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@@victoriaeads6126 I can't challenge your proper use of the New Age timeline designation... I do, however, find it amusing that it "triggered" you enough to actually comment on it...😆
@@ghiggs8389 Thirded! Would love a whole series of these, though that may not be realistic. There are other societies known to have existed in the ancient Near East, however, which are barely known despite their having been almost certainly key in the development of agriculture long before is generally understood to have happened. As with so many other issues, however, a lack of attention to them means no funding to look for more sites.
Agreed although I actually knew about the Nok because they were mentioned in a history text book during my middle school years and the Vinca are mentioned in the book Noah’s Flood.
The Taklamakan civilisation in Xinjiang, in western China in what is today the Taklamakan Desert. They were a Caucasian people similar to those in centra Asia or India today and the best record of them is in the Uramqi Museum in Uramqi, Xinjiang, China. This agricultural area turn to desert either through climate change or by destroying the soil and the people either went away or died out.
I have heard it said that forests precede civilisations and deserts follow them. The world today is losing arable land due to soil degradation and its productivity is only maintained by a once only supply of fossil fuels. The seeds for today's civilisation's collapse have been planted and seem to be fruiting now as I type.
Loved this one. The only one of these I'd even heard of was the Vinca, and even that is just a vague tickle in the back of my brain. Imagine how many more cultures that came, went and will simply never be remembered because there is nothing left to remember them by. Great stuff. Special place in my heart for Sideprojects!
Was really surprised to see The Nok Culture here😅, am from South East Nigeria and the Nok Culture is still an enigma to Modern Day Nigerians. An Interesting detail you noted was the switch from stone tools directly to Iron which i wasn't aware or taught too in School but i can say that most ancient Kingdoms in Nigeria took inspiration from the Nok Culture ranging from the ancient Kingdom of Benin to the Yoruba Kingdoms.
I reacently learnt through other channels here on YT how much ancient African Culture has been destroyed and deliberately ruined to deprave Africa of it's history. Made me want to cry... I vaguely remember the name of a city. Rapta, I think it was.
It’s likely just that the first metallurgical culture that the Nok encountered were iron-age, already past bronze. They could’ve simply skipped ahead technologically, leading to a miss of extra stratification that arose from agriculture and the bureaucratic monarchal systems required for an empire
@@Pushing_Pixels if I were to guess - it'd be something like: if they only picked up iron smelting in approx 700BC (as per video) and they came from somewhere further north (as per the video (if I understand correctly)) then the answer to "who could they possibly have learned iron smelting from" .... is _every_ other culture in or around the mediterranean, _all_ of whom had had iron smelting for at least 500-1000 years before that.
I really particularly love your channel because honestly while it may not come off as exciting as some I feel like when I watch you I am learning stuff. things you talk about matter, the things you show matter, they have substance. the topics you cover are not on trend with pop culture or the newest flash trend.. they're the ones that actually stick in your brain and make you feel like you have expanded your knowledge. I love that
So true. Everything’s so sensationalized and cheesy these days. I hate to admit that I get caught up in it far too much. So lucky to have Simon keeping it objective and free of sensational “narrative “
Vinca was the one I'd heard of, but maybe that's because I read too much feminist literature as a kid. Marija Gimbutas, Merlin Stone, Eisler, people like that. These were some... strange women. Gimbutas had some starkly nativist sympathies (she's been slandered as a N-zi); all of them were hostile to Christianity. With modern genetics and linguistics, Gimbutas was rehabilitated in her take on the Kurgan invasion; I guess the others might get some new respect as well.
Loved this. Kinda lamenting not learning much about ancient civilizations in US public schools but on the other hand learning this stuff now is providing hours of entertainment as an adult.
Lol I went to public schools in Louisiana so all I learned is that Jesus was American and white and he destroyed all other civilizations with his magical 1911 that he invented
Thank you for what you do mr Whistler, As a 44 yr old college grad (that had nothing to do with history) history vids are my guilty pleasure. I would choose your videos over any current tv show. Thanks again and keep up the great work =)
The crafting abilities of pre-historic and early history cultures is always so impressive. As a person with an art history degree, early and prehistoric art and artifacts have always been a favorite of mine. The amount of artifacts that are decorated in a period when humans (and early ancestors) were sometimes literally fighting for their lives daily speaks volumes about humanity’s relationship with and need for art in our lives.
Self-expression is a primary hallmark of humanity, if you ask me. The act of creation, of making something with one's own hands, as well as the desire to leave something behind, seems to be as old as what we'd call "anatomically modern humans. I find it super cool too that some of the oldest musical instruments we've found are nearly as old as the oldest rock art.
@@semaj_5022or maybe they are all just complex rituals for social communication, learning and mating? I love art too but this perception of it being something special that makes us human is so oblivious to how behavioral patterns in social animals often become specialised and complicated... If you look at the bigger picture it makes sense that self expression, is a tool for communication, not some transendant gift of humanity 🙄
@YolandaHalfAlmonde I wasn't saying there's some "higher purpose," just that it's an extremely human thing to do. While plenty of ancient art and expression likely had a purpose, you also can not discount that not *everything* has a purpose. Sometimes, we do things simply for no other reason than wanting to do them or because they're enjoyable to do. While many things are likely enjoyable because they confer an evolutionary benefit to derive pleasure from them(eating, play, sex, etc.), not everything is going to have such a purpose. Though in that vein, I propose there's likely at least one evolutionary reason we may get pleasure from making things. Having a sense of accomplishment and a desire to share our creations with others likely ensures both individuals stay motivated to keep making things, and innovations are able to spread through a population. The pathways that allowed tool technology to take root, spread, and improve likely also helped art and music spread and develop, alongside helping to cultivate and reinforce creative thinking, which would be beneficial in both tool making and creation of art.
i think it's easy for us to forget that people have always been *people* -- we've always created art and stories, we've always had petty squabbles over nonsense, we've always cared for the ill/injured/elderly, we've always been insatiably curious. we find art and instruments everywhere we know humans (and even some of our prehistoric brethren) lived. evidence suggests that humans sang before we spoke. there's little that gets me more emotional than things like the handprints of children in ancient clay or toys just like the ones we give children today -- carved animals with wheels they can pull along on string or the little ducks embroidered on clothes in king tut's tomb. we have always needed and created art, and i think remembering that tells us far more about how humans have always existed than many would assume
As a broad generalization, most metal tools are indeed better than stone tools. There are some, however, where this is not the case. The best modern example is obsidian blades used in surgeries. They are significantly sharper than the best metal options and in some instances this is a critical need. Leaving aside modern uses, however, metal alone is not reason enough to have such tools replace stone options. Metal is often an inherently limited thing while stone is ubiquitous. It is the difference in supply between the two materials which is generally understood to be the primary cause of not switching to metal tools. Metal mining needed to catch up in terms of overall supply before that transition could happen.
I would argue (on your behalf) that ceramic and even glass are forms of stone and is clearly better than metal where you need high temperatures and resistance to rust.
we can also add the quality of the ores into the mix of usefulness as well, and the alloyed material you get from initial refining. and we can look at the PreColumbian Native Americans; North Centeral and South to see how quality plays a role, there where some civilizations that dabbled in smelting, certainly it was not just panned gold and copper that the Native Americans used, but they did not use iron often. it was used, it was known how to beat a chunk of iron into a tool, presumably even known to some degree how to smelt it. But only one stable civilization actually smelted a lot of the stuff, and it was not used for much, just fixing stones together, there where reports from early contact of some Native America loggers using iron tools as well but not often. Quality matters a lot, it matters less when you have the smelting process down but it matters a lot to even get to the point of smelting and refining.
Stone is ubiquitous, but you don't use just any stones, you need flint or vulcanic glass - amorphous silica oxide rocks. It's like earth is ubiquitous, but good clay isn't, fertile soil isn't.
@@catherine_404 I've coincidentally been reading a paper which suggests that anhydrous glass is comparable to steel. Most stony asteroids are basically crushed basalt and obsidian. The Sun has long ago baked all the water out of them. That will suck for colonists but if miners bring their own water, it'll be happy-hunting for, basically, Superman's obsidian
I read the title and was like, "I've read a fair amount about this kind of thing, I bet I *have* heard of these." It turns out I only vaguely remember hearing about one of them. Thanks for teaching me stuff!
Thank you Mr. Simon, I enjoy your content and I think that I may have heard of the NOK culture in passing, due to various history UA-cam videos doing similar content to you, though I haven't (at least I don't think I have) heard of the other civilizations you mentioned today, and it just makes me appreciate human history even more.
Love learning about civilisations I’ve never heard of. One of the greatest delights in history I ever discovered was the centuries of kingdoms and empires that existed before the more well known Greece and Rome. Mitanni, the Hittites, the Kassites, the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Arameans, the Ur dynasties, the ever present kingdom of Elam. It’s truly inspiring to know there are yet more to know about.
A fascinating video well presented. Inspires you to wonder of all those past forgotten peoples living their lives different to us now but still with mostly the same motivations. This easily could be a series; spin a globe, poke a finger at a random place and there was people there living in a certain way worth remembering.
6:10 the Copper Age is not that common; most made the jump from Stone to Bronze (after all, the Copper Age is only possible in places with native copper; if you're going to smelt it, it's better to just alloy it with cassiterite, which is tin ore, or arsenic, which was the route many civilizations chose).
@@kevwills858 I'm using modern terms. People who smelted copper ore usually did so either by advancing from the Copper Age or by learning from their neighbours, and any that smelted it to copper learnt that when they added some weird rocks to the mix, the result was way better soon enough to never really do it for enough time to warrant the "Age" moniker.
@@kevwills858 The **only** way to make bronze is to alloy copper. The chief impediment to bronze age production was lack of tin (which is significantly rarer than copper). The earliest (known) currency was electrum coins (made of alloyed gold and silver) from around Illyria. You can't just assume that ancient people were stupid. In all likelihood, the average ancient was more intelligent than the average modern, because back then your stupidity would get you killed while now stupidity is subsidized.
I thought "ah, lets watch one minute, surely it will be akkad or something like that"... and then four civilizations that were (almost all) unknown to me! Great video!
It's interesting to think about how many cultures that may have existed 10,000-8,000 years ago or so that are now under water, and we will probably never know anything about them.
How about cultures that relied on degradable materials like plant and animal products, and they lived in environments which destroy such materials. There barely anything left of such cultures.
Would be nice to see individual videos on these cultures and others like them, or the brave idea of decoding their apparent writing systems. A Video on Quippu (or however you spell it) would also be enjoyable...
9:27 Looks more like a star map than lettering. It's probably a calendar, but could stil be a map to help guide people from location to location. That's what I'd bet my speculative internet dollars on.
It would be interesting for you to do a video on the longest surviving continuous culture - the First Nations/Aboriginal people of Australia who have been living here for over 60,000 years.
The aboriginal peoples of Australia and New Zealand aren't a singular culture, though. They have an array of various tribal identities and cultures that are in no way homogeneous. Calling the aboriginal peoples of Oceana a singular culture is like saying that Indigenous Americans were all one culture.
@@SkunkApe407 Oh that was by no means what I was trying to say but I can understand how it came off that way. I'm well aware that there are hundreds of First Nations in Australia. I just thought it would be cool if Simon could bring some attention to those cultures. Literature often calls Aboriginal Australians (as a group) the "longest continuing culture" but doesn't actually ever say "this Nation has history dating back X amount of years and these Peoples have history going back Y amount of years" so it's a bit difficult to actually find that information.
@@-el-gato no worries. You are correct, though. The aboriginal Australians are incredibly fascinating people. The same goes for any Polynesian peoples, as well. It is mind-boggling to think that those folks were able to venture out of Asia on primitive, yet simultaneously advanced boats, and populate the most far flung and remote land masses on the planet. Truly awe inspiring stuff.
@@SkunkApe407 human migration to southeast asia and oceania came in many "waves". new zealand was first inhabitated by maori people in like 14th century CE, far later than aboriginal australia.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 and your point is? All you've done is further prove my point that the various peoples of Oceania are not one in the same. What, you think that human settlement of the Americas was a one-and-done migration? It happened in waves, as well. Most landmasses were populated that way.
Am I the only one who thinks the pot at 9.23 looks like a star map. Perhaps not quite the constellations we are used to in the west but then that pot probably predates those.
How much did ancient civilizations know about their past? The Romans and Egyptians reigned for thousands of years, but were they able to learn from their history?
@@GameHammerCG every major civilization had peoples like that. Records from them didn't survive. Roman didn't exist when most of these civilization existed.
@@GameHammerCG Assyrians too. Ashurbanipal built what can only be described as a museum, cataloguing old tablets the Assyrians and Babylonians had dug up and attempting to translate them to his neo-Assyrian Akkadian dialect
The obvious theory for how the Nok skipped straight to iron is that they just remained stone age until they made contact with another culture who had made the usual progression that was able to teach them iron directly. And from there, there's a pretty clear theory about why their population might have suddenly declined a while later ... Vinca symbols - possibly "names"? They didn't have writing, so they could have been symbols to represent a person. Possibly a sort of ownership or membership, like it shows who a thing belongs to/who can use it?
Many indigenous American tribal groups saw a similar jump from stone tools to iron when Europeans started venturing into the Americas. It is entirely reasonable that a similar scenario has played out in other parts of the globe.
@@JcoleMc the rest of the world had already begun using iron tools prior to the Nok culture's adoption of the technology. It isn't "taking" anything from Africa. Especially not when talking about a single, short-lived culture. Try dropping the victim mentality for a minute. You might actually learn something.
To me the Vinča writings look like seasonal activities. Arrows being shot, an angled stick with meat cooking over a fire. One has a sort of sun on a stick dividing a plant depiction from an animal skull, warm farming season divided from cold animal hunting season. Another has a goat running from a fire on a stick and a person with beater sound sticks behind the fire.
I was wondering about the zodiac; this is a big thing on the OldEuropeanCulture blog. The zodiac matters if you are a farmer. You better plant your crops in the correct season
Hey out of curiosity, what method was used to determine/estimate the population density in the Vinca culture settlements? Thanks in advance to anyone who answers! Greetings from Indonesia
13:37 You missed an important part of the Caral civilization--it lasted around 900 years with trade across much of the continent yet no hints anywhere of battles or warfare. At all.
Love your stuff, Been off work for abit. but I pretty much watched all your stuff on every channel. Been waiting for a back log to watch again. But i couldnt stop myself from watching this
That would sit very nicely with Vietnamese lore. The lore said there was initially 100 tribes and at some point half of them left sail to the sea and half stayed inland.
11:11 we have to be careful about assuming aridity that far back. From 14000 BCE to 3000 BCE even Sahara was green due to humid climate in northern hemisphere. It is likely to be the case in Southern Hemisphere also.
Seems like each of these 'founders' had SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE that determined the emphasis of their settlement. Then you have to wonder if the original group agreed to a separate culture emphasis knowing they would be the sole influence.
You are fantastic! Love and trust your episodes! Curious if you have done and acoustic research? ie, the red pyramid has A note chamber or the theory of chanting to move or raise heavy items such as boulders raised to create stone henge…. thanks ❤
Two ads and an embedded sponsorship in the first four mins?!? I would say it's shocking, but then again, I've watched a few of Simon's multitudinous channels
I l9ve & subscribe to all your channels, but I really like this one. I like how often you crack jokes & go off the cuff in the "side projects" videos. Thanks to everyone involved in making these. Including, but not limited to, Simon Wistler
I swear you do it on purpose, Whistler. When you say Caral-Supe, you can’t say Supe right, but when you mention the river, you do. Quipu is pronounced keypoo. And I’m sure Kevin had a giggle getting you to say both Bernard Fagg and Dong Son in one video. I’m surprised it wasn’t age restricted.
And I so much appreciate you giving me a comparative measure because when I hear they were made of hectares or cubits I don't know what a flipping Cubit is and I don't know what a flipping hectare more accurately I don't know the size of the measurement to compare it to things I actually do know
@@JodyOwen-we6oo for some reason my brain will not commit conversion tables into long term memory. I am always hoping one day the information will be presented to me in some novel way and I will all of a sudden get it. Apparently today is not that day.
@@SkunkApe407 I had somehow never even heard that a Cubit was something so simple, if not a bit ambitious. I think I can lock that info in. I would love to say the same about hectares but I'd be a liar. I truly do appreciate it and at least today I can say I know. 🤘🤘🤘
I love how Simon just has so many channels. I want a history video? Simon. I want true crime? Simon. I want a geographical video? Yup also Simon. Keep it up whistle boy. 🙌👏
11:46 What the heck? That's cottonGRASS, a sedge, not any type of cotton that can be used for clothing. Cottongrass can't even grow in the region being discussed in that part of the video. Cotton does have several varieties, but all of them look like little bushes, not like a flower with one bud per stalk.
I would love to hear the Dong Son Moon of Bejen drum - I suppose it would be too fragile to use, though? I went looking for videos and couldn't find any of that drum specifically.
I’d heard of the Nok minimally.. and the Caral Supe civilization, but only because I took an Archaeology course while I was studying abroad in Peru. Very interesting!
I'd love to see something talking about groups such as the Linear Pottery culture - lbk - or Stroke-oriented, and a look into Herxheim, for that matter. We know more and more about Herxheim, but it's morbidly fascinating.
Thank you for this wonderful presentation. I wanted to add what I hope will be a helpful note. Most people don't know this, but the term "sub-Saharan Africa" is not legitimately geographical since there is no cohesive geographical feature that unites all of the parts of Africa south of the Sahara. The term is meant to be racial. It is meant to convince people of the inferiority of certain Africans, so it's important not to use the term as it places a non-existent distinction within Africa that creates an imaginary divide. Black people have always lived in North Africa (no matter how you define it), and non-black people have just about always travelled to, moved to, and lived and settled in places within Africa that are south of the Sahara Desert. But the region of sub-Saharan Africa exists in reality no more than sub-Alpine Europe, sub-GreatPlanian North America, or Sub-Amazonian South America. It is an imaginary divide that is used to promote the idea of the inferiority of people with typically black skin, and the superiority of people with light, fair skin.
The more incredible discoveries in Peru makes me take another look at the Ica stones, where they were found and what they might tell us. Some of them look like the Moche.
CORRAL seems to me to be a kingdom, planned and carried out by a insightful individual. The site was selected to deter runaways, incorporate dependence, keep a narrow focus. Where did they get the idea of cultivating cotton? Now that, itself, is an entire explanation for a previous civilization whose remnants of knowledge were carried forward by a select few that saw themselves as the creators of a new world........
Civilizations come and go, but what's impressive is that the people from those civilizations usually reintegrate somewhere else. Climate refugees scar mankind throughout history, but we learn from them every time it happens. Even when we don't have a single clue whatsoflippingever what happened to them, that's often a clue on itself. If a country nowadays would cease to exist it would be remembered in history books for a thousand years, but back then they'd just be gone like a fart in the wind.
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Flexible abacus seems more accurate than 'crude' abacus. And PLEASE! These cultures had NOTHING to do with Christianity. PLEASE use BCE/CE!
@@victoriaeads6126 I can't challenge your proper use of the New Age timeline designation... I do, however, find it amusing that it "triggered" you enough to actually comment on it...😆
Jesus Christ a 2 minute ad in a 16 minute video. At least most UA-camrs only make us skip 1 minute of a. Video lol.
Look up Squatter Man Symbol and Anthony Perat
0:45 - Chapter 1 - Nok culture
2:00 - Mid roll ads
4:00 - Back to the video
6:40 - Chapter 2 - Vinca culture
10:05 - Chapter 3 - Caral supe civilization
13:40 - Chapter 4 - Dong son culture
Thanks
Not all heroes wear capes 🙏
This was a cool one. Would love a part 2 with more obscure civilizations.
I second this
@@ghiggs8389 Thirded! Would love a whole series of these, though that may not be realistic. There are other societies known to have existed in the ancient Near East, however, which are barely known despite their having been almost certainly key in the development of agriculture long before is generally understood to have happened. As with so many other issues, however, a lack of attention to them means no funding to look for more sites.
Agreed although I actually knew about the Nok because they were mentioned in a history text book during my middle school years and the Vinca are mentioned in the book Noah’s Flood.
The Taklamakan civilisation in Xinjiang, in western China in what is today the Taklamakan Desert. They were a Caucasian people similar to those in centra Asia or India today and the best record of them is in the Uramqi Museum in Uramqi, Xinjiang, China. This agricultural area turn to desert either through climate change or by destroying the soil and the people either went away or died out.
I have heard it said that forests precede civilisations and deserts follow them. The world today is losing arable land due to soil degradation and its productivity is only maintained by a once only supply of fossil fuels. The seeds for today's civilisation's collapse have been planted and seem to be fruiting now as I type.
Loved this one. The only one of these I'd even heard of was the Vinca, and even that is just a vague tickle in the back of my brain. Imagine how many more cultures that came, went and will simply never be remembered because there is nothing left to remember them by. Great stuff. Special place in my heart for Sideprojects!
I grow vinca in my garden, so I was surprised at that recognition!
Was really surprised to see The Nok Culture here😅, am from South East Nigeria and the Nok Culture is still an enigma to Modern Day Nigerians. An Interesting detail you noted was the switch from stone tools directly to Iron which i wasn't aware or taught too in School but i can say that most ancient Kingdoms in Nigeria took inspiration from the Nok Culture ranging from the ancient Kingdom of Benin to the Yoruba Kingdoms.
I reacently learnt through other channels here on YT how much ancient African Culture has been destroyed and deliberately ruined to deprave Africa of it's history. Made me want to cry...
I vaguely remember the name of a city. Rapta, I think it was.
It’s likely just that the first metallurgical culture that the Nok encountered were iron-age, already past bronze. They could’ve simply skipped ahead technologically, leading to a miss of extra stratification that arose from agriculture and the bureaucratic monarchal systems required for an empire
@@bendover9813 Which Iron Age culture would they have encountered at the time they were around?
well the one thing we do know is the great humor coming out of Nok, Nok Jokes.
@@Pushing_Pixels if I were to guess - it'd be something like: if they only picked up iron smelting in approx 700BC (as per video) and they came from somewhere further north (as per the video (if I understand correctly)) then the answer to "who could they possibly have learned iron smelting from" .... is _every_ other culture in or around the mediterranean, _all_ of whom had had iron smelting for at least 500-1000 years before that.
I really particularly love your channel because honestly while it may not come off as exciting as some I feel like when I watch you I am learning stuff. things you talk about matter, the things you show matter, they have substance. the topics you cover are not on trend with pop culture or the newest flash trend.. they're the ones that actually stick in your brain and make you feel like you have expanded your knowledge. I love that
So true. Everything’s so sensationalized and cheesy these days. I hate to admit that I get caught up in it far too much. So lucky to have Simon keeping it objective and free of sensational “narrative “
Nok sculpture is GORGEOUS!
100%
Cool. I’m an archaeologist, and you still managed to get 5 for 5. So much out there still to learn. Thanks!
Vinca was the one I'd heard of, but maybe that's because I read too much feminist literature as a kid. Marija Gimbutas, Merlin Stone, Eisler, people like that.
These were some... strange women. Gimbutas had some starkly nativist sympathies (she's been slandered as a N-zi); all of them were hostile to Christianity.
With modern genetics and linguistics, Gimbutas was rehabilitated in her take on the Kurgan invasion; I guess the others might get some new respect as well.
I'd heard of the nok before, but that was it
@@dima97Heisenberg?
Why isn’t your channel called Simon Says?
😂😂😂😂
Yeah honestly
A channel about famous quotes?
Because he's real name is fredrico.
Oh DIP
I love how the size of Simon’s beard is proportional to the number of channels where he appears.
Loved this. Kinda lamenting not learning much about ancient civilizations in US public schools but on the other hand learning this stuff now is providing hours of entertainment as an adult.
I remember learning about ancient Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Greece, and Rome in grade school
Lol I went to public schools in Louisiana so all I learned is that Jesus was American and white and he destroyed all other civilizations with his magical 1911 that he invented
Thank you for what you do mr Whistler, As a 44 yr old college grad (that had nothing to do with history) history vids are my guilty pleasure. I would choose your videos over any current tv show. Thanks again and keep up the great work =)
The crafting abilities of pre-historic and early history cultures is always so impressive. As a person with an art history degree, early and prehistoric art and artifacts have always been a favorite of mine. The amount of artifacts that are decorated in a period when humans (and early ancestors) were sometimes literally fighting for their lives daily speaks volumes about humanity’s relationship with and need for art in our lives.
Self-expression is a primary hallmark of humanity, if you ask me. The act of creation, of making something with one's own hands, as well as the desire to leave something behind, seems to be as old as what we'd call "anatomically modern humans. I find it super cool too that some of the oldest musical instruments we've found are nearly as old as the oldest rock art.
@@semaj_5022or maybe they are all just complex rituals for social communication, learning and mating? I love art too but this perception of it being something special that makes us human is so oblivious to how behavioral patterns in social animals often become specialised and complicated... If you look at the bigger picture it makes sense that self expression, is a tool for communication, not some transendant gift of humanity 🙄
@YolandaHalfAlmonde I wasn't saying there's some "higher purpose," just that it's an extremely human thing to do. While plenty of ancient art and expression likely had a purpose, you also can not discount that not *everything* has a purpose. Sometimes, we do things simply for no other reason than wanting to do them or because they're enjoyable to do. While many things are likely enjoyable because they confer an evolutionary benefit to derive pleasure from them(eating, play, sex, etc.), not everything is going to have such a purpose. Though in that vein, I propose there's likely at least one evolutionary reason we may get pleasure from making things. Having a sense of accomplishment and a desire to share our creations with others likely ensures both individuals stay motivated to keep making things, and innovations are able to spread through a population. The pathways that allowed tool technology to take root, spread, and improve likely also helped art and music spread and develop, alongside helping to cultivate and reinforce creative thinking, which would be beneficial in both tool making and creation of art.
i think it's easy for us to forget that people have always been *people* -- we've always created art and stories, we've always had petty squabbles over nonsense, we've always cared for the ill/injured/elderly, we've always been insatiably curious. we find art and instruments everywhere we know humans (and even some of our prehistoric brethren) lived. evidence suggests that humans sang before we spoke. there's little that gets me more emotional than things like the handprints of children in ancient clay or toys just like the ones we give children today -- carved animals with wheels they can pull along on string or the little ducks embroidered on clothes in king tut's tomb. we have always needed and created art, and i think remembering that tells us far more about how humans have always existed than many would assume
As a broad generalization, most metal tools are indeed better than stone tools. There are some, however, where this is not the case. The best modern example is obsidian blades used in surgeries. They are significantly sharper than the best metal options and in some instances this is a critical need. Leaving aside modern uses, however, metal alone is not reason enough to have such tools replace stone options. Metal is often an inherently limited thing while stone is ubiquitous. It is the difference in supply between the two materials which is generally understood to be the primary cause of not switching to metal tools. Metal mining needed to catch up in terms of overall supply before that transition could happen.
I would argue (on your behalf) that ceramic and even glass are forms of stone and is clearly better than metal where you need high temperatures and resistance to rust.
we can also add the quality of the ores into the mix of usefulness as well, and the alloyed material you get from initial refining.
and we can look at the PreColumbian Native Americans; North Centeral and South to see how quality plays a role, there where some civilizations that dabbled in smelting, certainly it was not just panned gold and copper that the Native Americans used, but they did not use iron often.
it was used, it was known how to beat a chunk of iron into a tool, presumably even known to some degree how to smelt it. But only one stable civilization actually smelted a lot of the stuff, and it was not used for much, just fixing stones together, there where reports from early contact of some Native America loggers using iron tools as well but not often.
Quality matters a lot, it matters less when you have the smelting process down but it matters a lot to even get to the point of smelting and refining.
Stone is ubiquitous, but you don't use just any stones, you need flint or vulcanic glass - amorphous silica oxide rocks. It's like earth is ubiquitous, but good clay isn't, fertile soil isn't.
@@catherine_404 I've coincidentally been reading a paper which suggests that anhydrous glass is comparable to steel. Most stony asteroids are basically crushed basalt and obsidian. The Sun has long ago baked all the water out of them. That will suck for colonists but if miners bring their own water, it'll be happy-hunting for, basically, Superman's obsidian
I read the title and was like, "I've read a fair amount about this kind of thing, I bet I *have* heard of these." It turns out I only vaguely remember hearing about one of them. Thanks for teaching me stuff!
You’re right- you could do an entire episode on the quipu, and you should!
Thank you Mr. Simon, I enjoy your content and I think that I may have heard of the NOK culture in passing, due to various history UA-cam videos doing similar content to you, though I haven't (at least I don't think I have) heard of the other civilizations you mentioned today, and it just makes me appreciate human history even more.
Love learning about civilisations I’ve never heard of. One of the greatest delights in history I ever discovered was the centuries of kingdoms and empires that existed before the more well known Greece and Rome. Mitanni, the Hittites, the Kassites, the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Arameans, the Ur dynasties, the ever present kingdom of Elam.
It’s truly inspiring to know there are yet more to know about.
Dang it Simon. Now I’m wanting to fire up Civilization III. Yes I’m oddly specific with which Civ game I want to play.
Because Civ III is best hehe
aren't we all
I'm really glad to hear someone talk about Vinca culture :)
A fascinating video well presented. Inspires you to wonder of all those past forgotten peoples living their lives different to us now but still with mostly the same motivations. This easily could be a series; spin a globe, poke a finger at a random place and there was people there living in a certain way worth remembering.
1:11 WOW, that is some seriously impressive sculpture! Shows plenty of advanced techniques. Very nice!
6:10 the Copper Age is not that common; most made the jump from Stone to Bronze (after all, the Copper Age is only possible in places with native copper; if you're going to smelt it, it's better to just alloy it with cassiterite, which is tin ore, or arsenic, which was the route many civilizations chose).
Yeah, but gotta realise that the word 'alloy' didn't mean 2 knobs of goat shit back then 🤔
@@kevwills858 I'm using modern terms.
People who smelted copper ore usually did so either by advancing from the Copper Age or by learning from their neighbours, and any that smelted it to copper learnt that when they added some weird rocks to the mix, the result was way better soon enough to never really do it for enough time to warrant the "Age" moniker.
@@kevwills858 The **only** way to make bronze is to alloy copper. The chief impediment to bronze age production was lack of tin (which is significantly rarer than copper). The earliest (known) currency was electrum coins (made of alloyed gold and silver) from around Illyria. You can't just assume that ancient people were stupid. In all likelihood, the average ancient was more intelligent than the average modern, because back then your stupidity would get you killed while now stupidity is subsidized.
I thought "ah, lets watch one minute, surely it will be akkad or something like that"... and then four civilizations that were (almost all) unknown to me! Great video!
It was good to see something more obscure, not the usual suspects.
0:41 Nok Culture
6:38 Vinča Culture
10:01 Caral-Supe Civilization
13:38 Dong Son Culture
It's interesting to think about how many cultures that may have existed 10,000-8,000 years ago or so that are now under water, and we will probably never know anything about them.
How about cultures that relied on degradable materials like plant and animal products, and they lived in environments which destroy such materials. There barely anything left of such cultures.
@@catherine_404 To leave nothing behind, not even a stain on the landscape - isn't that what we now think is the ideal way to live?
I would live to see an extensive history of the ancient peoples of malta a deep dive into the history of the structures beneath malta would be awsome!
Would be nice to see individual videos on these cultures and others like them, or the brave idea of decoding their apparent writing systems. A Video on Quippu (or however you spell it) would also be enjoyable...
I am not a expert but i think the stone glyph at 9:23 is a star chart.
9:27 Looks more like a star map than lettering. It's probably a calendar, but could stil be a map to help guide people from location to location. That's what I'd bet my speculative internet dollars on.
You beat me to it! I was literally coming here to say that!
It would be interesting for you to do a video on the longest surviving continuous culture - the First Nations/Aboriginal people of Australia who have been living here for over 60,000 years.
The aboriginal peoples of Australia and New Zealand aren't a singular culture, though. They have an array of various tribal identities and cultures that are in no way homogeneous. Calling the aboriginal peoples of Oceana a singular culture is like saying that Indigenous Americans were all one culture.
@@SkunkApe407 Oh that was by no means what I was trying to say but I can understand how it came off that way. I'm well aware that there are hundreds of First Nations in Australia. I just thought it would be cool if Simon could bring some attention to those cultures. Literature often calls Aboriginal Australians (as a group) the "longest continuing culture" but doesn't actually ever say "this Nation has history dating back X amount of years and these Peoples have history going back Y amount of years" so it's a bit difficult to actually find that information.
@@-el-gato no worries. You are correct, though. The aboriginal Australians are incredibly fascinating people. The same goes for any Polynesian peoples, as well. It is mind-boggling to think that those folks were able to venture out of Asia on primitive, yet simultaneously advanced boats, and populate the most far flung and remote land masses on the planet. Truly awe inspiring stuff.
@@SkunkApe407 human migration to southeast asia and oceania came in many "waves". new zealand was first inhabitated by maori people in like 14th century CE, far later than aboriginal australia.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 and your point is? All you've done is further prove my point that the various peoples of Oceania are not one in the same. What, you think that human settlement of the Americas was a one-and-done migration? It happened in waves, as well. Most landmasses were populated that way.
I love learning about these cultures.
Am I the only one who thinks the pot at 9.23 looks like a star map. Perhaps not quite the constellations we are used to in the west but then that pot probably predates those.
How much did ancient civilizations know about their past? The Romans and Egyptians reigned for thousands of years, but were they able to learn from their history?
Yes, they were. Greeks, Romans and Egyptians had archaeologists of their own.
Roman were pretty new if compared with Egyptian. Don't mix them.
@@-rate6326 They still had people digging up the past and being amazed by it.
@@GameHammerCG every major civilization had peoples like that. Records from them didn't survive. Roman didn't exist when most of these civilization existed.
@@GameHammerCG Assyrians too. Ashurbanipal built what can only be described as a museum, cataloguing old tablets the Assyrians and Babylonians had dug up and attempting to translate them to his neo-Assyrian Akkadian dialect
The title of this video is correct for me, I had not heard of any of these ancient cultures! Very nice to learn something new :)
i’m from Kaduna and from the Nok region, i’m really happy to see this content ❤
Great episode, very interesting, well done as usual Simon and crew.
6:12 Another example of the jump from stone to iron tools are the ancient Korean cultures.
... and then insane Korean emperors did their best to bring Korea back to the stone age
The obvious theory for how the Nok skipped straight to iron is that they just remained stone age until they made contact with another culture who had made the usual progression that was able to teach them iron directly. And from there, there's a pretty clear theory about why their population might have suddenly declined a while later ...
Vinca symbols - possibly "names"? They didn't have writing, so they could have been symbols to represent a person. Possibly a sort of ownership or membership, like it shows who a thing belongs to/who can use it?
Makes you wonder what an archeologist 2000 years from now would make of key chain logo or a partly preserved billboard.
Many indigenous American tribal groups saw a similar jump from stone tools to iron when Europeans started venturing into the Americas. It is entirely reasonable that a similar scenario has played out in other parts of the globe.
I like the idea of symbols being a form of written name. It reminds me cattle brands to denote ownership
Can't let Africa have anything
@@JcoleMc the rest of the world had already begun using iron tools prior to the Nok culture's adoption of the technology. It isn't "taking" anything from Africa. Especially not when talking about a single, short-lived culture. Try dropping the victim mentality for a minute. You might actually learn something.
Thanks, an interesting look back at some old cultures that disappeared, though not without a trace.
Background music is practically overwhelming your narration. Awesome topic!
To me the Vinča writings look like seasonal activities. Arrows being shot, an angled stick with meat cooking over a fire. One has a sort of sun on a stick dividing a plant depiction from an animal skull, warm farming season divided from cold animal hunting season. Another has a goat running from a fire on a stick and a person with beater sound sticks behind the fire.
I was wondering about the zodiac; this is a big thing on the OldEuropeanCulture blog.
The zodiac matters if you are a farmer. You better plant your crops in the correct season
Yessss the Nok, i love when something I’m currently researching pops up in a “random” YT video
You should have included Cucuteni-Tripilla prehistoric civilization. They are 7500 years old and fascinating af. Had a huge city and pottery etc...
Excellent video. Would love to see more on this topic.
Hey out of curiosity, what method was used to determine/estimate the population density in the Vinca culture settlements? Thanks in advance to anyone who answers!
Greetings from Indonesia
Fascinating, never heard of any of them, thank you.
1:30 nice last name. His descendants must have had a lot of friends in school
This was very fun- cheers to your research team on this one. I hope we’ll see more like this.
Fascinating.
An excellent video informative and visually appealing.
Please create more on the less known extinct cultures of our world.
13:37 You missed an important part of the Caral civilization--it lasted around 900 years with trade across much of the continent yet no hints anywhere of battles or warfare. At all.
Like Tiahuanaco? They were pretty advanced without much martial-imagery.
Huari, yeah, was a violent empire...
That was awesome Simon! Thanks.
Love your stuff, Been off work for abit. but I pretty much watched all your stuff on every channel. Been waiting for a back log to watch again. But i couldnt stop myself from watching this
What a fascinating video! You’re right that I hadn’t heard of any of these ancient peoples.
I'm so pleased that I'd not heard of these, bar one which i had heard of but nothing about yet.
So refreshing to learn more things 🎉
12:20 First use of string theory to explain the cosmos.
The Moon of Pejeng is in Bali which is nowhere near Vietnam. The Dong Son civilisation was spread out a lot farther than your video indicates.
That would sit very nicely with Vietnamese lore. The lore said there was initially 100 tribes and at some point half of them left sail to the sea and half stayed inland.
11:11 we have to be careful about assuming aridity that far back. From 14000 BCE to 3000 BCE even Sahara was green due to humid climate in northern hemisphere. It is likely to be the case in Southern Hemisphere also.
Seems like each of these 'founders' had SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE that determined the emphasis of their settlement.
Then you have to wonder if the original group agreed to a separate culture emphasis knowing they would be the sole influence.
8:00 The Vinca's Petruvian Man
8:20 World's first Batman action figure
9:00 World's first POGs
You are fantastic! Love and trust your episodes! Curious if you have done and acoustic research? ie, the red pyramid has A note chamber or the theory of chanting to move or raise heavy items such as boulders raised to create stone henge…. thanks ❤
Love this!!! Thank you Simon & Crew!!
Two ads and an embedded sponsorship in the first four mins?!?
I would say it's shocking, but then again, I've watched a few of Simon's multitudinous channels
I l9ve & subscribe to all your channels, but I really like this one. I like how often you crack jokes & go off the cuff in the "side projects" videos. Thanks to everyone involved in making these. Including, but not limited to, Simon Wistler
I like the art of the Nok, it is eye-catching.
The Vinca discs look like star constellations.
The Dong San drums are striking!
I also though the Vinca etchings looked like constellations.
I finally found sideprojects. I feel like this is the holy grail of Simon's channels.
So chibi art style was invented in ancient africa? wow!
I would like to hear one of the tops used as a crash symbol! The sound unique to the patterns?
Only time and proper shaping could tell.
Excellent video. I’d never heard of these civilisations before. Definitely would like to learn more about them all.
I swear you do it on purpose, Whistler. When you say Caral-Supe, you can’t say Supe right, but when you mention the river, you do.
Quipu is pronounced keypoo.
And I’m sure Kevin had a giggle getting you to say both Bernard Fagg and Dong Son in one video. I’m surprised it wasn’t age restricted.
And I so much appreciate you giving me a comparative measure because when I hear they were made of hectares or cubits I don't know what a flipping Cubit is and I don't know what a flipping hectare more accurately I don't know the size of the measurement to compare it to things I actually do know
With respect, you could easily find these things independently?
A cubit is the distance between a man's elbow and the tip of his middle finger. A hectare is ten thousand square meters.
@@JodyOwen-we6oo for some reason my brain will not commit conversion tables into long term memory. I am always hoping one day the information will be presented to me in some novel way and I will all of a sudden get it. Apparently today is not that day.
@@SkunkApe407 I had somehow never even heard that a Cubit was something so simple, if not a bit ambitious. I think I can lock that info in. I would love to say the same about hectares but I'd be a liar. I truly do appreciate it and at least today I can say I know. 🤘🤘🤘
1 cubit is 0.05864 feet. 1 hectares is 0.00476497 football field.
I love how Simon just has so many channels. I want a history video? Simon. I want true crime? Simon. I want a geographical video? Yup also Simon.
Keep it up whistle boy. 🙌👏
Awesome thanks for great video!
This video should get a sequel!
Really good episode. Will definitely do more research about the Vinca culture.
Check the mesolithic Lepenski Vir culture aswell as Starčevo and Vučedol culture. All of those are related to Vinča.
Thank you for this very informative & equally intriguing vid ; learned something new.
9:23 I’m sure they are constellations around north where the hole is with this one
Yes, keep it private online, and offline, stay by the moment, or go to church.
One of your best videos. Doing a great job, keep it up.
I hope you tackle also the Oxus Civilization
BMAC for the win
11:46 What the heck? That's cottonGRASS, a sedge, not any type of cotton that can be used for clothing.
Cottongrass can't even grow in the region being discussed in that part of the video.
Cotton does have several varieties, but all of them look like little bushes, not like a flower with one bud per stalk.
Simon just needs photos not factual ones, just pretty ones 😄
Having heard of all of them makes me think I need to rethink my social life priorities. 😂
A detailed video on quipu(?) would be great, read about them years ago, really fascinating stuff
I wish this was a podcast . Would love to listen to it while I worked
Have you considered the culture of Vučedol for your videos? It is also near the territory of Vinča.
Pleasant to see Đông Sơn culture featured. It is an incredible culture. I find them burying their deads in boats along witj artifacts fascinating
9:24 seems likely to be star patterns, but that is just my gut speculation.
Thanks for sticking with BC/AD on this one. Just a pet peeve of mine.
Thank you for covering the Nok culture, I’m Nigerian and had no idea such a civilisation existed.
I would love to hear the Dong Son Moon of Bejen drum - I suppose it would be too fragile to use, though? I went looking for videos and couldn't find any of that drum specifically.
Would love a second part to this with more cultures
I’d heard of the Nok minimally.. and the Caral Supe civilization, but only because I took an Archaeology course while I was studying abroad in Peru. Very interesting!
great video! loved the art style of the nok and dong son :o
I'd love to see something talking about groups such as the Linear Pottery culture - lbk - or Stroke-oriented, and a look into Herxheim, for that matter. We know more and more about Herxheim, but it's morbidly fascinating.
Thank you for this wonderful presentation.
I wanted to add what I hope will be a helpful note. Most people don't know this, but the term "sub-Saharan Africa" is not legitimately geographical since there is no cohesive geographical feature that unites all of the parts of Africa south of the Sahara. The term is meant to be racial. It is meant to convince people of the inferiority of certain Africans, so it's important not to use the term as it places a non-existent distinction within Africa that creates an imaginary divide.
Black people have always lived in North Africa (no matter how you define it), and non-black people have just about always travelled to, moved to, and lived and settled in places within Africa that are south of the Sahara Desert. But the region of sub-Saharan Africa exists in reality no more than sub-Alpine Europe, sub-GreatPlanian North America, or Sub-Amazonian South America. It is an imaginary divide that is used to promote the idea of the inferiority of people with typically black skin, and the superiority of people with light, fair skin.
I guess you can say these ancient civilizations stopped using their Surfshark VPN 👉😎👉
(I’m funny I promise)
Bada bum bum tssssh!
No
@@L33Reacts Yes
At 9:25, did anyone else see Constellations??
...or maybe I've seen too much Stargate🤔
The more incredible discoveries in Peru makes me take another look at the Ica stones, where they were found and what they might tell us. Some of them look like the Moche.
CORRAL seems to me to be a kingdom, planned and carried out by a insightful individual. The site was selected to deter runaways, incorporate dependence, keep a narrow focus. Where did they get the idea of cultivating cotton? Now that, itself, is an entire explanation for a previous civilization whose remnants of knowledge were carried forward by a select few that saw themselves as the creators of a new world........
Civilizations come and go, but what's impressive is that the people from those civilizations usually reintegrate somewhere else. Climate refugees scar mankind throughout history, but we learn from them every time it happens. Even when we don't have a single clue whatsoflippingever what happened to them, that's often a clue on itself.
If a country nowadays would cease to exist it would be remembered in history books for a thousand years, but back then they'd just be gone like a fart in the wind.
How do you know they reintegrated then and weren't just simply wiped out by invasion, superstition or a virus ??
Utopian thinking me thinks ?