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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Time to go

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Speaker 1: into the vault for a classic episode of the show.

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Speaker 1: This one originally aired on April seven, and it's the

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Speaker 1: first of our two part series on the Bone Palace,

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Speaker 1: the the huts and houses built of bones. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: let's go ahead, Yeah, throw those vault doors open and

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Speaker 1: see what comes assailant out. I cannot wait to begin

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Speaker 1: our exodus from this gray country, said Osma. Yes, my matamor.

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Speaker 1: The people of Teneraff take death too seriously. There's no

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Speaker 1: room for the bailful arts here, and truth be told,

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Speaker 1: they do not deserve our necromatic skills. I concur and

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Speaker 1: agree wholeheartedly. If the people here insist on taking such

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Speaker 1: a sacred stance on expiration, then fine. Good luck talking

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Speaker 1: to the dead and raising skeletons from the grave without

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Speaker 1: us around. Indeed, I wish them luck too in the

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Speaker 1: completion of the canal project, with our splendid bone columns

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Speaker 1: to do the heavy lifting. Yes, they lack vision, I

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Speaker 1: shall not miss them. Yes, good bones, though strong dairy

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Speaker 1: industry here, I will miss the calcium well, yes, but

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Speaker 1: but but our destination will first of all be free

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Speaker 1: of their hyper religious nonsense, and it is filled with

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Speaker 1: the remains as well, for sinsor is populated exclusively by

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Speaker 1: the bones and mummies of a people ten centuries dead. No,

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Speaker 1: Matte Moore, we shall build such an empire of necromancy.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, Flying buttresses made from actual ixia and coxyges,

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Speaker 1: a vast amphitheater of gladiators, reanimated mummies serving us delicacies

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Speaker 1: on silver trays, skull goblets of wine and all to

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Speaker 1: the music of piping bone flutes. Or a public bathwork

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Speaker 1: made entirely of Maxillayan mandibles, twin thrones crafted of coiling vertebrae.

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Speaker 1: Hell to our powers of bones. Welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind? Production of My Heart Radio. Hey, are

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Speaker 1: you welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind? My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. I.

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Speaker 1: I know today's episode got you in a necromantic adventure mood.

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Speaker 1: So you dove into the old Clark Ashton Smith, didn't you. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: When I saw that we were going to be doing

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Speaker 1: an episode titled The Bone Palace about novel uses, for

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Speaker 1: bones throughout human and to a certain extent, animal history.

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Speaker 1: My mind instantly went to necromancers, and so I instantly

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Speaker 1: thought of Clark Ashton Smith's excellent little short story, The

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Speaker 1: Empire of the Necromancers, and so the cold Open we

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Speaker 1: began with that little skit. It was basically a on

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Speaker 1: on that particular tale and the characters in it, in

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Speaker 1: which we find a couple of necromancer's packing up shop,

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Speaker 1: leaving the city in the world of the living in

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Speaker 1: order to set up like a decadent necromantic playground in

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Speaker 1: the desert. You know, you think that they would need

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Speaker 1: to stay at least around some of the living to

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Speaker 1: do business, right, Like you can't just like be a

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Speaker 1: necromancer inside a pyramid, Like there's a lot to work with,

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Speaker 1: but nobody to work for, right I mean? And yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then when you actually get into necromancy as it's

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Speaker 1: treated in a lot of fantasy, you know, it's about

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Speaker 1: not only death but life. It's about the cross between

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Speaker 1: the two. And so I don't know, it's it's one

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Speaker 1: of these tales. A lot of Clark Ashton Smith's tales

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Speaker 1: are at once very you know, very deep and exotic feeling.

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Speaker 1: You know they have this this dark other worldliness to them,

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Speaker 1: and yet there's often a little cheekiness as well. There's

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Speaker 1: a sort of strange humor to them. And I think

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Speaker 1: that's that's evident in his original story, which, by the way,

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Speaker 1: if you want to read it out there, you can

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Speaker 1: find it online for free at Eldric Dark dot com.

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Speaker 1: I believe they have all of Clark Ashton Smith's writings

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Speaker 1: assembled there well. So obviously a a palace made out

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Speaker 1: of bones, a bone building, would be a necromancer's dream.

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Speaker 1: But it's hard to imagine such a place existing in reality,

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Speaker 1: or at least it would have been for me a

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Speaker 1: few days ago. But now maybe, um, and maybe that

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Speaker 1: should not be so hard to imagine, because I want

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Speaker 1: to start off today by going on a voyage of

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Speaker 1: the mind's eye to to venture into the prehistoric past.

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Speaker 1: Will you come with me, Robert, I shall let us

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Speaker 1: go to a place that is almost a necromantic kingdom. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's a place that is today in southwestern Russia. This

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Speaker 1: would be about five hundred kilometers south of Moscow, UH,

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Speaker 1: close to the banks of the Don River, near the

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Speaker 1: modern day city of Vornesh And today this area is

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Speaker 1: is basically kind of a fertile region, prairie type ecosystems,

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Speaker 1: relatively moderate continental climate. It's a major center of agriculture

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Speaker 1: in modern Russia. Actually, I think they grow staple crops

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Speaker 1: like sugar beets and potatoes, and they do animal agriculture

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Speaker 1: as well there. But twenty thousand years ago there was

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Speaker 1: still an ice age ruling the planet, and especially these

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Speaker 1: northern realms of the planet. The most recent ice age

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Speaker 1: known scientifically is the Last Glacial Period or l g P,

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Speaker 1: lasted from more than a hundred thousand years ago. I

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Speaker 1: think maybe roughly like a hundred and twenty thousand years

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Speaker 1: ago or so to roughly twelve thousand years ago. And

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Speaker 1: this was the last great glaciation of the broader Pleistocene Age,

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Speaker 1: which began more like two and a half million years ago.

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Speaker 1: So the Pleistocene Age has featured this back and forth

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Speaker 1: pattern over over geological time, this pattern of repeated glaciation

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Speaker 1: events where for thousands of years at a time, the

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Speaker 1: world will grow old and the polar ice caps will

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Speaker 1: creep down over the map towards the equator, like this

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Speaker 1: sort of slow paint drip of frozen death, and then

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Speaker 1: these glacial periods will be followed by warmer interglacial periods,

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Speaker 1: sort of like with the one we think we're in

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Speaker 1: right now, where the ice sheets retreat back toward the

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Speaker 1: polls and complex life pours back into these ice paved

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Speaker 1: landscapes that are left behind. Now, of course this sounds

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Speaker 1: very apocalyptic, but again, remember that these changes happen over

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Speaker 1: like many thousands of years, so you know, generally humans

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Speaker 1: and animals have have time to sort of adapt in

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Speaker 1: migrate back and forth to adjust their lives to the

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Speaker 1: changing climates. The interglacial period that we're in right now

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Speaker 1: is known as the Holocene epoch, and since it began

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Speaker 1: more than ten thousand years ago, this relatively warm Holocene

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Speaker 1: includes all of recorded human history. I think about that.

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Speaker 1: We have no surviving literature at all with firsthand account

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Speaker 1: of what these little ice ages were like, but there

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Speaker 1: absolutely were humans around at the time. There were humans,

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Speaker 1: humans like us crawling the earth during these frozen periods.

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Speaker 1: Homo sapiens actually came to exist during the place to

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Speaker 1: see I'll be at first in warmer equatorial regions, but

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Speaker 1: they soon began to spread all over the planet. We've

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Speaker 1: we've talked about the spread of humans in recent episodes,

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Speaker 1: even too far reaches in the north, where the wind

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Speaker 1: would be ever howling. In this this menace of ice loomed. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I believe we've also talked about how the Neanderthal is

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Speaker 1: u is perhaps more ideally suited for this sort of

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Speaker 1: cold weather environment. Yeah, and the Neanderthal will will come

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Speaker 1: up a bit in this episode. But so Homo sapiens

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Speaker 1: and Neanderthals both actually eventually spread to this general region,

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Speaker 1: the Russian Plain, this area in like southwest Russia and Ukraine, uh,

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Speaker 1: and more specifically this area I mentioned earlier that's you know,

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Speaker 1: a few hundred kilometers south of modern day Moscow, along

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Speaker 1: the banks of the Dawn. So the last glacial period

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Speaker 1: would have reached its most bitter cold in this place

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Speaker 1: between about twenty three thousand and eighteen thousand years ago.

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Speaker 1: The summers then would have been very short and very cool.

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Speaker 1: Winters would be long and freezing. And at that time,

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Speaker 1: winter in this place would have averaged about negative twenty

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Speaker 1: degrees celsius or about negative four degrees fahrenheit. And that's

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Speaker 1: before wind chill is taken into account, and it would

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Speaker 1: have been windy. So if you try to picture it.

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Speaker 1: This region of the Russian plane at the time would

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Speaker 1: have been a freezing step landscape, just a bit south

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Speaker 1: of the ice sheets that reached down from the polar

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Speaker 1: regions and covered much of North America, Europe and Asia

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Speaker 1: at times. These glaciers, it's kind of hard to imagine this,

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Speaker 1: but they were sometimes between three and four kilometers sick,

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Speaker 1: or more than two miles. So just imagine a mountain

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Speaker 1: sheet of ice reaching down from the top of the

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Speaker 1: world down into the continents, into totally inhabited regions today,

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Speaker 1: and there were people who lived here at this time.

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Speaker 1: The archaeological record indicates that most humans left this region

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Speaker 1: of southwest Russia during the harshest climate period of this

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Speaker 1: ice Age, you know, the like between twenty three thousand

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Speaker 1: and eighteen thousand years ago, And of course that's probably

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Speaker 1: because first of all, it's so cold, but as a

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Speaker 1: response to the cold, it's also because you know, most

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Speaker 1: food and fuel sources would have disappeared. Uh. In the

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Speaker 1: words of a study that we're going to cite in

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Speaker 1: a minute, this was quote a period of intense cold

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Speaker 1: when similar latitudes in Europe were already abandoned, but here

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Speaker 1: some people stayed and survived. I find myself wanting to

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Speaker 1: hear a Bruce Springsteen song about living in this environment,

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Speaker 1: you know, after after other folks have have gone on

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Speaker 1: and left for warmer climates, and you're you're just digging

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Speaker 1: in and trying to make life work in this harsh

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Speaker 1: environment on the winds hellan in this cold town, and

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Speaker 1: I can hear you uh. And in fact it will

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Speaker 1: it'll get even more really relevant because this town also

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Speaker 1: rips the bones from your back. Um. So I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to imagine the people who lived in the shadow of

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Speaker 1: this gigantic glacier. And I'm reminded, of course of that

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Speaker 1: great line from literature that we come back to on

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Speaker 1: the show from time to time. It's John Gardner's description

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Speaker 1: of the monster Grendel in his reimagining of the Beowulf legend,

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Speaker 1: when he calls him, uh, a shadow shooter, an earth

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Speaker 1: rim roamer, walker of the world's weird wall uh. And

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Speaker 1: that's so lovely because it's it's first of all, just

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Speaker 1: great imagery, but it also actually uses poetic devices that

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Speaker 1: appear in the original Beowulf epic. Uh, the devices of

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Speaker 1: a literation, which is there in Beowulf. You know, repeating

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Speaker 1: sounds of the beginning of words, and this weird way

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Speaker 1: of forming metaphors known as kinning, where you you sort

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Speaker 1: of like combine words into into a new compound. One example,

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Speaker 1: often in translation in Beowulf would be calling the seas

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Speaker 1: the whale roads. But for me, the Beowulf comparison doesn't

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Speaker 1: stop there, because when I think of people trying to

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Speaker 1: survive in this world, I get this kind of similar

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Speaker 1: feeling of horror and mystery that's invoked by the story

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Speaker 1: of Beowulf. More generally, like this small band of humans

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Speaker 1: gathering around a fire set against the backdrop of this vast,

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Speaker 1: frosty wilderness full of darkness and monsters. Uh. And in reality,

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Speaker 1: of course, this wouldn't have been monster monsters, but maybe

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Speaker 1: desperate predators and scavengers that are also trying to eke

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Speaker 1: out a survival alongside you at the edge of the world.

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Speaker 1: And this in these utterly unforgiving elements, I mean truly

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Speaker 1: a time when you would you wouldn't have to create Grendel,

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Speaker 1: because Grindel like organisms uh still roamed this region. I mean,

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Speaker 1: of course, one of the most astonishing creatures to roam

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Speaker 1: this region at the time would have been the great,

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Speaker 1: the powerful, the wooly mammoth. But also to compare it

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Speaker 1: to Beowolf again, uh, the wooly mammoth is interesting. But

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Speaker 1: because as great, as powerful, as terrifying an animal as

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Speaker 1: this is, if you were to you know, come in

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Speaker 1: come into combat with one, it ultimately did form the

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Speaker 1: prey diet of many of the humans who or maybe

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Speaker 1: all of the humans who lived in this place at

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Speaker 1: the time. So you know, they became the Baowolf. They

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Speaker 1: went out to kill the monster. Yeah, I mean, when

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Speaker 1: you had the tools and the skills, uh to actually

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Speaker 1: bring these creatures down. They were such such such a

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Speaker 1: wealth of resources exactly. And that's really getting us to

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Speaker 1: the heart of the issue here. So there's another way

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Speaker 1: this historical situation gives these real life flashes of grin

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Speaker 1: daily and horror. And this is the real reason I

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Speaker 1: brought up these Ice Age hunter gatherers. Archaeologists have uncovered

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Speaker 1: evidence in about seventy different places so far that the

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Speaker 1: prehistoric peoples of this region of Ice Age Russia and

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Speaker 1: Ukraine and the Russian Plane, they built buildings out of bones,

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Speaker 1: especially out of the skulls, skeletons, and tusks of the

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Speaker 1: wooly mammoth. Now, most often these structures take the form

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Speaker 1: of large bone circles, and if you're trying to picture this,

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Speaker 1: you can look it up with some terms I'll give

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Speaker 1: you in a minute. Um. But it's as if the

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Speaker 1: builders were stacking up ring shaped walls around a central chamber,

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Speaker 1: except the walls are made out of wooly mammoth skeletons.

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Speaker 1: There are no detectable roofs left or you know that

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Speaker 1: would cover up these walls if there were ever any roofs.

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Speaker 1: There are just the circular or oval shaped wall of bone.

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Speaker 1: Dating methods reveal that humans were building these bone rings

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Speaker 1: maybe from like twenty five thousand years ago up until

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Speaker 1: about twelve thousand years ago in the region and uh

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Speaker 1: and the wooly mammoth went extinct in this region about

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Speaker 1: ten thousand years ago, so the numbers could have been

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Speaker 1: dwindling at the time that these buildings went out of fashion.

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Speaker 1: And the amazing mystery is that so these ancient hunter

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Speaker 1: gatherer humans were building these ring shaped structures out of

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Speaker 1: mammoth bones, and archaeologists are not in agreement about what

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Speaker 1: these bones circles were for. Yeah, because if you try

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Speaker 1: and picture one in your mind, I mean, for for

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Speaker 1: me anyway, it sounds it sounds regal, it sounds a

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Speaker 1: bit sacred, right, I mean, it's made from the bones

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Speaker 1: of this uh, this this organism that you've grown to

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Speaker 1: depend on. But but then again, you could also wonder,

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Speaker 1: is it just is it just a material resources issue?

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Speaker 1: Is it like if I started building uh like like

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Speaker 1: little houses and forts out of the leftover Amazon on

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Speaker 1: boxes that I have accumulating in my house. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think you might have more options overall than we're

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Speaker 1: available to the people of the Russian Plane at this time.

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Speaker 1: But I think you are absolutely on the right track there, Robert,

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Speaker 1: I mean, as best we can guess. So maybe we

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Speaker 1: should take a break, and then when we come back

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Speaker 1: we can talk about a new study just from the

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Speaker 1: past month about the oldest and largest of these structures

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Speaker 1: built by modern humans. Thank thank thank Alright, we're back, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So we've been talking about the idea that all throughout

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Speaker 1: this place known as the Russian Plane, in this area

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Speaker 1: of eastern Europe, in like Southwest Russia and Ukraine, there

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Speaker 1: are at least like seventy locations that archaeologists have found

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Speaker 1: where Ice Age hunter gatherers built buildings out of bones. Now,

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Speaker 1: I want to be fair, we called this episode the

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Speaker 1: bone Palace. These are not gigantic, elaborate buildings, they're not castles,

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Speaker 1: But it is pretty amazing to see people, especially people

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Speaker 1: who we did not believe had any kind of settled existence,

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Speaker 1: building structures out of wooly mammoth bones. Yeah. I mean

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Speaker 1: for the time period, I think this is like a cathedral.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, in terms of like what else

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Speaker 1: could we possibly compare it to that that humans, especially

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Speaker 1: in that region were constructing. Uh, that we're building in

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Speaker 1: one place, Yeah, exactly. Um, So I want to go

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Speaker 1: back to a more specific place within this region. I

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Speaker 1: mentioned it earlier on remember that specific place about five

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Speaker 1: hundred kilometers south of Moscow, near the modern day city

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Speaker 1: of Voronesh. This site is known to archaeologists as Kostenky eleven,

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Speaker 1: and since the mid twentieth century, archaeologists have known about

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Speaker 1: a couple of smaller structures built out of mammoth bones

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Speaker 1: at this location. But just a few years back, around fourteen,

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Speaker 1: I've seen both years sited excavation began on a newly

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Speaker 1: discovered owned circle there, and this new bone circle at

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Speaker 1: Costinky eleven dates back more than twenty thousand years. Radio

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Speaker 1: carbon dating of some of the elements here it pushes

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Speaker 1: its construction possibly back to about twenty five thousand years

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Speaker 1: before the present. Uh So twenty five thousand years is

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Speaker 1: the number that a lot of news reports have cited.

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Speaker 1: This bone circle is more than twelve point five meters

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Speaker 1: in diameter, which is about forty one feet wide. Uh

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Speaker 1: And in the present. The structure when it was found

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Speaker 1: was buried about a foot beneath the surface before being unearthed.

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Speaker 1: But the researchers think that this ring wall of bones

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Speaker 1: was probably about twenty inches or about fifty centimeters high

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Speaker 1: before it collapsed many thousands of years ago, so the

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Speaker 1: bone wall would have come up, you know, more than

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Speaker 1: a foot and a half off the ground or so.

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Speaker 1: Now here's where things start getting really weird. How many

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Speaker 1: mammoths do you think went into the construction of this building?

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Speaker 1: You might think, oh, well, you know, a mammoth's big.

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Speaker 1: You could probably build a building with one or two

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Speaker 1: man mouths, right, Well, I mean it is a big,

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Speaker 1: big animal. But then when then you start thinking about okay,

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Speaker 1: which of the bones are actually useful. Uh you know,

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Speaker 1: which ones are going to be actually large enough for

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Speaker 1: long enough to be supportive? Like, there's still the creature

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Speaker 1: is only going to have so many ribs, right, Or

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Speaker 1: which bones have you not used for other purposes? Another possibility?

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Speaker 1: That's right, because this is going to be a very

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Speaker 1: utilitarian culture, Right, You're gonna have to if that bone

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Speaker 1: is better used for scraping hides or you know, aiding

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Speaker 1: in the the actual mission of acquiring and processing other

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Speaker 1: mammoths for your survival. Uh, it doesn't make as much

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Speaker 1: sense at least without like really significant religious uh um

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Speaker 1: underpinnings to use it in the construction of this mysterious structure.

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Speaker 1: Or I mean so well, actually I'm not gonna spoil it.

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Speaker 1: There's another possible use for the bones here that that

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Speaker 1: I want to get to in just a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I'll leave that tantalizing mystery for now. But so, how

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Speaker 1: many wooly mammoth's here? This structure was built out of

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Speaker 1: the bones of more than sixty wooly mammoths, and this

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Speaker 1: is indicated by the by the fact that there were

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Speaker 1: sixty four individual mammoth skulls used in construction, as well

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Speaker 1: as many other types of bones, including lower jaws, longbones, vertebrae,

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Speaker 1: and tusks uh And while mammoth bones made up the

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Speaker 1: bulk of the building materials, there were also a small

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Speaker 1: number of bones from reindeer, horses, bears, and foxes like

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Speaker 1: the red fox and the Arctic fox uh and the

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Speaker 1: circle today it sits on an east facing slope, sort

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Speaker 1: of an incline, a slight incline about six degrees, and curiously,

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Speaker 1: the bones make up a continuous wall with no apparent

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Speaker 1: door or entry way. Well, that indemics me think that

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Speaker 1: it's either it's either less of a building and more

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Speaker 1: of just a sheer structure, almost like a piece of

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Speaker 1: public art, or it's it's something that you're not supposed

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Speaker 1: to come out of. In that case, it makes me

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Speaker 1: think it might be a tomb. Well, we find no

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Speaker 1: evidence that it's a human tomb because there are no

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Speaker 1: human remains inside it, so so we could mark that

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Speaker 1: one off, though that might not be totally off the mark.

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Speaker 1: In terms of the possibilities for ritual significance, we we

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Speaker 1: don't know, and but we'll discuss those possibilities as we

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Speaker 1: go on. Um So This find was described in a

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Speaker 1: paper published in the journal Antiquity. It was out just

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Speaker 1: this past month by Alexander J. E. Prior, David G.

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Speaker 1: Barrasford Jones, Alexander E. Doodon, E. Katerina M. Kona Cova,

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Speaker 1: John F. Hoffiker, and Clive Gamble, and it was called

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Speaker 1: the Chronology and Function of a new circular mammoth bone

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Speaker 1: structure at Kostenky eleven. And so this new circle they found,

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Speaker 1: the one we've been talking about, is now believed to

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Speaker 1: be both the oldest and the largest bone structure yet

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Speaker 1: discovered that was built by Homo sapiens. It's at least

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Speaker 1: a thousand years older than the other mammoth bone structures

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Speaker 1: of Eastern Europe. Uh does a side note when I

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Speaker 1: had to qualify built by Homo sapiens, that's because I

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Speaker 1: was actually reading reports of a single possibly older bones structure,

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Speaker 1: uh maybe more than forty thousand years old at a

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Speaker 1: site called Malativa one in Ukraine. But this one is

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Speaker 1: believed to have been built by Neanderthals and not Homo sapiens,

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Speaker 1: which either way is very interesting. Interesting to see Homo

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Speaker 1: sapiens and Neanderthals participating in extremely similar cultures of proto

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Speaker 1: construction out of bones, like before long before a settled

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Speaker 1: agricultural life evolved, which is when we normally think of people,

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Speaker 1: you know, building buildings and stuff like that. So it

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Speaker 1: makes me wonder where the Homo sapiens copying the Neanderthals? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: or or are we just talking about two intelligent species, uh,

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Speaker 1: coming to the same conclusions based on the materials available. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that that could be something there too, because we

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Speaker 1: might not be when we're trying to understand what the

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Speaker 1: heck was going on here? Why would you build a

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Speaker 1: little these circular buildings out of bones. Maybe we're just

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Speaker 1: not imagining how what their material limitations in life were.

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Speaker 1: So the excavation of this new site, it took about

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Speaker 1: three years. It included experts from University of Exeter, from Cambridge,

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Speaker 1: from the Costinky State Museum Preserve, and from the University

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Speaker 1: of Colorado Boulder in the University of Southampton. And it

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Speaker 1: was done using a technique called flotation, And that's where

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Speaker 1: you apply water to the dig site in order to

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Speaker 1: kind of sieve out archaeologically significant material to remove it

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Speaker 1: from the sediment. So as we go on to discuss

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Speaker 1: a little bit more about this finding and what makes

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Speaker 1: it so interesting. I want to keep a couple of

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Speaker 1: main questions in mind. First of all, again, remember the

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Speaker 1: utterly harsh, you know, reality of of surviving in this

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Speaker 1: place during the last glacial maximum, especially the worst part

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Speaker 1: of it, from like you know, twenty three thousand years

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Speaker 1: ago or so to about eighteen thousand years ago. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, would have been so cold, old and so unforgiving,

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Speaker 1: and resources would have been pretty scarce. Why would people

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Speaker 1: come to or stay in this place at all? And

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Speaker 1: then yeah, like if it's a place of seasonal return,

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Speaker 1: then like it would there would have to be some

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Speaker 1: some advantage there. Like he's often been brought up before

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Speaker 1: that the nomadic people's would have regularly returned to say

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Speaker 1: a hot spring at geothermal spring, which has an obvious

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Speaker 1: advantage for your survival. But in this case, we can

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Speaker 1: we find anything that obvious? Yeah? And then the other thing,

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Speaker 1: of course, would be Okay, we know people were coming here,

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Speaker 1: what on earth was this little bone palace for? Why

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Speaker 1: would you go to the trouble of making this thing? Uh? So,

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Speaker 1: first I want to focus on what the research on

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Speaker 1: this this new bone circle found, and then we can

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Speaker 1: move to the what was it for? Question? Okay, so

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Speaker 1: first of all, what do the research find? So usually

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Speaker 1: these mammoth bone buildings made by these Stone Age humans

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Speaker 1: are surrounded by a number of big pits, and this

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Speaker 1: new find at Costinky eleven is no exception. Um, there

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Speaker 1: were several large pits around it. But again we don't

403
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Speaker 1: know what these pits were for. It could be storage,

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Speaker 1: it could be places to dumper berry trash, it could

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Speaker 1: be a type of quarry that maybe mud or other

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Speaker 1: building material was sourced from. I read about the possibility.

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Speaker 1: We don't know, but maybe mud was used to patch

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Speaker 1: the places in between the bones in the structure. Possibly,

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Speaker 1: we don't know. Um, that would make sense. Next thing,

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Speaker 1: mammoth meat was cooked here. That's not very surprising, but okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have some evidence that they were cooking mammoth at

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Speaker 1: this bone structure. Here things start getting weird. They also

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Speaker 1: found burned mammoth bones and you might think, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's that's evidence of cooking, but no, we

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Speaker 1: don't mean burned like that. These burned mammoth bones were

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Speaker 1: actually used as fuel for the fire itself, and that

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Speaker 1: this is not the only site like this by any means.

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Speaker 1: Evidence of this is found at other paleol at the

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Speaker 1: bone ring sites throughout Eastern Europe. The people here burned

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Speaker 1: bones to have fire, and you absolutely can do that.

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Speaker 1: You can burn mammoth bones as fuel due to pockets

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Speaker 1: of fat inside the bones that render and catch flame

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Speaker 1: as the bone heats up. Huh. You know, I'd never

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Speaker 1: thought of that. I mean, obviously, the mammoth is going

425
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: to produce dung, which you know, once collected, could be

426
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: used as fuel for five but I didn't even think

427
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:29,640
Speaker 1: about their bones being used as fuel. Now, one thing

428
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: we should definitely acknowledge here is that bones burn differently

429
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 1: than wood does. There's a different quality to the fire.

430
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 1: The bones are are greasy, and the fire they produce

431
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 1: would be sort of inconsistent and it would generally put

432
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: out more light and less heat than a wood fire. Uh.

433
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: One of the authors on this paper, David Barrissford Jones,

434
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 1: who's an environmental archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, was

435
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: speaking to I think it was the New York Times.

436
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: It was being to some publication. He said that a

437
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: fire that was powered by the fuel of mammoth bones quote,

438
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: won't produce a nice good fire for roasting your mammoth

439
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: meat on. So the bone based fire is not going

440
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: to be very good for cooking more light than and

441
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,239
Speaker 1: less heat. So what was the fire for, Well, we

442
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: can come back to that later. Now. They also found

443
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: about four hundred pieces of charcoal from wood fires, and

444
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: this was charcoal from the would have conifer trees like

445
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: spruce and pine and larch. And here's another one where

446
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 1: you might at first say, huh, well, that doesn't seem

447
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 1: very unusual, but this actually is very interesting and even

448
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: maybe revolutionary here because the previous widely held assumption was

449
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: that this place and time would have been an utterly barren,

450
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: nearly completely treeless step and consequently it was thought that

451
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: the burning of bones by the humans of this area

452
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: was out of total necessity. There was no wood to

453
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: burn at all, so they had to burn bones as

454
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 1: the only possible fuel. But the charcoal at this new

455
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 1: side at costinky eleven shows would was burned, meaning there

456
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,479
Speaker 1: were at least some trees. Now this does not at

457
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: all mean you should imagine the landscape at this time

458
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 1: full of thriving forests. Uh. The the authors suggest maybe

459
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: more like it would be a place where, uh, there

460
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: are a few trees here and there, barely surviving against

461
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 1: the ice. Uh. Speaking to the to the newspaper Harretts,

462
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: the lead author, Alexander Pryor said, quote, the growth ring

463
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: widths in the charcoal we recovered are mostly very narrow,

464
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: suggesting that trees were clinging on at the edge of

465
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 1: their tolerance limits. Summers would have been cool and relatively short,

466
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: while winters were long and bitterly cold. The climate was

467
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: also very arid, so trees would have clung on in

468
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 1: sheltered parts of the landscape, perhaps in river valleys, away

469
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: from the wind and where moisture was available. Huh. And

470
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: of course, in all of this we have to we

471
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: have to weigh the fact that if you were to

472
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: come across some some trees, some would um, there would

473
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: be other potential uses for it that would compete with your,

474
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 1: you know, necessity to burn it. I don't know in

475
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,159
Speaker 1: the case that these might be uh, some very pitiful trees,

476
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: perhaps they really didn't have any other purpose but to

477
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: be burned. But again, coming down to just sort of

478
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: the utalitarian reality of their harsh lives, you could well

479
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: imagine them coming across a small tree and realize that,

480
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: you know this, this would make a much better spear

481
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: or or some other kind of tool as opposed to

482
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: being just thrown into the fire. But then again, the

483
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: fire is survival as well. So I don't know if

484
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: it sounds like it becomes kind of a difficult balancing

485
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: actor to figure out exactly how your fuel economy is

486
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: going to work. Oh, I think there is a lot

487
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: to indicate actually that when they make you know, the

488
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: these these hunter gatherers make the utilitarian calculus, they very

489
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: much do probably prioritize the burning of wood over the

490
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 1: use of wood for tools, at least in many cases.

491
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: Um because again, you know, the wood really creates a

492
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: high quality fire, and the mammoth bones you can get

493
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: fire out of them, but it's not a good fire.

494
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: It's not like a wood fire, right, But then those mammoths,

495
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: you're not just giving those bones away. You gotta get

496
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:22,719
Speaker 1: him yourselves, and you're gonna need tools to do it.

497
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: That's true. So one other interesting thing about the findings

498
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: about you know that there actually were some trees here

499
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 1: at the time, against previous assumptions, the fact that there

500
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: was some small number of scrawny trees surviving here could

501
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: be the very reason that this place remained inhabited when

502
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: other sites at the same latitude were abandoned by humans

503
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: during the Ice Age. Remember that question we're asking, like,

504
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,920
Speaker 1: why would people be here at all? To quote from

505
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: the study quote, the presence of conifer trees near Kostinky,

506
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: perhaps located in low lying, moist and sheltered areas in

507
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: the ravines near to the site, would have been an

508
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: important resource that attracted hunter gatherers to the area during

509
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 1: the glacial period. So it's entirely possible that this latitude

510
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: of northerly waste land has mostly just been completely abandoned

511
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: by humans. But here's a place where the human hunter

512
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: gatherers can get a foothold this far north because there

513
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: are a few trees that they can harvest and make

514
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: fires with. Wow, I mean I remember, like fire, it's

515
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: our secret weapon. It's like the thing that that is.

516
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: It changes the game in terms of what types of

517
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 1: climates are habitable and what types of of prey we

518
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: can hunt and stuff like that. Yeah, we've discussed that

519
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: on the on the show in the past when we

520
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: talked about a world before fire and then on invention

521
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: we discussed fire technologies and just how truly game changing

522
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: they were. Now a couple of other findings about it

523
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: before we moved to the what was this for question?

524
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: Along the same lines as the charcoal, they found a

525
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: few vegetables interesting. Good for them, Yeah, because we might

526
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: have assumed that mammoth hunters roaming the furthest reaches of

527
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: habitable land during the last glacial maximum. We're pretty much

528
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: limited to a diet of mammoth meat, but there are

529
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: remains of plant based foods at this new bone circle.

530
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: And these plant based foods include plant matter associated with

531
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: edible roots and tubers, which which I've seen compared to

532
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: modern crops like parsnips, carrots, and potatoes. So along with

533
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 1: your mammoth meat, maybe you're getting a few carrots in there.

534
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: Maybe you're having some mashed taters or something probably not

535
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: mashed taters, at least some kind of tat thing. Well,

536
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: this is excellent. I'm gonna pass this on to our

537
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: new potential sponsors, Mammoth Meals. What they're offering is a

538
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: is an authentic ice age diet of cloned that grown

539
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: Willie mammoth meat and thrown in there with some parsnips,

540
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: carrots and a few you know, random scavenged tubers and

541
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: you just you you heat those up in your house.

542
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 1: You don't have to cook them on mammoth bones, but

543
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: it is recommended if you want to just the proper

544
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: uh you know, the proper texture and the proper uh

545
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: you know, flavoring to the meat, use our promo code

546
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: bone Palace. Uh. Yeah, And I want to be clear,

547
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: just so I'm not confusing anybody, Uh, the parsnips, carrots

548
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: and potatoes thing, that's like a point of comparison of

549
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: what these roots would be like. Like we know that

550
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: potatoes were not grown in this place at this time,

551
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: so you know, like they wouldn't have been actually potatoes,

552
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: but similar types of foods, right, I mean, if they

553
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: had anything like a carrot. I've often seen it pointed

554
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 1: out that you know, in in in this age and

555
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: other ages of human gathering, like a carrot would be

556
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,719
Speaker 1: the equivalent of us finding like a cheesecake, you know,

557
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: or or or or a giant bag of skittles. Yeah,

558
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: just like the maximum sweet. Next time you're eating a carrot,

559
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: think about that. Think about what it would be to

560
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: live in a world where this was maximum sweetness, our

561
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: in our mouths just ruined. Now we eat a Karen,

562
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: it's like, oh yeah, I mean our mouths are ruined

563
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: on more than one count because of this, uh, this

564
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: unbalanced sugar economy. Yes, yeah, um. But also so in

565
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: addition to the signs of there being some kind of

566
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: roots and tuber based foods, there were also remains of

567
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: charred seeds, though it's not clear if these seeds were

568
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: brought here by humans. Um. One more thing this ties

569
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: into a previous episode. There were some light signs of napping,

570
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: not napping like sleeping, but napping with a k This

571
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: is what we talked about with Dietrich Stout on our

572
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: episode about stone age technology. It is a method of

573
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: constructing stone tools by striking stones together to shear a

574
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: target stone off and form a sharp edge. And the

575
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: evidence included here would be like stone flakes and chips

576
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: that would be a byproduct of the manufacturer of stone tools.

577
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: We find stuff like this at the places where stone

578
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: age people lived. They were they were manufacturing tools a lot,

579
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: and they needed these tools to survive, so you'd find

580
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 1: all these signs the waste products of the the the

581
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:13,320
Speaker 1: you know, sharp flake manufacturing process. But then again, people

582
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: were building stone tools here, but it looks like there

583
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: was also much less manufacture of stone tools here then

584
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,320
Speaker 1: there would usually be at at other sites where people

585
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,759
Speaker 1: lived more or less permanently during this period. This has

586
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: been taken as evidence this site was not occupied for

587
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: very long, or maybe it was only occupied a very

588
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: contained times throughout the year, because if people had been

589
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,760
Speaker 1: living here on a more permanent basis, you would expect

590
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:43,279
Speaker 1: to find way more signs of them making tools. So

591
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: we can basically see this as the kind of like

592
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: stonework to try this that would have been left in

593
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: the wake of of these people. And uh, and therefore

594
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: we can indicate just how long they were staying in

595
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: the area. All right, let's take one more break, but

596
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will continue to discuss the

597
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: mystery of this ice age boom palace. Alright, we're back,

598
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:08,439
Speaker 1: all right, So we're asking the question what was this

599
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: ice age bone palace for Remember, it's the circle of bones.

600
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: It's more than forty feet in diameter. It would have

601
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: been you know, at least like one and a half

602
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: feet tall off the ground at the time it was built,

603
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: made entirely out of mammoth bones, made out of more

604
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 1: than sixty mammoth bones. We should stop to stress again

605
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:30,840
Speaker 1: how weird this is. Why would hunter gatherers living in

606
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:35,280
Speaker 1: the northernmost habitable reaches of eastern Europe during the Pleistocene

607
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: build a structure like this or you know, not just

608
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 1: this structure, build these many structures like this? Uh. First

609
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: of all, evidence tells us that they usually lived nomadic lifestyles.

610
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: They would travel to follow available food resources like herds

611
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: of prey animals, or follow other resources. They didn't generally

612
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: build permanent structures to live in. So if you were

613
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 1: just assuming, well there's probably some kind of house, I mean,

614
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,840
Speaker 1: that is possible, and we'll discuss that possibility. But that

615
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: from first glance, that is kind of counterintuitive because you

616
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be living here year round. This would be

617
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,399
Speaker 1: a place of seasonal return at best. But beyond that,

618
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: think about the quality and quantity of effort required to

619
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 1: build a structure like this. The bones in this building

620
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: came from again more than sixty different mammoths. Think about

621
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,240
Speaker 1: how this literally had to be put together. Mammoth bones

622
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: are huge. They are extremely heavy, especially when they're fresh

623
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 1: right like when they're you know, they still got all

624
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: the moisture and fat in them before they decay and

625
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: become more porous. These bones would have been like heavy

626
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: stones to move around. The people either had to scavenge

627
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: these bones from dead mammoths that they found, or they

628
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: would have to kill the mammoths themselves, and then they

629
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: would have to carry them back to this prehistoric construction site.

630
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 1: So to quote the lead author, Alexander Pryor, and if

631
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: I didn't mention this earlier, he's an archaeologist at the

632
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: University of Exeter in England. He was speaking to Nicholas St.

633
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: Fleur of The New York Times. Quote. The sheer number

634
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,760
Speaker 1: of bones that are Paleolithic ancestors had sourced from somewhere

635
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,320
Speaker 1: and brought to this particular location to build this monument

636
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 1: is really quite staggering. It does boggle the mind. I've

637
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 1: seen some articles sort of in a cheeky way, calling

638
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: this site bone hinge, and I think the comparison it

639
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: has a few merits. Right. This would be a massive

640
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: project of sourcing tons of dead mammoths and getting their

641
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 1: crushingly heavy remains to this very spot. Plus one imagines, okay,

642
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 1: First of all, certainly for their mammoth kills, they are

643
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: processing the carcass in order to get the meat, you know,

644
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: other materials from the body that it might be using

645
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: for various uh um you know, tools, clothing, etcetera. But

646
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,040
Speaker 1: you're probably going to have to do additional processing of

647
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 1: the bones. I mean, unless you're just putting you know,

648
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: meaty half rotten uh you know, flesh clad bones up

649
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: there on the structure. I'm imagining they're they're going to

650
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: further um uh you know, put the bones in order

651
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:17,399
Speaker 1: before adding them to the construction. So just a lot

652
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: of work, Robert, You've got some surprises coming to you

653
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: before we move Oh boy, this is gonna be fun.

654
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,839
Speaker 1: Before we move on. I just realized came into my head.

655
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: Did you watch I think you should leave the Tim

656
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: Robinson Show? Yes? I did. Could you stop while we

657
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: were preparing for this episode with singing the bones are

658
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: their houses and so are the worms? I forgot about

659
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: that one. Oh man, it's one of the best. We

660
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: sing that song a lot in our house. I would

661
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: sing it here, but I don't know if that's the

662
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 1: kind of thing that you get bone cheese over. I

663
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,360
Speaker 1: don't know. That that's a that's a very very weird

664
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: and entertaining show. I really like the one about the

665
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 1: two plumbers. Oh I like that too. Yeah, not part

666
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: of the turbo team. And okay, okay. So it's coming

667
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: back to the question of like archaeologists now trying to

668
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 1: figure out what the heck was were these bone circles for,

669
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: especially this big one. Um So the most obvious answer,

670
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 1: one that we already hinted at, is well, maybe it's

671
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: a dwelling. This is this is a bone house with

672
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: two cats in the yard, etcetera. This one, it's difficult

673
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 1: to totally rule it out, and many other smaller bone

674
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: circles found throughout Eastern Europe have been assumed to be

675
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: shelters or dwellings of some kind for humans. I was

676
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: reading an article about the study and harets and it

677
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: pointed out that of the about seventy mammoth bone structures

678
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: found in Eastern Europe, some are all on their own,

679
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,319
Speaker 1: but others are grouped and arrangements of up to like

680
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: six in the same place. Remember at this site there

681
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: were two other ones already known about smaller ones, so

682
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: this would be three and roughly the same area and

683
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:58,760
Speaker 1: this suggests maybe these are some kind of proto village,

684
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: right uh, that we don't know yet if they were

685
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: occupied at the same time as each other, but usually

686
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 1: they were close to rivers, which would make sense for

687
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: an actual settlement. So it's hard to completely rule out

688
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: the possibility that this was some type of shelter structure

689
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: for humans to get inside and live in. But Prior,

690
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: the lead author on the study we've been talking about,

691
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: and the other authors really do not seem to think

692
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: that this place was a dwelling, certainly not a permanent dwelling,

693
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: maybe a seasonal dwelling of some kind. But there there

694
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: are a few reasons that they think argue against the

695
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 1: idea that this was a house for people to live in. So,

696
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: first of all, Prior just argues that it's hard to

697
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: imagine how an area the size of this circle the

698
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: most recent find would have been roofed. Think about it.

699
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 1: This is a forty one foot wide circular wall, not

700
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: very tall, made out of bones, with no signs of

701
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: interior support structures. What would the roof be made out

702
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: of and how would it stay up? And why is

703
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: there no sign of any roofing left? Now, Yeah, that

704
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: is a great question that I didn't I didn't initially

705
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: think to ask if if it's going to be a

706
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,839
Speaker 1: proper dwelling, it has to have a roof and it's

707
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 1: and what are you gonna make it out of? I mean,

708
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:16,879
Speaker 1: it can't really depend on these heavy bones so much.

709
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: Uh you know, maybe hide comes to mind. Uh, yeah,

710
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: that wood materials, but we already touched on how scarce

711
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 1: those were likely to be. Yeah, I mean, hides were

712
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: the thing that was kind of coming to my mind.

713
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 1: But still it would be hard to imagine exactly how

714
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 1: that worked on a structure this big, like um, how

715
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 1: the remains lie today. I've seen this pointed out. It

716
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily tell us what they looked like when they

717
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: were in use, because it's possible that maybe these structures

718
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 1: were more sort of conical with spaces between the bones

719
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: patched in with mud um and you know, perhaps they

720
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: were somehow kind of like tps, maybe like they could

721
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: have had hides up on the top somehow, but we

722
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: we just don't know. But also here's another reason to

723
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: think that it's kind of unlikely that this was a dwelling. Uh,

724
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: this one in particular. This is prior speaking to George

725
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: Davorski of Gizmoto quote some of the bones that make

726
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:18,320
Speaker 1: up the ring were found inarticulation, for example, groups of vertebrae,

727
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 1: indicating that at least some of the bones still had

728
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: cartilage and fat attached when they were added to the pile.

729
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 1: This would have been smelly and would have attracted scavengers,

730
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: including wolves and foxes, which is not great if this

731
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: was a dwelling. Yeah, that does sound It's an understatement,

732
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: not great. Yeah, do not mistake like this is a

733
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: stone age building made out of mammoth bones. But not

734
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: just clean, dry bones. These were bones with soft tissue

735
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: still clinging to them, not just like individual vertebrae, but

736
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:58,920
Speaker 1: like parts of a wooly mammoth's intact spinal cord, etcetera.

737
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: Now maybe they were just living foul. I have to

738
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: consider that possibility. But yeah, try to imagine living there,

739
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 1: like in the warmer months, when the thaw came, this

740
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: bone castle would reek of death. It would attract carnivores,

741
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: it would attract scavengers. Uh, you know, it's kind of

742
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: like why not build an outhouse out of cotton candy

743
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: and maple syrup? Just yeah, this is the one that

744
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: I can't stop thinking about. So it's not just a

745
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: palace made out of bones, but a palace of of

746
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 1: bones with a good bit of meat and cartilage and

747
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:36,560
Speaker 1: stuff still stuck on there. Now here's the next argument

748
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: against it being a dwelling. Remember how I mentioned that

749
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: the evidence of stone tool manufacturer the site was relatively light.

750
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: This is also taken as evidence against it being a

751
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: permanent or long inhabited dwelling. If anybody lived here, they

752
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 1: were either not making stone tools at a normal rate,

753
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: or they did not live here very long or very frequently. Uh.

754
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 1: It seems the authors here think more likely that if

755
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 1: it was used as a shelter for humans, it was

756
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 1: only used seasonally or temporarily for a short time, which

757
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: would be kind of hard to understand for a structure

758
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: that so much intense work would have gone into making

759
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:18,839
Speaker 1: sixty dead mammoth's bones transported from wherever they got them

760
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: to this place. I don't know. I mean, you can

761
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: perhaps imagine it was some kind of shelter against the cold,

762
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: maybe used in the worst parts of winter. Um. But

763
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: if so, I mean, a good question to counter that is,

764
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:35,240
Speaker 1: why would it be built out of mammoth bones. Again,

765
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: maybe this is just an issue of pure necessity. Like again,

766
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,320
Speaker 1: you imagine the landscape, the mammoth bones might have literally

767
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 1: been the only thing available aside from scarce. Would supplies

768
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 1: from a few clumps of scrawny trees clinging on for

769
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 1: dear life, and the wood from those trees would have

770
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: been more valuable for starting fires than for building with.

771
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: So the bones are all you've got, the only thing

772
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: you can build with. And I should mention that despite

773
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: the authors here not seeming to favor the dwelling hypothesis,

774
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 1: I was looking at a New York Times article that

775
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: cites Paul Pettit, and archaeologist from Durham University in England,

776
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: and Pettit does not rule out the idea that this

777
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 1: structure was a dwelling of some kind, probably some kind

778
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: of shelter to protect against the cold in the in

779
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: the winter. So uh, not all archaeologists would would disfavor

780
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 1: the dwelling hypothesis. And I guess in all of this too,

781
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:33,359
Speaker 1: like we keep coming back to very utilitarian, uh explanations

782
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: for what was being done here, and I think that's

783
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: ultimately the direction to lean into. But but we we have.

784
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: We have very little idea what additional say, religious significance, uh,

785
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: these sites might have had, right, I mean, I mean

786
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: just just spitball in here. But like if if you're

787
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,800
Speaker 1: building a shelter, uh to age you in the winter,

788
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:58,239
Speaker 1: if there is an additional idea that somehow say this,

789
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: you know, the spirits of these of these great creatures

790
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 1: was somehow in the bones, you know, if there was

791
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: some like added you know, not enough to really make

792
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: a difference obviously in survival, but just some added idea

793
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 1: of why this place would be a good shelter. Uh,

794
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: it could conceivably have had some sort of impact on it.

795
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,840
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, well, yeah, that's another possibility, is that maybe

796
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: it just had some kind of religious or ritual significance.

797
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 1: Maybe it's some kind of shrine to the gods or

798
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 1: or shrine to the kill. I mean, that wouldn't be unique.

799
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,720
Speaker 1: It's you know, a shrine made out of wooly mammoth's

800
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 1: in honor of wooly mammoth's. That's possible. Um. And since

801
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 1: one of the ideas raised in that Harrett's article I

802
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier was that since there were traces of food

803
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 1: found there, not just mammoth meat, but like vegetables and

804
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: other things and traces of fire, you can't rule out

805
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: the idea that this could have been something like a

806
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: feast site, a place where special ritual cooking and eating

807
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 1: took place, but not a place that people lived permanently.

808
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 1: And again it's hard to roll that out. Maybe, but

809
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:05,760
Speaker 1: I often find that in archaeology it seems like ritual

810
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: or religious significance tends to be the explanation given when

811
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: you see ancient people expending a lot of effort on

812
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 1: something and you can't figure out what else it's for.

813
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: You know, the logic goes something like big investment plus

814
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: no apparent utilitarian purpose equals religion. And like the Pyramids

815
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: zone basically, when we get into something like that which

816
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 1: clearly has no practical real world um use but has

817
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 1: a tremendous importance within a like a spiritual supernatural view

818
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: of the world, then again I think sometimes maybe that

819
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:50,360
Speaker 1: under cells uh, it's it's under imaginative about what practical

820
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: real world uses could be. Because take the example of

821
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 1: the Pyramids. Okay, you look at that, you say, there

822
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: is you know, obviously these were built for religious reasons,

823
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: because you couldn't possibly imagine a practical reason for making

824
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: structures of the size, spending this amount of money and

825
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: all that. On one hand, you would say, well, yeah,

826
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,240
Speaker 1: the pyramids clearly do have religious implications. They have stuff

827
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 1: to do with the idea of, uh, you know, the

828
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: royal deity of of the pharaohs and the afterlife in

829
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:21,359
Speaker 1: in the Egyptian religion and all that. But I can

830
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: also come up with a list of what I think

831
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: are probably practical considerations that went into the construction of

832
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 1: the pyramids. For example, uh, the the pharaoh protecting his

833
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 1: own power by demonstrating his greatness, you know that, Like

834
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,800
Speaker 1: the pyramids could be a essentially a warning sign to

835
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:47,319
Speaker 1: potential rebels or invaders, you know, like, look how great

836
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,919
Speaker 1: I am. You don't want to challenge me? And and

837
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:51,880
Speaker 1: in that way, like it's it can be kind of

838
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 1: hard to imagine what the cultural signaling could have been

839
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 1: for ancient projects because we just don't know what the

840
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:03,720
Speaker 1: culture was like, right, Like you could imagine, and again

841
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: we don't have any direct evidence of this, but you

842
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:08,359
Speaker 1: could imagine maybe something like that is going on with

843
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: mammoth bone structures. Maybe the people who built them, it

844
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,399
Speaker 1: could have had some religious significance. It could have been

845
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: just people sending some kind of signal to other people

846
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, And I mean, plus, it's you know,

847
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,719
Speaker 1: it's difficult to imagine like the the ins and outs

848
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 1: of a of the society that would have depended so

849
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: much upon the regular acquisition and then processing of these

850
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 1: large high It's like they would have been working who

851
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: had been working with the with mammoth bodies, you know,

852
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: so much would be so much significance placed on them.

853
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: You know, you wonder like what sort of ideas would

854
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: grow out of that, Like how would you view the

855
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 1: bones of these creatures? Uh? Yeah, it's it's it's fascinating

856
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 1: to try to imagine. Um. But but yeah, certainly to

857
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 1: your point, even something that has that is essentially a

858
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 1: religious structure is going to it's it's not going to

859
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 1: exist outside of our world. It's still going to uh

860
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: you know service say something like make work project. It's

861
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 1: going to serve as a as a as a symbol

862
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: of power, a symbol of of royal or even divine um,

863
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: uh you know association. Yeah, there's there are a number

864
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: of ways that could factor into into the maintenance of

865
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 1: once power structure. Yeah, yeah, my imagination is actually running

866
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,160
Speaker 1: wild now that we're talking about this. I hadn't really

867
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 1: thought about this aspect before we started recording today. Um,

868
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 1: what if these bones structures? Again, I want to be

869
00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:28,839
Speaker 1: very clear, there's no direct evidence of this, and we're

870
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:32,800
Speaker 1: just imagining. What if these these bone circles were something

871
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 1: more like you know, the Arc de Trium for the

872
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 1: Pyramids or something. They were made to like impress somebody

873
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: to show off. Look at all these mammoths I killed.

874
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:45,439
Speaker 1: Look what a glorious hunter king I am. Yeah, yeah,

875
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:48,799
Speaker 1: look how favored we are by uh, the hunt or

876
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: whatever supernatural powers might lie beyond the hunt. What if

877
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:55,359
Speaker 1: it was a signaling thing for this area where there

878
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: was some pretty unique resource of as far as these

879
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 1: northern latitudes go. Maybe you wanted to scare other potential

880
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: hunter gatherers who could be coming in the area to

881
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: try to get your scraggly trees or access to your

882
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,800
Speaker 1: water source or something like that. Yeah. Maybe it's like saying, hey,

883
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:14,720
Speaker 1: are there wandering humans. You're venturing into a zone where

884
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,719
Speaker 1: people are capable of bringing down this many mammoths. Maybe

885
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:19,720
Speaker 1: you don't want to mess with us. Yeah, So again

886
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:23,800
Speaker 1: just speculation, but it I do think it's it's important

887
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 1: to recognize that, like, our imagination is limited in understanding

888
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 1: why ancient people's did things, especially when like we don't

889
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 1: know much about their culture and what kinds of social

890
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,759
Speaker 1: and what kinds of broader social relationships and pressures they had.

891
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: But I want to come back to one final hypothesis

892
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: about the role of this place, of this bone structure,

893
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: and this one is more directly utilitarian. This one is

894
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:55,239
Speaker 1: more directly about how to survive in the landscape. And

895
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:58,359
Speaker 1: this this hypothesis is that it's basically a type of

896
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 1: storehouse for food. And this seems to be the the

897
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:05,879
Speaker 1: idea that the researchers themselves, including prior that I get

898
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 1: the feeling that they kind of favor and the team

899
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 1: is looking into evidence of this possibility in their ongoing work.

900
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 1: But basically, the idea is that this bone circle and

901
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: perhaps others too, would have been used as a place

902
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 1: to store meat and other foods. Now, normally we associate

903
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: food storage with the advent of agriculture, right, but there's

904
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: some hints that perhaps some nomadic pre agricultural hunter gatherers

905
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 1: found ways to store excess food and uh, you can

906
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,440
Speaker 1: imagine a need for this, right, Like a dead mammoth

907
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,839
Speaker 1: generates a lot of meat I dare say, more than

908
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:45,359
Speaker 1: it's possible to eat before it starts to spoil. And

909
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 1: people at this time didn't have all the options that

910
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:51,759
Speaker 1: we do for food preservation. But it's possible that these

911
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 1: people figured out that after a mammoth kill, they could

912
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: butcher the animal and store its meat in a structure

913
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 1: like this, maybe buried down in the herma frost, to

914
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:04,760
Speaker 1: save it for meager times later when food was scarce.

915
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 1: All right, now you're talking. So if it's if it's

916
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 1: in the you bury in the earth, You keep it cool.

917
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: You just need you need to make sure that nothing

918
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: else digs it up. You might you need to cap that,

919
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 1: and of course we know from various funeral traditions throughout

920
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:20,919
Speaker 1: the world, like one way to do that is cap

921
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 1: it off with a big stone. But if you don't

922
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,399
Speaker 1: have a big stone, what what are you gonna do? Right? Oh, yeah,

923
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 1: that's a possibility. Maybe the bones are a barrier to

924
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:32,840
Speaker 1: protect these buried stores of food that are down in

925
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 1: the permafrost. So if this really was a storehouse for food,

926
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 1: that would show that these hunter gatherers didn't just follow

927
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: animal herds for their immediate food needs, but instead actually

928
00:53:43,560 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 1: planned for the future by storing resources and known locations

929
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: so that they could find an access later. Uh. And

930
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:54,800
Speaker 1: again remember all the evidence of bones burned as fuel

931
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: within this bone building. Well that that sort of fits

932
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 1: as well, at least maybe you remember burning bones do

933
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:04,279
Speaker 1: not put out very even heat, but they do put

934
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 1: out a lot of light. And uh and I've seen

935
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: sighted in several sources that the authors here kind of

936
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: speculate what if the fires from the burned bones here

937
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 1: were to produce light to work by, so that hunters

938
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 1: after a mammoth gille could work long into the dark

939
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 1: night to quickly process and strip the meat from the

940
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 1: mammoth bones before wolves and other scavengers arrived in order

941
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,919
Speaker 1: to get it stored away. Yeah. Yeah, I like that idea. Yeah,

942
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 1: because you only you only have to have so much time.

943
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 1: It's just gonna draw attention. One last idea about how

944
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:41,399
Speaker 1: and why these structures were put together that the lead

945
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 1: author prior suggests quote one possibility is that the mammoths

946
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,920
Speaker 1: and humans could have come to the area on mass

947
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,759
Speaker 1: because it had a natural spring that would have provided

948
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: unfrozen liquid water throughout the winter, rare in this period

949
00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: of extreme cold. So that that gets back to your

950
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 1: idea of like, you know, people, you know, why would

951
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:05,399
Speaker 1: people go to a region that's just frozen and very

952
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 1: barren and resources are scarce. What if you can access

953
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: water here and in the surrounding landscape it's all going

954
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:13,880
Speaker 1: to be frozen. We don't know this, but this is

955
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: another possibility to imagine. Anyway, it looks like due to time,

956
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna have to cap the first part

957
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:23,799
Speaker 1: of our exploration of of bone palaces and bone construction

958
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 1: right here. But man, this subject really gets my blood pump,

959
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 1: and I get so excited about these mysteries, like what

960
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 1: were these people doing? What was this for? I don't

961
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:36,760
Speaker 1: know that. This is the kind of thing I love

962
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:39,359
Speaker 1: thinking about. Yeah, I mean it forces you to sort

963
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 1: of strip down the human condition and human culture to

964
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:46,200
Speaker 1: its uh, to its bare bones, and imagine what something

965
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:50,239
Speaker 1: like this would would would would what purpose it would serve? Uh. Yeah,

966
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:52,479
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna cap it here. We're gonna

967
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:57,120
Speaker 1: cap this episode off with a nice construction of mammoth remains.

968
00:55:57,680 --> 00:55:59,600
Speaker 1: But then we're going and we're gonna leave, but then

969
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 1: we're gonna come back and we're going to record a

970
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 1: second episode where we'll discuss more about the use of

971
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 1: bone technology and human history and also how some of

972
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:13,800
Speaker 1: you know, various animals engage with the remains of other creatures.

973
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to check out

974
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,879
Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can

975
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:22,800
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976
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993
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:15,560
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Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson, who is going to great links to

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999
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