12 Most Incredible Recent Archaeological Finds

[Music] what have the archaeologists and historians of the world been up to recently that's a question we ask ourselves a lot on this channel and we've never been disappointed with the answer there's always something new and fascinating within the worlds of archaeology and paleontology and that means we are always able to bring you exciting videos full of wonderful discoveries like this one sit back and enjoy when an amateur metal detectorist first got a positive signal in his device in a field in wales in 2019 all he thought he'd found was an old metal chain he couldn't have been more wrong after he did a little digging it became clear that he'd found a full-sized perfectly preserved celtic chariot burial the first of its kind ever to be found in the country burials of this kind were reserved only for the most high-ranking members of celtic society usually tribal chiefs who enter their graves with their chariots weapons riding tech and even their horses it's now hoped that there might be an iron age settlement somewhere nearby so this is a significant discovery that could yet lead to the discovery of something even more significant mike smith the metal detectorist responsible for the find was misled at first because the only part of his discovery poking out of the ground was part of a bridal bit which he mistook for a medieval broach in reality this find is closer to 2600 years old it's likely that the burial was once covered by a mound but the mound was flattened by farmers plowing their fields without ever realizing there was ancient treasure lurking beneath them when our next discovery went viral on the internet in 2019 most people assumed it was a hoax that's because they'd only seen an artificially recolored image and not the original pictures it's a tomb discovery from china which as many people on social media noted appeared to be marked with the logo of the xbox gaming console even the official xbox twitter account commented on the discovery congratulating gamers on unlocking the achievement of discovering the xbox 220 bc it's almost a shame that the discovery got derailed in this way because it's actually a fascinating and challenging find while it might not really have a green and silver color scheme it's a genuine x-shaped ancient chinese tomb and experts believe it was made in the years before the kin dynasty that means it's more than 2 200 years old nobody has any idea why the people of that era might have built a tomb so large or why there's a colossal x on its exterior so far nothing found inside or outside the site has helped archaeologists to provide any context it's still considered to be an enigmatic find the past few years have been kind to archaeologists with an interest in celtic history as well as the chariot discovery in wales the 2 500 year old tomb of a celtic prince has been found in the champagne region of france the remarkable gravesite has been hiding in plain sight in the middle of a busy business district for centuries and experts think it might help to shed light on the state of trade between european territories during the iron age that's because some of the goods found within the tomb are greek some are french and others appear to be etruscan the prince must have been known to enjoy a drink or two because the most prominent of the goods in his grave was a wine cauldron made of bronze at 130 feet across and featuring a 150 square foot chamber at its center this is one of the largest burial sites of this period ever discovered the prince himself was found at the center of the chamber still sat in his chariot at the time of his burial places like marsai and champagne were establishing themselves as city-states so this long dead celt may have been a local ruler we're staying with the celts for a moment because we have yet another incredible discovery to report this astonishing shield found in the tomb of a celtic warrior who'd lane buried in his chariot for more than 2 000 years has been described as the most outstanding celtic art discovery of the 21st century in the united kingdom it was found in late 2019 close to the town of pocklington yorkshire aside from the elaborately decorated shield and the chariot archaeologists also made the curious discovery of two ponies buried in a jumping pose as is the case with the other celtic burials we've looked at in this video thus far the deceased a man who was roughly 40 years old when he passed away was almost certainly a regional leader aside from being an attractive artifact the shield is notable because it appears to have had an offensive purpose to go with its defensive properties at its center is a large raised sphere which was probably used for striking people at close range since its discovery it's been taken away for full restoration and will eventually go on display at the british museum what do you call an armadillo shell as big as a car a carmadillo that might sound like a bad joke but the discovery of these shells was no joke for the farmer who found them close to his land while leading his cows out to graze in buenos aires argentina in february 2020. according to pablo messinio the first expert to arrive at the scene after being alerted by the farmer these are the remains of creatures known as glyptodons who roamed the earth some 20 000 years ago the species is extinct but is a relative of the modern day armadillo very few of their shells have survived the passing of the centuries but these particular shells made it thanks to the fact that they got stuck in the mud of a riverbed which preserved them now they've been exposed they're at risk of being damaged or disintegrating through exposure to the elements so messinio and his team have started the process of trying to extract them from their current location and take them somewhere safe that's likely to be difficult even the lightest of the shells weighs a full ton [Laughter] ever since a series of tunnels was discovered below the streets of edinburgh in scotland archaeologists and historians have wondered who built them and what they were used for the latest theory is that they might have been an ancient druid temple and that each of the tunnels was carved by hand the tunnels are collectively known as gilmerton cove and are at least 400 years old but could be much older as nobody knows for sure who built them they've been connected to everything from people smuggling to witchcraft and the activities of the legendary knights templar julian spalding the former head of glasgow museum now speculates that they were used by druids 2 000 years ago and were buried deliberately to protect their secretive society after the druids left the area druids were known for meeting in secret places far from general human habitation with caves and woods typical choices a secret underground temple would have been a perfect candidate the druids of the time were also known for carrying out human sacrifices so that grisly practice might also have gone on right underneath this thriving modern scottish city [Laughter] when professor heinrich frank of the federal university of rio grande in brazil found a series of tunnels beneath the small town of novo hamburgo during the early 2000s he made it his life's work to find out which mysterious civilization built them in 2018 he finally got his answer and it came as a shock to him despite their appearance these tunnels weren't created by human beings at all instead they were dug out by a gigantic and long extinct species of sloth you can get a sense of the size of the tunnels from these pictures of average sized people standing in them so that tells you how enormous these ancient sloths must have been to date more than one thousand five hundred tunnels have been found thus far many of which lead on for hundreds of feet the largest found so far is two thousand feet long has an average height of six feet and varies in width between three and five feet more than twelve thousand metric feet of dirt must have been dug out and displaced to create this one tunnel alone one single sloth couldn't have achieved this in a lifetime so the creatures must have continued working on it for generations the best guess of heinrich and his team is that the sloths responsible were the size of african elephants and became extinct around 10 000 years ago to prove this he now needs to find some giant sloth skeletons as hard a concept as it is to comprehend now there was a time when coins didn't exist and so other ways of defining the value of a trade had to be employed in the israel of 2700 years ago one such method was the use of limestone weights like this one which was found in october 2020. the artifact which was found in jerusalem is a rare first temple period example of a two shekalam unit as identified by the markings on its surface the symbol is egyptian for shekel and the two neatly carved lines next to it indicates it's a double shekel weight the records we have from the time tell us that double shekels weighed the equivalent of 23 grams which is the precise weight of this limestone sphere quite how ancient artisans managed to cut and shape weights with such precision is unknown but it would have taken the work of an extremely talented craftsperson by using weights like this traders could ensure that the weight of the goods they received was consistent with the weight of goods they sold or multiples thereof this would also have been a useful way of working out your tax bill back then tax was a mere half shekel per year [Laughter] elsewhere in israel archaeologists marveled over the discovery of what appears to be an ancient copper workshop in the middle of the negev desert in may 2020 the facility which was found at beershiva is believed to be 6500 years old a furnace has been identified at the site and to the best of anyone's knowledge might be the oldest furnace ever found anywhere in the world the time frame places the creation of the copper workshop in the chalcolithic period this has always been thought to be a relatively primitive time on earth so the discovery of a workshop in which a tin furnace was used to smelt copper ore is a surprising and enlightening find we did already know that metalworking went on during this time but nothing so advanced is this the majority of the tools used in the era were still made from stone even more remarkably the raw ore used in the furnace came from wadi feinen in jordan more than 60 miles away from the workshop this was a professional carefully planned operation it's thought that the workshop was built by the gasoline people although more evidence will need to be found before this can be stated as fact the type of steel used in most manufacturing processes today is stainless steel which is selected because it's resistant to rust the substance is also known as chromium steel and is generally thought of as a relatively recent invention that isn't the case as of september 2020 we now know that chromium steel was invented in persia more than 1 000 years ago the journal of archaeological science reports that the origins of stainless steel have been tracked to shahak in iran it's there that the ancient manuscript a compendium to know the gems was written by abi rayhan biruni and within that manuscript is a basic set of instructions for creating the rust resistant material the text was written during either the 11th century at the latest but could be a century older chahok's claim on the invention is further backed up by the recent discovery of two smithing slags in the area both of which have been dated to the 12th century and contain evidence of crucible steel creation the archaeological evidence is strong enough for this to be accepted as fact but experts aren't sure why the steel didn't go on to be made anywhere else or why the science behind it appears to have been forgotten and then rediscovered again centuries later humans have enjoyed drinking wine for almost as long as they've enjoyed eating grapes in september 2020 we got an indication of just how far back this practice goes when a two thousand seven hundred year old wine press was discovered in tel el barak lebanon the wine press which was almost certainly built by the ancient phoenicians is exceptionally well preserved archaeologists believe that tel el burak was founded by the people of nearby sidon as a satellite town to provide them with agricultural products and other essential goods and it seems that wine production was part of that bargain the facility is a fairly rustic affair consisting of a rectangular treading basin a semi-circular vat and some protective walls made of ashlar blocks they coated the finished product in a plaster made by mixing crushed broken ceramics with lime which created a water resistant product once it was finished it appears that it remained in use for several centuries the phoenicians are generally credited with the popularization of wine which spread from their civilization across the mediterranean and then on to north africa and europe it might even be the case that this wine press was the very beginning of that process workers in china's hunan province got a nasty shock recently when they unearthed an astonishingly well-preserved human body during a construction project in anwar county the male corpse is around 650 years old and is so well preserved because of the combination of limestone and fine wood that was used to make his coffin which became a preservative for his remains while his identity will likely forever remain unknown he was well cared for in death he went to his grave dressed in fine fabrics with a decorative fan placed on his chest while it's a fascinating discovery from an archaeological point of view the excavator operator who found it is unlikely to share that view chinese tradition holds that it's bad luck to open a coffin and in this case the coffin was broken open by the machinery before the worker even knew what was happening experts have been able to deduce from markings on the coffin that its occupant was a member of a family known as wang so through that information and the possibility of obtaining dna samples from the remains it might even be possible to trace living members of his family if they've survived the past few centuries [Laughter] subscribe to the channel turn on the notification bell and enjoy watching new videos on my channel thanks for watching and see you soon

Channel: Lightning Top

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Keywords: 12 Most Incredible Recent Archaeological Finds, Incredible Finds, top 12 Amazing Finds, Archaeological Finds, abandoned discover, Mysterious Finds, 12 most, top 12, lightning top, compilation, lightningtop, EverSee, Scientists Still Can't Explain

Id: gK8W2PYUevo

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021