WEBVTT - The First Monster 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.319 Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.000 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.319 And of course it's October, so we are still doing 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.160 some of our favorite stuff of the year. Monster content. 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.920 That's right, God, did I just say content. I'm the monster. 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.200 I'm the content creating monster. Let's think of it as 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.560 its monster cargo. Let's kress cargo. I think that we 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.440 are delivering to the listeners years, yeah, to create a 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:41.839 cargo cult of our listeners. So I was wondering just recently, 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:47.440 you know what is the oldest monster, Because as you 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.519 go back in time, monsters become, in a way, they 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:55.760 become less uniquely scary, and they become more elementally scary. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.720 They become less like, I don't know, the girl in 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.560 the Ring and all that kind of recent popular monster 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.520 fad stuff, and they become more like a dragon or 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.280 a beast with a bull's head or something. And so 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.800 I was wondering, like, you know what, what's the earliest 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.440 thing in recorded history? There there are some things in 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:18.640 ancient Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian texts. I just wanted to read 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:21.760 one sort of monster passage I came across from an 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.240 ancient Assyrian text called the Seven Evil Spirits. This is 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.959 translated into English by R. C. Thompson in nineteen o three, 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.680 and it's this ancient Assyrian poem. It goes, raging storms, 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.880 evil gods. Are they ruthless demons who in Heaven's vault 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.760 were created? Are they workers of evil? Are they they 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.920 lift up the head to evil every day, to evil destruction, 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.600 to work of the seven? The first is the south Wind. 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.280 The second is a dragon whose mouth is opened that 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.840 none can measure. The third is a grim leopard, which 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.440 carries off the young. The four is a terrible shibou. 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.240 The fifth is a furious wolf who knoweth not to flee. 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.600 The sixth is a rampant thing. This is the illusion 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.800 which marches against God and King. The seventh is a storm, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:19.400 an evil wind, which takes vengeance. Well, that those that 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.680 al sounds remarkable, But I'm instantly thinking some of those 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.040 are just animals. Like the wolf is just like a 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.760 dumb wolf, Like it's just not smart enough to run away, right. 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.480 I wonder about the grim leopard. The grim leopard sounds 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.480 kind of monstrous because it carries off the young grim. 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.120 Seems to that that implies some kind of human affect. Yeah, well, 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:41.560 you know, I guess you get into definitions of monster. Right. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.120 Is a monster something that is a combination of things? 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.400 Is it something that is entirely unreal or is it 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:52.120 just something real that is exaggerated in size. Yeah, well, 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.079 I mean, if it's a an evil creature that works 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.119 destruction upon the earth and marches against God and King, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.880 I'd say that's probably a monster or people. But I 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.840 feel like we're actually already too late, because we're muddling 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.800 around in recorded history and you can go much deeper. 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.080 So in August of nineteen thirty nine, a group of 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.160 archaeologists were doing field work at a Stone Age cave 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.640 site in southern Germany, and the cave was called Stottlehole, 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.119 which means stable cave, and it was at Hollenstein near 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:28.079 vogel Herd. At this cave site, the researchers uncovered this 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:34.160 massive collection of ivory fragments, broken pieces made from the tusks. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.400 Tusks of a Pleistocene mammoth and now it's Ice Age 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:42.680 mammoth of Europe. Wooly mammoth. Unfortunately, something happened. Just a 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.040 matter of days after this initial discovery. World War two 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.360 broke out, not a great time to be digging in 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.200 southern Germany, and so the dig had to be quickly 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.160 abandoned and the dig was filled in and the broken 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.640 pieces of the mammoth ivory were laid in storage for decades, 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.720 and then about thirty years or a German archaeologist named 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:06.040 Joachim Han started trying to fit the ivory shards together 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.880 playing this. You know, if you've ever seen these games, 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.160 the three D jigsaw puzzle game of Artifactor Reconstruction, it 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.240 looks like a nightmare of trying to see how all 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.960 these things because obviously some pieces are missing. It's like 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.600 trying to do a jigsaw puzzle with half half the puzzle. Uh. 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.039 And so we had more than two hundred fragments, and 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.400 he discovered that the pieces of ivory were originally part 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:32.960 of the same Paleolithic figurine. It was a statuette about 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.960 thirty one centimeters long, which is just over a foot, 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.720 and it was carbon fourteen dated to somewhere between thirty 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:44.039 five and forty thousand years old. And once the pieces 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.360 were put together, it became clear that you could still 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.640 make out representative features, features that appeared to be both 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:56.680 human and non human. And this is the central image 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.600 I want to talk about in today's episode. This is 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.599 the figure that would come to be non and as 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.599 the Lowan Lynch, which is German for the lion man. 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:05.880 And if you want to see an image of the 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.120 Loan Ninch, we will have a picture of it on 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:09.960 the landing page of this episode at stuff to Blow 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.080 you behind dot com. It Uh, it's it's rather regal looking. Yeah, well, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.520 I would say it's regal like it's it's got this 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.960 upright posture, and it does look very stately, but also 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.440 in the spirit of the grim leopard of Assyria. It's 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.560 kind of grim. It's got this kind of like there 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.960 is no pity in the Lionman's face. No, no pity. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.000 I just looked in closer at it, and I don't 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.640 see I don't see a shred of pity, Like it 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.960 would pass your sentence and and not not heed your tears. 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.680 So after this original reconstruction and the following decades, there 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.400 was this long, multi stage process that led to the 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.000 final reconstruction of the artifact in fuller and fuller detail. 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.599 So in the nineteen eighties there was a paleontologist named 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:55.240 Elizabeth Schmidt who added more pieces from additional re excavations 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.920 of the site, and she corrected some errors and previous reconstructions, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.760 and the clearer pression of this feline head began to emerge. 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.320 And then in the two thousands and other archaeologist named 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.160 Klaus Joachim Kind returned to the Stytle Cave to uncover 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.760 more original pieces and it led to this amazing version 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.839 of the artifact that you can go see today. I 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.479 think it's usually at the Oom Museum in Germany, but 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.880 I believe it is currently on loan at the British Museum. 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.679 In fact, I believe it was the British Museum tweeting 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.320 about the acquisition that or acquisition the loan that made 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.720 me think about doing this episode. So the lion man, 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.760 he stands like a human in this two footed, bipedal posture, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.800 back straight with human arms straped down to the side, 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.160 human torso maybe lion ish kinds of legs, but this proud, 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:49.159 menacing head of a big cat, and you've got to wonder. 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.599 So this is thirty five to forty thousand years ago there, 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.440 long before recorded history, nobody was writing down what they 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.920 were thinking. There apparently was no written language. So what 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.120 did this figure mean to the Stone Age people who 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.440 made it? Yeah, I mean, for the most part, we 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.320 can only we can only guess. We can certainly look 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.760 to more to increasingly more complex ideals that came afterwards. 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:13.200 But you look at it and you think, was this 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.320 Is this a deity? Is this a punishing creature? Is 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:21.240 this a I've seen the term master of animals thrown 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:27.040 around in interpreting similar alleged figures from cave paintings, and 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.880 another ancient remains. Yeah, there is a sort of intuitive 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.440 sense in which you could see an ancient person seeing 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.320 an apex predator like a lion or any any kind 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.440 of big cat as some sort of god of the 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.640 wilderness that would have power over other animals because it 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.680 is at the top of the food chain. But it's 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.520 a serious question to imagine why people would make this artifact, 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.600 because making an artifact like this would have been an 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:56.000 extreme sacrifice. Uh. These would have been people, I think 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.240 very likely living not always very far from the edge 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.880 of starvation. Uh. And an artifact like this took resources 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.320 it took time, it took energy, It wore down your 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.640 sharp flint tools and the carving process. In fact, there 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:10.960 was a in recent years, there was an experiment by 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.040 a guy named wolf Heine that I watched a video 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.680 of online. And this guy specializes in replicating ancient artifacts 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.280 using the methods and tools that would have been available 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.320 to the people who made them. And his reconstruction of 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.240 the low and minch using these flint carving tools, he 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.000 says it took more than three hundred and seventy hours. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.439 And in this video, if you sit and watch it, 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.680 like the unbelievable laborious nous of the project begins to 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.320 sink in. You just watch him going over and over 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.160 this ivory tusk with this piece of flint. And when 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.160 you look at the guy's hands, I started to feel 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.440 how working this flint rock over the ivory for hours 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.640 and hours would just turn your fingers into hot ground beef. 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.440 Just terrible. Yeah. And and to your point, these were 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.080 people that lived on the edge. They were they were wanderers. 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.520 They had not reach the point in the ascension of 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.000 human civilization where you had specialists who could set aside 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.320 time to create something like this. Uh, and if they 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:11.400 created something like this, it obviously wasn't going to be 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:13.679 just a toy for a child to play with. It 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.200 was something important, right, And there are signs in the 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.520 artifact itself that seemed to signify that it had cultural importance. Right. Yeah. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.040 The surface of the original artifacts seems to have been 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.440 smoothed from excessive handling, as if it were passed around 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.280 in a ritual for instance. Right. So, yeah, so it 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.480 looks like this is something that was handled a lot. 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.040 It's got that worn down feeling to it. Um And 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.520 this is one reason that the lowan mench is often 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:42.720 cited is perhaps the earliest evidence that exists of religious beliefs. Now, 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:47.240 who would the people that made this artifact have been, Well, 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:51.480 it was almost certainly modern humans living in the area 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.800 at the time. But but it's also worth noting that 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:58.320 modern humans and neander dolls um lived in this area 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.360 at this at the same time the coexist. This did 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.839 And uh I did find a quote from Jeffrey Brantingham, 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.920 an archaeologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.040 he says that he doesn't think it's far fetched to 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:15.160 think that Neanderthals. Uh you know, could have made similar items. 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.000 But for the most part, everyone seems to be on 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.000 board with the idea that these were modern Homo sapiens 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.680 that created these artifacts. Anatomically modern, yes, except not quite 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.240 so hunched over from watching YouTube all day, right, uh yeah, 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.360 But there may be reasons to think that other members 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.000 of this this ancient culture or this you know, ancient 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:37.760 what would you call it, sort of a loose idea 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.120 of a culture if it was mostly small bands of 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.080 people rather than cities or nations, But that whatever, the 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.560 people of this time period were made artifacts like this 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.920 in general, because this isn't the only one, right, Yeah, 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.880 that's right. In two thousand three, another line was discovered 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.240 in southwestern Germany or what is now southwestern Germany, and 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:58.920 this one was carbon day to do around the same 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.800 time period. So by by by some estimates, it kind 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.480 of depends who's doing the math and who's you know, 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.280 doing the figure in but by some estimates these are 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.640 the oldest statues and the oldest examples of figurative art. However, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:17.400 we do have the venus of the whole fells and 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.440 uh and by some estimates this takes the title. But 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:23.560 the estimates here like thirty five thousand and forty thousand 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:25.840 years ago, so we're kind of placing it in basically 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.560 the same time period. They were just discoveries, key discoveries 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.280 made in two thousand and two thousand and sixteen. If 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:34.200 you've if you've looked at a lot of like really 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:39.800 ancient human artifacts, you've probably seen images of these. Uh. 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:45.200 The venous images are essentially a feminine figure, like you know, uh, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.319 kind of kind of a round feminine figure with without 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.400 a head or or or very little detail provided outside 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.560 of like breasts and belly. Yeah. Yeah. It's often seen 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.880 as having the what we're perceived us the feminine figures exaggerated, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.240 so it would be in large spreads, in large tips 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.840 and stuff like that. And for that reason, people often 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:08.480 look at this and say that they think it had 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:12.840 some kind of fertility significance. Now you know where, depending 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.520 you can go back and forth over which one could 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.840 be older than the other, it seems like they likely 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.160 existed at the same time. But the key difference here 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.880 is that while the venus is a depiction essentially of 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.840 the feminine form of something that exists of a human being, right, uh, 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.720 that exists in the real world, the loan mention is 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.400 the human feuged with the beast. And in the words 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:37.040 of Clive Gamble, and archaeologist at the University of Southampton, UK, 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.760 as quoted in Nature quote, they depict the animal world 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.360 in a semi realistic way. It shows early man moving 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:48.160 from his immediate world to an imaginative world. Now this 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:52.960 is interesting because, yeah, you have to imagine that, I 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.000 don't know, there's no way to get inside say a 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.160 chimpanzees head or a dog's head, is some other mammal. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:04.560 But if these animals have any kind of imaginative capacity, 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:06.400 and there's no proof, really, I guess that they have 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.040 any kind of ability to picture objects that are not 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.360 in front of them. If they do, you kind of 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.280 have to assume that they're sort of literal right that 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.280 they'd be, that they would be putting together ideas of 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:22.040 images that are from their direct experience. Yeah, I mean 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.280 so in this case. I mean one example that comes 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:30.000 to mind, One possible and perhaps nitpicking idea, is that 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.680 what if say thag, the member of your tribe. What 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.199 a fag likes to take a deer head or a 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:38.839 or a big cat head, and he likes to just 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.240 kind of houllow that sucker out or get the skin, 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.760 and they just put it over his own head. And 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.079 he's famous for this, and he's so famous for this 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.160 that one decides to create a statue of it. Like, 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.520 that's the only scenario I think in which you could 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:54.840 you could make the argument. I don't see anybody making 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:56.840 that argument, but I feel like that's the only example 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.280 you can make an argument for this being an image 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.960 of a thing that was as opposed to an image 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.199 of a thing that was not. Let me throw a 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.240 twist on your example, though, So maybe Thag does put 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.240 on the headdress or you know, the remains of some 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:14.120 other predator, and to simulate that in that sense, would 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:18.040 that not be becoming another kind of creature at least 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.840 in symbol? That's true? Yeah, I mean you can certainly 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.000 make the argument that that if Thag did that and 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:27.280 bothered to put the beast's skin over his head, that 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.120 you know, he is pretending to be something else or 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.360 or participating in an experience that makes him feel as 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.200 if he has something else. So yeah, it all kind 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.400 of amounts to the same thing, doesn't it. Right, So, 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.040 whether it's Thag inspiring this, this lionman carving, or whoever 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.880 carved it, depicting some kind of being that they had 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:46.880 never seen in nature. What's going on is a kind 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:52.600 of fusion into unreal creatures. And according to Jill Cook, 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.520 a curator at the British Museum who has a good 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.800 blog post about the Loan Mench for the British Museum's acquisition, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.800 the loan Mench is the oldest known representation of a 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.760 creature that does not exist in nature, not necessarily the 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.720 oldest piece of art, but the oldest evidence of fantasy. 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:14.480 Quite literally, the world's oldest monster. Now by monster, of course, 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.240 we've got to clarify the way we use the term. 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.520 I mean an imaginary creature that does not occur in nature, 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.560 not necessarily a bad or evil creature. So this isn't 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.600 to say that the people who imagine the Loewen men 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:28.960 should necessarily would have thought of it as antagonistic. Though 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.000 I feel pretty strongly that even if whatever this being 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.760 was was treated with reverence, I suspect it would have 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.600 been the kind of awe in the classic sense of awe, 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.800 not like oh here's my friend the lionman, but like 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.160 a solemn blend of wonder and fear. Well, if you're 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.520 try and imagine what life was like at the time, 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:50.760 I mean, every every day would have a certain amount 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.920 of uncertainty. You're you're depending upon your ability to find 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.400 the food, to follow the patterns that lead to food, 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.600 to to hunt prey that will fee eat and can 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.400 clothe you through the harsh winter months especially, So there's 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:06.760 a certain amount of uncertainty, there's a certain amount of chaos, 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.600 and therefore we you know, you might expect to find 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.240 those elements in imagine beings. Yeah, I can see that. 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.720 So let's look at the ingredients of this imagine being. 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.840 Obviously it is one part human. We know about the 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.400 the upright bipedal human pretty well. But what is the 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.080 head of this creature and possibly the inspiration for the 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.000 muscily legs. Yeah, this is This is a great question 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:29.840 because I imagine a lot of people are thinking, Okay, 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.680 Southern Germany lions. Lions are in Africa and and or India, 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.520 so what are they doing in Europe. Well, given the 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.320 time frame in the location, experts believe that we're we're 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.560 seeing a human or humanoid body with the with the 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:48.400 head of a now extinct cave lion cave lion. Yeah. Now, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.480 I think that's that's interesting, isn't it though, because you 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.600 have a partial likeness of one extinct animal in the 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:58.600 very tusk of another. Yeah, and it's created by a 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.120 species that probably played a role in the extinction of 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:06.600 both species. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, there's 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.320 there's actually there's not a lot of evidence for lion hunting. 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.200 But a two thousand sixteen Spanish study published in p 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.200 Los one they looked at fossilized cave lion toe bones 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.240 and they found human modifications, possibly made with stone tools 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.679 that were made for skinning. So they think that, uh, 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.240 that ancient peoples might have hunted them for their pelts. 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.000 But of course we know even if they didn't directly 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.120 hunt these lions, they could have contributed to their extinction 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.840 by encroaching on their habitats, by competition for large fauna 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:39.360 and food sources. Now, there were different varieties of cave lion. 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.119 One was found in America and there were two in Eurasia. 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.639 There was Panthera leo fossilus, and this was first. This 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.400 one first appeared in Europe seven hundred thousand years ago 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:56.240 and evolved into Panthera leo spellia, and this cave lion 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.560 is the one that continued on. That's the one we're 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.600 seeing here, and this is the one that went on 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:05.399 to go extinct, probably by fourteen thousand years ago. But 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.080 so thirty five to forty thousand years ago when this 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.000 thing was made, they were still around. Yes. Now I've 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:12.679 also read I don't know how much stock we can 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.640 put in this, but I've also read in the past 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.280 that some people think it may have survived in the 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.800 Balkans up to two thousand years ago. But again I 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.080 don't know to what extent we should buy into that 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.000 that may get into cryptic territory, the grim leopard of 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:32.400 the Balkan. Yeah, but to be clear, Panthera leo spellia 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.840 was probably the largest cat that ever lived. It was 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.640 probably twenty larger than modern lions, and also bigger than 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.399 today's largest tigers. So we're talking up to eleven feet 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:45.840 six inches or three point five meters in length. That 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.879 is a crazy thing, because something you might not have 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.199 experienced if you haven't been to a zoo. Recently, I 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.960 noticed that I don't really have a correct vision in 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.960 my head of how large the big cats are like 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.240 a lion or a tieer. I think of them as 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.320 I don't know, like maybe large the size of a 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.520 great Dane or a little bit larger really, But if 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:09.840 if you go to a to a zoo and you 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.360 get like right up against the glass where these things are, 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.360 you realize like, oh, oh man, this is like as 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.240 big as a horse. These things are gigantic. Well they're 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.760 they're I mean, they're smaller than a horse, but but 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:24.760 it seems like a horse. But it does seem that 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.159 big if you're in the right position to observe them. 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.439 For instance, here at Zoo Atlanta, I go to the 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.960 zoo a lot with my son, and sometimes we get 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.360 there early. And when you get there early, sometimes you're 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.800 the only person close to the lion enclosure and they're 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.920 still kind of active because it's the morning. And I've 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.000 had some really creepy experiences walking up there with my 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:49.280 you know, small snack size child next to me. Delicious, Yeah, 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.560 And the way the lion looks at you, you just 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.119 feel this this primal feeling and you get a sense 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.760 of what this this beast is and how I'm supposed 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:01.399 to view this beast outside of the artificial confines of 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.560 the zoo environment. Isn't it funny that we've got spider 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.600 fear but we don't have lion fear. Well, it might 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.879 be very different if you live in proximity to lions. 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.680 But I feel no natural fear about lions in the 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:14.240 same way I do when I see the image of 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.359 like a spider crawling towards my face. Well, I usually don't, 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.520 but I feel like in these moments, I'm willing to 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.480 buy that there's something they're like, like there's something situationally 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.480 and environmentally that has to be in place and such. 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.359 It's so standing, you know, beside a small child in 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.920 in a situation where the lions attention is on me, 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.960 it's very creepy, and I can I can buy into 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.240 an idea that that there's something ingrained in me to 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.399 to fear them. It is terrifying itself to fear the 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.280 predatory gaze, like when you when you just see the 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.880 eyes of the creature that's large enough to eat you 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.680 and maybe wants to. That comes through a lot in 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:53.679 one of our favorite books to talk about in here 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.320 in Blind Site by Peter Watts, where he talks about 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.400 the vampires gaze. Uh, you know, they usually keep their 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.480 eyes cover because people like they wear the sunglasses because 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.200 if they don't, people can just constantly feel themselves being 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.520 looked at as prey. So it's it's easy for I mean, 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.439 it's it's relatively easy for us to lock eyes with 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.560 a predator like the lion, if you go to zoos 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:19.560 and whatnot. But but try to imagine living in this 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.920 ancient time, like the rare situations where you would make 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.720 eye contact with this creature and lift to tell about 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.400 and how powerful that would be, like that that would 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.040 have to play a role in the creation of of 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.240 this lion man. You can imagine it was a religious experience, 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:36.800 like if you came face to face with a cave 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.520 lion and did not die, that this would make you 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.359 feel like you had entered a higher plane of existence, 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.159 you had communed with some with the grim leopard of 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.760 the skies. Yeah. Now, of course, it's worth noting that 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.280 this this may have been, this may well have been 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:56.240 the first lion man lion humanoid hybrid in human beliefs, 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.120 but we would go on to have many more. Oh 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.560 of course, some of the some of the key examples 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.800 of the Egyptians had several or at least four may 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:10.720