ExtinctZoo - The Discoveries That Prove Humans Are Absolutely Insane

Episode Date: June 28, 2025

Humans are a wild wild bunch, I am sure you know that, and even so I guarantee that these archeology discoveries will have you scratching your head on why on earth any would would do such things.

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Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Humans are a very odd bunch. So much so that I don't think it's crazy to say that we are by far the weirdest and most deranged animals on the entire planet. And pretty much anywhere you look, there is evidence

that reflects this. So it's not really that shocking that over the years, various paleontological and archaeological finds been made, which can only be summed up as horrifying or extremely bizarre. But like everything, there is levels to this, with only some being so memorable that even the researchers who made the discovery are left a bit scared, bewildered, or an awe. And a single find that managed to give scientists all three of these emotions was the discovery of a mass grave in Italy, or rather an Acropolis, which contained the bodies of over 200 individuals

that dated to over 1,500 years ago. Now, typically, finding hundreds of bodies would be the most alarming part of such discovery, but not this time. Instead, what really grabbed their attention was just a single specimen, a middle-aged man dubbed T-U-S-380, who had seemingly died between the age of 40 to 50, and had suffered a very rare kind of trauma seldomly seen, an amputation to his mid-forearm.

Given the age of his remains, this procedure, if five, voluntary would have happened under zero anesthesia with a bone saw, no antibiotics, and without painkillers after, which is a strong first sign that this dude was absolutely metal. But here's the thing. He was also literally metal, as where his stump would be, instead laid a full-on iron knife, pointing in the direction away from the arm and signifying that we had ancient cyborgs before GTA 6. And this knife was by no means for show, as another wild observation that he made was that

he lived with this upgrade for many, many years and showed signs of having endured extreme biomechanical forces. In other words, he used a stabby hand very often. And one pretty grim sign of this was that a good chunk of his teeth were literally grinded down to the pulp cavities, a result of having to constantly fasten his knife straps as they would loosen or go undone. And another good sign that whoever this guy was was extremely hardcore, as literally grinding down your teeth in nothingness through overuse has got a hurt.

and he did so apparently while getting frequent bacterial infections and dental abscesses. On top of this, his shoulder also became a sign of the knife's usage, as the bones shifted in a way suggesting that he frequently held his arm in an unnatural position. And then, just in case you needed some more proof, the amputation site itself also showed evidence of intense friction, likely occurring as he wielded its metallic arm. Question is, though, what was the knife being used for? And the answer may have been tied to who he was.

as he belonged to the Germanic group of people known as the Lombards. And even for ancient times, these guys have cooked up quite their reputation, being known for their aptitude of war and conflict, and leading to the idea that TUS 380 utilized the knife arm in self-defense and battles, which is where he perhaps had originally lost the arm in the first place. So clearly, this was one badass human with an insanely high pain tolerance, and ultimately, despite his setback, he may have ended up overcoming the odds and winning life,

because as mentioned, he likely died around 50, which was relatively old for the time, with the current thought being the natural causes took him out. Now, a peaceful ending to a tumultuous life is something which sadly cannot be said for another much more ancient find, which revolved around a single shinbone. This fossil came out of the Turkana region in Kenya

and was dated to 1.45 million years ago. In other words, we are not dealing with a Homo sapien here, But scientists could tell that it, without a doubt, belonged to an ancient relative of ours. But so far, we haven't been able to pinpoint the exact species, as multiple humans lived in the region at the time. And it certainly does not help that this bone is beyond heavily damaged. Damage, which, by the way, seems to have been caused by other hominence. And this wasn't your average kind of trauma, being very deliberate and precise, with nine incision marks ranging across the shin bone that traced where in life the victim's flesh and muscle.

would have been nestled, and leading to the disturbing realization that scientists had stumbled upon the oldest evidence of a butchered and defleshed human, which in turn screams cannibalism. And here's the other disturbing part of this find. Just like how we don't know who this bone specifically belonged to, we also don't know who ended up killing and subsequently eating them. After all, multiple species were coexisting, and perhaps, apparently not so peacefully, leading to the grim possibility that maybe it wasn't the most abnormal thing back then to snack in your friendly neighborhood hominant cousins. It would also be quite on brand for the region,

as water sources nearby seemingly fluctuated quite intensely, meaning that droughts would have disrupted the amount of available food sources. And though there have been other discoveries that have competed for the title of the oldest evidence of cannibalism, for now this shin bone comes out on top, given how straightforward it is. Definitely a bone-chiller, pun intended. Although, while mysteries around it remain, it's not exactly super perplexing and definitely not as confusing as the Rising Star Cave. The name of this place alone is pretty cool, but trust me, the story gets even cooler, or

perhaps crazier. This cave is located in the Malmani Dolomites of South Africa, and has only been on modern human radars for a short time, first being mentioned in the 1980s, when it was explored and roughly mapped out by a caving team. However, not much of it ended up being thoroughly detailed, as the last of the last year. they quickly realized that it was a deceptively complex cave system filled with many hazards. But, eventually, given that it was a cave and located in the cradle of humankind, it was re-examined by an anthropological team, who by sheer luck alone discovered a chamber, now dubbed the Dina Leti

Chamber, and this area held something remarkable, human bones. And not just a couple, thousands of them, over 1,500 to be exact, which together represented 15 individuals who varied in gender and age, with both infants and elders being amongst the pile. In this range, immediately made it the richest assemblage of associated hominin fossils ever unearthed in Africa, a remarkable thing on its own. But here's the odd part. The bones should really not have been there. You see, to reach the chamber in which they were found, you had to overcome some ridiculously hard obstacles, including navigating tons of meters or feet of unlit passages,

wiggling through a narrow area which was so tight that only the thinnest people can pass it, and only again when you're in a position akin to the Superman pose, and if you somehow made it past here, you're still not done, because then you'd be forced to scale a jagged steep slope before fitting through another tight passage, and then finally descend down a 12-meter or 49-foot vertical shoot. So yeah, not easy. But hey, if you somehow survived this and made it through, well, congrats, you finally just reached the entrance of the chamber, which all goes to show that you don't end up here with a lot of deliberate effort. And originally, the simple explanation was that flooding has swept the already dead individuals

into the cave and then into the chamber. However, studies in the site sediment revealed that it had never been flooded, and that the bodies have been put there over a long period of time, not just in a single event. So this revelation led to the new, bit unsettling thought that maybe a man-eater had been responsible for this whole mess, as it definitely would not have been the first time an animal dragged humans into a cave. Yet, a team didn't really believe this, seeing that of all the bones, only one didn't belong to humans, instead belonging to an owl. And because no animal targets humans so exclusively, and considering that the bones actually had no signs of predation, scientists soon crossed this idea off the list of possibilities.

And in fact, the bones did not just have no damage from predation, they also didn't really show any damage at all. Something was just further confused researchers, as it strongly implied that the bodies had not been dropped down the massive vertical shoot. but rather have been put down gently. But that just brings the further question then of what would be insane enough to pile bodies in extremely remote, difficult to access part of a cave that is so hard to reach that only humans with modern equipment have been able to do it. And the answer is that it was likely the very same thing that the researchers found, the humans, or rather to be more specific, an entirely new species of humans,

now dubbed Homo Noletti. Even today, Homo Noletti are a group only known through their rising star, our cave. But thanks to the sheer quantity of bones, we do actually have a fair idea of what they were like anatomically, being both shorter and lighter than us, while also possessing a smaller relative brain size and a body more adapted for arborealism than other Homo species. It's currently believed that they existed between 335,000 and 236,000 years ago, making them one of our youngest relatives. And while most believed they did have proficiency with tools, thanks to their similar cranial structure, no one thinks they were rocking any advanced climbing gear or navigation

tech, and thus leading many to still wonder how on earth did they reach the chamber and whilst carrying bodies at that. And the answer is that we simply don't know. Now, some have stated that they likely navigated the caves of the fires, while others have made the hypothesis that they made markings which acted as waypoints. But all studies which have sought to explain the how have ultimately been criticized. And in the end, even the idea that the Noletti put the bodies there themselves is still a debated hypothesis. Heck, I mean, there are even claims that while the fossils are definitely Noletti, maybe it was other Homo species that put them there. With one idea being that long after they died, it was actually us modern humans that buried the bodies in the cave,

which if true, though, would honestly be way more odd. In something else, which would be odd, is if you've made it this far without dropping a sub or alike, no professional climbing gear required. Now, maybe it's a me thing, but I think deliberately burying a body in the narrow cave is downright insane. And while I am sure at least some would disagree, I think what everyone could agree on, being not normal, is what scientists found at a remote lake in the Tricule Massif of India. This shallow, narrow glacial lake is formerly named Rup Kund, but to the locals, it's earned the creepy nicknames, the mystery lake, and the skeleton lake. And why? Well, simply, because around this shallow pool are hundreds and hundreds of bodies. Well, skeletons,

possibly numbering more than 800 individuals at that. And this isn't your typical necropolis or graveyard, because these bodies were not put there deliberately, rather they were strewn about, suggesting that scores of individuals have been killed around this tiny lake. Back in the early 1940s, when the site was first discovered, British authorities feared the worst, thinking that these casualties represented a secret invasion by the Japanese into India. But upon further examination, they concluded that while these were definitely homo sapien remains, the bodies were far too old to be an invading force, which was corroborated by the items they located among the carnage, which included wooden artifacts, iron spearheads, leather slippers,

and rings. And so obviously, researchers were extremely perplexed as to how so many people had died here at once, and one clue that might have held the answer where the body was. themselves, as due to the surrounding temperature and altitude of the lake, many of the victims were well preserved, in some cases even containing flesh. And what they noticed was that a lot of the individuals were all killed by the same thing, a large, round object. To be specific, on the upper bodies and heads, a common injury which was found was blunt force, that appeared to be in the shape of a fallen object, like a stone or a large piece of ice. And interestingly Interestingly enough, when talking with the nearby villages, scientists heard about a local legend,

which told of an ancient king, who along with his family and entourage, had been killed by a large hailstorm when trying to pass through the mountain. And so given this loose account, plus the actual injuries they found on the bodies, the team concluded that skeleton lake had in fact seen a massive hailstorm, and therefore resulting in a large number of deaths. Case closed. Or so they thought. Because while hail-like injuries were a theme, not all the skeletons at injuries

associated with blunt force trauma and hail. But to be honest, this was the lesser of the contradicting evidence which came forth, with the bigger issue being that later on, another team ended up testing more specimens, which revealed that the dead did not represent just one group, but at least three different ones, all from different times and regions. Now, two of them seemed to have died here around a thousand years ago, within a few decades of each other, and showed typical South Asian ancestry and Southeast Asian ancestry, respectively.

while the third group was from a very unexpected region, mainland Greece and Crete. And these outliers had also not died so long ago, with estimates being as recent as just 200 years ago, making more than a few wonder if the lake is even safe to visit nowadays. And obviously we could answer this if we knew what killed each group, but alas, we do not, and for now it's considered a mystery. Most still think a hailstorm is what killed at least a few of them, but three separate hail events in this one remote location, which were deadly enough to take out humans

seems highly unlikely, especially when combined with a lack of clear injuries. And the whole thing is even more bizarre when you realize that the identified groups came from the analysis of just 38 individuals. So in other words, who knows just how many groups felt victim to Skeleton Lake. So for now, the mystery remains.

But mystery does not always equal the spookiest, and something which I personally would feel even more uncomfortable around, may have been something actually created out of good intentions. pensions. Plastered human skulls. In the 1930s, around the Levant, and especially around the city of Jericho, researchers stumbled upon a frightening object that resembled a human head. It had been constructed through multiple layers of wrapped plaster that were painted and adorned with seashells in order to give the impressions of eyes, hair, and skin. A bit unsettling for sure, yet nothing

compared to when they actually pried open these plasters, as within these plastered mockeries were real heads. or at least what was left to them. In total, over 20 heads were found, which dated to between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, and primarily represented adult men, although a few were children and women too. Now what's disturbing, beyond the whole head and plaster part, is that the jaw bones had all been removed,

and that each of these heads had been placed underneath what would have been homes. An interesting place to store heads, no doubt. And this prompted great interest in why people had created them in the first place, with one of the original ideas being that the artists, if you want to call them that, had killed whoever these heads belonged to and then taken them as trophies, with the plastering process being a bit like what seemed with shrunken heads, in other words, a ritual of sorts. However, in recent times, a much more wholesome

hypothesis has emerged, which is that because the skulls were buried underneath people's houses, they might have represented one of the earliest forms of burial practices and civilization. Additionally, it's been unveiled that these schools did not remain locked away, but were periodically handled over long periods of time, so long in fact that while they were likely started as known deceased individuals, they eventually became just known as an ancestor to whoever was handling them, which was perhaps too much of a commitment, as after a 2,000-year window, the Jericho-plastered skulls seems to have vanished from existence, with only one remnant being left behind in the culture, a mythical tale of all things, which was discovered in the region thousands of

years later. And it goes like this. Immortal. What does he get in the end? What does immortal finally get? Glaze poured on his head, lime on top of his skull. Pretty somber for something possibly meant to celebrate ancestors. But honestly, unsettling worship just seemed to be the trend back in the day. And there's actually a way more disturbing example of hypothetical worship. Let me introduce you to the human jigsaw. And yes, it's just as bad as it sounds. As opposed to the Levant, this brutal fine came out of Scotland, where near South Ueweist, in Scotland's outer Hebrides, four Bronze Age skeletons were located. Like the Jericho skulls, they were found within ancient houses, with the main difference being that they were above the floor, not beneath, and were lying in pretty normal manners, indicating

that they hadn't died in any noteworthy way. And for the most part, they were considered routine finds. Until that is, under further examination, a contradiction was identified. One of the bodies, a presumed female, turned out to be not all female. To be exact, most of the body was, yet the skull was male, and so were some of the other parts. And in a further twist, those other parts turned out to have come from really two males, resulting in the stark realization that this skeleton was actually a combination of three different individuals. And lo and behold, the other specimens turned out to be a mash of a different people too, pretty gnarly. And it only gets worse, as another fun.

was that these jigsaw humans had been well, uh, pickled, essentially, with the bodies showing signs of demineralization, something that happens when you stew a human in an extremely acidic environment. And conveniently nearby was a peat bog, which as it just so happens, contained the necessary amount of acidity, leading to the idea that they had been in the peat bog for quite some time. However, as mentioned, they were not found in the bog itself, which created just more questions, as this meant that someone had purposely stitched multiple bodies together, dipped it in a peat bog, waited Oso very patiently, and then placed the final product in their house.

And just to shake things up a tad more, radiocarbon dating found that the bodies were hundreds of years older than the actual building. So what does this all mean? Well, the most likely answer, according to their researchers, is that this was an extreme form of ancestral worship, where for hundreds of years a Bronze Age community in Scotland kept to seize relatives above ground, entwined in a jigsaw monstrosity, which they also seemed to pass down and add to through time. In other words, more bodies were added as people died.

Of course, there is also again the more grim possibility that these were not an example of ancestor worship, but rather were trophies. But given just the sheer amount of effort that went into making them, most think that's probably not the case. And given the known instances of violence from ancient times, this does seem to track, as they were in exact. carefully careful and meticulous with their fallen foes remains. And honestly, even compared to some of the messed up things that have happened in today's times, I'd have to say that ancient violence shows have been quite a bit more deranged. After all, there was a whole period, the Neolithic, where people seem to be all about unusual cruel killings, with multiple large sites even being

found throughout Eurasia. In fact, so many brutal discoveries are known of that I even made a full video on it, so go check that out if that sounds interesting. Additionally, due to the period's notoriety, researchers have even become a bit desensitized to Neolithic murders, with very few cases of violence outside of this time being able to compete. But there is one location in the U.S. that actually comes pretty darn close, with it also representing a potential meltdown of an entire society. Now, our story here begins in southwestern Colorado, where back in the day an ancient culture was known to reside, now known as the basket maker Pueblo culture. For thousands of years, they lived in the region and were known to inhabit

pit houses, which simply put, is a house built in the ground and used for shelter. And it was in a few of these structures in their surroundings that an extremely horrific scene was discovered, an entire community wiped from the face of the earth. There were at least 24 bodies in total,

but it was seven in particular that grabbed people's attention, as they were beyond destroyed. Their bones had been cleaned of flesh, roasted, and cracked open, while the skulls were scorched, smashed, and had scoop marks, showing signs of people fishing the brains out. All evidence that a mass cannibalistic feast had gone down.

And this was no simple attack, as the site was not only abandoned, but also defiled, suggesting that whoever lived there did not take captives, but rather were the captives, or victims, being attacked, killed, and then eaten within their very own homes. And evidence beyond the actual bodies included bloodstained tools and cooking pots. In other words, they may have been cooked,

in the very same pots that they used to make supper. It also seems that whoever cannibalized the victims had absolutely zero morse or pity for the dead, as perhaps the worst discovery of it all was a coprolite, meaning in this case, human feces, within the cold ashes of one of the pit house's hearth, suggesting that one of the attackers deliberately defiled the house after the gruesome events unfolded. And given that cooking hearths were integral parts of this culture, this act could be viewed in some ways as the ultimate insult. And honestly, given the sheer brutality of everything, there was actually some initial pushback on the findings, claiming that perhaps the foreign culture had invaded or that

the bodies weren't actually cannibalized, with the damage having come from other means. Yet unfortunately, this turned out to be some wishful thinking, as one damning piece of evidence came to light, and that was the coprolite itself. As after testing, scientists found the presence of myoglobin, Human, myoglobin. And that doesn't just end up in your stool unless you've been gnawing on someone, mainly someone's flesh, as myoglobin is not found in most organs or vessels. Furthermore, whoever did this disrespectful deed in the hearth must have been a serious cannibal. Since opposed to other coprolites known in the region, this one was all myoglobin,

meaning that for 12 hours before defecating, human was the only thing this unknown individual was snacking on. No veggies, no fruits, nada, just straight human. But here's the thing, though. While this example is the most brutal one in the locality, it was actually just one piece of a larger puzzle, as out of the blue researchers noted that the basket maker peblo culture had at some point gone from pretty chill to straight killing and eating other humans,

a bit similar to what we've seen in other Neolithic cultures. And actually, it has one of the highest rates of suspected cannibalism and violence of any known ancient culture, with one study finding 72's sights with signs of cannibalism, 38 of them being definitive. And then on top of that, another analysis of 870 skeletons found that more than 8% poor cannibalism marks, while rates of violence were even higher. And given how this nerly episode of violence kind of just sprung out of nowhere, many have wondered why.

And though debates remain, one idea which has emerged as the favorite, answers this mystery through two important coincidences. The first being that around the same time, roughly 850 years ago, the Chaco system, which essentially was the heart of this culture, mysteriously collapsed and disappeared. And then the second coincidence was that severe droughts struck the land after periods of plentiful rain. And when you combine all this together, you get a land so desoled due to droughts that society essentially slowly imploded, with a cannibalism reflecting the unimaginable final days, where people turned on each other just to survive. So yeah, pretty messed up.

But let me just remind you, these remains, stories, and evidence is just what we've found so far. There are undoubtedly untold amounts of mysteries, brutalities, and oddities just waiting to be discovered. But hey, on that cheerful note, if you somehow made it through all of this without needing therapy, congrats. You're made of stronger stuff than those Jericho skulls. And if you want some more reasons that I'll make you question humanity sanity, I've got a whole video on the Neolithic period's violence, which I mentioned earlier, though fair warning, it does not get any less disturbing. Anyways, thanks for watching, and until next time, on Extincts 2.

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