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Ancient Apocalypse Season 2 Review - Part 2 - Ep 292
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This is the second half of our conversation about Season 2 of Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix. If you haven’t heard the first part, you will want to listen to that first. In this episode we cover the rest of the episodes and give our final thoughts on Graham Hancocks “theories.”
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts head over to https://archpodnet.com/archaeology/292
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- Chris Webster
chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com - Rachel Roden
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Introduction to Ancient Apocalypse Review
00:00:04
Speaker
You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode 292. Today's show is part two of a review of season two of the Netflix show, Ancient Apocalypse. Let's dig a little deeper, Graham Hancock. Told you we dig deep. We do dig deep.
Recap of Episode One from Lake Habs
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome to The Archaeology Show. Oh. So this is our part two for Ancient Apocalypse. If you didn't hear part one, then go listen to it, I guess. Yeah, you'll probably want to hear it because yeah we're going to kind of just pick up right where we left off. Yeah. Yeah.
00:00:51
Speaker
But a little bit about where we are, I don't know if we were here last week when we recorded or not, but we are still in Lake Habs, Mississippi. Oh yeah, we did talk about it, yeah didn't we? yeah Because we did a whole episode on the London Bridge last year when we were here. Yeah, and we talked about that. so yeah um yeah But we're still here, moving on to you know other places this weekend. so yeah yeah yeah All right. Well, with that, I think we're just going to jam right on into it. So on the first episode of this podcast, this ah part one, we actually only talked about really a lot about our thoughts on the show. and And we were kind of not really doing a point by point of the episodes, but we really only got through episode two yeah in our discussion. And we're going to get through the rest of this on this recording. but
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah. And then a little more of our thoughts on the show near the end. Yeah.
Skepticism Towards Hancock's Theories
00:01:40
Speaker
I mean, and just to recap, like if you haven't heard episode one, we fully think this show is worth watching and you just have to be careful and skeptical of the conclusions that Graham Hancock comes to at the end of each section. But otherwise up to those points, it's a really great feature of really cool archeological sites. Yeah. Speaking of in episode three, Let's talk about sexy woman. No, although I still don't know how to pronounce it. It's sex a woman. Yeah, spelled S A C S A Y H U A M A N. Yes. And I was super excited to see this one on the show so because I've actually been there. Yeah. This site is in Peru. It is near Cusco. And it is a really, really cool site. And Peru is just covered in cool sites, right? Especially in the Cusco area, which Cusco is your access point up to Machu Picchu. But there are just so many cool archaeological sites there.
Sacsayhuamán's Architecture vs. Ancient Theories
00:02:37
Speaker
The Incas were just crazy builders. They did so so many cool things. So I guess it's not too surprising that something they did would come up on this show.
00:02:47
Speaker
One of the things that always comes up at this site, not just with Graham Hancock, is the amazing rocks, the the architecture here, these rocks that have been fitted into shape. And they're so perfectly fitted to what to each other, and there's no space in between them. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of stone architecture around the world, I mean, even the pyramids at Egypt,
00:03:10
Speaker
you can kind of see some imperfections, right? These are huge stone blocks in a lot of cases, and it's just really hard to get that right. right because this Especially when they're not using like a mortar of any sort. This is just fitting rocks together. I don't think there's anything to smooth or join them in between like we do in our more modern architecture. yeah yeah It's just really hard to do that. yeah And these are especially good and probably the best examples of this in the entire planet. And it's just people come here and they're like, well, I mean, you couldn't have done this with rock. You couldn't have done this with you know primitive technology. And like we don't know specifically how they did it because obviously it happened too long ago. We don't have a record. It was before the Spanish got there. So there's no written record of how it happened. So therefore,
00:03:57
Speaker
You know, somebody must have given them this knowledge if you're somebody like Graham Hancock. so Well, and there have been plenty of other shows like Ancient Aliens and things like that that have said it must have been alien technology. I'm always fascinated that aliens still work in stone, personally.
00:04:11
Speaker
but I've never even thought about that. But ah why yeah, why use stone? Why didn't aliens leave any spaceships behind or any metal buildings? Right. They really picked and choose. And you know everything they left behind it perfectly corresponds to the culture that used that stuff. So of course.
00:04:29
Speaker
But Graham Hancock is saying that the people here, you know the Inca built on top of an older, more advanced civilization, yeah and and either used or had the technology handed down to them from this other civilization, with actually no evidence for that whatsoever, aside from the fact that later structures and later i guess technological building techniques and things like that did not in fact use this.
Emergence of Unique Architectural Styles
00:04:56
Speaker
yeah you know and it's true We can probably explain this anomaly, if you will. By the way, we can explain other anomalies in the world. it's like For example, how many Picassos are out there?
00:05:08
Speaker
How many, let's look at art, right? Like how many Picassas are out there? How many, ah go to go to music? How many Beethovens are out there? These are unique anomalies in the world of their particular specialty, right? Go to math, how many, you know, go to physics, go to these different things. How many Newton's are out there? How many Darwin's are out there? Not very many, right? yeah Well, how many crazy, smart, super hyper accurate, like sculpturists and carvers are out there?
00:05:37
Speaker
Well, there was this guy or probably woman, probably a guy though, let's be honest, in the Inca civilization that was just super awesome at carving rocks yeah or directing people to carve rocks. And he managed to do this thing or or direct people to do this thing that has stood the test of time.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah. And what is unique about Sacsay Waman in particular is that these rocks are not uniform in size or shape. Yeah. Right. So you don't have. It's like Tetris. Yeah, exactly. You don't have these neat little lines of rocks marching across and rows, which actually is easier to do because you shape the rock first and you know that they're all going to fit together because they're all the same shape. What they were doing was taking these differently sized rocks and fitting them together and I just feel like it could just be a combination of resource availability and ingenious sculptor or architect, like what you're talking about, and and just to this this maelstrom of events coming together that produced a group of people who could create this structural style. And maybe it didn't it didn't happen anywhere else in the Inkin Empire. You didn't have those people. You didn't have that that those rocks. You didn't have that need, whatever the need was. yeah
00:06:47
Speaker
And that's why it didn't happen again. But I don't think that we need to say that it was passed down from some kind of older civilization or whoever. That that is making a leap. It's just going way into speculation, which is not OK. Well, that that's his MO, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah, that's what he does. Right. So moving on, but staying in Peru, ah the next episode, episode four, heads over to above Cusco to the Temple of the Moon. So what's what's this all about?
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah. Because you were, I'm kind of kind of defer to you on these because you kind of went to Peru. Well, I did, but I didn't make it to the temple of the moon. Unfortunately, I really wish I had, but like I said, there's just like stuff all over Peru and you kind of have to pick and choose when you're there it because you can't see everything. But this was really cool. And so it was new to me. So this is another one where I was like, oh, cool, like learning new archeological sites. I love that. and And it was a temple sort of built into a hillside, and it definitely was used by the Incan, by the Incans, according to the show. I didn't do any outside research on this, but according to the show, it was definitely used by the Incans, but it wasn't necessarily built by them.
00:07:54
Speaker
And that to Graham Hancock means older advanced ah civilization. sure But I'm like, could older just be like a hundred years earlier or like 200 years earlier? Like, why does it have to be 10,000 years older before the Younger Dryas? I mean, it could even be a thousand years older, but it doesn' it doesn't necessarily mean more advanced. Yeah.
Peruvian Sites and Ancient Civilizations
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, but he is talking about the technology, the stone technology at at the site. Or no, this moves on to another site. Yeah, he kind of rapid-fired through a whole bunch of sites in Peru. That's right. And this was yet another one where they're talking about this older stone technology in Kenco, I think it is. yeah Q, apostrophe E, NCO. And you know in his discussion about the site, he thinks that the expertly crafted stones are higher quality and therefore is an older technology from a lost civilization. Again, that's what he just keeps going back to. And I again go back to like, it's a combination of resources and people in a place. So like, why couldn't the Incans have had two different styles? Maybe one was for ritual importance. Maybe one was for everyday use. Maybe one was where a certain group of people were in power and they really pushed this certain style because they liked it.
00:09:09
Speaker
I mean, yeah humans are still humans. They like some things. They don't like other things. They have access to this resource, but not that one. like It's just ridiculous that you you dismiss all of those options in favor of ancient older technology.
00:09:25
Speaker
And the the the fact that we're seeing these buildings, if you will, these structures, a better term today, and we know obviously they were around 1,000, 2,000 or more years ago. I mean, if I'm walking around the landscape and Times are tough and I see something sitting there that looks like a perfectly decent structure And I'm just gonna clear it out and use it for myself for my own purposes. Yeah, I'm just gonna do that right Yeah, and and especially if you know, maybe in one generation that structure has some some bad news going on with it But you forget that yeah. Yeah, you know, it doesn't necessarily get passed out.
Amazonian Discoveries and Human Adaptation
00:10:02
Speaker
Right, and maybe it does, but a thousand years goes by. yeah and you know That's a long time. It's a long time. Yeah, people forget. Yeah, so for sure. I mean, look at Stonehenge. Thousands of years of occupation, yeah but it wasn't necessarily the same group every single time. It was just people found it and used it in different ways. Yeah.
00:10:19
Speaker
Okay, so another really cool part of the this series of episodes, which was episodes like three and four, where they're in Peru, they go back to Saxei Waman. And they cover the cool theories about how this sort of melted together look of the stone could have been constructed. And one of the theories, and this is so cool, I just didn't even know about this, but one of the theories is that they might have softened this stone using very, very high heat.
00:10:48
Speaker
and then put the stones together while they were super, super hot. yeah And then as they cooled, they would sort of form to each other. And I just love that. I think that is such a cool theory and it makes sense because they really do look like melted together. So... I wonder if anybody's tried that though. Yeah, he was talking to one researcher in the show. It might... I'm not sure what kind of experimental archaeology they've done with that to see how it could work, but the concept makes complete sense.
00:11:17
Speaker
The concept is whether or not they could control and create that kind of heat while managing the stone and then placing it into place becomes more of a logistical problem. It does. Not that they couldn't have done it. right you know it's just The logistics of that become pretty challenging. Yeah, and the way these stones are melted together, like I can't imagine you only heat... Well, a pure melted together. Yeah, a pure melted together, sorry. They are actually melted together.
00:11:41
Speaker
But I can't imagine you would only heat one side of the rock at a time because you're trying to fit it together, so you'd have to be heating multiple sides of multiple rocks at the same time you know so that they're the same temperature and can do this fusing thing. but so yeah Is there any possibility that after the stones were put together,
Influence of Ancient Technology in the Amazon?
00:11:58
Speaker
like any sort of you know i mean is it is it softer volcanic rock where water could have been used to make it look like that now?
00:12:05
Speaker
maybe I wonder. yeah yeah I mean, people have thought about all this. Yeah, they have there's a lot of experts down there that put a lot of time and effort into coming up with these theories and testing things. And, you know, Graham Hancock swoops in and is like, it's way too advanced for the Incas. It must be must have been handed down information from a much more ancient society. Yeah. ah yeah No, the Incas were really awesome. right They definitely could have figured this out themselves. Just the way the Egyptians figured out how to build pyramids.
00:12:34
Speaker
Well, on the concept of everything is awesome, let's take a break and come back on the other side and keep talking about this back in a minute. Welcome back to episode 292 of The Archaeology Show, and we're talking about Ancient Apocalypse season two. This is part two. Don't forget to go listen to part one. All right, so. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:55
Speaker
I think the show lost me a little bit as we move into these next couple topics. It lost me a little bit at the end of episode four and then it definitely lost me in episode five. But the next thing that they do is say they they stay in Peru, but they move over to the Amazon, which is in like the northern part of Peru or back to the Amazon. or back to the Amazon because yeah they had been there earlier. They go back to this whole like finding lost cities in the jungle thing using Lidar which we already talked about in part one and how cool that is and yeah it's great it's good archaeology like they're finding really cool things there so that's awesome. Yeah imagine how much if we're gonna put a ah silver lining on something as we keep cutting down the jungles in the Amazon imagine how much we're gonna find. Well the great part about Lidar is that you don't have to cut the jungles down down. You can just like sort of see through the trees. so But it's funny how Amazon, the online marketplace, and all of our relentless spending on there is causing the cutting down of the actual Amazon. Isn't that funny? Yeah, yeah it's hilarious, yeah really. anyway
00:13:57
Speaker
anyway So this next section of the show goes into some crazy theories about the Amazon in general. And it starts with finding a complex that was previously unknown in Ecuador, it dates to about 2500 BCE, which is super old in the Amazon. And the Amazon, as they explained in the show, is completely unsuitable for farming and agriculture.
00:14:24
Speaker
it would be very difficult to sustain a large population on just the soil there the way it is, yeah right? yeah So, sure, that's true. It's still true today, right? So, yes, the the soil is not usable. However, when humans move into the Amazon yeah and they start living there. They start making trash, right? And it gets dropped in the ground. And as humans do, they generally put their trash in the same place because they don't want it in their houses. So kind of trash pit type of things happen in various places around a civilization or a community.
00:15:02
Speaker
And what happens is those trash pits, basically, they become what they call dark soil. And it's fertile because it's full of this organic material that they have discarded. right And so they find these patches of fertile dark soil near sites of human occupation. And it seems like there is this accidental discovery by humans that they could make their own fertile soil just by throwing stuff away. And that they could then use that to sustain their population. so It's a really cool thing and they talked to a ah scientist in Ecuador who is studying this and it's just really cool how they're finding these patches in the way, like human ingenuity, right? Like they would see this different soil, realize they could use it, and then by using it, they made more of that soil and they were able to keep sustaining themselves and and yeah almost like bring those communities up.
00:15:52
Speaker
As the size increased so yeah kind of like ah rotating crops really you know you grow something in one spot, and then you you leave it for a little while because the I mean that that is kind of what we do with rotating crops if I'm not mistaken like you you don't grow something in a place for a little while because the Remains of the crops will help fertilize that soil as it breaks down right into the land so this is a very similar thing except Not exactly. They're just taking their, that because their trash wasn't plastic and you know wires and metal. Their trash was organic. yeah yeah And the reason they know that these dark soil patches are from human-like trash is because they'll find bits of pottery in there with it too.
00:16:35
Speaker
So they definitely know that it did come from from humans and probably they're finding lithics and stuff in there too if I had to guess, but they talked about the pottery specifically. So again, that's not some kind of knowledge that was handed down from an ancient civilization. It was just like, it was a happenstance kind of the way people figured out how to ferment beverages too by accident at some point in the distant past. They accidentally figured out how to make the soil work and grow things in the Amazon.
Art Interpretations and Cultural Biases
00:17:00
Speaker
yeah And they're also finding that around some of these like jungle cities, so to speak, that some of the trees around these cities are actually trees that are more useful ah humans than say trees that are in other places, right right, in the jungle. And Graham Hancock is speculating that the trees were planted and cultivated by humans. So ridiculous.
00:17:21
Speaker
Now, I'm not necessarily going to honestly disagree with that. I mean, if you find something is more useful to you, you're going to want it closer to you. But that doesn't mean that they didn't either build these cities and places that were advantageous to them because, hey, there's a bunch of stuff here. yeah Let's put our city near a water. Well, let's build up our village into a city more likely is what happened. So they're going to build up your your're youre you know your area, your village, your city, in a place where you've got more resources like trees that are advantageous for use and plants and things that are helpful. And also, when you start doing that and you start learning how to manage and cultivate, yeah you are going to start planting and doing things, right? yeah
00:18:04
Speaker
I think what his theory is, and this is why it was so wild to me, is that it wasn't the current, not current, but like the thousands of years ago populations in the Amazon that figured that out. It was this tens of thousands of years ago population. Why does it have to be that? yeah That's it that is my question throughout this entire series is why does it have to be them? But that's his theory is that they're the ones that figured it out ten twenty thirty thousand years ago. They replanted the entire Amazon to be species of trees and plants that are useful to humans and that's why There's so many of them in the Amazon and I'm like there's just so many other things yeah yes humans could have directed that a little bit but I Also, maybe they just grow there naturally too, right? Maybe humans just figured out that these specific trees do things and there happened to be a lot of them there. I just, it's such a reach. That was, that theory was just so wild to me. He really super, lot I mean, he had already lost me in the very beginning, but like that was like, it's like not even archeology at that point. Not really, you know? Yeah. He really lost me with that one.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah, and staying in Peru, going into episode five, we start talking about ayahuasca, yeah which people have probably heard of, the hallucinogenic concoction of roots and leaves that and goes back lots thousands of years. Thousands of years, yeah. We have evidence for a long time. and Great. Good. Let's study that evidence.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah. There's some pre-Inkin art at Tiwanaku in Bolivia that Graham Hancock describes as likely inspired by hallucinogenic visions because it is colorful and chaotic. And in his brain, that means it comes from drugs. But I feel like that's a very like Western white person viewpoint, right? Like just because your preferred artistic style is not colorful and chaotic, doesn't mean that somebody else's preference for it means that it comes from drugs.
Debate on Lost Civilizations' Influence
00:20:01
Speaker
yeah That's how that came across to me is what he was saying.
00:20:04
Speaker
The way he described it does come across that way. yeah and if you And if you don't do it with some sort of ethnographic evidence, then it's just going to come across as some kind of wild, crazy opinion. I mean, the fact is, though, that yeah i mean I produce and I've heard every single episode of the Rock Art podcast. And there have been a lot of people interviewed on there talking about shamanistic creation of yeah rock art. yeah And there's been a lot of you know shamans in various cultures yeah that You know, they do have hallucinogenic it's true yeah ideas and things like that, and they do use that to produce the rock art, right? Yeah. So that's not totally wild. It's just the way that he does it. Yeah, the way he talked about it was just like so cringy and gross. But also what's that have to do with any sort of pre, you know, advanced civilization? What do they have to do with it? Because that's this whole theory. It's to hand it down knowledge because the ayahuasca and the way you create it and everything is is complicated, so dot, dot, dot. The the native populations of Peru couldn't have figured that out on them on their own. That's what he's saying, because he's saying rock art showing Ice Age animals is also chaotic and created under the influence of ayahuasca, yeah meaning they had mastered this complex chemistry to produce ayahuasca because it's not apparently easy to do yeah during the last Ice Age. And there's no way that those those
00:21:25
Speaker
cave people. Ice Age era, yeah. There's no way they could have done that. There's no way they could have figured it out. out yeah Had to have come down. ah just His whole deal is you people are stupid. I know it really is. It's so disrespectful for these cultures. and yeah And he approaches all these conversations with such reverence and he brings in native people to talk about the like how they feel about things and and what they think the rock art means and that kind of stuff.
00:21:52
Speaker
And it seems like he's being so respectful from and yeah an anthropological perspective to these cultures. And then he goes down this road and basically says that that their ancestors weren't smart enough to figure this out, so it must have been somebody else. And that is the complete opposite. i just it's so ah yeah That stuff really, really gets to me because ancient people were so, so much smarter than anybody gives them credit for, in particular this guy.
Hopewell and Chaco Canyon Sites
00:22:21
Speaker
all right Well, we're going to take our final break, and then we'll finish this off with a couple of sites in North America, and then the Mayan calendar, of course. You can't end this without talking about the Mayan calendar, and then also our final thoughts. I mean, my last note was like honestly too exhausted to even talk about it. I know, and we we actually did a whole episode on the, which which involved the Mayan calendar and all that stuff, I think when we talked about we talked about time zones and things like that. We did a while back. Oh, leap year. Yeah, leap year. I think it was leap year. Something like that. Anyway, we'll talk about that on the other side of the break. Yeah. Back in a minute.
00:22:57
Speaker
Welcome back to the archeology show episode two 92 segment three, and we're finishing up our discussion on ancient apocalypse season two part two. And now we're heading up to North America. Yep. And it's actually two sites that, well, I know I've been to Hopewell. Yeah, we've been, you've been to Hopewell? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Hopewell's in Ohio, right? We went together. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Do you not remember going with me? I mean, I know I've been there. I still remember when. You've only been to Ohio with me, so obviously I was with you. Uh, yeah, sure. We've been to Chillicothe, too. We went to the one right outside of St. Louis, the big mound. Cahokia. Cahokia, yep, that one. Sorry, names. That big old city. That big old mound city.
00:23:46
Speaker
And then Chaco Canyon as well. Yes. Yeah. He also talked about Chaco Canyon. So actually he really only briefly touched on Hopewall. And I think it was a way to connect North America and South America. That's what he was trying to do with this jump up to North America. And basically Hopewall, it was a mound city that dates to about 2,200 years ago. And the big thing in the episode was that the earthworks there are similar in shape to the ones found in the Amazon. Yeah.
00:24:16
Speaker
And that's true. There's like the the circular shapes and the square shapes and stuff like that. right Accurate. What I could not get past though, is that in the United States, these are mounds. They are mounted up dirt, creating these shapes, right? And all of these mountain sites, that's why they're called mountain sites. yeah They are mounted up dirt. and But the earthworks in the Amazon are are ditches, it looks like. like they're At least the ones in the show. Yeah, the ones in the show look like ditches dug into the earth. So I guess now that I'm talking that out, maybe it was just a the way that the image looked on the aerial made it look like a ditch. And they never touched on that and explained it. So it looked like a ditch to me. Maybe that's where they got the dirt for the mounds. Oh my God. hard They carded it up from the Amazon. but That's the connection. So totally worth it to bring it up an entire continent. Oh my God. Only an advanced civilization could have accomplished that feat. Oh God. Yeah. but Anyway, so that's what they talked about there. And I think that that was used as a transition to get the show up to ah to the Northern area. Because of course, as we know at this point, according to, as we call him, GH in our notes, yeah
00:25:28
Speaker
It can't be, you know, that they developed these geometric shapes independent of one another. No, no, no. There must have been some kind of yeah ancient ancient knowledge, shared ancient knowledge. Must have been. Must have been. yeah Sure. And he went into Chaco Canyon and Chaco Canyon is in the southwestern United States. Yep. And it's super cool. We've been there. Yeah. I love that they went to some places that we had been because it gives us that like personal perspective. Yeah, Chaco Canyon is really cool because there's a ton of ah really cool Native American well structures, town little pueblos, yeah for lack of a better way to say it, that you can hike to. One of them you don't actually have to hike to, it's right near the visitor center, yeah and it's called Pueblo Bonito, and it's actually the biggest one that's there.
00:26:14
Speaker
When you like mentally think of Chaco Canyon, that's what you're envisioning. It's Pueblo Bonito. It's that like semi-circle, half-circle shape with all the different rooms. And there are all these circular rooms throughout it too. So it's just a really cool structure. Aren't those the kivas? Yeah, maybe they're kivas. That's probably what they're called. Yeah. So yeah, Chaco Canyon. yeah Now why did Graham Hancock go there? Right.
00:26:40
Speaker
He goes there because, first of all, he says that the city itself confounds interpretation. That's a direct quote from him. I'm like, does it though? It's a really confound interpretation. The thing that is weird about this site, this the thing that is different, let's not use the word weird, different, is that it is a giant structure, right? It was built around 850 CE and it took around 200, they began building it around 850 CE and it took around 200 years to complete.
00:27:10
Speaker
But there isn't evidence of long-term occupation of people at this site. yeah There's none of the trash dumps and the kind of things that you find when people live somewhere for a long time. So it seems to have been more of a ritual location or a seasonal location or a place that people went to periodically for shorter amounts of time.
Mysteries of Chaco Canyon's Purpose?
00:27:29
Speaker
So that does make it a little bit different, especially with the amount of effort that went into building this yeah city or Pueblo. Well, there's there's a lot of There's a lot of speculation around Chaco Canyon to begin with. There is. yeah And in fact, if you want to know more, go to the Archaeology Podcast Network website and on our main page, scroll down a bit. There's a show called, I think it it think it's down in our our archive shows section possibly, I can't remember, called Sight Bites. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's something that Carlton Gover started, could Dr. Carlton Gover, I should say. He's got his own show for the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast, but yeah he intended to, and he might continue this, but he's doing one off little series and he did one on Chaco Canyon. That was about five episodes.
00:28:12
Speaker
But there's all kinds of research into the Chacoan road network, which are basically these really wide swaths of you know relatively straight paths leading to Chaco Canyon from elsewhere. And then there's all these little outlier communities and there's a whole bunch of things. But the thing about Chaco Canyon is, yeah, they did seem to abandon it shortly after a lot of the stuff was built. And there's a lot of speculation as to why they did that. And if it was ritual,
00:28:41
Speaker
was it played out, right? yeah If it was more climatological, which a lot of people are starting to think too, was there just, you know, they kind of played out the resources though there was a big climate climatological shift about that time where the weather dramatically changed. It might've just been unlivable. yeah and yeah And also with your statement of Pueblo Benito took 200 years to build.
00:29:02
Speaker
That might not even be a totally accurate statement. I mean, yes, they were building it for 200 years, but in the same way that we're still building New York city. Exactly. Just know adding on rooms, but using the part that's already built. So it doesn't mean that they spent 200 years working on this and then didn't, but not using any of it. It's something to finish product in mind. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That is something that's really important to keep in mind with all like monumental right architecture with the maybe the exception of the pyramid since they had a very specific Yeah, when they put that capstone on, they're like, OK, we're done. Right. But with these large structures that are gathering places for people that, I mean, of course they were using it as soon as it was at a place where it could be used. So yeah, I mean, certain things you can tell were a finished product, like individual buildings, like a cathedral, the pyramids, you know, stuff like that. But ah still a planned, not even well, this was kind of planned, but, you know, they were building up, they were probably building out because you could continue to, even though this is like a semi circle shape, you could continue adding on to the outer wall theoretically. And they did build up. This was, I think three stories tall. Yeah. yeah so Or more. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Three or four, at least three. I know that. Yeah. So yeah. So as usual, Graham Hancock is you know speculating and drawing conclusions that make me want to scream. yeah And he says that, or he speculates that because there is evidence of mind altering tobacco plants in Utah 13,000 years ago, then they might have had it in Chaco Canyon. And it was also very similar, this plant apparently that they found in Utah is very similar to Ayahuasca in the Amazon. Therefore,
00:30:44
Speaker
and There must be an ancient civilization who gave the knowledge of these plants to the people. They couldn't have just independently found these plants, figured out how to process them, of course not and and done it themselves separately. And also, just because there was a mine-altering plant in Utah doesn't mean that it was in Chaco Canyon, even though they are geographically nearby. But still, you can't make that assumption. There's no evidence of it in Chaco Canyon. He just continues to do this, making these connections between different things like the Kivas that were there with the Gobekatepi, which we talked about already, yeah and and just talks about
00:31:18
Speaker
Again, talks about the fact that these things could, you know, were, it was unlikely to him that this was independently developed and must have been shared knowledge. Like people in North America and also people in Turkey, is that where go back to go back to Turkey? Yeah, if I'm not mistaken. Somewhere over in the Middle East area, they couldn't have come up with the idea of round.
00:31:39
Speaker
threat independentent of each other it is hard like round rooms yeah yeah it's just it's so ridiculous when you start thinking about it so he does spend some time deep-diving some of the really cool solar and lunar alignments of the buildings in Chaco Canyon and we saw some of this when we were there which is really cool there's even a pictograph of A supernova. A supernova, yeah. It's my favorite pictograph we've ever seen. Yes, you loved it. So man, do you have those pictures handy? It would be so great to get our hands on those. I'm sure I do, the supernova pictograph. Yeah, it was just like before digital. It was a very long time ago that we were there, you know? It may not be on my phone. It might not be on your phone. Yeah, I gotta look for that. Well, real quick story. There's actually a number of, just look up Google supernova pictograph because there's a number of, I guess,
00:32:30
Speaker
interpretations of that around the world because it was visible during the day I think for a few days and there's I don't have the information on it ah on the top of my head but the Chinese recorded it yeah it was recorded here in Chaco Canyon and it literally is on
Critique of Hancock's Speculative Methods
00:32:43
Speaker
the underside of an of a ledge it's like an eight mile hike out to the yeah to the Pueblo that we went to the top of this canyon but when you you can drive out to this parking area and then it's a long hike out to this edge. And then the supernova pictograph is at the edge of the canyon where you start walking up to the edge to then go see this Pueblo. yeah And it's, again, it's right, it's underneath a rock overhang. I remember it being a really like desolate walk. yeah Like some of the hikes at Chaco Canyon are really pretty and you're going through like these narrow like passages through through cliffs and canyons and stuff. But man, that one was, it was just like on the floor, like deserts. Yeah. So hot.
00:33:23
Speaker
But totally worth it because it is one of the coolest pictographs I've ever seen, yeah for sure. And it's very unique for its time. So the reason that they brought it up on the show was, of course, to show that these ancient cultures had you know solar and lunar knowledge, right? enough Or at least they were observing the sky enough to see a supernova and put it onto the rocks. But they weren't smart enough to just know this stuff.
00:33:46
Speaker
No, they must have learned it somewhere else. I had a book back when we used to own a house and I had all these books. I used to have a book on archaeoastronomy and probably 90% of the book ah just discussing archaeoastronomy, which is the process of just really studying the ancient astronomical observations and the way that, you know, Native American and and Native South American communities would observe the heavens, right? And and the way they would the way they would do that.
00:34:14
Speaker
And the the alignments that they would have and in then the way that they would do this on rock art and with geoglyphs and things like that. And it was just fascinating, but probably 90% of that book was on Chaco Canyon. And it was just probably because the researcher that wrote the book studied Chaco Canyon. But there are so many there yeah there's a lot there. There's so many.
00:34:32
Speaker
solar alignments and different things in order to just capture the the position of the sun at certain times of the year, the position of the moon at certain times of the year. And and they would do this because, not just because they were curious and observant, because they were, but they they would use this to mark their own you know times of the year and and religious, you know they didn't have iPhones. They didn't know what time of year it was. right But they said, hey, when the sun is you know lined up here, the this window or whatever yeah then we know what time of year it is. yeah And when it does that four times a year, we can mark a year yeah yeah or something like that. so Yeah, for sure. yeah And I have to give a shout out to the the ranger who was featured on the show at Chaco Canyon, because you know they they filmed at the actual national park. yeah And they got permission to do that, apparently. And they brought a ranger on to share information. And that man, I got a very no-nonsense feeling from him. He was not there to buy into any of the Graham Hancock nonsense. He really kept it to the archaeology and to the actual
00:35:35
Speaker
things that we know about it. And it made the Chaco Canyon section really nice to watch because it it does feel like a little bit more focused on the archeology and less about this ancient knowledge yeah nonsense that the rest of the shows had. so I feel like, just to kind of wrap this up too, the last episode, and we don't need to go far into this, just kind of watch it, but the last episode, he he does go back down to Mexico, um to Palenque, and to the Maya site to talk to this other guy. Uh-huh, the opposite of our and National Park Service guy.
00:36:12
Speaker
yeah But they start talking about the Maya calendar and because the Maya had a ah number of different calendars and ways to mark the the march of time, right? yeah But the cool thing about the Maya calendar is that all their individual calendars link into each other. And they they end up linking completely into the Maya Long Count calendar. and And there's actually something we talked about not long ago in a news article about the recent interpretations of the Maya Long Count calendar that probably did not make it into the cut of this show. Because this was literally just like a month ago. yeah yeah And one of the last news articles we probably talked about before we took our break. but
00:36:52
Speaker
yeah In fact, it was because it had to do with the synodic period of the planets and how they were fitting those into the Maya long count calendar and their observations of the planets. Oh yeah, that was yeah probably in like November maybe. Yeah, I think it was. And that never would have made it into the show because it was already out by then. Which totally throws Graham Hancock completely out of the water yeah and because it just told throws this all out. Because what he was saying was the Maya long count calendar is you know, thousands of years. Yeah. And why would they go back thousands? Why would they go back that far? too It has a beginning. It has an end. It's not, it's not forever. Yeah. And he's like, why would they mark this kind of time when it's outside of their existence, right? It's it's not something that says this is our creation story and this is where we're going to end. It's outside of their existence. And
00:37:42
Speaker
what are they even talking about, yeah right? They must be marking time from before that yeah and that was handed down to them yeah and by somebody else. The continued argument of this ancestral knowledge nonsense. Honestly, like by the time we got to that episode and the expert, I'm gonna put it in quotes that they had on and talk about it, was clearly very open to Graham hanockck Hancock's ideas, unlike a lot of the other experts that they had on at different parts of the show. So because of that openness, I just was kind of, I don't know, I just was like,
00:38:11
Speaker
I was just over it by the by that last episode. i yeah I'd had enough of these ridiculous theories and yeah, so I didn't and love that last episode.
Final Thoughts and Critical Thinking
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think just to wrap this up, we've said before, we didn't really say this with season one. We were not recommending people give them the airtime on season one and watch it, but you know,
00:38:31
Speaker
Ultimately, this is on Netflix. And when you look at it, it's high budget. And therefore, you get to see a recreation of something like Pueblo Minito, which is really cool. So cool. Yeah, you get to see archaeological sites that you're never going to get to see in your life more than likely. Right? Unless you move into an RV and start traveling around the country. Well, you'll see the ones in this country. We recommend that. Yeah, true. Yeah. Not going to get this RV up to Machu Picchu. No, we're not going to take it south. That's for sure. Not going to get it to sexy woman.
00:38:59
Speaker
ah but sax a waman come on anyway Anyway, you're likely never going to see some of this stuff, and the only way you're going to see it is by watching a show like this. because unfortunately you know, high quality archaeologists are not going to do shows like this anytime soon. The storytelling that he's able to do with this false theory makes for really good TV. And I find it difficult to think of an archaeological archeological story that's just purely about the science and the archaeology and the past people.
00:39:34
Speaker
I find it really hard to think of ah of a way that somebody would be able to do a show like this and create this narrative that connects everything together the way he did. yeah So watch it to learn about these sites, but just keep skepticism about the overall theory that he's trying to feed it into. and And keep in mind too, I think me and you and and any archaeologist in any person in the world would love it if there was some you know, some Atlantis, you know, ah Jason Momoa style, you know, advanced society just hiding out in the Pleistocene. Are you like hoping for Aquaman? I'm just saying up in the archaeological record.
00:40:18
Speaker
the technology that they had, they'd still be around probably, right? Like if if we just found some sort of like, you watch these Marvel movies and they go down deep in the ice and they find what looks like a spaceship, but it's really a 15,000 year old thing. He just watches too much of that shit, right? So and like I would love for that kind of thing to be true. I'm a sci-fi nerd. I would absolutely love it if something like that were true. But the fact is there's just no evidence for it.
00:40:44
Speaker
He goes into science the backwards way. Most scientists go in trying to disprove their own theories, right? you You come up with a theory and you go into it and you try to find evidence against it, right? yeah You don't go in trying to find all these little things for it. yeah that You try to disprove your theory. That is not the scientific method. It just isn't. It's and that's how you get in trouble and you make false claims like this show is. He just just ignores everything that disproves his own theories, and he tries to latch onto these tiny, tiny little things that, yeah, if you do ignore everything else, sure. It could be possible. It could be possible. yeah It's how ancient aliens has done 20 seasons. yeah you know and Because they ignore everything else. It's true.
00:41:26
Speaker
And he's not even totally wrong about everything. like He is right that archeologists need to have a more open mind about ah about digging deeper and looking into what was previously considered sterile layers, because we might find um evidence of people here further back than we thought. But that doesn't mean they were an ancient advanced civilization, you know? I mean, we started this episode by digging a little deeper. Oh my God, we totally did.
Episode Wrap-Up and Listener Engagement
00:41:50
Speaker
We dig a little deeper. It's who are. We dig a little deeper every time. Exactly. Graham Hancock.
00:41:57
Speaker
I love digging deep. Anyway, I think that's about all we got to say about that. I think next time we got to cover the news. Yeah, we do. We need to get back to news. If anybody has seen some cool news out there in the last month and a half that we've missed, send us those articles. Yeah, I mean, we've seen stuff too, obviously. We've got plenty to cover. We do. Send it over. Yeah, definitely. We've got plenty to cover. We'll catch up with the next couple episodes for sure. All right, well, we're going to make a run for the border, so we got to get out of here.
00:42:23
Speaker
All right, we're gonna be in Mexico. Yeah, next time you hear from us fingers crossed fingers crossed assuming the border crossing goes okay Yes, yeah, hopefully they let us back. Yeah, yeah, all right. Yeah, okay. Bye. Bye
00:42:44
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Archaeology Show. Feel free to comment and view the show notes on the website at www.arcpodnet dot.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at arcpodnet. Music for this show is called, I Wish You Would Look, from the band C Hero. Again, thanks for listening and have an awesome day.
00:43:08
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Seabreck, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.