Like an alien planet. With an indigenous population of humanoid aliens living in some continents. Neanderthals, Denisovans, that unidentified African hominid, the hobbits of Flores in Indonesia.
@@bladelivingston damn bro that's crazy, last week I saw adults forcing little boys to dress as girls, but at least we don't have to do, what we were made to do!
I live in a bear-dense area. Have met a bear in the wild a couple of times, being alone unarmed and far from transportation. This kind of an encounter puts many things in perspective. Humans are really pretty helpless out there. We tend to forget it. To be at the mercy of something wild that is without question mightier than you is a situation most of us never face these days.
it's like having huge murderers roaming the neighborhood. you never know if they will strike. hence, Americans like to keep guns. especially the ones outside of cities, or in bad parts of cities. We have always done so, and for very good reason. we have about 45,000 bears in my state , Oregon.
All the more to respect our ancestors! Imagine the biggest bear or wolf you’ve seen in your life……now multiply by 2 or even 3 dang that’s a pretty big animal and that had stones and sticks back then lol
Actually our sense of smell is pretty damn good. Our big brains make up for a lot of the shortcomings that our lack of smell receptors give us. The problem is, we MODERN humans think our noses are bad because we are out of practice. Our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, however, greatly relied on their noses for a variety of uses. Even though we only have about 1000 olfactory genes, our larger olfactory bulbs allow us to identify roughly 1 trillion different smells. There are reports of South American jungle guides who can track exotic bird nests merely by their distinct smell. University studies have found that by having students train their tracking ability for 1 week, they were able to track the scent of hidden chocolate across a large park field all the way to the source. Our sense of smell is much better than we think.
When I hiked the Appalachian trail and was living in the woods all day every day for months on end, my sense of smell was so much better (although I was noseblind to body odor as everyone went without showers for long periods of time). I have a distinct memory of smelling day hikers before seeing or hearing them, because they were wearing deodorants and perfumes that were unlike the natural surroundings. I was amazed that my first indication that someone else was nearby was by their smell. Helps me to understand how animals have such a great awareness of their surroundings via smell and other senses
Olfactory memory is also our strongest, most vivid, and most tangible memory. I'm sure everyone has experienced the sensation of smelling something that you hadn't smelled since you were a child, and yet you distinctly remember it and it transports you back to that time with ease.
i think some dont notice how good it is. i try to train my nose as much as possible but its hard when youre born in the city and educated by state sponsored institutions
Also the cave drawings were meant to be viewed through the light of torches in caves, and the way they are drawn with distinct light of fire and shadows, makes them seem almost in motion
Something to consider is that our love of mythology, fantasy, and monsters in our media and entertainment probably has an evolutionary basis. Even when we believed that our myths were real, like during the Bronze and Iron ages, our fascination with magnificent and gigantic beasts was not something that anyone got to live out in person -- but during the Paleolithic, it was another story altogether. When little boys develop an obsession with dinosaurs, or people play games like the Witcher series or Dark Souls, or get into Game of Thrones (dragons), they are playing into this evolutionary need to be in awe of monsters -- living things that once took on a spiritual significance, and which our brains are fully adapted to interact with on a daily basis. We are missing that now, and it affects us in ways that we don't even realize. Fifty thousand years ago, no one would have had much need for myths or fairytales; the real world was far more fascinating.
Oh, I'm sure that fairy tales were still in full swing back then - but the evolutionary need for the titans of the world totally strikes me as an underrepresented piece of human thinking!
@@priamneville5899 Possibly. But interestingly, the further back in time you go, the more that cave paintings focus exclusively on megafauna, and nothing else. If fairytales had any importance in the Aurignacian, for example, then we'd see that in their art -- but we only see cave lions, horses, bears, etc.
You gotta realize that we haven't been connected instantly on a global level until around the early 2000s with social media. The fact that you don't have to leave your house to have a friend on a different continent is a completely new experience compared to nomadic tribal living
It’s so amazing thinking of the creatures we saw . From ancient mammals to ancient marine reptiles , the world was sooo much more deadly just years ago and our ancestors saw it all .
You're a simpleton if you think that the world was more deadly then. The deadliest of all creatures to ever walk this planet is humans. We have the ability right now to obliterate all life 6 times over. That's a serious possibility right now with our reckless leaders escalating the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
There's a big difference between millions of years and _"just years ago"._ It's also pretty unlikely our ancestors even saw half of what lived back then. We live in the information era, and a lot of our discoveries of new species have been thanks to advances in technology.
It’s pretty incredible how small humans were able to take on all these huge terrifying creatures and come out on top. The human spirit really can’t be topped.
The human spirit in this case being the willingness and capability to inflict horrible violence using many weapons at once. Turns out a stick with a pointy rock on the end can kill just about anything living if you have enough.
Reminds me of a meme I saw "Oops, sorry animal kingdom. Looks like just learned how to throw a fucking rock. Guess your entire evolutionary arms race is just fucked. This is my planet now."
The fact that, on top of the paleontological facts, you add in your own visceral admirations for these gigantic creatures and try to deliver with your narrative the same fear that gripped ancient humans when they first made those encounters is what makes these little documentaries so compelling to watch. In many ways you were able to speak out exactly how I felt as a kid when I first learnt of the existence of those monsters. Truly well done and thanks a lot for making this for all of us.
He does such a great job at putting things into perspective, dissecting otherwise alien concepts in a way that makes them feel tangible, nuanced and true to reality at the same time. How these ancient humans were real people just like us. It really makes me feel like I’m hearing about my long lost family members.
I'm sure there is. Apparently some human species ate other human species, and evidence has been found. Skulls and bones exposed to heat, cut marks, and long bones split to extract bone marrow. . So I'm sure there's a natural xenophobia passed down, sadly. Beware the "other". I wonder if the Payute tribes legends of red haired Giants that "stole" and Cannibalized women and children from the tribe, and they were hunted and killed off for that reason..... They weren't just legends. maybe homo heidelbergensis hunted homo sapiens. Maybe that's why homo florensis became extinct. Who knows?
@@zeldapinwheel7043 the proof of cannibalisaions also show it was a rare occurence and that the cuts on the bones show very little experience butchering human anatomy. especially compared to the fossils of our prey. it happened but it was not a preferred outcome even when looking at homo neanderthalensis we can see they had less experience in cannibalism than modern cannibalistic tribes. i dont believe we saw other human species as anything other than another tribe. tribe wars are common but i dont think it was motivated because one species were more violent and hunted the other species. homo sapiens population at that time was much greater than other species and that tells us why we are still here. besides that. paiute people could have gotten the stories or legends from norse settlers. these stories could spread from the east coast. as the numbers of native americans were millions before columbus.
@@magnipettersson4432 that's interesting and a little comforting that the neanderthals had much more skill at butchering prey than other human species. But I thought that evidence found of cannibalism wasn't just limited to the neanderthals? But I don't think the Paiutes inherited that legend. When I was a kid, my family moved across the country, and I remember seeing giant skulls in a tiny little museum that I was fascinated with, but the idea that Giants may have existed terrified me for years. I dont remember hearing the legend until I was an adult, but it was a museum. I don't think they would be displayed without some sort of information about them, so maybe I just don't remember that part of the visit.This would have been late spring 1980. We didn't make that many stops that I remember, but I distinctly remember that stop.
@@magnipettersson4432 I wouldn't have known how to identify them that way as a kid. I remember that there were 3 of them, they were absolutely huge, and they seemed deformed in some way, or at least not like any pictures of human skulls that I had seen (I was barely 10) but looked human enough, and you could see where some of the teeth had fallen out, and smooth spaces where holes for teeth should have been. That's really all I remember. If I said I remembered anything else about them, I'd be lying. That was my childish perspective. Of course, now I'm aware of lovelock cave, but as a kid I hadn't heard about it, and I wasn't from that area, we were passing through. I couldn't tell you exactly where we stopped. But they looked real to me. Just that they were much bigger than a normal human skull, and the features were bigger, and somehow wrong. Wrong enough that they didn't look like a "normal" human skull, from a kids perspective.
Absolutely incredible isn't it. I can't look around a thrift store or charity shop without stopping to look at everything, couldn't imagine what it would be like if we could go back and temporarily witness the past. I'd get eaten for sure, too busy bent over looking at something interesting
I think everyone from the modern era would die within 48 hours without the knowledge to hunt and find/prepare drinking water. If you make it long enough to be eaten, you're probably doing pretty well.
I would love to go back in time to live and view the Americas of that time and see the Dire wolves and all the animals and great open plains of this beautiful world back then =)
I would rather view them on screen. If I go back in time, I’ll be seeking fellas like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, etc. Courtesy of Half Vast Flying
Yes I would too but then we would be killed and eaten. We would be delicious with now a days diet unlike starving fat less sinew hominoids Of that era!
The note about the cave lions was poignant. That feeling of spectacle and amazement, it's not something that's taught or can always be put into words, it's something you experience.
You put a lot of effort into this, and it shows well. Deeply appreciate the effort, it made watching it a very enjoyable experience. Awesome artwork too! Thanks for giving credits to the artists. I'd love to see more of the same, from you and them. Thanks!
Been waiting for this one. Our greatest chapter. When we faced not just each other as we know now, but monsters with stick and stone, blood and sinew. Tooth and claw.
I love learning about the animals humans encountered in such early days. Megalania is the most terrifying for me - if they are like Comodo dragons, a single bite is all it would take to kill a person, even if it was a grazing wound because of the bacteria and venom in their bite. If you get bit by a bear, that sucks, but you may still survive; get bit by Megalania, and you are screwed.
@@glarnboudin4462 Well, even so, that is still really bad. I don't know the dimensions of a megalania but I think it is bigger than a tiger and as you say, venomous. Pretty horrifying combination!
@@WorldKeepsSpinnin Modern Komodos are arguably even *more* agile than tigers - they hunt in the exact same way, they're just less active in between hunts.
Great stuff man. As an aboriginal Australian, I love to think about what my ancestors had to deal with when they were exploring this beautiful country. Fascinating! 👍🏽
@@joshthemediocre7824 funny you say that because I live in Melbourne and 18000 years ago at the height of the last ice age Melbourne was like the grasslands of Siberia and it was up to 20 degrees colder! If that were so, then consideri g the cold environment, could aborigines in this area have been white, just due to the melanin effect? I ponder weird ideas like this sometimes....
This video is amazing Here in Perú, the andean area specifically, we have some "big" fauna like pumas, guanacos, vicuñas, llamas, alpacas, spectacled bears, andean condor, suris (rhea pennata) and foxes. They are beauty animals but can imagine how even much more beautifull was back then with all the prehistorics animals roaming
There is a bird sanctuary in Otavalo that has (or at least had) condors, in a big aviary. Having a condor fly downhill within the aviary, toward its keeper, only to have it spread its wings a few feet from you as it braked for a landing, is the closest I ever expect to come to encountering a prehistoric animal (great white sharks notwithstanding). That, and the takahea in NZ.
Excellently done. What actually surprised me most about our ancestry, was that we were NOT the only species of humanoids that inhabited the planet . We were merely the one that won out.
@@thelatentobserver121 Wierd thing to think about is how a human mind would think without being railroaded by hormones and sex-based typical connections (men and women's brains don't fire or use the same areas to the same degrees vs the same stimuli).
I like that you emphazised that us humans who are alive today are the descendants of the humans who lived back then with these animals. It really gives a great sense of connection with them.
Just imagining the world when humans first entered the Americas some 20,000 or more years ago. Such a different world then but they were us. Great video!
They have found carved bone in the americas some 150 thousand years old. So some hominins were around back then. North america has been swamped by flash floods and south america has been hit by some big tsunami's. Google earth is awesome to use to look at the devastation of the past.
I find it hard to believe the hypothesis that is the current mainstream history timeline. The mystery of the incredible loss of fauna 15,000 years ago 80%. The idea that man hunted it to extinction with sharp sticks in insane. Suddenly all these animals disappeared. Whatever occurred then allmost got us too.
@@graham2631 meteor strikes at the end of the younger dryas. We have been lucky the past few thousand years. 1 hit here near Australia 5000 years ago that washed a tsunami 150 kms inland and it was still high enough to pass over the blue mountains, highest point 1700 meters near 2 kms above sea level 1700 meters is 1.05 miles, 5577 foot high.
I've got so much respect for our ancestors. Without their ability to survive and improvise we wouldn't be here. They are 10× smarter than we will ever be.
I can't imagine what it was like walking the woods alone at night back then. The intermittent screams... Laughing jackals... Deep growls... All the while being mocked by the birds as you pass beneath them. Fire, shelter and tools were such a game changer.
@@savag3knight206 True but Rule number one in a knife fight your gonna get cut accept it. only in this case there’s 4 to 5 knives a hand with 100s of pounds of force behind it lol
I often think of the pure terror early humans must of felt when encountering a massive beast. I truly think the strongest asset to humanity is community. The way a strong community can over come and beast just assures me a strong family means survival.
Lol. 😂😂😂. Absolutely not. I still can't believe that there are people who believe that humans are completely vulnerable and at the mercy of animals. 😂 A human being has always been the biggest threat anywhere. That's why we are at the top of food chain and there are 8 billion of us. We are the danger. Dominance is NOT just about teeth, claws, strong jaws, and speed. It's shocking just how many people can't grasp this. 🤦♂️
@@LukasZ_77humans today are not what they were in ancient times, even an apex predator once taken out from their wildlife environment became tame. You're seriously underestimating early humans who managed to thrive back when we had no tools nor weapons against these beasts. Being an apex predator doesn't mean you have to be the strongest or fastest, it just means you're the most dangerous and prolific in hunting (which humans are, anyone who thinks otherwise is straight dumb when we've managed to tame, endanger and even drive entire species into extinction even before the invention of modern weapons and tools).
@@dayoolyngdoh5453 i see what you mean, but i really dont see a human whacking a bear and living, they probably mostly relied on their ability to run away, hide in trees and intimidate in numbers
@@BahadurSingh-mg8jj Sat Sri Akaal Bhai. A single human ? No. But a Single human isn't a single human for long in ancient times, he's a dead one. It's why we feel actual pain when we are kicked from a friend group or such, because back then it was a literal death sentence. Your tribe and family was your life. A group of humans with spears could easily kill a bear with little problem.
im not sure they would cope in our times as society and morals have changed so much including educational inteligence, this would be another world for these guys
Do you mean that like negative😅? I mean they would be happy to live in this day and age without their families getting eaten by creatures if not genocided by other humans
@@Yum_Yum_Delicious_Cum I don't know about that. This life is so disconnected with the world. We life in houses sealed up from the outside, we go to the store for our food (even those of us that garden can't grow all we need), we must work in little cubicles or put together little things most or all of the daytime for a living for decades... I doubt they would be any happier.
@@ricodsanchez6792 you'd be as helpless as a baby in their world, they were expert survivalists taught survival skills and how to create tools and weapons from scratch, and mental maps of their lands. So you see they went to school too.
@@scavenger4704 well wouldn't we all be helpless as a baby in their world? Just because they thrived in those times doesn't mean they would cope in ours
The current native Americans have been here around 8,000 years. Before that from around 12,000 to 30,000 years, the Clovis people were here, and there is some fossil evidence of Pacific Islanders going back further. Gets pretty murky on the other side of the Younger Dryas.
We would be able to survive just like they did if we were born and raised by them or accepted in their tribe. Drop a 6mo. Old baby with them and he will still make it. Drop a 3-5 year old and chances are he will make it. Drop a 10 year old and if he is accepted, he can still make it if he adapts fast, or else dies very soon (1Y). Drop anyone else of us above 10YO, roughly speaking, the starting of puberty time for that age, and he'll be seen as competition by the males for the fertile females and he'll get exed, or exiled and dies alone.
@@papajugador Sorry to crush your dreams, but we're far weaker now, specially men. Testosterone levels have been going down very quickly in the last decades. We also have poor diets and are quite sedentary.
@@danielarejgar Why do you have to be that annoying? I was giving you a detailed answer to your question. If you disagree, say it nicely. What an obnoxious person you are.
@@danielarejgar Probably in many African countries men with high testosterone are the norm rather than the exception, or anywhere in the world where people tend to depend on their physical condition because the comfortable city life either doesn't exist or isn't that comfortable.
@@danielarejgar We don’t need to survive the way they did. Humans have always been weak as shit. That’s not what defines us. It’s community, cooperation and ingenuity. We’re lucky, entirely so. Lucky that some mutation somewhere gave us the ability to use our hands to build and improve weapons. We were lucky enough to have brains and bodies capable of communication. Our cooperation developed language, a cheat code so powerful that it’s capable of capturing the entire essence of the universe. No other known animal can even conceive the depths of the universe to the extent we have. We can look at a Star thousands of light years away and know exactly what it’s made of. We’ve sent parts of ourselves and our society beyond the very planet that produced us. Everything dies the same. The universe doesn’t care whether you have the strength to bear pain or the strength to kill. It’s just us in an indifferent and harsh world. The challenges we face today aren’t the same as the ones of yesterday, and that’s great. It’s always what we strive to achieve, a world where our children don’t need the same strength as ourselves, a better world.
Everything about this production is magnificent. The subject matter, of course, is very interesting, but your delivery, pacing, narrative style, calm voice, and great production quality are extremely appealing. A very intelligent, entertaining, and enjoyable piece. Thank you.
Thanks for mentioning Elephants as demanding respect. I watch a lot of YT videos on African and Asian elephants, and among them was one where a female African, possibly fearful for her baby (herds will surround and protect youngsters), she taught a crocodile in her lake a fatal lesson about even thinking about bothering elephants. She stomped it and picked it up (using her trunk) and tossed it around. Male elephants watching were probably very impressed. In other videos African elephants are shown not being bothered by a thirsty rhino who happened by, but as the elies were much bigger and more numerous in the lake, the rhino didn't challenge them. And there are videos of elephants sensing (smelling) lions and insisting that the dangerous cat pride _move on,_ no camping in elephant territory. I haven't seen videos of Asian elephant causing trouble (though the babies can run everywhere, very happy), but most videos of those elephants show them being rescued from basically being slaves to humans. North, thank you for your great videos!
Once, there was an area with juvenile elephants, and they had a habit of killing the local rhinos, almost for fun, or perhaps as a rite of passage. Eventually, the game keepers imported some adult elephants, and they seemed to teach the youngsters not to bother the rhinos any more.
Despite being slightly smaller, and noticeably less aggressive, Asian elephants are still very much deadly. They have been known to attack and kill humans, though generally only when provoked, being generally more predictable than African elephants.
@@Jaimyoutubing -- I hope you keep track of ElephantNews here on UA-cam. It lets those interested keep track of the work of Lek Chailert who, as a small child, swore she'd rescue all the elephants. Now she's 60 and she has rescued many, all of whom respect her. She does tend to keep together babies, their mothers and nannies, while the male (being unpredictable as you note) are often housed elsewhere. The last I heard of Kavaan, the humans want to introduce females to him, but its up to the ladies. At HERD Elephant Orphanage South Africa, they have an area big enough to protect two wild herds, and then the humans started a herd of unwanted and/or rescued elephants (the Jabulani Herd), including babies that the herd adopts w/o question, and that is a mixed gender herd. Some birth control is used to calm (the males, I assume), and all the elephants seem happy to spend their night under protection and they are amused (?) that the human carers work to protect huge elephant. Also in the refuge, they help rhinos, giraffes, and cheetahs. Again in Africa, the Sheldrick Trust is a big rescue organization and work a lot with baby elephants. These places (and no doubt more) have lots of videos. I bet you've watched a lot of them already.
In a weird way, this video felt very depressing to me. Just thinking about the past and what our kind has gone through and where we are currently today. And how much damage we are doing, along with just not being able to get along with each other. It's only a matter of time until someone makes a video about other creatures that we currently exist with and how they all went extinct and that it's all due to our inaction. Here's hoping for a more positive future.
The world will be fine our planet has changed back n fourth so many times we humans are still young compared to the earth itself. I do agree tho if we don’t get it together We will cause the end of our time but not the planet.
Don't be upset. If early humans saw the incredible things we have accomplished, they would be in absolute awe. I think the issue here is that a lot of people think that these early tribal humans were pure and perfectly coexistant with nature, but in many cases, they were not. They were very similar to us. Men would rape and kill, women would leave starving disabled children to the forest or kill their own children. Fights between territory occured almost every time one group interacted with another. Nature was not seperate from us, so we would die all the time from attacks and also kill predators and prey regularily. We would die of diseases all the time too. I mean just look at the Sentinelese people for instance. They're incredibly violent and hostile. The past wasn't a better time, just a diferent one. And humanity takes time to learn how to live through new experiences. You just have to allow it to go through the motions. The best thing for right now to note is how environmentally focused our society has become compared to the past. The dominating narrative is always about the affect of global warming and how we can adapt to stop it. We will find a way. The Earth has survived through mass extinction explosions and changes of air, water and Earth levels for billions of years. It is a thinking, living thing that finds ways to adapt to what happens to it. I know we will not destroy it and I know we will find a better way to exist. If not, what are we even here for?
@woosh_if_gay If you're going to comment, don't go off on a tangent about something completely unrelated to what the original commentor was stating and then be rude to top it off. They were expressing concern about the pollution of the Earth and how they feel it a waste that our ancestors went through so much just for us to screw it all up. Nothing about propoganda. Just be quiet unless you're willing to read their comment correctly.
Well it starts with having an open mind. Every single person needs to be able to hear something and not immediately disagree. We need to work together. It will be much more difficult with other countries than our own. However it won't be a walk in the park in our own country. Kindness and patience friend. The world will get better and it does start with us. Be kind and stay strong.
Cave bears tasted very great ! That's why there are a number of caves in the alps, filled up to the roof with their bones. Our ancestors enjoyed sommer holidays with their families in the mountains before the last ice age.
Excellent video. Another awesome job. I bet that humans sometimes got proactive on larger predators....and hunted them by ambush and baiting. On their terms just to diminish the population and the threat they posed to the human population in an area.
@@JurassicClark96 How many times have you encountered a 20-foot 5000-pound Tasmanian Tiger or a Dodo or a Sea Cow? This video was about megafauna. We're lucky we don't have to deal with those things now. Even with modern tech it'd take billions of dollars to control them
@@kakalimukherjee3297 It takes billions of dollars to contain lions? Hyenas? Tigers? They were all mentioned in this video, and they're all at my local zoo. This is why I gave it a dislike, because the "monster" narrative is straight up a lie. They were animals just the same as any alive today. The Tasmanian Tiger was the size of a coyote, it hunted small marsupials, no threat to a human whatsoever. The sea cow ate kelp. They still count as megafauna. This video should be a warning about the biodiversity we're lacking today, not a fable about how ruining ecosystems was to our benefit. We are in a crisis today because we can't coincide with nature around us, and it started with disrupting food chains. If you're really going to tell me the overabundance of whitetail deer isn't causing environmental damage from lack of natural predators, do some research. Woolly Mammoths didn't do anything to deserve being overkilled.
I volunteered at the La Brea tar pits for three months and I learned an incredible amount about North American megafauna, It was one of the best experience I’ve ever had in my life!! AMERICAN LIONS ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!
@@ryomahoffman6803 you will have noticed smilodon bones, mammoth, cave bear, terror birds, possum, possibly giant sloth, amongst others. Two of those species are communal and three are large carnivores. The carnivores went in after the trapped mammoth and got stuck. They thought it was an easy victim, a free lunch. Same as the Tyrannids who went snacky by a stagnant pool. Turned out their free lunch was full of botulinum bacteria - and botulinum toxins are amongst the most toxic biological agents on the planet. Women have died when "botox" is incorrectly prepared - its almost a microdosing situation - like you'd do with taipan venom to gain a resistance - a dilution in water of 1000:1 at least can allow the immune system to fight snake venom - it learns to recognise the protein that makes up the venom. In some snakes it's the only way to survive, since no one bothers to make antivenin, on the basis there aren't many bites from particular species.
I know its fiction, but The Clan of the Cave Bear was one of my childhood favorites and paints a great picture of some of these animals. It still makes up a large part of my head cannon when imagining stuff like this.
I know this is an older video, but thank you! This was extremely well put together and narrated. Your voice was the perfect tone to, not only make me feel at ease, but also to keep my interest and not get bored. So again, thank you!
Still living in Central Europe. It always fascinates me when I go hiking to caves where they found remains of cro-magnon or homo heidelbergensis occupation.
Love your videos!scariest animal for me would definitely be the short faced bear,that thing was a total nightmare,Native American people have many stories about them after all these thousands of years;the mammoth bear,the stiff legged bear,grandmother/grandfather grizzly are a few names for them
The majesty of these animals is incredible and the frailty of these people makes them all the more incredible I mean these battles were mythic with mythic people to fight and survive the times feats the modern man couldn’t dream of
Where animals excel in brute strength, humans excel in intelligence and tactics. Animals don't have much going on for them besides their teeth and speed.
I'm a neuroscience major who has specialized in sensory physiology and while I like your video, I have to chime in when you talk about our sensory capabilities. We most certainly do _not_ have poor senses, especially not eyesight. A very large portion of our cerebral cortex is used to process and cross-correlate sensory information and many of our receptor cells have evolved to the point where they couldn't be any more sensitive without literally breaking laws of physics. Our night vision isn't as good as those of nocturnal animals as we lack the reflective tapetum that enhances light sensitivity, but when you take that into account, our rod photoreceptors are as sensitive as they come.
I’m 57 years old but I’m still fascinated with prehistoric times.. animals Humans etc… and now with internet and CGI I can only imaging a young child having access to what we didn’t when I was young
20:51 Arctotherium angustidens, the largest species of short-faced bear, actually became extinct around 500,000 years ago, which means it never met humans. Arctotherium wingei, the only species remaining in the late Pleistocene, was much smaller, only about the size of the extant spectacled bear.
LOVED IT!! I often wonder if mainstream networks have contacted you to narrate one of their documentaries. If so, don't do it! You've built this channel from the ground up and you've got a good thing going. Keep up the amazing work!
From a logical standpoint it makes sense that smaller animals would be the best at intimidation & the best at resisting intimidation because they have the most to gain with that tactic.
@@jacobhoover1654 it’s a scientific fact that the less you weigh, the less of a fuck you give. Honey badgers are so good at intimidation and resisting it because they evolved to run fades. I love animals like that, shows that size isn’t everything.
I love how well thought out and well researched your videos always are. You include information that may have only recently come to light that is contrary to common belief. And love the shout out to us New Zealanders :)
Ooh I love love love this channel. I have ADHD so I’m extremely distractable. I miss bits of content constantly. This is one of my few channels I watch twice to make sure I didn’t miss a minute ❤️
Watching from New Zealand, we might not have many poisonous or big scary animals, but almost every river and mountain is unforgiving. Limestone caves full of bones
@@Justyn219 New Zealand was mostly underwater and so as it lifted up alot of new zealand is lime stone, lime stone dissolves in acidic water and so we have many rivers and caves below ground, every now and then a hole will open up into a underground cave and Moa(large NZ birds that went extinct a few hundred years ago) will fall into these holes and the bones will stay there undisturbed until someone finds the cave entrance and often will be full of bones 🙂 there are lots of places where we can see this around the country
I always imagine how extant animals interacted with the famous beasts. A lion sulking away defeated and hungry still to the sound of white tails snorting and stomping who foiled his approach. Coyotes debating how close it should get to a short faced bears kill. A moose busting out a sense of urgency we likely rarely witness anymore and smashing up or juking a homotherium pack full of slashing scimitars. Etc etc
@@chriscurran7756 The survivor mode on expert really changes the base game beyond recognition. You can die from pretty much anything at any moment if you're not aware. Playing without the tamed beasts gimmick too, I limit it to the Dhole, hunting dog... He can scout and hunt game, that's it, big mega fauna you evade.
The time frames and origin stories keep changing and updating. The human story is fascinating and I'm heartbroken it wasn't all written down for histories sake.
Been holding onto this one for ages, I save videos that I think will be interesting for workout videos. Some really interesting but understandable information. Well-paced and with a really professional delivery. This is the first video of yours I have watched and I'm impressed.
Cave paintings. Many cave paintings are impressive enough that it seems reasonable to assume that the surviving paintings were not the artists first efforts....so what did they practice their art on?
0:18 A generation is roughly 30 years. That's 1,000 generations. I wonder what experiences were encoded into our instincts during this time-period? 10:34 Hell yeah
Nope. A generation now is 30 years. Ancient Egypt 20 years and pre agriculture probably 15-17 years. The more static and easy the life the longer the generations.
@@illiadmcswain3956 Australia - look up Varanus Priscus - not to mention truck sized crocodiles. The answer to getting big = constant bloody freezing weather.
I would imagine that pleistocene encounters with dangerous animals were often altered by throwing out poisoned bait to distract and reduce dangerous intent and fitness to effectively attack humans.
It's amazing to imagine how life was in that time, I know it would be very dangerous, but I really think I would like to be in that time, witnessing those magnificent creatures and thriving with my tribe. Maybe they were happies than us today. Great video
Great video, came on on auto play but was so calm and descriptive I found myself playing it back to make sure I didn’t miss any. Very informative, good work man 😊
Excellent video! Thank you for making the distinction between pre-human and possible human encountered animals and showing the sizes relative to a modern human. Many videographers are lazy and don’t take the time.
Whenever I watch videos on how epic our ancestors were and how they gave life so much meaning despite having all the reasons to hate it and think how cruel nature is, makes the modern world of pointless jobs to get money to but pointless things seem so dull and artificial. I love my career but how can anything in todays world ever come close to the connection our ancestors felt with the word and universe?
Great and highly educational vid, sir. And what a pleasure its accompanied with a normal background music! Appreciated too that the explaining comments come (apparently) from a normal human being and not originate from a tin-can robot!
Not as tame as NZ. Your insects are crazy fast with some dangerous ones and you also have the crocs, not to mention the tiger sharks and jellyfish you have. We dont have much over here,, all I can think of is the Great White but they hardly attack anyone,, mainly paua divers or surfers are on the menu
@@travisgartside409 Yeah Travis they have plenty of nasty critters over there..snakes , spiders, crocs...I wouldnt call it tame.. but yes relatively tame
Tame? I guess you haven't seen any videos of the police brutality towards peaceful protesters. One and a half years ago Australia changed, starting in Melbourne and, sadly, it's the humans in uniform that are now dangerous.
Thank you very much for such an informative video. Many times we are so preoccupied with the dim and distant past that we ignore the more recent (but extinct) species. Much appreciated!
What do you think the scariest animal on this list is?
You mean besides The Hangman & Izzy?😂
Arctotherium and Megalania.
Me
Homo sapiens no contest!
Definitely the South American Short-faced Bear Arctotherium...
Man I wish I could see through those early humans eyes . Imagine the landscapes they saw.
Like an alien planet. With an indigenous population of humanoid aliens living in some continents. Neanderthals, Denisovans, that unidentified African hominid, the hobbits of Flores in Indonesia.
@@mudshovel289 and bunch of giant predators.. Beautiful and dangerous world iz was.. And still is.
imagine dying of a cold or an infection cause no medicine kekw
Imagine the horrors and hardships they witnessed first hand
@@bladelivingston damn bro that's crazy, last week I saw adults forcing little boys to dress as girls, but at least we don't have to do, what we were made to do!
I live in a bear-dense area. Have met a bear in the wild a couple of times, being alone unarmed and far from transportation. This kind of an encounter puts many things in perspective. Humans are really pretty helpless out there. We tend to forget it. To be at the mercy of something wild that is without question mightier than you is a situation most of us never face these days.
it's like having huge murderers roaming the neighborhood. you never know if they will strike. hence, Americans like to keep guns. especially the ones outside of cities, or in bad parts of cities. We have always done so, and for very good reason. we have about 45,000 bears in my state , Oregon.
All the more to respect our ancestors! Imagine the biggest bear or wolf you’ve seen in your life……now multiply by 2 or even 3 dang that’s a pretty big animal and that had stones and sticks back then lol
Why were you unarmed?🤨
Me too. Its true ,at that moment whether you live or die is not your choice.
@@Aden_III Must be a liberal
Actually our sense of smell is pretty damn good. Our big brains make up for a lot of the shortcomings that our lack of smell receptors give us. The problem is, we MODERN humans think our noses are bad because we are out of practice. Our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, however, greatly relied on their noses for a variety of uses. Even though we only have about 1000 olfactory genes, our larger olfactory bulbs allow us to identify roughly 1 trillion different smells. There are reports of South American jungle guides who can track exotic bird nests merely by their distinct smell. University studies have found that by having students train their tracking ability for 1 week, they were able to track the scent of hidden chocolate across a large park field all the way to the source. Our sense of smell is much better than we think.
When I hiked the Appalachian trail and was living in the woods all day every day for months on end, my sense of smell was so much better (although I was noseblind to body odor as everyone went without showers for long periods of time). I have a distinct memory of smelling day hikers before seeing or hearing them, because they were wearing deodorants and perfumes that were unlike the natural surroundings. I was amazed that my first indication that someone else was nearby was by their smell. Helps me to understand how animals have such a great awareness of their surroundings via smell and other senses
It’s also possible that our senses were sharper, but faded with disuse as we interacted less with predators.
Olfactory memory is also our strongest, most vivid, and most tangible memory. I'm sure everyone has experienced the sensation of smelling something that you hadn't smelled since you were a child, and yet you distinctly remember it and it transports you back to that time with ease.
i think some dont notice how good it is. i try to train my nose as much as possible but its hard when youre born in the city and educated by state sponsored institutions
@@jhonviel7381 guberment took my smell!
Prehistoric art is so incredible. Takes you there every time.
but you gotta be on Shrooms
@@DaveNukem I think Dmt would be better for that
Prehistoric porn world be way too op for current meta. We should do it.. I'm gonna do it..
I’m jealous they had that kind of spare time.
Also the cave drawings were meant to be viewed through the light of torches in caves, and the way they are drawn with distinct light of fire and shadows, makes them seem almost in motion
Something to consider is that our love of mythology, fantasy, and monsters in our media and entertainment probably has an evolutionary basis. Even when we believed that our myths were real, like during the Bronze and Iron ages, our fascination with magnificent and gigantic beasts was not something that anyone got to live out in person -- but during the Paleolithic, it was another story altogether. When little boys develop an obsession with dinosaurs, or people play games like the Witcher series or Dark Souls, or get into Game of Thrones (dragons), they are playing into this evolutionary need to be in awe of monsters -- living things that once took on a spiritual significance, and which our brains are fully adapted to interact with on a daily basis. We are missing that now, and it affects us in ways that we don't even realize. Fifty thousand years ago, no one would have had much need for myths or fairytales; the real world was far more fascinating.
Oh, I'm sure that fairy tales were still in full swing back then - but the evolutionary need for the titans of the world totally strikes me as an underrepresented piece of human thinking!
@@priamneville5899 Possibly. But interestingly, the further back in time you go, the more that cave paintings focus exclusively on megafauna, and nothing else. If fairytales had any importance in the Aurignacian, for example, then we'd see that in their art -- but we only see cave lions, horses, bears, etc.
Even tho I probably wouldn’t make it to 30 I wish I lived in ancient times for this reason
@@b-pos6022 I dont.
@@xanshen9011 yeah I feel you. If that were me I'd be dead in that era before I was even born
This makes it easy to imagine how humans became such a collaborative and pro-social species (even though we still struggle at it on a global scale)
When Grouped Sociality and Improved Life Advancement's becamed the norm
Our old survival ways and isolation taked it's toll .
At that scale the biggest danger is each other.
When we ran out of new species to kill, we ended up with just ourselves to kill.
You gotta realize that we haven't been connected instantly on a global level until around the early 2000s with social media. The fact that you don't have to leave your house to have a friend on a different continent is a completely new experience compared to nomadic tribal living
As well as why we can be so violent, we are the children of that which hunted monsters after all.
It’s so amazing thinking of the creatures we saw . From ancient mammals to ancient marine reptiles , the world was sooo much more deadly just years ago and our ancestors saw it all .
You're a simpleton if you think that the world was more deadly then. The deadliest of all creatures to ever walk this planet is humans. We have the ability right now to obliterate all life 6 times over. That's a serious possibility right now with our reckless leaders escalating the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
They also ruined it all. And we continue with that legacy.
There's a big difference between millions of years and _"just years ago"._
It's also pretty unlikely our ancestors even saw half of what lived back then. We live in the information era, and a lot of our discoveries of new species have been thanks to advances in technology.
How do you know cuz this dude said so ? Lol
@@sauron6977kid get off that device you're using to b!tch and moan because you sure af are part of it
It’s pretty incredible how small humans were able to take on all these huge terrifying creatures and come out on top. The human spirit really can’t be topped.
The human spirit in this case being the willingness and capability to inflict horrible violence using many weapons at once. Turns out a stick with a pointy rock on the end can kill just about anything living if you have enough.
@@Amodelsino Even with weapons it takes a lot of chutzpah to hunt animals several times your size.
@@outis7080well,they needed chutzpah to survive in the unforgiving world they inhabited
Reminds me of a meme I saw "Oops, sorry animal kingdom. Looks like just learned how to throw a fucking rock. Guess your entire evolutionary arms race is just fucked. This is my planet now."
@gojisoar Haha! Spears go BRRRT!
The fact that, on top of the paleontological facts, you add in your own visceral admirations for these gigantic creatures and try to deliver with your narrative the same fear that gripped ancient humans when they first made those encounters is what makes these little documentaries so compelling to watch. In many ways you were able to speak out exactly how I felt as a kid when I first learnt of the existence of those monsters. Truly well done and thanks a lot for making this for all of us.
He does such a great job at putting things into perspective, dissecting otherwise alien concepts in a way that makes them feel tangible, nuanced and true to reality at the same time. How these ancient humans were real people just like us. It really makes me feel like I’m hearing about my long lost family members.
Really enjoy the pace of this video - no sensationalism...the species described were spectacular enough and speak for themselves
Amazing content
"No sensationalism"?
Were we watching the same video?
5:07 Whats the background music called?
There's gotta be some truths to some oral traditions of our ancestors sending a hunter or hunters to rid the new land of " monsters".
I'm sure there is. Apparently some human species ate other human species, and evidence has been found. Skulls and bones exposed to heat, cut marks, and long bones split to extract bone marrow. . So I'm sure there's a natural xenophobia passed down, sadly. Beware the "other". I wonder if the Payute tribes legends of red haired Giants that "stole" and Cannibalized women and children from the tribe, and they were hunted and killed off for that reason..... They weren't just legends. maybe homo heidelbergensis hunted homo sapiens.
Maybe that's why homo florensis became extinct. Who knows?
@@zeldapinwheel7043 the proof of cannibalisaions also show it was a rare occurence and that the cuts on the bones show very little experience butchering human anatomy. especially compared to the fossils of our prey.
it happened but it was not a preferred outcome even when looking at homo neanderthalensis we can see they had less experience in cannibalism than modern cannibalistic tribes.
i dont believe we saw other human species as anything other than another tribe. tribe wars are common but i dont think it was motivated because one species were more violent and hunted the other species. homo sapiens population at that time was much greater than other species and that tells us why we are still here.
besides that. paiute people could have gotten the stories or legends from norse settlers. these stories could spread from the east coast. as the numbers of native americans were millions before columbus.
@@magnipettersson4432 that's interesting and a little comforting that the neanderthals had much more skill at butchering prey than other human species. But I thought that evidence found of cannibalism wasn't just limited to the neanderthals?
But I don't think the Paiutes inherited that legend. When I was a kid, my family moved across the country, and I remember seeing giant skulls in a tiny little museum that I was fascinated with, but the idea that Giants may have existed terrified me for years. I dont remember hearing the legend until I was an adult, but it was a museum. I don't think they would be displayed without some sort of information about them, so maybe I just don't remember that part of the visit.This would have been late spring 1980. We didn't make that many stops that I remember, but I distinctly remember that stop.
@@zeldapinwheel7043 what were the skulls like? Mongoloid or cacucasid? Were they unlike any of those?
@@magnipettersson4432 I wouldn't have known how to identify them that way as a kid. I remember that there were 3 of them, they were absolutely huge, and they seemed deformed in some way, or at least not like any pictures of human skulls that I had seen (I was barely 10) but looked human enough, and you could see where some of the teeth had fallen out, and smooth spaces where holes for teeth should have been. That's really all I remember. If I said I remembered anything else about them, I'd be lying. That was my childish perspective. Of course, now I'm aware of lovelock cave, but as a kid I hadn't heard about it, and I wasn't from that area, we were passing through. I couldn't tell you exactly where we stopped. But they looked real to me. Just that they were much bigger than a normal human skull, and the features were bigger, and somehow wrong. Wrong enough that they didn't look like a "normal" human skull, from a kids perspective.
The way you talk about the Pleistocene era of humans, animals, and geography as so idyllic and impressively beautiful is really sweet, I love it
Absolutely incredible isn't it. I can't look around a thrift store or charity shop without stopping to look at everything, couldn't imagine what it would be like if we could go back and temporarily witness the past. I'd get eaten for sure, too busy bent over looking at something interesting
I think everyone from the modern era would die within 48 hours without the knowledge to hunt and find/prepare drinking water.
If you make it long enough to be eaten, you're probably doing pretty well.
@@VitZ9that goes for anything on earth. Nothing can survive without survival skills in survival situations
I'd b dieing with u, probably looking at the same interesting thing lol.
😅😅😮😮😊😊😊😅
Bent over you say?? 🤤
There was one elemental force that leveled out the playing field for humans: Fire.
And bows. Being able to defend/attack from a huge distance leveled it out a huge chunk as well. And then fire seals the deal.
@@game-enjoyer13 bows used back then had a range of 30 to 40 feet. Tribes in Africa still use them. Look it up. Its interesting.
Weapons instead of claws.
"Fire bad"
- Frankenstein
"Fire is the element of power."
-Uncle Iroh
I would love to go back in time to live and view the Americas of that time and see the Dire wolves and all the animals and great open plains of this beautiful world back then =)
You might be interested in Pleistocene Park in Siberia, they are trying to recreate the Mammoth Steppes :D
Don't we all 😓
I would rather view them on screen. If I go back in time, I’ll be seeking fellas like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, etc.
Courtesy of Half Vast Flying
Yes I would too but then we would be killed and eaten. We would be delicious with now a days diet unlike starving fat less sinew hominoids
Of that era!
Maybe better to astral project there 👻
The note about the cave lions was poignant. That feeling of spectacle and amazement, it's not something that's taught or can always be put into words, it's something you experience.
You put a lot of effort into this, and it shows well. Deeply appreciate the effort, it made watching it a very enjoyable experience. Awesome artwork too! Thanks for giving credits to the artists. I'd love to see more of the same, from you and them. Thanks!
Been waiting for this one. Our greatest chapter. When we faced not just each other as we know now, but monsters with stick and stone, blood and sinew. Tooth and claw.
*Bloodborne main theme intensifies*
Nahhh we definitely still killed each other back then lmao . We are conquers . We are territorial beings .
I love learning about the animals humans encountered in such early days. Megalania is the most terrifying for me - if they are like Comodo dragons, a single bite is all it would take to kill a person, even if it was a grazing wound because of the bacteria and venom in their bite. If you get bit by a bear, that sucks, but you may still survive; get bit by Megalania, and you are screwed.
The bacteria thing is actually a myth; instead, Megalania is believed to have hunted like, well, a giant armored tiger with straight-up venom.
@@glarnboudin4462 Well, even so, that is still really bad. I don't know the dimensions of a megalania but I think it is bigger than a tiger and as you say, venomous. Pretty horrifying combination!
@@daniell1483 They were absolutely bigger than tigers, yes.
@@glarnboudin4462 that is just not fair at all, venom is op enough + tiger size? Damn. Were they fast and agile like tigers though?
@@WorldKeepsSpinnin Modern Komodos are arguably even *more* agile than tigers - they hunt in the exact same way, they're just less active in between hunts.
That New Zealand intro was gold. The way you slipped them in there without changing the tone was hilarious
Just slipped adesanya without flinching
Unfortunately for Izzy, Pereiras ancestors were hunting Shott Faced Bears and Smilodons in South America at the time
Kia ora cuz
Great stuff man. As an aboriginal Australian, I love to think about what my ancestors had to deal with when they were exploring this beautiful country.
Fascinating! 👍🏽
They woulda been all good until the pasty faced showed up.
It unfortunate we don't have them today.
Too much misinformation about the First Nations of Australia we need a dedicated channel to teach us your stories my friend ✊✌️
@@joshthemediocre7824 funny you say that because I live in Melbourne and 18000 years ago at the height of the last ice age Melbourne was like the grasslands of Siberia and it was up to 20 degrees colder! If that were so, then consideri g the cold environment, could aborigines in this area have been white, just due to the melanin effect? I ponder weird ideas like this sometimes....
Your peoples survived two ice ages man. What culture can boast such a feat? Answer. None.
This video is amazing
Here in Perú, the andean area specifically, we have some "big" fauna like pumas, guanacos, vicuñas, llamas, alpacas, spectacled bears, andean condor, suris (rhea pennata) and foxes. They are beauty animals but can imagine how even much more beautifull was back then with all the prehistorics animals roaming
There is a bird sanctuary in Otavalo that has (or at least had) condors, in a big aviary. Having a condor fly downhill within the aviary, toward its keeper, only to have it spread its wings a few feet from you as it braked for a landing, is the closest I ever expect to come to encountering a prehistoric animal (great white sharks notwithstanding). That, and the takahea in NZ.
Excellently done. What actually surprised me most about our ancestry, was that we were NOT the only species of humanoids that inhabited the planet . We were merely the one that won out.
Do you believe that humans are actually animals?
@@carldrogo9492 UwU
I think AI intellect will replace us, and future “humans” will sit around saying, “Remember when we had flesh bodies? How barbaric.”
@@thelatentobserver121 Wierd thing to think about is how a human mind would think without being railroaded by hormones and sex-based typical connections (men and women's brains don't fire or use the same areas to the same degrees vs the same stimuli).
@@carldrogo9492 it’s not a question. We are animals.
I like that you emphazised that us humans who are alive today are the descendants of the humans who lived back then with these animals. It really gives a great sense of connection with them.
Just imagining the world when humans first entered the Americas some 20,000 or more years ago. Such a different world then but they were us. Great video!
They have found carved bone in the americas some 150 thousand years old. So some hominins were around back then. North america has been swamped by flash floods and south america has been hit by some big tsunami's. Google earth is awesome to use to look at the devastation of the past.
I find it hard to believe the hypothesis that is the current mainstream history timeline. The mystery of the incredible loss of fauna 15,000 years ago 80%. The idea that man hunted it to extinction with sharp sticks in insane. Suddenly all these animals disappeared. Whatever occurred then allmost got us too.
@@graham2631 meteor strikes at the end of the younger dryas. We have been lucky the past few thousand years. 1 hit here near Australia 5000 years ago that washed a tsunami 150 kms inland and it was still high enough to pass over the blue mountains, highest point 1700 meters near 2 kms above sea level 1700 meters is 1.05 miles, 5577 foot high.
@@urlicqeldromamakolligjazva1752 Hmm, interesting. Is there an article about it? I'd like to see it.
In the old world, they also have seen megafauna
(1:03) Africa
(5:25) Europe
(8:28) Asia
(12:16) Australia
(17:23) New Zealand
(18:22) Americas
I've got so much respect for our ancestors. Without their ability to survive and improvise we wouldn't be here. They are 10× smarter than we will ever be.
Yeh and all of them are built like olympic athletes
@@reanukeeves4780 and they all smelled worst than king kongs dildo
@@reanukeeves4780 no processed meat or refined sugar.
They were stupid to evolve into us and we release trash
@@tangieee6592 we’re the ones throwing the trash but they’re stupid? I love this logic lmao
I can't imagine what it was like walking the woods alone at night back then. The intermittent screams... Laughing jackals... Deep growls... All the while being mocked by the birds as you pass beneath them. Fire, shelter and tools were such a game changer.
Amazing animals, great vid. These are my favorite kind of videos because they put into perspective just how powerful they are.
"If it bleeds - we can kill it!"
@Eastern fence Lizard fight harder not smarter
And it can kill us.
@@jeremytaft8247 not if we poke it to death first
@@savag3knight206 True but Rule number one in a knife fight your gonna get cut accept it. only in this case there’s 4 to 5 knives a hand with 100s of pounds of force behind it lol
@@jeremytaft8247 the we shell POKE HARDER
I often think of the pure terror early humans must of felt when encountering a massive beast. I truly think the strongest asset to humanity is community. The way a strong community can over come and beast just assures me a strong family means survival.
Lol. 😂😂😂. Absolutely not.
I still can't believe that there are people who believe that humans are completely vulnerable and at the mercy of animals. 😂
A human being has always been the biggest threat anywhere. That's why we are at the top of food chain and there are 8 billion of us.
We are the danger. Dominance is NOT just about teeth, claws, strong jaws, and speed. It's shocking just how many people can't grasp this. 🤦♂️
@@carldrogo9492 dude a human alone vs one of these animals is fucked despite being more intelligent...
@@LukasZ_77humans today are not what they were in ancient times, even an apex predator once taken out from their wildlife environment became tame. You're seriously underestimating early humans who managed to thrive back when we had no tools nor weapons against these beasts. Being an apex predator doesn't mean you have to be the strongest or fastest, it just means you're the most dangerous and prolific in hunting (which humans are, anyone who thinks otherwise is straight dumb when we've managed to tame, endanger and even drive entire species into extinction even before the invention of modern weapons and tools).
@@dayoolyngdoh5453 i see what you mean, but i really dont see a human whacking a bear and living, they probably mostly relied on their ability to run away, hide in trees and intimidate in numbers
@@BahadurSingh-mg8jj Sat Sri Akaal Bhai. A single human ? No. But a Single human isn't a single human for long in ancient times, he's a dead one. It's why we feel actual pain when we are kicked from a friend group or such, because back then it was a literal death sentence. Your tribe and family was your life. A group of humans with spears could easily kill a bear with little problem.
Their artwork is so precise as to be astounding, and make later depictions of animals look like they were painted by a child.
Imagine living during that time, knowing how the future would be….
im not sure they would cope in our times as society and morals have changed so much including educational inteligence,
this would be another world for these guys
Do you mean that like negative😅?
I mean they would be happy to live in this day and age without their families getting eaten by creatures if not genocided by other humans
@@Yum_Yum_Delicious_Cum I don't know about that. This life is so disconnected with the world. We life in houses sealed up from the outside, we go to the store for our food (even those of us that garden can't grow all we need), we must work in little cubicles or put together little things most or all of the daytime for a living for decades... I doubt they would be any happier.
@@ricodsanchez6792 you'd be as helpless as a baby in their world, they were expert survivalists taught survival skills and how to create tools and weapons from scratch, and mental maps of their lands. So you see they went to school too.
@@scavenger4704 well wouldn't we all be helpless as a baby in their world?
Just because they thrived in those times doesn't mean they would cope in ours
Thank you for taking the time to research the subjects. You seem to be very up-to-date with the most current information. Very enlightening.
I love that you added recent information proving that humans were present in North America at least 23000 years ago.
The current native Americans have been here around 8,000 years. Before that from around 12,000 to 30,000 years, the Clovis people were here, and there is some fossil evidence of Pacific Islanders going back further. Gets pretty murky on the other side of the Younger Dryas.
Yes, DNA proves one migration and people. ALL MY RELATIONS.
@@kirkjones9639 Clovis theory is racist...I think...
@@franbarnaby7638 Whch migration? The Amerinds, Clovis, or?
@@redplanet7163 Now that would be a reach, even for the current crop of nattering nabobs of negativism.
All of our ancestors were amazing people who went through amazing experiences, and had witnessed amazing things ❤️
Do anyone remember that documentary “in the land of lost monsters” or “ monsters we meet”?
Here
I wish I did!
No. But sounds awesome!
Yeah i watched a couple episodes on yt i think
@@theyakmaster9984 indeed
What a great video! It's neat that there are artists with an interest to depict these ancient scenes so well! Nice going and thank you!
What a great video! If it just wasn't so full of nonsensical stuff.
Excellent coverage of the globe before our modern history.
Awesome job at making this video! Very fascinating subject and it is presented so well! 👏👏👏
I’m so glad UA-cam recommended this to me.
I love you content about ancient humans I feel like I’m watching a movie every time also I love the mma jokes keep it up man!
Our ancestors were really badass. I wonder how many of us could actually survive what they survived 😅
We would be able to survive just like they did if we were born and raised by them or accepted in their tribe. Drop a 6mo. Old baby with them and he will still make it. Drop a 3-5 year old and chances are he will make it. Drop a 10 year old and if he is accepted, he can still make it if he adapts fast, or else dies very soon (1Y). Drop anyone else of us above 10YO, roughly speaking, the starting of puberty time for that age, and he'll be seen as competition by the males for the fertile females and he'll get exed, or exiled and dies alone.
@@papajugador Sorry to crush your dreams, but we're far weaker now, specially men. Testosterone levels have been going down very quickly in the last decades. We also have poor diets and are quite sedentary.
@@danielarejgar Why do you have to be that annoying? I was giving you a detailed answer to your question. If you disagree, say it nicely. What an obnoxious person you are.
@@danielarejgar Probably in many African countries men with high testosterone are the norm rather than the exception, or anywhere in the world where people tend to depend on their physical condition because the comfortable city life either doesn't exist or isn't that comfortable.
@@danielarejgar We don’t need to survive the way they did. Humans have always been weak as shit. That’s not what defines us. It’s community, cooperation and ingenuity.
We’re lucky, entirely so. Lucky that some mutation somewhere gave us the ability to use our hands to build and improve weapons.
We were lucky enough to have brains and bodies capable of communication. Our cooperation developed language, a cheat code so powerful that it’s capable of capturing the entire essence of the universe. No other known animal can even conceive the depths of the universe to the extent we have. We can look at a Star thousands of light years away and know exactly what it’s made of. We’ve sent parts of ourselves and our society beyond the very planet that produced us.
Everything dies the same. The universe doesn’t care whether you have the strength to bear pain or the strength to kill. It’s just us in an indifferent and harsh world.
The challenges we face today aren’t the same as the ones of yesterday, and that’s great. It’s always what we strive to achieve, a world where our children don’t need the same strength as ourselves, a better world.
Everything about this production is magnificent. The subject matter, of course, is very interesting, but your delivery, pacing, narrative style, calm voice, and great production quality are extremely appealing. A very intelligent, entertaining, and enjoyable piece. Thank you.
Thanks for mentioning Elephants as demanding respect. I watch a lot of YT videos on African and Asian elephants, and among them was one where a female African, possibly fearful for her baby (herds will surround and protect youngsters), she taught a crocodile in her lake a fatal lesson about even thinking about bothering elephants. She stomped it and picked it up (using her trunk) and tossed it around. Male elephants watching were probably very impressed.
In other videos African elephants are shown not being bothered by a thirsty rhino who happened by, but as the elies were much bigger and more numerous in the lake, the rhino didn't challenge them. And there are videos of elephants sensing (smelling) lions and insisting that the dangerous cat pride _move on,_ no camping in elephant territory. I haven't seen videos of Asian elephant causing trouble (though the babies can run everywhere, very happy), but most videos of those elephants show them being rescued from basically being slaves to humans. North, thank you for your great videos!
I saw that video of the elephant mauling a croc. Absolutely brutal, she was pissed.
Once, there was an area with juvenile elephants, and they had a habit of killing the local rhinos, almost for fun, or perhaps as a rite of passage. Eventually, the game keepers imported some adult elephants, and they seemed to teach the youngsters not to bother the rhinos any more.
Despite being slightly smaller, and noticeably less aggressive, Asian elephants are still very much deadly. They have been known to attack and kill humans, though generally only when provoked, being generally more predictable than African elephants.
@@Jaimyoutubing -- I hope you keep track of ElephantNews here on UA-cam. It lets those interested keep track of the work of Lek Chailert who, as a small child, swore she'd rescue all the elephants. Now she's 60 and she has rescued many, all of whom respect her. She does tend to keep together babies, their mothers and nannies, while the male (being unpredictable as you note) are often housed elsewhere. The last I heard of Kavaan, the humans want to introduce females to him, but its up to the ladies.
At HERD Elephant Orphanage South Africa, they have an area big enough to protect two wild herds, and then the humans started a herd of unwanted and/or rescued elephants (the Jabulani Herd), including babies that the herd adopts w/o question, and that is a mixed gender herd. Some birth control is used to calm (the males, I assume), and all the elephants seem happy to spend their night under protection and they are amused (?) that the human carers work to protect huge elephant. Also in the refuge, they help rhinos, giraffes, and cheetahs.
Again in Africa, the Sheldrick Trust is a big rescue organization and work a lot with baby elephants. These places (and no doubt more) have lots of videos. I bet you've watched a lot of them already.
Mad props for being one of the few people that pronounce Neanderthal correctly
That's so sad that people bother to put out videos like these but can't say neanderthal correctly.
@Uncle Charlie🔧 lol u right. Do you think I was being sarcastic? I can't remember.
@@TortoisePig he severely mispronounced 3 other words tho, sorry this is the first video ive ever seen of him
@@TortoisePigonly shitlords bother with such kind of retarded minutia.
In a weird way, this video felt very depressing to me. Just thinking about the past and what our kind has gone through and where we are currently today. And how much damage we are doing, along with just not being able to get along with each other. It's only a matter of time until someone makes a video about other creatures that we currently exist with and how they all went extinct and that it's all due to our inaction. Here's hoping for a more positive future.
The world will be fine our planet has changed back n fourth so many times we humans are still young compared to the earth itself. I do agree tho if we don’t get it together We will cause the end of our time but not the planet.
Don't be upset. If early humans saw the incredible things we have accomplished, they would be in absolute awe. I think the issue here is that a lot of people think that these early tribal humans were pure and perfectly coexistant with nature, but in many cases, they were not. They were very similar to us. Men would rape and kill, women would leave starving disabled children to the forest or kill their own children. Fights between territory occured almost every time one group interacted with another. Nature was not seperate from us, so we would die all the time from attacks and also kill predators and prey regularily. We would die of diseases all the time too. I mean just look at the Sentinelese people for instance. They're incredibly violent and hostile.
The past wasn't a better time, just a diferent one. And humanity takes time to learn how to live through new experiences. You just have to allow it to go through the motions. The best thing for right now to note is how environmentally focused our society has become compared to the past. The dominating narrative is always about the affect of global warming and how we can adapt to stop it. We will find a way. The Earth has survived through mass extinction explosions and changes of air, water and Earth levels for billions of years. It is a thinking, living thing that finds ways to adapt to what happens to it. I know we will not destroy it and I know we will find a better way to exist. If not, what are we even here for?
@woosh_if_gay If you're going to comment, don't go off on a tangent about something completely unrelated to what the original commentor was stating and then be rude to top it off. They were expressing concern about the pollution of the Earth and how they feel it a waste that our ancestors went through so much just for us to screw it all up. Nothing about propoganda. Just be quiet unless you're willing to read their comment correctly.
.. And the Saddlebacks are warming up those nice Merlin 30s. Although I hope for their sake they aren't using Coffman starters...
Well it starts with having an open mind. Every single person needs to be able to hear something and not immediately disagree. We need to work together. It will be much more difficult with other countries than our own. However it won't be a walk in the park in our own country. Kindness and patience friend. The world will get better and it does start with us. Be kind and stay strong.
Cave bears tasted very great ! That's why there are a number of caves in the alps, filled up to the roof with their bones. Our ancestors enjoyed sommer holidays with their families in the mountains before the last ice age.
😂. I am glad to have seen a comment that acknowledges just how dangerous humans are. 🔥🔥
...plus their fur created good warm clothings and beddings.
Bears carry trichinosis.
Hunters still eat bear now
Excellent video. Another awesome job.
I bet that humans sometimes got proactive on larger predators....and hunted them by ambush and baiting. On their terms just to diminish the population and the threat they posed to the human population in an area.
Fuck those guys in particular. Making modern zoology so much less fascinating than what it could have been.
@@JurassicClark96 Apparently ensuring their own survival was more important to them than making zoology fascinating
@@kakalimukherjee3297 Just like the Tasmanian Tiger and Dodo amirite? Stellar's Sea Cow was such a major threat.
@@JurassicClark96 How many times have you encountered a 20-foot 5000-pound Tasmanian Tiger or a Dodo or a Sea Cow? This video was about megafauna. We're lucky we don't have to deal with those things now. Even with modern tech it'd take billions of dollars to control them
@@kakalimukherjee3297 It takes billions of dollars to contain lions? Hyenas? Tigers? They were all mentioned in this video, and they're all at my local zoo. This is why I gave it a dislike, because the "monster" narrative is straight up a lie. They were animals just the same as any alive today. The Tasmanian Tiger was the size of a coyote, it hunted small marsupials, no threat to a human whatsoever. The sea cow ate kelp. They still count as megafauna. This video should be a warning about the biodiversity we're lacking today, not a fable about how ruining ecosystems was to our benefit. We are in a crisis today because we can't coincide with nature around us, and it started with disrupting food chains. If you're really going to tell me the overabundance of whitetail deer isn't causing environmental damage from lack of natural predators, do some research. Woolly Mammoths didn't do anything to deserve being overkilled.
I volunteered at the La Brea tar pits for three months and I learned an incredible amount about North American megafauna, It was one of the best experience I’ve ever had in my life!! AMERICAN LIONS ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!
Best thing to learn about La Brea - there's no such thing as a free meal.
@@rosiehawtrey They don’t have meals at all lol, unless you count the vending machines outside
@@ryomahoffman6803 you will have noticed smilodon bones, mammoth, cave bear, terror birds, possum, possibly giant sloth, amongst others. Two of those species are communal and three are large carnivores. The carnivores went in after the trapped mammoth and got stuck. They thought it was an easy victim, a free lunch.
Same as the Tyrannids who went snacky by a stagnant pool. Turned out their free lunch was full of botulinum bacteria - and botulinum toxins are amongst the most toxic biological agents on the planet. Women have died when "botox" is incorrectly prepared - its almost a microdosing situation - like you'd do with taipan venom to gain a resistance - a dilution in water of 1000:1 at least can allow the immune system to fight snake venom - it learns to recognise the protein that makes up the venom. In some snakes it's the only way to survive, since no one bothers to make antivenin, on the basis there aren't many bites from particular species.
@@rosiehawtrey What the fuck are you talking about?
@@ryomahoffman6803 That escalated quickly
I know its fiction, but The Clan of the Cave Bear was one of my childhood favorites and paints a great picture of some of these animals. It still makes up a large part of my head cannon when imagining stuff like this.
I know this is an older video, but thank you! This was extremely well put together and narrated. Your voice was the perfect tone to, not only make me feel at ease, but also to keep my interest and not get bored. So again, thank you!
Still living in Central Europe. It always fascinates me when I go hiking to caves where they found remains of cro-magnon or homo heidelbergensis occupation.
Love your videos!scariest animal for me would definitely be the short faced bear,that thing was a total nightmare,Native American people have many stories about them after all these thousands of years;the mammoth bear,the stiff legged bear,grandmother/grandfather grizzly are a few names for them
The Short Faced Bear is extinct, humans not so much. We encountered them and it didn't end well for them.
Humans are the real monsters and the most invasive animals in the world.
Thanks for the New Zealand shoutout, represent!
The majesty of these animals is incredible and the frailty of these people makes them all the more incredible I mean these battles were mythic with mythic people to fight and survive the times feats the modern man couldn’t dream of
Where animals excel in brute strength, humans excel in intelligence and tactics. Animals don't have much going on for them besides their teeth and speed.
I'm a neuroscience major who has specialized in sensory physiology and while I like your video, I have to chime in when you talk about our sensory capabilities. We most certainly do _not_ have poor senses, especially not eyesight. A very large portion of our cerebral cortex is used to process and cross-correlate sensory information and many of our receptor cells have evolved to the point where they couldn't be any more sensitive without literally breaking laws of physics. Our night vision isn't as good as those of nocturnal animals as we lack the reflective tapetum that enhances light sensitivity, but when you take that into account, our rod photoreceptors are as sensitive as they come.
Im sure he meant compared to animals, we have very poor sensory capabilities.
Our vision is so good that a quarter of our population needs glasses. 😃
@@uninspired3681 and he is saying that isn't right. Humans have amazing sensory capability.
@@carldrogo9492harsh conditions would be a hardcore eugenics program
I’m 57 years old but I’m still fascinated with prehistoric times.. animals Humans etc… and now with internet and CGI I can only imaging a young child having access to what we didn’t when I was young
20:51 Arctotherium angustidens, the largest species of short-faced bear, actually became extinct around 500,000 years ago, which means it never met humans. Arctotherium wingei, the only species remaining in the late Pleistocene, was much smaller, only about the size of the extant spectacled bear.
Arctotherium tarijense also made it to the latest Pleistocene in South America, around the size of your average grizzly.
It never met Homo sapiens, but it did absolutely meet other members of the Homo genus.
@@keithklassen5320 no homo sapiens are only known humans to reach north and south America
LOVED IT!! I often wonder if mainstream networks have contacted you to narrate one of their documentaries. If so, don't do it! You've built this channel from the ground up and you've got a good thing going. Keep up the amazing work!
Can’t believe you only have 100 k subs. This was so well made and painted a beautiful image in my head.
Our ancestors were bad ass. Thanks for another great video!
As a writer, I have to say: videos like this are solid gold. Thank you.
OMG Allie, amazing control you have over your voice! Beautiful!!!
“Most animals fold to intimidation…” Wolverine in the back of the room coughs and raises his hand to speak. 😀
From a logical standpoint it makes sense that smaller animals would be the best at intimidation & the best at resisting intimidation because they have the most to gain with that tactic.
imagine trying to stand up to an arctotherium and then it does the same towering over 2 meters taller than you
Honey badger walks out in disgust.
@@jacobhoover1654 it’s a scientific fact that the less you weigh, the less of a fuck you give. Honey badgers are so good at intimidation and resisting it because they evolved to run fades. I love animals like that, shows that size isn’t everything.
😂
Lot of truth there.
Bro, you videos are educational and relaxing! Also highly entertaining! Awesome work and editing!!
This was captivating. I love thinking about what our ancestors encountered long in the past. They were brave people.
I love how well thought out and well researched your videos always are. You include information that may have only recently come to light that is contrary to common belief. And love the shout out to us New Zealanders :)
Ooh I love love love this channel. I have ADHD so I’m extremely distractable. I miss bits of content constantly. This is one of my few channels I watch twice to make sure I didn’t miss a minute ❤️
Watching from New Zealand, we might not have many poisonous or big scary animals, but almost every river and mountain is unforgiving. Limestone caves full of bones
Every few thousand years the land gets flattened by a volcano or mega earthquake
@@ziggyinta what are you talking about when you say "limestone caves full of bones"? what are you referring to? interested.
@@Justyn219 New Zealand was mostly underwater and so as it lifted up alot of new zealand is lime stone, lime stone dissolves in acidic water and so we have many rivers and caves below ground, every now and then a hole will open up into a underground cave and Moa(large NZ birds that went extinct a few hundred years ago) will fall into these holes and the bones will stay there undisturbed until someone finds the cave entrance and often will be full of bones 🙂 there are lots of places where we can see this around the country
@@ziggyinta That's amazing! Thanks for taking the time to explain! ✌
@@ruthanneseven cheers
I always imagine how extant animals interacted with the famous beasts. A lion sulking away defeated and hungry still to the sound of white tails snorting and stomping who foiled his approach. Coyotes debating how close it should get to a short faced bears kill. A moose busting out a sense of urgency we likely rarely witness anymore and smashing up or juking a homotherium pack full of slashing scimitars. Etc etc
I appreciate the thought put behind this. The fact you say feet and meters, and lbs and kg helps so much
As a very accredited dinosaur expert (I played ark for a few years back in the day) I can confirm that most of these were very scary
Man.... I would play the hell out of an ice age based RPG game. It could be awesome!
Closest thing I could think of would be Far Cry Primal
@@StrangerOnTheWebwasn't that great but I liked the idea
@@chriscurran7756 The survivor mode on expert really changes the base game beyond recognition. You can die from pretty much anything at any moment if you're not aware. Playing without the tamed beasts gimmick too, I limit it to the Dhole, hunting dog... He can scout and hunt game, that's it, big mega fauna you evade.
Almost looks like a person under those claws in the cave painting. Probably swiped one of their tribe and had everyone running.
This is a wild video! Love your voice and look forward to falling asleep to more of your content!
Thank you for showing New Zealand some love. We are routinely left out of videos like this, so it’s nice to be acknowledged.
The time frames and origin stories keep changing and updating. The human story is fascinating and I'm heartbroken it wasn't all written down for histories sake.
Been holding onto this one for ages, I save videos that I think will be interesting for workout videos. Some really interesting but understandable information. Well-paced and with a really professional delivery. This is the first video of yours I have watched and I'm impressed.
Beautiful documentary! I feel honored to have just been able to watch it. Please don’t stop doing you!
Very informative and beautiful quality of narration. Keep up the good works.
Cave paintings. Many cave paintings are impressive enough that it seems reasonable to assume that the surviving paintings were not the artists first efforts....so what did they practice their art on?
Maybe they erased older work to make room for new stuff?
And using only primitive tools and imagination some paintings are better than a average human painting today
@@oatmeal7818 Certainly better than what I can do!!!!
0:18
A generation is roughly 30 years.
That's 1,000 generations. I wonder what experiences were encoded into our instincts during this time-period?
10:34
Hell yeah
Probably the origin of nightmares!😲😲😲
How did ice age elephants get around being so freaking MASSIVE? 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲
12:35 "Australia's wildlife is a shadow of its former self"
OH REALLY ??? 😲😲😲😲
Nope. A generation now is 30 years. Ancient Egypt 20 years and pre agriculture probably 15-17 years. The more static and easy the life the longer the generations.
@@illiadmcswain3956 Australia - look up Varanus Priscus - not to mention truck sized crocodiles.
The answer to getting big = constant bloody freezing weather.
Great job,absolutely fascinating!
I would imagine that pleistocene encounters with dangerous animals were often altered by throwing out poisoned bait to distract and reduce dangerous intent and fitness to effectively attack humans.
It's amazing to imagine how life was in that time, I know it would be very dangerous, but I really think I would like to be in that time, witnessing those magnificent creatures and thriving with my tribe. Maybe they were happies than us today. Great video
Very real possibility .. unless you got sick or broke a bone 😅😅😂
Vids like these make your imagination wander, just like dinosaurs what we know and what we have is just a sliver of what was.
AWESOME.
Great video, came on on auto play but was so calm and descriptive I found myself playing it back to make sure I didn’t miss any. Very informative, good work man 😊
The last time we met monsters we hunted them to extinction.
Now that's a power-play.
Excellent video! Thank you for making the distinction between pre-human and possible human encountered animals and showing the sizes relative to a modern human. Many videographers are lazy and don’t take the time.
Whenever I watch videos on how epic our ancestors were and how they gave life so much meaning despite having all the reasons to hate it and think how cruel nature is, makes the modern world of pointless jobs to get money to but pointless things seem so dull and artificial. I love my career but how can anything in todays world ever come close to the connection our ancestors felt with the word and universe?
:(
when you're worried about surviving you don't get the luxury to sit around and think and jerk off.
Deep
I would say to get out and hunt; very little can connect you with your ancestors better than hunting the terrain as they once did.
Great and highly educational vid, sir. And what a pleasure its accompanied with a normal background music! Appreciated too that the explaining comments come (apparently) from a normal human being and not originate from a tin-can robot!
"Nowadays Australia is a relatively tame place"
Great vid still.
Not as tame as NZ. Your insects are crazy fast with some dangerous ones and you also have the crocs, not to mention the tiger sharks and jellyfish you have. We dont have much over here,, all I can think of is the Great White but they hardly attack anyone,, mainly paua divers or surfers are on the menu
The use of the word relatively of makes a statement accurate.
@@travisgartside409 Yeah Travis they have plenty of nasty critters over there..snakes , spiders, crocs...I wouldnt call it tame.. but yes relatively tame
Notice how the kangaroo is wearing a collar?
Tame? I guess you haven't seen any videos of the police brutality towards peaceful protesters. One and a half years ago Australia changed, starting in Melbourne and, sadly, it's the humans in uniform that are now dangerous.
This video really caught my attention and held it the whole time. Really well done bro 💪🏼
I like to come back here once in a while and listen to the tale of monsters and men.
Thank you very much for such an informative video. Many times we are so preoccupied with the dim and distant past that we ignore the more recent (but extinct) species. Much appreciated!
I personally prefer the longer videos. Keep it up, it's always nice watching good channels grow.
That shot of the guy throwing a rat to the bear is gonna be the coolest thing I see today I bet.
Genuinely enjoying every min of every video , thank you for allowing us to go on this journey with you