This is a piece of brick from a 2000 year old Roman fort that I visited in England maybe 20 years ago or so. I just, I saw it laying on the ground and yeah, I took it. Yeah, I know. It was wrong. If everybody took a piece of the brick, there would be nothing left I know. But this is my first time overseas and I just, I just never seen anything that old before and it just, it blew my mind. Some actual human being that was around close to the same time as Jesus picked up this brick and placed it on a wall, smeared it with mortar and created a dwelling for somebody else to live in.
Before that, a totally different person transported it there on a horse and cart probably and before that, another person sold the brick to that guy and before that, a totally different guy altogether formed the brick and put it in a kiln and made it in the first place. Because that's how civilization works, you know, lots of different people doing lots of different jobs, specialized jobs, working together in a system that provides for everyone. It took a long time for human beings to get to this point from, from bands of hunter gatherers, generalists basically to specialists.
And the conventional wisdom has always been that it had to do with agriculture. It took the agricultural revolution to not just create a more stable food source, but it forced humanity to kind of specialize and congregate and create systems to produce it and distribute it, trade with it. And it was out of that necessity at the first city spring up. Most of these early cities were centered around the fertile crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city state of Euruch has always been considered the first city going back 6,000 years ago. This is how civilization began as we understand it. You know, it works. It makes sense. All the pieces fit together perfectly.
And then we found Go Beckley Tepa. For hundreds of years, the locals of the Anatolia region of Turkey knew of a unique hill in the Gremos Mountains that rose slowly over the surrounding landscape to a moderate height of about 50 meters. They called this hill potbelly hill and used it for sheet pastoring in agriculture. Go Beckley Tepa means potbelly hill in Turkish. And that's just what it was. A random hill was sheep on it for thousands of years. Until about the 1960s, when it was first examined by a team of anthropologists at the University of Chicago and Istanbul University.
And in their examination, they found Flint and limestone artifacts and assumed it was an abandoned medieval cemetery. And that theory held sway until about 1994 when German archaeologist Klaus Schmitt got a hold of the research's reports and he saw something different. He'd been working on a survey of prehistoric sites in that region and something about the reports just didn't read right to him. So he went to check it out for himself.
When he got there, he immediately knew he found something special saying, quote, in one minute and one second, it was clear. What was clear to him was that this was no mere cemetery and certainly not something as recent as the Middle Ages. This was something much bigger and something that probably went back to the Stone Ages.
So we returned the next year to do a more extensive search of this time with five colleagues and that's when he discovered a series of megaliths buried just below the ground. Some of them were actually buried so close to the surface that Klaus had scarred the top of them. And these megaliths would become Schmitt's life work for the next 20 years.
But at the time, the team didn't find any signs of actual settlement there, things like houses, trash pits, cooking horse, that kind of thing. They did discover evidence of tool use like blades and stone hammers, which actually matched artifacts from nearby sites that have been dated to around 9,000 BCE. So they assumed that this site was from roughly that age as well.
And dating on the structures would later verify that assumption, making gobeckly tepe twice as old as Stonehenge in the Egyptian pyramids. Like Stonehenge, gobeckly tepe structure includes circles of T-shaped limestone pillars, many of them featuring actions of animals on them like birds, foxes, lions, and scorpions. The sites pillars are arranged in circles of 20 meters in diameter.
And since there's no evidence that it was used for animal domestication or farming, archaeologists believe that hunter gatherers may have built it. The thing is, though, this site features archaeological complexity that probably would have been too advanced for hunter gatherers.
A study published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal in 2020 explored the question of whether or not the sites' round enclosures were a cohesive scheme or a built without reference to each other.
As study co-author and archaeologist Gil Hackley told Hertz at the time, quote, there is a lot of speculation that the structures were built successively, possibly by different groups of people, and that one was covered up for a while while the next one was being built. But there's no evidence that they are not contemporaneous.
Researchers use the computer algorithm based on standard deviation mapping to analyze the underlying architecture. And no, I don't know what that means. What they found was that three of the enclosures looked like they were designed together in a kind of a triangular geometric pattern.
So the site comprises two main layers. Layer three is the oldest made up of large, curvilinear enclosures, and it's from the pre-pattery neolithic A period around 8300 to 7500 BCE. Layer two is from the early and middle pre-pattery neolithic B periods around 7500 to 6000 BCE. They feature smaller rectangular structures with line plaster floors all crowded together with shared walls. And the evidence shows that layer three's enclosures experienced a series of backfilling events, indicating that maybe they were intentionally buried.
This has actually been a major component of the study's theories around the history of Gobeckley Tepay. Because the structure center points form an almost perfect triangle, with sides measuring 19 meters in length.
So yeah, the big question is, did the original builders build one enclosure first and then plan the other two based on it to create a triangle, or did different groups come along later on and build them over time? According to archaeologists Annabelle Verkohen, who full disclosure was not part of the study, quote, it's more likely that there are many different groups that considered this entire area sacred and converged on it to erect these enclosures. Rather than a single group that went crazy and just constructed these complexes day and night.
So maybe the biggest question is, who were these people? And what were they doing there? Is it a settlement or a city of some kind? Well Schmidt didn't think so because there's so few residential buildings in the area and there's not much evidence that the land around it had been cultivated very much. Instead he believed that it was a sanctuary and maybe a regional pilgrimage center where people gathered to perform religious rights. Now the site does contain a lot of butchered animal bones, which may be evidence that they were feeding large numbers of people or it might be evidence that there were animal sacrifices. But more recent evidence shows that Schmidt may have been wrong about that.
In fact, the site may have been supporting a semi-settimentary population from the beginning. And it was kind of found by accident. Schmidt actually died in 2014 and once he died, the site kind of became a bit of a tourist attraction. So they decided to put up some shading with the giant fabric canopy so that people can go there and not be beaten down by the sun.
So to do so, they had to build a deep hole down into the Earth of Creative Foundation for the canopy. They were digging way deeper than they'd ever dug before like all the way down to the bedrock. It was way down there that they found something they hadn't seen before. It was evidence for houses and a year-round settlement.
So yeah, it may have actually been a thriving village with large buildings at its center for special events for a while anyway. They also found a large sister in channels for collecting rainwater and thousands of grinding tools for processing grain for porridge and beer. As Schmidt's successor Lee Clare told BBC in August 2021, quote, ".Go back to the Tepet is still a unique special site, but the new insights fit better with what we know from other sites. It was a fully-fledged settlement with permanent occupation. It's changed our whole understanding of the site."
So go back to the Tepet might have been an actual fully-fledged civilization. Cool, right? Except not cool because that kind of breaks history. You know, like I said before, our understanding has always been that places like this were only possible after the advent of farming. Even the astronomical site of Noptiplya, that goes back 7,000 years. All of these coincide with the earliest use of agriculture. Go back to the Tepet, make go back even as far as 15,000 years. Not only way earlier than agriculture, but way before there were domesticated pack animals or metal tools. This whole thing was done by human hands.
This would have required massive amounts of effort and coordination, which leads to maybe the biggest mystery of all. Why? Why was it built in the first place?
这需要大量的努力和协调,这也是可能是最大的谜团。为什么?为什么要首先建造它?
In 2017, a pair of chemical engineers made headlines because they suggested that maybe it was astronomical in nature that the animal carvings on the site's pillars lined up with positions of certain stars thousands of years ago.
As the studies lead Arthur Martin Swebman said in a press release quote, It appears to go back to Tepet was among other things an observatory for monitoring the night sky.
This idea isn't shared by everyone. The archaeologist on the ground weren't buying it. They said this quote, It is highly unlikely that early Neolithic hunters in Upper Mesopotamia recognize the exact point of the day.
Maybe even more mind blowing is that Gebekli Tepe was just the beginning. Turkish archaeologists working in that area found dozens of similar hilltop sites, all of them with the T-shaped pillars and all of them dating from around the same time period.
In fact, some of these other sites show evidence that people were starting to experiment with domesticating animals and cultivating plants.
事实上,一些其他的网站展示了人类开始尝试驯化动物和种植植物的证据。
Some actually believe that the Gebekli Tepe site might have been a last-ditch effort by a hunter-gatherer society to hang on to their vanishing lifestyle as the world was transitioning to farming. A society struggling to adapt as a new technology takes hold? Almost that be like.
One piece of evidence that supports that theory is that some of Gebekli Tepe stone carvings feature animals that you wouldn't have seen in that area at the time.
支持这个理论的一件证据是,一些格别克利特佩的石刻描绘了一些当时该地区并不存在的动物。
As Dr. Claire said quote, As Dr. Claire said quote, There are more than just pictures. There are narratives, which are very important in keeping groups together and creating a shared identity.
正如克莱尔博士所说的那样:“照片并不仅仅是图片,还有叙事,这对于团体团结和创建共享身份非常重要。”
So now we know that Gebekli Tepe wasn't alone, but now we have reason to believe that it wasn't even the oldest.
现在我们知道格贝克利特佩并不孤单,但现在我们有理由相信它甚至不是最古老的。
There's actually a site called Bungu-Klu-Tarla in South Eastern Turkey that resembles some of the discoveries that were found at Gebekli Tepe, but it could be as much as the thousand years older than Gebekli.
在土耳其东南部实际上有一个名为 Bungu-Klu-Tarla 的遗址,它与 Gebekli Tepe 的一些发现相似,但可能比 Gebekli 老多达一千年。
Look at 300 kilometers east of Gebekli, Bungu-Klu-Tarla's excavations of Earth houses, private and public buildings, 130 skeletons, and more than 100,000 beads.
Car Hauntepi is about 40 kilometers from Gebekli Tepe and is considered its sister site.
卡尔·汉特比距离格贝克利特普大约40公里,被认为是它的姐妹遗址。
Finding suggests that it was active during the pre-pottery neolithic period, it's got a lot of similarities to Gebekli's layer 2. These include 266 T-shaped pillars and animal release depicting birds, gazelles, insects, rabbits, and snakes.
This site also includes circular homes and ceremonial structures, one worth pointing out, has 11 giant fallacies watched over by a bearded head with a serpent's body. Like you do.
Now, unlike Gebekli Tepe, there's a lot of depictions of humans at Car Hauntepi, and some people think that this might indicate that they began to see themselves as distinct from the animal world.
Car Hauntepi was intentionally buried in a bandin over time, which seems to be a common fate for a lot of these Turkish sites for reasons that we may never know.
卡尔·豪安泰皮被有意地埋葬在岩石带中,这似乎是许多土耳其遗址的常见命运,原因我们可能永远无法知道。
But before I close this thing out, I feel like if we're going to talk about ancient cities, we kind of need to talk about Jericho.
在结束之前,我觉得如果我们要谈论古代城市,我们必须谈论耶利哥。
You know, Gebekli Tepe gets a lot of attention because it's sexy and mysterious and everything, but Jericho has been around for almost as long, but it's been continuously inhabited this whole time.
Jericho is, in fact, the world's oldest continuously inhabited city. The famous tower of Jericho is one of the first indications that hunter gatherers stayed and built a community in the area, and it was built around 12,000 years ago.
The exact purpose of the tower has long been debated, but it was built to be seen, and it could have been a gathering place for the community.
这座塔的确切目的长期以来一直存在争议,但它是为了让人们看到的,它可能是社区的集会场所。
And it's not that Jericho transitioned completely to farming around 7,000 years ago.
并不是说雅利安人在大约7000年前彻底转变为农业。
【意思解析】本句难点在于"transitioned completely to farming"这个表达,可以理解为"完全过渡到农业",即一开始不能完全确定史前文明是否完全是以农业为主要生产方式的。
There's evidence there that people grew barley, chickpeas, lentils, and wheat. They also domesticated goats and sheep.
这里有证据表明人们种植了大麦、鹰嘴豆、扁豆和小麦。他们还饲养山羊和绵羊。
The city was also located right next to a huge spring, making you know, a deal place to live for a long time.
这座城市毗邻一个巨大的泉水,这使它成为一个长期居住的理想之地。
So Jericho was able to adapt with the times and transition to new technologies and new societies, new religions even, but they're the exception to the rule.
杰里科能够适应时代的变化,转型到新技术、新社会、甚至新宗教,但他们是少数例外。
Most ancient cities eventually fall and crumble onto the weight of time.
And I'm sure there are many other ancient cities yet to be found.
我相信还有很多其他未被发现的古城市。
Fully fledged civilizations completely sure of their superiority and their place at the center of a universe that was created just for them.
完全成熟的文明,对自己的优越感和处于宇宙中心的位置充满信心,认为宇宙是为他们所创造的。
People who couldn't possibly imagine that their great cities and ceremonial places could ever be forgotten to history. And yet here we are.
有些人可能从没想过他们伟大的城市和庄严的场所会被历史遗忘,但现在我们就这样陷入了这种情况。
I guess you could say that feeling timeless is timeless.
我想你可以说无所时感是永恒的。这句话的意思是,感觉不受时间限制是一种永恒的感觉。
I think it's also worth taking away from this story that, you know, people from the past are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for. A lot of things we do today are worse than the way we used to do it. Like shaving, for example. Today, pretty much everybody uses these cartridge blades. Like you're almost forced to use these. Go to a grocery store. It's pretty much all you see.
But don't you think it's interesting how all the shaving companies defaulted to this design? It's not because it makes them less money. Yeah, Razer companies figured out years ago that the real money is in the blade. So they charge up to $2 per cartridge and convince you it's special.
Because it's got five blades and a lubricating strip. And next thing you know, you're paying them hundreds of dollars a year. We will just bought into this idea that you got to have five blades to get a good shave when actually one is plenty if you do it right.
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Or there's some holidays coming up. It's not the worst gift idea. Just saying it. Anyway, once again, it's Hensonshaving.com, get 100 blades for free, promo code Joe Scott, links down below. Big thanks to Hensonshaving for supporting this video and a huge shout out to the answer files on Patreon who are keeping the lights on around here, forming an awesome community, just being overall really cool people.
I got some people I needed to shout out real quick. Let me murder their names. We got Brian Roder. Adam Anderson, Matthew McCombs, Victor Caledons, Caledawons, Harrison Cook, Jörrt Timmerman, Corey Lynn, Arthur Zargarian, Earthbound Martian, Christian Ratcliffe, Steve Coffee, Peter Dillinger, Drew Master, Anthony Mack, and Paul Shritan. Shritan, Shritan. Something like that.
Anyway, thank you guys so much if you'd like to join them. You can get early access to videos, access to a wider community of people, exclusive live streams, all that kind of stuff. You just go to patreon.com slash ends of the show.
不管怎样,如果您想加入我们,非常感谢您。您可以提前观看视频,进入更广泛的社区,参加专属直播,等等。您只需要前往patreon.com/ends of the show。
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