The Forest in the Sahara

Hi everyone, it’s Katrina number 10: the forest in the Sahara.

It’s believed the Sahara Desert was once much more than a vast Wasteland of sand and rock.

Researchers from the University of Arizona have determined that about 11 000 years ago the Sahara Desert received 10 times more rain than it does today.

Between 11 000 and 5 000 years ago it was a green Paradise where early hunter-gatherers thrived, there were all kinds of animals, there was plenty of fresh water to drink and there may have even been Advanced civilizations.

The lead author of the study, Jessica Tierney, says annual precipitation wasn’t exactly what you get in some of the wettest rainforests of the world today, but was enough to maintain a stable ecosystem.

Then, about 8 000 years ago, it started to dry up, the rain stopped, humans began migrating out of the area and whatever ruins they left behind were covered by the shifting Sands.

Some experts have speculated.

There could be evidence of lost human settlements buried.

Some even believe there could be sphinxes, maybe pyramids, and all matter of structures built by extremely early humans.

These early humans likely had the same technological level as the Egyptians thousands of years later.

If true, it would change everything we know about early human civilization.

Radiation Pulses

Number nine: radiation pulses and the mass extinction.

The greatest mass extinction event in our planet’s history occurred about 250 million years ago.

It’s called the Permian Extinction, for Permian Triassic Extinction, and it’s one of the five major Extinction events in our past.

For a long time scientists have struggled to make total sense of what happened.

First they realized that suddenly 80 percent of all life on Earth vanished.

Then they tried to piece together how that happened.

The most popular theory is that a large volcanic event in Siberia pushed huge amounts of carbon into the stratosphere, collapsing the ozone layer and leading to an unimaginable warming event across the globe.

It was global warming on an unprecedented scale, basically happening overnight.

It’s pretty scary because such a thing could still happen now if one of our Mega volcanoes decided to erupt.

But something else may have played a role in the deaths of almost all life on earth.

Scientists are saying that a lethal pulse of UV radiation from the Sun could have helped make everything go extinct.

Uvb radiation may have bombarded the planet because of the sudden thinning of the ozone layer, preventing plants from using photosynthesis properly.

Instead of all the animals getting too hot to live, scientists are now saying they could have run out of food.

The UV radiation caused the plants to slowly stop producing, leading to a world wide famine.

Bare Skin Clothing

Number eight: bare skin clothing.

A new study published by researchers from the University of Tubingen shows humans have been wearing clothes for a very long time.

Archaeologists uncovered traces of Bones from a Cave Bear at an archaeological site in Germany, with the bones showing cut marks.

But these weren’t ordinary cut marks.

They were made on the metatarsal and Phalanx, two areas that have almost no usable meat.

The cut marks are not the result of a butcher preparing a meal, but rather of someone carefully stripping the skin.

The bones are about 300 000 years old, meaning they may or may not have been made by Homo Sapiens who had only just evolved.

It could have been a different early human ancestor who used wooden hunting weapons like Spears and throwing sticks.

This discovery has major implications for the development of human beings as a species.

It appears to be the earliest evidence of a cave Bearer being used for food and clothing.

Professor Nicholas conard says the bare skin was likely a key adaptation for Northern humans trying to survive in a cold environment.

Fashionable or not, people have been wearing bare skin for the better part of half a million years.

It shows a shocking level of Ingenuity, especially if Homo sapiens were involved.

We only came into existence about 315 000 years ago and already we were busy creating the world’s first Fashions.

If the Neanderthals were responsible, it’s even more impressive lives and says a lot about how smart they were.

The earliest human in Europe

Number seven: the earliest Jawbone in Europe.

The earliest evidence of a modern human being in Europe, was recently revealed thanks to a Jawbone found in Spain.

The Jawbone is 65 000 years old, originally discovered over a century ago in 1887..

Scientists always thought the bone belonged to a neanderthal, which made sense.

Neanderthals were believed to inhabit Spain long before Homo sapiens arrived.

One of the theories is that human beings invaded Europe and stole it from the Neanderthals.

Recently, scientists took a new look at the mysterious mandible.

Using modern technology, they revealed it to have human Origins.

It now appears to be the oldest evidence of a human living in Europe, suggesting humans arrived long before previously imagined.

The implications of this are huge and dramatic.

It looks like homo Sapien ideas may not have necessarily stolen Europe from the Neanderthals, but lived alongside them.

This only adds to the mystery of what became of the Neanderthals.

Scientists have never been able to definitively say why they went extinct.

Some guess early.

Humans wiped them out through Warfare.

Some have suggested they couldn’t adapt to a changing climate and died.

And yet science has shown that neanderthals had similar intelligence to us.

Seeing that we lived alongside them in Europe suggests a totally different story.

It could be that neanderthals bread with Homo sapiens until their own bloodline vanished.

And now for number six.

But first it’s Shout Out Time.

Big thank you to A and K Winter for supporting this channel.

We couldn’t do it without the support from viewers like you.

Californian seafarers

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Number six: Californian seafarers.

Archaeologists recently uncovered evidence of human activity on a deserted island off the coast of Ventura county in California.

The discovery was made on Santa Cruz Island, the biggest island of the Channel Islands.

Researchers found three different sites with ancient tools, along with harvested shellfish.

What they believe is that twelve thousand years ago, migrants from Alaska hattled their boats to Santa Cruz Island and built what could have been the first city in California.

This would have happened at the end of the last ice age.

The earliest inhabitants of the American West arrived from somewhere, but archaeologists aren’t exactly sure from where.

All we know is that they must have had boats if they reached such a remote place.

Dr John Erlinson from the University of Oregon says they use these boats to hunt marine mammals, to catch fish and to gather seaweed and other food.

As for where they came from, they lightly migrated from Asia to Alaska, then paddled their boat South to where the weather was more suitable.

The remains of this island civilization are long gone.

Archaeologists have found sites where they believed they lived, but nothing remains except the prehistoric remnants of seafood, dinners and tools.

Still, there is no denying that the discovery of these ancient seafarers changes what we know about the migration to the Americas.

These were the first true seafarers exploring islands and moving vast distances, 11 000 years before the Vikings.

Vikings in Portugal

Number five Vikings in Portugal.

According to the official European history books, the Azores were discovered by Portuguese explorers in the year 1427..

However, a new discovery of mouse Dna is changing the narratives.

It seems the archipelago may have really been discovered 700 years prior by opportunistic Vikings.

Professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, Jeremy Searle, made the claim in 2015..

He said the first humans to visit the Azores came from Scandinavia.

This was based on the Dna of ordinary house mice.

Mice currently living on the Azores are genetically distinct, connected directly to Mice from Scandinavia, and where there are men, there are mice.

The only thing that makes sense for how the Scandinavian mice wound up on the Azores is that the Norseman brought the Mover on their ships between 708 D a d.

But there was more evidence than just Mouse Dna.

Researchers also looked at sedimentary layers of lakes in the Azores.

They found evidence of human habitation around that same time frame, along with compounds from livestock feces and charcoal from wood burning.

It’s clear someone was living on the island 700 years before it was discovered by the Portuguese.

Based on the mouse Dna, it was most likely the Vikings.

But how they got there, what they did on the islands and why they left is still a major mystery.

It could be that they didn’t like all the Heat and sunshine, preferring their cold home in Norway.

What do you think happened to them?

Let me know in the comments below.

Rats and the Plague

Number four: rats and the plague.

One of the most important events in European history was the outbreak of the Black Death.

It ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing Millions.

Random outbreaks of the plague would continue until the 19th century.

We don’t have an exact death toll, but historians have said it could have been anywhere between one-third and one half of the European population.

How did such a devastating sickness spread?

Scientists have always believed it was rats.

Build the rats spreading the plague through overpopulated European cities.

The bacterium which causes the plague, called the yersinia pestis, is known for being transmitted from rodents and their fleas.

The plague started in rodents and spilled over into humans.

However, there is some scientific controversy.

A recent study suggests environmental conditions in Europe would have prevented Rats from spreading the plague.

The study says that rats may not have played that large of a role in transmitting the disease.

The conditions were not ideal for maintaining a reservoir of disease-ridden rats.

The weather just wasn’t what you would expect in a plague situation.

But across the world, in China and the western United States, the conditions were perfect for a reservoir of wild rodents with plague bacterium.

Here’s where things get even crazier.

Ancient Dna and lost texts from Central Asia show that they also suffered from a similar string of outbreaks.

Scientists are now suggesting that the disease was imported from China to Europe.

It may have come through trading routes, being spread from merchants and explorers instead of sewer rats.

If that’s true, it means the Black Death was the result of globalization and the Medieval World, and not just rats.

Prehistoric monoliths of France

The prehistoric monoliths of France.

Scientists in France found a series of rare monolithic stones in the central part of the country.

It came as a pretty big surprise, because no stone circles have been found in this part of France.

Standing stones have been uncovered and just about every part of the world, from Stonehenge in England to Africa.

But this one is really baffling archaeologists.

They excavated about 30 monoliths making up a huge circle, but almost all of them had been intentionally buried.

Scientists say it’s as if the community wanted to bury or hide the history of the stones.

This could have been done by early Christians who wanted to erase all traces of paganism, or by the people who built the stoves in the first place following a religious catastrophe.

It’s unclear how old these stones are, but they do appear to be from the Neolithic era, 6 000 years ago.

The Stone Circle represents a previously unknown group of humans living in central France with Advanced building techniques.

This could change what we know about Neolithic tribes in Central Europe, if only we can figure out what the Stone Circle was used for and why it was purposely destroyed.

What do you think?

Let me know in the comments.

Monkeys and tools

Number two: monkeys and their tools.

Pedro Furada in Brazil contains over 800 archaeological sites dating back 12 000 years.

There have been hundreds of fascinating ancient Rock paintings found at these sites.

Researchers have also found charcoal from ancient fires and stone shards that they say were used as tools.

The most shocking thing about the tools is that they have been dated to be 50 000 years old.

If you’re familiar with the arrival of human beings in the Western Hemisphere, you’ll know this doesn’t make sense.

The Clovis people of North America were supposedly the first to arrive.

That was only around 16 000 years ago, according to mainstream archeology.

If that’s the case, who in the world was making Tools in Brazil 34 000 years earlier?

Scientists think it may have been monkeys, specifically the Capuchin monkeys, which currently reside in the tropical forests of Central and South America.

The Capuchin monkeys are generally regarded as the most intelligent of all the monkeys on this side of the world.

Researchers have even observed them using stoves to break open nuts, A Primitive use of a tool.

But could it truly be possible that monkeys were crafting stone tools 50 000 years ago?

Some say yes, it is a possibility.

Things could be even crazier than anyone ever imagined.

Archaeologists from the National Institute of anthropology and Latin American thought say these sites May belong to monkeys, but why the brilliant monkeys stop building fires and making stone tools is beyond anyone’s wildest guess.

Do you think Capuchin monkeys were smart enough to do all this?

Money

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Number one: money in the Levant.

Scientists have made a shocking discovery in Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of pieces of silver from around 1700 Bc may have been used as some of the earliest currency in the world.

If true, these silver pieces represent the oldest form of money in the Levant, which encompasses modern Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Archaeologists from the University of Haifa say previous study showed people in the area using physical money starting around the 12th century Bc, in the Iron Age, but these silver pieces are 500 years younger than that, meaning the dates need to be changed.

Chemical analysis showed the Proto coins were made in Anatolia, turkey.

They were then passed along through unknown parties until they finally reached Israel and became cash.

Researchers have always known ancient cities in the Levant traded with one another in the Bronze Age, but the the discovery of silver pieces of money- a very early version of coins- changes everything.

These weren’t just primitive people bartering with one another.

They had their own system of currency that they made up themselves.

The currency would have been traded between traveling merchants and business folk in towns the exact same way we trade paper bills today.

It wouldn’t be for another 1 600 years or so that minted coins made an appearance.

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