12 Most Uncomfortable And Controversial Finds In American History

not everything that historians and archaeologists discover pleases them sometimes they come across artifacts or other pieces of evidence that challenge our current understanding of history not always in a good way for better or worse those new facts have to be accepted as they are even if they change the way we think about our own history here in this video we're going to look at the most controversial discoveries in american history an out-of-place artifact is one that appears to have no business being in the place where it was found like finding a modern wristwatch in an ancient egyptian tomb for example for many people the stone egg of lake winnipesaukee is one such out of place artifact the egg was found by construction workers as they dug a hole for a fence post close to wake winnipesaukee in new england in 1872 at a depth of six feet it's been studied by experts and historians for more than a hundred years since then but we're still no closer to completely understanding it than we were the day it came out of the ground the type of rock used to carve the egg isn't from the new hampshire area and the markings on it are inconsistent with anything else that's ever been found in the usa the symbols are probably tribal but no native american tribe recognizes them the quality of the stonework is impressive the egg is drilled almost all the way through and polished to a shine despite being made from granite while some have written it off as a hoax others believe that it's evidence of an advanced civilization of stone workers living in america centuries ago while we're talking about ancient and unknown civilizations in america we should talk about the petroglyphs at winnemucca lake in nixon nevada there in the dry bed of what was once a lake you'll find the oldest petroglyphs in the whole country carbon dating had to be carried out to reveal the last time the level of the lake had been low enough to allow someone to make these carvings and the answer came back is about 14 800 years in american terms that's almost prehistoric some of the etched symbols are little more than lines crosses or swirling patterns but there are also some more advanced representations of flowers and trees the question of how significant they were to the people who made them is unresolved but so is the question of who those people were as with the lake winnipesaukee egg native american tribes have examined the symbols and confirmed that they're unknown to them they are twice as old as any other rock carvings that have been found in america so far and as such they're something of a historic anomaly as we're all told in school christopher columbus discovered america unfortunately for you us and the education system that's a lie there were already people living in america when columbus arrived and even if we're talking about the first foreign visitors to the country columbus wasn't among them columbus opened the door to english and spanish colonization of america after his accidental arrival there in 1492 but the first people on the land probably arrived from asia 15 000 years ago by crossing the bering land bridge back then the strip of land connected alaska directly to siberia so people could walk from one to the other if you'd prefer to focus on the first european arrivals on north american land that honor would go to the vikings who arrived at newfoundland in canada some five centuries before columbus they set up a small town the remains of which can still be seen today there's even some evidence that the chinese colonized parts of south america in the early 15th century a few decades before columbus showed up columbus was far from being the first he just had the biggest impact after he arrived [Music] the existence of the jug known as the fuente magna is such a thorny subject that some historians are still trying to find a way to prove that it's a fake more than half a century after it was discovered in pumapunke bolivia in 1950 it's not so much the jug that's significant but the script that decorates the sides of it to many people including noted expert dr clyde winters the writing is a form of cuneiform and can be directly compared to early forms of both sumerian and semitic cuneiform he's been able to point to especially apparent similarities between the sumerian cuneiform and the cuneiform on the fuenta magna and that presents a substantial historical problem the ancient sumerians came from the part of the world that we now call the middle east mostly from iraq there ought to be no way whatsoever that their language could have spread as far as peru if they did it means that the sumerians were an incredibly advanced seafaring race and that they too ought to be considered among the first foreign people to arrive in the americas [Music] some discoveries seem too implausible to be true and yet when they happen we have to give them our full consideration take for example the discovery of a carved bell inside a seam of 300 million year old coal by a 10 year old boy called newton anderson in 1944 the bell which was found in upshur county west virginia is made of brass and came complete with an iron clapper it was however firmly embedded in coal that formed during the carboniferous period on earth to some fundamentalist christians this is evidence that the bell is a so-called antediluvian artifact created in the times before the biblical flood described in genesis their assessment is backed up by the institute for creation research which had the bell examined at the university of oklahoma if they're to be believed analysis of the bell revealed that it was made of a strange blend of metals that are inconsistent with any modern age design for what it's worth newton anderson took a polygraph test as an adult the results of which suggest that he was telling the truth about the bell and the way it was found i think we can safely assume that the institute for creation research may be a little biased but it's still a fascinating artifact the nampa figurine wasn't found inside a 300 million year old coal seam but it's no easier to explain the bizarre tiny figure which looks almost like a doll was discovered during the digging of a well in the southwest of idaho in 1889 at a depth of nearly 300 feet the drill began to spit out pieces of clay one of which was a damaged figurine while it's possible that this shape was created by the drill it seems spectacularly unlikely that leads us to ask who could have made it and how did it come to be 300 feet below the ground at such a depth that the earth ought not to have been touched there for the last 2 million years to add to the conundrum the top layer of the ground it was found within has been sealed under a basalt layer caused by volcanic activity thousands of years earlier to put that in its most basic terms it means there's no chance that the figure got there by accident extremely early humans did exist two million years ago but as far as we know they were confined to africa perhaps we should consider that they might have been in idaho too [Music] let's add the ancient romans to the list of people who might have visited the americas in ancient times and in support of that theory we present the existence of the tacosic calyx de la huaca head the weathered head sculpture was buried in mexico somewhere around the year 1470 probably just before columbus arrived in the americas as part of a grave all the other goods that were found inside the tomb were typical for the era and the type of burial but this head is not in fact the only thing this head could be compared to is the kind of sculpture style that was once popular in ancient rome even the face on the sculpture appears to be more european in style than native american the head was found by archaeologist jose garcia payan in 1933 beneath the pyramid but it shocked him so much that he didn't reveal it to the wider world until 1960. in 2001 romeo h hristov of the university of new mexico confirmed that the head is definitely roman and was probably made during the second century that begs the question of how it came to be in mexico in pre-columbian times did the vikings bring it here as a souvenir or were the romans once here too scientists and historians will often direct bile at anything that doesn't fit their preferred narrative and the davenport tablets get more bile than the most problematic artifacts these stone slates were discovered inside mounds in davenport iowa in early 1877 by rev jacob gas to their detractors their forgeries either created by the reverend or left there for him to find made from slate tiles stolen from a roof to their supporters they're the american equivalent of the rosetta stone the fact that gas is an amateur archaeologist was occasionally known to trade in fake native american pipes doesn't help those who believe in the authenticity of the tablets to win the argument what the detractors can't explain though is the fact that one of the tablets contains a carving that represents the ancient egyptian opening of the mouth ceremony on the other side of the same tablet there are examples of egyptian writing and a representation of egyptian style obelisks this is yet another example of images of life abroad turning up in america long before they ought to when you blow open a cave in a mountain anything might turn up two gold prospectors found that out to their great surprise in june 1934 when they blasted open the rocks of the san pedro mountains of wyoming and found themselves inside a small cavern they weren't alone in there there was a small mummified set of human remains and they looked nothing like any human either of the men had ever seen now known as the san pedro mountains mummy this unique specimen might be a validation of the native american tales of little people who used to live in the mountains according to native american traditions there were impish people with great healing powers the mummified skeleton was barely over six feet tall but clearly genuine x-rays carried out in later years revealed that there was raw meat in the stomach of the corpse and that he was an adult male with a severe birth deformity who died somewhere around the year 1700 the deformity explanation doesn't sit well with everyone though and they prefer to believe the little person story to compound the mystery the corpse was lost during the 1980s and is still missing today [Music] the mayan calendar isn't so much a single artifact as a concept but it's still one that holds plenty of fascination today not least because many people believe that it predicts the end of the world although the existence of the mayan calendar has been known about and understood for decades it first became internationally famous in the 21st century because it appeared to predict the end of the world in 2012. as we all know 2012 came and went without incident but some people now claim that we've missed the date and the world will actually end in 2020. that feels more and more likely with each and every passing day the calculation system we know as the mayan calendar dates back 2500 years and is actually mislabeled various cultures that existed before the maya used the same system of monitoring the stars and measuring time although the mayans refined and added to it those who have a particular affection for the calendar believe that it's already made a series of successful predictions of the future and therefore demonstrates that the ancient occupants of the americas were clairvoyant although the accuracy of those predictions is wide open to interpretation [Music] in recent years we've seen an increase in the number of people who believe that a race of giant humans occupied the earth either before or at the same time as ancient humans we've even seen these smithsonian accused of hiding evidence of the existence of these giants in this case perhaps the conspiracy theorists have a point how else could anyone explain the size of this footprint which was found in the peluxi river close to glen rose in texas the imprint is almost two feet long and is wider than any human foot we've ever seen scientists have made calculations based on the size of the footprint and from those calculations they've concluded that the person who made the imprint must have been almost 10 feet tall that sounds like a giant to us the experts haven't even tried to explain away this artifact instead they just try to tell us that it isn't a footprint at all and the fact that it looks like a footprint is just a coincidence that is extremely difficult to believe here's a challenge to history that stares you straight in the face literally during the 1950s a colossal stone head was found in the jungle of guatemala there's no mistaking the features on the head's face they're caucasian in nature and don't resemble any of the pre-hispanic races who lived in central america during the times of antiquity stone faces like this are known to have been made by the olmecs three thousand years ago they've made other stone heads in the area and they positioned the faces of those heads to face the sky in the same way that this one does none of the other faces have features like this though for the olmec to have made this they must also presumably have seen a caucasian person and that suggests a caucasian presence in this part of america at a time before christians believe jesus walked the earth much of the statue was sadly destroyed during an armed conflict in the region around 10 years after the first photo was taken and so further examination of it is sadly impossible our inability to see it with our own eyes today makes it easy for a lot of people to dismiss it entirely but the original photograph tells no lies [Music] subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications and you will be the first to know when a new video comes out thank you for watching and see you in the next video

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,763,645

Rating: 4.6965446 out of 5

Keywords: 12 Most Uncomfortable And Controversial Finds In American History, ancient artifacts, mysterious artifacts, unexplainable finds, unusual discoveries, American history, artifacts, ancient, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: O5Q4uKP90FM

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2020