I'm going to Gobekli Tepe tomorrow - a trip 30 years in the planning! I'm currently sitting in a hotel room in rainy Istanbul, watching videos about the site and bouncing with excitement. Can't wait to see it! Edit: Well, all I can say is it's worth the hype, and the 4 days travelling there and back. I've never seen anything like it, or felt the weight of time quite as strongly. It's magical. If anyone's interested in seeing it, I've uploaded a slideshow thingy to what is laughably called my "channel". I've never done it before, so please don't be too rude about it......
Wow! That’s incredible! I hope it’s everything for you that it seems to be.. I’d love to go some day.. I don’t need to say have fun .. lol ..you’re having the best time already! 😊 ATB
Also older than Mesopotamia: well over a dozen big cities found in whats now West Ukraine. And all abandoned at about the same time, probably triggering a mass imigration into Europe.
I do posts on Mesoamerica and consulting for History/Archeology channels: The Maya section has a lot of issues, and this has been a consistent issue with Simon's network of channels with Mesoamerican vids. Here, Teotihuacan is at 0:38 and 1:33 despite it very much not being a Maya city (though it did have some Maya artists and diplomats living in a specific part of the city, potentially), and to say the Maya "began" growing ~250AD is wrong: Kaminaljuyu and El Mirador were GIANT Maya cities from 400-100BC, while Aguada Fenix, Nakbe, etc were notable centers dating back to 1000-800BC. The biggest issues though with how the video talks about the Classic Maya Collapse. "The Entire civilization" did NOT suffer a "near complete political collapse" nor "the abandonment of nearly every major city" in the 9th century AD in the "Maya Collapse". The Classic collapse was just that, a collapse which marks the end of the Classic period. Simon does later walk those statements back by (correctly) noting that the Maya were still around at the arrival of the Spanish and millions of Maya people are around today, but this is still far overplaying the severity of the Classic Maya Collapse, which some researchers reject the label of entirely: it's really mostly only large cities in the Central and Southern Maya regions which decline: Medium and smaller sites were often fine, and the big cities in the Northern Maya regions actually GREW during/right after the period rather then decline: Chichen Itza is perhaps the most famous Maya city, yet it's heyday wasn't till centuries after the Classic Collapse. (The collapse was also a more gradual process then over 50 years like the video says, but that's a minor thing relatively speaking). The League of Mayapan, perhaps the largest Maya political network to ever form, was around primarily from ~1100 to the mid 1400s! Listing a Toltec invasion as a potential cause of the Collapse is also really incorrect. The Toltec, if they even existed, really only became a thing (~900 to 1100AD, give or take a century.) AFTER the end of Classic Maya Collapse. And as I alluded to, they may not have even really existed at all. Aztec accounts describe the Toltec as this great utopian civilization in their accounts, but these are clearly at least partly mythical, and while researchers used to believe that they were merely mythologized versions of a real grand historical empire, and pointed to similarities between Tula (a city in Central Mexico during the Early Postclassic period some accounts identified with the Toltec Tollan) and Chichen itza, alongside parts of the account like the Toltec lord Ce Acatl Topiltzin (associated with Quetzalcoatl) leaving to the east and Feathered Serpent cults being popular with the Itza Maya around the time as evidence for a Toltec conquest of the Yucatan, that is now mostly discredited. Tula, and almost certainly no other single Central Mexican city, did NOT have a massive empire spanning over all of Central Mexico and up into the Yucatan as shown at 4:19: Tula had a medium sized kingdom in Central Mexico, and while some researchers still believe there was some sort of direct connection between Tula and Chichen itza with trade or diplomacy, even that is suspect now and it's clear that a lot of the perceived connections and reading into the myths about the Toltecs don't hold up to scrutiny. "The Tula-Chichen-Tollan Connection" by Tlatollotl is a great writeup on this. And again, not only is the idea of a large conquering Toltec Empire itself not correct, again, the outdated idea of that still would have been AFTER the Classic Maya Collapse, not as a cause of it. I get that Simon's channels put out a ton of content on a regular basis and the team making them probably can't do a ton of research on every given thing, but almost every video touching on Mesoamerica has had both very basic (not as in small/minor, but as in "this should have been easy to catch, but it wasn't") and very large errors. I'm not sure what the production workflow is like, but I'd be down to help out potentially, or at least point you guys towards good resources and sources and maybe get you in touch with some researchers.
Yeah I’ve learned to take all of his channels with a huge grain of salt considering basically every video they make has some kind of error or another in it.
there are a lot, and I mean a LOT of things that these channels get wrong. Most people wont ever notice because they are not knowledgeable in these subjects. And just as you are able to see what he gets wrong due to your own knowledge and expertise, there are plenty of others from different fields who will call out the inaccuracies which they notice. But they dont question that which they are not experts in, so instead we are all seeing different falsities and assume they are few and far between. But when you add them all together, you notice a clear lack of fact checking, research from multiple sources, and secondary opinions. And you cant really blame Simon for it, he just reads the script and often admits that he has no idea about something, even when he has already made 10 videos about it. But, he still hired the writers, the writers still pushed the script, the video was edited; And then you have comments such as this, which point out such things... but... the video will never be redone. There will never be a redaction. This video will stay up and people will use it as a source for their claims... and then you have false claims circulating with 0 evidence to support them, because they are factually incorrect.
Why don’t you send him some scripts of the real history and ensure the information is correct and make some 💵 too. Or write a book about it, I’d buy it 👌
Part of the problem seems to be the amount of bad/outdated info out there, even from sources that are usually considered reputable, and because the writers do the research on their own, they can't be expected to have the specific background knowledge to spot all of the inconsistencies in the sources. It's always going to be a problem for anything that isn't written by an expert in the field, unless maybe they have an expert proofread it, but I don't know how feasible it would be to do that for every script.
To answer your last point: Karahan Tepe, discovered right near by Göbekli seems to be from sround same period, or maybe even predate. It's a settlement carved directly into bedrock. Have a look at it. ;)
There was 12 identified sites named "Tepe" from the same civilization (or there was a year ago, they might have found more since) and there are also other interesting sites like Boncuklu Tarla who is maybe 1500 years older and we found some copper ornaments there. Karahan Tepe seems to be a bit older then Göbekli Tepe as well but the exact date is debated, at least 500 years older though, maybe as much as 1500. And that is not counting sites from the Natufians who seem to have been the earlier civilization that lead to the Tepe sites eventually. They are way older. It is a fascinating subject. I reject the claims they hadn't invented agriculture at the time of Göbekli Tepe. There is a frigging wheat field depicted on the vulture stone that is the most famous thing at the site and we do see some limited agriculture in Olaho 2 23 000 years ago in Israel ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NjUCbk8MSQY.html ). So yeah, I think the evidence points towards some agriculture going on but we wont know for sure until more of the site have been excavated (but that wheat field depiction certainly looks like evidence to me, even if some agricultural tools is needed to really bring that home). But agriculture was invented long before the site was built, there is another 19 000 years old site also in Israel but I have just read a short article about it, Matt made the vid I linked too this week and it is more recent but it isn't anything super new.
@@kevinprice9559 Yeah, but that one is late Natufian so it is from a different civilization even we see some of the technology later used at Göbekli tepe being invented there. Wadi Hammah is far from the oldest Natufian settlement we found, rather the opposite and one of the later. We have known of the Natufians for a century but people like Graham Hancock prefer the story where Göbekli Tepe came out of nowhere since it fits their narrative.
As of April 2024 there are also other settlements found in the area around Gobekli Tepe dated to the same time or older. These are more residential areas than Gobekli Tepe,
@@dobber43as an Archaeological Surveyor, I can assure you that the academic community recognizes the importance of these sites. They are relatively new, and funding is being secured, but we definitely need more. Videos like this and those done by creators like Miniminuteman do a wonderful job of bringing awareness to a broader audience, which actually helps drive more funding. There are a number of ways you can actually donate to the funding of these sites and the study of them. Even if you can only offer a handful of pocket change, every penny helps.
There's a high chance we are missing alot of other structures of the same age or older as GT because they are under the sea, sea levels at that time were far lower than today and given the tendency even now to build along the coast theres a high chance they are hidding off shore
"You know -all that pyramid building and stuff -why are we doing that?" "Don't you know that? It's because... because... I have actually no idea at all." That was the beginning of the end of the Mayan Civilization.
0:40 - Chapter 1 - What happened to the maya ? 5:05 - Chapter 2 - What happened to alexander's tomb ? 8:05 - Chapter 3 - What caused the bronze age collapse 12:35 - Chapter 4 - Who build gobekli tepe ?
The Gobekli Tepe thing, isn’t quite up to date.. there are a handful of other sites that likely pre date it .. regardless.. it’s AMAZING.. the accomplishments of the early humans, before pottery, before metal.. I saw an interesting documentary with subtitles at another pre pottery site about a week ago.. incredible stuff!
Much like the bronze age collapse there probably isnt a single reason why the Maya collapsed. It was probably a bit of eveything that led to a general systems collapse ans society reverted back to smaller, less organized/advanced state.
I've heard on a podcast or two that Gobekli Tepe sat undisturbed for so long because it was erroneously identified as a Moslem graveyard. This kept the usual tomb raiders from tearing up the joint in search of trinkets to sell.
Thank you, Simon! As an ancient history buff, I love learning new things about happenings thousands of years ago. Gobekli Tepe still amazes me, it's SO old. No doubt the Egyptians would love to find Alexander's tomb. It would be a huge tourist attraction! So would Cleopatra's, if she had one. Octavian/Augustus didn't like her much.
The main immediate effect on Egypt of the Bronze Age Collapse was the loss of its "Asian" territories. The New Kingdom suffered about another century and a half of decline before it petered out with the end of the 20th Dynasty. While we can't say for sure what caused the broader collapse, environmental factors were certainly at play in Egypt, with reduced sunlight, droughts, and a reduced Nile flood leading to famine so severe that even some of the elites suffered. The only place where writing was actually lost was Greece, where the Mycenaean Linear B system entirely vanished. Greece would not re-learn how to write until the 8th century when they imported and adapted the alphabet from Phoenicia.
@@dearthditchI was about to reply that the biggest mysteries are how Simon manages to present 500 different RU-vid channels, also how many people are trapped in his basement.
The making of bronze heavily requires vast trading routes, as the materials are imported fron different and far locations. For this, the bronze making was usually controlled by the local king. Iron can be found locally. It doesn't need many components like bronze did. Anybody could make iron, if he knew how to do it. This was in effect a massive disruption of the main income of the kings of that time. It was a much stronger metall for the masses against the weaker metall provided by the kings. An early version of the French Revolution? It took about a thousand years untill iron replaced bronze everywhere.
The disruption of the trade routes in copper and tin significantly exacerbated and hastened the collapse. There were no sources of tin in the region, and as different areas fell into chaos it became much harder to move the stuff through them. Not only were they probably facing invaders with superior materials, they struggled to produce more of the inferior materials they had, which would've made it difficult to mobilize more troops.
It's not a mystery anymore, it's just that we can't make it at a commercial level so unless we find/ create more abundant materials with the same properties, it doesn't help us in the modern day.
In most cases if extreme change, its a combination of incidents and circumstances that create a bigger issue. There is a very real likelihood that a combination of war, drought, pests, disease, and social or religious beliefs could have combined to tear a civilization apart. They don't have to happen simotainiously. They can be consecutively. Drought or pestulance leading to war over resources, war leads to power struggles, famile opens the door to disease... see how one compounds or triggers the others?
There's good evidence that the Maya's practice of making lime in vast quantities (burning shells in hot fires - everything in their cities were coated in a layer of it, including the streets) led to deforestation - as to process so much required continuous burning of endless quantities of wood - which, by itself wasn't necessarily fatal, but it made them more vulnerable to drought as there was almost no forests or vegetation within kilometers of any city. This would lead to famine and societal collapse, and since their neighbours didn't turn the areas around their own settlements into deserts, they weren't as vulnerable to a regional drought.
I tend to assume most large-scale collapses are due to a confluence of causes. Any society that lasts a long time is likely to be able to weather one or two bad things happening, but when three or four hit together or in quick succession, there are very few societies that can wirhstand that.
12,000 years ago our global sea level was about 400 ft lower. Any coastal cities that existed are under a lot of water. There were islands in the oceans and seas that are no longer visible.
@@DADela-ht6ux it is extremely unlikely that there were even cities considering agricultural production only really began at the same time as cities. 12,000 years ago they were still hunter gatherers, yes they built structures but they weren’t living in cities.
Also, any place that is continuously inhabited is going to continuously plow over the old stuff and build new stuff. Looking forward to hearing about ruins under 400 feet of water.
"...decorated with images of lions, bulls, gazelles and ducks..." Ducks‽‽‽ "I am a great warrior! I have upon my shield the image of a fearsome ... umm ... duck."
Geese are good watch dogs, and utterly fearless. It's not just the "teeth" in their bills, the wings have a lot of power (they can break an arm), and they can go after your legs or head. Do low dive bombing, and are as loud as air raid sirens. And considering their size, ducks are almost as bad.) Besides, before chickens were domesticated in SE Asia, ducks would have been a good source of meat and eggs.
The builder's of Gobekli Tepe were sent from Baalbek to tame the Eastern Frontier. It was like Dodge City complete with general stores, livestock yards and even a Whore Houses. Sorry to mention the houses of ill repute but carving stone to depict your goods is difficult.
When talking about the collapse of ancient civilizations I'm always inclined to believe that it was a combination of several natural factors made worse by competition/invasions/wars from other neighbouring civilizations. I find it hard to believe that one single issue can collapse a civilization completely.
Gonna say it again: this is a better format than your other videos. Your voice level is uniform. I love your content but hate having to raise the volume to be able to hear half of what you say. Whatever equipment you use in this format fixes that problem.
I like the hypothesis that drought probably led to the sea people raiding for whatever resources they could since they seemed to have no interest in conquest at all. So instead of a cause of the collapse they were a symptom of it.
Great video, I have both the MTT and AAT from that Era and never thought to compare the size. I am glad you did as it makes sense, however unfortunate that they are so small. Even more than the new wave of downsizing
there's toltec buildings at chichen itza, the ball court at chichen itza is of toltec design and has toltec rules on what happens to the losing team, as in being ended.
The end of the Maya civilization is known. The cenotes they used for water filled with salt water because they drew too much water from them. Those other theories are good, but they aren’t supported by evidence. Their cities were too big for their water sources, so they stopped building monumental cities.
That Bronze Age collapse sounds pretty rough. If it was just drought or disease, I'd imagine people quietly leaving. The burning and toppling of cities sounds more like war or riots.
I'm very surprised that the section on Bronze Age collapse has no mention of the Thera eruption on Santorini. The archeological site at Akrotiri is what history dreams are made of.
Thera could have been a catalysts for the Bronze Age Collapse. Crete appears to have been a major trader for the supply of tin and copper. When the Minoans collapsed, so too did the trade. The climatic changes would also have affected the whole region.
As long as there are cool videos proclaiming the "weird & wonderful', well we stand a chance of always being curious! It's the guys who are professional in their field we should listen to & learn from, but only till it becomes unreasonable... The 'weirdness' of some in their own field is becoming apparent with the dawn of the internet. Then, curiosity & perhaps a little less pride might help us conquer mysteries. Life is pretty cool, & very intriguing & beautiful.
This start with a massive series of understatements. "Some things remain a mystery'?? so far, MAYBE 10% of human history is solved to a point of 'beyond a reasonable doubt' and there are massive unknowns around nearly anything our best history wizards know. Here's an example of something everyone is sure we have totally figured out, recorded: "Mongols" but there is barely any consensus on what 'Mongols' really were or were not and what actually was a 'Mongol' invasion or 'Tartars' or if we're really just seeing some descriptions of 'Tartar Raiders' and most would be stunned at the disagreement gap on just how many Mongols and foes were in these major battles that youtube videos choose to have the highest numbers. Legit historian disagree by '600 total combatant' to 60,000' because nobody really knows. What did Ghengis Khan look like? Not so fast. the only thing that's probably a legit description tells us green eyes and red hair. Everyone says 'the mongols' but Jerchens and the Manchus (The Qing who conquered China until their recent last emperor) weren't "Mongols' were they? They were? Are you sure the Mongols took over all that land mass highlighted in red 'the largest empire by land mass' etc? Yes and no and not really. What you'd more accurately describe would be many red lines and spots. there were hundreds of towns who would have never seen a Mongol, not once and carried on before, during and after never engaging or caring about Mongols because no such administrative 'state' and controls happened but rather alliances of tribes going through and to (and back) like raiding parties. or maybe not? actually there is far far less of any certainty and anything solid on this than anyone really knows. Here in China there is shockingly little behind a lot of history that you'd receive as if it were the most recorded well known thing and obviously corroborated and yet there are 1000 year spans where there is just a few blurps of a much much later historian who's name nobody knows and then there are parts and places where its as if historical records 'vanished' and absolutely nothing is known and it's weird. like for 200 years an absolute 'blank'. History is weird. Yep, then there is something with stunning record and dig up all the stuff you want it will all be a massive record of everything to what they ate for dinner and get boring its so thick with record. 50 kms away there was very obviously a very big deal of a kingdom for which nearly NOTHING is known about them, wtf they did for 300 years and we're not even really sure what ethnic group or name or anything at all.
I was just confused by the year "250 AD". Usually in Dutch we call that 250. Wether we're using the Gregorian calendar or the astronomical, it is simply the year 250, no extra letters or - needed. Incidently the no year 0 in the Gregorian might be why some people think we're in the 3rd year of the 2020's. We're in the 4th: 2020 was the first year.
0:41 been to these Mayan ruins and it’s kind of wild if you think about what you’re staring at. You can climb right up some of the structures and look at all the carvings and imagery that seems to very clearly depict human sacrifices.
As usual very interesting and instructive. But.... you talk too fast. I just have to rewind often, so, no worries, keep doing what you do. It is great work.... Thank you.
First time I've heard six referred to as "a couple..." Pro-tip: a "couple" is two, a "few" is three, "several" is four or five & anything above that gets called out by name. 😁
Hi Simon. Great vids, really enjoy them. Sorry but there's a really annoying resonant frequency in this vid (im a music engineer). If you need a hand with the sound at all give me a shout.
Gobekli-tepe, my theory. Winter camp site for nomads, structures were for community building fallacies. Some were "farming", some hunting, all were trading. It got buried because of a similar to MAGA or NIMBY movement, is my guess. Leaders said, "Well, community needs to be localized now, best get rid of this global thing with some sort of ceremony, symbolize it for the rubes to get a handle on it."
There was a collapse in the UK and Northern Europe too. Why 'wars', 'drought' and 'disease' are always sited for the Bronze Age collapse in the Med is beyond me. Occams razor suggests the Icelandic volcano, or another as yet undiscovered eruption, could very well have been the catalyst, forcing those in the north to move south and pressuring those in the south and west Med to attack the richer eastern Med. Egypt, whilst crippled survived. That for me rules out 'iron', of which there is no mention in the Trojan war which happened at or around the same time, and much nearer Bulgaria.
Iron is mentioned in the Illiad as being used by the Hittite king, he had iron tipped arrows. Iron was discovered and worked early in the bronze age, the Hittites being some of the first to do so on a large scale, but the reason it eventually supplanted bronze was its availability therefore cheapness. It did not, however, have any role in causing the bronze age collapse.
Received wisdom has always assumed that when a centralized society collapsed, it was because of some outside catastrophe. More and more though, archaeology is finding that indications are that people just got fed up with hierarchy and walked away.
The answer is always sea people. Who cause the bronze age collapse? Sea people. Who ended Mayan civilization? Sea people. Who hid Alexander the Great's remains? You guessed it, Sea people.
Good stuff, but during the bit about Alexander, you mention the temple was looted by Cleopatra to fund the war with Octavian and then it was visited by Augustus. But Octavian IS Augustus. The current phrasing does not make it clear to a listener who is not familiar with that fact.
My favorite Mayan Collapse theory is,,,The average Mayan just got sick and tired of constructing endless pyramids and monuments. I have been all over Central America and the buildings are endless. And that is just the ones unearthed.
The majority of Mesoamerica is in the North American region, not Central American. Afaik Mayans were partly in CA but the Olmecs were entirely in current day Mexico(North America).
What we call the Greek dark ages was really the first Dark Age that effected the whole civilized world at the time and came between the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age. It is inaccurate to call the first Dark Age the Greek dark ages but should be considered the original Dark Ages or the first Dark Age and the early Middle Ages being the second Dark Age.
Nah he just reads what is there. Hit me as well as, we certainly do not know how or by whom it was achieved. Same as we don't know how the Maya knew a lot about celestial bodies and time but didn't have the wheel. It gets mentioned but other than alien explanation there isn't much that attempts to actually answer the questions. We could just about, build pyramid today like that one. But that's thousands of years later and with computers and machines. They did it with what trundle wheels and chisels....doesn't sound plausible because it isn't.
