Expedition Files (2024) s01e04 Episode Script

1
Coming up on "expedition files"
150 British settlers set up
a colony in the new world,
and then seem to disappear forever.
Or did they?
We may finally know the true story of
the roanoke colony,
and a biblical tale of two cities
wiped off the face of the earth.
New evidence suggests we may
have uncovered the true fate of
sodom and gomorrah.
And 5,000 years ago, an
enormous monument was
mysteriously constructed.
But now, science may
finally reveal the truth behind
the secrets of stonehenge.
In the corridors of time
are mysteries that defy explanation.
Now, I'm traveling through history itself
on a search for the truth.
New evidence.
Shocking answers.
I'm Josh gates,
and these
Are my "expedition files."
Where we're from shapes who
we are, but there are some places
that shape us even though
we've never visited them.
Places so strange, so
curious, that they loom large
in our imaginations.
Tonight, we examine the files
of three of the most mysterious
places on the planet, places we all know,
but paradoxically, none of us understand.
From a lost new world colony
whose inhabitants vanished
without a trace, an
ancient biblical city that
was said to be brutally wiped
off the map by the hand of god,
and a circle of mystical stones
that has captivated humanity
for millennia.
A single question maps
a path between them.
What is the true story of these places?
We begin here in 1587.
To the European settlers
who dared to cross the Atlantic,
the so-called new world appears
to be an unexplored wilderness
of limitless opportunity.
One of the very first groups
of settlers has just arrived.
The good ship Lyon,
sailing from Plymouth,
england, with 115 souls on
board, has dropped anchor at
roanoke island off the
coast of what today is
north Carolina, led by this man,
explorer and artist John white.
They are here to
establish an English colony.
Now, these are not
seasoned soldiers, but families.
In fact, John white is even
bringing his own pregnant
daughter, Eleanor,
along on the adventure.
But their hopes will soon
disappear, and so will they.
Within three years, every
single one of them will
vanish without a trace,
as if they never existed.
These brave settlers risked
everything to found our nation.
But today, their fate
remains tragically unknown.
For hundreds of years, the
myth of the roanoke colony
has perplexed historians.
Were they wiped out by the elements,
killed by indigenous tribes?
Did they relocate to
somewhere uncharted?
If you ask residents of roanoke today,
they'll tell you the colony
was simply lost to time,
but history might have
gotten this story wrong,
as new evidence finally
reveals a 450-year-old secret.
John white first set foot in
the new world two years before
he arrived with his daughter.
In 1585, he was sent with
a battalion of soldiers to
map the area.
He quickly bonded with the
local croatoans who helped
him navigate this extremely foreign land.
They built a settlement,
but within a year's time,
relations with another indigenous tribe
turned violent.
Most of the men, including
John white, returned to Europe.
But to preserve an English presence,
15 men are ordered to remain.
But now, two years later,
white is back with a vengeance,
returning on the orders
of queen Elizabeth I,
with 115 men, women, and
children to establish england's
first permanent colony as its governor.
But when they arrive, they are greeted by
an unsettling scene.
Of the 15 men that had been
left behind, they find bones of
only one settler and no sign of
the rest, perhaps a dark omen
of things to come.
Still, the settlers begin
the hard work of making
the new world their new home.
Within weeks, John white's
daughter, Eleanor, gives birth
to the very first English
child born in North America.
Her name? Virginia.
But realizing they don't have
enough provisions to face
the coming hardships of winter,
John white makes the difficult
decision to leave his
friends and family behind
and return to england to resupply.
He is slightly comforted
knowing that he has left behind
his trusty guide from the croatoan tribe,
a native named manteo,
who he hopes will help
the settlers survive.
He doesn't know it, but this
is the last time he will see
his daughter, Eleanor,
his granddaughter, Virginia,
or indeed any of the
other settlers ever again.
On his departure, he
instructs them that if
they come into trouble,
to carve on the trees,
post or doors, a cross,
and the name of the place
where they'll be.
When John gets back to
england, his plans fall apart.
He's prevented from
heading back to the new world
because of the anglo-Spanish war.
And what should have been
a three-month trip turns into
an excruciating three
years before he can return to
his family and friends.
Finally, in August of 1590,
white sets foot on the shores
of North America for the third time.
Yet as he and his
crew arrive on roanoke,
white is shocked to find no signs of life.
But mysteriously, there
are no signs of death either.
In his desperate search for
survivors, he finds no bodies,
no evidence of struggle.
When they search the settlement,
the mystery deepens.
The colony is completely abandoned.
All the structures have been dismantled.
But he does locate one critical clue.
There on a post is a
single word, croatoan.
White is filled with a
sudden sense of relief.
He knows what that means.
The settlers must have
abandoned their post to travel
to the island of croatoan, 50 miles south.
Encouraged, white and his
crew sail to croatoan, excited to
reconnect with the settlers.
But mother nature has other plans.
Hammered by weather and
running desperately low on supplies,
the ship's captain refuses
to continue on to croatoan,
and forces white to return to england
without finding the settlers.
Back in London, white
desperately tries to
raise funds to return to search
for his daughter, Eleanor,
granddaughter, Virginia,
and the other settlers.
But tragedy strikes.
John white falls sick and dies,
and with John's death, he
may have sealed the fate
of those he left behind.
It isn't until 20 years later in
1607 that a new group, led by
captain John Smith, heads
to the so-called new world to
create their own settlement,
the jamestown colony.
When they arrive, the search
for roanoke settlers resumes.
John Smith questions
local indigenous tribes,
searching for answers.
And the tribes provide
encouraging news.
They speak of natives near
croatoan with blue eyes, wearing
European-style clothing, and speaking
the local algonquin language.
But Smith has his own
problems back at jamestown.
The new settlement
is struggling to survive
and doesn't have the resources
to make the 150-mile journey
to croatoan.
The jamestown settlers
are never able to confirm that
these blue-eyed natives might
actually be roanoke survivors.
Lacking any solid evidence,
the fate of the roanoke
settlers slips into the shadows.
Despite all the sacrifices
they made to found what would
become america, it seems
america has forgotten them.
Centuries pass, and
the legend of roanoke's
missing inhabitants becomes less
a mystery to be solved and more
of an eerie ghost story
stunningly, it isn't until
350 years after their
disappearance that a dark
and ominous twist
emerges in the roanoke case,
casting new shadows over
the fate of the lost colony.
1937, north Carolina, 50
miles inland from where
the lost settlers landed at
roanoke island 350 years ago.
A hiker is walking near
the chowan river when
they stumble on a stunning
piece of evidence that could
unlock the fate of the roanoke settlers.
It is a stone with a remarkable
inscription, seemingly written
by John white's daughter,
Eleanor, and confirming the sad
end of Virginia, the first
baby born in the new world.
Virginia went hence unto heaven 1591.
Does this inscription
confirm the tragic death of
the first English baby born
in the new world, John white's
granddaughter, Virginia?
And there's more.
On the other side of the
stone, Eleanor purportedly
writes of the settlers' plight.
Father, soon after you left for england,
we came here, only misery
and war for two years.
More than half of us died
these two years, mostly from
sickness, being 24 in number.
More stones are uncovered
as amateur archeologists scour
the woods of the carol in
as and northern Georgia.
In all, 48 inscriptions are found.
They come to be known as
the dare stones, and they tell
a riveting tale of the settlers' journey
and resettlement 50
miles west of roanoke.
So, mystery solved,
right? Well, not so fast.
Four years after the
discovery of the dare stones,
a journalist from the
Saturday evening post
takes a closer look.
The journalist's conclusion is damning.
The dare stones are
not written by the settlers.
Rather, they are an
elaborate hoax created by
a master engraver.
Even the first stone,
supposedly written by
his daughter, Eleanor
dare, turned out to be a fake.
But if the settlers didn't
head west as the dare stones
suggest, then what happened to them?
How do 115 souls
vanish without a trace?
Did they perish in the wilderness due to
starvation or some hostile force?
Or instead, did they head
south, down the Carolina coast
toward hatteras island,
formerly known as croatoan,
as John white believed to his dying day?
In 2016, I went to hatteras
island myself and met with
an archaeological team led by
Scott Dawson, who has dedicated
his life to searching for
any sign of the lost settlers.
Do you think the lost
colony folks came here?
Are you convinced of that?
They literally wrote
down, they came here,
they had a relationship with this tribe.
I mean, those things, the
historical context can't be
thrown out the window.
Right, until we find that
one magical object that seals
the deal, you'll continue to dig.
Yeah.
Eight years have passed since
I was last on hatteras island,
and in that time, Scott and his
team have continued to excavate
the site, and what they've
been finding is remarkable.
We're literally finding
artifacts from the colony,
and we're finding them
in a croatoan village.
With the longhouse post holes,
the croatoan themselves are
buried there, the nails, the bricks,
there's hundreds of thousands
of pieces of croatoan pottery,
and even the guns and swords
and weapons, pipes and tools
and arrows and all that stuff.
And we find all of that,
and it's all together.
The colonists and the
croatoan, they're living together.
We said before we even
started, the greatest thing we could
possibly find is a tudor Rose.
It's such a tiny window in time.
It's specifically queen Elizabeth's court.
And we found it, the end of 2021.
So the proof is indisputable.
They're living together.
Archeologist Mark horton
has been working with Scott
and his team, and what
he's discovered is stunning.
Perhaps this is not a story of tragedy,
but of truly epic survival.
What we found in the excavations is that
they're wearing European clothes.
They have European technologies,
like they're working copper.
We've also found clear evidence
of elizabethan material
in 16th century levels
and remarkable evidence for this society
surviving into the 17th century.
The tangible clues that
the archaeologists have
uncovered not only point
to the colonists' presence on
hatteras island, but may finally answer
the question of how
they came to be there.
So when John white did
return, he found nothing
but the abandoned colony,
with the houses all broken down
and partly dismantled.
They'd taken all their
possessions with them.
So he knew that they
had left not under duress,
but entirely voluntarily.
They immediately see
croatoan in all capital letters
on a palisade, and
there's no cross under it.
So they didn't leave for danger.
And then you add in
the fact that their guide
and interpreter, manteo,
he's back with them.
It only makes sense that
manteo would take the colony to
croatoan, where he was from.
So what actually happened
is the colony did exactly like
they said, and they went to croatoan
and lived there forever.
If this is correct, it seems
this isn't just a story about
the courageous survival
of the roanoke settlers.
It is also a remarkable tale
about the many people still
living on the island where they settled.
The mystery is how has
this mystery survived?
Because all the evidence in
the world is pointing to one spot.
But people are like,
"well, I learned in school"
And when people learn something
when they're nine years old,
it's hard to change.
And some of it is just money,
because there's so much money
made off of this myth.
So I'm doing this to tell the
truth, because I don't think
the croatoan people
should be erased from history
just to prop up some silly myth.
Croatoan is a real
place and a real people.
It's the island that I'm
from, and it's the tribe that
I descend from, and I want people
to know that they existed,
and they are a part of American history.
That's the truth.
Thanks to the team's
research, we may truly be able to
understand the fate
of the roanoke settlers
for the very first time.
What was always considered
a story of tragedy may be
something completely different.
It appears the settlers
courageously endured.
When the old world abandoned
them, they forged a new home,
assimilating into a completely
different culture by shedding
their old ways and building
a new community together.
Our next file takes us to
sin city no, not Vegas,
the original sin city.
There's no flashing neon here
because it's 3,500 years ago,
and I'm in the city of sodom.
You might have heard of it in
the Bible alongside its equally
sinful neighbor, gomorrah.
Sodom is a place to indulge
in, well, whatever you want,
and have the ultimate good time.
But here's the thing,
its time is almost up.
If you believe the scripture,
both sodom and gomorrah will
soon be completely
erased and lost to history.
And that's because of these
two and the man they're about to
meet, named lot.
Soon, everything you're
looking at will be destroyed by
the hand of god.
Lot is the lone righteous man
in this city of sin, chosen by
god to be a last-ditch
chance at redemption.
You can't tell from the lack of
wings, but these out-of-towners
walking behind lot here are angels.
According to the old testament,
their time in sodom is going to
convince them and their boss upstairs
that will rain down
literal fire and brimstone
creating a story that will
echo across the centuries.
Perhaps it is a myth,
because there is no historical
trace of sodom and
gomorrah in the desert sands.
Many other biblical cities
have been discovered
or are still standing today.
But sodom and gomorrah,
if they really existed,
truly were wiped off the map.
Now, of course, you'd
be forgiven if you thought
this was all just a fable
about the consequences of
immoral behavior.
After all, there's no
archeological evidence that
sodom really was destroyed
in biblical hellfire or that it
even existed at all Or is there?
We can now reveal new
evidence that may bring us closer to
a shocking historical truth.
According to the story,
sodom is a prosperous place.
Some have suggested that
prosperity may have come from
the ancient opium trade.
The Bible hints that its
people were not only well-off,
but wicked and prideful,
with an excess of resources,
yet unwilling to assist the poor,
perhaps explaining
why god gets so angry.
If the old testament is to be
believed, god decides to wipe
sodom and its similarly
unsavory sister city,
gomorrah, clean off the map.
But before god destroys
the cities, he lets Abraham,
his very righteous
right-hand man, in on his plan.
Abraham is worried
for the city's residents,
especially because his
nephew lot, who we met earlier,
happens to be one of them.
God makes a deal with Abraham.
He'll spare sodom if he can find just
10 righteous residents.
Unfortunately, finding
innocence in sodom is
tough sledding.
So god sends two of his angels
disguised as travelers to sodom
for a final walkthrough.
They meet lot, allegedly
the only good citizen,
who welcomes them into his home.
That night, an angry
mob surrounds lot's house
and demands he hand over his visitors.
Lot refuses, things escalate,
and the undercover angels fight back,
striking the crowd
blind with a burst of light.
The next morning,
the angels smuggle lot
and his family out of sodom.
They literally tell them
to head for the hills,
and whatever they do, don't look back.
Then, as lot and his family
escape, fire and brimstone
rain down from the sky,
and sodom and gomorrah
are said to be utterly destroyed.
But tragically, lot's wife can't help herself.
She looks back, and as
she witnesses her former
home's destruction, she is
said to be instantly turned into
a pillar of salt.
And then, sodom, gomorrah, and all of
their thousands of
citizens are reduced to ash.
Fire raining down from the
sky and destroying an entire city.
It sounds like a Hollywood
disaster movie, and it's hard
to imagine anything like
that happening in real life.
But fascinatingly, we also find
more or less exactly the same
account of a city destroyed
by god in the new testament,
the torah, and even the quran.
With so many supporting
accounts, many have wondered,
could it really have happened?
For thousands of years,
generations of historians have
searched for physical
evidence of the cities of sodom
and gomorrah without success.
But now, biblical
scholar and archaeologist
Dr. Stephen Collins may have made
a mind-blowing discovery
after years of research,
Dr. Collins believes he's
uncovered the true location of
the ancient cities of
sodom and gomorrah.
His search led him to
the northeastern end of
the dead sea, where the
largest archeological site in
the entire Jordan valley
is located, tall El-hammam.
So when you connect this
whole thing together from
the biblical side of things,
tall El-hammam is in
the right place for sodom.
It's in exactly the right
time frame for sodom.
It's a massively complex
and fabulous ancient city.
It's huge.
Tall El-hammam is sitting
right in the very location that
the Bible specifies for sodom.
Based on his research, in 2005,
Dr. Collins began a
multi-year excavation of
the tall El-hammam ruins.
And what he found was extraordinary.
The very first season,
we did a 2-by-2 meter probe excavation
on the lowest part of the upper city.
So we get a couple meters
underneath, and boom, we're on
top of the destruction matrix
of the middle bronze age.
All of a sudden, staring up
at us was a piece of pottery,
the surface of which looked
like glazed green glass.
This green glass pottery
found in the destruction layer
carbon dates back to
approximately 1650 bc,
which may line up with the
biblical account of sodom.
Collins' further analysis also
confirms it was a single event
involving high heat that
obliterated these ruins.
But hold up a second.
Let's step out from that
sooty air and take a breath.
Just because an ancient
city was destroyed in high heat
doesn't mean it was
destroyed by the wrath of god.
It turns out there's even more
to this story, and it will blow
your mind, almost like it blew up a city.
In 2021, a group of scientists
build on the work started by
biblical scholar and archaeologist,
Dr. Stephen Collins.
They analyze the ruins at tall
El-hammam, which he believes may
be the actual location of
sodom and gomorrah, to try
and pinpoint the
cause of the destruction.
Concentrating on the soil
found in the destructive layer,
they discover tiny,
fractured sand grains called
shocked quartz.
These particles can only
form under extreme pressure of
725,000 pounds per
square inch or more.
Using laboratory furnaces,
researchers also find that
the pottery and mud bricks
at tall El-hammam started to
liquefy at temperatures
above 2,700 degrees fahrenheit,
which is hotter than molten lava.
This research team, they
determined that everything
about the destruction at tall
El-hammam is every bit as
unique as what we see
in a nuclear explosion.
But of course, we're
not talking about bombs.
So the only scientific answer
to that question is there was
a cosmic event that
exploded onto this site.
This type of cosmic event
is known as an air burst.
Airbursts happen when a meteor
comes into earth's atmosphere
at tens of thousands of miles
an hour and then explodes.
It is a violent and high heat
event that destroys everything
in its path.
The resultant destruction
we find at tall El-hammam is
exactly what one would predict
if an air burst event had occurred.
So did a meteor really
destroy sodom and gomorrah?
And how can we scientifically be sure
about these cosmic events?
Well, because we've seen
them happen on earth before.
On the morning of June
30th, 1908, just after 7 am,
a massive explosion rocks
a remote area in Siberia
near the tunguska river.
Witnesses report a dazzling
blue light streak across
the sky, followed by a deafening blast.
Shockwaves break windows
and knock people off their feet
hundreds of miles away.
An area of forest the
size of Rhode Island
is instantly flattened.
Scientists believe the tunguska
event, as it becomes known,
is caused when a meteor,
roughly 150 to 200 feet in
diameter, explodes in the atmosphere,
creating a devastating fireball.
Luckily, that explosion
occurred in remote Siberia.
The only victims were trees
and an unknown number of
unfortunate reindeer.
But it seems the citizens of
tall El-hammam aren't so lucky.
Picture this.
Sometime around 1650 bc,
the people of tall El-hammam are
going about their day
blissfully unaware it will
be their last.
Miles above, a 100-foot space
rock is hurtling toward them at
38,000 miles per hour.
When the meteor hits the
atmosphere, it explodes
into a massive fireball.
The blast is a thousand
times more powerful
than the atom bomb at Hiroshima.
The ground heats up to
3,600 degrees fahrenheit.
Wood, animals, and people
instantly burst into flame.
Seconds later, a
massive 740-mile-per-hour
shockwave rips through
the city, demolishing every
building, shearing them
off their foundations.
There are no survivors.
The city and its people
are here one moment
and then gone forever.
So could the cities of sodom
and gomorrah actually have been
tall El-hammam?
The pulverized buildings,
the hellish incineration,
even the blinding flash of
light attributed to the angels
could all be explained
by a meteor's blast.
When seen through the prism
of thousands of years, one man's
meteor really could
be another's angry god.
We can't confirm with complete
certainty that the ruins of
tall El-hammam and the
fabled sodom and gomorrah
are the same place.
But for the first time,
we can say, thanks to
extraordinary evidence, that
3,500 years ago, a meteor
wiped a vibrant and
thriving city off the map.
And here's the thing.
Meteor strikes like the ones at
tall El-hammam could in theory
happen at any time.
There are currently
more than 26,000 known
near-earth asteroids, and if
one were to strike near a big city,
the effects would be
devastating, biblical even.
We now head from two cities
destroyed to a monument that
has stood the test of time.
So this is probably one
place I don't need to introduce,
the world's most famous stone
circle that has been standing
in england long before
england was even a thing.
But today, over 5,000
years after it was constructed,
much about stonehenge
remains an enigma.
So let's start with the basics.
Stonehenge, huge
circle of stones on a hill
88 miles west of London.
And the first of its many
mysteries is how such huge
stones weighing up to 25
tons and over 20 feet tall could
have been assembled
here 5,000 years ago.
Now, new evidence will
tell us where they come from,
how they got there, and
why this wonder of the world
was created.
When we talk about the
lost colony of roanoke,
we're reminded that native
Americans were instrumental in
helping settlers survive
throughout our history,
but few were as vital as sacagawea.
At just 16 years old and
having just given birth, this young
shoshone woman joined Lewis
and Clark on their epic journey
to explore the uncharted west.
Sacagawea wasn't just a
guide, she was the expedition's
compass, navigating uncharted
territories, negotiating with
tribes, and ensuring
everyone made it through alive.
And she did it all while
carrying a newborn on her back.
Her legacy endures, with
more statues of sacagawea
across the U.S. than any other woman.
So while roanoke may
remain cloaked in mystery,
sacagawea's story is
literally carved in stone.
It seems stonehenge is built in two parts.
The first phase, constructed
in approximately 3100 bc,
is the henge, an elevated bank of dirt.
This henge has two entrances
and an enclosed area longer
than a football field.
Next, about six centuries
after the henge is created,
the builders shape larger
boulders known as sarsens
and erect them using a clever
system of ropes and timber to
leverage their massive weight.
And finally they arrange the
smaller blue stones named
for their bluish tint when
wet or freshly broken.
It is estimated building and
modifying stonehenge takes
over 1,500 years at the hands
of a staggering 100 generations.
So if you think a 40-hour
work week sounds like
a full-time job, think again.
At least your
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren
don't need to finish your shift.
But another mystery
looms over stonehenge.
None of its massive stones
are native to the immediate area.
So where did its extraordinary
megaliths come from?
For centuries, the best
answer to where these monoliths
came from was Merlin,
the mythical wizard.
Just before the time of
king Arthur, Merlin is said to
steal the stones from Ireland
and then enlists giants to
reconstruct them at stonehenge.
At least, that's according
to middle age legend.
Putting Merlin to the side,
the true origin of stonehenge
remains unsolved for centuries.
But everything changes in 2020
when geomorphologist David Nash
makes a staggering
discovery about the iconic huge
sarsen stones and
where they came from.
I was contacted by English
heritage, who manage
the monument, and they had
a core that had been drilled
from the middle of one of
the stones at stonehenge.
They said, would we
like to have a look at it?
So we analyzed three
samples from that little bit of core
that effectively gave us,
you might think of it as
the fingerprint of stonehenge.
Now, on its own, that
doesn't tell you very much,
but where it is useful is if
you then can compare it with
similar chemical signatures
or fingerprints from areas
where sarsen stones occur naturally.
And we didn't think, I guess,
almost in our wildest dreams
that we would get a direct
hit, but of all of the areas that
we sampled, only one
had a direct chemical match.
And that was an area in
the marlborough downs,
a place called west woods.
West woods is 17 miles
north of stonehenge.
That's a long way to
travel with 25-ton rocks,
the equivalent of a humpback whale.
The question that still remains,
how did they move them?
I think the current consensus
is that they were probably
moved mainly by land.
So the sarsens were loaded
onto some kind of wooden sled.
And that sled would have
been dragged, basically,
to stonehenge.
If you think moving the
sarsen stone 17 miles is far,
wait until you hear how far
the blue stones traveled to get
to stonehenge.
In comparison to the sarsens,
there's been a lot more work
trying to figure out
whereabouts the blue stones
come from, so the blue stones,
they come from an area called
the preseli hills, which are in west wales.
So that's about 150
miles west of stonehenge.
And in breaking news, it
was recently determined that
the central altar stone came
from the far north of Scotland.
That's a 460-mile journey
for this megalithic monster.
So now that we know where these
stones came from and maybe how
they got here, the
biggest piece of the puzzle
is why why were
they brought here at all?
What was the purpose of
this enormous monument?
The builders didn't
leave any written records,
but over the years, compelling theories
have emerged.
In 2021, I met with
Michael Parker Pearson,
a stonehenge expert who had
an amazing discovery that might
help explain the
purpose of the monument.
When we dug here, what
we found was human remains.
That was just a fraction
of the number of people
who were buried here.
This place was full of
the cremated remains
of the dead.
It's basically the largest
cemetery within britain for
the whole of the third millennium bc.
Incredible.
But then, Pearson came up
with a groundbreaking new finding
that changes much of what
we know about stonehenge.
His theory suggests that people
journeyed to the monument
because the stones were
a sanctuary for healing,
believed to cure wounds and illnesses.
Archeologists have suggested
that the blue stones may have
themselves held some
kind of healing properties.
And this isn't just something
from the distant past.
There's pretty good records
of people visiting stonehenge,
chipping pieces off the
blue stones and then
taking them away with them.
So that might be a reason why
people bothered transporting,
you know, multi-ton boulders,
considerable distances from
west wales to the site where
the monument was constructed.
If stonehenge was a place
of healing, the word must have
gotten out, because the
people trying to get healed didn't
only come from wales, but from all over.
For example, the remains
of these two men, buried at
stonehenge around 2300 bc,
offer fascinating insights into
ancient migration.
There's isotopic evidence
showing that the older of
the two men was born in
the alps in central Europe,
traveling hundreds of miles
from what would now be known
as Switzerland.
The analysis of the other man
proved that he was a relative
who grew up locally.
Archaeologists have
dubbed the older man
the amesbury Archer because
of the many arrowheads found
with his skeleton.
This 40-year-old man had
an abscess that had destroyed
part of his jawbone and had
suffered an accident that had
ripped off his left kneecap,
undoubtedly leaving him in
constant pain and
possibly close to death.
It seems that he traveled on
foot to stonehenge all the way
from the alps in central Europe.
Could this have been one
last desperate roll of the dice to
heal his soon-to-be fatal injuries?
And even more intriguing
is what was found inside
the ailing man's burial,
fragments of blue stone,
providing more possible
evidence that he was
drawn from a distant land
to the healing stones of the henge.
Anyone who sees stonehenge
knows it was a sacred place.
The vast stones rising
up, standing tall with
a simple beauty.
But thanks to what scientists
have uncovered, we now know it
was also a place of
pilgrimage and healing.
And today, it still is.
Every year, more than a
million people travel from all over
the world, embracing the very
same magic our ancestors felt
5,000 years ago.
I'm Josh gates.
Until next time, travel adventurously.