America Unearthed: Ancient Ruins Discovered in California (S3, E7) | Full Episode | History

the history that we were all taught growing up is  wrong my name is scott walter and i'm a forensic   geologist there's a hidden history in this country  that nobody knows about there are pyramids here   chambers tombs inscriptions they're all over  this country we're going to investigate these   artifacts and sites and we're going to get to  the truth sometimes history isn't what we've been told just outside of san francisco  mysterious rock walls line the hillside   they're known as the east bay  rock walls and they stretch for miles i received a tip about the  cryptic circumstances surrounding them   no one knows how they got here if  they were built by man and if so why   it's strange we know so little about these walls   as a geologist i couldn't pass up an  opportunity to try and solve this mystery   recently i investigated another  impressive rock wall down in texas   after a closer look that  wall ended up being natural but from what i've seen so far i  don't think that's the case here today the rock walls are  split up into different groups   and stretched nearly 50 miles across the  california foothills a majority of the walls   are two to three stones high but the more  impressive areas are up to eight feet tall based on the way the different segments  are constructed i think one group of people   built the entire thing but who were  they and what were these walls for i can't help but think there's  more to this than meets the eye i track down somebody who may have more  information he's a local researcher who spent   years trying to crack this geological phenomenon  have a seat well olaf i have to say this wall is   mysterious i've looked at it and it runs for as  far as the eye can see in both directions tell   me about the archaeology that's been done here  one of the surprising things is not a lot there   was some work done in the 1980s by an amateur  geologist but beyond that very very little has   been done really yeah no archaeology that you're  aware of not that i'm aware of well that surprises   me because i mean this is a very large feature you  would think that archaeologists would want to know   who built this thing it's roughly 50 miles in  length and it's funny because most people don't   even know it's here so it doesn't get any kind of  attention it's just up here if i went down to the   local grocery store would people even know this  is here probably not i asked some people i knew   that have lived here for a long time none  of them had ever heard of it that's amazing   so how did you find out about this wall  well i write a column about things that are   strange in our area and i came across the rock  wall and i uh i wanted to write about it it's   definitely a huge mystery yeah absolutely  it took somebody a long time to build this   i looked around a little bit and i did a few tests  and one of the things i figured out pretty quick   is every rock that i tested here it's all  limestone well you know there's something   i want to show you got a rock sample here that  i collected so i was given special permission   uh by the park service if you take a look at  that sample do you see the weathering rind   around the core there i do that's limestone and  that weathering rind is very thick it's up to a   half inch thick pretty much all the way around it  because it goes all the way around it looks to me   that the weathering took place after the wall was  built this is just a rough estimate but i would   say that that weathering rind probably took at  least two to three hundred years if not longer so   whoever built this wall it's been here for a long  time that's really important because up until now   we haven't really had any idea of how old it  is i mean we hear stories and legends about   this person and that person built it but we've  never had a definitive data on its actual age   there is one other thing i'd like  to do i brought a spade with me   and i'd like to dig down at the base of the wall  to see if the rocks extend into the ground at all   or if they were just built up on the surface i  can't believe a rock wall this big stretching   50 miles along the california landscape has  never been investigated by modern scientists i'm curious to know just how far  down these rocks go into the ground how's it looking well this big rock right here  goes down about 10 inches and it's still going   this is a big rock and so really there's only a  couple possibilities here one is this is natural   it's been here the whole time and they built the  wall on top of it the other possibility is they   dug a trench here and put the rocks in and then  it just naturally filled in from higher elevation   over time some of these others are definitely  going down into the ground at least some distance   so so the wall may actually be taller yeah  well it is taller for sure here you know i   think we've done all we can do here why don't we  go check out another part of the wall sounds good well olaf i know you thought about this what are  some of the theories about who built this wall   well as with many mysteries there are a lot of  theories out there it really runs the gambit   one theory says native americans  living in the area are responsible   but the local tribes typically didn't build  walls another theory says it was built by a   group of people called lemurians who made it  to california from the mythical island of mu a final even more explosive theory  is that the chinese built them   you know there's a professor from berkeley around  1900 who talks about the possibility that this   wall was made by the chinese many people don't  realize it but in the 1400s the chinese had the   largest maritime fleet in the world their most  famous admiral was ming dynasty explorer zhang   hu but the chinese had commanded massive fleets  of state-of-the-art ships since the 11th century   trading all around the china sea the question is  did they go farther and could these walls be proof we know the chinese began building the  great wall of china thousands of years ago   as physical barriers to protect farmers if they  made landfall in what is now the united states   did they build a similar structure here what do you think the idea that it could  be the chinese you know that's as good   as any other i mean right now we have  nowhere to start and they did build walls   the idea of the chinese coming to america  before columbus is not new it's been around   for hundreds of years i've received a lot of tips  from people who think there is evidence here i've   actually worked on a project where uh stone boat  anchors were found off the coast of los angeles   that chinese ships coming over here trading  had dropped down and left and some people   think they were here in the 1800s some say  these things are thousands of years old   unfortunately i wasn't able to prove definitively  one way or the other because the sea urchins had   chewed them up to the point where we just couldn't  make that determination i think starting with the   chinese i think that's a great place to start well  if we can develop some tangible physical evidence   that ties the chinese to this wall well that would  rewrite a whole new chapter of american history   i'm in california investigating mysterious  rock walls just outside of san francisco   the walls are incredible they stretch for  50 miles and they're definitely man-made but what i find even more interesting is that  they've never been officially examined who built   them when and why one theory says the chinese  did long before columbus discovered the new world   but i still need evidence to prove it if i could find some sort of artifact connecting  the walls with ancient chinese explorers   that would be the evidence i need to make my case   but first i want to know who from china could have  come here and how they could have made such an   epic voyage so gunner i understand you're the man  to talk to about early chinese exploration of the   world yes there were migrations across the ocean  they left artifacts they left legends but what is   really important is the explorers that made maps  and i understand that major historical events   are basically categorized by which dynasty they're  associated with which dynasty is associated with   exploration well the most important dynasty  would have been in the 15th century and that   would be the ming dynasty and it was referred  to as the golden era of chinese history   the main emperor was judy and he picked a  navigator by the name of zhang ha to be his   admiral to send fleets across the oceans admiral  was the greatest explorer of the ming dynasty   and went on to become a great diplomat and leader  he's remembered today as a symbol of china's   ancient seafaring abilities tell me a little  bit about those explorations and how big were   these fleets well there were seven expeditions in  all the largest fleet at the beginning was about   137 ships and 28 000 men eight thousand twenty  eight thousand and the largest ships the baochuan   are treasure ships were approximately  four hundred to five hundred feet long   that's well over well exactly there might have  been anywhere from five to ten or possibly   thirty some scholars say in a fleet i mean this  is a major undertaking we're talking about what   time period now the first expedition was in 1405  and they went to 1433. where do these voyages go   well they started out in uh nanjing which is  sort of north eastern china and they went down   the china sea to vietnam sumatra then the east  coast of india they went on from the coast of   india to arabia somalia and then down to kenya  so it was all the way down the african coast   how many miles are we talking here i estimate  about 11 000 miles 11 000 miles right   do you think they made it to north america  i know they did because it's on their maps   the first one here is generally called  the shanghai jing which means the book   of mountains and seas there are elements within  the shanghai jing that have a correspondence with   real life so there is a good reason to believe  that this map was based on that geographical   account so i'm guessing that this circled  area here is probably china yes and i suspect   that's africa that's europe then this can only be  north and south america right right some of the   territories on this map also reflect uh references  to geography one of those is the great luminous   canyon and some people have said that referred  to the grand canyon is that mentioned here in the   text on the the text of this map it's called here  the bright chasm mountains i recently investigated   the legend of a buried treasure in a cave in the  grand canyon an early newspaper article attributed   the treasure to the egyptians but the fact  that we're talking about chinese treasure ships   and there are maps suggesting chinese explorers  were here definitely has me intrigued there's   a section that says uh high skies mountains and  that might relate to the high mountains of alaska   i think and then in the southern part there's a  section that says depending on heaven mountains   and that could correlate to the andes andy's  sure this is where we get into the situation of   a chinese map being an improvement over an  earlier map you can probably identify some uh   territories on this map yes i can we got africa  here we got europe we've got india we've got   china we've got asia and this over here  can only be north america and south america   a lot of cases these ancient maps are like  fingerprints right they're the kind of proof   that you'd look for at a crime scene that tell  you exactly who did the map what's on it and   when it was done what's the age of this map then  the original was done by navigators that went   with zheng ha in about 1435. clearly it's chinese  and it's got very good representations of north   and south america i mean this is for columbus  exactly what's going on over here well this is   a very important detail you've got an improvement  here that relates partially to the explorations of   marco polo down the west coast and then to the  subsequent explorations of ming geographers so   what would you identify that as well if this is  north america this can only be the west coast   california exactly wait a minute gunner you're  saying that marco polo the famous italian explorer   made it to what is now california not only made  it to california he was there spying for the pope after looking at impressive man-made walls  outside of san francisco in a series of maps   crafted by the chinese in the 1400s i'm thinking  there's good reason to believe the chinese beat   christopher columbus to america but a new detail  on one of the maps has me wondering about the   exploits of an italian explorer who also shows  up on the map marco polo i just learned his real   job might not have been as an explorer but  as a spy but what's his connection to china gunner let me get this straight you're saying  that marco polo the famous italian explorer   was spying for the pope the idea that  he was an explorer was his cover story   pope innocent iv sent his father and uncle to  china in order to pick up as much knowledge as   they could about chinese technological weapons and  when his father and uncle got too old to do the   field work they went back to venice and picked up  marco polo so marco polo's real job was to go out   on these chinese expeditions across the pacific  ocean and map the entire coast of north america   and so the maps prove that he served as a spy  gunner's theories are incredible he's already   shown me two maps that are strong evidence  the chinese beat columbus to north america   now he says marco polo the italian explorer who  traveled throughout asia during the 13th century   made it to the west coast with the chinese  fleets while on a secret mission for the pope   so do you have one of these maps of north america  that we can trace back to marco polo yes i do   this map by abraham ortelius  that dates to about the   1580s and shows the entire west coast along with  the mongolian territories in asia so this is the   territory of the grand con the great  khan which would have been kublai khan   or marco polo's boss so what this map tells us  is that there were some geographers that knew   that marco polo was serving as a diplomat for  kublai khan and acquiring all of these west   coast territories in north america well how could  he claim this land if he didn't know it was there   somebody had to have been there and mapped it  exactly so really what this map proves is that   there was pre-columbian exploration all the way  down the western coast of north america exactly   that's amazing it is i was just in california i  looked at some very interesting stone walls just   outside of san francisco they stretch for over  50 miles and nobody knows when they were built   they certainly weren't made recently and they  could very well be hundreds of years old maybe   older than that when marco polo traveled down  the west coast he got to a region approximately   where san francisco is located your map evidence  here is not only convincing but it's conclusive   there's no question in my mind that early chinese  explorers definitely made it to what is now north   america and these walls that i looked at tell me  that there could be more evidence over in china the rock walls i saw in california stump me at  first who built them why and more importantly   why don't we know anything about them but maybe  we know more than we think the maps i looked at   don't lie it seems clear to me the chinese  were aware of north america before columbus   and since they brought marco polo along on their  voyages he also knew about north america a secret   he relayed back to the pope in europe who he  was spying for but now i want to know how do   the walls outside of san francisco compare to the  largest wall of all time the great wall of china i'm in china looking for something anything   that connects the rock walls in california  with the seafaring chinese what i find   here could be the missing piece of evidence i  need to turn this theory into historical fact crystal hi how are you good how  are you nice to finally meet you   this is mr don hi mr dong scott walters this is spectacular to say the least one of the  seven wonders of the world i'm standing on a   portion of the great wall built during the ming  dynasty which stretches 5500 miles but amazingly   long before that era other dynasties had built  smaller sections of the wall throughout china   so if you joined all these walls together they  would stretch for more than twelve thousand miles   how long would it have taken to build all these  walls when did it start and when did it end 2600 years ago the chinese  started to build the great wall   from the very first chinese dynasty  that started the construction through   the end of the ming dynasty the total amount of  building time spans more than two thousand years well the obvious question that one has to ask  why did they build such a massive structure   the ancient chinese had two main trades hunting  and farming the west and the south of china had   natural barriers but the north had nothing  the hunting civilization needed goods from   the farming civilization and there were  two ways they got these items robbing   or trading in order to avoid conflicts between  the two civilizations the farming civilization   decided to build these massive wall barriers  so the wall ensured that people would trade   fairly with each other and it kind of  forced them to do things the right way   exactly this helped the ancient chinese  avoid conflicts over the centuries   one of the reasons i'm here at the great wall  is to investigate the question of whether or not   ancient chinese may have come to what is now  north america i'd like to show you a few pictures   these are some of the walls right here and like  here where the wall goes in the mountain tops   these also go at the top of these mountains in  southern california and they go for over 50 miles   you can see the construction is different here you  have stone and mortar construction this is drywall   these have been stacked do you have anything  like this here as part of the great wall of china   they don't have the home you can't  actually we hunt she's either talking   really so you're saying there are portions of the  great wall that look like these walls i saw in california my investigation started in california   where mysterious man-made rock walls line  the hillsides outside of san francisco   there is no historical explanation for why  they're here but i'm determined to find one   map evidence suggests that the chinese knew  about north america hundreds of years before   columbus and that famed explorer marco polo  could have landed here in the 13th century   if that's true is it possible that the chinese  and marco polo are responsible for these walls at first i didn't think so but  the wall's unexplained existence   coupled with the map revelations  are too intriguing to ignore right now i've still got  more questions than answers are there portions of the great wall that  look like these walls i saw in california i'm really impressed by the walls in your  photo they don't resemble the ming dynasty   wall we are standing on right now but  they look very similar to portions of   the great wall people were building here  in china around 200 bc that's amazing a lot of the older parts of the wall recently  uncovered in inner mongolia in northern china   look like the walls in these photos if you  wouldn't have said these were in california   i would have thought you were showing  me photos of the walls in northern china well this is really encouraging to hear is there   anything around here that you  could show me sure no problem i can't believe there are walls in northern  china that look so much like the mystery walls   in northern california hard evidence like that  convinces me i'm on the right track i've gotten   special access to see a so-called wild wall that  demonstrates how many construction styles were   used to build the great wall unfortunately it's  not exactly like the walls in northern china   mr dong told me about but it's easy to see the  chinese were using different building techniques   well this is a lot different than what we saw  with all the tourists this has not been kept up   but it's still just as amazing  it goes up and down the mountains   this area is closer to where people live it's  closed to all tourists in order to maintain and   preserve what's left and what was this structure  used for down there this part of the wall is   referred to as enemy defense they would store  weapons here as well as soldiers to stand guard   and watch for enemies approaching sure like  how many people typically these structures   would house three to five people but this one  is bigger and would have held 10 to 20 soldiers   during the day the soldiers monitored the  trading between civilizations but when enemies   were spotted they would pass along signals from  one station to another to warn other soldiers when an army would be invading  here how did they tell the rest of   their men that something  was going down how they got   twenty days one method was with flags another  method was with fire at night these methods   of warning each other about approaching  enemies reaches all the way back to 700 bc   this is fascinating because native  americans would also use fire they   would use smoke body gestures to convey  messages from mountaintops and hilltops   the reason for this could be that great men  think alike or another possibility is that   there was direct communication between the  two continents and the people exchanged ideas   do you think ancient chinese navigators made it to  what is now the united states the hong kong yes i   think it's very possible maybe it was human nature  to explore and communicate with different nations this case continues to grow first did ming  dynasty explorers make it to the west coast   of north america in 1433 and if they did were  they actually following in the footsteps of   earlier chinese sailors who brought marco  polo with them the evidence is mounting but   i still need more proof like a journal or  a chinese artifact found on american soil   something that links north america  with ancient china once and for all yes i'm investigating the theory that ancient  explorers from china made it to the west   coast of north america before columbus mysterious  rock walls in california inspired my research   and ancient maps from the ming dynasty and earlier  suggest i'm on to something there are distinct   similarities between the california rock walls  and ancient parts of the great wall of china   i now know marco polo who is spying for  the pope might have tagged along on a   chinese voyage 150 years before another  chinese voyager supposedly made the trip now i need to learn about this explorer admiral  zhang hu i'm meeting an admiral from the chinese   navy at a park that honors this great ming  dynasty explorer we know he made seven epic   voyages going as far as africa and a growing  number of scholars think he made it even farther   to the shores of north america i've examined  map evidence that builds a strong case improving   the chinese beat columbus to the new world all  that's missing is physical proof this is massive this is a replica of a chinese treasure ship  from the ming dynasty when admiral zhang hu   made his seven epic voyages this ship is 20 in  ancient chinese measurements which is 230 feet how many people could this ship carry   trigger that warmed up there were  around 400 people on each treasure ship why did china want to build this replica here nanjing was actually the capital  of china during the ming dynasty   the shipyard was located right here on the  yangtze river almost exactly where we're   standing this is where admiral zhang built all  his treasure ships six hundred years ago woman   what would this ship carry what was the purpose  of this ship this type of boat always contained   treasures such as silk that admiral zhang ho would  use to trade or give away as a sign of friendship the fleet would have almost 200 ships of all  different sizes the treasure ship was the   flagship the biggest in the fleet we're talking  about a massive fleet how far could they go according to ancient chinese measurement  they sailed more than 100 thousand lee   which is fifty thousand kilometers in modern  measurement fifty thousand yes if zheng hua   went to africa why could he not have sailed to the  east and gone to north america you were down sure   we think admiral jungkook died  at sea during the seventh voyage   so he himself didn't make it to north  america but i think it's very possible   his fleets could have made it that far  or even chinese fleets before his time chinese scholars continue to uncover historical  evidence once thought to be lost forever about   the epic voyages of jung many think one of the  voyages could have made it to north america   60 years before columbus maybe they'll even find  evidence from the dynasty before the ming the   dynasty of kubla khan and the italian explorer and  possible spy marco polo i'm absolutely convinced   that ancient chinese definitely made it to america  a ship like this would have no problem making it   but the scholars are going to say that's fine you  have an opinion but where is the hard evidence and   i have to admit it's a good point so what i need  to find is a tangible artifact that scholars can   hold in their hands something that will convince  them that the ancient chinese made it to america i am more convinced now than ever that  the ancient chinese had the know-how   and the guts to make it to north america the  map evidence is strong and the fact that the   california rock walls match ancient parts of  the great wall in northern china is undeniable   but what i said to the admiral is right  i still need a physical piece of evidence   to end this argument once and for all  and i think i may know just where to look a while ago a fellow researcher contacted me  and said there was an artifact i needed to see it was found here in america but it seems to be of  chinese origin it's not widely known to the public   and it's protected under lock and key   the only way to examine this artifact  is through its owner a man named dr lee could this small bag contain the huge  piece of evidence i'd been searching for my investigation started with mysterious rock  walls in california some say they proved ming   dynasty explorers beat columbus to the new world  and new map evidence says marco polo landed on the   west coast even earlier during the 13th century  traveling with the chinese but spying for the pope we know the chinese built walls the question  is did they build the walls in california   at first i thought a link with the  great wall of china was far-fetched   but i was wrong there are parts of the great wall  that do match the rock wall near san francisco   but i know scholars demand proof in the form of  artifacts and that's what i'm hoping to find here   there's a treasure hunter who found this   buried in ground four inches down wow and  this was how long ago he founded in 1993   western part of north carolina into the foothills  of appalachian so this was found in north america   in the appalachian mountains 250 miles from the  ocean right do i see chinese characters here   yes it sets great main shender commissioned or  dedicated to give juwan d was the fifth emperor of   china during the ming dynasty he ruled from 1425  to 1435 a.d which means he took over right before   admiral zhang hu's seventh and final voyage this  reminds me of a peace medal that were given to the   native americans to build strategic alliances it's  given out a along with a lot of gifts this is just   the card the emperor's card this was his business  card that he was handling in this car telling   everybody that hey i'm the new emperor how do you  think this medallion got to that spot how did that   happen well it's changed hands through different  tribes they trade with each other okay trade was   the impetus for all types of exploration it's what  led people like columbus magellan marco polo and   admiral jianghu to voyage far beyond their borders  dr lee believes that in 1433 admiral zhang ho or   at least one of his ships did make it to north  america however not to the west coast but the east it's possible and this medallion could be a clue  but the provenance of it is a problem i'm a bit   skeptical until dr lee reveals his second piece  of evidence a map made public in 1602 but that was   likely made long before it's always thought to be  the work of an italian jesuit named matteo ricci   who came to china in 1582. okay so they think  that he was the one that made this map yes people   always think that he got his information from  european maps and translated that into chinese but   this map is not translated from european  maps it is a map done by the chinese 60 years   before columbus set sail europe is  very old it doesn't have florence   it doesn't have the papal states as a  jesuit matteo ricci could not have left out   florence and the papal states well no he  wouldn't have left out if it's just like u.s   met today without washington d.c and new york city  since this map makes no reference to some major   european cities like florence it's likely it was  created and translated much earlier than the 1500s   therefore i believe dr lee makes a good argument  that the chinese discovered north america long   before columbus and if that's true what's to say  marco polo didn't come with them as a spy for the   pope look at north america here what i see with  all the rivers the mountains i mean you can tell   immediately that that is north america this  is going to take hundreds of years of mapping   to get this level of detail this had to have  been long before columbus to develop a map   of this detail i mean this is incredible  you can actually identify the places today   matching the the names on this map there's  a name here apache which is now appalachian   this name appeared in another chinese map that  predates reaches the amount that's amazing   the knowledge of western part of north america  has only started with lewis and clark in 1804   to 1806. that's laughable now so this is 200 years  before lewis and clark we already have the western   part of north america in such detail to get that  level of detail would have taken hundreds of years   and according to established history europeans  could not have done it so really the only other   plausible candidates you have are the chinese  because half of the names are not found on   european maps mean that the chinese had to have  been to these places named them before columbus   made any of his four voyages that's absolutely  true you realize what you're saying you're blowing   the lid off of all the scholars absolutely  long-held beliefs of the history of america did the ancient chinese come to america my  answer is yes the question now is when and   was marco polo part of that voyage there are  rock walls in california that started me on my   quest for the truth and the discovery that they  look a lot like parts of the great wall of china   there's a medallion that honors an emperor from  the ming dynasty discovered in north carolina   there are detailed maps proving an ancient  connection to admiral zhang hu and possibly even   to the dynasty before him could chinese explorers  have actually stepped foot on north american soil   in the 13th century and was marco polo with  him spying for the pope together these things   are all clues to an ancient chinese connection  to america we're just starting to understand if you have a mysterious  artifact or site i need to see   i want to know about it go to history.com on earth you

Channel: HISTORY

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Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, america unearthed, history america unearthed, america unearthed show, america unearthed full episodes, america unearthed clips, full episodes, full episodescarvings, America Unearthed season 3 episode 7, America Unearthed s3 e7, America Unearthed s03 e07, America Unearthed 3X7, America Unearthed s3 full episodes, America Unearthed season 3 clips, Episode 7, Ancient Stone Ruins, Ruins Discovered in California

Id: 8FCl2lbRvWY

Length: 43min 9sec (2589 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Curious_Pangolin_334]

Does anyone remember when the history channel actually showed real history?

[u/[deleted]]

This is cool!

[u/jmraef]

Interesting. I've lived in the East Bay for 60+ years, I have never heard of this!

I find it hard to believe that no archaeology student at Cal Berkeley (or anywhere else) has endeavored to tackle this. Not far enough away I guess?