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Thank you very much for your time.

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Thank you very much for inviting me to this seminar.

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As was just announced, my name is Andrew Collins.

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My background is actually as a journalist and writer in the field of ancient history,

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which I've been doing for the last 20 to 25 years.

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I have a number of books on this topic, but my specialty over the past 10 years has been

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in Quebec-Litepe in Eastern Anatolia.

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What I want to try and do is to see what we have discovered at Quebec-Litepe and try

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to marry that with the work that has been going on at Gudong Badang recently.

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Without further ado, I shall start with Gudong Badang itself.

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By the way, I want to apologize in advance if I mispronounce any of the Javanese words

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that I shall be using.

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Any more difficult ones I will actually probably leave to you, and if you wish to say them

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out aloud, then do.

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But obviously, this is where we are now.

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It's my first time in Java.

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I look forward to seeing Gudong Badang tomorrow for the first time with Danny Hillman.

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As far as conventional archaeology is concerned, they suggest that this incredible megalithic

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structure on a hillside, a series of terraces, five terraces of what they call megalithic

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or stone settings, dates to the late Neolithic period or the so-called Metal Age.

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This would give it a date of around 2500 to 1500 BC.

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As we know from the incredible work that Danny Hillman has been doing with his team at the

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site since 2011, there would almost certainly appear to be underlying megalithic structures

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at the site that go down for a depth of many meters.

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The soil that has been removed from around these large stone blocks, which obviously

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Danny will talk about himself, are suggesting incredible ages, ages which take us back

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possibly as far as 24 or 25,000 years ago, but certainly strong evidence to suggest

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that there was a monument on the site as early as 10 to 12,000 years ago.

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If this is the case, then we have to try and understand why this monument is here and who

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might have constructed it.

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From my point of view, I wanted to come in here with my own expertise from Gubbakhli

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Tapeh and see if we can look in similar areas with similar understandings.

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Obviously these are the geometric works, readings that have been done, which shows that there

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are deeper levels and possibly chambers or possibly a lava tube or some kind of underground

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structure which could well be of artificial origin deep beneath Gunung Padang and work

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obviously continues there to this day to try and understand these monuments and to uncover

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them for the first time.

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Obviously this is one of the conceived images of how this may have looked perhaps 10,000,

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12,000 years ago.

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With this, I think we need to switch back to Anatolia and see if we can create a bridge

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between Java and Anatolia, which is obviously the modern Republic of Turkey.

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We come here to this place called Gubbakhli Tapeh.

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It's about 13 kilometers away from the very ancient city of Sanloufa, which as was mentioned

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earlier on is the birthplace of Abraham, almost certainly.

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It's also on the edge of the traditional site of the Garden of Eden in the Bible and

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the Koran.

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It's in this very area that it is said that the four rivers of paradise actually take

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their course and flow to the different parts of the world.

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Two of those rivers are the Euphrates and the Tigris.

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We're in an area which is considered to be the cradle of civilization anyway.

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It's also the place of the birth in the Western world of the Neolithic Revolution.

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This is the great changeover from the state of hunter-gatherers to that of agriculture.

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This took place probably within sight of Gubbakhli Tapeh around 9000 BC.

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What is Gubbakhli Tapeh itself?

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It's a series of standing stones or stone stercles which have been uncovered underneath

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an occupational mound on the top of a mountain.

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These stones are positioned around the edge of walls pointing towards two huge, great

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central monoliths, which are up to 5.5 meters in height and maybe 15 to 20 tons apiece.

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There are five main structures been uncovered so far and these are around 15 to 20 meters

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across.

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One of them is what's called Enclosure See.

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It's the largest of all of the monuments.

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This is the very central circle within it.

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You can see the inner ring of stones here.

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There's an outer ring here.

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These are the two central pillars which have been partly destroyed in antiquity in this

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one.

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This has an entranceway that comes in from the south.

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This is what it would have looked like probably around 9000 BC when it was constructed.

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You can see these huge, great monuments in the middle.

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Here's another structure here known as Enclosure See, which I'll show you in a second.

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Here's the entranceway.

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On all of these stones which have T-shaped tops to them, there are incredible carvings

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of animals.

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Here's one of them here as a fox.

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What's also important is that these stones are not simply roof supports.

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They are actual freestanding statues of the human form.

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Here, as I say, this one here is about 5.5 meters tall.

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Here is the bent arms reaching round to fingers in the front.

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This is another example.

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You can see that the hands here, you can see some kind of garment worn here with this

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vertical drop and some kind of pendant being worn on a chain or a thong or something around

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the neck.

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This represents the head.

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It's an abstract form.

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This is the way that they wanted to represent it.

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They knew how to do the human head, so they wanted to show these stones in some kind of

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abstract form.

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This is one of the most incredible of the standing stones.

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This is in Enclosure C.

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You can see this incredible 3D animal, some kind of quadruped, perhaps a lion, it's suggested,

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or a panther that's actually carved out of the stone.

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This would have taken an incredible amount of organizing to try and create this from

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the point of the quarry to the finished carving and stone in place, as you see here.

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There are many, many examples of this.

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Here's something quite bizarre that was found.

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It's a stone totem pole.

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It was found at the Bekli Tepe.

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It's now in the museum at Schanlofer.

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It shows the snakes here curling around.

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It shows this child coming out from the area of the womb, which is there.

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This is the child there with some kind of bowl or something.

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Many of all of these other carvings are also found at the Bekli Tepe.

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There are literally hundreds of them.

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This is the actual occupational mound from the air.

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It's about 300 by 200 meters across.

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Here's all the various enclosures there in the south.

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They're the ones that I've shown you so far.

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The new excavations are taking place now in the northwest corner of it.

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At this very moment, this is the work that's actually going on to uncover new standing

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stones there.

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This is what's known as enclosure H.

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This is an overhead of enclosure H. You can see these stones being revealed.

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These are probably about five meters below the surface, but the depth of the occupational

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mound goes down to around 15 meters.

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I want to point out that this mound is made from earth that had to be imported from the

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valleys below and moved to this site.

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What it would seem to have happened is that all these various stone enclosures were probably

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not all built at the same time.

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They were built one after the other and used for a period of time, perhaps 100 years or

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so.

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Then they would be covered up and decommissioned.

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Other ones would either be built by their side or above them.

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In this way, they created this mound, this occupational mound of different levels with

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the oldest structures dating to around 9,500 BC actually on the bedrock itself.

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Some of them even carved out of the bedrock and the youngest ones around 8,000 BC at the

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very edge on the top of the occupational mound.

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At the end of Quebec de Tepay's useful life, which was about 8,000 BC, the remaining enclosures

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were covered over and the whole thing abandoned.

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This is one of the stones they've recently uncovered in Enclosure H that's absolutely

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covered with different types of creatures of the natural world.

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You've got birds, you've got snakes, this is probably a vulture, you have lions and

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things like this.

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I mean, the amount of work involved in this is extraordinary.

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You get this on all of the stones, these beautiful carvings.

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We need to try and understand what was going on in the world at this time.

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Quebec de Tepay's earliest structures date to around 9,500 BC.

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This is at the end of a 1,300 year cold spell or mini ice age known as the Younger Dryus.

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It would seem as if this was the point of change, not only in the climate but in migrations

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of people, of animals, probably even helped the birth of agriculture.

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This is when Quebec de Tepay was constructed.

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Clearly there was more things going on at this time which we'll come on to, to actually

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say why it might have been created.

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But Quebec de Tepay is down here.

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This is modern day Turkey or Anatolia, here's the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea is the Caucasus

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Mountains here, Georgia.

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Well the Younger Dryus affected the upper part of the northern hemisphere.

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And almost certainly the peoples that were responsible for the construction work at Quebec

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de Tepay were probably locals.

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In archaeological terms they were probably the last remnants of the so-called Natufian

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peoples.

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But what seems to have happened is that peoples were also migrating in from the area of what

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is today Russia and the Ukraine up here, sorry here, into Anatolia via the Caucasus area,

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being pushed south by the obviously extreme weather at the time of the Younger Dryus mini

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ice age.

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And they almost certainly formed power elites that were controlling communities.

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And the best candidates for these almost certainly are people known as the Swedeirians.

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They emerged from an East European population known as the Gravatians who thrived between

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40 and 17,000 years ago.

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And these were a people of incredible high culture as you will see.

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Their main sites were in central Russia, a place called Sungar and Kostenka, which

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was established by at least 30 to 40,000 years ago.

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They were also in the country that we now know as Czechoslovakia, but the main important

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ones here were definitely in Russia.

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And they achieved the type of high culture that we would associate probably with the

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medieval age as early as 30,000 years ago.

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They had tailored clothing, they had jewelry, incredible thousands of beads were sewn into

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their garments, they created structures of wood and ivory.

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And I would think that if we saw these people today they would not look that much out of,

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you know, that was out of place anywhere within this world today.

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These are reconstructed by an artist by the name of Lybor Balak.

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And here's another image that he's created.

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These people were experimenting with agriculture we know 30,000 years ago at Kostenka in Russia.

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Plus, I found evidence of the earliest astronomical observatories at Kostenka dating to at least

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30,000 years ago.

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These people were the people that seemed to be aligned to the extreme northern cycle

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of the moon during its 18.6 year lunar standstill cycle.

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So these people were observing the skies at this period.

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And remember this is 30 to 40,000 years ago.

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This is plenty of time for development before we come down to Gubakli Tepe.

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Kostenka was an extensive cult of the goddess and the production of these beautiful Venus

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statues which I think probably reflects their interest in the moon and the moon's potency

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to do with the female cycle, the mensis, creation and life itself.

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I think all these were ideas that were being experimented with at this time.

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Now going back to Anatolia, there are at least four other sites that are part of the

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same culture as Gubakli Tepe.

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And here's one of them, a place called Khorahan Tepe.

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It's about 30 miles to the east of Gubakli Tepe.

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And this is the test pits have been done but no proper excavations here.

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But you find this incredible evidence of higher technology.

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This is the corner of a window frame or door entrance you can find here.

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There are various examples of them just lying around on the ground.

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And these are over 10,000 years old.

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More stones.

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This one has got a serpent on the side.

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And you can see here, this is a stone row.

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And you can see that the stones are only just peeking out at the surface.

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In the coming years there will be excavation work done here and we'll better understand

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what is discovered.

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But it could be a site as large as Gubakli Tepe itself.

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And various other sites around the world are opening up to show that there was high

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culture as early as 10 to 11,000 years ago.

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Even in my own country of England, Stonehenge, one of the most famous megalithic monuments

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in the world, there's now evidence to show that there was a monument on the site here

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involving huge, massive tree-like posts 15 to 20 metres tall, as early as 8,000 BC.

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And that there was activity going on here, a protostonehenge, which obviously brings

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us down to the fact of what was going on during this period.

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What was it that inspired the supersizing of the religious cult shrine, you know, from

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small wooden structures or maybe cave structures into these incredible megalithic monuments?

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Well, one of the keys is the cataclysm which we now know took place and devastated large

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parts of the world with wildfires, tsunamis, ash clouds which blotted out the sky for maybe

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years and probably even triggered the younger dry-us mini ice age, which took place between

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10,900, which is when it began, with repercussions for several hundred years later until about

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10,340 BC.

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This absolutely devastated the world.

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It almost certainly destroyed many of the so-called Pleistocene megafauna, you know,

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the mammoth, the giant sloth, the giant camel, possibly even things like the sabre-toothed

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tiger, all of these animals disappeared at this time, never really to be seen again.

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And it was almost certainly caused by an inbound comet that probably fragmented on

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its way around the sun and peppered the earth with literally thousands of fragments.

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Now it was mostly the Americas that were struck, but there is evidence of an ash layer being

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found all the way around the world, from Egypt to Russia to Britain to America and

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even in Australia, this ash layer, all dating to around 10,900 BC has been found.

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And I believe that the Gebekli Tepe was constructed as a response to this cataclysm.

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The fear of further cataclysm caused people to change their entire outlook on life.

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And we can see some evidence of this from one of the mainstones of Gebekli Tepe in

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Enclosure D. You have this very strange belt buckle around the mid-waist area.

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Now this is the belt that has various symbols on it, H symbols here and others.

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And you have this fox pelt loincloth below it.

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But this symbol here, look at this, this U shape with the circle, with the three lines

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like that.

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Now I don't know about you, but what that reminds me of is a comet, with the U being

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the bow shot that goes in the front of the head of the comet and the three prongs being

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probably the three tails of a comet and obviously the centre being the actual ball itself.

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Now here it is again, you can see it there. But what's interesting and perhaps confirmation

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of this is that this figure wears a fox pelt loincloth and on the side of the stone

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is a fox.

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And the fox is a universal symbol around the world of comets, the appearance of comets

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in the sky. And they are harbingers of destruction.

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And very often around the world shamans would adorn themselves in fox pelt loincloths like

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this to combat the supernatural forces that they saw as associated with comets and the

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destruction which they were never to be bring. And I believe that this is a memory of this

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destruction that took place at the very end of the last ice age during this so-called

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Younger Dryas impact event.

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And evidence of this connection between canines and comets and destruction can be found in

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the Norse myth, the myth of the peoples from Scandinavia of the age of Ragnarök, the doom

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of the gods, a cataclysm that took place in the past that was brought on by this wolf

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and its offspring, other wolves. And this wolf was known as the Fenris wolf or the

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Fenra wolf. And it rains down fire and nearly destroys the gods. It almost destroys the

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human race as well that exists on earth.

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As early as 1884, an American writer named Ignatius Donnelly actually suggested that

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the Fenris wolf was a memory of a comet that nearly destroyed the world at the end of

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the last ice age. And I believe that he was absolutely right. And that the symbol of

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the comet is remembered in many myths and legends as a canine, a wolf, a fox, or obviously

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a dog in general. In Chinese mythology, for instance, there is a lot to do with dogs

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representing comets and other phenomena in the sky. And around the world, it was the

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job of the shaman, the person who walked between this world and the next, to combat the supernatural

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forces, or the so-called cosmic trickster, that was seen to bring destruction to the

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world. And this destruction was seen to be connected with the idea of a pole that linked

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the earth to heaven, a cosmic axis. And it was believed that the trickster could come

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in and knock that pole over and bring about eternal darkness and absolute destruction

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in the world. And in various cultures, for instance, in Scandinavia and Finland amongst

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the Sami shamans, it is still their duty to conduct their ceremonies to ensure that

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the destruction of the world does not take place. And I believe very strongly that one

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of the reasons why Gebekli Tepe was constructed and why religious shrines were supersized

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in this way around the end of the last ice age was to create an easy access between

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what was perceived as this world, the mundane world, and the world of spirit, the world

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of the supernatural, which was the other world. Call it the sky world, call it the

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underworld if you want, but it's the world that exists within dreams, within altered

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states of consciousness, which the shaman would have to reach, would have to achieve

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in order to deal with these supernatural forces. And it is my belief also that there's a connection

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here with Gunung Padang, which we will go on to shortly. Now, before we go on there,

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where was this other world? Did they believe that it was a place that was located somewhere

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specific? Well, there is evidence of this at Gebekli Tepe. Here are four of the enclosures,

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and two of the enclosures point between their two central pillars to a stoned stone, a

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standing stone with a hole in it. Let me show you this. Okay. Two of them have exact holes

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like this at exactly the same place. Here it is. See this? Between the two stones. So

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in other words, somebody standing between these monoliths in 9,000 or 9,500 BC would

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be able to stare through that hole at something on the local horizon. And that local horizon,

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the direction of that was in the north-northwest. So what would they have seen at this time?

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Well, at night, they would have looked... There we go. They would have looked directly

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at the Milky Way, and in particular, the setting of a bright star in the constellation of Cygnus,

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the celestial bird or celestial swan, called Deneb. Okay. Now, Deneb also marks the point

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of opening of what's known as the Great Rift or Dark Rift in the Milky Way. You can see

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this here. And universally around the world, the Milky Way, particularly in the northern

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hemisphere, has been seen as a point of entrance and exit into the sky world for shamans and

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for the... Well, particularly the souls of the shamans to enter and exit, but also the

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place where our own souls originate and return to in death. Now, here is the northern hemisphere.

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Part of the Milky Way, and overlaid on it, is an Egyptian goddess named Nuit, and she

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was personified in the sky as the Milky Way. And the area of her womb was the place of

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entrance and exit to the sky world. This is why the pharaohs believed that they came

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from and returned to the womb of this goddess Nuit. And this is why you also find the stars

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of Cygnus reflected very strongly in the positions of pyramids and the orientations

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of various temples, because the pharaohs believed that they wanted to go back to this

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womb, this cosmic womb in the sky. And its similar ideas are found all over the world,

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from Mexico to India to the American content with the mound-building cultures there. But

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what relevance has this to Gunung Padang? Well, myself and my colleague, the engineer

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Rodney Hale, thought that obviously we could try and bring our own expertise to what is

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going on at Gunung Padang and see if we can make some suggestions. Well, the first thing

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that we confirmed with Danny Hillman was the orientation of Gunung Padang. And I certainly

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it seems to be at 342 degrees. Now that's towards the north-northwest. That's exactly

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the same direction as Gebekli Tepe. So the first thing that you realise relating to

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this orientation is that it hits the right-hand peak of the strato cruiser, the Pangrengo

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Gedi strato volcano. And this seems to be quite deliberate, and that there is some

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relationship between the construction of the monument and the positioning of the volcano,

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which would obviously have been very prominent in the local landscape. And I believe that

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one of the reasons for this is that the peoples who occupied Gunung Padang believed that

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they too had to counter the supernatural forces that brought about cataclysm and devastation

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in the world, which they saw reflected through the proximity of volcanoes like this and

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the eruptions. And the presence of shamans would probably have been to try and stop

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the eruptions of the volcanoes, and that various ceremonies would have to be done.

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And I don't think that we have to look at any particular period of time. I think this

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would have been going on throughout the entire existence of Gunung Padang as a monument,

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possibly to 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, arguably even around an original cave shrine as early

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as 25,000 years ago. We certainly know that there were modern humans on Java, particularly

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in East Central and Eastern Java, as early as 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. And that they

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probably also experienced the cataclysm, the Younger Dryas cataclysm, which would have

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affected this part of the world. There's no question about that itself. Part of the ash

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layer from this event has been found in Australia. I'm sure it will also be found in Java as

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well. So they probably saw the Stratovolcano as personified as some kind of fire god.

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There are many stories of fire gods connected with volcanoes in Indonesia. And I've written

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about this in an article already about Gunung Padang. But is there some deeper meaning

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towards this particular orientation like at Gebekli Tepe? Well, my colleague Rodney Howe

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looked at the different alignments, astronomical alignments or possible astronomical alignments

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within the dates. And this would clearly be seen as a setting of one or more stars into

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the peak of the volcano as seen from the perspective of Gunung Padang. And obviously

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there are various options here. And until we have a better understanding of the building

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phases, it's very difficult to say which one might be meaningful. But we have stars of

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Cassiopeia, Polaris, Cygnus even. Just like at Gebekli Tepe. But that's obviously around

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12,500 BC. And then much later you have orientations towards stars in Urza Major, Urza Minor.

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And from 2,800-2,700 BC of Dubi, the brightest star of Urza Major, the Big Dipper. And I

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understand that in Indonesian folklore that the Big Dipper is seen as a boat, a celestial

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boat, a boat of the gods. Now that could be quite relevant to any building phases of

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activity at Gunung Padang around this time. But this may well be the last phase of activity,

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certainly as far as the radiocarbon dating is concerned. But the one I want you to focus

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on just for a second is the interest of around 14,900 BC and then again around 8,750 BC.

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Of the setting into Gedai of the Star Vega in Lyra. I think this is possibly very important.

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And when I say these dates, these dates extend for many hundreds of years. So for that period

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of time, if you were in Gunung Padang and you were looking towards the Gedai peak, the

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Star Vega would have set perfectly down into it. And I think that this could have been

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seen as significant for the reasons I'll go into. Because in the Far East, in various

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countries, in China, in Japan and Korea, the Star Vega is known as the Weaver Princess.

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I won't even pronounce the actual names in Chinese or Japanese here. And the story goes

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in legend that the Weaver Princess fell in love with an ox herder, a simple ox herder

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who you can see here. And because she fell in love with him, she forgot her duties of

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weaving. And in one account, what she is weaving is the Milky Way on which the star is placed.

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Both of these stars are very close to the Milky Way. And she also weaves the stars,

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the Milky Way and the Heaven. So in many ways, she is like a creator, a genitrix. She is

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a creator of the stars. She's a creator of the heavens. Clearly she's a very early goddess,

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possibly associated with the Milky Way, like the goddess Nuit in Egypt. But she's associated

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very strongly with the Star Vega. Vega is in the constellation of Lyre, the celestial

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star, the instrument. And I would be very interested to talk to people here that have

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knowledge of Javanese astronomy to find out what it represents here afterwards. The other

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important thing is that Vega was the pole star in the Northern Hemisphere from around

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13,000 to 11,000 BC. Today our pole star in the Northern Hemisphere is Polaris, the

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star. Around the time of the pyramids and the pyramids of ancient Egypt, it was the

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star Thuban in Draco, the celestial dragon. But around 11,000 to 13,000 it was Vega.

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And this means that Vega was the turning point of the heavens. And although obviously we're

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in the Southern Hemisphere now, the Sundaland landmass extended over the equator into the

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Northern Hemisphere. And obviously there were various other islands and landmasses

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which would have been connected with Sundaland anyway. So there is no question that the people

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living in Java would have been aware of this turning point of the heavens. And all they

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would have needed to have done is to go one degree north of the equator to see all the

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stars turning about, this single star. And I think that this probably brought together

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the importance of this star as this goddess who's remembered as this person known as

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the Weaver Princess. Now the Weaver Princess is also found in Javanese folklore, and I'll

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be very interested if anybody here has further knowledge of this, where she's known variously

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under different names. Puasi, the Dui-Nawang-Wulang, you're going to pronounce this different,

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or Dayang-Sumbi. Please, please excuse my bad pronunciation. And in Javanese folklore,

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she is the daughter of a heavenly sow or pig, which is called a krang, I understand, and

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marries a supernatural dog. Now is it possible that behind these stories is some kind of

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astronomical knowledge dating from the time when Vega may have been Pall Star, and is

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it possible that the Weaver Princess in Java also represents Vega, this bright star, this

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bright star that would have been seen so prominently from Gunung-Pudang towards the

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Gedai peak at two different times, around 14,500 BC, but also around 8,750 BC. Is there

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some relationship here? And what is this supernatural dog? Is this perhaps a constellation, or is

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it something more? Now please excuse the imagery that I've had to use here. If anybody has

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a better picture that I can use in my next lecture, then I will happily receive it by

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email from them. But there is a legend of Sankurian, have I pronounced that right?

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Do most of you know this story? And this is, I think, a very powerful and very, very important

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story, because the Weaver Princess is Dayang-Sumbi, or her other name is Rara-Sati, is this correct?

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Am I getting this correct? And again, she's the daughter of a sow, a boar, whose name

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is Weung Yang, and she is banished and marries a male dog called Tumang, and has a son called

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Sankurian. And it's a great folk tale, it's still obviously very popular today, but it's

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a creation story, and it's explaining the origins of Lake Bangdong, and also the various

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mountains around the Bangdong Basin, the names of which I'm giving here. Now according

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to some sources, the Bangdong Lake disappeared around 13,000 years ago. Now I was having

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a conversation with Johan Aref just before coming on stage, and he said there is some

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dispute about when the lake disappeared, and some sources suggest it could be as recent

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as just 4,000 years ago. But I think it's very, very crucial that in the future this

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date is confirmed with some accuracy, because what it suggests is that this legend, which

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dates to that period when the lake was present, and that it involves the Weaver Princess,

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so that suggests that the Weaver Princess could have been an important character in

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mythology and star lore as early as 13,000 BC on Java. And these are the sort of dates

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that we're talking about in connection with Gunung Padang. Now we certainly know that

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there was a material culture responsible for Gebekli Tepe around 12,000 years ago,

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but could there have been a material culture in Java that was responsible for Gunung Padang

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and these legends of the Weaver Princess as early as 13,000 years ago? Well, and also

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does it make sense of the links with the Weaver Princess as a symbol of sovereignty

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and the star vega, because what I've been discovering is that on the island of Sumba,

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the concept of the Weaver Princess is still present within sovereignty, that the princess

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of a royal house or a royal clan is encouraged to become a master weaver, and that this is

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an important part of her life, and that when she becomes queen, she still presents this

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whole personage of becoming the absolute and most important weaver of the entire kingdom.

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So I think there is a relationship between this concept of the Weaver Princess and sovereignty,

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not only with star lore, but also sites itself, and I think this has got some connection with

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Gunung Padang, but I think that one of the keys is obsidian. Now the people that constructed

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Gebekli Tepe, the so-called Swedeirians, would seem to have been masters in their trades.

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They were sophisticated hunters, shamans, traders, they were some of the earliest miners

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in the world, and they were stone tool specialists, and they prized obsidian, they controlled

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the trade of obsidian. Wherever you go in the world, follow the obsidian trail, because

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this will bring you to the power elites that control ancient or prehistoric kingdoms, because

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it's such a beautiful prized artifact. This is an obsidian by the way, this is made of

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cement. What we know is that there was a major obsidian industry in the Bangdong Basin,

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which was found as early as the 1930s by Von Konigswald, and these obsidian settlement

416
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sites were on the slopes surrounding the Bangdong Lake.

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So in other words, there's every reason to suggest that they were present when the lake

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was there. Now we don't know to what state of culture the obsidian industry or the people

419
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behind it reached, but I'm certain that they were the people responsible for creating these

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stories of the Weaver Princess, and I believe very strongly that there's a link between

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this obsidian industry and the culture behind it, and those builders of Gunung Padang. Because

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this obsidian industry is not just Neolithic or Mesolithic, which came prior to that,

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but almost certainly Paleolithic. The style of these so-called flake tools is very, very

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old. I mean the one on the left here, this is made of what's known as pitch stone, which

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is a very crude form of obsidian, which you can see here. This is a flake, this is a

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00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:44,920
small ad or scraper. This is an extremely ancient, but very, very effective form of

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stone tool technology, which probably began around 200,000, 300,000 years ago in Africa,

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and obviously moved into the Eurasian continent, and is present here in Java right the way

429
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through until Neolithic times within these settlement sites. But as to who was responsible

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for this, we're not sure. But I do believe that, as I said, that this culture was responsible

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for the San Kurang Weaver Princess and supernatural dog myth. Now the obsidian was sourced from

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two volcanoes in the Bangdong Basin. One's called Negreg, and the other one is Gunung

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00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:31,720
Badang. You obviously probably know these sites, which are to the east and the southeast

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00:44:31,720 --> 00:44:38,720
of Bangdong Basin. But we also know that some of these tools, a settlement site, or certainly

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00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:45,440
tools were found in the, is it Bogar, is that how you pronounce it, city, in that area,

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which is not far from the Stratovolcano, the Gedde Stratovolcano, and thus not that far

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00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:59,040
from Gunung Badang himself. So there is a good chance of a connection, and I think

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that as the work goes deeper at Gunung Badang, we should be looking for evidence of this

439
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:15,520
obsidian at this site itself. Now I've been told I've only got a few minutes left, but

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00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:22,520
we should be looking for other sites relating to the material culture that will link those

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00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:29,000
between Gunung Badang and I would say this obsidian culture of the Bangdong Basin. And

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00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:34,520
myself, my colleague Hugh Newman and Danny Hillman are looking into this at the moment.

443
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:40,600
We're looking at another site in the mountains, exactly between the two which we'll be visiting

444
00:45:40,720 --> 00:45:45,720
within the next few days. We need to talk to people possibly about this, you know,

445
00:45:45,720 --> 00:45:52,720
we'd still need a driver. And one of the other things that needs investigating is this origins

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from a supernatural dog, basically. Because we find that this story of descendancy from

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a supernatural dog, particularly a red dog, was very important amongst the indigenous

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peoples of Java known as the Klang. We need to know more about these cultures. They believe

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00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:20,920
they descended from the Weaver Princess and a red dog. This red dog is some kind of divine

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00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:28,640
being that can transform between a human and a dog. And I think that this is very, very

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important that we investigate this. Because these stories of these myths of origin, as

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00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:42,320
they're called, from a red dog are found not just on Java but from the north west

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corner of China, right the way through to the south east, the coast of south east Asia.

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I mean for instance, even amongst the so called Ugya people of the Taklamak Khan, the Tarim

455
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:07,280
Basin, who are also in the Altay and the Bakal regions of Siberia, there is belief

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00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:15,280
in the descendancy directly from this princess and a red dog with so much similarities with

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00:47:16,240 --> 00:47:22,640
what's going on at Java that I cannot believe there's not a relationship. So this is something

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that also needs to be looked at. The other thing that needs to be looked at, again we're

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not going to get a chance to go into this, is that a new form of archaic human has discovered

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only in the past five years called the Denisovans. We had our own ancestors, Homo sapiens, we

461
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:47,760
had Neanderthals and now we have the Denisovans. And they definitely reached the area of Indonesia

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through the routes. The evidence of them has been found in the Altay region up there, a

463
00:47:53,480 --> 00:48:00,480
place called the Denisova Cave and it's been found that up to 5% of the DNA of the people

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00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:10,040
living in the region of northern Australia, in areas like Papua New Guinea and also in

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00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:20,400
Indonesia itself have up to 5% Denisovan DNA. That means that the Denisovans almost certainly

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00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:27,400
reached Java. And the importance about this is that in the same layers as the Denisovan

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00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:36,960
fossil remains are being found in the Altay region, extreme high culture is coming up.

468
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:43,960
Evidence of extreme high culture including this incredible bracelet or bangle that dates

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00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:50,040
to 40-50,000 years ago. I mean this is extraordinary, it's made from something called Chloriterolite

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and this is the sort of thing you would expect perhaps 4000 years ago but this is so, so

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00:48:57,160 --> 00:49:04,080
old. And although the archaeologists want to see this as a product of our own ancestors,

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there's no reason why this could not have been created by Denisovans or at least Denisovan

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human hybrids. The important thing about this is that there's evidence that the Denisovans

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were of extreme height, up to perhaps 7-7.5 feet tall. The reasons for this I cannot

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00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:27,440
go into now but it does seem as if they could have been giants. And what's interesting

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is that on Java the Hindu legends talk about the earliest inhabitants being known as the

477
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:40,880
Rakshasa or the Rakasha who were giants and that they were the ones that created the

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00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:47,880
Javanese alphabet and I wonder whether these could be Denisovan human hybrids. And this

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is the subject that I've been talking about in my new book, Hybrid Origins, which should

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00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:59,040
be out next year. And what's interesting is that I believe that this origins from the

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00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:05,440
supernatural dog, sorry I'll come into that, relate to shamanism, the transformation of

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the human into a dog or a wolf, but also the relationship of the dog in the sky because

483
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:18,080
the dog is also seen as a symbol of the Milky Way and of contact with the sky world and

484
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I think that that relates to that. And of course we haven't even got on to Java man

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00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:31,200
and Homo erectus who we know continued on in Java until at least 27,000 years ago. Is

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it possible that the creators of Gunung Padang could have been Homo erectus human hybrids?

487
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:47,760
It's all possibility. These are all new areas of research which I hope that you'll join

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myself and Danny and Johan Arif and all the rest of the people here today in trying to

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find these answers. So without further ado I'll say thank you very much.

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And my website, if anybody wishes to contact me, is andrewcollins.com. Obviously find

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00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:15,960
me on Facebook, Andrew Collins, author. And this is my book on Gobekli Tepe, Gobekli

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00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:22,400
Tepe Genesis of the Gods, which presumably you can get through Amazon. Over here in

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00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:27,000
Java, if you're interested, I've done many other books as well. So thank you very much

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again.