Anyone interested in this topic, I very much recommend the channel Fall of Civilizations. They have in depth documentaries about the fall of a several civilizations like the Mayans or the people of Rapa Nui (my personal favorite).
Paul Cooper: Regularly does three-hour podcast videos each about the collapse of a single civilization... Simon Whistler: Drops an eleven-minute video about the collapse of several different civilizations... Also Simon Whistler: Just dropped a three-hour video about ONE GUY ("Kaspar Hauser: The Prince Without a Past") 😉😁
From what I know of the Anasazi, the cliff and hilltop structures were all built over a pretty narrow time frame, remained for a number of decades, and then were all abandoned around the same general period. That, to me, given how difficult some of these are to access and how difficult it would have been to get provisions up to them, suggests that they were constructed out of necessity. There are a certain number of them that even appeared to have been created as watch posts. So raiding nomadic invaders, or a prolonged period of warfare (not a single conflict, but conflict after conflict) is quite possible. A number of these dwelling show signs that they were burned and, in some cases, there are different layers. Recall also that during the later era, there was the eruption of the "Sunset Crater" volcano, so who knows what role the geological history of the area came into play as well. With no written record, there's just no way to know what really happened and all we can do is speculate.
The Prisoners of Simon's Basement civilization better be on this. This was before he crushed their primitive society with an iron fist, reducing them to loose coalitions.
The free basement dwellers as they were called supposedly were advanced & lived in peace before the mighty simon arrived. All lies for we know our Lord and saviour fact boi would never deceive us like that, those poor primitives believe it though as if they were smart enough to remember & lived through it imagine for we all know there is no recorded times before Simon
I clicked on this video and spent the first half minute of the video thinking “please talk about the Minoans”. I studied them in college in a history class so it’s always nice to see it discussed outside of college.
When the Spanish came to Mexico several times in the 1400-1500s, the Mayans already had a history with the Spanish soldiers and when it was clear it was going to happen again they all disappeared into the jungle. We went to the Yucatan last year for wedding, and visited with the Mayans, Chitzenita(?), and swam in the Cenotes. It was a brutal but very amazing trip to be sure. :)
The last free Mayan city didn't actually fall until 1697!!! Yeah, their king got the stupid idea that he could befriend the Spanish and invited a few over to his hidden city. Huge mistake. Those are the same Mayans you are talking about that fled, actually conquering them took a very long time. It certainly wasn't a city as massive as El Mirador but a smaller, still pretty populated city on an island in a lake. It was called "Nojpetén".
The Maya did not disappear into the jungle. In the 16th century, they fought the Spanish, longer and more successfully than any other native people. Did. The so-called Maya collapse happened about 800 years before this and affected mostly only the cities in the southern Maya area. Not so much the countryside in the South, and neither of the cities nor the countryside up North.
@@williamwolf2844 Well, they did disappear into the jungle many times since the Spanish was unwilling to go after them there so I don't think he is totally wrong. They were fighting a guerrilla war after all. But you are certainly right that they were the most successful in fighting back, that didn't end until 1697 (see my earlier post in the thread). And yeah, we seen a few cases of Maya people revolting in modern times too. The Mayas did have a habit to leave their cities and found new ones, the Mayan collapse was more or less the time we know of that most of the cities did this. But we see it earlier too. El Mirador and many cities were also abandoned earlier and we still don't exactly know why. In the collapse, it seems to have been more religious and/or social reasons then anything else. With El Mirador, it might just be that they used up the natural resources since it was such a massive city but that is just speculation and we know that wasn't the case during the later collapse. We are finding out more and more about them though, 30 years ago we thought the pre classic Maya were rather primitive but El Mirador was one of the largest cities in the world 2500 years ago and it wasn't the only one either, just the one we have excavated most so far from the period (and we have barely scratched the surface). It is a very fascinating culture. :)
Ive heard a theory (theory is loose word really, more ive heard some people talking) that the reason there is such a density of fruit bearing and flowering trees in the amazon compared to other tropical jungles in the world, might be because there was civilization several thousand years ago that like to keep gardens, and when they dissappeared or died out, their gardens just grew outta control.
Not disappeared or died out, they were murdered, killed, and allowed to die after both biological and then physical warfare. Please be accurate with the indigenous areas of the Amazon because they were part of the intentional genocide and biological warfare via spead of disease. The hypothesis of fruit trees being intentional spread has been gaining more and more evidence. It's fantastic reading, highly recommend looking into the recent findings of the agricultural and arboreal advancements of the Amazon.
From what I understand this overrepresentation also extends to Central America's rainforest and is commonly also being attributed to angiosperms (flowering plants, including all fruit-bearing trees) having a much shorter generation time leading to 1) a faster evolution and adaption rate and 2) a faster rate of expansion into vacant geographical areas It is therefore being hypothesized that angiosperms became especially dominant in the aftermath of the Chicxulub Impact event (aka the impact wiping out the non-avian dinosaurs). This event's effect on climate was global, but the closer rainforests in the Americas would likely have been almost completely destroyed, resulting in angiosperms re-colonizing the now vacant areas much quicker and becoming dominant before other plants had a chance to do so. Add to that a quicker diversification into ecological niches and the possibilty of quicker co-evolution with mammals, birds and insects in a rebounding ecosystem and the result is a massive advantage for flowering plants (who make much more use of pollinating animals, for example) So I really like this "Early Civilization Garden Hypothesis" - it could easily be true - but it is very likely only one contributing factor to flowering plant density and some of the factors pre-date humans by tens of millions of years
@@TomH-m6b Eh, the impact was 65 mln years ago. Way too long to be a factor, plenty of time to 'reset' that advantage (if any) thousands of times. It's like attributing the popularity of hamburgers to the diet of early mesopotamia, sure, maybe they liked bread with meat too but it was so long ago before modern hamburger it's basically meaningless...
Love this short videos you do on ancient civilisations. Keep up the great work! P.S. if anyone wants to hear some more indepth videos on the collapse of anicent and medieval civilisations i recommend try 'Fall of Civilisations' such a great channel that discusses these collapses in very deep detail.
I cant imagine what it would've been like to live through the collapse of Amazonian civilizations. Disease seems the likeliest culprit, but can you imagine how long it may have taken to decimate the population and what society would've looked like? Wild
@@DenethordeSade.90 That is technically true. Sometimes a Roman emperor or general ordered the death of every tenth soldier as a punishment to send a message. It seems that the Amazonians were nearly centimated.
@@DenethordeSade.90 Haha sorry English isnt my first language. I've just heard decimate used a lot for apocalyptic scenarios, maybe "annihilate" is a better term?
To the other book recommendations, let me add "Four Lost Cities," by Annalee Newitz. She talks about the Khmer, among others (and in her opinion, the Khmer water management system gradually became more a religious and status symbol, and was not maintained properly as a water management system... so that any serious disturbances, whether drought or monsoon, would cause it to fail).
I like how you still use 'BC' instead of BCE. I watched an interview with Niel Tyson who made a strong point on the matter. He's famously atheist, but he said that not only does he refuse to switch, he thinks no one should. He gives a two big reasons, one, the monks that made it, created the most accurate calendar system ever devised, so if for no other reason, credit where credit is due. Second, its just petty. He points out that 100BC and 100BCE are *exactly the same year.* 'BCE' is a change without a difference and its extremely petty to change how something is referred to, for the express purpose of sticking it to the religious community. He said such pettiness has no place in academic writings.
Yea just like Columbus Day being change to indigenous peoples day which I refuse to acknowledge. It is and always will be Columbus Day. Or the Cleveland Indians being changed to the guardians again I refuse to acknowledge stupidity. 🤦♂️
How about people who want to use BC use BC and people who want to use BCE use BCE and nobody get their knickers in a twist over something that in no way, shape or form affects their life? Can we do this over one single thing that doesn’t affect anything, *please*?
I have a severe case of dome envy, Simon. Tired of my hair, never was much of it anyway. *The Amazon Rain Forest Civilization* - we don't even have a name for it - is one of the saddest and most fascinating tales. We know what ended it - small pox, the plague, influenza, gonorrhea, syphilis, the whole suite of Eurasian diseases. *How many languages were lost?* Given the astonishing diversity of Native American languges (35 language families and 17 isolates in California alone), the number is likey to have been quite large. It's a further tragedy that this civilization was preliterate. A whole slice of human history is just gone _like tears in rain._
Run the modern scenarios of two spouses working, minimal children, and a society can collapse in very short order. Look at Japan and how many abandoned farms, Italy and abandoned small towns, and even the US ghost towns. Kids all moved to the big cities elsewhere leaving the aged to vanish.
iirc, scientists say that, for a culture to continue, mind you, not expand or anything, JUST to continue to exist, you need each couple (1 man and 1 woman) to have 2.3 babies on average. With 2.3 babies on average your culture will continue to exist, but it won't grow. This is the minimum possible. Anything below 2.3 babies = the culture / population slowly dying out. And ofc, if you want growth, you need more than 2.3 babies per family.
@dadrising6464 get some education in real life lmao. 2.3 babies? Lol. Yeah on stats and paper but in the real world where do you see that really? Since you're so eDuCAtED did you miss the part in stats where they said you can't have fractional people? explain to your sample people your trying to educate by telling them they should have at least 2.3 babies 🤣. Smart enough to do the job. not smart enough to question it. smh
Anybody that loves the ancient ancestral sites needs to go to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The place is absolutely amazing! In my opinion as an archaeologist.
Old civilizations ended for only three reasons: 1) Natural Disasters, which were hard to overcome and recover from during that time frame, and lack of medical and scientific advancement to deal with the aftermath. 2) Diseases, which, if we didn't have what we do today, Covid could have wiped out many cities. 3) Economic & Social disasters, which could be affected by the first two or because of social changes that always create issues and divide the people. In the past, it was a lot easier to just get up, move somewhere else, and start a new one. Now, your life could suck, and you can't go anywhere without a Passport or have a lot of money saved up.
Well the savings part I'll agree with, but a passport at least is fairly easy to obtain, at least in advanced countries. I'm in the U.S. and I got one in two weeks on minimum wage.
Re the Minoans, the eruption/tsunami could have done enough damage to reduce trade/create difficulties, without leading to full scale destruction. Just sea water inundation could have ruined crops, damaged harbours, killed livestock, without washing away buildings/temples. Even just the consideration that they had displeased the "gods", could have turned society on its head. They were still around hundreds of years later, but may not have been a strong society anymore. Knossos sits 100 meters above sea level, so it would have taken one hell of a wave to reach it. But the large fertile plain beneath it and the port was in direct line with a Santorini eruption tsunami wave.
All these "vanished" civilizations brings to my mind the term: the veneer of civilization. Any major change, be it rapid or slow, that affects the food supply system of any organized and populous group of people can and often does bring about the collapse of that group. We, who have lived comfortably fed, have lost the knowledge of how thin the veneer actually is. Once that veneer is striped away so does the sense of community that the people had evaporate. It is a lesson worth remembering.
I like the fact that the Minoans were mentioned here, but their civilization did not disappear overnight without any trace. As the video indicated, the Minoans started to go into a period of some decline after the Thera eruption which occurred around 1550 - 1650 B.C. Around 1400 B.C, Crete was invaded by the Myceneans from the Greek mainland. The Minoan script Linear A, was replaced by Linear B, an ancient form of Greek which we can read. The Mycenean/Minoan civilization on Crete then ended along with several others Mediterranean civilizations around 1200 B.C during the Bronze Age collapse, a period of invasion and mass migration of various groups of people in and around the Mediterranean.
The Anisazi collapse may have been caused by a massive flash flood. Recent geological evidence shows that at the time Chaco Canyon was abandoned, a massive flood stripped the topsoil and cut a massive ditch into the Canyon. This allowed any future rains to rapidly penetrate the ground and not be available to water the crops . I live in Arizona and have visited Chaco many times . Truly incredible the effort for the short time they occupied the area.
Just wanted to say that we've found 3000bc items and civilazaions here in Norway recently. In fact we've found evidence of people living here 7500-6000bc. Just after the scandinavian peninsula ice age. So crete was not that early as a european civilazations as first thought. Sad truth is that christians burned down a lot of our herritage around 1000-1500.
There's no mystery about the Minoans. They were hit by tsunamis which did a number on them, affected the trade routes to which they were heavily reliant on and they were conquered by the Mycenaeans . They didn't really vanish. They just changed management.
Civilizations don't just vanish. People don't just disappear. If you take out the 1000 or so years of added history then you see that civilization has blended into one another.
Khmer - You left out there was evidence of the dam breaking on their primary reservoir that had the potential to wreck absolute havoc on their environment in addition to killing people. It weakened them so much they were left vulnerable to enemies who already wanted to kill them. As with most collapses, it wasn't a single event.
@@quinnishrellik9378 Hey brugh that word is spelt with a Z not a stinkin' S brugh. Get it right son! Show some respect for this American language brugh. This ain't tea time son, we use words proper over here unlike them UK peeps just butchering my english language.
If there is a second video some of the cool unexplained disappearance of civilizations... The Orkneys, Timbuktu, the Olmec, and the Mound Builders of Illinois
I thought it was fairly agreed uponed that the mainland Mycenaen Greeks had a hand in the Minoan's decline as buildings on Crete in the late Bronze Age were built in the Mycenaen style rather than Minoan.
That could have been a case of deliberate copying. Minoan fortifications weren't as robust as the Mycenaen cities, and Minoan rulers copied them, perhaps because of increased internal warfare?
It would be nice to see a more thorough videos about each of these. I like how you carefully examine all the evidence and come to realistic conclusions. Not necessarily 100% true, but nor is the science, eh? ;) Cheers! Great video. Ancient civilisations are always an interesting subject.
It's truly staggering that over 90% of amerindians died from old world diseases and the sheer amount we are unable to know because most of their cultures lacked a writing system.
The Maya were one of only 5 civilizations to develop a writing system and they had libraries of books. Of course, Spanish missionaries declared them to be pagan and idolatrous and burned thousands of them. The Mayan glyphs were finally translated in the 1970’s.
I will say, and I love all of your stuff Fact Boi! But this channel does tend to be a bit lazier on hard fact research than several others channels of yours. Decoding the Unknown, Brain Blaze and Casz Crim come to mind specifically.
So many people have tried to explore the Amazon and went missing that I believe it's possible a lot of these peoples experienced the same diseases that other more well known peoples did. It's also entirely possible for them to have spread it much earlier through migration. At any rate, they would have been susceptible to the same diseases since they were largely uncontacted, and those diseases might have just taken longer to spread through the area, or came later with the aforementioned explorers.
And it is well known that stories of massive cities with streets paved with gold were stories told to attract more investors, they were not realistic depictions of the time.
Yes, this fascinates me too. The Khmer thing is really a baffling one! In Laos the 'mainstream standard' is that of the Siamese just conquering and destroying everything. BUT wait because even some common sense stuff just says that can't really be how it all worked. Siam doesn't just knock down and bury everything and somehow make everyone and everything Khmer vanish or be buried. The flood/drought thing doesn't seem to pass much either. They engineered absolute MARVELS of the earth. They would have been very very well aware of floods and droughts. they just don't collapse because the place floods, HOWEVER, It may be that the 'many different things' does explain it IF we have the entirely likely eventual moral declines, the usual factions splitting against each other AND during the civil warfare stuff there comes horrific floods and with workers rebelling and farmers fighting AND a drought screws that up more AND then Siam (possibly and as it often goes) sees a weak, divided 'state of dissolution' moment to show up and starts their takeover. That is also a kind of 'civil war' with all kinds of alliances, pro-Siamese factions, maybe it was NOT actually a clean sweep and Siam tried to rule from Angor (ala Mongols in China style) but then that goes wrong and sideways and eventually there are so many dead men, so much havoc, starvation, and that gets a nice sweet bubonic plague or two and finally.. and maybe its just been a single generation but it's never what it was ever again, in fact, its just gone a generation or two later. because really, most great civilizations go that way. its a dozen things converging at the wrong times and crossover events and climate and then its just dissolved and gone. [its actually still carrying on but in parts and bits and those merge and fade too]
Just think about the potential food crops that might be lost to history. Millions fed on soil thought to be too poor for farming. What did they grow and could those crops be 'game changers' like potatoes or corn from other native American cultures?
The dismissal of volcanologists is the bane of modern archaeology,which uses assumptions,or rough measurement tools,that often are also useless when an event like senatorini super volcano eruption or eruptions perhaps happen. A good volcanologists can date according to ash layers with less than a century margin of error, also knowing where the ash came for, and the level,or destruction that has happened. Even though he will test ,at this instance as some have, ash found in farmlands over in Egypt. Not Crete.
I wonder if Gaspar de Carvajal was the inspiration for Noland the Liar in One Piece. The whole "explorer that found South American civilizations and were called a liar for it" seems to be way too similar for it not to be the direct inspiration.
It's not. Humans just aren't good at civilizing yet. Most of it is just a grift and always has been... eventually we will get it right and stop taking advantage of each other for a living.
@@donaldcarey114 There is only one human civilization and it hasn't collapsed yet despite many peaks and valleys. People who say collapse is inevitable are just doomsday fetishists... likely to help them cope with how mundane most of our lives really are.
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0:35 - Chapter 1 - Minoans
3:30 - Chapter 2 - Ancestral puebloans
5:50 - Chapter 3 - Khmer empire
7:50 - Chapter 4 - The amazon
thank you.
@@zhcultivator They were harvested for food!
Anyone interested in this topic, I very much recommend the channel Fall of Civilizations. They have in depth documentaries about the fall of a several civilizations like the Mayans or the people of Rapa Nui (my personal favorite).
Paul Cooper: Regularly does three-hour podcast videos each about the collapse of a single civilization...
Simon Whistler: Drops an eleven-minute video about the collapse of several different civilizations...
Also Simon Whistler: Just dropped a three-hour video about ONE GUY ("Kaspar Hauser: The Prince Without a Past")
😉😁
Thanks
The best source for meticulously researched past civilizations. Thanks for dropping that knowledge on people
Collapse by Jared Diamond is also an excellent book on the subject…
Hell yeah. Excellent channel
Shortly after the last chapter about the Amazon had started, the video was interrupted by an ad... for Amazon Prime. 🙄
Those things happens
Classic white guys destroy and take over story
From what I know of the Anasazi, the cliff and hilltop structures were all built over a pretty narrow time frame, remained for a number of decades, and then were all abandoned around the same general period. That, to me, given how difficult some of these are to access and how difficult it would have been to get provisions up to them, suggests that they were constructed out of necessity. There are a certain number of them that even appeared to have been created as watch posts. So raiding nomadic invaders, or a prolonged period of warfare (not a single conflict, but conflict after conflict) is quite possible. A number of these dwelling show signs that they were burned and, in some cases, there are different layers. Recall also that during the later era, there was the eruption of the "Sunset Crater" volcano, so who knows what role the geological history of the area came into play as well. With no written record, there's just no way to know what really happened and all we can do is speculate.
They were genocided and cannibalized
The Prisoners of Simon's Basement civilization better be on this. This was before he crushed their primitive society with an iron fist, reducing them to loose coalitions.
The free basement dwellers as they were called supposedly were advanced & lived in peace before the mighty simon arrived. All lies for we know our Lord and saviour fact boi would never deceive us like that, those poor primitives believe it though as if they were smart enough to remember & lived through it imagine for we all know there is no recorded times before Simon
@@Ghostvertigo Fact Boi might be immortal, living through several millennia of time and space, and knows better to deceive or not deceive.
The Dananites...
It's like "Indian in the Cupboard", but "Chain-smoking Typewriter Monkeys in Simon's Basement"
WTF Are you babbling on about 😂 😂
I clicked on this video and spent the first half minute of the video thinking “please talk about the Minoans”. I studied them in college in a history class so it’s always nice to see it discussed outside of college.
No. The minoans or infact, none of the civilizations mentioned hear, disappear overnight
When the Spanish came to Mexico several times in the 1400-1500s, the Mayans already had a history with the Spanish soldiers and when it was clear it was going to happen again they all disappeared into the jungle. We went to the Yucatan last year for wedding, and visited with the Mayans, Chitzenita(?), and swam in the Cenotes. It was a brutal but very amazing trip to be sure. :)
That’s one of the trips I wanna make someday. It’s on my buckets list
The last free Mayan city didn't actually fall until 1697!!! Yeah, their king got the stupid idea that he could befriend the Spanish and invited a few over to his hidden city. Huge mistake.
Those are the same Mayans you are talking about that fled, actually conquering them took a very long time.
It certainly wasn't a city as massive as El Mirador but a smaller, still pretty populated city on an island in a lake. It was called "Nojpetén".
The Maya did not disappear into the jungle. In the 16th century, they fought the Spanish, longer and more successfully than any other native people. Did. The so-called Maya collapse happened about 800 years before this and affected mostly only the cities in the southern Maya area. Not so much the countryside in the South, and neither of the cities nor the countryside up North.
@@williamwolf2844 Well, they did disappear into the jungle many times since the Spanish was unwilling to go after them there so I don't think he is totally wrong. They were fighting a guerrilla war after all.
But you are certainly right that they were the most successful in fighting back, that didn't end until 1697 (see my earlier post in the thread). And yeah, we seen a few cases of Maya people revolting in modern times too.
The Mayas did have a habit to leave their cities and found new ones, the Mayan collapse was more or less the time we know of that most of the cities did this.
But we see it earlier too. El Mirador and many cities were also abandoned earlier and we still don't exactly know why.
In the collapse, it seems to have been more religious and/or social reasons then anything else. With El Mirador, it might just be that they used up the natural resources since it was such a massive city but that is just speculation and we know that wasn't the case during the later collapse.
We are finding out more and more about them though, 30 years ago we thought the pre classic Maya were rather primitive but El Mirador was one of the largest cities in the world 2500 years ago and it wasn't the only one either, just the one we have excavated most so far from the period (and we have barely scratched the surface).
It is a very fascinating culture. :)
They disappeared before the Spanish
Ive heard a theory (theory is loose word really, more ive heard some people talking) that the reason there is such a density of fruit bearing and flowering trees in the amazon compared to other tropical jungles in the world, might be because there was civilization several thousand years ago that like to keep gardens, and when they dissappeared or died out, their gardens just grew outta control.
Not disappeared or died out, they were murdered, killed, and allowed to die after both biological and then physical warfare. Please be accurate with the indigenous areas of the Amazon because they were part of the intentional genocide and biological warfare via spead of disease.
The hypothesis of fruit trees being intentional spread has been gaining more and more evidence. It's fantastic reading, highly recommend looking into the recent findings of the agricultural and arboreal advancements of the Amazon.
Okay, that's just neat to think about.
From what I understand this overrepresentation also extends to Central America's rainforest and is commonly also being attributed to angiosperms (flowering plants, including all fruit-bearing trees) having a much shorter generation time leading to 1) a faster evolution and adaption rate and 2) a faster rate of expansion into vacant geographical areas
It is therefore being hypothesized that angiosperms became especially dominant in the aftermath of the Chicxulub Impact event (aka the impact wiping out the non-avian dinosaurs). This event's effect on climate was global, but the closer rainforests in the Americas would likely have been almost completely destroyed, resulting in angiosperms re-colonizing the now vacant areas much quicker and becoming dominant before other plants had a chance to do so. Add to that a quicker diversification into ecological niches and the possibilty of quicker co-evolution with mammals, birds and insects in a rebounding ecosystem and the result is a massive advantage for flowering plants (who make much more use of pollinating animals, for example)
So I really like this "Early Civilization Garden Hypothesis" - it could easily be true - but it is very likely only one contributing factor to flowering plant density and some of the factors pre-date humans by tens of millions of years
@@TomH-m6b Eh, the impact was 65 mln years ago. Way too long to be a factor, plenty of time to 'reset' that advantage (if any) thousands of times. It's like attributing the popularity of hamburgers to the diet of early mesopotamia, sure, maybe they liked bread with meat too but it was so long ago before modern hamburger it's basically meaningless...
Read 1491.
Love this short videos you do on ancient civilisations. Keep up the great work!
P.S. if anyone wants to hear some more indepth videos on the collapse of anicent and medieval civilisations i recommend try 'Fall of Civilisations' such a great channel that discusses these collapses in very deep detail.
Great podcast indeed!!
Gotta plug Fall of Civilizations podcast and TH-cam. Incredibly documentaries.
I cant imagine what it would've been like to live through the collapse of Amazonian civilizations. Disease seems the likeliest culprit, but can you imagine how long it may have taken to decimate the population and what society would've looked like? Wild
I would have more than decimated the population, as decimated technically would refer to one in ten.
@@DenethordeSade.90 That is technically true. Sometimes a Roman emperor or general ordered the death of every tenth soldier as a punishment to send a message. It seems that the Amazonians were nearly centimated.
@@DenethordeSade.90 What's it like being such a complete Bunt Citch all the time?
A lot of people thought that’s what we were gonna face with Covid so I still have nightmares about
@@DenethordeSade.90 Haha sorry English isnt my first language. I've just heard decimate used a lot for apocalyptic scenarios, maybe "annihilate" is a better term?
To the other book recommendations, let me add "Four Lost Cities," by Annalee Newitz. She talks about the Khmer, among others (and in her opinion, the Khmer water management system gradually became more a religious and status symbol, and was not maintained properly as a water management system... so that any serious disturbances, whether drought or monsoon, would cause it to fail).
Wow! Never seen added 10 sec ago video before.
Wow! Far, far more unknown civilizations than were dreamt of. A joy to learn of lost empires of long, long ago. Thank You!
One of the best channels on TH-cam.
I like how you still use 'BC' instead of BCE. I watched an interview with Niel Tyson who made a strong point on the matter. He's famously atheist, but he said that not only does he refuse to switch, he thinks no one should. He gives a two big reasons, one, the monks that made it, created the most accurate calendar system ever devised, so if for no other reason, credit where credit is due. Second, its just petty. He points out that 100BC and 100BCE are *exactly the same year.* 'BCE' is a change without a difference and its extremely petty to change how something is referred to, for the express purpose of sticking it to the religious community. He said such pettiness has no place in academic writings.
Yes! Like when people tried to make Latinx a thing. A solution searching for a problem
Yea just like Columbus Day being change to indigenous peoples day which I refuse to acknowledge. It is and always will be Columbus Day. Or the Cleveland Indians being changed to the guardians again I refuse to acknowledge stupidity. 🤦♂️
Who gives a fuck about a single letter its the same thats it
@@Batangsuwail actually no. Considering that the piece of shit known as god and Christ DO NOT EXIST it is totally different.
How about people who want to use BC use BC and people who want to use BCE use BCE and nobody get their knickers in a twist over something that in no way, shape or form affects their life? Can we do this over one single thing that doesn’t affect anything, *please*?
Thank you; this was fascinating.
He ain't going anywhere his faithful love endures forever ♾️
Last time I was this early, the Minoans were trading tin to Egypt for grain and lotus blossoms.
😊
I have a severe case of dome envy, Simon. Tired of my hair, never was much of it anyway. *The Amazon Rain Forest Civilization* - we don't even have a name for it - is one of the saddest and most fascinating tales. We know what ended it - small pox, the plague, influenza, gonorrhea, syphilis, the whole suite of Eurasian diseases. *How many languages were lost?* Given the astonishing diversity of Native American languges (35 language families and 17 isolates in California alone), the number is likey to have been quite large.
It's a further tragedy that this civilization was preliterate. A whole slice of human history is just gone _like tears in rain._
Run the modern scenarios of two spouses working, minimal children, and a society can collapse in very short order. Look at Japan and how many abandoned farms, Italy and abandoned small towns, and even the US ghost towns. Kids all moved to the big cities elsewhere leaving the aged to vanish.
iirc, scientists say that, for a culture to continue, mind you, not expand or anything, JUST to continue to exist, you need each couple (1 man and 1 woman) to have 2.3 babies on average. With 2.3 babies on average your culture will continue to exist, but it won't grow. This is the minimum possible. Anything below 2.3 babies = the culture / population slowly dying out.
And ofc, if you want growth, you need more than 2.3 babies per family.
@MonsieurDeVeteran 2.3 babies?
Ain't seen no fractional baby in real life 😂
@@halcyonramirez6469 Get some education, especially regarding "average". 🙄
@dadrising6464 get some education in real life lmao.
2.3 babies? Lol.
Yeah on stats and paper but in the real world where do you see that really?
Since you're so eDuCAtED did you miss the part in stats where they said you can't have fractional people?
explain to your sample people your trying to educate by telling them they should have at least 2.3 babies 🤣.
Smart enough to do the job.
not smart enough to question it. smh
not saying humanity got to collapse but but we could do whit less humans on the earth but the poor breed like rabbits and the rich dont
Super interesting subject!
Huh, my dad must’ve been a part of one of these civilizations. Thanks Simon!
The Goneforsmokians number is unknown. My dad was of that folk.
lmao
That took my brain a minute to process, but when it did. I nearly choked
@@gregskaggs8521 same as the Pintofmilks, just disappeared in droves, never to be seen again
@@NJTRAF an American tragedy made more ironic by the fact they put missing children on milk cartons but where have our fathers gone?
Anybody that loves the ancient ancestral sites needs to go to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The place is absolutely amazing! In my opinion as an archaeologist.
Brugh this all just made up fantasy. 82nd is a chump division fyi brugh. Most chumped up division in the army son
I lived in the Four Corners area and got to visit a few of the sites. Unfortunately, I never made it to Chaco or Canyon de Chelly.
I visited Mesa Verde as a kid.
Spooky place!
@@jennyanydots2389 sounds like someone didn't make it thru. Probably dishonorable discharge
@@jennyanydots2389what is brugh and what does that have anything to do with Chaco Canyon?
Much like the seas, the jungles don't give up their secrets easily
Old civilizations ended for only three reasons: 1) Natural Disasters, which were hard to overcome and recover from during that time frame, and lack of medical and scientific advancement to deal with the aftermath. 2) Diseases, which, if we didn't have what we do today, Covid could have wiped out many cities. 3) Economic & Social disasters, which could be affected by the first two or because of social changes that always create issues and divide the people. In the past, it was a lot easier to just get up, move somewhere else, and start a new one. Now, your life could suck, and you can't go anywhere without a Passport or have a lot of money saved up.
Well the savings part I'll agree with, but a passport at least is fairly easy to obtain, at least in advanced countries. I'm in the U.S. and I got one in two weeks on minimum wage.
Re the Minoans, the eruption/tsunami could have done enough damage to reduce trade/create difficulties, without leading to full scale destruction. Just sea water inundation could have ruined crops, damaged harbours, killed livestock, without washing away buildings/temples. Even just the consideration that they had displeased the "gods", could have turned society on its head. They were still around hundreds of years later, but may not have been a strong society anymore. Knossos sits 100 meters above sea level, so it would have taken one hell of a wave to reach it. But the large fertile plain beneath it and the port was in direct line with a Santorini eruption tsunami wave.
or, could be, kraken.
All these "vanished" civilizations brings to my mind the term: the veneer of civilization. Any major change, be it rapid or slow, that affects the food supply system of any organized and populous group of people can and often does bring about the collapse of that group. We, who have lived comfortably fed, have lost the knowledge of how thin the veneer actually is. Once that veneer is striped away so does the sense of community that the people had evaporate. It is a lesson worth remembering.
According to the History Channel, late at night, it was Aliens... Its always been Aliens
According the Bro Jogan this has been confirmed to be objective fact
Middle of the day too.
Not saying it's aliens ... but, yah, it's aliens.
Ancient Alien Experts say ‘Yes!’
Lizard people.
I like the fact that the Minoans were mentioned here, but their civilization did not disappear overnight without any trace. As the video indicated, the Minoans started to go into a period of some decline after the Thera eruption which occurred around 1550 - 1650 B.C. Around 1400 B.C, Crete was invaded by the Myceneans from the Greek mainland. The Minoan script Linear A, was replaced by Linear B, an ancient form of Greek which we can read. The Mycenean/Minoan civilization on Crete then ended along with several others Mediterranean civilizations around 1200 B.C during the Bronze Age collapse, a period of invasion and mass migration of various groups of people in and around the Mediterranean.
Minoans. Santorini. Epic volcano, and tidal wave.
Another fine chapter of History Whodunit with Simon.
The Anisazi collapse may have been caused by a massive flash flood. Recent geological evidence shows that at the time Chaco Canyon was abandoned, a massive flood stripped the topsoil and cut a massive ditch into the Canyon. This allowed any future rains to rapidly penetrate the ground and not be available to water the crops . I live in Arizona and have visited Chaco many times . Truly incredible the effort for the short time they occupied the area.
"History becomes legend, legend becomes myth"
Awesome! I love Biographics
Just wanted to say that we've found 3000bc items and civilazaions here in Norway recently. In fact we've found evidence of people living here 7500-6000bc. Just after the scandinavian peninsula ice age. So crete was not that early as a european civilazations as first thought.
Sad truth is that christians burned down a lot of our herritage around 1000-1500.
Found older in Bulgaria
There's no mystery about the Minoans. They were hit by tsunamis which did a number on them, affected the trade routes to which they were heavily reliant on and they were conquered by the Mycenaeans . They didn't really vanish. They just changed management.
it is amazing on how great civilizations can vanish, with no record....of why....
Civilizations don't just vanish. People don't just disappear. If you take out the 1000 or so years of added history then you see that civilization has blended into one another.
Since years I wonder where all the past civilizations went ? Including the giant civilizations that used to live and build
Massive buildings here ?!?
Khmer - You left out there was evidence of the dam breaking on their primary reservoir that had the potential to wreck absolute havoc on their environment in addition to killing people. It weakened them so much they were left vulnerable to enemies who already wanted to kill them. As with most collapses, it wasn't a single event.
I thought there was normally a long lead time on these. But the Tories just disappeared overnight.
Nice, sadly they are still around just no longer in power
@@Ravendarkwytch Kind of like the Pueblans being still around.
Water u talmbout Egland politics fo? This an american show for american's, stick to merican topics or keep a lid on it son. U understan me son?
@@jennyanydots2389civilisation of articulation 😢
@@quinnishrellik9378 Hey brugh that word is spelt with a Z not a stinkin' S brugh. Get it right son! Show some respect for this American language brugh. This ain't tea time son, we use words proper over here unlike them UK peeps just butchering my english language.
Hoped the Minoans would be on this list, was not disappointed
awesome video
I'd be interested in hearing about the incident and origins of Croatoa.
He’s already done a few videos on it back in the day. On which channel I have absolutely no clue.
TY🙏
The later Puebloans also built impressive cities, just in different styles and places than the ancestral ones
If there is a second video some of the cool unexplained disappearance of civilizations...
The Orkneys, Timbuktu, the Olmec, and the Mound Builders of Illinois
I thought it was fairly agreed uponed that the mainland Mycenaen Greeks had a hand in the Minoan's decline as buildings on Crete in the late Bronze Age were built in the Mycenaen style rather than Minoan.
That could have been a case of deliberate copying. Minoan fortifications weren't as robust as the Mycenaen cities, and Minoan rulers copied them, perhaps because of increased internal warfare?
Good stuff man
I really liked this one
You're great. Thanks!!!!!
Minoans just never recovered from the volcano eruption at Thyra and the raids that followed from pirates
It would be nice to see a more thorough videos about each of these. I like how you carefully examine all the evidence and come to realistic conclusions. Not necessarily 100% true, but nor is the science, eh? ;) Cheers! Great video. Ancient civilisations are always an interesting subject.
Well explained.
It's truly staggering that over 90% of amerindians died from old world diseases and the sheer amount we are unable to know because most of their cultures lacked a writing system.
Not all too advanced without writing.. 🤷🏻♂️
The Maya were one of only 5 civilizations to develop a writing system and they had libraries of books. Of course, Spanish missionaries declared them to be pagan and idolatrous and burned thousands of them. The Mayan glyphs were finally translated in the 1970’s.
Koch's 90% mortality has been questioned seriously by other researchers who contend it was based on hugely inflated pre-contact population estimates.
@jimjohnson4072 they had writing the mayas 😂😂
@jimjohnson4072 it wa burned down by the spanish because of superstition
I will say, and I love all of your stuff Fact Boi! But this channel does tend to be a bit lazier on hard fact research than several others channels of yours. Decoding the Unknown, Brain Blaze and Casz Crim come to mind specifically.
Another epic Simon drop!
wow, i didn't expect the Khmer empire to be here. A Cambodian here, usually nobody talks about us
Have you explored the history of Cahokia in the United States? I feel like you’d enjoy it
Never been this Early, feels wrong
Great video
I love do-it-yourself scholars almost as much as do-it-yourself brain surgeons. Not quite as much, but it's close.
Check out this Mound Builders/the Cahokian tribes in the MidWest. Gone with out a trace. There only remains are the the huge mounds.
I’ve spent some time in Cambodia and I’m a big history buff, but I have never in my life heard anybody pronounce “Khmer” that way…
Simon, when will you close that door?
No Indus Valley Civilization?
So many people have tried to explore the Amazon and went missing that I believe it's possible a lot of these peoples experienced the same diseases that other more well known peoples did. It's also entirely possible for them to have spread it much earlier through migration. At any rate, they would have been susceptible to the same diseases since they were largely uncontacted, and those diseases might have just taken longer to spread through the area, or came later with the aforementioned explorers.
Simon, how long have you had those three green vases?
And it is well known that stories of massive cities with streets paved with gold were stories told to attract more investors, they were not realistic depictions of the time.
He's the one also in Geographics channel who speaks alot
Anasazi was the first song we played in 6th grade band lol. It was dismal and dark so yeah makes sense 😮😅
Roanoke is a huge mystery even today.
These could be mega project if it wasn't for the lack of information
سبحان الله العظيم 🌺
God the great Creator 🌺
just think mt etna erupted today andd within an hr or so there was 2 inch of ash in cattania what happens with days ooft
Can you do a part 2
The “K” in “Knossos” is not silent.
What about El Dorado or Atlantis?
Mesa Verde creeped me out as a kid. I loved it!
How did the Aztecs with stone technology build the things that they built?
They found "possible" structures. Until people actually go into the jungle and dig them up we'll never know for sure.
I've heard/read that there are estimates that 40 million people were living in the America's in 1492 and buy 1620. There were around 4 million.
I like how civilizations disappearing is, you know, just a sideproject.
It's just Simon dabbling in genocide on the weekends I suppose.
If they were main projects, they wouldn't have disappeared.
Yes, this fascinates me too. The Khmer thing is really a baffling one! In Laos the 'mainstream standard' is that of the Siamese just conquering and destroying everything. BUT wait because even some common sense stuff just says that can't really be how it all worked. Siam doesn't just knock down and bury everything and somehow make everyone and everything Khmer vanish or be buried. The flood/drought thing doesn't seem to pass much either. They engineered absolute MARVELS of the earth. They would have been very very well aware of floods and droughts. they just don't collapse because the place floods,
HOWEVER,
It may be that the 'many different things' does explain it IF we have the entirely likely eventual moral declines, the usual factions splitting against each other AND during the civil warfare stuff there comes horrific floods and with workers rebelling and farmers fighting AND a drought screws that up more AND then Siam (possibly and as it often goes) sees a weak, divided 'state of dissolution' moment to show up and starts their takeover. That is also a kind of 'civil war' with all kinds of alliances, pro-Siamese factions, maybe it was NOT actually a clean sweep and Siam tried to rule from Angor (ala Mongols in China style) but then that goes wrong and sideways and eventually there are so many dead men, so much havoc, starvation, and that gets a nice sweet bubonic plague or two and finally.. and maybe its just been a single generation but it's never what it was ever again, in fact, its just gone a generation or two later.
because really, most great civilizations go that way. its a dozen things converging at the wrong times and crossover events and climate and then its just dissolved and gone. [its actually still carrying on but in parts and bits and those merge and fade too]
Did anyone ask the descendants of any of these people why? Perhaps their ancestors passed down stories that could give clues to what happened
Awesome horror movie called Phantoms starring Ben Affleck and Peter O'Toole based entirely on that concept.
“Anasazi” is Navajo for “ancient enemies.” Modern Puebloans consider the term to be offensive.
The word Sioux is a slur given to the Lakota/Dakota nations by our enemies.
I wasn’t aware of that. Thank you!
the Hopi say they all got super killed and there are no descendants of the Anasazi
Cool
After the people of the Khmer Empire found out that there was no answer to the question "Ankhor what?" they just gave up and left.
Just think about the potential food crops that might be lost to history. Millions fed on soil thought to be too poor for farming. What did they grow and could those crops be 'game changers' like potatoes or corn from other native American cultures?
South America has many products that are needed to help us cope with life here in North America.😊
My grandmother was Minoan, and she never talked about what ended her civilisation. It was just too traumatic, I guess.
Is she a vampire that lived for millenniums by chance?
How old are you????
she was more probably minion.
The dismissal of volcanologists is the bane of modern archaeology,which uses assumptions,or rough measurement tools,that often are also useless when an event like senatorini super volcano eruption or eruptions perhaps happen.
A good volcanologists can date according to ash layers with less than a century margin of error, also knowing where the ash came for, and the level,or destruction that has happened.
Even though he will test ,at this instance as some have, ash found in farmlands over in Egypt. Not Crete.
The same thing happened to yo all my supermodel ex girlfriends, its crazy
It's tragic how even friendly overtures could have wiped out the central american natives. Sometimes we ruin things simply by turning up.
Volcanic ash as well as ash from drought>fires kill the fish in addition to the crops
I wonder if Gaspar de Carvajal was the inspiration for Noland the Liar in One Piece.
The whole "explorer that found South American civilizations and were called a liar for it" seems to be way too similar for it not to be the direct inspiration.
Every civilizations reaches a peak, then it collapses. So will ours also, it is unavoidable...
No, European civilization has mutated/evolved to meet its challenges, but it has not collapsed.
It's not. Humans just aren't good at civilizing yet. Most of it is just a grift and always has been... eventually we will get it right and stop taking advantage of each other for a living.
@@donaldcarey114 There is only one human civilization and it hasn't collapsed yet despite many peaks and valleys. People who say collapse is inevitable are just doomsday fetishists... likely to help them cope with how mundane most of our lives really are.
@@donaldcarey114 Not yet. But a collaps does not necessarily mean that it will be destroyed.
It was all different mother ships that picked up all those people and took them away which is a personal fantasy that I have for myself. 😎
I think all of these died out from diseases. Diseases are relentless. 🤢