's right. They're, they're building precession, and they're using precession, they're using the language of astronomy and massive architecture to memorialize a particular date. Does that mean that the whole Giza complex was built 12 and a half thousand years ago? No. Uh, but it does mean that it's memorializing a date as 12 and a half thousand years, just like any Western cathedral, uh, may be memorializing events that took place in the time of Abraham, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GHGraham Hancock
It, it doesn't mean that they were built in the time of Abraham. D- I do think the, the, the Great Sphinx, uh, does date back 12 and a half thousand years. I think we're, we're looking at a, a complex that's been developed and, uh, uh, increasingly refined over very, very long period of time.
- CWChris Williamson
Why that site in Egypt?
- GHGraham Hancock
Uh, well, it, there, there are multiple sites around the world that are referred to as navels of the earth, and, and, uh, Giza is one of them. Uh, I would suggest that it was the ancient prime meridian. Just as the prime meridian in our time for just reasons of the British Empire passes through Greenwich, uh, I think in ancient times, it passed, it passed through Giza. Now, um, other benefits of the Giza Plateau, uh, it is, uh, situated at, uh, 30 degrees north latitude, give or take a tiny fraction. And 30 degrees north latitude is one-third of the way between the equator and the North Pole, uh, so it's not a random location. And furthermore, if you go into the, um, into the, uh, broad expanse of Giza in, in its place on the earth as a whole, uh, you find that it's dead center of the largest area of exposed land, uh, on, on earth. Uh, so, so it's, it's, it's interesting for that respect. And then, and then you build upon it an enormous pyramid weighing six million tons with, uh, precise orientation to true astronomical north, true astronomical south, true astronomical east, and true astronomical west. Um, that, uh, that is saying whatever this thing is, it is speaking to the earth. The earth, the earth's its focus, uh, it is locked into the cardinal directions of our planet. And then we find... And again, of course, my opponents in archeology scoff at this, they accept that it's the case. Even Flint Dibble, who I debated with on the Joe Rogan Experience in April 2024, even he accepted this, but he mocked it and thought that it was just a coincidence. But it is a fact that if you take the height of the Great Pyramid and multiply it by, guess what, 43,200, it's one of those precessional numbers, it's not a random number. If it was, you know, 64 thou- 1 to 64,000, I wouldn't think much of it, but it's 1 to 43,200. If you take the height of the Great Pyramid, the original height, it's lost about 30 feet from its top, if you take the height and multiply it by 43,200, you get the polar radius of the earth. And if you measure the base perimeter of the Great Pyramid and multiply it by 43,200, you get the equatorial circumference of the earth. So, uh, here we have a monument that is speaking to the earth, that is locked into the earth's astronomical cardinal directions, and then models the earth on a scale defined by a motion of the earth itself.You know, that is a- as above, so below. That and- and that is what I think governs these, uh, arrangements all around the world, uh, a- a- a- a wish and a desire to lock humanity into the cosmos and- and to make us realize that- that, uh, we're part of something much larger than ourselves.
- CWChris Williamson
Staying hydrated can be boring, but it doesn't need to be. The problem is that most hydration beverages are filled with sugar and loads of ingredients that you can't pronounce, which is why I'm such a massive fan of LMNT. It contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium with no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, or any other BS. Drinking LMNT every single morning is how I've started my day for over three years now. The reason that I keep talking about LMNT is that it makes a massive difference to the way that I feel, to my energy levels. It helps me to regulate my appetite, it curbs cravings, and it improves my brain function, and there is a no BS, no questions asked refund policy. So if you're not sure, if you're thinking, "God, Chris won't shut up about this. I might give it a try," you can do that. And if you do not like it for any reason, they will give you your money back and you don't even need to return the box, so it is completely risk-free. You can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to DrinkLMNT.com/ModernWisdom. That's DrinkLMNT.com/ModernWisdom. I was in, uh, South Florida about a month ago- Yeah. ... uh, recording some episodes, and there was this spectacular lightning storm going on. It was pitch black at night, and we were driving back from dinner or whatever.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, South Florida obviously recently had some pretty intense weather, but being British, we... it's just gray.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, I'm used to, I'm used to fierce gray-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, a very mild sort of damp, uh, climate. And, uh, just driving back, it's one of those storms where the moon is full and is rising and these lightning storms... and it's off over on the, uh, on the coast, on the ocean. And I remember thinking, imagine that you were a pre-historic human tribe-
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... individual, whatever, looking out. It... you would be so certain that the gods were mad at you, that you had done something.
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You're like, "I knew I shouldn't have touched myself last night when I went to bed. I knew that I shouldn't have told that lie."
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"I knew that I shouldn't have stolen that fig."
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Whatever it is that you, you know, oh, oh m- m- maybe something a- awful is gonna h- whatever it might be.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- 1:11:45 – 1:26:59
How Dreadful Was the Younger Dryas?
- CWChris Williamson
the apocalypse bit?
- GHGraham Hancock
Well, the apocalypse bit is that the Younger Dryas, it's a, it's a cli- tha- that's a name given by climatologists to an episode of really weird climate that took place at the end of the last Ice Age. They call it the Younger Dryas after a species of alpine flower that flourishes in extremely cold weather. Uh, what happened, to cut a long story short, is that down to about 12,800 years ago, give or take a- a century, the... because you can't be that precise with these definitions, the, uh, the earth was definitely emerging from the Ice Age. It was, it was getting warm, um, and- and, uh, things were looking good. Uh, it was... uh, uh, it felt like that 100,000 years of frozen world was coming to an end. And then suddenly, it flipped completely, uh, and- and, uh, you have sudden sea level rise, you have a plunge in global temperature, so that suddenly, almost overnight, it is as cold as it was as the absolute peak of the last Ice Age. This happens suddenly, and it happens right around the world. Worse, of course, in northern and deep southern latitudes and much less vicious in its effects in tropical and equatorial zones, but- but a- a- a massive, massive event. This is the time, precisely that window, when all the big mega fauna of the Ice Age go extinct. The saber-toothed tigers, mastodons, mammoths. When we were at White Sands, by the way, it was just amazing to see these mammoth footprints still in the sand there.
- CWChris Williamson
Are they big?
- GHGraham Hancock
They're very big. These things have got a huge stride.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you been following the work of Ben Lamott, Colossal? Have you seen this?
- GHGraham Hancock
No, I haven't.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so they are bringing back woolly mammoths.... uh-
- GHGraham Hancock
I've seen that. Yes, I have. I have.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So Ben was o- Ben was on the show, and maybe talking about actually being involved with the project a little bit. Um, just to tangent off before you tell us more about Younger Dryas, the reason... Do you know w- one of the reasons that they're looking at bringing them back? That they can... They think that by putting them in the higher latitudes, these animals will be able to compact down the snow and reflect back more sun.
- GHGraham Hancock
Interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
So they'll be able to use a extinct species to help combat modern global warming.
- GHGraham Hancock
(laughs) That's a very fancy idea.
- CWChris Williamson
It's ama- I mean, it's... The, the, they're farmers, they're farm animals-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... in a way that they will eat seeds from here and poop them over there, which will help to-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... spread things around. So the other two, I asked him, "What else are you working on?" So he's got this... Uh, the way they're doing it, it's the Asian elephant. So they've taken, um, all of these frozen samples of, uh, genetic material.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They're then using AI to splice in the gaps.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So there will be... At some point, there will be an Asian elephant that gives birth to a woolly mammoth-
- GHGraham Hancock
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
... when they're ready-
- GHGraham Hancock
Amazing.
- CWChris Williamson
... because it's the closest genetic relative-
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that they can get. But the other one, and this is so cool, I, I, I really loved this idea from Ben, he said that... I was like, "Wha- what, what else do you wanna bring back?" Like, you know, saber-toothed tiger, that's pretty cool.
- GHGraham Hancock
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and he said, "Dodo bird." I'm like, "I mean, it's a meme. Why would you bring back the d-"
- GHGraham Hancock
Yeah, the-
Episode duration: 2:04:44
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode kM5rz6yyPeM
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome