In the age of mass information, it’s difficult to imagine a time when humans didn’t write down
and analyze everything. Today, we have books, newspapers, movies, and of course,
the internet itself, that archive every facet of human history. That’s why it’s always
possible for us to make a discovery that changes everything we thought we knew about the past.
This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question;
what discoveries could change what we know about ancient history?
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In 1859, Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species”,
which detailed his theory of evolution. Today, evolution is widely understood to be a fact,
and we can chart the evolutionary progress of all kinds of animals by studying fossils and
both living and extinct relatives. But though homo sapiens are the only human species alive today,
we’re not the only ones to have ever lived – nor are we the first. In 1829, decades
before Darwin’s revolutionary theory, the first Neanderthal remains were discovered. However,
they were initially misclassified as modern. We now know that Neanderthals were not only
a different species of hominid that lived before and alongside homo sapiens, but also
that early homo sapiens actually interbred with Neanderthals and other human species.
Discoveries like this haven’t stopped; in 2010, the first Denisovan was discovered,
and additional Denisovans have all been found in the same cave in Siberia. Despite the small number
of remains, it’s believed that Denisovans existed throughout Asia, as far north as modern Russia
and as far south as Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. New developments in the study of
ancient anthropology are always on the horizon, and undoubtedly there are human species out there
and facets of our own evolution that we don’t yet understand. When we finally do, there’s no
way to predict how much our understanding of human evolution will grow and change.
Some recent discoveries in archaeology have also completely shifted our perspective on the ancient
world, especially when it comes to how they constructed their most long-lived monuments.
Two of the world’s most recognizable ancient structures, Stonehenge in the UK and the Great
Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, have been plagued with conspiracy theories for decades – if not
centuries. Their construction has been regarded as so mysterious that only an outside force, like
aliens, could possibly be responsible. The alien theory has never been supported by archaeologists,
and even 2,000 years ago, numerous Greek historians described the ramp system used to
build the pyramids. Modern Egyptologists have also consistently believed ramps and levers were used,
but it wasn’t until late 2018 that conclusive evidence of the ramps was found.
The discovery of an actual ramp dating back thousands of years finally demonstrated exactly
how the Ancient Egyptians were able to move such heavy stones so high, and has been described as
a ramp system entirely unique to Egypt. It’s a similar story with Stonehenge, whose stones
are also so heavy that their transportation has baffled archaeologists for centuries. Some of
the smaller bluestones came from 160 miles away; quite a distance to haul such huge rocks. However,
the larger sarsen stones had a much closer origin. In 2020, archeologists pinpointed
the location to just 15 miles north of Stonehenge. The monument was erected almost entirely through
manpower alone, though precisely how the stones were moved remains a mystery. But at any moment,
archaeology could reveal the full details of how Stonehenge’s rocks were moved, since it’s
already revealed how the stones were pulled upright and precisely where they came from.
While some mysteries involving the Pyramids persist to this day, other Egyptian mysteries
have been solved in modern times. The Rosetta Stone is an enormous tablet over 2,200 years old
and wasn’t particularly significant at the time it was made. It was moved repeatedly and eventually
used in construction. Ultimately, when Napoleon invaded Egypt, the Stone was taken by the French.
The Stone simply contains a few decrees, but vitally, those decrees were written multiple times
in multiple languages, including both hieroglyphs and Ancient Greek. Until this point, nobody living
understood ancient hieroglyphs, but because we could understand Ancient Greek, the Rosetta Stone
became the key to unlocking Ancient Egyptian history. The Rosetta Stone has already changed
history through the things it’s taught us, but any day, a new Rosetta Stone could be discovered from
another apparently extinct language. There are ancient languages we still haven’t deciphered,
like Olmec glyphs; the Olmecs are the oldest known civilization in Central America.
Many have tried to decipher the Olmec script, which we have very few examples of to work with,
and we haven’t yet succeeded. But the beauty of ancient languages is that at any moment,
someone could decode them, and recontextualize entire areas of history in a heartbeat.
Speaking of the Americas, it’s not true that the first non-American to visit the continent
was Christopher Columbus. Of course, there were already plenty of indigenous people living in
North and South America. But there’s growing evidence of trans-Atlantic and perhaps even
trans-Pacific journeys to America long before Columbus was even born. The closeness of Alaska
and Eastern Russia meant it was much easier for ancient people to travel to each other and trade,
while it’s widely known that the Vikings landed in the Americas
centuries before Columbus. They settled in Greenland and in Newfoundland.
The famous “Maine penny” might be evidence that the Vikings traveled much further south
than previously believed. Having said that, the Maine penny, while it is a real Viking coin,
could have simply been brought to Maine at any point during the intervening millennium.
There are also theories that the Romans might have made it to parts of South America thousands
of years ago, brought on by evidence like the Bay of Jars in Brazil. However, in response to this
discovery, Brazil banned underwater exploration in 1984, preferring their traditional narrative
of discovery by the Portuguese. So it’s hard to determine whether the jars are even Roman at all.
It’s even been alleged that seventy years before the Columbian voyage, Chinese sailors landed
on the western American coast, all because of an old Chinese map that seems to show North America.
However, there are plenty of maps that show landmasses that probably don’t exist;
for a long time, an additional continent called Terra Australis was shown on maps.
It’s now known that there was another continent where Terra Australis was – Antarctica – but
these maps guessed at geography with no basis in reality. If anybody can prove without a doubt
that the continental US and South America had visitors long before Columbus – visitors who did
not bring the suffering that European colonizers did – that would be an unprecedented discovery.
Finally, there are lots of technological innovations lost to time,
some of which we know about, others which we don’t – and some that exist, but are lost
knowledge. Damascus steel, for example, smithed in the Near East during the Middle Ages,
contains carbon nanotubes, making blades forged from it incredibly resilient. But
nobody knows how it was made to this day. Another weapon lost to time is Greek Fire, an infamous
incendiary substance used in flame-throwers by the Byzantine Empire from the 7th century AD on.
While scholars believe it was based on naphtha and quicklime, its exact composition remains unknown.
Then there’s the enigmatic Antikythera Mechanism, discovered in 1901 off the coast of the Greek
island Antikythera. Made of bronze and widely described as the first computer,
the sophisticated artifact is at least 2,100 years old and baffled archaeologists for decades.
We now know it was an advanced clockwork mechanism for studying the stars,
but clockwork such as this disappeared from existence for centuries.
There are many other fabled ancient inventions that we haven’t yet discovered,
and which would change what we know about technology in Antiquity.
One of the most famous is the heat ray allegedly constructed by the famous inventor Archimedes.
According to myth, during the Siege of Syracuse, Archimedes constructed
mirrors – likely made of bronze – able to reflect sunlight and burn the incoming ships.
It’s certainly possible to use mirrors to start fires, they’ve even been linked to accidental
house fires, but to this day, nobody has been able to totally replicate Archimedes’ invention.
Other inventors, closer to our time, have also built fabled weapons of mass destruction;
just like Archimedes, Nikola Tesla is famously said to have built a “death ray”,
also called “Teleforce”, so dangerous he destroyed both it and all the research into it.
Suffice it to say, even though Tesla lived in the twentieth century,
we know just as little about whether his death ray really existed as we do about Archimedes’.
So much knowledge has been lost over the millennia, and there’s still so much we’re
learning about science in every field to this day; whether that’s history, biology, physics,
or engineering. And that’s why there are many discoveries that could change ancient history.
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other
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