#341 - The BRUTAL Rise of Aztec Empire & Lost Ancient Civilizations of South America | Luke Caverns

Summary

Julian Dorey Podcast – Episode #341 The BRUTAL Rise of the Aztec Empire & Lost Ancient Civilizations of South America | Luke Caverns
Release Date: October 1, 2025

Overview

This episode dives deep into the brutal and fascinating history of the Aztec Empire, the overlooked Olmec civilization, the mysterious lost cities of the Maya, and the enigmatic ancient peoples of South America. Guest Luke Caverns—explorer, author, and accomplished ancient civilization storyteller—joins Julian Dorey for a sweeping conversation blending adventure travel, academic insight, and mind-blowing historical mysteries. Together, they discuss the rise and fall of the Aztecs, the mechanics of ancient conquest, cross-cultural misunderstandings, why South American history is often ignored, the role of shamanism and psychedelics, and the evolving study of archaeology.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Setting the Stage: Aztecs, Spanish Conquest, and Mesoamerican Warfare

• Luke asserts, “Nobody in Mesoamerica liked the Aztecs. The Spaniards were shocked at how barbaric the Aztecs were...their civilization was absolutely demonic.” (00:00)
• Aztec warfare centered on ritual and subjugation, but the Spanish practiced total war—slaughtering indiscriminately.
• The brutal cultural collision between the Spanish and Aztecs is likened to two unstoppable forces meeting: “It’s like two unstoppable forces meeting each other. The Aztec Empire and the Conquistadors.” (04:16)
• Disease devastated populations post-contact—often more than battle itself.

The Mythic Origins and Expansion of the Aztecs

• The Aztecs migrated from the mysterious north (“Aztlan”), possibly as far as Utah or Nevada, around 1100–1200 CE. Their origin myths are recorded in codices—accordion-like books. (06:10)
• Initially marginalized for their violent ways, the Aztecs settled on a “crappy outcropping in the middle of Lake Texcoco”—today’s Mexico City—inspired by a prophetic vision (15:00).
• Through shamanic visions and cunning, they insinuated themselves as mercenaries before usurping the powerful Culhuacan kingdom—brutally betraying their hosts in a legendary act: “The prince wearing her skin and dancing around...they had filleted her and cut all of her skin off and the Aztec prince had slipped inside of her skin and was dancing in it.” (16:00)
• This act gave the Aztecs an impregnable city and a launching pad for conquest.

Empire-Building and “Policing” an Empire

• By the 1500s, the Aztec “empire” included millions—though most subjects were conquered peoples, not ethnic Aztecs. (20:30)
• Aztec imperial control used garrison soldiers (or equivalents), tribute, and ambassador enclaves—a pattern inherited from the earlier Teotihuacan civilization.
• “You gotta come in, you gotta kill the existing soldiers...and then they had an administrative ambassador building.” (26:23)

Loyalty, Rebellion, and Collapse

• Most subject peoples despised Aztec rule. When the Spanish arrived, indigenous groups eagerly allied with them against the Aztecs.
• “The reason the Aztecs fell is because so many of the tribes turned against the Aztecs and helped Cortez.” (29:15)
• Huge cultural differences about gold, class, and violence shocked both sides: The Spanish could not understand ritual sacrifice; Aztecs could not fathom the Spanish lust for gold.
• “They did not value gold and material...the thing that made you rich was your bloodline. That’s it.” (33:34)

The Dazzling City of Tenochtitlan & Spanish Conquest

• Spanish accounts describe Tenochtitlan as more beautiful than anything in Spain—an awe-inspiring Venice of the Americas. (37:17)
• Montezuma’s fateful decision to allow Cortez and his men into the imperial palace led to his capture and the cataclysmic end of Aztec independence:
  • “It was like he just opened up the gates and let him in.” (38:49)
  • Ambiguous historical accounts swirl around Montezuma’s death—by Spanish hand, Aztec hand, or both.
• The Spanish decimated the city, aided by indigenous allies and disease: “The Spaniards are walking through the markets and it’s just piles of dead Aztecs everywhere.” (70:24)

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Revisiting the Ancient Americas

The Overlooked Olmec Civilization

• Luke plans a dedicated book: “Lost Cities of the Snake God,” tracing Olmec → Maya → Aztec.
• The Olmec, flourishing from ca. 2000 BCE to 500 BCE, are the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica, famed for colossal basalt heads weighing over 50 tons.
• “At the beginning of their civilization, they’re able to quarry these 60-ton stones...and transport them 90 miles...and carve and erect these massive Olmec heads...from the very beginning, there’s no developmental period.” (93:48)
• The mysterious mechanics: Research has shown known river rafts couldn’t transport such masses, fueling alien theories (96:00) and speculation about lost technologies or shamanic purpose.

Maya, Amazon, and Lost Civilizations

• Maya did not directly descend from Olmec but were propelled by interactions:
  • “Why did Maya civilization start in the middle of the Paten jungle in Guatemala...The Olmecs made the Maya...filthy rich.” (153:49)
• Mesolithic settlement patterns: cities established a horizon’s distance apart for military signaling and alliances, mirrored in Incan fort locations (169:37).
• Amazon “geoglyphs” and lost cities: Ancient peoples engineered soils (“terra preta”) and built intricate systems, occasionally misconstrued in modern media clickbait as evidence the entire rainforest is man-made—a dangerous fallacy (81:22–86:15).

The Role of Shamanism and Psychedelics in Ancient Society

• Both host and guest ponder whether the elaborate cosmology and architecture of ancient American civilizations owes something to regular shamanic or psychedelic experience:
  • “What’s the line between an ancient person taking some kind of natural hallucinogen and interacting with a deity...and an alien? What’s, what’s the line that you draw there?” (98:41)
  • Luke argues that “psychedelic archaeology” should be more seriously investigated, though academia often resists (103:55).

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American Colonial & Indigenous History: Overlooked Eras

The “Momentum” of Civilization & The Myth of the Noble Savage

• The Spanish, often vilified, were frequently desperate peasants propelled by history’s tide, not unique malice:
  • “People vilify the conquistadors, but these were actually poor, impoverished Spaniards...either to sit and rot away in the slums of Spain or jump on a ship and go participate in this conquest.” (51:00+)

The Wild West and the Power of the Plains

• The Comanche, for instance, were forced by historical dominoes to become the continent’s greatest warriors; “If you were within a 500-mile radius, you were in danger of being attacked...from 500 miles away.” (58:34)
• The American frontier was far wilder, more dangerous, and more recent than most realize:
  • “Having absolutely no idea that there are Comanches rolling around the plains that will scalp you and torture you to death and burn you alive...just 160 years ago.” (00:00, 60:48)

Indigenous Experience & Contacts with Europeans

• The story of Squanto—abducted, enslaved, returning home only to find his people destroyed by European disease—exemplifies the complexity and tragedy of early North American history (125:18).
  • “Imagine...this Native American man walks out of the jungle speaking perfect English and walks up to you...must have been just utterly jarring.” (129:39)
• Disease, more than violence, reshaped the continent.

Forgotten Centuries

• The hosts stress that U.S. history is typically squeezed into the Revolutionary era, but 200+ years of chaotic, cross-cultural encounter predate 1776.
  • “That’s almost 200 years of history before you even have a Revolutionary war...almost the length of our current existence as a country.” (141:31)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “You’re crippling the guy that you’re fighting and then you’re going to tie him up, pull him to the top of the pyramid, rip his heart out and sacrifice him to the war God or the sun God...” — Luke (00:00)
• “Living next to the Aztecs is like constantly brushing up against sandpaper.” — Luke (08:00)
• “They describe it as being the most impressive thing they’ve ever seen. That the city [Tenochtitlan] was absolutely mind-blowingly beautiful and perfect and pristine and clean.” — Luke (37:40)
• “I think the short-sightedness that Culhuacan had was, rather than putting the Aztecs out on this crappy piece of real estate, what they actually did was give them a castle in the middle of the largest moat in the entire region.” — Luke (18:08)
• “[On the Amazon]—Every creature, every plant…has grown to defend itself from other things. So it's just a vicious cycle of death in the Amazon.” — Luke (79:22)
• “Nobody knows exactly how these things [Olmec heads] were transported...Aliens. Could be.” — Luke (96:00)
• “Sometimes you go looking for something and something else chooses you. …It's like the universe opens up this door, and this is the door you're meant to walk through.” — Luke (118:42)
• “If your whole purpose was to sit out in a garden and think about the world around you and everyone else just took care of…You’d be, the insights you would have would be totally insane.” — Luke (170:01)
• “All of history, I think, is just people swept up in the tsunami of civilization.” — Luke (73:24)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – Aztec brutality and the blueprint of ritual sacrifice
• 06:10 – Aztec migration, origins in Aztlan, and their codexes
• 15:00 – The prophesied founding of Tenochtitlan
• 16:00 – The coup and legendary skin-wearing betrayal
• 20:27 – Aztec Empire demographics and territorial expansion
• 26:23 – Teotihuacan’s influence; imperial administration
• 29:15 – The Spanish conquest and native rebellion
• 37:17 – Tenochtitlan’s beauty; Spanish awe
• 42:50 – Aztec warfare methods and philosophy
• 51:00+ – Spanish perspectives; “momentum of civilization”
• 58:34 – Comanche power and Great Plains realities
• 81:22–86:15 – Amazon myths, geoglyphs, "terra preta," and dangers of clickbait history
• 93:48 – Olmec civilization, enigma of the colossal heads
• 98:41–109:56 – Shamanism, psychedelics, and lost knowledge
• 125:18 – Squanto and indigenous experience confronting colonization
• 137:15–140:14 – The lost colony of Roanoke and overlooked colonial history
• 170:01 – Ancient insights and “the code to the universe”

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Tone, Style, & Dynamic

The conversation is dynamic, humorous, and intellectually adventurous. There’s a playful mix of skepticism and openness toward speculative theories—especially regarding ancient technologies, aliens, and the limits of mainstream archaeology. Both speakers share a deep respect for Indigenous achievements and mourn the marginalization of their histories.

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Closing

In classic JDP fashion, the episode closes on the importance of direct experience (“go see it for yourself”), preserving our ecological and historical heritage, and the ever-present need to push past conventional narratives. Luke advocates for renewed attention to overlooked American civilizations and finding common ground between academic and independent approaches.

Luke Caverns’ work and social links are provided in the episode’s description.

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Transcript

[A]

What a fascinating and overlooked part of history. I can tell you right now. Nobody in Mesoamerica liked the Aztecs. The Spaniards were shocked at how barbaric the Aztecs were. Essentially said that their civilization was absolutely demonic. So this is the blueprint for the Aztecs. You're crippling the guy that you're fighting and then you're going to tie him up, pull him to the top of the pyramid, rip his heart out and sacrifice him to the war God or the sun God or the rain God. But the Aztecs were also shocked that the Spaniards, their style of warfare was complete, total war. Just slaughtered people in the marketplace. This is like just the momentum of civilization moving forward. Exactly the same thing was happening in the Americas. You think of the Wild west, your only lot in life is like, I hear about this place over in California, there's lots of gold out there. Having absolutely no idea that there are commanches rolling around the plains that will scalp you and torture you to death and burn you alive just 160 years ago. Think about that. And what's really crazy is right at the beginning of their civilization, how did the Olmecs transport these heads? Aliens. I find myself studying ancient people and I see the bizarre things that they come up with and the things that they believe. And I actually have to agree with you. What is actually the answer to this?

[B]

Hey, guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge, huge help.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Luke Caverns. How's your stay been at Hotel Julian?

[A]

It's been great, man. Yeah, thank you so much.

[B]

Got all your accommodations, everything necessary?

[A]

I've got everything necessary. I've got the nice massage chair. I'm.

[B]

I'm living large massage chair, not illegal masseuse. Just want to be clear about that. We're not, you know, no Diddy around here.

[A]

No Diddy, that's right. So can you say that now or.

[B]

Am I going to get sued for saying that he is a convicted felon? All right, so we're good saying no Diddy.

[A]

All right. Yeah. So, yeah, I've been enjoying it, man. And actually got to see more of the city this time around.

[B]

I was going to say you went exploring yesterday before talking with our buddy Marky Gags.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where'd you go?

[A]

Nowhere. I just wandered around 14th street and checked out a couple stores and then rode the subway a couple places. Checked out a park, checked out some church and then headed over to Queens.

[B]

Very on Brand as an explorer, you treated New York City the same way as you treat Cambodia.

[A]

I love that. Yep.

[B]

That's excellent.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Had nowhere in particular I wanted to go. I didn't want to go do all the cheesy trademark stuff because I'm going to do that with my wife at some point. I'll do all the.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Empire State Building, the Met, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, I just kind of want it around.

[B]

All right, you're writing a book now?

[A]

I'm in the process of writing a couple books. There's one that's like the. My all time book that I want to write. I can't share the idea of it publicly, but the. This other one I'm writing right now is on the Olmecs and I'm going to do like a. I don't know exactly what I'm going to call it yet. I was just going to make it the Olmec Enigma or the. Something like Colossal Heads. I'm not really sure. But yeah, I want to do a history of ancient Mesoamerica and I want to do a book just on the Olmecs and because I feel like they deserve their own topic or their own book. And then I want to do a book called Lost Cities of the Snake God. And that. That basically goes from the Maya to the Aztecs. And then I might do a third follow up at some point. Like, I think I'll do it three years back to back to back.

[B]

Wait, you're going to call it Lost Cities of the. What was it?

[A]

Of the Snake God. Yeah, because you have the, the, the feathered serpent. That's like one of the trademark gods of Mesoamerica.

[B]

Have you trademarked that yet?

[A]

No.

[B]

You got to do that. That's hard as someone can steal that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Well, that's why I can't steal or that's why I can't publicly say the book I want to write.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, the one I was telling you about a minute ago, so.

[B]

Oh, the other one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

With that. I think that title's been taken, though. That's the thing. The one you told me outside.

[A]

You think so?

[B]

I, I mean, I know so. There's. There's been feature films made called that. We could do better than that too. That other one you have.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Lost City, Snake God hardest. Yeah, I'm buying that. I don't even know what it's about. I'm buying it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's good. So that's the third one that the.

[A]

Untitled One, I haven't figured it out, but it's essentially going to be the, it's essentially going to be the conquest of Mexico. So it's going to, it's going to begin. So right at the end of Mesoamerican pre Columbian history, the Aztecs are planning a final assault on the Maya world in the Yucatan. And the next day is when Cortez shows up and basically, you know, it's like two unstoppable forces meeting each other. The Aztec Empire and the Conquistadors. And I want to write a book that starts there and goes for maybe like the next 150 years or so. So like a three part history of ancient Mexico and Central America.

[B]

Let's dig into that. What, what, what happened there. Let's do a little preview of the book, if you will, here. So Cortez comes in for people not familiar. You can explain exactly what the tete a tet with the Aztecs were there. But how many guys did he come in with? What was the disease that happened afterwards? And then how did civilization settle over the next basically six, seven generations?

[A]

Yeah. So. So the only other thing I may do is I may just make it a two parter where I start off with the Olmecs because the Olmecs need their own book. There's no book out there that's just really dedicated to the Olmecs, that's accessible for just history fans.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then I may follow that up with a single book which is Lost Cities of the Snake God. And that one maybe includes the fall of Mexico in it, like the second half of the book. But yeah. So. Well, should I start, do you think I start with the Olmecs or you want me to say we'll come back.

[B]

To the Olmecs, the Aztecs? I've been waiting to do that. So let's do it.

[A]

Yeah. Where do you want to start with the Aztecs? Like what do you.

[B]

Well, you know what, actually a little exposition would be good. So if we have like 10 of Chitlan and everything before Cortez gets there. Just what it was like where it was located.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Show people the scene and then we can get the Cortez and you go wherever you want to go, my friend.

[A]

So, so Tenoche tilan. This is something that I think a lot of people don't realize is, you know, the Aztecs are so synonymous with Mexican history, but the Aztecs are and are not Mexican at all nowadays. Yeah. We just, they have been totally absorbed into the Mexican world, especially the modern Mexican world. But the Aztecs came from further north than the Mexican Valley, maybe not even Mexico at all. Possibly north of the Rio Grande, up into New Mexico, Nevada, maybe even Utah. We don't exactly know where they came from, but they came down from far north and a place called Aztlan. And they say that they came from, like, these caves of Aztlan, and that's their homeland. And that's not just a legend. They have these codexes, which are these long pieces of paper. So a codex is essentially. It's analogous to papyrus. So you've seen the papyrus scroll. They roll it up. Well, the difference is, in Mesoamerica, a codex is like, have you ever had a. You ever had a sticky. Those sticky notes that are folded like accordions, you know, where they're connected on each opposite side? Yeah. So that's a codex. It's. That's what a codex is. And so you would read it like this and then flip it over and read it the other way like a book. So the Aztecs had these codices, and they essentially tell their origin story in it, that they came from this lost place called Aztlan. They were essentially kicked out of it. And we think that they were kicked out of it for the same reason that they were kind of getting kicked around the Valley of Mexico when they came down, because they were such a violent, savage, barbaric, unamicable society that couldn't get along with anybody. And that's pretty much their history, is that they're, you know, living next to the Aztecs is like constantly brushing up against sandpaper. Like, it's just. It's impossible to live around these people. And so we know that they, when they migrate down from somewhere north of the Rio Grande, they find the Mexican Valley. And if.

[B]

What approximate year do you think they did?

[A]

Okay, so this is. This is probably sometime around 1100 or 1200. So. So 800, 900 years ago.

[B]

They have a buttress of 7, 2, 300 years before Cortez, 400 years somewhere in that area.

[A]

So that's when they arrive in the Mexican Valley. And, you know, it's not hard to. It's not hard to see why this is a place that they would have loved. So they came from the American Southwest, which is just desert. This is the land of the cliff dwellers and, and, you know, very arid environments. And as soon as you hit the Valley of Mexico, well, it's just a beautiful highland mountains, cool, crisp air, fertile valleys. You can grow anything. There's, you know, it's. The Valley of Mexico is where corn was first grown like. Like maize. It's just a extremely fertile, extremely wealthy place and, and was wealthy long before the Aztecs ever arrived. Like, have you ever heard of the. You ever heard of Teotihuacan? The Pyramid of the Sun?

[B]

The moon? Yes.

[A]

Temple of Quetzalcoatl.

[B]

You talked to me about that the first time you were in here.

[A]

Okay, was I. So it's 177, or did I. Yeah. So that was a great. That was a great empire that existed about a thousand years before the Aztecs ever arrived in the Valley of Mexico. So the Aztecs found that city, Teotihuacan, and it had been abandoned for a thousand years by the time the Aztecs showed up.

[B]

What was. And, and what was the surrounding geography like there?

[A]

It's. It's mountainous. It's. It's like arid. It's like arid mountains. But yet the closer you get to the rivers, the more fertile it is. So you have a lot of. There's a lot of agriculture there. It's a. Yes, got it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's. It's absolutely gorgeous. This photo was probably taken in the winter, so everything's a little bit more dead.

[B]

That's a. Yeah, that step pyramid looks like the one in Apocalypto when they were throwing the bodies down it.

[A]

Yep, very similar. So this was the. This was the empire of Teotihuacan, which was a civilization that flourished in the area of. North of modern day Mexico City about a thousand years before the Aztecs arrived. So when the Aztecs get there, they, you know, they see the wealth that's here, they see why people would want to live here, and then they want to live there as well. And so they're kind of orbiting around the Valley of Mexico, where you have multiple different tribes and kingdoms who are already there that are now living in the shadows of. Living in the shadow of the pyramids of Teotihuacan. They know what happened in those imperial times a thousand years ago. They know about all the war that happened between the Valley of Mexico and the Maya. And they're all getting along with each other relatively amicably. And so the Aztecs are a pretty savage and violent group of people. And so they. They're constantly getting brushed out by these other tribes that are already living in the Valley of Mexico, and they're just kicking them out, kicking them out, kicking them out, kicking them out. And they probably orbit around this valley for several decades, maybe 50 years or so. I mean, from what we Think. And eventually they approach the city of Caluican. And so the kingdom of Calvican. They eventually, you know, the Aztecs tell them, you know, we're are our people, at least we think they make some kind of agreement. And probably what it is is the Aztecs are coming to them saying, listen, our people, our people are.

[B]

Someone's not okay out there, but keep going.

[A]

So the Aztecs come to them and say, listen, our people are starving. We don't have a place to settle down. We have nothing. You know, we, please, let us, let us work for you. Let us do something for you. We'll be mercenaries for you. We'll be soldiers and warriors for you. And so the Calicon, you know, royalty probably gets together and is like, well, yeah, these guys would probably make good warriors. Okay, what are we gonna, what are we gonna do? We should probably use these guys before someone else uses them against us. So they're like, they're like, okay, what can we do? Well, they're good warriors, but they're pretty savage people. They're not going to fit in with our society. So let's, let's hire them as mercenaries and we'll give them a little plot of land inside of our kingdom or inside of our territory that they can use.

[B]

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[A]

This is a real good story about.

[B]

Bronx and his dad, Ryan. Real United Airlines customers.

[A]

We were returning home, and one of.

[B]

The flight attendants asked Bronx if he.

[A]

Wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. So what they do is. Is they're like, okay, well, let's give them this crappy outcropping in the middle of the lake Texcoco, where there's, like. There's just. You can. The lake's real shallow. You can walk across some of the stones on it. And there's a rocky outcropping sitting in the middle of the lake. And it's like the worst real estate you can possibly imagine. But the Aztec prophets and the chroniclers had been told by their God, Huitz Dipotli. So, you know, their. Their shamans probably take a psilocybin mushroom or Detura or something like that and go into this trans state and speak. Yeah. And so. So they probably speak to. They probably speak to Huitz Depot, their God.

[B]

And I think I met him when I did ayahuasca.

[A]

You may have.

[B]

Remember that guy?

[A]

You may have him and Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin together. So wild combo. So he. They're given the. The prophets or they're given the. The great vision of when you see the serpent in the talons of the eagle, that's. That's where you'll know that you're. You're supposed to settle down. It's like our promised land, right? So that's the iconic eagle grabbing the serpent image that we see in Mexico today. So the Aztecs are like, okay, well, I guess we're gonna go out to this little outcropping in the middle of this lake. So they go out there. Sure enough, there's probably. There's some water snake in on those rocks, and an eagle comes down and swoops down and grabs it and flies off. And they're like, oh, well, that's it. This is where we're supposed to be on this little Crappy, rocky outcropping. So they start building this little village there on top, on top of the water, and they're bringing more stones in and essentially building up the land and building these little huts on it. And, you know, it's like a. It's like a primitive Venice, right? It just. They're living on top of the water in little huts. And this goes on for 100 to 150 years. And the Aztecs act as Cal Welchan's mercenaries, as their warriors, and they make Calacan very rich, and they make themselves very rich in the process. And so the Aztec kingdom basically grows up inside the empire of Calvican, or Calvican, has. Is a. Is a neighboring kingdom that has dominion over them. And so the Aztecs are getting more and more wealthy from these military expeditions and raids they're doing for Calvican. And so after a half a century to a century, the shaman goes into this trance state and meets Huitzipotli and Huizipot Lee tells him, okay, it's now time for our kingdom to be elevated. I want you to send a proposition to go tell the king to send a proposition to the king of Calacan that we will send our Aztec prince to marry the Calvacan princess and form a dynastic marriage and tell them that, you know, and probably we just assume that the incentive for Calvakhan to do this was that the Aztecs are getting more powerful. They're obviously very skilled warriors. It's better that we have that we now have a dynastic marriage rather than just a contract, right? Instead of, well, maybe we partner up with these guys now, you know. And so as the Aztecs get more powerful, the Calicon has this now incentive to be like, okay, this probably makes sense, that we officially secure ourselves with a bloodline to the Aztecs and essentially become a. A fortified nation. And so Calicon agrees and they. They send a princess over and they have a. They have this wedding and they get married. They build this palace for the. Or we assume that they would have had a palace for the Aztec prince. The princess comes to live in Tenochtitlan, you know, in the middle of this lake. And the shaman goes back into the temple and goes under the deterra or psilocybin, or peyote, probably peyote, and goes into this trans state. And Huitzipotli has another plan and says, I want you to invite the Calvican king back into Tenochtitlan and we'll have a celebration. And they had something Big planned, they wanted to elevate, you know, the Aztec world. This was their overall goal. So the Calicon king shows up into Tenochtitlan. They open up the gates. The royal, the other, you know, rest of the royal family is with him. He's there to see his daughter. And rather than seeing his daughter, he sees the prince wearing her skin and dancing around in the, you know, in the middle of the plaza, performing next to her dead corpse. And they had filleted her and Collater, they had filleted her and cut all of her skin off and the, in the Aztec prince had slipped inside of her skin and was dancing in it. It and, and so drag queen Filang. Yeah. So you can imagine this scene. And so they ambush the Cal king and the rest of the royal family and just eliminate Calicon and invade the city and raid it and then absorb Calicon into the Aztec kingdom instead. Except the Aztecs have complete control over Cal. And now the rest of these other neighboring kingdoms and tribes hear about this savage tribe that just a century ago wasn't even allowed to be a part of our civilization. And now they've conquered and completely betrayed the most powerful kingdom here. But I get, I think the short sightedness that Cal had was rather than putting the Aztecs out on this crappy piece of real estate, what they actually did was give them a castle in the middle of the largest moat in the entire region with only one bridge going from the mainland into the city. So now they have an impenetrable city in the middle of the lake Texcoco with all the power of the Mexican Valley.

[B]

Do we have any idea how big their civilization is around this time? Like ballpark.

[A]

You know, I don't know. I mean I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess. I don't know about the Aztecs, but I know the Mexican Valley. Maybe it's half a million people. Ish.

[B]

All right, so nothing. Yeah. So not something.

[A]

Millions and millions. Yeah, yeah. But within 150 years the Aztec empire will be about at least. I just read the conquest of Mexico which was written in the 1850s. And, and I think that the estimate was like 10 million. It'll grow to 10 million people.

[B]

There were 10 million Aztecs.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know that's not necessarily Aztecs. It's people who are living inside the Roman Empire. Right. So it's like saying, okay, it's like saying there's 100 million Romans. Well that includes Africans. Yeah, got it. I don't know the numbers of, of who are actually Aztec blood wise.

[B]

Right. So a couple things here. Let's start with this. Obviously we're now including people that they conquered who aren't part of the original Aztec tribe, if you will. But how big of a span, including where the conquered people lived, did the Aztecs have in the Mexican valley? Was it 300 miles?

[A]

Was it 4, 500 miles? Well, it quickly, it quickly went from just the Mexican valley, so right around Lake Texcoco, you know, you had these several different kingdoms that were around the lake and then they are in the center of it. Well, it quickly became all of the Mexican Valley and then within a hundred years it was everything north of this, of the Valley of Mexico all the way up to the Chihuahuan Desert, I think all the way to the west to the Pacific coast, all the way down the Pacific coast into southern central Mexico, all the way over to Chiapas up to Veracruz. Yeah, so it was, it was the vast majority.

[B]

Sonic, look at that.

[A]

So do you see on the right where it says Maya holy. They have the whole middle of the country. Yeah. And the Aztec Empire was bigger than this. Do you see that? Do you see that, that river that's just, that's just to the left of the Maya. So I think that's the Usama Sinta, the other one. So you go one more over one more river to the, to the west, to the west of that, that's about where the Aztec Empire ended somewhere in there. So it's a blurry line because you still have Maya that are living there.

[B]

So I'm not going to even try to eyeball square mileage here, but if people are watching this and not listening, you can see it's a large, I mean the car. A major cartel would be very happy to have all that territory.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So that, and, and it was, it was much larger than this too. It also went further out to the west to those further coastlines. So this is like the smallest version of the Aztec Empire map.

[B]

How did they like police this? Did they have like their own Roman praetorian God or something?

[A]

Like what was the deal? My guess we have some data on this and, and I'm not yet an expert on the Aztecs. Like the, the way I grew up doing this, you know, for the last six, seven years is I started with the early Maya and I went back to the Olmecs and then I went forward in time. So now I'm becoming an expert more so in right before the colonial period and then the colonial periods. This is Kind of what I'm studying right now. Oh, sorry. But sorry, what'd you ask me?

[B]

Yeah, I was asking you about how they, how they policed.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

This area, like, did they, like, did they have a military or. Okay.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I imagine it probably sounded cooler than that. Like.

[A]

No, well, they definitely had a military. They had, you know, they, they did planned coordinated strikes and conquest and missions. They had things drawn out and maps like it was full blown military warfare, you know, in the way that we would imagine it with the Romans and the Greeks fighting as strategically and methodically thought out as that. Very similar. It's the same thing. Yeah.

[B]

Right. So you have people being sent to just making something up. Right now as an example, you know, they have a town somewhere in the west there that's a conquered part of the empire that now is part of the Aztec empire. Maybe a thousand people live there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they send three equivalents of what we might refer to today as a soldier to be there to kind of like look over stuff. And people know, don't with those.

[A]

That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. So we know from. So you kind of have these two phases of empires that come from the Mexican valley. And the prototype for the Aztec empire was Teotihuacan that I was telling you about earlier. That massive city that had been abandoned a thousand years before the Aztec empire rises. So Teotihuacan was also an empire a thousand years before, very similar in many ways to the Aztecs. And when we go to the Maya world, we will find what we call tolude Tablero architecture. So tolude Tablero architecture is just the name of the architectural style. So you'll see an entire city with thousands of buildings that we know, you know, this is paten architecture. This is, you know, real back architecture, X, Y and Z puke architecture. So this is, this looks like this is paten. This is probably up here. Yeah, this is probably Guatemala. So you would go through a city and you'd see a lot of architecture that's very, very similar to this. And then you will, you'll see one building that's in the style of tolude to blero. And it's very noticeable. Like the facades of the front of the building are just totally different style while yet still in the same genre. And so judging by the hieroglyphs and the images and the gods that are depicted on these buildings, we know that these buildings were built by Teotihuacanos that were living in the Maya world. And these were Basically, ambassador buildings. So when Teotihuacan was taking over the Maya realm, it's not like they invaded a Maya city with a bunch of Teotihuacano people. They just probably killed all of their soldiers or killed most of them and then brought their own soldiers in and put them in. And then they had a. They had an administrative ambassador building where an important governmental person from Teotihuacan lived in this Maya city and basically made sure everything ran according to the plan of the Teotihuacano emperor.

[B]

That's what you got to do. You got to come in, you got to kill the existing soldiers. It's just an administrative hassle.

[A]

Yep. And they would allow the. They would allow, most of the time, the royal family to still exist, but they kill the king and replace the king with a. With a Teotihuacano son.

[B]

How does that even work? Then? How does it still exist if you cut off the head of the snake? There's no royal bloodline.

[A]

Well, yeah, so it's kind of like. It's kind of like, okay, so. So there's a city called Copan. It's in Honduras. It's the farthest Maya city that you can get from the Mexican Valley, the farthest major Maya city. And there's a stele there where we can see the lineages of the Maya kings. And then I forget the last king, but he ends. And the next king that shows up on a stele is a man that looks completely different than we've ever seen before. And his name, glyph, is a Teotihuacano name. So he becomes the new king all of a sudden, and he marries a Maya woman, and they have this dynastic marriage that now can show. It's like Teotihuacan took over Copan, killed the king, and then had one of the daughters there marry his own son. So now his son is the king of Copan. Right. So it's subsidiary.

[B]

Backdoored it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm guessing, you know, it's undetectable, but they probably just replaced all the soldiers with their own soldiers. And, you know, something. Something like this. So this is the blueprint for the Aztecs. The Aztecs just fit right into. They just do exactly the same thing, and. And then sweep across the Mesoamerican world.

[B]

This is not. But that's what's crazy. They didn't even cut. As you were pointing out, they didn't even come down to Mexico until 1100 50, 1200. And they're able to build that Large swath of land. Again, this isn't like in the modern day where things move faster because there's more means of technology and intercommunication, all that. They build that big of a swath of an empire within basically like two or 300 years.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which I know that's a long time, but again, back then, like lack of resources. Crazy. They were able to do that. And all different kinds of terrains there as well. You got to think about fighting the geography.

[A]

Oh, it's great.

[B]

And yet they, they turn into this 10 million strong empire basically over there by the time Cortez comes around. Now, part of the problem is, and I could ask this question about every empire that's ever existed that conquers people. So it's relevant to all them. But it's relevant here again, how do you develop pure loyalty when you conquer all these people who technically are then pulled into your empire, but they're not a part of your culture by blood, such that when someone. I don't even know if this is relevant to Cortez, but just bear with me here. Someone like Cortez comes in, you know, a lot of, of those 10 million people, basically nine and a half million of them don't even want to fight for it because they're like, whatever.

[A]

All right, totally relevant.

[B]

Right?

[A]

It's utterly, completely relevant. Yeah. Cortez arrives. And the reason that the Aztecs fell is because so many of the tribes turned against the Aztecs in and helped Cortez. So Cortez essentially divided and conquered Mexico. He got everyone to turn against the Aztecs because the Aztecs are, are, are anything but Mesoamerican. I mean, they're not. We see them as synonymous with, with Mesoamerica. They're, they're incredibly important to Mesoamerican history as a whole. But I can tell you right now, nobody in Mesoamerica liked the Aztecs. They're, they, they came from the north. They are invaders, just like the Spanish were. They invaded ancient Mexico or ancient Mesoamerica and completely flipped it on its head. You know, their, their style of warfare, their brutality. The way that they conquered was inherently different than the way that things had been run in Mesoamerica previously. And it was just much more, it was just much more brutal and much more vicious. War warfare in Mesoamerica previously, for thousands of years previously was vicious, but it wasn't necessarily imperial. The only example of that is Teotihuacan. And Teotihuacan fell from inside itself and around the year 500 AD and never rose again. All of the other wars were not really imperial. The. The Maya were not imperial people. The Zapotex were not. Veracruz culture was not imperial. They were very. They just didn't view the world in that way. And so the Aztecs were very much alien to the Mesoamerican world. And so when Cortez showed up. Yeah. Everybody else that was already native to Mexico instantly turned on the Aztecs and helped the conquistadors plot against them and against them.

[B]

Before we go to that whole history and how that went down. What, at their peak, which is essentially like, right before Cortez comes.

[A]

Yeah, it's. Yeah, their peak is 14. Error is 1519.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So at their peak, what did their economy look like and what did their social class structure look like?

[A]

Oh, gosh. I mean, man, I. This is kind of beyond something that I can answer as far as the Aztecs. Like, if it were the Maya, I could answer this very easy.

[B]

That's why I like you, Luke. You're willing to say, I don't know, instead of making up.

[A]

That's great. Yeah, don't worry about it. Well, my guess would be. My guess would be, you know, they. They have an empire that runs out of Tenocheitlan, and everything else in Mexico is actually running just like normal. You know, again, it's not like they replaced the city of Cholula, which is just another site in. In the Mexican Valley. It's not like they replaced the city of Cholula with all new Aztec people and totally change the fabric of society. You know, you had your different levels. So you have. At least from what we can tell. Right. Like, we don't have a document that. That tells us exactly how Mesoamerican society was run. The way that we know is. So we were walking. You and I were walking down the street the other day, and I said. I said, in ancient times, people would cover up the buildings with stucco. You remember that? Yeah, because. Because the brickwork was kind of ugly in the ancient world. So they would. They would flatten it out with white stucco, and then they would paint on it. And. And those paintings represented everyday life. So sometimes you get, like, a depiction of a market, or you get a depiction of. Or you get a depiction of a marketplace, dynastic people or royal family interacting with normal people. So judging by that artwork, we can infer a lot about their society. So what does Mesoamerican society look like kind of anywhere else in the ancient world? Like, probably very similar To Rome. I mean, you have people that are just at like subsistence level that are barely making it by their. However, I should say money did not exist. There's no, there's no currency. It's all like chickens and. Yeah. It's just trade. So like, you know, trade for trade. My. My material for your material. There is no concept of money. And what's funny is that as appalled as the Spaniards were at many of the behaviors of the Aztecs, like the, you know, thousands of people that the Aztecs were. Were suffering and the way that they would torture people, that the Aztecs were just shocked at how barbaric and vicious it was. I'm sorry. The Spaniards were shocked at how barbaric the Aztecs were, but the Aztecs were shocked, shocked at. They could not comprehend the Spanish lust for gold. It was just like a completely, utterly different society. They did not value gold and material like this in a, in a monetary way. They clearly knew that gold was important. But having gold didn't necessarily make you rich. The thing that made you rich was your bloodline. That's it. That's the only way.

[B]

Well, if they don't have money and they're just trading, is it. Essentially there's some people just dying out there today. There's some going on. I don't know if like those are like pro Aztec people that are upset what we're talking about, but I swear to God the door's locked. So I think we're good.

[A]

The Aztecs are. This is a, this is a very.

[B]

I just ran with that.

[A]

This is a very controversial topic. Yeah, yeah. So I'm learning that people are gonna be. People can be upset about the Aztecs.

[B]

That's okay. That's what the comments.

[A]

Well, it's, it's very close to heart and there's a lot of. There's a lot of like Latino, Mexican people that have Aztec blood and a lot of people feel very strongly about the Aztecs and they're, they're as polarizing today as they were then. Right. Because, you know, the Spaniards essentially said that their civilization was absolutely demonic. Like even the Daily Wire came out with a video where they're. Where they're calling the Aztecs demonic.

[B]

Demonic.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So they're calling them demonic because of the people that they were sacrificing. But it's really a lack of.

[B]

That's rich from Ben Shapiro.

[A]

Neither here nor there. It's really, it's really a lack of an in depth understanding of the Aztec world and the nuances of it. Yeah, they were probably. This is why I always think it's funny. At the same time, I see this from both sides. You know, there are people that go, well, you know, the Spaniards saying that the aztecs were sacrificing 80,000 people a day and, you know, ripping their hearts out and throwing them off the top of the, of the pyramids. You know, that has to be an exaggeration. I'm like, do you, are they exaggerating by 80,000 people? Like, if they're exaggerating, how many was it? 40,000. You know, and so.

[B]

It'S like when people argue over like atrocities, there were only 40,000, not 80. It's like, wait a minute. Pretty sure that's not good.

[A]

So that's, that's kind of the, that's kind of the Aztec world. But, you know, most people only know the Aztecs for their vicious, savage side of which they were, you know, they got everything that was coming to them. You know, the Spaniards was like the universe's answer to the Aztecs. Right? It just, they got what was coming to them. I, I can't, you know, I can't sugarcoat that any anymore. But, but also they had a lot of interesting parts of, of their society. Like the first Spaniards to see Tenocheitlan in, I think it was early 1520. They describe it as being the most impressive thing that they've ever seen. That the city was absolutely mind blowingly beautiful and perfect and pristine and clean. What made it. People were so nice. Okay. There's all, there were all kinds of things about the city that you would never expect. Like when you think of an ancient Mesoamerican city, you imagine, look up Tenochtitlan reconstruction, if you would, and there's, there's a, there are modern day reconstructions of it that really give you an idea how beautiful it was. Now this is a Spanish, this is a Spanish recreation of the city. So you can see it's so sitting in the middle of this lake. But wait till you see these new 3D reconstructions. It's sick, man.

[B]

It's amazing that they were able to build something like that. I mean, again, you can say the same about like Venice.

[A]

Check that out.

[B]

That people can even rebuild that. Is that. Wait, that's a reconstruction right there?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So it's a, it's a digital reconstruction of what it would have looked like based on the archaeological data. Yeah, it's beautiful.

[B]

It's like a be in the middle of the Colorado Rockies.

[A]

Tell me that, tell me that. That doesn't look amazing. So the Spaniards. The Spaniards had never seen anything like this. They said that it was. They said it was more beautiful than any city that they'd seen in Spain.

[B]

How do you even militarily conquer something like this? That it's so. It's quite literally fortified. I'm just thinking in like, older terms now there's technology.

[A]

You know, what's crazy is this is a. This is a great mystery about, about the Aztecs is that Moctezuma knew that the Spaniards were marching through Mexico trying to find him. Trying to find him because they. They had heard the name. The Spainers had heard of Moctezuma. They'd heard of the Aztecs. They knew the city ton they were looking for it. And Moctezuma knew that Cortez was headed for him. And rather than just meeting Cortez head on and going straight to war with him, Moctezuma invited Cortez into the palace and let all, I think roughly 150 Spaniards into the heart of Tenocheit line where they took Moctezuma captive in his own palace. And that. We don't exactly know how Moctezuma died in that palace, but it was like, listen. It was like he just opened up the gates and let him in.

[B]

Listen. It didn't work out how it was supposed to because something got fucked up. But Montezuma and I know this. I have a really good source on this. He was a huge fan of the Godfather. And rule number one is keep your friends close by your enemies closer. He was just, you know, he was 3D chess in them.

[A]

He was trying.

[B]

And then he got a little 4D.

[A]

And you know, he did. Yeah, that's what happened. And the Spaniards, man, this is that with the Aztec empire and the Inca empire, they just conquer it like immediately, like it was nothing. It is. It's one of the most bizarre things of Mesoamerica because a lot of people, again, this is kind of. I guess this has sort of become. My purpose is to popularize pre Columbian history and like, help people more understand more of the nuances because they look at the Native American world as like, primitive and vastly inferior to the Europeans because of how easily Europeans seem to have conquered Mexico. That couldn't be further from the truth. Like, I mean, when. When the Maya tried to go to war against the Spaniards, the Spaniards could not. Could barely conquer the Maya. They just couldn't do it. And the Aztecs were far superior warriors with much more numbers and, and were much more sophisticated at that same time. Or contemporaneously. And so anyways, yeah, the Cortez just essentially gets invited into the palace in Tenochtitlan, and they're sitting there in the middle of the city. They take. They take Moctezuma captive and essentially put the entire Aztec empire on hold. And nobody knows exactly what happened to Moctezuma in that temple. There's. I think there's three different theories as to what happened. One, he was strangled to death and he was killed or something, and the Aztecs later found his body in the temple. Two, he was strangled to death or killed, and the Spaniards threw his body over the side of the walls, like out into the street. Or three, they convinced Moctezuma to become a spokesperson for the Spaniards. Right. To, like, essentially he would be like a. Like a puppet emperor. Right. On behalf of the Spaniards. And then the Aztecs were so pissed off that they stoned Moctezuma to death.

[B]

Hey, guys, if you haven't already subscribed, please hit that subscribe button. It's a huge, huge help. Thank you.

[A]

In response. So those are the three stories that we get from the Spaniards. So obviously conflicting details.

[B]

No one knows what happened.

[A]

Nobody knows exactly what happened to him. But long story short, the Spaniards are in the middle of Tenocheitlan in the palace in the giant plaza center that you see there, surrounded by millions of Aztecs. And they've got themselves fortified inside the palace. Of course, the. The Spaniards are covered in armor. They have swords. You know, swords are just. It's a. Okay, so a difference in warfare. The Spaniards, the Aztecs were also shocked that the Spaniards, their style of warfare was complete, total war. It wasn't about, like, extrapolating. It wasn't about subduing you and then taking your materials from you. It was about eliminating your existence. Yeah. Like, you and I, most of the time, when you get in this. This is sort of Mesoamerican warfare. It's kind of like a street fight. You're not intending to kill the other person. You just want to subdue them and hurt them really badly and then get what you need out of the situation. Right.

[B]

That's what they would do.

[A]

That's Mesoamerican war. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

That doesn't fly with Europe.

[A]

It doesn't bother us. Yes, exactly. And so they were shocked that, oh, these swords that they have, this is like. This is killing people. They don't even exist anymore. It was. It was just shocking brutality even to the Aztecs, that the people throwing hearts off the. Exactly right. It's crazy, right? Yeah. It doesn't make sense because it's a completely different. It's a completely alien world to us. They even. They even gave their enemy's death significance because. So they would have something called the makawi, which was a club that had razor sharp obsidian edges on the end. And so they would also have like a wooden shield. And so when they would run at each other in battle, you would try to hit each other with this bat with these razor edges and. And you essentially wanted to cripple the guy and then tie him up.

[B]

That's what they would use.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So it has better than a Louisville.

[A]

It's cool. Right? And so you. In those obsidian. So there's nothing sharper than obsidian, by the way.

[B]

Yeah, I was gonna say, like. But this takes like a little bit of the work out of it though, too. Like one blow. I mean, you're crunching bones.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Whereas with a Louisville, it's more personal. You gotta take a couple hacks at it. You feel the crack.

[A]

Like Inglourious bastards.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, I've never done this before. I've just, you know, heard it. Yeah, a lot of people.

[A]

Italian, from Jersey. Sure you have.

[B]

Listen, I keep the bat in the car. I didn't say we use it. It's just there is a. You know, when you need a bat.

[A]

So they were. So they go to war with.

[B]

He knows that's true.

[A]

They go to war with these things, and you're essentially breaking each other's arms and legs. You're crippling the guy that you're fighting, and then you're going to tie him up, drag him back to the city center, pull him to the top of the pyramid, and then rip his heart out and sacrifice him to, you know, the war God or the sun God or the rain God, you know, but you even give your enemy's death a sense of significance, right? Like every living thing has a sense of significance, even if they're your enemy. Even to the Aztecs, right? You're a like, dude, I don't care. Like, you know what I mean? Their. Their whole. The Spaniards just slaughtered people in the marketplace. Even in Tenocheitlan, they slaughtered 3,000 men, women and children with, you know, iron swords. And how did they just. It's just a total war. It was shocking, even to Mesoamericans.

[B]

Can we back up for one second just to review the history? How did they even first find out about this? How did they end up on the Western? I think they Start on the western coast or eastern coast.

[A]

Eastern, Eastern.

[B]

I'm sorry, yeah, eastern coast of Mexico. And then, you know, get information that like Montezuma existed. 10 of cheat line, like you mentioned, 15, 20, the first guy goes there. But like, what. Take me into that. Five, seven years leading up to that, that gets culminates with Cortez going in there and we don't know what happened in that building. Montezuma dies.

[A]

So obviously 1492, Columbus thinks that he finds India or the Indies, but really he lands in the Bahamas. And there are four expeditions in total. And they essentially inhabit a large part of the Caribbean, Hispaniola, you know, Jamaica, Cuba, etc. Etc. So they, they largely inhabit these regions and they're sending out other expeditions. Kind of going around the coast of North America, poking around on Florida, trying to go around the. The coast of Texas or sailing along, you know, the North America down the Mexican coast. They're even poking around to the uk. They're even poking around to the Yucatan, down to Belize. They're sailing around, trying to just get a grasp without actually going on the land of what this land mass is in front of them. There's even a guy who gets lost to history and man, I forgot his name too. I wish I remembered it.

[B]

He really got lost.

[A]

Yeah, he really got lost. Dang. Sorry.

[B]

All the Anna Jones over here.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, sorry. Dude, what years are we talking?

[B]

Maybe we can Google and find out.

[A]

The year 1500, he sailed all the way down to the coast of South America and found the mouth of the Amazon 40 years before Orianna did.

[B]

I was going to say Orianna was the one that gets.

[A]

No, no, this other dude did it and who found. Damn it, I forgot Orianna.

[B]

Pedro Alvarez Cabral.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, Cabral.

[B]

There's a lot of syllables there.

[A]

Pedro Alvarez. I. I'll just call him Pedro Alvarez sounds more.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So, yeah, Pedro Alvarez, he found it in the year 1500, 40 years before we give Orianna credit. So, I mean, dude, think about this. This is. This is. I'm kind of like getting really into this period, you know, this early exploration period, the Europeans discovering America for themselves and trying to figure out. Because, I mean, think about this, dude, think about how much this interrupted human history. Oh yeah, the. The Spaniards are sailing to try to find a different trade route to get to India, just to be able to get the spices more affordably. And then they discover two continents, they discover the other side of the planet.

[B]

That is. That is like finding an alien civilization.

[A]

Yes. In the Middle of, you know, in the middle of the spice trade. It's like it just completely interrupted human history. You just. They just found another planet with a. With other people on it. And now everything changes. Right? It's just, it's. It's an immeasurably, inconceivably important era of history. You and I were talking about this other day on the, on our walk, like, between the year 1500 and 1700 is such an overlooked part of history.

[B]

Yeah. But even, even right beyond that. I agree, 100. But even, like, if you look more American centric there, which you are, the stuff that you talk about, by the way, with South America just in General, forget even 15 to 1700, it's so overlooked, period. All of it. Like, the history down there is insane. But now if you look at, if you're looking at the Americas and you focus in on North America a little bit. Yeah. 15 to 1700 at least, though. You know, we get Jamestown, we get the Pilgrims, we get like a little bit of, like, things are being built. I would say even beyond that, when you get into, like the years leading up to the French and Indian War and then the French and Indian War before the Revolution, that shit is insane. And we live here and we don't even talk about it. I don't know what, they don't even make movies on it. They barely make movies on the Revolutionary War. That war was fucking nuts, bro. There's a lot of movies in that war, but the French and Indian War. If you've seen the movie the Patriot, where Benjamin Martin, Mel Gibson's always being said, oh, you're the guy from, from the swamp. He's like running away from it. And his son finally asked him about it. He's like, we took our time, we parted him up. It was what was left of them. We sent it back and eyes in the boxes, hands in the. You know, and you're like, wait a second. It's based. That's not like a real event, but that's based on the kind of.

[A]

That was happening.

[B]

Crazy.

[A]

Yeah. I'm getting. I'm getting dangerously close to diving into that post colonial world because, man, I just. There's so much history there that needs to be, that needs to be talked about, like. And what really inspired me is what we were talking about a minute ago was Killers of the Flower Moon. I mean, that, that's, that's the very end of the Native American world, man. There's so many important stories, dude, during that time period, so much, man. That's that's one story of hundreds across the Americas. It's a fascinating period.

[B]

We had David Grant, who wrote the book that became the movie, sitting right there. And obviously for people aren't familiar, didn't see the Scorsese De Niro dicaprio film of it or didn't read the book. You know, this has taken place in the earlier part of the. Of the 20th century and like you said, back end of some of these stories. But, you know, he got emotional, David talking about it. And these are people who died 100 years ago.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's just that heavy. Like, it's like this. Sometimes I feel like we overuse this example, but you know how, like when you were watching True Detective Season 1, the setting was. Was really a main character, along with McConaughey for sure, and, And Woody Harrelson. It's like you could feel the soul of that setting, the dark underbelly that existed in this. In this, you know, swampland. And there's a similar. In the plain land type thing that still exists there and hangs over literally in the fact that people who are related to both sides of it in that story, it's white settlers killing Native Americans. There's people whose, Whose bloodlines go back to both.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is just like.

[A]

Yeah, it's, It's. It's crazy. What I've been reading lately, we were talking about this was halfway through Empire of the Summer Moon and man, I. I'm just getting fascinated with this S.G. gwen. Right. Yeah. Yeah. With this, with this American history of, you know, because people. It gets so oversimplified. You know, we look at it as like, oh, this is. This is. These are colonial people that are evil and taking over the, you know, the Americas and taking it away from the natives. It's like, you know, what. No, this is actually the momentum of civilization and nobody was going to stop it. Nobody. The Spaniards that came over and the Conquistadors, you know, people vilify the conquistadors, but these were actually poor, impoverished Spaniards whose only lot in life was either to sit and rot away in the slums of Spain or jump on a ship and go participate in this conquest of which they couldn't anticipate what would actually happen in the conquest or who they would meet or what they would take part in. And then all of a sudden you're there, you're fighting for your life. That's it. They. Exactly. Exactly the same thing was happening in the Americas. Yeah. There are decision makers, there are people involved in the government that were doing things that they knew were atrocities, but it's. If you don't do it, someone else will. This is like just the momentum of the game, of civilization moving forward, and there's winners and losers, and it just. It always happens that way. It was happening in the Americas before the Europeans ever even got here, clearly, as we were talking about with the Aztecs. And I'm just fascinated by this. Like, what was the show? American Primeval. You have this bundle.

[B]

Words out of my mouth.

[A]

You have this bundle of people that are just thrown into the Wild West. They were all born there. None of them are responsible for it. You have people who. I'm getting chills talking about it. You get people who, you know, are the son of a Comanche, who's the son of an outlaw, who's, you know, the daughter of a businessman in Baltimore. And then all of a sudden, you're all in the Wild west together, just trying to survive in one of the most violent places that's ever existed and places of complete uncertainty. It's just a man. What a fascinating and overlooked part of history.

[B]

You know, it's like, dude, I knew nothing about the Brigham Young and Mormon settlement out there. You know, the one thing I can watch once in a while is like, when there's a good limited series because, you know, I don't have time to watch it.

[A]

Agreed. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You know, if I'm sick for a day, I can actually get through that instead of like some six season TV show.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But I was watching the first like 30 minutes of that. I'm like, all right. I love some of the actors in it. So I'm like, all right, it's kind of slow.

[A]

American Primeval.

[B]

Yeah, kind of slow. Like, come on, get me, get me. And then that first arrow hits in that scene and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And suddenly, like, you know, I'm pausing it every 10 minutes, like going to Wikipedia, like, is this true?

[A]

Holy.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

Yes, it is.

[B]

You know, and it is nuts to me that that was only 160 years ago. And there's just this, which people go watch. I really want to get the creator, Mark Smith, in here, but he doesn't really do a podcast. So we asked him and he didn't want to do it. But Mark would love to have you. And you did an amazing job. Like the research they put into that to tell this story and show just how destitute, just by the means of waking up every day, people were just to try to find something, how they had to stick with people to fight. Not just the terrain in the wild, but the unknowns that they were going to encounter along the way. That could even include like crazy French gypsies like, you don't even know what you're getting out there. And they just, they did such a beautiful job showing that in that show. It was very like. I don't know. I haven't heard Taylor Sheridan comment on that show. Obviously he didn't have to do with that one, but it felt very much like he would have been like, you did, guys, nice job.

[A]

Probably so. Yeah. Yeah, man, it's. I was so surprised to learn that what, how you said it's just 160 years ago, man, that ancient, primordial American North America still existed. 160 years ago, there were. I wouldn't say that there, that we can definitively say there were Native Americans living in North America that didn't know what a white man was, but there definitely were Native Americans living in North America who had never seen a white man 160 years ago. And something I think is so fascinating when we talk about the dangers that people moving west towards California was so, you know, the, the gold rush of the mid 18, mid 1800s. I never realized this. One of the reasons you needed a wagon train wasn't just for convenience. It was so that you could make it past the Great Plains. Because quite literally, when you leave the woodlands and get into the Great Plains, it is literally an ocean of grass. It's just grass. There's no trees, there's no coverage. There's no protection. That's why they have the tent over the back of the wagon so you can have some protection. They set up tents, but you need that wagon train so everyone can stay together and stay along the same trajectory. Because there was no trails preserved in the Great Plains. And the. A wagon trail, three days later, like as the wheels are cutting through the grass would disappear because the ground was so soft. And if it rained, it's completely gone. So people would emerge from this, from this tree line into an ocean from horizon to horizon, no trees at all. And the only thing out there are roaming tribes of the Great Plains. And so in, in the Great Plains, you have this lack of convenience that, that Native Americans had. So think about this. So in the woodlands, which would be most of the east coast, you had a lot of convenience. You had a lot of rivers and you had a lot of wood to use. So you have, you can have a much more sedentary lifestyle. There's more Luxury, right? So you have, this is why we have all the mounds on the east coast. And people were staying put in one place. And when you're able to stay in one place, you're able to farm corn and build up these big pyramids, we call them mounds. It's kind of, it's a little bit like disrespectful or like downplaying the significance of it. Like these, these are full on pyramids. If you saw them in ancient times, you wouldn't even know it wasn't made out of stone. Like that's how monumental these things were. And so it was a much more luxurious, sort of peaceful place. Less warfare, less violent tribes. But in the Great Plains, think about this. You have. The reason that a lot of those natives were pushed to the Great Plains is because they weren't originally great warriors. Like the Comanches were just getting destroyed by everybody around them. Until one day they emerged as great warriors because they're pushed out into the Great Plains where it's the worst real estate. So what do they have to do to survive? They have to become the most violent people around. And so in the Great Plains, imagine how fierce the natives are that are able to survive in the Great Plains, right? So you have this added element that you can get lost in the Plains trying to get to California. And then you also have the most savage Native American tribes roaming around the Great Plains. And this is the thing that I found so shocking is that the Great Plains Indians were such good navigators and had such a perfect understanding of their geography of their own territory that get this, if you were a large US military convoy moving through Comanche territory in the Great Plains from Texas, you know, all the way up to Colorado, if you were within a 500 mile radius, you were in danger of being attacked by the Comanches.

[B]

500 miles.

[A]

They could attack from 500 miles away. Overnight? Not, not overnight. But it was like, but it was.

[B]

Like there's some fast fucking horses.

[A]

Yeah, not, not overnight, but it was like, it was like immediate. Like they could, they could do direct.

[B]

Targeted attacks within 500, 500 miles away.

[A]

Yes. Yeah.

[B]

And it like literally like smell you.

[A]

No, I don't know. But, but, but yeah, that's so it's, it's a big part of SG Gwen's book is that, is that they could, they could plan strategic military attacks from 500 miles away. And that's what made it so hard, is because you didn't know how many Comanches there were or where they were at. But they always knew where you were at and they would never stay in the same place twice. Like they would move from place to place following, following their herds of buffalo and they had herds of wild horses as well. And yeah, they could plan strategic military attacks from 500 miles away. And you would never anticipate them coming. And as soon as they attacked, they were, they would disappear. And so you could never get a sense of, of where they were or where, when they were coming or where they were coming from. It's just a. And that's why like you think of the Wild west, dude, think about that. Being born into that world and your only lot in life. You have no money on the east coast. Your only lot in life is like, okay kids, I hear about this place over in California is what they call it. It's lots of gold out there. We're gonna have to do that. Having absolutely no idea that there are Comanches rolling around the plains that will scalp you and torture you to death and burn you alive. You know, it just like, it's just a completely wild Place just 160 years ago. It's just fascinating world, man. So this, this post colonial interaction between Native Americans and Europeans, I just, I'm finding it infinitely fascinating because it is, it is the furthest thing from black and white, which is the way people tend to treat it. But man, is it a complicated, like nuanced issue?

[B]

Yeah, 1883 is another one that shows that.

[A]

I haven't seen it yet.

[B]

Pretty amazing. Yeah, well, you should watch that because there's a lot that you're describing in this fever dream in my head of picturing these things comes from a lot of the imagery.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That was filmed in that. I actually like 1923.

[A]

I love that show, man.

[B]

I love it. It was awesome. 1883 was. We're talking about someone. Taylor Sheridan's like pre yellowstone limited series. 1883 was, was pretty amazing. And there's. I don't want to give plot points away to you if you haven't seen it, but you know, they're same kind of idea. They're, they're, they're going down the Oregon Trail, I think that's what it was called. And you're fighting the terrain like you said, which includes that we take for granted like, oh, we came to a little, you know, 25 meter wide river. People are going to die when we cross this. Right. All the way to some of the roaming tribes and yeah, get hunted. That's, it's, it's crazy. But we got on this tangent, because we were talking about the years leading up to Montezuma actually being killed and the Spanish finding out about him and then working their way east to west into inward, inland to get to Tenniton, and then eventually, you know. Yeah, do the deed here. But so they. They land in the east. You were talking about how they went down first. They were finding the Bahamas. We got on the sidetrack about the guy, Alvarez, who found Brazil and all that before.

[A]

Or shout out to Alvarez.

[B]

Yeah, shout out. Alvarez sounds like a third basement. But anyway, so, you know, he finds that. But now we're fast forwarding a little bit to the days of, like, when Cortez is coming. So Cortez sends people ahead of him, I guess, who go there first. And how were they greeted? Like, I remember there was something. Maybe I'm this up and mixing this up with another one. But there were people of the Aztecs who looked at the Spaniards as gods.

[A]

Sure, sure. Yeah, that's. That's kind of something that is. That is thrown out there. We really don't know the veracity of a statement like that. The Spaniards seem to say that a lot, like about every encounter that, oh, they thought that we were. They thought we were gods. You know, there's a lot of There. I would say. I would say it's right down the middle. It's 50, 50 as to whether or not any of the native Americans actually thought that they were gods. Now, I think where this comes from is that there was a prophecy that the great feathered serpent God Quetzalcoat would return one day and on the exact astronomical day, or at least, I'm sorry, that year, which for the Gregorian calendar was 1519 to the Aztec calendar, it was exactly that year that Cortez arrived. It's just one of these great coincidences. Or is it coincidence. But this is where this idea comes from that, that Europe, all Europeans will say later on they thought that we were gods. We really don't know. But it is possible that the Aztecs really did think that this was the return of. Of Quetzalcoat, but we just don't really know. And for how long did they think that? We don't really know, but there's like.

[B]

A five, six year period here before they do the deed. Where they. Or where it exists?

[A]

No, it's just like a year and a half. It's just. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

No, from awareness that it exists. Not getting there. Right.

[A]

No, no, it's. It's like seven months later.

[B]

So how did they find out? It Existed. Did they like come upon and be like, what's that shining?

[A]

Yeah. So he lands. So Cortez wants to invade. If I'm getting my history right here, here. Cortez wants to invade Mexico. He wants to invade mainland Mexico. But he was already kind of on a short leash with the Spanish crown. And so he did, he did not have permission to invade the mainland, but he decided to do it anyways before he was essentially reprimanded and pulled back and the position was given to a different conquistador. Right. So he goes ahead and invades mainland Mexico. Mexico. Anyways, so he lands on the coast of Veracruz and the first people that he meets, as far as we know, are the Maya. And so he meets the Maya and he says that these are like sickly small, weak looking people. Now what he didn't realize is that these Maya already had European disease From the last 20 years of other Europeans poking around on the Yucatan and trading with them. These Europeans had, had been infecting the Maya. So the Maya were some of the, were the first people in Mexico to get infected with this disease. And it was spreading across and had reached Veracruz by the time Cortez 20 years later came to Veracruz. He meets with the Maya and he essentially, he sees some gold artifacts, he sees some riches, and he asks them, he essentially says what all aliens say when he says, take me to your leader. So, you know, he hears of, he hears of Tenocheitlan in 1519 when he first arrives in Veracruz. These Maya people are telling him about the city of Tenochtitlan and the emperor Moctezuma. So it's within seven to nine months later, he marches there with 150 conquistadors and other like native guides, essentially people he's paid off or maybe he's forced them to guide him through and escort him through. So he's kind of got his, he's got his 150 men and then he's got his, then he's got his local guides or slaves or soldiers, whatever it is, and they go on the seven month expedition where they're on horseback and walking from the coast of Veracruz all the way to Tenochtitlan. And, and yeah, it's, it's, it's seven or nine months later, they're at the capital of Mexico and they. I believe in that first meeting, if I'm getting my history wrong, and again, everybody watching, I'm, I'm just now getting to colonial history in my own studies. But I believe it's in that first meeting that Moctezuma dies when the Spaniards first arrive and then the war continues for about another year. The Aztecs essentially replace Moctezuma with their own local leaders. Like another, another guy steps.

[B]

So the Aztecs replace them.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So the Spaniards kill him, war breaks out and the Aztecs start fighting the Spaniards. And they say we have a new leader now.

[A]

Essentially we think that they are all had already replaced Moctezuma before the Spaniards. So I told you they were held up in that palace before and they, I think they were held up in the palace for maybe around 100 days or so, if I'm getting my history right here. And so by the time the Spaniards flee that palace in the middle of the night, they flee in the middle of this storm and they like cover the, the horse's hooves with these cloth so that on the cobblestones it's not so loud. And of course they, they don't make it out undetected while they're in the middle of the bridge in the middle of the night. They, the flare and the horn goes up at the front of the bridge and then it goes off at the back of the bridge. And like a million aztecs storm these 150 conquistadors. And the conquistadors barely make it out. But they've like filled their armor with gold, you know, and everything that they've stolen. And so anyways, we think that during this period the Aztecs had already replaced Moctezuma with somebody else because you needed order. So probably, you know, the second or third guy becomes this, becomes this new emperor. And so the war isn't over with the death of Moctezuma. The Spaniards fight, flee. They barely make it out. Cortez barely makes it out alive. His horse gets killed, it falls over, he falls into the water and with all of his armor he's going to sink to the bottom of the lake and drown. And a couple of his men reach in and grab him out while they're being attacked. It's a crazy story and just they barely make it out of Tenoche Lon. Eventually the, the Aztecs kind of retreat after enough of them get sliced down and they barely survive. And then the war continues. They come back, they conquer Mexico City or they conquered Snowstit Lawn the next year and then just completely subdue all of Mexico. And they eventually they essentially just turned to know Shetland into Mexico City and then they launched their expedition down into Peru.

[B]

How many people, how deep was the Spanish?

[A]

It was only army, it was only 150 guys. I'm pretty sure it was only 150 guys. Yeah.

[B]

So it never got above that, though.

[A]

Oh, I, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think that they came. I, I'm, I imagine that when they came back with the second expedition, it was much, it was many more soldiers, plus the help of other indigenous people that now saw that the Aztecs were weakened and wanted them dead too. So this second phase of the war is when we get this period of the Spanish priests giving the Aztec people the blankets that had smallpox in it. You've heard that? You've heard. Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's for people. This is that. Well, I, I don't know all the details of it. I just know that there were Spanish friars and priests who probably genu wanted the betterment. Like, people think that we're talking about like biological warfare here. We want what's best for you. Yeah, it's, it's hard to say, man, because the more I've studied it, you know, back then they have. What's the theory of like the, the four fluids or whatever it was like blood, saliva, pee, something else, you know, they, they didn't really understand. They didn't really understand virology, germ theory. And so we think as, as I've looked more into it, I started off thinking that they knew that they were spreading disease, but I don't think that they did. I think that they, I think that these priests genuinely cared about the souls of these people and wanted to protect them and, and comfort them because there were lots of Spaniards that weren't bad people. There are lots of Spaniards that genuinely cared about the Aztecs or the natives that they're interacting with and wanted the best for them, but ultimately ended up hurting them even more.

[B]

You sound like a Spanish apologist.

[A]

No, I'm just kidding. No, it's. No, but that's probably really what was happening is, is they, they really were giving the women and children these blankets to keep them, to keep them warm during the winter without realizing that they had brought these blankets from the Caribbean surrounded by other, surrounded by other Europeans that were breathing all over them and giving all their. Putting all their diseases into these blankets. And then those blankets just decimate people in Mexico City. Just bodies, thousands of bodies piling up in the middle of the markets. It was like the, the Spaniards are walking through the markets and it's just piles of dead Aztecs everywhere. Now another similar thing happens here is that there's a Spanish friar down in Peru a decade and a half later. And he's baptizing after Pizarro. Pizarro is a colleague of Cortez. I think he's a cousin or nephew of Cortez. Gets sent down on an expedition to conquer Peru. You and I talked about this on my. On my first episode, where Atahapa, like, spits on the Bible and throws it on the floor. Yeah, yeah. And so there was a Spanish friar there that was trying to baptize the Inca people. And so he had this bowl of holy water, and he had thousands of people putting their face in the bowl of holy water. Yeah.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

And all he was doing was giving each one of these people directly, giving them the Spanish influenzas and smallpox. And so even though he was the guy trying to save their souls, he himself probably killed more people than any Spaniard ever did.

[B]

I'm gonna save your soul and send you to God.

[A]

God, yeah. Man.

[B]

Just what a savage, savage time on every front.

[A]

Wild time, man. Wild time. You know, I even think about that from. I used to be. It's funny. Like, my. My wife. She's cute. I took her to Peru, and. And I'm talking to her about. We were going through Cusco, and I'm showing her all the Inca temples with these, you know, Spanish churches built over the top of them. And I'm explaining to her, like, the Spanish church essentially cuts off the power of the temple because the temples are astronomical observatories that are meant to connect to the sun and the night sky and the stars, and they. They. They act as, like, celestial astronomical clocks. They have a purpose. And by building this building on top of it, you cut off the Inca people from their spirituality, from their source. Right. And I was going through all of it with her, and by the end of the trip, she's like, I don't like the Spanish. You know, she's. She's like. She. She does. She doesn't like the Spanish at all. And, you know, the Inca people are just so nice. But, you know, it's funny, but as a historian, it all eats away at you, and you end up realizing that, like, no. No general group of people are ever as bad as they're portrayed to be. There are individual people that are awful, but the vast majority of people are just caught up in the tsunami of civilization. Right.

[B]

I wish we would take that lesson.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Today, even people define different groups of people around the world. I mean, you draw it along borders, you draw along religions, you draw it along races. They'll use anecdotal things to define the whole. And it's. And it just repeats itself. History repeats itself over and over again. But I never understand that, you know, there's. There's cultures, there's some ideas that are strongly invested in some cultures that you may be like, all right, I don't love that, but judge people on people. You know, when we look at this history, and that's important why you're given this context as well, so that everyone listening understands. Similarly to today, you know, where we have men in suits go in back rooms and shake hands and drop bombs. You know, maybe they didn't wear suits back then. They didn't have, you know, Hugo Boss and all that. But same idea. Just, you know, a few guys decide this is what it is, and then suddenly you send the pawns out there as they would look at them, which is unfair to describe them that way, but that's how they looked at them.

[A]

To do the dirty work.

[B]

And, you know, you. It could be everything from some savage conquering and war to what you're talking about with, you know, priests saying, I'm gonna save your soul and spreading massive disease that kills people. It's brutal, man.

[A]

Yeah, it is. It is. It's a. It's a fascinating time, man. It's two different worlds disconnected by more than 10, 000 years from each other. Completely different worldviews. In some ways similar.

[B]

What do you mean, in some ways similar?

[A]

Just the humanity, you know, like. Like, okay, so we study the ancient Amazonian people and judging. What's funny is judging by their archaeology, which thus far we haven't found a lot of the archeology, we've only found smaller civilizations on the periphery of the Amazon. Like, you know, probably the main hubbub of all these great lost cities in the Amazon we hear about were probably further into the center of the Amazon where Orianna said to. Is said to have seen them, where you have like a. Where you actually have stone bedrock instead of clay. And out in the west, like where Paul is at. Paul Rosly, Yeah. And. But on the peripheral of the Amazon, where it's much easier to access, we found all kinds of civilizations out there. And the archaeology that comes up is pretty interesting. The only thing, the only thing that we find are we find these raised platforms that essentially come up from these, from these canals. And so you have these. You have this farmland, you have these raised platforms, you have these dugout canals that go through the ground. And so from what we think is that a lot of these Amazonians on the, on the periphery of the Amazon didn't necessarily walk from place to place all the time. They get in these little canals and little tiny boats and sail up and down from town to town. Town. But all we find is the archaeological remnants of giant parties. Just. Yeah, this is kind of similar on it. Yeah, this is. This is pretty similar. This is a. A lidar map that's shown up now. This is a larger city that's closer into the interior of the Amazon. It sort of gives you an idea, but it isn't exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe you could look up, like, Amazonian geoglyphs, and you'll probably see a shot. You'll probably see a drone shot from the sky, and that'll. That'll be a lot closer. This. This right here, though, this lidar scan. This is like a major city. There's. There's a step pyramid. There's a huge platform in the middle. There's highways.

[B]

Smaller one over there on the far left. That screen. Is that a mini step pyramid?

[A]

Yeah, probably a mini step pyramid. So it's got that raised platform, and then it's got a mound up on top of it. So that raised platform, you probably had some normal people setting up their huts and then those two mounds right next to it. The probably royal people are much more wealthy, important people living up, even more elevated. Okay. Yeah. So what do we got on this? Here we go. That's what you want, dude. Yeah, yeah. So any of these. So that looks like the movie signs. It does, right?

[B]

Yeah. Thief was, like, on it.

[A]

Y. Yeah. So we. We don't. Come on, Mel, where are you? We don't understand why they make these geoglyphs and why they made these shapes. What the orientations of them are truly meant for.

[B]

They were talking.

[A]

Talking to aliens up there, baby. Could be. You ever seen the Nazca lines?

[B]

The Nazca mummies?

[A]

No, the lines in the ground. Oh, dude, we're gonna have to go down the Nazca.

[B]

All right, finish this point. That's going in the title. Nazca Line. Aliens. Boom. Everyone loves it.

[A]

Let's do it. Cool. So this is actually similar to the Nazca lines. It's giant geoglyphs that are made into the ground. But essentially, people lived in these raised platforms similar to this. And you can see huge lines spanning off from here. And there are ditches in the ground that be filled with water, and people would sail in little boats from one place to the other. And essentially all that ancient Amazonians did was farm and party and go to war. And sleep with each other's wives. That's basically it.

[B]

So listen, you got to throw that in there.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Swinging.

[A]

So that's. That, you know, that's the. In many, many ways. You look at them and they're like, okay. You know, they, they like to have a good time, they like to kill each other, and they like to have sex. Like, good for them. Pretty similar to everyone else around the world.

[B]

Take out the killing. We're good.

[A]

Yeah. And so that's, you know, so much of the Mesoamerican world is so similar to, to other parts of the world, and yet the way that those pieces interact with each other is just assorted completely differently. Right.

[B]

What was that one right there I was looking at? Is that a dude drawn into the. You see it in the second row deep? Yeah, yeah. That's altered, right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I've never seen this one that looks.

[B]

Like Bigfoot with a club.

[A]

Humans probably altered the Amazon 2000 years ago.

[B]

Oh, no, Paul. Rosalie's gonna have a heart attack. Don't click that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, well, that's kind of an overblown thing because people will go, the Amazon's a man made garden cook, Luke. No, it isn't. The Amazon's not a man made garden. What this is, this is literally what will happen. You'll be walking through the Amazon and all of the Amazon has grown to. Every creature, every plant in the Amazon has grown to defend itself from other things. So it's just a vicious cycle of death in the Amazon. Like, you know, a lot of the. I'm making generalizations here, but a lot of the plants aren't edible. You know, the. You got these huge thorns on these trees that are like, you know, thorns that are a foot, you know, a foot long and, and razor thin. You don't even see them until you've run into the tree. It's just the Amazon is an incredibly formidable place that seems like it wouldn't be possible to inhabit. And at some point in, I mean, probably 10,000, 20,000 years ago, ancient Amazonians, in this primordial lost, like, mystic sea in the ancient world, in this very blurry time, invented a type of soil, black soil, called terra preta. And this soil could grow anything that they needed. And so they, they made patches of gardens in the Amazon, small little patches. Now we found a bunch of them, but that doesn't mean that the Amazon looked like the Great Plains. And then people planted the forest there. They just re engineered the soil in certain parts to be able to grow the things that they needed to survive. And so you'll be walking through the Amazon and then all of a sudden Percy Fawcett did it. But he didn't know what terra preta was. He just found these gardens that were full of all the fruits and everything that he needed. Like his guys would be starving and, and they would come across a farm or something like that in the middle of the Amazon that he would say the entire veget, all the vegetation is different with fruit that he'd never seen before. But it looked delicious and it was edible and his men would gorge themselves on it and they, he would just find pockets of this. Well, he was finding gardens. He was finding Amazonian gardens.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And these are like, I'm talking about tiny little, like all these little black spots on your table. That's about how common they would be in the Amazon. The vast majority of it is just natural wilderness that's been there since before the ice age.

[B]

Yeah, I think, I think most people who say that, I can't say all people, I'm sure some people who run with that have indeed been there. But most people who are saying that and seeing that have never been there. And when you go there, you will see, you will realize, especially when you go into the middle of the Amazon, like I was able to do with Paul, you will realize what a spec you are and what a crowning achievement of mother nature that biosphere is. I mean it's just like it almost doesn't make sense. Like, and there were some times where I'd take in a moment and I'd be like, my God, the five year old me is just like jumping for joy right now, like I'm floating in the water in the Amazon, like this is the most special thing ever. But you know, Paul might literally clip what you just said right there because it if, and I understand this completely at first frustrates him so much when people say that because he's trying to save the Amazon. And what happens is, in fairness to some of the people who make comments along those lines, what they really say is that we have found some man made things like a garden in the Amazon. And then someone takes that quote and makes some article that they're going to sell ad space in. But the article headline to get people to click needs to be Amazon man made. And most people read the headline, they see the tweet about it and they're like, oh, it's man, man made. So suddenly now people get under the assumption therefore that well, because it's man made, we've done it before. I'm sure we can do it again. We could rebuild it, keep cutting the trees down. And of course that makes absolutely no sense. That's going to drive someone like Paul nuts, and it should. And so he wants to get out there to educate people, to be like, yo, you got to be real careful saying this because that's not what it is at all. In fact, and this is what he does. Come down here and see it. I'll show you. You'll realize within two seconds that ain't the case. This stuff is older than seemingly the world itself. Not literally, but you know what, yeah, for sure. It's like this has been around since the dinosaurs were around or whatever. But, you know, it's. It's really important, I think, that we talk about that stuff the right way because people don't see this in their backyard. It's the Amazon jungle. It's way down there.

[A]

Oh, that's really cool.

[B]

I've read about in books, I've seen in a couple movies. That's awesome. But it's. You don't see it every day. And so you don't have the appreciation that the Amazon jungle, which is. I forget what percentage of the world's coverage it is, but it's a way smaller percentage than this. It represents 20% though, of the world's global oxygen supply. So when it gets to an exponential point of no return, if hopefully it never gets there, because we can save this thing. But if it gets past a certain point to where I'm making up numbers right now, but 43% of the Amazon were taken out. Therefore there's. It's going to go into extinction. It cannot be turned back around. We are going to face a world that's missing 20% of the oxygen moving forward and will totally fuck up the entire ecosystem that we enjoy, be it here in New Jersey or over in Spain or China or wherever, like you need something like that to exist. So I appreciate someone like you who studies ancient history and looks at the amazing things that human beings and ancient civilizations have been able to pull off. I appreciate the fact that you also understand the actual basis of what's there in the first place, which is the land and the ecosystem that existed long before the people were actually using it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that. Well, one, making two points. One, I think that clickbait titles have done such a disservice to like anything in the scientific world because it just. People just get these, you know, and freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. People is really people's responsibility to educate themselves, you know, otherwise we just destroy ourselves. But you know, the clickbait titles that nobody actually reads the article or even worse, it's a clickbait title and then you have to pay to actually read the article, you know what I'm saying? So it's Amazon Rainforest, man made, question mark and you click on it and then you have to. And then it all gets blurred out and you can't read it and you're like, oh, I guess, I guess it just must be man made. This is what everybody else saying, that's what this is saying anyway. So clickbait titles from articles suck and people get so much wrong just because of stupid titles. And that's not just archaeology, but like, I think it especially creates like very inaccurate understandings of the ancient world over oversimplified understandings of the ancient world for sure. And then the second thing is, you know, that idea, that idea, I mean it allows people, when people believe that they don't really care if China is logging up the entire Amazon or if they're planning on cutting highways straight through the.

[B]

And America's buying it.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, it just allows people, especially with the Amazon in particular, but it just allows people to just not really care about the natural world because, oh, it's just man made. We could just do it again. You know, maybe they think that. So that's right.

[B]

And it's, you know, that's obviously it's, that's something that's personal to me at this point. Not just because we've done content on it in here and had a guy like Paul and a bunch, but you know, getting to see it and appreciate it, it's just, it's the coolest thing ever. And you know, as I move along, that's something I want to do more of. Go see some things up close. It's one thing to sit here in your comfy little studio and talk about it like an armchair quarterback, but when you actually go see it for better or worse, depending on where you're going and what you're seeing, you know, you can speak to it more and you can, you can understand it. And, and I just think, you know, there is some in this world that is magical and then there's some magical that human beings have been able to pull off to make it even more magical. And like it doesn't need to be one or the other.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

With things you can appreciate both. You can, you can study the history and learn from it and you can also study this setting and environment and preserve it. You know, those two things should be hand in hand.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not even like the bloods and crypts meme either. They should just be friends in general.

[A]

Yeah, I totally agree.

[B]

You know, but the. So the Aztecs get taken out quickly, you know, quickly by the Spanish, and then disease spreads and then, you know, the Spanish obviously pretty much colonize Mexico. And you fast forward and you get to somewhere somehow how we got to today. But you had put a pin in the Mayans, but in particularly the Olmecs and that whole history. I know that's something like. One of the things I love about you is that you are constantly traveling to all these places to go see it for yourself. And it's like. It's like a quest too. Like, you're always dressed apart too. I really. I really appreciate that. But, you know, you've gone down and looked at a lot of the Olmec ruins and the, the places where they existed. And it. To me, the Olmecs, we talked about it in episode 175 a little bit, but it's a very. Among the ignored parts that we already highlighted. The fact that South America seems to be so ignored in a lot of these history discussions, ancient history discussions these days. The Olmecs are passed over so much. So for people out there who really have no idea what. What their origins were and who they were and what the civilization was like, can you just give the download on. On the Olmec people and their base history?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So the Olmecs, man, incredibly ancient. It's. It's the origins of Mesoamerica. Now, the basics of Mesoamerica is basically everything below the Rio Grande, so below Texas is essentially the most northern edge of Mesoamerica. And it continues all the way through Mexico into Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador. And it kind of fades out as you get closer to Panama. That's essentially Mesoamerica. And. And this has been my central area of expertise for quite a long time now. You know, it was. It was what I studied in college and got like my anthropology degree in. And this was the world that opened up to me. I just. I'm fascinated by it. And it's. And it's infinitely complex. But on the Veracruz coast, which is to the west of the Maya realm, to the east of where the Aztecs will later be, there is a river that connects to the Gulf of Mexico, or the Gulf of America, as some people call it now. It's called the Coetz Calcos River. You know, I actually get. I actually get a lot of flack for that because I might. I make custom maps for my videos, and I still call it the Gulf of Mexico.

[B]

Can you get flack for that?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. People be like, no, no, it's the Gulf of America.

[B]

It's just a logistical nightmare.

[A]

I'm like. I'm like, guys, you know what? I'm just gonna stick with tradition here. It's been the Gulf of Mexico for, like, 500 years.

[B]

It was fun to say.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You know, so, you know, I'm not switching up because one guy says so. Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's right. So. So anyways, yeah, so it's the. The Quetzalcos river connects to the Gulf of Mexico, and along this river, it's essentially like. Think of. Think of the Coetzkalcos river as the Nile river that the Egyptians. You know, the Nile river gave the Egyptians their civilization. We did this whole rundown last time. It's not of the credit of the Egyptians. It's of the credit of the Nile. The Nile just gifted these riches to the Egyptians. So the Coetzkaukos river just gifts all this fertile land to the Olmecs. And, in fact, I brought a group of students with me in December, and we went to San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, which is the first capital, really, that the central metropolitan area of the Olmec world. And it's way up on top of this hill. And as you look down the hill towards the coast, Calcos river, and these alluvial floodplains where all of their maize crops or their corn would grow. I took a photo of a. Dude, if you. If I were to show an Egyptian that photo, they would think that I took a photo of somewhere in Egypt. It's that similar. It's just. And I've been to other fertile crescents as well and looked at it. I'm like, oh, wow. These all have the same similarities. It's these low valleys where the river consistently floods and has, you know, creates this alluvial fertile plain. And this is how civilization begins. It's just fascinating seeing that. So. So the Olmec world begins at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan. It's the. It's the Fertile crescent of Mexico. It's the most overlooked fertile crescent of the entire world. I mean, well, you have seven fertile crescents. Mexico is the most overlooked one. It begins with San Lorenzo Snohochtitlon, about 3800 years ago. So 1800 b. B.C. i should say. And so the Olmecs essentially, they get their rise from. From they have the. They have port cities as well that are actually on the Gulf. And San Lorenzo is, is inland a little bit along the river. And so they're sailing out on the coast and they're fishing. They have, you know, all types of resources from, from their ability to catch fish as well as raise corn. So they, so they're, they're just booming. They essentially rise before everybody else, and they just mastered agriculture before any of the other cultures in Mesoamerica even get started. And what's really crazy is it seems like right at the beginning of their civilization, they're able to quarry these 60 ton stones, these 60 ton solid basalt stones out of the Sierra de la Tushla volcanic belt to their northeast and quarry them and transport them 90 miles away to this city and, and carve and erect these massive Olmec heads. And it's like they're doing this from the very beginning of their society. There is no. From. We can tell through the archaeology. There's no lead up to this. There's no developmental period before they're able to do this. They're just doing it from the very beginning. So we could look up just. I don't know if you have. My eyesight's not that great, but just Olmec heads or something.

[B]

Yeah, they're insane.

[A]

It's great. So this is. Okay, so this is a really, this is a really cool mystery about the Olmec head. So.

[B]

Looks like a pulling garden.

[A]

Oh, it's. It's crazy. Yeah, it's. It's beautiful, man. There's. There's 17 known heads, but there's actually three more heads that most people have never seen. But they're made out of sandstone and they're not even human. They're like where jaguar, half human, half jaguar faces. Yeah, we can. We'll get at the end of this. It's really, really cool. This is actually something that connects to South America and Peru, by the way. Okay. I think it has its origins in the Amazon. This is kind of my other area that I'm looking into. So you asked about how much they weigh. So get, so get this. So the Maya exploration center, of which I'm a member of, this is run by my mentor, Dr. Ed Barnhart. On one of his Olmec expeditions, he had a nautical engineer that was traveling with him who was fascinated by this idea of how did the Olmecs transport these heads. So he created this algorithm that you could put in. In. I'm not exactly sure. What? It was a software or a site or something where you could input the theoretical weight of your Olmec head and the, the. In the theoretical size of your Balsa river raft. And he found that if you made the raft too big to go down the narrow stretches of the Coetzkalcos river, and you put a five ton head on that raft, it would flip the raft and sink it. Okay, so. So going back over this, if it's too long and too wide to go down the narrow stretches of the river to actually make it to the city, it's already too big to go down the river, and you put a five ton head on it, it would sink the raft. The smallest head is 6 tons, and the largest head is 52 tons. So nobody knows exactly how these things were transported. It's just all archaeologists have quietly known. What's, what's your idea? Aliens? Could be.

[B]

Well, UFO came down.

[A]

See, that would be the easiest way to do this.

[B]

That's what I'm saying. It makes the most sense.

[A]

But see, the problem with the alien thing is we have to figure out, like, you know, the aliens come down and then Native Americans are like, please, we're starving. Our children are dying. We need something like penicillin. And they're like, no, no, no, we will teach you. You need these rocks, right? We'll lift the rocks for you.

[B]

Because then they can pray to something.

[A]

Yeah, then they can pray to something.

[B]

And have their soul saved.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Because the real life happens after that on Earth.

[A]

Could be.

[B]

See, I already got all the holes filled in.

[A]

I know you do.

[B]

You're not gonna plug these.

[A]

I think you've been. I think you've been plugging the aliens every episode.

[B]

Not every episode, a lot. There's a lot of misinformation out there. But when we look at. When we look at the ancient world, there's some stuff that I'm like, come on. You know, something happened.

[A]

You know, you know what? I actually, I actually, I actually have to agree with you. You know, I kind of like, when I think of, like, little green men and spaceships, I kind of roll my eyes at that idea. But at the same time, then I also find myself, like, as a, like a religious person, I find myself studying ancient people and I see the bizarre things that they come up with and the things that they believe and the things that they, you know, have this conviction about. And, you know, there's entire eras, there's two entire eras of Maya civilization where they give no credit to any single person for anything and they dedicate every temple to a God and never lift up one person. It's like they do it all for the gods. The Egyptians seem to do everything for the gods. You know, there were Greeks who literally actually believed that the gods exist. Well, I mean, most Greeks did. It was only the philosophers that started kind of questioning whether or not the gods existed. But you know, you see so many ancient cultures go so far out of their way for their gods. It just makes me think like, okay, what is actually the answer to this? Is it, is it that, is it that people are just looking for something? Like they're looking for, they're looking for an answer so they kind of just make something up. Do they make it all up to be able to control the people beneath them? Or does it make more sense that these people were so convicted by their beliefs because what they were experiencing actually happened to them? And it's like, what's the line between, what's the line between an ancient person taking some kind of natural hallucinogen and interacting with a deity while he's in that space?

[B]

Right.

[A]

And an alien. What's, what's the line that you draw there?

[B]

It gets weird, man.

[A]

And, and like, and like, okay, can, you know, I'm saying this as a very self aware Christian. Where does like Christianity fit in this? Sure, it's, it's a fascinating thing. And so I, so I agree with you. I, like, I laugh about the alien stuff, but then I also have to remind myself like, well, you know, I, my, my hot, my hot take about the ancient world is that I actually think it's more likely that it's not all made up.

[B]

Yeah, I mean I, and I enjoy joking about it in all seriousness. And I wonder what the hell's out there in this giant galaxy that we have no idea the ends of it and all that stuff, but we live in this world. Especially when it comes to religion, where people want to make things everything or nothing. Right. Religion is at the top of that sphere.

[A]

Yeah, it is.

[B]

And there's all these different world religions and then there's these different stories and different interpretations and different translations and different characters and different. I could go on down the list. Right. And to me it's like, where are their themes? That it's like, oh, wait a minute, that lines up with that a little bit. That lines up with that a little bit there. Maybe there's some sort of truth there, even if it's a different experience. And then you get to the way that conscious human being, human beings have the Ability to experience things. I've talked to you about my friend Riz Vert. So he was on episode 274 with me at the time of this recording. We just recorded a new one. I haven't put it out yet, but it's definitely out now, if you're watching this podcast right now. But, you know, he's an MIT simulation theorist, absolute genius, great guy, too. And he's thinking about, you know, some of the most unanswerable questions there are, which. Which have to do with. With the mathematical probability and scientific evidence for the idea that things exist as zero and ones around us and we are consciousness. Just can't understand that. And one of the things, many things that he talks about is that when it comes to, like, UFO sightings or things that anything has to do with an alien or something not of this Earth that appears in written record or oral record throughout human history, it's like it's possible, and it's even been reported this way, that there are people who can be standing next to each other in the same place, and only one person witnesses, you know, something supernatural going on. The other person doesn't see it at all. So something in. In this person's consciousness is transcribed to just a little bit of a different frequency. That's not the word to use, but it's set to just a little bit of a different frequency than the other person that allows them to see this and experience this and then, you know, maybe get whatever information comes from that. So if you look at things like the pyramids that pop up in all these different places and civilizations that were stuck in different time periods, basically over time, and when you look at some unexplainable stuff like the Olmec heads and, and things like that, where is there potentially some divine intervention? We know there's a lot of world leaders that have liked to lie about, oh, I got talked to by the gods, therefore you gotta worship me. And they're full of. But which ones weren't? Which ones actually did have some sort of profit, you know, seeing through to whatever the other side is. I don't care what that is, whether that's God, whether it's simulation, whether it's aliens, whether it's future B, I don't. I don't know. Yeah, but you have to. At least as crazy as it sounds, and it sounds insane to even say it out loud, but you have to ask these questions. When you're looking at some amazing innovations that ancient civilizations did, where we have evidence that, like, they. They didn't have iPhones. You know, they didn't have something that's totally different than iPhone, but technologically equivalent to that. Yeah, they were able to pull something like this off. There is something there, man.

[A]

Oh, I totally agree with you. I, I actually think, I, I really think that the answer is to a lot of this is going to be found in God.

[B]

I don't even know what we would.

[A]

Call it, like psychedelic archaeology.

[B]

Psychedelic archaeology.

[A]

I don't know, I just made that up. But you know, I think that, I think that once this boomer generation of archaeologists moves on, moves y. I love.

[B]

That was a very nice, very nice Texas Christian boy way saying that.

[A]

Yeah, no, I, I'm not going to discredit archaeologists. They all do, basically all of them do amazing work. There are people who make their public opinions known that are very bad public opinions. But vast majority of archaeologists work super hard jobs and achieve a lot for very little credit. However, it's impossible for our preconceived notions of our modern day reality to not bleed into our profession. Right. So I can't tell you how many archaeologists I have spoken to and tried to talk to them about the psychedelics that the culture of which they are an expert in was partaking in. And you know, I, I met an archaeoastronomer, spent a week with him and, and Archaeo.

[B]

Astronomer.

[A]

Yeah, archaeoastronomy. It's, it's kind of a new.

[B]

What a flex.

[A]

It's an, it's a new frontier of archeology. It's essentially the study of ancient cultures, interaction with the night sky. So trying to study ancient astronomers and what they understood about, about the night sky and how that can further reinforce and change our perspective on the culture that we're studying or the ancient sites that we're looking at. Like, you may not understand why this building is not lined exactly to true north and why it's 15 degrees off. And why is this building also 15 degrees off, but yet the retaining wall is facing a different direction, Yada, yada, yada. Well, if you were able to unlock the secrets of the city, you would realize that each of the orientation of these buildings and walls had a purpose that was facing towards the night sky or the sun and that shadows and knives of light would like shine through the buildings. And they're all astronomical solar clocks. It's crazy stuff, dude. Like, it's, it's really, really in depth now. I had this realization in like 2021. I did, I did some edibles with my buddy and we're laying down, looking underneath the.

[B]

I hope you did Mood.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

They were mood. They just say it for the camera. They were mood. Right?

[A]

They were mood for our sponsorships.

[B]

I enjoy. Please continue.

[A]

So. So I'm laying there looking at the night sky, and, you know, I must have taken, like 30 milligrams or something. And, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm blasting off, you know, and I'm laying there and after a couple hours, like, I've lost my ego. I'm no longer me anymore. I'm just. I'm just one with the night sky and with the universe. And I'm, like, looking at a photo of myself and not even. Not even looking at it as though it's me. I just can't even believe that that's my body that I exist inside of and. And makes you have all these realizations about yourself and the things you need to fix about yourself. It's very medicinal. The whole experience is. And I had this feeling where I felt like, whatever God is, I understood him. I couldn't put it into words, but I could just feel it. I could feel it deeply to my core, and I could only feel it in that moment. Once I sobered it up, it kind of went away. I wasn't able to, like, access that. It just. It's like it frees you up and opens your mind up to some other. I mean, I. You probably maybe experienced something like this before and.

[B]

Yeah, just like that.

[A]

Yeah. And so I'm. So, you know, I'm having this experience, and then. And then it just opened up my eyes to, like, oh, this is. You know, I can see how a culture doing this for thousands of years and trying to figure out the secrets of their natural world, how religion can form and how people can learn so much about, you know, the introspective aspects of reality. And maybe this is where shamanism comes from and ancient priests. Like, it probably has something to do with this, because I can only imagine if I were to do this for my entire lifetime, the things I would experience and the insights that I. That I might have. Right. And so anyways, I start talking to. I start. Well, as time goes on, I experiment more and more, and I have different realizations about archeology. Like, I'll be thinking about these ancient cultures that I'm obsessed with, and I will realize different aspects of their society that I'd never realized before. And it's like things would unlock and I would get these new perspectives and. And I I found it, like, incredibly helpful. It's not like I do this a lot, but I've just found it incredibly helpful. And so I'm talking to this archaeoastronomer and I'm like, I'm like, okay, so you study the Pueblo ancestry people? And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, what kind of psychedelics do they do? And so he lists them out to me and I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, do you ever go out and stargaze at night at these, you know, at these sites that you study, these cliff dwelling sites out in the desert? He's like, oh, yeah, all the time. I'm like, do you ever do the psychedelics that they did and then stargaze? And he's like, no, no, I would never do that. And he had this knee jerk reaction. And it's just very. It was the boomer in him bleeding through into the archeology. Right. Like, because you have this preconceived notion of drugs, you know, drugs, all drugs, bad. There's no, there's no distinction between like crack cocaine and weed. Right. Wow.

[B]

Let's, let's talk to Hunter Biden who he's. Listen. That was like listening to Michael Jordan break down basketball. I mean, I was. That was incredible. So Hunter Biden talking about crack.

[A]

Oh, I know, yeah.

[B]

Best thing, best 3 minutes and 15 seconds on TV.

[A]

Anyways. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, you know, so to a lot of boomers, there's no distinction between natural plant medicine, you know, medicinal drugs, things that are mostly harmless, non. Addictive. You know, marijuana isn't changing the chemical makeup of your brain to force you to become addicted to it. And it's also not poisoning your body. Right. Like alcohol, cigarettes, other drugs, do they just destroy your body? You know, there's no distinction there. And so he had this like knee jerk reaction where it was like beneath him to ever do something like that. And I talked to him that whole week and I was like, dude, I'm telling you, man, if you did, if you, if you took these natural psychedelics and hallucinogens, with everything you know about this culture, I promise you, the pathways your brain is going to go down. You're going to have epiphanies about a culture you've studied your entire life because you're going to view them from a perspective you've never, you've never experienced before, and you're going to be stepping into their shoes. And it was like, I wore him down by the end. I Think he's done take this mushroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I forget. Oh, well, we got off onto this because I think that. I think that the origins of a lot of civilization is probably found in shamanism and psychedelics. And I think that, that. I think that like this Renaissance archeology, like, like independent archeology is going to grow and grow and grow. There's already so many people who are researching things on their own and making discoveries on their own. I think maybe one of the best Examples is the YouTube channel history for Granted. He's done so much research on the pyramids.

[B]

Oh, I've seen that. Yeah, I've seen that channel.

[A]

He's done so much research on the pyramids that Egyptologists have acknowledged his, his discoveries and his perspectives. And it's got. These things are going to end up in textbooks. It like, wow. Yeah, he's. He has been. He is like the first wedge, you know, there's been all these other people. He is the first wedge to, to go through now.

[B]

That's cool.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We got to break through onto each other's sides a little bit.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[B]

Find some common ground, for sure. And I think you, I've always cited you as an amazing example of that because you come from both worlds. You come from understanding some of the alternative perspectives and being genuinely interested in it since you were a little kid. But you are also academically trained under Ed Barnhart at college. Like, this is, this is what you're an expertise in from the, from the academic side of it, you know, so you, you understand the establishment and the anti establishment and where both have a point on certain things. And you've done a really good job to this point in your career of straddling that line and kind of being a peacemaker there. And I hope you continue to do that because some of the fighting, especially, you know, behind keyboards on Twitter, it's just like, guys, get the. Stop this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, get in a room and talk, you know?

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's a tough place to be. It's a tough place to be. I used to want to be involved more in the conversation, like actively going out and being involved in the conversation. And I've realized the best thing I can do is kind of just retreat back into my space, focus on my own work and interact with people that want to interact with me. Right. You know, because I'm really not accepted by the alternative side, although I'm cool with a lot of those people. We're all fine. But in the Academics. I'm cool with most academics, but I'll never be accepted by them, you know, I'm never going to be part of the club. And so I'm just kind of, you know, out here on my own island.

[B]

I like that.

[A]

Yeah, I'm just out here on my own island. I've got your own friends. Yes, that. And so that's kind of where I'm at. And I think that. I think that the appetite for all the fighting is dying off. I think people are just kind of over it because it's.

[B]

I hope you're right about that. But I disagree. I. I think people. I. I think there's people that unfortunately live for it, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just how it is. And it's human nature. We just now have more accessibility than ever to be able to do it instantaneously, all day, every day.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

[B]

We've kind of evolved to that.

[A]

Yeah. So, you know, that's my, my role is I want to be one of these people in this kind of renaissance of archaeology, sort of doing it on my own. Now, that doesn't mean I have legal permits to go dig at places, but, man, there's been so many artifacts that have been excavated and so many narratives that have. In puzzles that haven't been pieced together yet from, you know, so many arc. So many artifacts get excavated and then handed over to a museum and never get looked at again. They just sit in a glass case and they sit there forever.

[B]

Such a shame.

[A]

And they never get studied. But as I've gone around the world and focused on certain cultures, I have noticed patterns between things where I will try to go research it. And no other archaeologist has ever acknowledged certain things that I've noticed. And I've realized this, particularly with the Americas and that the Americas are just very much under. Understudied. And this is kind of what you and I were talking about recently, where I was thinking about doing. Going to school in Athens and yeah, man, I always loved the classical world. I grew up loving it just like everybody else did. My grandpa, on his nightstand, he had this book called Western Progress. And it was essentially the origins of Western society all the way up to like, Henry V in, In England, from the pharaohs through Greece and Egypt through medieval times, all the way to King Henry. And I would look at that book and look at it, look at it, and I'd poke through it and look at the pictures and read what I could. Much more dense reading I was able to comprehend, but it was the classical world. It was Egypt, Greece, and Rome that first sparked my love for the ancient world. And it was weird. As I was going down the path of committing to go to school for a year, it was gonna be 18 months in Athens at the University of Athens. I was. I was committed. I was about to pay. And then it was like the day before. I just had this huge wave of guilt come over me, and I felt like I was betraying a world that had given itself to me. You know, like, studying the Americas was not something I ever anticipated that I would do. I always found it interesting, but I never anticipated that I would specialize and go all in on it. But when I changed my major, you know, I was 20 years old. I was going to fail all my marketing classes. I was going to flunk out of college. I had to appeal to the dean to be able to switch to anthropology. They barely let me switch my major. I switched. And in Texas, they breed Mesoamerican archaeologists or Mexican archaeologists that specialize in ancient Mexico, what we've been talking about this whole time. And they just breed that there really wasn't much about Egypt. I took one part of a semester of a class on Egypt, and I just focused on the Americas. And that's how I met Dr. Ed Barnhart. And that's how I came to learn about, you know, this great archaeologist, Linda Shealy. And it's how I came to learn about the Maya, the Aztecs, the Toltecs, the Zapotecs, you know, and then later on, the Inca. And it was like the Americas just opened itself up to me and, like, accepted me. And you feel a spiritual kinship to it. Yeah, yeah, right. And. And also, my family, they were obsessed with the Spanish gold going back to the 1800s. I talked with Joe about this. I think we maybe even talked about this on my first episode with you. And my first conversation, like, all the way Back to the 1800s, my family was chasing down Spanish gold, and they were tracking down Spanish gold mines, but they didn't realize that the Spanish gold mines were expanded indigenous mines. And my grandpa had found all these mogollon, which is just a New Mexican tribe, all this pottery and artifacts. And, you know, my family's just deeply involved with the Americas. And then in college, the America, the Americas opened itself up to me, and I became sort of an expert in it in college. And I just felt like even though I was wanting to return to what my childhood love was, it was the day before I was supposed to pay for my tuition I had this nasty wave of guilt come over me And I called Dr. Barnhart and I told him, I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can turn my back on the Americas. I think I meant to study it, but I had to come all the way to the point of almost no return to realize that's what I was supposed to do.

[B]

How long would school in Athens have been?

[A]

18 months.

[B]

But, but I see what you're saying, and, and I understand you felt like it would have been like crossing over, literally and figuratively, and now you're gonna pour your heart and soul into that and you're gonna leave this behind. But, you know, I, I don't think you would have ever left that fully behind. And if this is part of the way the journey need to go for you, then that's great.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I, and I can, I can feel how passionate you are about the Americas and, and, and about not wanting to leave that behind. But, you know, one of the things I like about you is you do study all of it. Like you, I mean, we, the last time you were here in November, the episode didn't come out till end of January, beginning of February, but like, you know, we did six hours, two episodes of. Basically it was the 27, 000 year history of Egypt. And it was spot the on. I mean, it was amazing, amazing stuff. You're taking me through timelines I didn't even know existed it. And so for a guy who can go travel through the jungles of Guatemala and Mexico and break down everything that you've been studying your whole life and continue to find new frontiers for that same guy to be able to take us over to Egypt, where you've also been and spent time by, by the way, and run us through a historical thread that goes beyond even our comprehension of what human history is supposed to be, I think that's an incredible, incredible range to have. And I always want to see you keep that range, which means keeping all.

[A]

Of it in the fold together.

[B]

So if you felt like you were going to get too caught up in some of the. More, I don't know, this isn't the term I'm looking for, but mainstream ancient type stuff, whether that be ancient Greece or just ancient Rome, and it's going to pull you away from these other overlooked areas, then great. I'm glad you passed that up.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I think the, the thing was, it was like, it was like, you know how sometimes I forget what the, what the, what the word Is. But sometimes you go looking for something and something else chooses you.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And it's like. It's like the universe opens up this door, and this is the door you're meant to walk through. You don't feel it in that moment, but you. But that's the door that's meant for you, you know? Yeah, exactly. And. And I just. I had to go down the ancient Greece route. I loved Greece, man. Like, the very first thing that got me into ancient history was Brad Pitt's Troy. You know, I. Man, I love that damn movie, dude.

[B]

Brad Pitt.

[A]

Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was Brad.

[B]

The history, the Odyssey. I needed Brad.

[A]

Yeah, so it was. It was. I mean, I just. I was obsessed with that movie. In fact, as a kid, I memorized every single movement of the sword fights in that movie. I could. I could reenact.

[B]

Yeah, I've seen you and your wife role play. Yeah, I wanted to see exactly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wearing all the.

[A]

Yeah. And don't post that on social. No, I won't. I won't post it.

[B]

If you want to do an only fans, knock yourself out.

[A]

That's a good idea.

[B]

I need to start Luke Caverns. He's got a porn name over here already.

[A]

So I, you know, hit you with the curve. I. So I loved ancient Greece and. But, yeah, it was just. I needed to go that far to the day before I was supposed to pay the tuition to know. Okay, hold on, hold on. If you're gonna go here, you're gonna pour your heart and soul into this. It's gonna distract from all the America stuff you're doing. How can you go back to that? Like, you just need to. I. I had to basically return back to the feeling I had when I first started all this because I'm very much the type of person. I'm very influenced by my academic background. And so much of that was like, you know, so many people in my ear, you really should get a higher degree. You really. PhD. You really should specialize. You really should become a particular expert in this one thing. And I was hearing that all the time, and it was the day before I was supposed to pay that I just knew. Stop. Like, stop all of that. You got to go back to the feeling that you had when you first started all this was that you wanted to be like a jack of all trades and study whatever you were interested in. So, you know, whether that's, you know, I was in Cambodia recently studying ancient Cambodian world. Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome. But, you know, the Americas is kind of like I guess it's like. It's like my journey, you know what I mean? Like, there's so much there that needs to be discovered and uncovered and spoken about. And I think as time goes on. And the last time I was. I was in the fall when I was talking to Danny on his show, and I was talking about the. I was Talking about the LiDAR maps that I have access to in North America that show all these mountain sites in Florida and how I want to focus on North America. And then talking with you about the. The period just before the Revolution and how much history there is with Native Americans. I'm. I'm seeing this world of Native American history that isn't dived into enough, and it's like this deep purpose that's there. Whereas with ancient Greece, it's all pretty much understood. You know, there's not a whole lot of mystery. Like, there's the Eleusinian mysteries, there's a few things. There's. But, like, the Native American world is completely shrouded in mystery.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And. And it's just. It just like, calls to me and opened itself up to me. Like, I didn't ask for it. It just happened in my life by accident, you know, and it's like. It's like I was born to do.

[B]

It, you know, I think.

[A]

And I just realized that right at.

[B]

The last moment anyways, I know it's beautiful and, And I agree with you. I. I think as you've described it in the past, in episode 175, towards the beginning of that, it's literally in your blood, you know, like you were just saying a few minutes ago, your family was. Was looking for some of this stuff, you know, so it's a. It's a part of who you are. And I think. I think there's something to that in how passions get passed down generationally, almost like DNA in a way. And that's. That's. That's there. So, you know, here you are covering that and you're going to keep doing that. And that's. Yeah, that's great, man. Follow your heart. I love it. That's what I want everyone to do.

[A]

Yeah. You've got me particularly interested in this topic of now I want to start diving into. Yeah, like, Native Americans leading up to the Revolutionary War. Just talking with you a little bit about it in the last couple of days has made me think, like, yeah, you know, I know a little bit about this, but it's such an interesting realm of history, even with.

[B]

It's. It's One of the great things I love talking about when people are in town and we're. And we're walking along the Hudson there and looking at Manhattan and especially people who aren't from around here and they're kind of taking it in and appreciating that. But like, even at the Revolutionary War, like, the average American even doesn't understand that New York City was the center of that war. It was the linchpin of that town, which ended up being where, you know, Cornwallis got surrounded in. In 81 by. By the Continental Army. And that effectively, it didn't end the war, but it effectively ended the war. It wasn't, you know, some of the southern sites, it wasn't Philadelphia, which was the capital and certainly a key place. You had New York, which, you know, sat on this island. If we're looking at camera four right here, you know, you got two rivers parting, fortification to the east that creates Long island for ships coming directly across from Europe, that is invaders. And then when you run up the Hudson, you go up there about an hour and you got the greatest turn and spot for a military fortress in the world, which became West Point, you know, at the time, because of its. Its high ground and where it was located vis a vis the Hudson River. And it's like so much of what happened, happened right here when this looked very, very different.

[A]

Very different.

[B]

And now you think about the years leading up to that when there was. There was an insane speed of colonial takeover between the British and the French. And then they end up fighting this war and caught in the middle of it, or all these Native American tribes that existed in all these areas right here. And it's not long ago.

[A]

This is.

[B]

This is less than 300 years ago. We're going to do the 250th next year. You know, that's. It's a. It's there. There is history below your feet, everywhere. It may not be like quite as noticeable. Combination of noticeable. And far back is like when you're walking through Rome.

[A]

Yeah, sure.

[B]

But there's a significant amount of like, whoa.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right beneath your feet. Right here even.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Awesome thing to tell.

[A]

It's a. Yeah. People vastly underestimate how complicated the pre colonial world really was. You know, Squanto. I'm sure you know, the story of Squanto, it that, you know, that's a fascinating. It's just a. It gives you a little window into how complicated this world was before the white man was ever even here. You know, Squanto, I think he's born. He's born in the late 1500s because he's captured in like 1614 or something like that and. Or maybe 1612 when he's, you know, just, just a teenager. And he grew up in what is today. Yeah, yeah, the late 1500s. Okay. So he grows up in what is today modern day Massachusetts. And he grows up within these three warring tribes that are there. So it gives you this idea. There's already complications here. There's this history of these conflicting tribes just in the small area. Imagine what the entire, entire United States looks like at this, at this moment.

[B]

He was the Tannis dude in Massachusetts too, probably. I mean, you know, those Irishmen ain't getting sun up there. Yeah, he was doing okay and something.

[A]

And so, you know, when he's, I believe when he's a teenager or when he's maybe in his early 20s, he gets captured by a trading expedition and he's brought back to England. Imagine that from his perspective. You're being pulled to an alien realm that's vastly technologically superior to you. Like cobblestone streets with giant ships. And what do they have? Black powder rifles. By the early 1600s, I mean, they had obviously crossbows. I don't know, something rifles existed. Like maybe the little hand cannons existed. Obviously cannons exist. I mean, just like think about, I think the. Did the London Bridge still exist? I don't know, but I mean, just. It must have been mind blowing for him. So he's. He essentially works in London for 10 or I think it's London. But he works in England for 10 years and then he's finally freed and able to return back to the Americas. He joins a trading expedition and they essentially just. They really do him dirty. They drop him off in Newfoundland and they're like, they're like, this is the closest that we can get to. And he's like. He's like, oh, my God. God. So that dude Solo hasn't been in the Americas for 10 years, builds a boat, sails from Newfoundland to the mainland, and makes his way all the way back home to Massachusetts.

[B]

That's insane.

[A]

Solos it. As far as far as I know, when he gets to Massachusetts, he finds the three tribes are in complete disarray and they've been absolutely decimated by disease. So this is around 1620 or so when the. The first Thanksgiving is 1621, right?

[B]

Yeah, he died in November 1622. So we're coming up on.

[A]

He died on the second Thanksgiving, by the way. Crazy. So he arrives a few years before the. The first Thanksgiving and he finds that his homeland, his. His own people, his family, they've all died. All of us, most of his friends have died. And the warring tribes that. That they. That he grew up opposing and hating, they were all decimated, and the land was in complete disarray. Well, what had happened? What have we. What have we been talking about? The Spaniards had invaded the Aztec realm, and now disease had spread from Mexico City all the way up the Americas and had. From Florida as well, and had moved towards that northern coast. And just now, a hundred years later, it was infecting people in Massachusetts and wiping them all out. And so Squanto returns to. To find his home like this. So he takes these three tribes and he turns them into the Wampanoag confederation that he is now chief of. Because, I mean, obviously he's the most experienced man. He has so much knowledge of the world now, and he's obviously the most outstanding character in. In this new land. And. And this is where I think, like, this story is just crazy. So one of his informants come to him and they tell him, is it Jonestown? Jamestown? I might. Yeah, the.

[B]

I think it's Jamestown.

[A]

Jamestown, yeah.

[B]

Correct this in the comments.

[A]

Yeah, I'm gonna get torn up for that. Like I said, my early colonial history, I'm just now getting into it. So. But they basically come and say, hey, you know, there. We know that you have a history with these white men. I think that some of these white men, the same people, are living out here on this town on the coastline, and they're suffering. Half of them, more than half of them, died last winter. They don't know how to work the land. You know, this is a completely different type of agriculture than they're used to. You know, they're not used to growing maize and potatoes, and so they haven't figured out the land. And so imagine you're one of these colonists. You're living in this little town. You know, there's Native Americans out there. You haven't been attacked by them yet, but you've grown up hearing stories of what they could do to people. And so you're always kind of weary of, like, what exists inside that tree line that we can't see who's watching us, right? And then all of a sudden, this Native American man walks out of the jungle speaking perfect English and walks up to you. Isn't that so weird? Like, you know, mind blowing that must have been for a guy to walk out and be like, hello, how are you speaking perfect English. English that they would understand. It must have been just utterly jarring. And. And Squanto, he felt empathy for them. You know, he was the. He was the only native there that we know of and clearly that saw their humanity and felt, you know, compelled to help them because they were suffering, even though they were on their land and shouldn't be there. And he probably knew very well from growing up in England what the English intentions were for this new land was to colonize it and spread out. And yet he still helped them. And so he teaches them how to farm the land and everything saves that town. And then the next year on Christmas, the Spanish influenza, the European influenza, or. I'm sorry, not the next year on Thanksgiving, Squanto dies from that European disease on the second.

[B]

Imagine that you make it through everything, you find your way back home, you're one of the most cultured men in the world because you've existed in. Across multiple civilizations effectively, and then the flu gets you.

[A]

Isn't that weird that that highly important men, you know, that guy's up there and one of the most important people that's ever lived. You know, I mean, I don't know if you had to rank a top 10,000 human beings that's ever lived. He's into the top 10,000. Yeah. And. And it's like. Isn't it weird? It's like people use up their importance quickly and then they die.

[B]

You know what I mean, bro?

[A]

It's very. It's. It's very crazy. Like, you look at all of the conquistadors. They all die shortly after this great achievement that they've made. You know, Orianna makes it down the Amazon, survives it, does it again, dies at 35.

[B]

It's a lot like a. I guess it's like a wasp or something when they have. Not the people, the actual insect. When. When they have that climactic moment in the heat of battle after this life of, you know, finding all these places to live and building things as a hive, basically being warriors for the tribe of wasps and. And bees and everything. And. And then they have to use their stinger.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's this ultimate moment where it's like they're crowning achievement. And, you know, unless it's the dude mowing his lawn that they just ruin his day, if it's actually another type of species that's more on their level, they kill this thing and it's like that moment in the movie, and then when they do it, they die. Yeah, it's over. Yeah, it's like they release it's like post. Not clarity, but up. You're dead.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Like. Like they release their potential, everything. They have to be great. It comes out and you die immediately and it's gone. South park, how many people does that happen to? It's a lot. Throughout history. It's a lot.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, or people have. These. People have these early, premature, very bizarre deaths, like George Washington's death. You know what I mean? He could have lived. Could have lived quite a bit longer. And then he gets.

[B]

But he was pretty old.

[A]

Was he?

[B]

65, I think.

[A]

Okay, 65. But yeah, he could have lived longer. 66. Or maybe he was. Maybe he was. I think he was maybe like 67 or something. Yeah. But he gets. He gets what doctors today think was bronchitis. And then they perform all these crazy procedures on him. Yeah, 67. They perform all these crazy procedures on him to try to save his life, and then they just kill him. Him. And if they had just left him alone, he might have survived bronchitis.

[B]

You know, that's a story of medicine.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

To get it there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Maybe if Ben Franklin had come up with something, they would have. They would have jolted him to life.

[A]

I know, man. That was a. Man, that's a rough world, dude. Pretty.

[B]

I had this. This thing just reminds me of this. I had this guy, Andy Powell in here for episode 202.

[A]

I've heard that name.

[B]

Okay. So this guy was so cool. He. He's from the UK and he was the mayor of a town. I forget the name of it. On the west southwest coast of the UK, and I can't remember. This was. We recorded this January 2024. And then I put out the episode. I held that one. I put that one out, like, end of April 2024, beginning of May. It was like, right there. But he came across some sort of historical record where he realized that the lost colony of Roanoke was really.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The first colony in America before the ones that we know of. And it was really founded in like, 1587, and that the guys who founded it were from his town. And so it turned into this odyssey where he literally ended up moving to the United States where he. He still lives and sunk his life into this for the last over two decades, covering the story and figuring out what happened, because there's something strange where they came through, went back to Britain and then came back, and the people they had left there were gone. And they found a sign from. I forget the local tribe, what they were called. I think it starts with a C. But the local Indian tribe, where they wondered if they were like, Croatoa. The Croatoans, that's right. And they found a sign that said, like, Croatoa. And they didn't know if it was like an SOS signal. Like we've been kidnapped by them and maybe eaten or whatever the could happen. Killed, maimed, or if the people just joined with the tribe and left forever and it's like forgotten to history. But he talks about the history of some of the Croatoans that when they met them coming here, they took them back to the UK and there's records of them being in the UK and like, I don't know, testifying to their experiences and taking in the culture. It's very similar to Squanto, but 100 years before him doing that. Over 100 years before, hey. Where, you know, there was this cross pollination of culture at the. At the highest first level. And, you know, these people got to experience something so outside of what their reality had been before, you know, these Brits just washed up on shore. It's a crazy, crazy story. It's so fascinating because you try to put yourself in the shoes of both parties and, you know, one's discovering like a land filled with people that have no relation to their culture. And, you know, then the other is. Has the opportunity for some of their people to go back over to where that those people came from and see their culture and experience the same thing. And you're just like, it's like a version of Spider man meme, but, you know, they're not both Spider Man.

[A]

Yeah, there's a. There's a brilliant book. I think it's called Broken Spears and it says. Yeah, I think it's called. It's called Broken Spears and it says it's. It's the Aztec discovery of the Spaniards and it's written from the Aztec point of view. And how bizarre it must have been for Native Americans to see. You know, you never think about it from the Native American point of view, how strange that must have been. But yeah, man. Okay, so in North America, people don't realize this. And this is kind of what we were talking about. There's this. There's this underbelly of North American colonial history. I mean, when we think about the colonies, like, the average person typically thinks of at the earliest, maybe the Boston Tea Party, you know what I mean? Like, like, typically. Yeah, yeah, like, like at the earliest. That's kind of where it begins.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Dude, there's 200 years of history beneath that. 200 years of history beneath that, 200 years before that. There are already forts way out in North Carolina, near where I live, Winston Salem, I think it's called San Juan Fort. And the Spaniards put a fort all the way out there. They were going to try to make a claim for all of the Southeast United States. This is crazy stuff, dude. So I think it's in the 1530s or maybe it's the 1560s. They put a fort all the way out in North Carolina and kind of like the colony of Roanoke, they essentially say, hey, guys, I don't know when we're gonna be back. So you're just gonna have to survive. And we're gonna go from the coastline and build inwards to try to get to this fort, you know what I mean? They're going to try to cut off the. This. They're going to try to cut off this northern edge and the southern edge and essentially corner off piecemeal, you know, the. The. The Southeast US and eventually connect it to Texas. But they had some problems with the Comanches in Texas, so they kind of abandoned that. The Comanches were.

[B]

That happens a lot.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So this Fort San Juan, what if they were able to. If they were able to connect these. To connect these trade routes from the Mississippi river to the North Carolina coast, like the Outer Banks and over, they would have cornered off the entire Southeast United States. We'd all be speaking Spanish today. It would be completely different. But the Cherokee banded together and raided that fort in the middle of the night. Like one of the biggest invasions that we know of. That's completely overlooked in American history. And it was the Cherokee that pushed the Spaniards out of the southeast United States and destroyed that fort. Had that not ever happened.

[B]

Shout out to the Cherokee.

[A]

Shout out to the Cherokee. Had that not ever happened, history could look totally different right now. And, man, there's all kinds of stories of this, of. Of the 1500s. Europeans are out exploring North America and trying to conquer it. It's just. And all of these things had to happen exactly the way that they did for American history to turn out the way that it did. It's just. It's an. It's an incredible history, dude.

[B]

I also talk about it all the time, the exponential bias with which we view history. And what I mean by that is when we look at what we might put, quote, unquote, modern history and talk about, like, Post World War II, we have generations that are still alive. So we look at, like, the people that were growing up in the 40s and 50s is. They're the oldest people in our society. That was so long ago. Right. But it's not that long ago. The farther back we go, though, we start to squeeze together time. Meaning by the time we get to thinking about the 1700s, someone who lived in 1725 seems almost the same as someone who lived in 1700, 1965. Whereas today, when we look at it, someone who lived in 1965 and someone lived in 2005, two very different people. But then when you get all the way back to like 0 year 0 or 50 AD or 100 AD, we talk about people that lived in 50 AD and 375 AD is like the same thing, and they're 12 generations apart.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean? The culture is so different. So we look at time through this weird sphere based on our, our current perspective of it. And so we ignore, as you said, a lot of that. Like, that's like almost 200 years of history, basically. Before you even have a Revolutionary war.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's almost the length of our current existence as a country.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Wild.

[A]

It's, it's, it's, it's like. Yeah, it's like the, the recipe. All of the ingredients are coming together for what the world society is going to become today. And it gets looked over. I remember growing up, you know, you get the basic American history. That's why I say most of the time we start colonial. Colonial history. You open up, you know, American textbook in high school, and it starts with the Boston Tea Party. There's nothing before that, you know, not really. I mean, maybe there is something there.

[B]

But like the Stamp act in there.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, but that's kind of where it, where it begins, you know, in those years leading up to the kicking off, you know, the Declaration of Independence. Independence. And what's funny is you might get something about Columbus in there as well. And it's like, it's like, I don't know if the most people. We all have Columbus in the back of our head. 1492 sails the ocean blue. He discovered the. He discovered the Americas. Boom. American Revolution. You know what I mean? You almost like. You almost like don't even perceive the fact that there's so many. I mean, it's almost 300 years difference in there. And it's like we just skip directly over that. I think that's so true. I use that saying. I was talking with Mark yesterday about that. I shouted you out. I was like. I was like, julian, he words it so well that further you go back in time, we start, like, compacting it together. Almost like. Almost like we're minimizing the files and just In. Just clumping them all in because we were just so far removed from it that we minimize the significance of exactly. Of those periods of time.

[B]

We can't have that. Appreciate of what. That. How different those things look like. Imagine plucking a person from year 100 and another person from year 200. They wouldn't even know how to have a conversation with each other.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, we just look at everything as, like, Moore's Law. Well, it's just gotten faster with technology, so. Slower back then. Yeah, but people change.

[A]

Think about. Think about this. If you put. If you put yourself in a room with another guy that's exactly your age, but in 1925, and you're both standing down the street in New York City, you have nothing to relate to each other. Nothing in common at all. The. The. Your. Your perception of New York City, every single facet of the entire city is utterly, completely different. Right. And it's like, man, you think about. I guess. I guess this. This kind of easily gets into, like, why. Sometimes I'm just perplexed at how. How vindictive archaeologists and historians can be about their assertions about the ancient world, because I'm like, dude, I don't even know if you could actually dive into and truly appreciate and understand the mindset of somebody who lived exactly where you do a hundred years ago.

[B]

You can't. Joe might be able to. He's been writing a play about it that's now off Broadway on New York. Shout Out Sacco and Vanzetti, the famous case from 19, you know, the late 1910s into 1920s.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That you'd be able to have a conversation with someone back then.

[A]

Yeah, I think so. I think I could. I could match up with their transatlantic accent. Is that. Is that really a fake thing, this transatlantic accent? Like, was it something that was only put on for movies and radio? It was like something. It was. It was. It was an accent that they tried to force. Right. To sound aristocratic or sound smart. Exactly.

[B]

People.

[A]

Joe, you're coming in in the morning, and we're gonna play, and I'm gonna have a couple of cheeseburgers with some cigarettes on our cheeseburgers. We're gonna put cigarettes on everything because that's what we love here. We love cigarettes. That's awesome.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's like, spot, nice job, dude. Thank you.

[B]

No, I love that. This is like. He's a stud.

[A]

Okay, so is that accent it was actually artificial, though. Right. Like, Americans tried to make it work, but it didn't. Yep.

[B]

And.

[A]

And for, like, you said it was to. It was supposed to give an air of aristocracy and, you know, just make you sound smarter and more sophisticated. And especially for, like, showbiz, there's a lot. A lot of those guys sounded really stupid with their actual regular.

[B]

Did they actually take it on, though? Meaning, like, people put it on so much that they used it.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Like, you look at. If you look over in. In England and high society, there's the. The accent of the kings. Right. They speak differently and they actually talk. They actually talk like that because.

[A]

Worse, it's the worst.

[B]

It's pretty gay. But, you know, anyway, it's not.

[A]

It's not as gay as. As the way that. So, like, when you go around. When you go around the Latin American world and you hear people speak Spanish, it sounds cool. It's masculine, it's romantic. And you go to Spain and they all speak with the. With the. With the.

[B]

Yes, with the lift.

[A]

Do you know why this happened? It was because one of the Spanish kings had had a lisp, and he was very embarrassed by it and he made it trendy. Yeah, yeah. So it became a trend. If you wanted to seem uppity in high society, you would speak Spanish within with a lisp. And that's now why I think it's Castilian Spanish. Yeah, I think that's what I think sounds right. Yeah, it sounds very gay.

[B]

Yeah. Mexicans sound a lot better.

[A]

Oh, it's so much. It's like. It's. It's gangster, it's romantic, It's. It can be masculine, it can be very feminine. But, like, Spain, Spanish is just like, that king really did them all dirty, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. Barcelona.

[B]

That's right. Yeah. God damn it. All those Habsburgs and breads it up for everyone.

[A]

Caramel terrible.

[B]

God bless America.

[A]

Spain.

[B]

I guess. But anyway, so we got on this tangent talking about the Olmecs, though. So let's. Let's wrap that up. We went through the heads and how that can't even be moved. What years again, were they existing?

[A]

So. So the Olmecs, the only. This is the craziest conversation you and I have ever had.

[B]

No, it's great.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, I'm loving it. So the Olmecs, they appear in the Coetzkalcos river of Central Mexico around the year 1800 BC and they start with San Lorenzo, Tenoche, Titlan. They're erecting these huge heads, like from the very beginning of time and there's no developmental period. They just. In the way that they, in the way that people often say that the Egyptians are just building the pyramids at the beginning of time. It's even more so true with the Olmecs. With the pyramids, there's a, there's a short developmental period. It just, it's on like a 10 times scale. It goes, it goes like, they very quickly go from building, you know, large temples and Mastaba tombs to boom pyramids and. But with the Olmecs, it literally begins with these giant heads and these huge altars and these other large monuments. There's so many monuments there that I don't think most people have ever even seen or heard of before. So for, for an unknown reason, San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan collapses or becomes abandoned or the population gets smaller. It may actually be a result of, oh, what's it called, like, when you're so successful that it hurts you. I forget what the phrase for that is, but the, but that Olmec society is just, is just exploding and they don't have enough land at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan to sustain these people. So they leave and they, they. The hub of Olmec society essentially moves to this place called La Venta. La Venta is essentially just a duplicate of San Lorenzo.

[B]

Now, what year are we in when they do that?

[A]

Now we're at about, we're at about a thousand to five hundred. So, you know, I say a duplicate. Obviously there must have been so many nuances and discrepancies between these eras, but now we're at Laventa and we have more heads, but we also have more unique and different monuments at, at, at Laventa. This is actually where we get the, it's actually where we get. When I was talking to you about the lost city of the Snake God, that, that book I want to write, this is actually where the first depiction of the feathered serpent Quetzalcoat comes from. The Olmec world. Actually, most people don't realize that, but it's undoubtedly. And, and if, if you were to look this up, you could look up Monument. Is it Monument 19? Or maybe it's Monument 13. Yeah, but. Well, Monument 13 might be the traveler, but I think Monument 19 is the feathered serpent. So think about this when I'm going to show you this. Dude, this is the beginning of ancient Mexico and they're able to carve artwork into, into this. Is this basalt is as hard as granite by the Way. Okay. There's no formative period that we have an archaeological record of that leads up to this. But they have this kind of aesthetic, this art style carved into the hardest stone available in their natural environment. A stone that can sometimes be as hard as granite. And the artwork looks like this. At the beginning of time. At the beginning of time. This is so ancient that when the Aztecs migrated down into Mexico and invaded Mexico 3,000 years later, they perhaps did not even know who the Olmecs were or even knew that the Olmecs ever existed at all. This is how ancient this is. This happened from the very, very beginning of time. So then you have La Venta. And eventually Olmec civilization begins slowly collapsing as it's kind of like Egypt, Egypt arises. They have this, it's like this first primordial sea of darkness, like Neolithic prehistoric people. And then this spark of consciousness, right? It's like that's, that's Egypt. And Egypt rises up. And as Egypt rises, it pulls everyone up, else around them, right? Like that influence of civilization influences everyone else, and everyone else rises. And over the course of several thousand years, these people become as powerful as Egypt. And Egypt's level kind of in the hierarchy kind of, kind of falls down. The same thing happens with the Olmecs. The Maya start rising alongside the Olmecs, and the Maya are, or the Olmecs are trading with the Maya back and forth. And so as everyone starts to rise around the Olmecs, the Olmecs essentially fall, collapse everything that made the Olmecs unique, rich and successful, like their ability to fish and their ability to farm and, and sell maize crops. Everyone else learned how to do this as well. And so their importance, they get out, essentially. Yeah, their, their importance diminishes and then they just dissolve into the rest of the Mesoamerican world. And then you have the Maya rising, the Zapotex rising. Then you have Veracruz culture, which is the same bloodline as the Olmec people, but they're never as, as influential. And then over in the Mexican valley, you have like the bubbling of Teotihuacan, the. Of what will eventually be this great empire that tries to influence the Maya world. And then the Olmecs just disappear. And that's probably 500 to 200 BC and we never see the Olmecs again. Yeah.

[B]

Whoa. Way back.

[A]

Oh, way, way back.

[B]

So how long total you think they existed?

[A]

Earliest evidence is probably 2000 BC.

[B]

Whoa. So this is, this is a borderline 2000 year old civilization. And yet. Yeah, yeah, they've been gone for over 2,000 years.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, so, so they existed for about, I mean, well, they definitely exist long before we have an archaeological record. Record of them. Right. Like that's kind of accepted everywhere, that every civilization that we know of probably existed long before we have a record of them. Right. But at least by about 2000, 2000 BC is a safe bet. And then by 1800 BC they're really starting to get going. By 1500 BC full blown civilization, by a thousand, even twice as big. And then by 500 they're diminished and by zero they're, they're gone. They've just disappeared and, and kind of been absorbed and dissolved into everything else around them. And then as, and it's like as soon as they fall, the Maya rise. And this is why a lot of people think the Maya are the direct descendants of the Olmecs, but they're, they're not.

[B]

And what's funny, how do we know that? We have DNA proof of that.

[A]

No, I don't, I don't know if, if DNA proof or not, but you, you don't need DNA proof. So what's funny is I was with a group of my buddies and we were in my backyard just sitting in the backyard having a good time, smoking a joint and talking about the Maya and the Olmecs and caverns and smoking and, and yeah, I just, I love, I never do it, like for stupid fun. I always do it and then sit down and talk about ancient history because I feel like I'm going to get something from it. Sure enough, I had this realization. Why the old. Why the Maya and the Olmecs are distinctly different from each other and why the Maya and why the, the, you know, the Olmecs are often called the mother culture of ancient Mexico. In some ways that's kind of true, but, but they off. They often think that the Maya are the direct descendants, but, but they're not. They're, they're completely different. But the Maya were influenced and helped by the Olmecs. So people have often wondered why Maya civilization begins in the middle of the Paten jungle in Guatemala. It's the most, like, it's the worst place that you could begin a civilization. It's kind of like, it's kind of like being in the middle of the Amazon, right? Except it's even worse in the middle of Guatemala because there's not a major river next to you. The only thing you have are freshwater reservoirs like swamps that are infested by these huge crocodiles and everything. So I'm trying to think of, like, the psychology behind why do people live there in the first place? Okay. In early, early prehistoric times, let's go back like 5000 B.C. you already have people living in Mexico and what will become Mesoamerica, prehistoric Mesoamerica. And probably the prime real estate, if this is pre agriculture, pre farming maize, probably the prime real estate is along the coastlines because you can sail out, you can go fishing, you can catch fish. I mean, that's just. That seems to be the obvious real estate. It also must be incredibly violent. Right? And so just like the Comanches who get beat up in, you know, early pre Columbian times, and they get pushed into the Great Plains. In the place with the worst real estate, probably there was a group of just Maya people who were very unequipped for warfare to be able to survive on the coastline. So they retreat into what is the worst real estate in all of Mesoamerica, which is in the center of the Batan jungle, where you have no freshwater running rivers. All you have is reservoirs and, like the water table. So you dig this huge artificial lake and then the water seeps up out of the ground, and that's your water, which wasn't really that healthy. And it kind of causes problems many, maybe a thousand years later or so. No more maybe like 2,000 years later. But for a long time was a mystery. Why did Maya civilization start in the middle of the Paten jungle in Guatemala in the worst place? There are so many other places it could have began. And I just. I realized it this. This one night when we were talking about it. The Olmecs were so wealthy, or let's. Let's go to about 1500 B.C. the Olmecs are so wealthy that they're commissioning basalt to be brought in from the Sierra de Latushela mountains to their northwest. But that wasn't Olmec land necessarily. There were. There was a different culture that was living there and that was coring the stone and moving it for them. Okay. They were also getting serpentine and jade. Serpentine and jade is not native to the Olmec realm. It comes from somewhere in the Maya realm. And so they were trading with the Maya people to get this jade. For a long time, nobody ever knew where the jade and the serpentine was coming from because quarries are really hard to find, especially in the jungle. It's like this big crater in the ground. But then over thousands of years, it gets filled in with jungle and vegetation, and then it just becomes this little. It looks like A hill, right? Or it looks like a, it looks like two hills and that's it. You can't even perceive it anymore. And so in the, in the late 1900s, there were these expeditions that went out and there was a book written called Stone of Kings. And they went looking for the serpentine and jade quarries. And sure enough, they come from the center of the Batand jungle. That's, that's where they were at. And I haven't seen many Maya archaeologists expand much more on this other than saying, hey, this is where the jade quarries were, that the Maya were getting their jade. But they've never connected it to the Olmecs. But I'm like, the jade and serpentine is coming from the center of the Paten jungle. That this wasn't started because the Maya were mining it to give it to themselves. They started it probably because the Olmecs were looking for it, found they liked these green, these, these valuable green stones and sought it out and sent expeditions into the Maya world, into the farthest, deepest depths of the jungle, where the poorest Maya people that were afraid of everyone else were living in the middle of the jungle and said, you guys have access to this, Mine this for us and give it back to us. And so from the center of the jungle, probably, you know, like just the bitches of the Maya world that got pushed away from the coastlines did not realize that they were sitting on top of an, on top of an endless quarry of valuable green stone that the Olmecs wanted. So probably the Olmecs are trading with these people. And just like Catalan made the Aztecs filthy rich, the Olmecs made the Maya in the center of the jungle, filthy rich. So these people that were pushed away from the coastlines and forced to live in the center of the jungle were actually sitting on top of the jackpot. And that's why the major origin, the fertile crescent of the Maya world emerges from the center of the jungle in the least hospitable place that they could have possibly been living. Because. And that's exactly why. So it was the Olmecs fueling the Maya. And then the Maya emerge at a place called El Mirador and the two.

[B]

Like, evolution in a weird fucked up way.

[A]

It's weird, right? Yeah. I've never seen a Maya archaeologist like acknowledge this or talk about this before. And what's crazy is this happens between a thousand BC and 200 BC. And so the two pyramids at El Mirador are called La Danta and El Tigre. And it's the two Largest pyramids that the Maya will ever construct. They will never, ever build pyramids larger than the first two that they made. They'll never be. It's just like in Egypt, the original pyramids are. Are the biggest and baddest. It's the same thing.

[B]

That's when the aliens were there.

[A]

That's when the aliens were there. And so, yeah, it's fascinating. Man. In the pyramid at El Mirador is so large. To give you just an idea.

[B]

That one on the right side.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's large. So that's. So that's the pyramid of El Mirador superimposed on top of the city of Tikal. So the pyramid of El Mirador is the size of the city of Tikal.

[B]

Look at the trees in comparison to that.

[A]

Oh, it's insane. It's absolutely insane. Here, here's an idea of, of how big the pyramid at El Mirador is. La Danta and El Tigre. I walked all the way up the pyramid. It's a daunting walk. I'm completely exhausted. The Guatemalan jungle just zaps your strength, you know, from the Amazon. Like, you just sweat like crazy. You can't drink enough water to stay hydrated. It's just. It's just insane, you know? So we spent some time up there taking some photos. We eat some lunch on top of the pyramid, take some photos of the jungle. It's. It's super cool. Like, it's the only place I've ever been where I look off to every single horizon and it's nothing but jungle. It's the only place I've ever been like this.

[B]

You're seating Taco Bell on top of this pyramid.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I was eating an uncrustable, actually. Two. Two uncrustables and some Oreos and a Fanta. You have to have Fanta in Brandon. Yeah. And. And so, so we. So we walk back down the pyramid. I'm having a conversation with some of the people that are with me, and, you know, we walk steps there. There are these. On some of them, there are wooden staircases that are built up to help because they don't want you walking on the stone. And I mean, keep in mind, this is the middle of the jungle that they built these wooden staircases on the side. It's crazy. And so we walk down, down, down, down, down, down, down. One level, walk across. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Another level, walk across. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down. We get to the bottom of the pyramid, five minutes or so having a conversation about El Mirador and how far out here we are and it just like, it's just unbelievable. We're here in the middle of the. There's another step down. So I had been walking on the pyramid for five minutes. After I thought I was at the bottom walking forward on the platform, you almost toppled over. And then I reached the next descent down to the bottom of the pyramid. It's absolutely massive. And what they didn't realize until just within the last few decades or so is that when you actually get down to the real bottom of the pyramid, you can walk then for another mile to get to the pyramid across the way and they directly face each other. But that path that you're walking on is actually a platform that's raised up off the ground. And the entire city, including both of the pyramids, sits on top of a man made platform. Oh, it's insane, dude. It's, it's just actually, if you were ever to come to a place, to a cool place, like you should come to Guatemala and you and I should just fly in a helicopter till a Mirador, like it's something that's.

[B]

I don't do helicopters, but I'll, I'll definitely go there.

[A]

I'll show you a video or something. Maybe I'll send you the video. You can put it in.

[B]

Yeah, that looks sick.

[A]

It's, it's one of those things where you're out there and you're kind of like, you were saying that when you're in the Amazon, it, it is bigger than you can comprehend. It's, it's like a, it's one of the wonders of the world, right? Like El Mirador. Morgan Freeman, when he went, he said he thought that El Mirador should be added to one of the wonders of the world. Because when you're there walking around, that's God saying. God saying, yeah, when you're there walking around, it is truly mind blowing. Like you're looking at the size of it and you walk down the bottom platform and you think about, this entire city is artificial. They're not, they're not using the natural terrain because the jungle is flat. Everything there is raised up off of the ground. It's mind blowing, dude. And you think about, okay, these guys started doing this in the middle of the jungle around 800 BC.

[B]

It's inconceivable. It's completely inconceivable. Yeah, it's crazy. And like you said, when you go out to these places, obviously I haven't been to Guatemala Yeah, but I've been in the middle of the Amazon jungle. It's different, but similar kind of vibe. You're a speck in the middle of this.

[A]

You are man.

[B]

Voraciously growing on top of itself ecosystem. You're just like with everything we have, with everything we have now, you can't even get cops out there or the army out there. There's no laws. Imagine it back then.

[A]

Yeah, there's nothing.

[B]

I mean it's like.

[A]

And the other thing that, the other thing that's crazy is I realized the distance. So being there, it's one of the only times you get to see the ancient world mostly untouched. Like some of that city is excavated, but there is no. Maybe there's one or two structures in that entire city that's completely excavated because there's a camp out there. But you have to get there by helicopter. So there's like, maybe you have to take a helicopter or you walk for three days to get there. Yeah, I'll do the walk for three days to be fun to do. And during that three day walk when you camp, you're stopping at other cities that are in the jungle. So there's campsites set up at just these cities. Cities full on cities in the middle of the jungle. You got to walk basically from one horizon to the next every day. And what I've realized when I was out there was that you can actually kind of predict the proximity. Like if you're looking for a lost city, they're all within or they're all within the horizons radius of each other. Like if you're in one city, you can see another city. If you're standing on top of the, on top of the pyramid, just scan the horizon and you'll see it. And you keep going around, you'll see another. And they're all a horizon's distance away from each other.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

That has to be strategic. It has to be like. So you can do smoke signals or you can do fire military bases and you can, you can see, you can. Yeah, yeah, you can send signals to each other. So it has to be this interconnected web of cities. Actually in the Inca world, I was surprised to find when I was there last month, it's exactly the same. You can find. This is so cool. Okay, so Machu Picchu, I mean, you've seen Machu Picchu, it's sitting up on top of this spine of this mountainside.

[B]

I flew over that.

[A]

Yeah, you what?

[B]

Yeah, I had to fly from where the foul was I. But when I was flying to See, Paul, Inland. I. I flew over.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, been there, but.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, seen it. It's a. It's amazing, dude. It's just one of those places you got to go to. And so I'm sitting there and I'm talking to this. There's a young archaeologist who's maybe like, my age or so. And I was asking him. I was like. I was like, okay, so on these other mountainsides that are near us, because you. There's, you know, it's this steep mountain, and then the other mountains come up, and it's just like this out in the Andes. It's crazy, with rivers running through it. And I say. I say, okay, on this mountain next to us, is there anything over there? Have they ever found any ruins over there? They're like, oh, yeah, yeah, there's some vestiges over there. And I was like, vestiges? What do you mean? And he was like, I don't know. They're like forts, like lookout points. And then I was like, do you think that there's. Do you think that they were sending fire signals back and forth, like, throughout the mountains? Like, do you think that they could smell bounce fire signals to try to get messages across? And the guy was like. The guy was like, well, I mean, they found single buildings on mountain sides before. And I was like. I was like, so theoretically, if you were to go looking through the jungles that's up on top of these mountains, which is, like, extremely treacherous, there's a 50% chance you would die trying to go do this. And I was like. I was like, but do you think that they had vestiges on the mountain sides where if something's happening at Machu Picchu and you needed Cusco to find out, rather than having a sprinter or somebody, you know, walking to send a message, could you just, like, you could bounce a signal through. Through the mountain. And then the guy was like, well, maybe you could. I started looking into it, and this was something that Hiram Bingham thought as well. He was finding little things. And so you're like having a Dr.

[B]

House moment over here where he, like, looks up like, I got it.

[A]

Oh, it's crazy. And so. And so I'm seeing a similarity here between the Inca sending fire signals, and then they must always have things within a certain proximity of each other to be able to communicate instantly. I mean, like, that's like communicating at lights. That's like communicating at cell phone speed compared to walking, you know, me sending a letter to you. And. And so, yeah, there's got to be different. When I was at El Mirador, that's where the idea happened that there must be a pattern of where the city's are built. And you could probably create a web and estimate the proximity, like wherever you're at. If you want to try to find a city, you could go on a map and draw out the horizon from one single area. And if you were going to go look for a city, you go roughly to that horizon and follow in a circular path around you just orbit around one city and just keep following that horizon of your central city and you'll probably come across them. Something that. That would be.

[B]

That's insane.

[A]

I just spilled the sauce for people looking.

[B]

No, but that's actually insane.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So they could come up with stuff.

[A]

Like this wild man. Well, you know, I thought about that a lot. Like, you know, they're really into sacred geometry and they understand, like, gosh dang, what's the ratio? Was it like, yeah, the Fibonacci Sequence and everything. And the ratio, like 1.1018 or what? Something like that.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

They, the Maya figured this out in their own unique way by.

[B]

Before da Vinci. So this is the Maya Dome on it?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There were lots of cultures that figured this out because this is, this is the language that permeates reality. Like, even if, even if all of humanity died to, you know, the next, you know, Covid 3.0 or something, and there was just the Amazonians left, you know, the uncontacted tribes, those, the descendants of those people would eventually figure out the Fibonacci Sequence. It's, it's just one of these things that permeates reality. Everyone can discover it. If you poke at reality long, like, if you stare into the abyss enough, it'll, It'll, you know, it'll. You'll figure out the code to the universe. So the Maya did it as well. And the thing I've thought about is, man, there must have been people who were just as intelligent, if not vastly more intelligent than Einstein himself, you know, in, in the ancient Maya realm who sit around and thought about their natural world on a level and a certain depth that just do. I mean, okay, think about this. If you had. If your whole purpose was to sit out in a garden and think about the world around you and everyone else just took care of a lot of. Yeah, you'd be. The insights you would have would be totally insane. Like, I heard somebody talk about this the other day. I think this is something that's Kind of going viral on, like, self help Instagram. And this guy was like. This guy was like, if you want any solution to your problem, you've probably seen this. He said, if you want any solution to your problem, the secret is to go sit in a room by yourself in peace and quiet and do nothing for 30 minutes.

[B]

He was the hardest thing for a man to do.

[A]

Exactly. He was like. He was like, just do that. Well, my mind, you know, being an ancient historian is. I think ancient people were a lot more prone to that. Just thinking, you know. A perfect example is man growing up in East Texas, dude, we had to rake leaves so much.

[B]

Oh, I feel your pain there.

[A]

Yes, Believable, dude. Like, unbelievable. I was raking and we had seven acres, man, and my dad would just, like, my dad would just. I would spend. If I would spend like 24 hours or, you know, at least 10 hours a day on my Saturday and Sunday raking leaves. And I hated every second of it. And to help pass the time, put.

[B]

It on the tarp and take it back somewhere. Oh, it's horrible.

[A]

And, and, and to pass the time, I would put my headphones in and, like, listen to music or, you know, listen to, like YouTube videos on my phone or something. And that helped me pass the time. Ancient people did not have that luxury. They're sitting there thinking, they're white knuckling it and thinking. So think about how much more they just thought and existed in their world than we do. We kind of just ignore our world.

[B]

There's something to be said for that, though, Luke. Yeah, we have all these distractions now in our world. Every little thing is one click away. We, you know, you talk to anyone, they're like, oh, I'm so busy. I say it, you say it right? But a lot of the busyness, especially not to call out people who don't have their own business, but, you know, especially when you're working for something else, right, that's not yours. Like, a lot of it has to do with the distractions to get you out, away from the annoying toil sometimes of a job that you don't like. If you have a job like that and then you have people, like, we have a lot of fans of the show who love their job and, you know, they're out. They're out building things, right? Like, I have a lot of fans who are like carpenters and stuff like that. And so, you know, they get lost in building something for 12 hours, but at least they have a ride along, right? They have this show and Some other shows to kind of entertain them along the way. But that in and of itself is at least curating content for you to think about. These people there was that none of that was even in their lexicon as an option. They didn't have the temptation of saying, you know what? I think I'm just gonna listen to music for 12 hours today. Or I think I'm just gonna go enjoy this thing. To kind of get that dopamine hit while I'm doing it. They had to create their dopamine hit. To your point of like, all right, what is happening around me? Because, by the way, I can't even forget Google. I can't even take out a textbook and figure this out. We haven't written any of this stuff down. I have to, like, look at it and understand. And it remind. It reminds me of, like, Paul's team down in the Amazon. JJ and all those guys, obviously, they have tech.

[A]

They're.

[B]

They're connected to the real world, but they grew up in the jungle. Those can hear a bird from three miles away and not only know what kind of bird it is and how high altitude it is at that time, they know what it's saying and they.

[A]

Can talk back to it.

[B]

I watched them do it. That sounds unbelievable, but, like, I believe it. Oh, it's. It's incredible. And it's because they, like, that's. They lived in it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They were among it. They. They weren't distracted by other things, like trying to explain to jj, who's like a literal genius, who Elon Musk was, was fucking hilarious. It was. It was absolutely hilarious because there's no concept of that. And it's like he knows what Starlink is because he uses that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

And then, you know, he's like, wow, thanks, Elon Musk. And that's who it was, who made it. But like, in his world, it's just. He's out there with nature and so connected, and you feel like when you talk with him about any of this stuff, you feel like you're talking to a sensei and you are. Yeah, I mean, he's.

[A]

So.

[B]

I'm talking about Paul's guy, JJ, who I mentioned. But, like, you know, JJ's the. The co founder of the whole organization down there with Paul, and is unbelievable, but, like, he's on another level and. And also, not for nothing, whatever that clarity is that he has, that he's developed from his life of really being in touch with everything around him makes him exude a level of charisma. That I have never been around. Natural, quiet, unassuming charisma that strikes your soul. That's how I would describe it. Like he's. Next level.

[A]

It's a different kind of human you're interacting with. Yeah, it's like a. In a way, you are a European meeting a Native American in a certain way. Yeah. I don't know. Is he. Is he. Is he a Native guy? I mean, he must be. Yeah. So. So you're meeting. You're having a similar experience, right, where they have these. They have these admirable traits about them that come about through a much more holistic lifestyle, you know, just utterly, completely alternate to our reality. Have you ever noticed? This is something I think about a lot is like, my wife and I will talk about how smart our dog is. Like, he just.

[B]

What kind of dog you have?

[A]

Texas cur. Blackmouth cur. The same. The. So in the. In the movie Old Yeller, they don't actually use a blackmouth curve, but the actual book is written about the kind of dog that we have. It's like all American, bred by Native American, bred by Native Americans. Pre colonial dog. Really, really smart dog. And just. Yeah, so. But we always talk about, like, how well he can read body language and he's aware of every little sound outside of our house. He's aware of things that, like, I don't perceive. You know what I mean? And that's because he doesn't have a phone, he doesn't watch tv, he doesn't have anything distracting him. He lives in his reality and he's just tuned into it. And we're so, like, desensitized and tuned out of our reality. We would be just as aware, if not. If not 10 times more aware than. Than a dog might be. You know, we're just obviously vastly more intelligent, but we're able to, like, turn off parts of our brains as well. And. And you can just imagine, like, uncontacted tribes who live in the Amazon or, you know, like this guy you're talking about, he's just perceptive of things that.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

None of us are perceptive of. I mean, imagine how much of your brain power is taken up by thinking about the intricacies of, like, you know, the YouTube world and this modern media, this modern media industry that we're kind of climbing our way up through. And you have to be attuned to it and you have to kind of be aware of what's going on and knowing the things to say and the things you shouldn't say, and the things you should stay away from. It's like, well, that's just, just akin to surviving in the Amazon. But our Amazon is this thing.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

But it's also kind of dystopian because this isn't what our biology was meant to be interacting with.

[B]

Fluorescent lights. And yeah, it doesn't make any sense, but I see, I see how easily your body would just, just like it adapts to our modern day environment, how it would adapt to that kind of environment, being born in it. Like JJ's been there his whole life. He's 50 years old. Right. I was there for the better part of two weeks and one of the things I did, I never took my phone out. This was May 2024. It was the first time in over four years of doing it at the time that I took any time off and I was like, I'm doing this the right way. There's no phone coming out. I'm just going to live out there. And it's a very microscopic example compared to a guy who lived 50 years out there. Obviously it's a blink of a moment in time, but my sensory awareness by the end of that trip was turned up just a little bit. Yeah, not, not that, you know, it wasn't this like enlightening, like unbelievable, like, oh my God, I can feel everything. Or not like that, but just a little bit where you're, you've been removed for just a long enough time from real society that you get a little bit more in touch with just nature and Mother Nature herself. And it was a, it was a beautiful thing. And that's why I don't care if it's the Amazon or whatever. There's, there's some amazing places around this world, obviously most of which I haven't been to. But you know, if you can get out and go off the grid a little bit for a couple weeks and do something like that, I, I can't recommend that enough because it's, especially in our click, click, click world. It's, it's very useful.

[A]

Yeah. The other thing I think is Euphoric is, you know, so it's been, it's been over a year since I was in a situation similar to that where I'm really out there in the jungle. I mean, like I've been out to Machu Picchu. Well, I mean I was at El Mirador, but I'm talking about for an extended period of time, days on end. You know, when I went out to El Mirador, it was a full day But I came back and I slept in a hotel that night. And because I study Mesoamerica, there's not a whole lot of reason. It's not like South America, where you can. You need to be out in the jungle for multiple days at a time. Because it's so remote in Mesoamerica, you can kind of dip your toe in and come right back out. There's really no reason to camp out in the wilderness. Right. And so it's mostly day excursions. But a little over a year ago, I did an expedition in Campeche, and, man, we were out for days. Days.

[B]

Campeche.

[A]

Campeche. It's a state in Mexico, Okay. And we were out in the Campeche jungles and we were sleeping in tents on this little Maya. This local Maya camp site. And, man, I can't. I mean, I know, you know, it is so euphoric. It's like a religious experience. And also I think the added element of the danger of being out there is also especially euphoric. Like, you're almost. You're ex. It's like a trade off. You're there. Yeah, it's a thrill and it's a thrill and it's euphoric, and it makes you feel very much alive in a way that you're not usually. I think it's like what video games try to emulate. You know, video games try to simulate stakes, and that's why people get addicted to it. And, you know, all it's doing is simulating a bunch of dudes getting together and going off in the jungle and hunting down an animal and killing it. And it's like, that's a dangerous thing to do. There's lots of elements, things that could kill you, but if you can achieve that, do it successfully with your buddies. It's completely euphoric. It's like, dude, how unhealthy is it that we don't have that anymore?

[B]

Well, we're evolutionarily wired to be drawn to things like that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, it's like you're on guard and you're also about that shit, you know what I mean? Not to overstate it and be like the dude that just wants to run. Be hard. But I'm saying, like, it's a cool experience. Experience knowing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That there's the unknown little traps of nature out there that, you know, respectfully, we ain't getting here in New York.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

That's really cool. But, yo, man, I got to get you to your flight. And since, yeah, this is a pleasure doing this.

[A]

It's a pleasure doing this.

[B]

It's always great. We've done five of these. We did 175 and 176, and I think we did 271 and 272 together. But, you know, your. Your knowledge is. Is incredible. It gets better every time. So love doing these. And we will do it again soon, my man.

[A]

Yes, sir, we will.

[B]

All right, and we'll have your links down below to your YouTube. Everyone go check that out and subscribe. Everyone go follow you on Instagram as well. We'll have that link. And, you know, you get daily content just like this, and you get weekly content on YouTube with full video breakdowns by the man in front of us. So enjoy, everybody.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

All right, bro. You know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me.

[A]

Peace.

[B]

Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and smash that, like button on the video. They're both a huge, huge help.

[A]

Help.

[B]

And if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.