WEBVTT - The Tunnelers 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.520 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.960 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:22.319 in this episode, we're going to dig down, deep into 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.439 the bones of the Earth. Okay, we're gonna We're gonna 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.680 call to mind a quote from J. R. Tolkien's The 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:34.479 Fellowship of the Ring Maria Maria, Wonder of the Northern World. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.560 Too deep we delved there and woke the nameless fear. Okay, 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.920 So is this an episode about the ball Rog? No, 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.400 I mean not directly. I mean we might ponder, as 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.160 we uh we read here what the metaphorical ball rog 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:52.839 might be in all of this. But but it is 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.880 gonna be an episode about about digging in the earth, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.160 about about about mining down, digging down, and just how 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:02.960 deep we've gotten. And then what do we do in 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.319 the earth? What's what is what? What? What is Homo 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.440 sapiens business beneath the surface of the earth? After all? 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.920 You know what? I just recently went to the Atlanta 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.959 Zoo and I hadn't been there since I was a kid. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.520 And first of all, it's fantastic. Atlanta Zoo is wonderful. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.400 But one of the things that struck me the most 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.600 was when I went into the little area where they 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:27.640 have the places where you can view the naked mole 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:32.759 rep Yon, where there is this The smell is overwhelming. Uh, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.119 there's this odd odor. But just looking at them, they 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.360 are one of the strangest looking creatures on Earth. There 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:45.280 these naked, wrinkly, uh, kind of rosy pink things with 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.000 long teeth, lying in puddles, appearing to have some kind 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:51.640 of high mind and and frequently, at least when I 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.160 was looking at them, chewing on each other, just gnawing 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.480 on one another beneath the ground. And these are true 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.600 like subterranean creatures. You're not that we're designed to live 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.520 on the surface, but we do a lot more underground 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:09.880 venturing than most other permanent surface dwellers do. Absolutely. And 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.760 on the subject of of underground true underground evolution and 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.280 the evolution of burrowing species, I would like to come 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.800 back to that because we actually have um an author 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.680 in the Atlanta area wrote a book about the evolution 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.200 of burrowing creatures and uh, and I keep meaning to 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:27.720 to reach out and see about having him on the 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.160 show to chat with us about it. He's the one. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.840 He actually mentions tremors the movie in the book, so 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:37.040 you know, you know that he's our people. But speaking 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.000 of of our people and speaking of of underground creatures, 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.560 one thing I was thinking about two is how if 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:48.240 you look to the fictional world of subterranean humanoids, we 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.440 see there's always there's pretty strict dichotomy. Right on one hand, 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:57.040 you have the debased underworld dwellers. You have the moment 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.160 the crawlers from the descent, the more locks for the 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.959 time machine you have or one of my other favorites 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.760 in terms of just cave dwelling creatures. Two gargoyles. I 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.639 don't know. Oh, it's terrible, some wonderful gargoyle costumes come 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.320 creatures coming out of the deserts and the desert caves 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.720 and kidnapping people that sort of thing. Well, I usually 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.440 think of gargoyles as as flying. Yeah, but they live 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.320 in caves in this particular movie, somewhere where they gonna 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.280 live in the middle of the desert on a skyscraper. 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.040 I guess bats live in caves and they fly. Yeah, 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.359 they're basically It's more it would have made more sense 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.080 if they were bat people. Instead of gargoyles. But um hey, 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.280 I invite everyone to to see this film for them 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:42.640 for theirselves. The the ideal way to see this film 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.280 I think was probably at three pm on a Sunday 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.440 on TBS back in the day. But you can watch 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.960 it through modern means as well. Oh, I just looked 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.520 it up. These are some striking images. The gargoyle is 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.440 almost cramp us looking it is now. Of course. The 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.360 more Locks though, are really more of the iconic underground 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.760 dweller though from HD Wells The time Machine. Yeah. Though, 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.880 the interesting thing about them, so you're saying that there 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.960 are some uh, some fantasy and sci fi works where 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.600 underground human oid type creatures are presented as like, in 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.640 some way like a horrible deviant version of us, where 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:25.919 the more Locks are the sort of the villains of 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.800 the time Machine, but they're also it's funny. In the novel, 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:33.280 the more Locks are like the intelligent creatures that use technology, 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.320 and it's the the gentle surface dwelling eloi who are 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.599 like kind of ye, they're flacid and in curious and 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:45.040 sort of bovine. But then we also have works where 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.760 the creatures who live underground are the more refined humanoids. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.840 So um, we could of course looked in the Middle 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.040 Earth and the Dwarf Lords in their Halls of Stone. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.120 You know, they're not elevated to the same level as 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:01.920 the elves, but but still they're an advanced civilization that 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:07.200 that seemed to to to love a good underground uh empire. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:09.640 Then you have things that you have, and you have 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.479 other groups like the drought in Dungeons and Dragons, the 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.840 non men and our Scott Baker's Second Apocalypse socca. The 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.480 mutants in beneath the Planet of the Eights. Oh yeah, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.719 they worship a giant bomb. Yeah, they're great and they 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:22.920 have psychic powers, and yet we have not seen them 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.599 in any of these recent Planet of the Apes movies. 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.960 Also in the Fallout games, you have the Vault Dwellers. 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.719 They're not permanent to underground dwellers, but they have dwelt 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:34.479 underground for a long period of time and they have 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.440 internal and you know, emerging into the surface world to 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.720 retake it. Well, yeah, I think clearly in a lot 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:46.320 of these like science fiction works, the underground humanoids it's 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.960 supposed to be something symbolic. It shows like a sort 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.440 of like retreat into some kind of other nature. It 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:58.960 is a physical sign that something has changed. And I 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.479 think another out of the appeal is that the living 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.800 below ground or in caves or vault is something that 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.280 seems like it should be rather removed from the sort 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.280 of homes that most of us keep. And yet one 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.760 of the curious things is that underground dwellings are also 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.520 a part of our past. Uh. They're they're part of 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.479 our present, and depending on where we go in this 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.680 solar system, uh, they may be a part an important 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.119 part of our future. Yeah. So let's take a minute 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.560 just to to talk about humanity's history in the depths 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:33.160 of the earth. Okay, So limestone caves provided shelter for 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.560 the Neanderthals of the Ice Age, and early humans too 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.960 made use of caves for shelter but also for burial 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.760 and for sacred rights. Yeah, I was looking at examples 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.360 of this. One example of I think the religious significance 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.120 of deep cave dwellings, especially by Neanderthals, is to be 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.520 found in the Brunkel Cave of southwestern France. Uh So, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.279 to decide a journal article, We've got one in Nature 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.200 here from twenty sixteen called early Neandertal constructions deep in 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:05.680 in Brunickel Cave in southwestern France by joe Bert at 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.320 All And in this study, archaeologists reported the discovery of 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:14.320 ring shaped patterns of broken still agmites made from about 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.760 four hundred pieces of still agmite that are that were 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.320 found deep in the cave. And we don't know what 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.480 these ring shaped structures were for, but it's clear they're 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.200 artificial in origin. They were made by by humans and 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.280 they were the site of ancient fires, where like there 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.400 are some sections that are burned and charred, and there 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.800 are also pieces of burned bone mixed in with them. 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.000 And a uranium dating series combined with some other methods 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.240 gives the structure an approximate age of a hundred and 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.320 seventy six point five thousand years old, one of the 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.440 oldest known human structures. And this was pretty deep down 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.360 to oh extremely yeah. This was found three hundred and 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.320 thirty six meters down from the entrance of the cave. 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.720 That's over eleven hundred feet down, showing that the Neanderthals 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.440 who made these rings had master deep underground environments. Like 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.320 to go this far down is not something an animal 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.760 would do lightly. You'd need to have an artificial light 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.400 source to take with you. You You probably need a plan 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.640 in a way of organizing and understanding your spatial environment 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.400 so you don't get stuck down there. And the big 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.720 question is what were the rings for? We had these 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.920 rings over a thousand feet down underground. A common explanation 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.280 would be, well, it's maybe religious in nature. Somebody's burning 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.600 fires with rings of stone down in the dark over 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.400 a thousand feet underground, right, must be for some kind 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.680 of ritual. We don't really know, but it's fascinating question, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.600 and I think the most common answer is probably that 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:39.960 it had something to do with with an with a 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:44.240 loss to history, unknown neandertal religion. So there yet, so 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.280 there was a sacred reason to go down into the 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.520 depths presumably, or maybe there's just some other reason that 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:55.520 we don't understand. It doesn't it's not clear. Is it's 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.360 not easy to determine that these this like circle would 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:00.600 serve a practical purpose. I'm not sure what you'd use 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.160 it for as a tool or anything like that, or 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.120 why I would need to be so far down if 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.679 you did it. Almost it really asks for a kind 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.960 of symbolic interpretation. Yeah, Now in terms of more readily 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.800 accessed portions of a cave. Stuff close to the surface. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.360 It's easier. It's easy for us to to think, well, 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.160 you know, these are the kind of early primitive shelters 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.760 one might use, and then you would quickly evolve beyond that. 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:27.920 You would reach the point where it just makes more 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.280 sense to depend on tents and buildings for your shelter 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.520 um and then you would would maybe only stick to 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.400 the depths for you know, things that are religious in nature, 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.280 like catacombs or or perhaps bomb shelters in some cases, 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:46.360 or basements. I mean, it's, uh, it's easy to think 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.720 that there would just come a time where nobody lives 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.520 underground anymore unless you absolutely have to. Well, yeah, and 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.600 there'd be several reasons for this. I mean, one would 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.920 be the advent of settled civilization, because it's not that 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.000 there are no sub old civilizations that involve caves. Some 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.920 of them do involve caves, but generally there's a limited 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.280 number of caves out there, so you can't just like 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.079 keep filling up caves. You need to like build your 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.240 own structures to support and expanding population, and caves are 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.600 not necessarily near where you can do your agriculture, right. 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.920 And then if you're expanding on caves or or setting 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.079 out to build your own caves in the form of 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.520 artificial tunnels, it takes a fair amount of of effort. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.560 You have to have considerable resources, technological know how, and 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.440 you have to depend on the rock that you're working 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:37.400 with being the right temperament for what you're trying to build. However, 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.600 we do see all of these things line up, uh 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.040 in really to a fascinating degree with some of these 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.959 caves cities in modern day Turkey. Um and I was 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.080 was not really all that familiar with these prior to 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.400 researching for this episode, but they are, They're amazing. Uh. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:00.400 One in particular is the city of Daring, who you 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:05.240 h This is a complex of hand dug tunnels that 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.199 dive down sixty meters or two hundred feet um beneath 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.800 that's as roughly eighteen stories beneath the surface and would 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.280 have housed and estimated twenty thousand people during its heyday. 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:22.640 It contained homes, schools, even a winery, and it's likely 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.600 that these tunnels were begun around seven b C. And 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.720 while it eventually seems to be a functional, fully functional city, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.040 it continued to serve as a place of refuge well 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.480 into modern times, the place that surface dwellers knew they 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.199 could they could flee to and hide in. You have 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.280 surface tensions, we were too problematic. Yeah, it seems to 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.400 be worth noting that this is what the majority of 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.679 these Turkish underground UH dwellings were primarily used for. It 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:51.160 kind of calls to mind to go back to the 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.920 Lord of the rings, like Helm's Deep, right, it's a 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.480 place where if your civilization is attacked, you can retreat 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.200 down below the surface and we're in seal up the 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:04.000 walls with stone until the war passes on or the 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:06.880 danger is gone, and then you re emerge. Which makes 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:11.160 me wonder about the Neanderthal a mystery from earlier, like, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.920 to what extent was that a way to survive uh, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.840 the new people, you know, the inheritors, to to to 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:22.800 flee down into depths that that other uh certainly surface predators, 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.680 but maybe even uh these newer hommaid species would not 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.360 bother with. Now that'd be a good plot for a novel, 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.960 but I think it is the case that Homo sapiens 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.200 are not believed to have been in the area at 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.880 this point. Oh no, no, for purely Hollywood reasons, it 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.679 could be like a reverse descent instead of it being uh, 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:46.600 poor hapless humanoids dealing with underground monsters are underground monsters 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.400 of the heroes. There you go do for the descent three, 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.280 That would be actually a pretty good uh way to 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.440 frame it. So again, this is just one of of 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.680 several underground cities that you find in this region. There's 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:03.120 also the Kaimak the Underground City, the Oscanic Underground City, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.079 there's the Mazy Underground City. And there are some interesting 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.640 illustrations of these online that really just drive home what 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:12.560 we're talking about. We're not talking about like just a 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:18.160 few chambers. We're talking about like multiple stories of underground habitat. 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.200 It's a luxury mine. We should also point out that 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.199 cave dwellings continue to this day in parts of the world, 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.240 such as with Waddox, a southern Spanish region containing around 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.560 two thousand caves that have been used as homes for generations. 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:36.319 And you look at pictures of these and there's really 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.600 quite uh. The design is very interesting to look at 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:42.840 because in many cases, like the walls are painted, they 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.640 look like rooms in in home. You know that they 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.320 don't don't look like cave dwellers. They look like relatively 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.560 modern people living in a shelter that just happens to 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.040 be part of a naturally occurring cave. Well. They're also 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.520 still underground homes in Tunisia. In fact, some of these 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.520 underground homes make an appearance in the first Star Wars movie. 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:09.320 So Luke's house in the first Star Wars is you 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.200 know Uncle Owan and Aunt Brew where they live. That's 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.360 sort of modeled after a type of Tunisian dwelling where 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.000 there is a central crater type structure. It's like a 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.600 big pit in the ground, and then around the ring 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.560 of the crater there are dugout rooms that you can 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.600 go into. Very interesting. I didn't realize that. I always 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.800 thought it was just an elaborate set, I guess, or 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.440 an actual space house. I didn't think about the idea 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.120 that this would be an actual home or based upon 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:37.800 an actual home design from that region. There's a cool 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:42.080 photo gallery on on the Atlantic website that that documents 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:46.120 some of what these houses look like in more recent decades. Cool, 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.440 and there, of course other plenty of other examples we 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:53.880 can point to of sporadic underground dwellings they're parts of 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.680 Australia where you still see a fair number of underground dwellings. 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.960 And then I feel like, at least when I was 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.640 growing up, there were at least a couple of underground 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:07.480 houses in the county where I lived, because there were 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.480 there's a lot of tornatic activity in the region, and 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:12.480 there was at least one house where It's like somebody 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:14.560 was like, screw it, I'm not putting up with this 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.280 fear of tornadoes anymore. I'm living under the ground. And 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.720 then they did it. Wow. Yeah. In fact, I think 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.680 I knew somebody who lived in an underground house in 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.600 southern Middle Tennessee. It's all basement. It's all basement. Yeah. Well, 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.000 I guess that has certain advantages. It probably a certain 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.960 disadvantages too, I would I would think, for example, the 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.760 lack of exposure to sunlight would eventually psychologically get to you. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.040 Oh yes, And that's a that's of course, that's a 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.160 whole other side of the equation when you start imagining 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:46.240 permanent dwelling underground and what that does to our circadian rhythms. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.680 But generally speaking, we're thinking about creatures that are going 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.360 to come back out again with with with regularity to 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.560 obtain the resources they need. You would kind of have 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.320 to write because I mean you mentioned that, for example, 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.040 the city uh in an ancient Turkey, this underground city. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.120 It had like a winery, but it couldn't have a 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.560 vineyard under the ground, right, and then they weren't making 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.200 mushroom wine, um likely. So you know, we mentioned the Descent. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.360 Even the monsters in the Descent were leaving their caves 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.200 to pray, because there's the whole scene where their bones 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.040 piled up. They have this uh this is these midden 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.400 heaps of the things that they've been eating, and it's 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:24.880 it's it's shown that they've been eating deer like they're 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:29.520 going to the surfaced hunt, presumably at night. So yeah, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.480 we have plenty of underground to have it as today. 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.120 And also certainly if you go to a major modern city, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.720 you go to New York City, you're gonna find plenty 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.960 of people living in basements. You know that there there 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:44.000 there's there's still an underground too many um surface dwellings 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.240 that rise into the sky. And then we have plenty 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:51.360 of underground complexes that can sometimes be repurposed as a shelter. 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.360 For instance, we did uh an episode talking about mosquitoes 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.080 in the London underground and their evolution, and we in 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.880 that we discussed how during the Second World War the 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.280 London underground, the subway system there was used as a 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.480 bomb shelter. And then we have cases of homeless individuals 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:13.520 living and abandoned subways, railroads, flood sewage tunnels, heating shafts 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.080 in various metropolitan areas around the world. Uh. If you've 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:21.600 ever seen the two thousand your two thousand documentary Dark Days, Uh, 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.399 that documentary looks at people living in Freedom Tunnel in 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.440 New York City during the mid nineteen nineties. So thus 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:34.399 far we've looked at religious reasons, survival reasons, um, infrastructure reasons, 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.080 even a little bit to dig tunnels under the earth. 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:41.040 But another major reason to go digging around and crawling 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.640 around under the earth like you're some mener of worm, 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.160 is of course, to mine precious resources, find that pot 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.359 of gold exactly. In fact, we just talked recently in 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.080 an episode of Invention the role that copper mining might 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:58.120 have played in the origins of wheel technology. That's right, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.880 So humans figured out that these were press as resources 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:02.960 that we could do things with them that give us 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.879 a very important advantages over our fellow humans, and in 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.080 doing so, we quickly ate up all the the easily 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:15.320 acquired deposits of these materials. So instead we just started 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:17.800 digging a tunnel. There's more down there, right, and then 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.120 you need you need things like like wheels to remove 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.280 them from those tunnels. So we do find plenty of 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.760 examples of pretty old minds in human history. The oldest 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.240 mine in the world is thought to be the the 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:37.359 Church Silica mine at Naslette Sabaja in in Egypt, and 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.400 it's estimated to have been in use around a hundred 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.359 thousand years ago. That's crazy old. That's long before like 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.199 settled civilization, long before agriculture. And it's in mining that 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.760 we find some of the most incredible feats of tunneling, uh, 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.440 even before the twentieth century. So in Kimberly South Africa 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.200 and South Africa is a region where we see some 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:04.400 some pretty incredible, slash terrifying feats in mining. Um between 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:09.200 eighteen seventy and nineteen forty, fifty thousand laborers moved twenty 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.359 two million tons of earth and reached the depth of 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.480 seven hundred nine ft or two hundred forty in search 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:19.600 of diamonds. And this is uh, this is a dig 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.119 that's currently not known today as the Big Hole, and 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.600 it is considered the largest hand dug pit in the 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.639 world hand dug yes, well that yeah, so not using 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:34.320 you know, a bunch of mechanical aid. Less impressive certainly 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.080 from the air, but still pretty impressive in its depth. 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.040 Is uh is woodingden Well in the UK. It's an 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.280 impressive hand dug well that reaches h one thousand, two 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.160 hundred and eighty five ft or three hundred ninety into 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:52.160 the earth. And uh BBC's the deepest holes dug by 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.680 hand points out that it's as deep as the Empire 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.879 State Building is tall. And that's just well, that's the 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.879 hand dug well. Well, I think they did well. Uh, 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.080 let's say on that note, Yes, let's definitely take a break, folks. 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:05.879 You should know I just said that and then I 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:07.760 said we could cut it, and then I said it again, 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.359 So it's got to be time for a break. Thank 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.800 Thank Alright, we're back. So let's talk about some of 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:19.120 the modern day marvels of digging in the dirt. Uh. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.040 Modern minds are even more impressive because, of course, we 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:26.240 have enhanced tunneling machinery that allows us to be dig deeper, 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.240 dig harder, if you will. And also, of course we 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.760 have just better ability to blow up the rock and 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.439 do so in a way that actually achieves our goals 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:39.280 of digging deeper. And uh and we mentioned South Africa earlier, 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:44.399 and our most impressive mining operations are to be found 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:49.480 in South Africa, specifically the Tawtona and Opponent mines, which 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:53.680 have broken through around uh four kilometers or two point 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.960 four five two point five miles of rock. So we're 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.840 talking mines that are so deep that it takes an 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.840 hour to elevator down to the bottom. And you have 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.880 to have a powerful, just an extremely powerful air conditioning 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:11.000 system essentially like shoveling um ice down to the depths, 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.480 because you have to balance out the hundred and thirty 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.520 eight degree fahrenheit fifty nine degrees celsius temperatures in the 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.280 surrounding rocks. Wow. So that's weird because I normally think 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.640 of going down into a cave is uh something that 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:25.720 that makes you nice and cool? I mean, I guess 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.640 unless it's like cold outside. I mean, one great thing 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.240 about an underground environment is that it tends to have 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.399 a pretty regulated temperature if you're at a certain depth. Right, 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.200 this is the wine seller um uh situation. It's a 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:40.760 place where you can keep a standard temperature for whatever 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.199 you're storingly, but basement a wine seller is probably not 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.160 going to go two and a half miles down into 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.919 the earth. Uh. By the way, with these minds, when 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:52.840 we're talking about trying to balance out the temperatures, the 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.199 air conditioning systems usually get temperatures uh back down to 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.000 a more reasonable eighty two degrees fahrenheit twenty eight degrees celsius. 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.199 So it's still hot. Yes, it's hot. Uh. These your 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.840 dangerous places. The taw tone of mine today has some 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:14.440 I read four miles or eight hundred kilometers of tunnels, 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:18.320 and it employs some fifty six thousand miners. And there 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.119 are some whole books have been written about just the 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:26.240 scale of these mining operations and the like. The type 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:29.080 of the technological details alone are pretty incredible, but then 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:34.280 also the cultural asides about ghost miners, people who like 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.440 sneak into the mines and what percentage of say gold, 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:42.359 for for instance, is is pilfered, But then also how 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.359 relatively little gold they have to actually mine out of 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:48.800 the Earth to get a profit, because even though most 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:51.360 of the gold on Earth we mostly don't do much 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:56.080 with it. It's it's it's extremely useful in in various electronics, 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:58.960