Camp Gagnon - He FOUND a Lost Civilization Using Google Earth

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Raul Bilecky is a researcher and explorer who travels to newly discovered and forgotten ancient sites on a quest to document, investigate, and help preserve their legacy. Today, we talk about discovering ancient ruins using Google Earth, uncovering burial sites, Nazca mummies, Purulen pyramids, and other fascinating topics... WELCOME TO CAMP 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsor: The November Project, Morgan & Morgan.👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Meet Pillar of The Past2:00 Discovering Ancient Ruins Using Google Earth4:05 Looting Ancient Structures + Ancient Graffiti7:04 90 Sites In 3 Weeks Using Google Earth13:02 Discovering Burial Sites + Looting Pits19:19 Nazca Mummies24:52 Ancient Sites Covered By Modern Civilization32:26 Discovering Elongated Skulls In The Desert33:59 Ancient Artifacts on Possible Battle Grounds42:23 Giant Whale Bones Found In Desert45:14 Origins of Peru53:22 Werejaguars In Peru56:02 Purulen Pyramids1:07:17 Discovering a Giant Vase1:14:18 The Holy Grail of Discoveries1:16:00 Exploring Machu Picchu at 10 Years Old1:18:30 Starting Pillars of The Past1:21:48 Future Explorations#podcast #history #explore #explorepage #peru #pyramidhttps://thenovemberproject.org/

I mean, I found pyramids and unfortunately mummies that have been torn apart, elongated skulls that are sitting there in the desert. Artifacts upon artifacts upon artifacts. And the majority of sites I went to, they were all kind of looted. Somewhere at the site, there's been more looting in the last two decades of the 20th century than the prior 500 years since Spanish conquest. This is Raul Bilecki. You might know him from his YouTube channel, Pillars of the Past.

He's an adventure and an archaeologist that goes around the world uncovering. lost civilizations. And today he's in the tent to tell us about his recent travels to Peru, where he discovered sites that have never been found by any archaeologists in history. These are sites that he found with his own methods using Google Maps, actually going to them by himself with the help of local fixers, and discovering artifacts and mummies that have never been seen by people in the modern age. He also tells us about the role that cartels and organized crime play in stopping people from going to these sites and how the cartels actually siphon ancient artifacts and sell them for their own monetary game. He even describes how giant corporations

are using their money and influence to buy up pieces of land and destroy some of these ancient sites that have so much rich history. Raoul is just a great guy, a phenomenal archaeologist, and just an amazing storyteller. And being half Peruvian himself, he feels a deep connection to the country and all the civilizations that were there before. And his channel is an attempt to preserve the history, the stories, and the culture of these civilizations that may have never been found without the help of adventurous and hobby archaeologists like himself. So if you're a fan of ancient archaeology or law civilizations, this is the episode for you. So sit back, relax, and welcome to Canada. Raoul, how are you? Dude, I'm doing well, Mark. Thank you so much for

joining me in my beautiful tent deep in the woods, not in Brooklyn, New York at all, but far, far off in an unknown land. I'm really excited to talk to you. I mean, your channel, Pillars of the Past, is fascinating. And you've become a, I mean, should I say a rising star in the, in the, specifically the YouTube archaeology space. You do really, really fascinating archaeological sort of adventure work. I mean, I feel like an adventure is kind of the best word to describe you.

Because effectively, what you've done in the past year is you will travel to the far reaches of specifically Peru, go into uncharted terrain, go to places that you need to pay a guide, to take you and they don't even understand where they're going or you just go completely alone in a car you're traversing mountain ranges alone to get to sites that you've identified basically using freely available satellite technology via Google Earth to uncover ancient ruins that have potentially never been visited by modern humans have almost certainly never been documented by modern media and you're finding stuff that is just like for I mean, fields of human remains and bones and pottery and remnants of ancient civilizations

that are basically lost to time. And our conversation lines up really interestingly because I spoke to Luke Haverns and who's just amazing and just a tremendous adventure sort of in the same realm, specifically looking at the Americas. And at the very end of our episode, he made a comment to me where he said, I asked him about El Dorado. I was like, do you think there's a city of gold? And he says, no, there are dozens of cities of gold that are just uncovered, that are just

sitting deep in the Amazon around Peru, who knows where, dozens, hundreds of them, potentially thousands of them that are completely untouched that have never been seen by modern media, researchers, archaeologists. And you were doing the work that is often thankless of going deep into these terrains to uncover things. So that is a brief synopsis on the work that you've done. So if you don't mind, take us to some of the more. recent discoveries you made, some of the things that you've uncovered and kind of just unfold the whole story for us.

Sounds good, man. I just got to say that you could write that down. I could put it somewhere because that was the best synopsis of what I, what I've done here. So that was great. And the tent is awesome. Thank you. So, I mean, yeah, I've been on one major expedition in Peru. I grew up going to Peru, so I'm familiar with a lot of the sites there.

I have family. My mother is from Peru, so we grew up going to see them every a couple years. But it's only been recently, like last year, that I really got deep into Google Earth trying to identify what I thought were ancient ruins. These were places that looked like ruins to me, and I have my particular methodology, but they didn't have any place markers or labels on them. And so I decided to go. And I started checking out. I was two for two. on a trip last year of unknown archaeological sites, no, no ministry of culture signs or anything. And then I went on an expedition last year and I went to 90 different locations in 23 days. And every single one was the remnants of ancient architecture. And I mean, I found pyramids.

And there's a site with dozens of pyramids. Unfortunately, mummies that have been torn apart, elongated skulls. that are just sitting there in the desert, uh, artifacts upon artifacts upon artifacts. And in the majority of sites I went to, they, they were all kind of looted. It's somewhere at the site.

So, but at a couple of them, those are the only people who've been there. There were no traces of any archeological efforts, no survey markers or anything like that. I mean, I've found geoglyphs that aren't documented. It's, there's so much in Peru. It was really a cradle of civilization. Yeah. And there's also.

so no telling when the looting happened, right? Like, we know from ancient Egypt, I mean, sometimes tombs would be looted by the people that built them, right? Like, you would have looting, ancient looting. That would happen. I mean, I'd tell the story all the time, but I went to New Grange and which is just an ancient sort of like mound site. And they told us before going in, they're like, hey, by the way, sorry, this only became a heritage site in like the 20th century. So there's going to be a lot of graffiti in there. And we walked in and there's graffiti from like the 1600s, 1500s.

1500s. Like people writing down like Jack and Mary like 1525. I was like what? It's like on the Great Pyramid too. And you get up the explorers are carving their names and things. So it's just crazy to think like, yeah, these things might be looted, but even the looting might be ancient. So I'll tell you what though. There are some of it, yes, for sure.

But the modern looters have left a lot of trash. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, interesting. And which cigarette packs that only existed during the, you know, last two decades of the 20th century. The statistic that I learned after doing a lot of this research was there's been more looting in the last two decades of the 20th century than the prior 500 years since Spanish conquest.

And it was actually a pastime for some of the people there. There's a story that like artifacts, I don't know how it came about, but some of the locals have this story that artifacts. that artifacts rise to the surface like the week after Easter. And so what they used to do is they would go out with their families and just look for stuff, you know, and just look for things.

And the ironic part about that is artifacts were so bountiful in Peru that they didn't go for that much. You know, so these families, and personally, the level of poverty, unfortunately, in these rural areas, I mean, it's extreme. And so I have a soft spot for, you know, some of the local indigenous that may or may not be doing these things. Right. There's also an interesting sort of line on like what looting is, right? Like if, you know, there's a family of Peruvian people that are indigenous to the land that are walking around seeing like an old pot. Like, I mean, it's just time is what constitutes something from being trash to being an artifact. You know what I mean? It's an interesting distinction. I mean, not to justify looting, but to, I mean, it's just time. It's just time is what it's a good. It's an interesting distinction. I mean, not to justify looting, but to,

To put in the mindset, I think when we think looters, we think, you know, bandits in the night with masks that are going in and stealing precious gold and then selling them on the black market for $1,000 to personally enrich themselves off of the shared history of a people. Where in reality, it could just be, you know, families like you're saying that go around to, you know, collect little souvenirs to put in their home or potentially to give to a family member or, you know, someone visiting, things like that. I'll tell you what, sometimes they might not even be looking for something and they might be building a house and come across an ancient burial. I mean, that happens. Right, especially in this area. I mean, it's just so rich. So take me to this first or this most recent expedition. You go to 90 sites over the span of like three weeks, which is like pretty remarkable.

And the idea of just going on Google Earth and like looking for stuff seems like sort of unlikely. Like I'm sure there's people listening to this being like, all right, sure. Like you had a fixer in the area that showed you the stuff that no one goes to. So what are you looking for on Google Earth? So the methodology I kind of started it with was what's the primary thing any culture or civilization is going to need? They're going to need water. So you need a fresh water source. So I started kind of tracing these river valleys.

You want to be close to the water coming from the Andes. And right along the coast, you would start to see that these sites, you know, they have names, they have labels. But the further you go up into the – the further you go up into the Andes, the more sparse. things become and that's when you see In terms of labeling. In terms of labeling and the sites themselves. And so, and we'll get into the some of the history of Peru and why they were building up there.

But, and then you just start to identify certain things. Like, I found an undocumented temple that didn't have a ministry of culture sign. And the way I knew it was a temple was because it had this sunken circular plaza shape. And that is a predominant feature. of the Coral Supay culture. And this was a few valleys over. And I was, all right, that's sunken circular plaza.

And so I went there. And as I got on top of the pyramid, I started to see inside of it, there were structures. There were stones built on each other. There were artifacts. So I was like, this is a site. Wow. And you documented that site specifically. Oh, yeah.

And when you show up to this site, how do you get to that one? Uh, that one in particular, I got lost a couple of times. And so there were some locals working in their farm, and I asked them if they knew where the ruins were. And that's what I thought. Every now and then you'll get lucky with somebody who might know the history of a site. And there were a couple times where that happened because the archaeological site was on their property or close to their property. And they were there when archaeologists actually came and looked at things. So they would know this rich history.

But the majority of people I ran into just knew that they were ruins over there. There's some old stuff over there. And they know it because when they were kids, they would play in it. You know, they would climb up to the mountains and go look for things. And so as I'm going into these rural areas. And I mean, I'm following my GPS too. I had a, you know, everything pinpointed the coordinates. And but it was a matter of driving, parking the car somewhere, and then just hiking my butt off to these places.

Wow. And you have to get everywhere basically on foot. Like there's no major roadways that are leading to the majority of these sites, I imagine. No. No. You're driving in desert on road. I mean, I have a Jeep down there, thank goodness, you know. So I used to go off-roading with my dad, so I'm familiar with, you know, that had to carry myself during doing that.

Right. And the Peruvian people by all accounts from personal experience with all those people I've talked to are extremely hospitable. I mean, they're extremely kind. Absolutely. And not only, obviously, you've been there as a kid and, like, you know sort of the culture through your family. But going now as an adult, how is it inter, like, sort of like interacting with the locals asking for access to the. sites like what is that experience like i tell you what i um i interviewed an anthropologist that i went on a tour with up in kusko and he he filled me in on some of like the the the ketchua or

native um ideology and beliefs and there's this big idea in the kind of the entire scope of the andian region of reciprocity and so um everyone i encountered was super helpful like to would take time out of their days to walk me to the location or through the site. And there were many that I was just solo. There was not a solo round for miles and miles and miles. Some of those were very terrifying. I'm sure we'll get into those. But everyone was super friendly and just, I mean, that kind of, I even tried to tip, you know, people for their time and they wouldn't accept it.

And I brought that up with the anthropologist. And he said, of course not, because it's, it's, it's. not about that. It's about like this carmic idea of reciprocity. Helping people that need something and eventually it'll come back to me. Absolutely. Oh, that's so interesting. Now, I'm curious, is Peruvian Spanish as a dialect? Is it distinct? Um, I couldn't tell you. And did you, you speak Spanish? I do speak Spanish. But as far as, I mean, as far as being distinct, uh, like when you speak Spanish, you learned it from your mother. Yes. And so you must speak, I mean, some version of like, if there is some type of distinct dialect in these regions.

I would like you must have like some of that from your mom's side. So I wouldn't imagine. I never studied it. I wonder if they pick up on that where they're like, oh, this guy is, you know, American, but he's speaking like our style or like our different words or the way we would like maybe our accent. Or they might take pity on me and say he's trying. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, exactly. That's so funny.

No, but I think once they recognize the, there's something about Peru, man. the energy down there, it's a vibe thing. You know what I mean? And I think that you definitely pick those things up. And the people down there, especially in these rural areas and the more indigenous groups, you know, it seems like they're in touch with something that, you know, we might have lost touch with. And when you're down there, you're just catapulted into it. And so there's kind of this peaceful understanding of just just. communion, I guess.

Right. So now going through, going to these sites in such a short period of time, what are some of the findings that you uncovered that just kind of like gave you goosebumps? You're like, oh, this is the reason that I do this. Like hair in the back of your neck, like we are standing in ancient history. The burial sites, man. The burial sites. So take me through some of those.

It's overwhelming. And it's heartbreaking at the same time. It's really something to be. out there and I mean as far as your eye can see you're standing in bones and artifact but not just random bone here or random bone there

I mean you're standing in unearthed graves and so the mummies used to be wrapped in cotton and then rope and textile and I mean you're literally standing in you see a mummy that's been ripped apart the cotton is there with the bones

and then and it's a somber feeling you know, but you naturally kind of tap into something when you're down there. And so when I'm at these sites, just kind of go through this little mental process where I might be weird, but I kind of like address the site, you know, and I'm like, thank you for letting me be here or show me whatever you want me to see. And then I could be making this up in my head, you know what I mean? But as I'm leaving, there is this, I had this feeling of almost like some sort of

of reciprocal thanks and appreciation because it's gotten some attention. Somebody took the time to actually go to this horrific atrocious site, you know? And but then the other things finding, like the beautiful pottery, the inscriptions, the designs. It's, you're standing in such, and these things are thousands of years old. I mean. So this specific burial site that you're talking about, where is it, how did you get to it? How did you find it in the first place? This was using Google Earth.

I started, you can see the looting pits from space in Peru. Now, what is a looting pit? A looting pit is where these depressions in the earth, where people have just dug. And I saw a ridge in the NASCAR region, and that ridge was just, it looks like the moon is so poachmarked. It looks like the moon. And every single one is a looting pit. And this particular one, it's stretched for eight, yeah. Is it one of these?

Yep. Okay. So point to me what we're looking at here. So that's just one little sliver of eight full kilometers, eight kilometers that look like that. Just dug up. Every single one is a looting pit. And so, you know, then I have the videos on. there too to show what some of those look like, but you go there. And so for eight full

kilometers, that's what you're standing in. And do you have any idea when this looting happened? Like, is this using like modern excavation? Is this just guys with shovels? Do you know? I think, I mean, the walkeros, the grave robbers, you know, used to, you know, I didn't come across a single person out there looting during the entire expedition. From what I researched, it appears that it was, you know, the 1980s and 1990s when it was, you know, the 1980s, when it was happening a lot. And you can tell from the trash that's left because they, I mean, there's trash everywhere at these places. Like Marlboro cigarettes from 85. Cigarettes, newspapers, cans of tuna. Yeah. I mean, people were camping out looking for stuff. Interesting. So you see these looting

pits and they're massive. I mean, there must be a big team of people that are doing this. Or maybe multiple different groups that come through at different times. That's possible. I actually never really consider that. I just thought it's been done over. Right. Decades. Yeah. I mean, just, it's crazy to think. So you can see these from space. So you see the looting pits, you go, uh-oh, there's a looting pit, but there's no heritage site. The board of culture isn't on top of this. No, the way I found that was because I found some ruins on a separate ridge kind of in the same vicinity. That didn't have administrative culture sign.

And there is no protection. There is, it's unfortunate, you know, but there's another. I definitely feel like more things can be done. but when you take a step back, you also have to recognize there are just so many places. It's just so much. Yeah. So you go through, you see these looting pits,

you see some ruins nearby and you say, all right, I'm going to go and see what's here. Yeah. And then you show up and what do you see immediately? What is the first thing? First I went, at this particular site, first I went to the ruins and all you could see. A lot of times I'll go to these places and you can tell from the drones,

that this used to be an expansive site, you know, but when you're there on the, some of these places, you can't even tell you're standing inside of a structure because they're so demolished, they're so crumbled, whether it's from earthquakes or some sort of, you know, ancient catastrophe or something, but a lot of these places are reduced to rubble. And so at this particular site,

that was my first to look at the ruins, and there wasn't anything there. Nothing. No pottery. It was a bit strange. So it felt kind of it might have been abandoned. But then on the separate ridges just right across the way it were these looting pits. And as I start, I'm trying to think like the first time I came across because after what you get kind of numb to it. It's crushing in a way to see how savagely some of these mummies were, I mean, just literally ripped apart. You know what I mean? As someone who's a fan of archaeology, I just think, what could we have learned? What's missing? What's, you know, I'm looking for pieces of our ancient past to try to connect some dots that we might be missing.

And what was just, what was taken? Right. And so these images here, these are from that barrel site we're speaking about. And what can you tell me about what we're looking at here? Gabe, can you zoom in a touch? So here you can see bones, obviously, that are just sort of scrambled around. So, you know what, if you go to the prior slide, that's what the mummies are supposed to look like. Right.

So they're... Those are legit. Those are thousands of years old. That's at a known cemetery that's been preserved as an archaeological museum. Those are the original mummies. And for anyone they can't see, they're bound, they're in like a seated position, and this is part of their traditional burial method. And which culture was this from? This was the Nazca and the Paracas entombed their.

They're deceased like this. Okay. And this is roughly how old? This is... 200 BCE. Okay. Yeah, 200 maybe then 400 on the C.E side. Got it.

And so this is what it would have looked like. This is what it would have looked like. And so they're in the seated position and they're, um, they're wrapped with, they're wrapped with their arms typically around their knees and, wrapped with cotton and then textiles depending on what your kind of status was. It would either be designed, you know, beautifully designed or just cloth. And then typically more cotton and then rope to kind of seal it up. Now, would this have been high ranking or is this would have just been a funerary procedure for any person? Do you know? It seems like any person. So the image on the left

is at the Chauchia Cemetery, they have a little museum and the attendant told me that the ones on the left are for like the kind of lower class of that of the culture and the upper class just had better tapestry, you know, better textiles. So just like a regular cotton sort of like shawl or like a shroud rather, but the higher class would have had a much more elaborate. Yes. And I imagine probably buried with, you know, pottery or artifacts. It would have been higher status. Absolutely. Absolutely. So if we go back to the next slide. Wow. That is and that's what I mean, that's kind of how hard. Once you see, see how it was supposed to be and now, I mean, these things were ripped apart. I mean.

And now do we know it's human certainly or is it possible this is like animal predation or like how do we know exactly what caused this? You know what? That's a good question. I mean, the fact that there's not many pieces of jewelry around or anything like that would lead one to believe maybe it was a mixture of both or at the very least humans going through looking for gold. And I'll tell you what, I might have seen a fox.

I've saw fox a couple times on my journeys. But no wild dog is going to climb up on that ridge, you know. So this is, and you can tell by the trash. Right. And so, I mean, and things are so well preserved. Like the Peru is in a weird climate, especially that coastal region because of the Humboldt current and, Like, it doesn't get any rainfall, very little. And so these things are preserved.

Just the hair on these, the hair is preserved. Oh, really? Yeah, that one we just saw that, and that was the red hair that has red hair and. That's hair. Yeah. Are you able to zoom out on that game? I mean, that is wild. I mean, truly crazy.

I mean, it's a strange thing. I mean, so all of these, like, white pieces is that. That's cotton. That's cotton from the actual burial garment. Yeah. Wow. And so I think it's actually on the next slide, too. Wow.

So you can see the exhumed cotton, the looting pits there. I mean, what a surreal thing. It's such a crazy. This is part of what I was mentioning before. Like, if you would come across this, like in the woods where I grew up, you'd be like, oh, this is a crime scene. You know what I mean? Like, this is, like, someone was murdered and their remains were thrown here.

But this is so. It's like, oh, you're stumbling to like an ancient cemetery. And so when you come across something like this, what do you do? Like, do you call like the Ministry of Culture? Like, is there a university you can reach out to? Like, what can be done? Or is it like, is there nothing that can be gleaned from this? There's, um, I've took, I've taken it upon myself.

The Ministry of Culture does have a website. You can go and put coordinates in and disclose things. And I've done that with a few of these sites. whether or not anything will be done about it is up for debate. That's bureaucracy at that point. That's whether or not they have the funds or the will to go do it. Yeah. And typically, you know, you'll find a lot of the money and the investment is going to go to sites that either universities want to participate in or sites that will eventually lead to tourism, you know, and something like this.

I made it a point to go to difficult places, you know? And so, um, and so, I, my mission is to when I come across these things, just document it. Mm-hmm. Just, just capture its precise, you know, place in history at the time because who knows? I mean, something we'll get into too. I've come across almost a dozen sites that actually no longer exist, sites that have been. sites that have been leveled over and there's plantations on them now. Really?

Oh, yeah. It's... Sites that you've been to that since you've gone have been leveled. So if you look, if you zoom in on the left, so you see that area that was all, those are ruins. Right. You can see there's, again, for anyone that's not able to see clearly, it is basically, I mean, from the top, you're seeing like these very strong angular sort of lines that almost look like an ancient plot of a city. So it looks like there's like roadways in a building And maybe it's just the foundation

Maybe it's completely covered up It might be a mixture of both And then in the next slide what is there? I mean Sorry, not the next slide, the next photo But those two, those do show it So that area was planted over And you can see in the top

That that little section there So that first image we saw where there existed archaeological ruins was in 2017. The next image of it from 2024, this is also satellite. You just see a plantation planted over these ruins. There's ruins that still remain in the background.

So that satellite imagery is from 2024. When I went in 2024, that top part was gone. They had leveled that over. Wow. That's how quick it happens. Right. It's, and this isn't locals.

This is corporate. This is corporations with money that are going in there and leveling these. International brands that are able to buy plots of land to monocrop and grow some type of produce or something. I don't think they have permission to do this. Really? Yeah. I don't think the government knows about a lot of these things. That's wild.

They just go in and do it? Yeah. Nobody's monitoring. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's go to the next slide has, this is just four out of, like I said, a dozen. each of these used to have that top left one, or the top left one, yeah.

Yeah, it's basically, again, kind of the same thing. It's like, okay, you can see where these ancient ruins would have been, kind of like where the cityscape kind of would have lie, and like, you know, different building foundations or, you know, temple foundations, whatever it is exactly. And then on the right side, it's just fields of some type of crop. And it's happening. I found this by accident.

So when I'm using Google Earth, sometimes, you know, based on the season, I can't really make something out, so I'll roll the satellite imagery date back. And when I did that, I was like, oh, there's ruins here. What happened to him? And so it was just by happenstance that I found this out. And what's upsetting about it is they'll typically be in these little offshoots of the valley, these little alcoves in the valley.

I guess it's good for, I'm not an agriculturalist, but I guess it's good for planting. But it's like the next one over didn't have a lot. ruins, you know, and the thing that these weren't known archaeological sites, you know, they weren't on the map, they weren't on the Ministry of Culture's database, they have a great database that anybody can go on, and these weren't on there. And we don't know what was there. We never will. Wow. Yeah, it's an interesting ethical issue, right? Like, at what point is something history? At what point is it something that can be built over?

You know, like, it is, it raises a question because, like, let's say, you know, if you told me a story, you said, like, oh, yeah, there's a, you know, a small Peruvian, you know, farmer that just wanted to plant some crops to feed his family. Then at a certain point you go, all right, well, you know, it's. And it's their patrimony. It's their, it's their ancestors. It's like, yeah, if he wants to build over, like, who am I to stop him? But if you're telling me these corporations are coming in and they don't really care about the people and they're intentionally sort of like. The money is not going back to the community. Exactly. It raises an interesting question where it's like, like at what point should the government, the locals, someone step in and say, no, no, no, we need to preserve this. We need to look into this, see what this actually is. And then maybe once everything's been removed, all the artifacts have been excavated, then we can say, all right, let's go ahead and, you know, sell it or build on it or whatever. And that's part of the reason I've really, part of the mission of the pillars of the past channel here is to document as many places as possible.

So there will be a database that, you know, you'll have 3D, models, you'll be able to act as if it was there, you know, because we don't know if it'll be there in 10 years. And, you know, also, you never know how it fits into a bigger picture of sites that might have been around it. And, you know, you're trying to understand the trade routes of these ancient Peruvian people. And you say, like, okay, we have a site here, we know about, we have a site here we know about, but how did they get things across? And you go, well, there was a site here that was documented at one point that now was grown over, but we know that that could have been a waypoint for them to transport, you know, material.

or whatever else. That is really, really interesting. And that's something that I consider often. Like, again, it's kind of hubristic being like in America because probably so much of this entire continent, North and South America, is built on ruins of something. You know what I mean? Like even New York City, I mean, it was ancient Native American land for thousands of thousands of years and then we built cities on it.

I mean, who's to say what's underneath the ground that we're on right now, you know? Like, is it possible there's an ancient temple that's, you know, the ruins of it underneath Manhattan, almost 100%, you know. I mean, everywhere, that's the other than the, the, the, North America is fascinating with, I mean, just how many, the old, you know, Spanish chronicles and stuff and how many people they're saying that they were seeing up and down the Mississippi. I mean, it's, it's, it's unreal. I mean, millions, millions of people. I mean, some of these sites were probably containing, you know, hundreds of thousands at one point, and they were sustaining them and they lived a large, vast city. and they probably, you know, vacated or, you know, died out.

Far before the Spanish even got there, who knows, you know? Like, it's difficult to really pinpoint. Yeah. All right, fellas, sorry to interrupt this wonderful program, but it is that time of the year. The air is cooler, days are a little shorter, the leaves are falling, and maybe you're feeling a little reflective, maybe thinking about life.

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So, come on through. Not literally, but more metaphor. Don't come through. You get what I'm saying. So let's see what we're capable of when we put the phone down. We show up for ourselves. And just tap in with the boys. Let's take control just for November. How hard could it be? Let's get back to the show. But it's fascinating to think that these towns that at one point we're bustling metropolises are now just gone. and so much so that you could be standing on them and not even know. That's one of the things Luke pointed out. He said, like, you know, Pizarro and his men,

as they're going through South America, we're looking for these ancient cities. And almost certainly, you know, disease had taken them out before they got there. And within a few decades, they're completely overgrown. These, these, you know, temples, these pyramids are completely destroyed

to, you know, the environment, that they're walking on top of them, not realizing that... This is where it used to be. Yeah, like, if they're looking for gold, there's almost certainly, you know, mummified ruins underneath them. The gold that they seek is underneath their feet quite literally, and they're just walking over it. And it's difficult to really visualize until you see your videos.

Because from the top of graphical view, when you're looking above, you're like, oh, this is obviously manmade. There's mountain ranges you can see the mountains, and they are typical mountain formations. But then you see these strong angular squares and plots of land that are completely, I mean, human made, like almost certainly. But then you see the video of you standing on it. Oh, yeah. you go, oh, this just looks like rubble. It just looks like rocks. It doesn't look like anything at all.

But then you look at the top of you and you go, oh, and then you dig into it and you go, oh, well, here's actually a little piece of ceramic. Here's a bone fragment. And then it's obviously the most, you know, I guess severe cases you're discovering entire graveyards. I mean, at one point you're finding elongated skulls. These are things that are artifacts that would be in a museum, you know, in New York or in London where it's like, this is a fascinating piece of human history where they're actually binding the heads of young people to make their skulls longer.

And then you're just finding them. I found, I mean, there's a video of it. And this is one that you just came across just on your own. Yeah, the top there, that whole part was exposed, man. And it's, I came across three, I think, three total on these expeditions. And so I docked you. I actually reached out to Brian Forster. And I was like, hey, man, what, what do I do about this?

Do I take it and, you know, give it to the Eka Museum or something? And he said, they have so many. They might not be interested in it. You could tell them. And it's like, okay. So, you know, I just put dirt over it and left him. Yeah, re-buried them and said, yeah, have your rest. I mean, just remarkable.

Well, I don't like to, if it's exposed like that and, like, if there's an art or something. I don't like to dig. I don't want to, I don't like breaking ground. But, you know, if there's a piece of pot or something that has dirt on, I'll brush it off and try to get a 3D model of it and just to capture it and say thank you to the site, you know, and on to the next one. Now, some of the artifacts that you found are really interesting, specifically that giant ceramic pot. Yeah. So these are some of the artifacts here. I mean, it's just crazy like this is something. I mean, potentially, you know, 2,500 years old. old. Not potentially. I mean, those are, yeah. I mean, almost. It's just, again, this is stuff you would find in a museum and the fact that you're just

stumbling across them in sort of an, like an unknown sort of non-traversed expanse is just bewildering. What it makes me think, though, is what were these looters finding if they left this bond? Right. You know what I mean? Like, if they weren't looking for this stuff, what were they looking for and what is not there anymore. I mean, almost certainly to me, if I had to conjecture, I would say, like,

precious metals, jewelry, things that are effectively small, but valuable. And that's why I think the mummies are torn apart. Right. They must have had necklaces or earrings or, yeah. Who knows? And something like this, like, oh, it's a vase that's broken. It's like, what can that really go for? What would that sell for? And, you know, how big is it for us to carry back in a backpack or something? I mean, wild. There were literally, uh... So some of these burial sites were more condensed with the deceased than others. And there were, you could see tire tracks, you know, from people who have come in and out. And there were a couple places that weren't as condensed with remains where you could actually see this trail of human bones following along the car path.

And I imagine that it was a pickup truck or something and bones were falling out. Because there was just a trail, you know, following the same car path. Wow. Yeah. And so I might have been filled with the very top full of stuff. Who even knows? That is wild to think. And so can you point to some of these things and tell me what we're looking at just in these artifacts?

So, yeah, this is, I only came across, actually, you know, I came across a couple pieces of textile, which, The Paracas and NASCAR region have some of the most beautiful textile. I guess a lot of the burials I came across were probably of that, you know, lower class because there weren't many of the ones with any depictions

or images. But there were a few of a few I found. But I think then there's a yeah, an ancient sandal on the top. Wow. This was awesome.

in the middle there, it looks like some sort of knitting tool. Yeah, I mean, it looks modern in a way, right? Like, it looks like something like a grandma would use to crochet like a slag. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was like, this is amazing. And then I actually thought that on the right, it might be hard to see. But next to that piece of pottery is a rope, a band of rope.

And it's funny, when I went to the Chachia Cemetery, the attendant showed me they had cotton growing right there near the site, the brown cotton net. And so he picked it off and I put it in my hand. And then he was showing me how they would make their textiles and rope with it. It was actually, I think, an archaeologist or an anthropologist commented on the YouTube video. Because I thought, I don't know, a headband or something. But it has a hole in the middle. And they said that looks like what a sling that they used to use for rocks.

They would put a rock in the middle and use it as a weapon. Oh, wow. Which actually kind of changed the entire context of this site for me. I wonder if there was a big battle there. Right. Oh, that's interesting. You're finding weapons potentially. And then finding remains.

The remains are not necessarily all mummified. Like, who's to say what exactly happened? What's interesting about the site where that was is, so, like, the NASCA would build their structures. They would use the reeds from the van. They grow closer to the valley. like thin bamboo and they would use that as thatch for their roofs. And so at this site in particular, as I'm walking through it in some of these looting pits, you see that the looters broke through a layer of thatch.

And so if that was the roof, I can't imagine how deep things must go. And that's the other thing. So many of the, these sites aren't excavated. you know, there's clearly structure buried underneath. You can see the outlines from, I mean, you can see the walls going into the ground when you're on the ground, and from space, you can see the outlines.

They're just entire cities just begging to be discovered. Completely covered. I mean, it's really hard to, like, put in context because part of me says, like, okay, you're seeing these lines, oh, these are just the foundations, right? These are like, there used to be something built on top of this that's now gone. And finding the foundation of something is startling and interesting,

but it's not as exciting as finding an entire city that's basically preserved. Oh, yeah. And so like Pompeii is obviously the obvious example where it's like you have an entire city that in a day gets completely covered in ash and pumice that is just lost. And from the, you know, when they're starting to excavate it,

you can actually see on top, you're like, it kind of looks similar where you're like, okay, we can see kind of a street, we can see another thing. And then as they excavate the entire region, it's an entire city. I mean, everything preserved exactly how it was on that day. People in the positions that they were were when they died, the roads, exactly how they were.

I mean, it's, like, really remarkable to see. Can you search Pompeii pre-excavation? I saw one image in particular where you can just basically, you're looking at nothing. Yeah, and it's, as you see, the evolution of these archaeological excavations, it's like, you know, just the corner of a wall or something. And then all of a sudden, a decade later, it's, that's incredible. I mean, and this is basically like a view of what it looked like prior to the, prior to the eruption like what it would have looked like in its heyday.

And if you're looking at it prior to being excavated as it's just covered, you're like, yeah, I'm not looking at anything. So it really begs the question in this region, what is below this, right? Like if you're breaking into the roof, it's like, oh, you're not even on the street. Who knows if there's a basement? I mean, I'm sure there's tunnels that go all the way through and who knows what's even down there. And again, you need legit resources to actually excavate these areas. Well, I mean, I would settle for just some ground penetrating radar and some imaging.

You know what I mean? Right. But I think what I heard that the looters do is they have, they have like a pole. They like a long steel pole or something. And they just go and kind of just poke it deep into the ground as they can until they, I don't even really know. Hit something hollow. Yeah, something. I forget who told me that.

I mean, that's wild. Have you ever met any of these looters? I didn't see a single looter, which I kind of. expected to. Just a guy looking around, poking around, just something like that. But I didn't come across anybody. I'd be so curious to know what, like, who they are. Because I'm sure they're around the towns.

Like, I'm sure there's people. You could be like, hey, can you bring me up and I'll pay you and I'll just take whatever and you won't tell anyone? Like, I wonder what their business is. I'll tell you what. I was in the Hornmey Valley and as I'm leaving the valley, there's this massive archaeological site and there was, It was gated.

There was some hotel there. And or just the infrastructure of what was beginning to be a hotel. And this guy came on his motorcycle. He's coming back from lunch. And it was his property. And it was like, is there an archaeological site here? And he was like, oh, yeah, come on back. And so he walked me back.

It's his property. And so, and they're, they're not doing a fish. They're excavating to build a hotel. And as we're walking, he's like, yeah, I'm finding this here, finding that there. You know, you can come back and dig if you want, you know, and just, so he wasn't, that's just his property. He's finding things, you know, not intentionally looting or anything.

Right. And if you want to dig, you're just helping him out. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, we've got to get this earth up somehow. It didn't work out, but. That is fascinating. So what can you tell me about these people? So, like, the NASCA people, like, what is their story?

How do they fit into, like, the broader scope of, like, ancient Peruvian culture? Are they connected to the Inca? Are they a separate completely... I mean, they were... The Paracas came before the NASCA, and I mean, what's really incredible was how they were able to survive. I found out through a bunch of research

where the modern looting isn't for artifacts, it's for dinosaur bones in the Okukahae Desert. And that's actually where they found the world's largest whale. And like this big, whale with like little hands and feet that it looks like and and so that the whole area was once i mean ocean and so what what is this whale can we look this up so yeah so okay paleontalterns peru have unearthed the fossil 40 million year old walking whale found in the you said oak okukkae

oakukaha desert in southern peru i mean it's an ancient whale and keep on scrolling down this date wow i mean this is just crazy Wow. The first whale ancestor was a hairy four-legged omnivore. I mean, this is crazy. So this whole area was just an ocean 40, 50 million years ago. And these whales died and then the desert, the ocean dries up. And they're preserved there.

I am blanking out on the guy's name, but they're, this actually, ironically, isn't the whale I was talking about. But what I learned was that there were looters going out there in the desert looking for, dinosaur fossils. I just learned that through my research. I mean, that's great. So they're finding these old, you know, mummified remains of something. They're like, hey, get this out of here. We're looking for this giant whale. I guess that's what it's kind of shifted to. That is wild. And how does that work? I mean, is there like a market for dinosaur bones? I have no idea how many of that stuff. That is crazy. So, I mean, that's hilarious, first off, that people are going through what we consider like ancient human history, 5,000 years old. And they're like, yeah, dude, we're looking for a 40 million

year old whale. That is wild. And I think like the cartels have gotten involved with some of this stuff and like looting and I mean I know it happens in Central America

but they're also looking for there's a lot of mining that happens in these areas too. I mean Peru is rich with precious metals and so you know and the cartels

have their hands on a lot of different pies down there. Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, that's wild. Okay, so as far as the NASCO people go. Yeah, so they were brilliant at being able to live in such a difficult landscape. You know, so millions and millions of years ago, it was ocean. But for the longest time in recent history, going back to the time of, like, when they were living there, it wasn't fertile. They were just brilliant at being able to tap into the underground water table and sustain themselves.

And so, and because the terrain was so harsh, they didn't really get invaded. And it wasn't until the Wari. So the Prakis and the NASCAR and the Wari kind of came down from the highlands. And, I mean, the Wari pre-day, were right before the Inca and basically created the foundation for the Inca. who, I mean, when you think of the Inca trails, like the running pass that, you know, it was mythically said that, you know, if the, if the king in Kuzko wanted a fish in the morning, he could order it, and by the evening it would come from the coast. Because they had these runners with the messages, you know. And so, and you can see that. It's pretty neat, actually.

you can like trace some of the trails from Cusco all the way up, you know, 8,000 feet in the Andes. And they would have these little tomboes, these little, the tomboes were kind of administration centers, but also along these running paths. They would have these. And you can see them. That's why when you do, I actually stop looking at them, looking at these on Google Earth because there are just so many. These little circular structures, these little random isolated square. structures and that's it. It's not part of a settlement or any. It was a stopping place for these runners to like rest up, you know, and move along on their journey. Wow. So it's actually the

worry, though, the worry that utilized those running paths and then the Inca, you know, absorbed to them. And so what can you tell me about the timeline, roughly speaking? The Pyracus were I think I was saying 800 BCE to about 100 C.E. And then the NASCA 100 to 6 or 800 CE then the war he came. And the Inca only

were in power for 150 years maybe. And that's because they I mean it was the Romans of South America really. They were kind of absorbing these cultures into their empire, they would, you know, show up to the town they're conquering and say, I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse, essentially.

We have, you know, 20,000 people marching with us. Do you want to become part of the Incas, you know, or we're going to take you over? And people would say, sure. But they got to kind of retain a level of individuality. That's why the textiles they wore. They were just incredibly elaborate. And each town had its own unique. Each tribal group had its own unique kind of flavor to their attire to kind of remember who they were.

But the other thing was, you know, you had to contribute. You had to, you know, pay your Mita. The Inca's would do this big census and figure out what people were good at and say, okay, your job now is to do this or your job now is to do that and we're going to get this portion of this and you'll receive that portion of that. And so it's just this, it's brilliant. And, you know, but then the Spanish came. Right. And the Inca were basically the last sort of empire prior to the Spanish.

And it seems like the Inca to me, just based off my very limited research, has been that their expertise was obviously building. They were like just fantastic builders and were able to build things. mean, that we can't even really explain to this day. I mean, Machu Picchu, for example, just as, like, such a, like, miraculous feat of engineering. And then in addition to that, like, almost diplomacy and, like, conquest, like, bloodless conquest, kind of in the way you described it. Like, they had so many resources. They were able to understand the environment that they were in so precisely. They were able to grow things at such a scale that their empire was so fertile with resources that they kind of were able to come in and be like, hey, your people are going to starve without us. So let's do a deal. You

give us some of your stuff. We'll make sure you guys don't die out. We'll protect you a little bit from, you know, some of the warring tribes that are coming from the north. And you'll be a part of the Incan and will be, you know, a better empire. And they're able to do this throughout the whole region. I mean, stretching up into Ecuador and then down into Chile and Argentina. I mean, the Tijuana Tintin Tsuu Empire was massive. I mean, in contrast to the Aztec, that seemed like they were much more of a brutal sort of warrior clan that were able to kind of take people over through bloodshed. I mean, when comparing the level of it, I mean, absolutely. The Aztecs were much more notorious for that.

I'm pretty sure the Inca's had there, you see this evolution of sacrificial. ritual. I mean, it's really interesting to try to trace the religious evolution. So the Inca, you know, it was what? 1532 when the conquistadors came, something like that. And so 500 years ago. But then you have cultures in Peru going all the way

back to, I mean, hell, Waka Prieta, they were, it was It wasn't a civilization. It was supposedly more of a hunter-gatherer kind of settlement, but 12,800 years ago, you know, they're finding people were starting to build mounts. Right. Pyramid mounds, you know what I mean? So, I mean, it's an interesting thing to try to, well, to try to trace all of the history. And archaeology is, I mean, I feel like every month I'm seeing something new in the news about Peru. and a new discovery.

There's this place called Chavine, Chavine de Wantar, and it is kind of strategically placed between the Andes and the coast. And that's when you start to see this iconography, this religious iconography. You see there's the Teo Abelisk. For the longest time, it was thought that this was the cradle of, it was called the mother of civilization in Peru. But now they're finding, the thought was this group influenced the peoples on the coast,

that somehow it came up down from the Amazon and then over the Andes and then down into the coast, like this religious iconography, these sculptures. But they actually found all over stuff on the coast now. And so it's creating a shift, or it's going to create. a paradigm shift on where the mother civilization was. Right. And it's not as clean of a story, I guess, as people originally thought.

They're like, oh, this is where it starts and then it spreads neatly all through here, where it's like it might start on the coast and then go inland, then back out, and then back inland. I mean, who knows? In 10 years it could change back, you know what? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's really interesting.

And again, I think having any type of real strict, rigid understanding of what exactly the story is is probably going to miss some of the nuance from these new discoveries, right? So I'm curious, what are some of the discoveries you've seen recently, even just on the news or things you've been reading about that have interested you?

So you see that face in the middle? Mm-hmm. Right? Okay. That's like the fanged deity that Dr. Barnhart talks about it. He's doing a whole... I mean, he's brilliantly tracing this fanged-looking deity

throughout all these variety of cultures and different epochs in the history of South America. Looks like a jaguar almost? Like a jaguar. And part of the thought is, you know, it has to do with shamanistic transformation into, into like a jaguar type of feline deity. The wear jaguars. Like a weird jaguay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I might be wrong on this, but I think it was like right around the time of Christ. So you have like this religious iconography coming up in Peru also. But then you find a place, Waka, H-U-A-E-A-L-R-E-E-Y-Y. Yeah. See, that, that actually predates. And I went to that site. I didn't know about it.

I just saw it on Google Earth. And it was like this pyramid temple looking thing. So, and when I got there, it's on the pillars of the, I'm going to plug pillars of the past 101, YouTube. When I went to that site, they actually have it behind these wooden walls. It was, I mean, these things are huge. Yeah, I mean, it looks massive. And this guy standing next to that. He's, you know, the face is almost like, I mean, eight feet in diameter.

And that's only just the face. I mean, who knows how much more there is underneath this. I think it was just the face on the temples. And so to tie this in, this actually predates the Chabin site. Now what they found is religious iconography on further towards the coast of Peru. And that's been in the news. like a if you look up

Zanya Valley ZANA Valley discoveries there you go and this was this was just announced last year ceremonial temple

discovered beneath Sandoon and Peru dated to 5,000 years ago wow so that's like that's got older iconography

than anything they have they didn't expect to find the iconography there wow and this is near the coast

this is right near the coast coast, it's actually, ironically, close to that pyramid site I went to. If there's one place, if I have all the money in the world, if there's one place I would want to push hard to excavate, it's this site of Purulyn. It's the site with like 16 pyramids. It's, they were built, carved out of the bedrock. But like, ironically, it's close to that site that we just discussed in the news. Right.

So I wonder what else is there. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I got to tell you a story. Imagine you're sitting in your house. It's cold outside. It's a little snowy. And you're like, man, I just want a pinini. So you go and you order it, you know, from a, from DoorDash or something like that. And it never gets to you. You're looking at the app. You're like, dude, it's been four hours. Where's my Panini? You're calling? No one answers. Well, this is a true story that happened. There was a woman, a client that was working as a DoorDash driver. And she slipped and fell on an

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Yeah, this is fascinating. So this is what you see on Google Earth. Correct. Now, this site specifically, has this been documented by mainstream archaeologists? In the 1950s, or 1970s, 50 years ago. Walter Alva did. And I didn't know this until I posted it on Instagram. I couldn't find any modern media of it.

And I was like, if there's one place I'm going to go, it's this place. It was 14 hours. I mean, I split it up, but it was like 14 hours from Lima. Wow. So just getting to Lima, you're still 14 hours. from this complex. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And so, and then getting to it is no picnic. I'll tell you that. So you found this on Google Earth. I found this on Google Earth. And you were like, what the hell is this? No, somebody sent it to me. Somebody sent me the coordinates on the Instagram, which was just awesome. And I was like, I got to go.

I got to check it out. So what did the guy in the 70s? What did he uncover about this place? So they did a brief archaeological survey. And actually, so if you go down to the next slide, that's what I'm calling the main pyramid. In it, there's a picture from 1970 where there's a chamber, a room inside of there, carved from the bedrock. By the time I went there 50 years later, it's been covered up again. I couldn't even see where it would have been.

Filled in with dirt and sand. Yeah. And so they did a survey. They dated this site to around 1800 BCE. And what's ironic about that is that's the date. There's only one piece of pottery that was documented from this site. And I'm like, 1800 BC, that's when pottery was happening on the coast. Look at all the sites.

If this was a ceramic civilization, you'd be finding ceramics everywhere. And you're just not. So it leads me to believe that it's a lot older. Interesting. Or perfectly looted over, I guess. There weren't many. There weren't too... And as we've seen, they don't really take the vases, right?

They're looking for gold and stuff like that. I mean, and there weren't too many looting pits there. There was one section. If you go on the next side, there was one section. It was weird. Or the one after this. So you see those... That's what I saw on Google Earth, those stones.

They look like stones to me. There were looting pits behind them. Hmm. And so if you slide to the right now, that's, that's what they look like on the ground. That's the same way the pyramids were, the pyramids we just saw, it was carved out of bedrock. Ironically, you stand there in that little opening between the two,

and it's facing perfect east. Interesting. 89 degrees. Right. And so that's another way I kind of knew that these were pyramids. They are all facing north, north, north, And like they would do that to align with the sunrise on the solstice and Um,

Wow. So, but if there's one place I would put my money on, you know, maybe tracing some stuff, it's, it's the, it's got 16 pyramids who doesn't want to explore a site with 16 pyramids. Right. You know what I mean? Now we're looking and it seems like these are the base of the pyramids. Like it's just sort of like a large sort of rectangular or like squareish kind of like slab. What is the thought that the pyramids were built on top of it and they're now gone? Well, I don't know.

In this survey, they say that they are pyramids, layered pyramids. The majority of them have two or three levels. The thought is that maybe they were building stuff on top. So it's like a plaza, maybe like a market or something. You know, I think the feeling I got, again, like feelings aren't facts, but I kind of felt it might have been a ceremonial site of some sort. And that's why you weren't finding remnants of people doing everyday life there. You weren't finding pottery that's been cooked, you know, somehow. So I think it was a pilgrimage site.

Interesting. And how, is it possible that there's far more of it under the ground? Oh, yeah, man. There's, I, I, I must have pinpointed. I could be wrong on some of them, but so far I'm 90 for 90. There's things you can see from Google Earth and from the drone where you just, you see the outlines. You see the outlines. So it's also just to dig there, though, the ground is so hard.

It's right there on the coast. I mean, the erode, that's the other thing. The erosion on these things just really highlights super ancient to me. Right. I mean, 5,000 plus? I'm, I think so. Yeah. I think so, yeah.

Fascinating. I mean, could you pull up just a picture of the pyramids of Giza prior to being excavated? Because I think it's also like a helpful thing. Like so much, so much of Egypt prior to being like fully excavated when the British kind of first went there. Oh, yeah. Or when the British documented like the 1800s, it's like, you know, it's obviously monumental. You can see, but like even like the sphinx is like covered up almost completely. Like there's so much of it that is not, that they don't realize how much of it is underneath.

And now even with, you know, LIDAR, there's. suggest that there's potentially like massive, you know, like chambers and, you know, tunnels that are existing underneath the pyramids that go for miles or, you know, this is what people have speculated. Who's to say? But it raises the question like these places in Peru, like how much of it goes underground? How deep does it really go? And that's why, you know, with ground penetrating radar or things like that. And so ground penetrating radar was never used at this site. It was the 1970s. They didn't really use it. And, and, and. Nobody's gone back since. But even Walter Alva has been, it's documented. He said, this is a site he always wanted to go back to. It even says it in the survey. It's likely older.

Wow. So. And can we pull up some of the original images that he took in the 70s? You could try. You said Walter Alva. Walter Alva. But you showed it in your video. Yeah.

So the way I found that was because an archaeologist reached out to me on, which is just really cool about this, like the community aspect that's, come from it like I'm getting the chills right now it's uh it was unexpected and and it fills me up um but he sent me somebody's dissertation and i read the dissertation and in the citations of the dissertation it had the original um it had the original site and so i traced it if you actually go to my video towards the end on it is where you could see it um it um it had the original site and so i traced it if you actually go to my video towards the end on it is where you could see it. And I don't even remember. It was written in Spanish in a German publication. Really? Yeah. It's very hard to

find. So you can see these steps and then you can see this massive dugout sort of chamber. Carved out of the bedrock. I mean, which is, I mean, time consuming to say the least. Especially with the tools that they had at the time. And this would have taken, you know, years potentially to like carve out these giant, you know, holes. I mean, even these stairs are massive. Yep. And this is all completely covered up now. All covered up.

I couldn't tell. I speculate where that chamber might have been. And that's the other thing. So these were from 1970, right around 1970. Mm-hmm. And nobody's been since. No major excavation at least. No.

Right. And you can't find, besides my videos on it, you can't find any modern media of it. Right. You know, which is the other thing. If erosion's, you know, cause this much or it's been covered up again, if we're not documenting this stuff, then it's going to go undocumented and we won't know what could have been, you know. So how long did it take for you to find this site? Well, this one was sent to me. But as far as getting to it, you know, you had to drive 14 hours, but like did you have to hike across mountains?

Oh, yeah. This was, it looked like there was an easier path to get there. but the river was flooded. And so I couldn't cross the, I asked the locals. I was like, I'm trying to get over there and they're like, you can't. Apparently that happens frequently in this area. So I also think like where they built it was pretty strategic because it's not an easy place to get to. Even Walter Alva says it's not an easy place to get to.

Maybe a few 6,000 years ago, the landscape was a little different. Maybe there's a river cutting rid of through it or whatever the river bed. that are there now, weren't there, or whatever the reason may be. You can tell, too, when you zoom out on Google Earth, and I speculate on this, too, but you can see that, I mean, tsunamis have bombarded the coast of Peru for millennia.

They have massive El Ninos and stuff, and you can see the scars on the land from the satellite. From tsunami specifically. Yeah. So I was going to share this, too. It's weird. So the Okokahe Desert, right, used to be ocean. Well, they've been able to test parts of the Okulkeye Desert got massively inundated by flooding right around the time of the Younger Dryas Impact theory, the flood that melted the North American ice sheets.

Only parts of it because there's other parts that they test in the Okukaya Desert that had no flooding at all. And so it's weird. So there were definitely, the regions were definitely affected by something 10,000 years ago or 10 bucks a problem. Interesting. That lines up with some type of cataclysmic event. Yeah. Yeah. That sort of points to this younger, this younger driest period.

And so it's also part of the reason I think this site needs to be studied is because Waka Prieta. is right along the coast of Peru, and it's been now proven that people were responsible for building that right before the flood. And it's built kind of in this similar method. The bedrock is carved out to make a structure, and then they're making it a pyramid cap. And so it's very similar. Right. Now, what can you tell me about this giant ceramic pot that you found? Oh, yeah.

Well, I've never seen anything like it before my life, Mark. So how did you come across it? What site was this? I mean, what's the whole story? This was down in the NASCA-Eka region. And I mean, the video is on the channel. I think, I mean, I was just walking. There were ruins there.

They're huge Adobe ruins. And basically on Google Earth, I could see that there are structures buried under here. So I went there. I was actually with my fiance. And we were walking. and I just saw this big hole in the ground. I just thought it was, it was like,

this is weird. As I get closer, I see that this is one giant piece of ceramic. I mean, I didn't know what to make of it. I mean, I just, but this is the same ceramic material that it's being found on the pottery, you know,

at strewn about at site in smaller pots. And so I, I was telling you earlier, one of the things I love about, you know, just what the channel is doing is when I go and do, do these expeditions, I come back and I make these videos, I'm doing a lot of research,

because I'm trying to put together a narrative and try to figure things out that I don't know. And what I found through this is that there's nothing of this magnitude documented in South America. This one is larger than anything that is currently documented. The largest ceramic vases, vessels like this were found in Brazil. On the other coast, it's the Majaro culture, Maharajjo culture. in Brazil on the Atlantic side, but those were like four feet. This is, I'm 5'11, you know, just kind of estimating

about six feet across. This thing is huge. Yeah, it's massive. One solid piece of ceramic. And the challenge with this is in order to make ceramic, obviously you need clay, you need to form the clay, then you need to fire the clay. And typically with small pieces of ceramic,

you'll have a kiln. And the kiln is literally just like a little, oven that gets heated through an open fire that then is able to solidify these pieces of clay that then turn into a usable vase or a piece of pottery. Now a piece of pottery this big, you either need to have a kiln that is at least this big or some type of firing method, which it seems like in the region is hard to come by. And if this is, you know, if they made many of these, you'd probably find a couple more, you know. So in my research, there was, ironically, there was one place where I did find things this massive.

Ironically, it was from right around the same time period that this site was populated, but it was in Rome. The Roman, the doleum, and the doleum were these huge, massive ceramic vessels that are big enough to fit a person inside, and they were used, you can still, you can see them now.

They were typically used for, you know, for storage or for, You know, for wine and things. Yeah, these things are massive, absolutely massive and What you'll find in in ancient Rome is that they were buried under the ground You know for for storage and fermenting, but they were never isolated. There's always like I don't know Six to 12 of these things right next to each other and and so it's it's my guess that I'm not saying necessarily that there was but I you know, who knows man? Who knows? I'm not directly saying that there's a a connection there might be. What I think for certain is that there's probably more of these

things out there buried in the desert. In that same region. In that same region. Where you find one, especially in Rome, you find one, you find multiples. Why would it be any different? If you have a guy whose job it is to ferment things or to store grain, it would be strange to have just a one-off that you would store. You know, you would ideally have silos where you'd have a few of them together where you could ferment everything all at one time, all in one place, and you wouldn't put them in a bunch of different locations. And it would make sense. too that I mean being in that in that region too it's so arid that they maybe storing water or something like that uh although the ones in the the the Maraara Mahajaro culture those were funerary bases they found human remains in them so it also there could have been a mummy in there right or it could have been a fermenting thing that then was found later by a different culture then used it for funerary proceedings or something that's really really interesting now

I need to ask you, some of the people on YouTube pointed this out. They said, why did you jump inside of it? I mean, you know, upon reflection and with all the, what you don't see in the video is that, like, I did take extreme efforts to ensure its structural integrity. Like, you, there is, I don't know, almost at least a foot, a foot and a half of sand in there. So it's solid. I don't know. There were people saying, what if you broke through it somewhere?

and that was just impossible. But, you know, being honest, like going about it again, I would reconsider. Well, you didn't break it when you jumped in. No, not at all. And you can see the video or you're like, yeah, it's fine. And what's inside of there? It seems like there's, like, debris. Yeah, those were, so, ironically, driving out there,

you're on first you're on first you're on asphalt and you're on dirt roads and you're on these little I don't know just unpaved roads and they have

barriers going along that's actually the blue thing is one of the barriers from I don't know it wasn't too far away from that dirt road so you may have blown in there or something I don't know I think that

people were just trashing things to be quite honest, because there was graffiti all over the site, people were carving or putting their names in the Adobe. And so I think it was just reckless. Interesting. I mean, it's a fascinating thing. I mean, one of the ideas we were talking about before is that is it possible to fire this without actually having a kiln? Like, could you dig a big hole, cover it in clay, and then fire it with a fire inside that then solidifies all the clay and then you're able to use it for storing grain or, you know, water or something like that.

Thinking, you know, just thinking about it now, I guess you could, you could probably do that, but you would have to remove all the sand around it in order to make like the clay structure itself and then cover it back up with the sand. So it is possible. I mean, it would be fascinating. I would be so curious to see if there's more. I mean, this would be a great place to LIDAR, right? Yeah.

Or ground penetrating radar or something. Right. Now, I'm curious. What is like your Holy Grail? Like, is there anything in particular that you're like, oh, what an amazing achievement to find something like this? Ironically, the most arduous place I got to, the one where I scaled these mountains, like, it was so somewhat irresponsible being out there by myself and really, like, literally scaling a mountain. It was steeper than a 45-degree angle going down. I worked so hard to get to this site and getting there, I didn't see anything.

Wow. You could see it from the drone. You could see the foundations. But when I got up there, so my expectations were just shot. But after all of that, that was, the journey was amazing. I mean, I'd have to say this artifact was, one of the it was

completely unexpected and I think it could be quite significant. The pyramid site, the just seeing the pyramids from Google Earth probably the undocumented temple was the most excited. Actually, I think I did a live afterwards driving in the car

almost in tears. I was like, I did it everyone I found, actually found the temple. Wow. That's the one with the circular plaza that, you know, it's just a couple valleys over from Kerala and it must have been part of their their civilization. Wow. I mean, it's remarkable. So how do you get into this? Like how like how do you go from just being like a dude living, you know, a little bit outside of D.C. to then actually going to Peru and actually like

going through these ancient ruins. Like how does that happen? Well, my mother's Peruvian and so growing up, we would always go down and spend time with my Aualita and my Tia and Dios. And my dad is a was American and he just, he fell in love with Peru, you know, he fell in love with my mom and fell in love with Peru. And so growing up, we would always go to, I mean, God, it was terrifying. Driving in some of these places in the Andes where you're just, just a sheer drop for thousands of feet. But my dad was adventurous and loved doing that stuff. And so we would just go to all these archaeological sites. And I remember there was a moment.

Actually, if you go to the second slide, I think, uh, there's a, there's a home video of me in Machu Picchu when I was about 10 years old. Wow. And so back then you, uh, you didn't, you didn't have to choose a circuit to go on.

You just had free rein at the site. And so, you know, we had a tour group, but I was never one for the tour groups. And so I kind of broke off and did my own thing. And I found a little cave. at Machu Picchu and there was something shiny in the wall.

I'm like, what is this? And so I kind of started digging in the wall and it was seashells. And you're at 8,000 feet. I'm like, how in the, in the wall? And that's me in that old home video showing my like, Dad, look. And that just, you know, he told me, you know, the environment used to be a lot different.

And, you know, I would learn about trade routes and global catastrophes and things like that. And so that just fueled the next several decades of research, independent research. And the exploring sites on my own really started last year. I mean, I feel like, I mean, this is amazing that you and I are talking. It's, you know, the people I've met so far, the channel was born just over a year ago, you know. And so I feel really fortunate for how it's grown and how it continues. used to grow. I'm curious to see where it's going to go. What work did you do prior to doing this?

I'm a video editor. Okay. So, out of work video editor. And actually, that's what led to this. One of my contracts ended. And last, it was the day after Christmas and I was bored. We had done all the presents and the family and stuff. And so I just, I went on Google Earth. And I was like, are there archaeological sites near me? And I found a couple, but then I started going up the valley on Google Earth. And I was like, well, that one doesn't have. have a label. What is that? Is that an archaeological site? So I drove an hour and a half and I found an archaeological site, documented it, did the same thing the next day. And so I was two for two. And then I came back to the States and I was just like, this is really interesting. And I wonder

how good I am at this. So I just started using Google Earth a lot as I was looking for work. And I started posting about it and it got quite the reception. And there were a lot of people. who were skeptical and when the contract gig I had at the time ended and I was saying you know what I'm going to go I'm just going to go and I spent my savings doing it and and that's when Pillars of the Past was born really it's kind of really really field of dreamsing it out of this you know and just kind of building it and seeing what happens but I can say that the last expedition in 23 days, I went to 90 sites. Every single one was an archaeological site.

And so the stats are good. I will say, though, that the majority of sites I went to, the majority of them did have Ministry of Culture designations. So, and that's really because in the, between 1900, 1950, archaeologists were kind of treasure. hunters then and they were just kind of going up and down the coast looking for things and in the Andes and when they wouldn't find anything or they would find what they were looking for they would just move on to the next site and and but documented so the majority of these sites

have a little pillar that says you know it's this name but that's the last time they were excavated or explored you know and so they're just they've just been sitting there for decades and decades and decades um without being further research and they just kind of been moved on. And there are several sites that when archaeologists have gone back and looked at them, they've been really significant. And when is your next expedition? I'm planning for the end of this year. Nice. Yeah. And what sites are you planning on hitting? What are you excited about? I think the Lake Tidicaca region, I'm working with Graham Langdon from archaic lens. We met at the Cosmic Summit, which was also a blessing. I mean, I, you know, I saw, I saw,

I saw your channel. I saw the cosmic summit. I saw, you know, just all these places that, you know, a year and a half ago, it's like,

oh, man, I just want to be a part of the, the community in this world. And, and, you know, in a year, it's starting to happen. You know what I mean?

It's, I feel blessed, man. I mean, that's awesome. I'm excited to see what you uncover at the end of this year, and I'm sure going into next year, you're going to be actually,

like, putting out those videos and really, like, going through everything that you've found. And people can also, see you on Instagram. You go live

at a lot of these places. Like, you update people in real time with what's going on, posting stuff on Instagram as it's happening. So following you on YouTube, you kind of get to see more or less the finished product of, like, what you uncovered. But then on Instagram, you can really see, like, what's happening right now. Like, hey, guys, here's where I am. Does anyone know how to get to this spot? Does anyone know what this place is? Is there a

restaurant around here? Like, it feels very much like you're on the journey with you. So I think it's really, really cool. I appreciate that, man. Yeah, I'm excited to see what you find, truly. Well, I think like I said, we're hoping to do a drive from Lake Titicaca to Cusco and, you know, trying to get in touch with a lot of the people I met on some of my expeditions that are out there doing things like this. And, you know, I really want to make a big effort to talk to the indigenous peoples who are in these regions and see what they know, see where they can maybe lead me. That was, I want to be more purposed with that on this next expedition. Well, that's awesome, brother.

I'm excited to follow along. The channel is great. It'll be linked in the description if anyone wants to check it out, your Instagram as well. And Raoul, I really appreciate you coming through, man. And whenever you get back from your next expedition, I hope to sit down with you and go through everything you found. I would love that, man. Thanks for having me, Mark. Of course, brother.

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