01x04 - Lost Civilizations

[bunniefuu]

Coming up on "expedition files"

150 British settlers set up

a colony in the new world,

and then seem to disappear forever.

Or did they?

We may finally know the true story of

the roanoke colony,

and a biblical tale of two cities

wiped off the face of the earth.

New evidence suggests we may

have uncovered the true fate of

sodom and gomorrah.

And 5,000 years ago, an

enormous monument was

mysteriously constructed.

But now, science may

finally reveal the truth behind

the secrets of stonehenge.

In the corridors of time

are mysteries that defy explanation.

Now, I'm traveling through history itself

on a search for the truth.

New evidence.

Shocking answers.

I'm Josh gates,

and these

Are my "expedition files."

Where we're from shapes who

we are, but there are some places

that shape us even though

we've never visited them.

Places so strange, so

curious, that they loom large

in our imaginations.

Tonight, we examine the files

of three of the most mysterious

places on the planet, places we all know,

but paradoxically, none of us understand.

From a lost new world colony

whose inhabitants vanished

without a trace, an

ancient biblical city that

was said to be brutally wiped

off the map by the hand of god,

and a circle of mystical stones

that has captivated humanity

for millennia.

A single question maps

a path between them.

What is the true story of these places?

We begin here in 1587.

To the European settlers

who dared to cross the Atlantic,

the so-called new world appears

to be an unexplored wilderness

of limitless opportunity.

One of the very first groups

of settlers has just arrived.

The good ship Lyon,

sailing from Plymouth,

england, with 115 souls on

board, has dropped anchor at

roanoke island off the

coast of what today is

north Carolina, led by this man,

explorer and artist John white.

They are here to

establish an English colony.

Now, these are not

seasoned soldiers, but families.

In fact, John white is even

bringing his own pregnant

daughter, Eleanor,

along on the adventure.

But their hopes will soon

disappear, and so will they.

Within three years, every

single one of them will

vanish without a trace,

as if they never existed.

These brave settlers risked

everything to found our nation.

But today, their fate

remains tragically unknown.

For hundreds of years, the

myth of the roanoke colony

has perplexed historians.

Were they wiped out by the elements,

k*lled by indigenous tribes?

Did they relocate to

somewhere uncharted?

If you ask residents of roanoke today,

they'll tell you the colony

was simply lost to time,

but history might have

gotten this story wrong,

as new evidence finally

reveals a 450-year-old secret.

John white first set foot in

the new world two years before

he arrived with his daughter.

In 1585, he was sent with

a battalion of soldiers to

map the area.

He quickly bonded with the

local croatoans who helped

him navigate this extremely foreign land.

They built a settlement,

but within a year's time,

relations with another indigenous tribe

turned violent.

Most of the men, including

John white, returned to Europe.

But to preserve an English presence,

15 men are ordered to remain.

But now, two years later,

white is back with a vengeance,

returning on the orders

of queen Elizabeth I,

with 115 men, women, and

children to establish england's

first permanent colony as its governor.

But when they arrive, they are greeted by

an unsettling scene.

Of the 15 men that had been

left behind, they find bones of

only one settler and no sign of

the rest, perhaps a dark omen

of things to come.

Still, the settlers begin

the hard work of making

the new world their new home.

Within weeks, John white's

daughter, Eleanor, gives birth

to the very first English

child born in North America.

Her name? Virginia.

But realizing they don't have

enough provisions to face

the coming hardships of winter,

John white makes the difficult

decision to leave his

friends and family behind

and return to england to resupply.

He is slightly comforted

knowing that he has left behind

his trusty guide from the croatoan tribe,

a native named manteo,

who he hopes will help

the settlers survive.

He doesn't know it, but this

is the last time he will see

his daughter, Eleanor,

his granddaughter, Virginia,

or indeed any of the

other settlers ever again.

On his departure, he

instructs them that if

they come into trouble,

to carve on the trees,

post or doors, a cross,

and the name of the place

where they'll be.

When John gets back to

england, his plans fall apart.

He's prevented from

heading back to the new world

because of the anglo-Spanish w*r.

And what should have been

a three-month trip turns into

an excruciating three

years before he can return to

his family and friends.

Finally, in August of 1590,

white sets foot on the shores

of North America for the third time.

Yet as he and his

crew arrive on roanoke,

white is shocked to find no signs of life.

But mysteriously, there

are no signs of death either.

In his desperate search for

survivors, he finds no bodies,

no evidence of struggle.

When they search the settlement,

the mystery deepens.

The colony is completely abandoned.

All the structures have been dismantled.

But he does locate one critical clue.

There on a post is a

single word, croatoan.

White is filled with a

sudden sense of relief.

He knows what that means.

The settlers must have

abandoned their post to travel

to the island of croatoan, 50 miles south.

Encouraged, white and his

crew sail to croatoan, excited to

reconnect with the settlers.

But mother nature has other plans.

Hammered by weather and

running desperately low on supplies,

the ship's captain refuses

to continue on to croatoan,

and forces white to return to england

without finding the settlers.

Back in London, white

desperately tries to

raise funds to return to search

for his daughter, Eleanor,

granddaughter, Virginia,

and the other settlers.

But tragedy strikes.

John white falls sick and dies,

and with John's death, he

may have sealed the fate

of those he left behind.

It isn't until 20 years later in

1607 that a new group, led by

captain John Smith, heads

to the so-called new world to

create their own settlement,

the jamestown colony.

When they arrive, the search

for roanoke settlers resumes.

John Smith questions

local indigenous tribes,

searching for answers.

And the tribes provide

encouraging news.

They speak of natives near

croatoan with blue eyes, wearing

European-style clothing, and speaking

the local algonquin language.

But Smith has his own

problems back at jamestown.

The new settlement

is struggling to survive

and doesn't have the resources

to make the 150-mile journey

to croatoan.

The jamestown settlers

are never able to confirm that

these blue-eyed natives might

actually be roanoke survivors.

Lacking any solid evidence,

the fate of the roanoke

settlers slips into the shadows.

Despite all the sacrifices

they made to found what would

become america, it seems

america has forgotten them.

Centuries pass, and

the legend of roanoke's

missing inhabitants becomes less

a mystery to be solved and more

of an eerie ghost story

stunningly, it isn't until

350 years after their

disappearance that a dark

and ominous twist

emerges in the roanoke case,

casting new shadows over

the fate of the lost colony.

1937, north Carolina, 50

miles inland from where

the lost settlers landed at

roanoke island 350 years ago.

A hiker is walking near

the chowan river when

they stumble on a stunning

piece of evidence that could

unlock the fate of the roanoke settlers.

It is a stone with a remarkable

inscription, seemingly written

by John white's daughter,

Eleanor, and confirming the sad

end of Virginia, the first

baby born in the new world.

Virginia went hence unto heaven 1591.

Does this inscription

confirm the tragic death of

the first English baby born

in the new world, John white's

granddaughter, Virginia?

And there's more.

On the other side of the

stone, Eleanor purportedly

writes of the settlers' plight.

Father, soon after you left for england,

we came here, only misery

and w*r for two years.

More than half of us died

these two years, mostly from

sickness, being 24 in number.

More stones are uncovered

as amateur archeologists scour

the woods of the carol in

as and northern Georgia.

In all, 48 inscriptions are found.

They come to be known as

the dare stones, and they tell

a riveting tale of the settlers' journey

and resettlement 50

miles west of roanoke.

So, mystery solved,

right? Well, not so fast.

Four years after the

discovery of the dare stones,

a journalist from the

Saturday evening post

takes a closer look.

The journalist's conclusion is damning.

The dare stones are

not written by the settlers.

Rather, they are an

elaborate hoax created by

a master engraver.

Even the first stone,

supposedly written by

his daughter, Eleanor

dare, turned out to be a fake.

But if the settlers didn't

head west as the dare stones

suggest, then what happened to them?

How do 115 souls

vanish without a trace?

Did they perish in the wilderness due to

starvation or some hostile force?

Or instead, did they head

south, down the Carolina coast

toward hatteras island,

formerly known as croatoan,

as John white believed to his dying day?

In 2016, I went to hatteras

island myself and met with

an archaeological team led by

Scott Dawson, who has dedicated

his life to searching for

any sign of the lost settlers.

Do you think the lost

colony folks came here?

Are you convinced of that?

They literally wrote

down, they came here,

they had a relationship with this tribe.

I mean, those things, the

historical context can't be

thrown out the window.

Right, until we find that

one magical object that seals

the deal, you'll continue to dig.

Yeah.

Eight years have passed since

I was last on hatteras island,

and in that time, Scott and his

team have continued to excavate

the site, and what they've

been finding is remarkable.

We're literally finding

artifacts from the colony,

and we're finding them

in a croatoan village.

With the longhouse post holes,

the croatoan themselves are

buried there, the nails, the bricks,

there's hundreds of thousands

of pieces of croatoan pottery,

and even the g*ns and swords

and weapons, pipes and tools

and arrows and all that stuff.

And we find all of that,

and it's all together.

The colonists and the

croatoan, they're living together.

We said before we even

started, the greatest thing we could

possibly find is a tudor Rose.

It's such a tiny window in time.

It's specifically queen Elizabeth's court.

And we found it, the end of 2021.

So the proof is indisputable.

They're living together.

Archeologist Mark horton

has been working with Scott

and his team, and what

he's discovered is stunning.

Perhaps this is not a story of tragedy,

but of truly epic survival.

What we found in the excavations is that

they're wearing European clothes.

They have European technologies,

like they're working copper.

We've also found clear evidence

of elizabethan material

in 16th century levels

and remarkable evidence for this society

surviving into the 17th century.

The tangible clues that

the archaeologists have

uncovered not only point

to the colonists' presence on

hatteras island, but may finally answer

the question of how

they came to be there.

So when John white did

return, he found nothing

but the abandoned colony,

with the houses all broken down

and partly dismantled.

They'd taken all their

possessions with them.

So he knew that they

had left not under duress,

but entirely voluntarily.

They immediately see

croatoan in all capital letters

on a palisade, and

there's no cross under it.

So they didn't leave for danger.

And then you add in

the fact that their guide

and interpreter, manteo,

he's back with them.

It only makes sense that

manteo would take the colony to

croatoan, where he was from.

So what actually happened

is the colony did exactly like

they said, and they went to croatoan

and lived there forever.

If this is correct, it seems

this isn't just a story about

the courageous survival

of the roanoke settlers.

It is also a remarkable tale

about the many people still

living on the island where they settled.

The mystery is how has

this mystery survived?

Because all the evidence in

the world is pointing to one spot.

But people are like,

"well, I learned in school"

And when people learn something

when they're nine years old,

it's hard to change.

And some of it is just money,

because there's so much money

made off of this myth.

So I'm doing this to tell the

truth, because I don't think

the croatoan people

should be erased from history

just to prop up some silly myth.

Croatoan is a real

place and a real people.

It's the island that I'm

from, and it's the tribe that

I descend from, and I want people

to know that they existed,

and they are a part of American history.

That's the truth.

Thanks to the team's

research, we may truly be able to

understand the fate

of the roanoke settlers

for the very first time.

What was always considered

a story of tragedy may be

something completely different.

It appears the settlers

courageously endured.

When the old world abandoned

them, they forged a new home,

assimilating into a completely

different culture by shedding

their old ways and building

a new community together.

Our next file takes us to

sin city no, not Vegas,

the original sin city.

There's no flashing neon here

because it's 3,500 years ago,

and I'm in the city of sodom.

You might have heard of it in

the Bible alongside its equally

sinful neighbor, gomorrah.

Sodom is a place to indulge

in, well, whatever you want,

and have the ultimate good time.

But here's the thing,

its time is almost up.

If you believe the scripture,

both sodom and gomorrah will

soon be completely

erased and lost to history.

And that's because of these

two and the man they're about to

meet, named lot.

Soon, everything you're

looking at will be destroyed by

the hand of god.

Lot is the lone righteous man

in this city of sin, chosen by

god to be a last-ditch

chance at redemption.

You can't tell from the lack of

wings, but these out-of-towners

walking behind lot here are angels.

According to the old testament,

their time in sodom is going to

convince them and their boss upstairs

that will rain down

literal fire and brimstone

creating a story that will

echo across the centuries.

Perhaps it is a myth,

because there is no historical

trace of sodom and

gomorrah in the desert sands.

Many other biblical cities

have been discovered

or are still standing today.

But sodom and gomorrah,

if they really existed,

truly were wiped off the map.

Now, of course, you'd

be forgiven if you thought

this was all just a fable

about the consequences of

immoral behavior.

After all, there's no

archeological evidence that

sodom really was destroyed

in biblical hellfire or that it

even existed at all Or is there?

We can now reveal new

evidence that may bring us closer to

a shocking historical truth.

According to the story,

sodom is a prosperous place.

Some have suggested that

prosperity may have come from

the ancient opium trade.

The Bible hints that its

people were not only well-off,

but wicked and prideful,

with an excess of resources,

yet unwilling to assist the poor,

perhaps explaining

why god gets so angry.

If the old testament is to be

believed, god decides to wipe

sodom and its similarly

unsavory sister city,

gomorrah, clean off the map.

But before god destroys

the cities, he lets Abraham,

his very righteous

right-hand man, in on his plan.

Abraham is worried

for the city's residents,

especially because his

nephew lot, who we met earlier,

happens to be one of them.

God makes a deal with Abraham.

He'll spare sodom if he can find just

10 righteous residents.

Unfortunately, finding

innocence in sodom is

tough sledding.

So god sends two of his angels

disguised as travelers to sodom

for a final walkthrough.

They meet lot, allegedly

the only good citizen,

who welcomes them into his home.

That night, an angry

mob surrounds lot's house

and demands he hand over his visitors.

Lot refuses, things escalate,

and the undercover angels fight back,

striking the crowd

blind with a burst of light.

The next morning,

the angels smuggle lot

and his family out of sodom.

They literally tell them

to head for the hills,

and whatever they do, don't look back.

Then, as lot and his family

escape, fire and brimstone

rain down from the sky,

and sodom and gomorrah

are said to be utterly destroyed.

But tragically, lot's wife can't help herself.

She looks back, and as

she witnesses her former

home's destruction, she is

said to be instantly turned into

a pillar of salt.

And then, sodom, gomorrah, and all of

their thousands of

citizens are reduced to ash.

Fire raining down from the

sky and destroying an entire city.

It sounds like a Hollywood

disaster movie, and it's hard

to imagine anything like

that happening in real life.

But fascinatingly, we also find

more or less exactly the same

account of a city destroyed

by god in the new testament,

the torah, and even the quran.

With so many supporting

accounts, many have wondered,

could it really have happened?

For thousands of years,

generations of historians have

searched for physical

evidence of the cities of sodom

and gomorrah without success.

But now, biblical

scholar and archaeologist

Dr. Stephen Collins may have made

a mind-blowing discovery

after years of research,

Dr. Collins believes he's

uncovered the true location of

the ancient cities of

sodom and gomorrah.

His search led him to

the northeastern end of

the dead sea, where the

largest archeological site in

the entire Jordan valley

is located, tall El-hammam.

So when you connect this

whole thing together from

the biblical side of things,

tall El-hammam is in

the right place for sodom.

It's in exactly the right

time frame for sodom.

It's a massively complex

and fabulous ancient city.

It's huge.

Tall El-hammam is sitting

right in the very location that

the Bible specifies for sodom.

Based on his research, in 2005,

Dr. Collins began a

multi-year excavation of

the tall El-hammam ruins.

And what he found was extraordinary.

The very first season,

we did a 2-by-2 meter probe excavation

on the lowest part of the upper city.

So we get a couple meters

underneath, and boom, we're on

top of the destruction matrix

of the middle bronze age.

All of a sudden, staring up

at us was a piece of pottery,

the surface of which looked

like glazed green glass.

This green glass pottery

found in the destruction layer

carbon dates back to

approximately 1650 bc,

which may line up with the

biblical account of sodom.

Collins' further analysis also

confirms it was a single event

involving high heat that

obliterated these ruins.

But hold up a second.

Let's step out from that

sooty air and take a breath.

Just because an ancient

city was destroyed in high heat

doesn't mean it was

destroyed by the wrath of god.

It turns out there's even more

to this story, and it will blow

your mind, almost like it blew up a city.

In 2021, a group of scientists

build on the work started by

biblical scholar and archaeologist,

Dr. Stephen Collins.

They analyze the ruins at tall

El-hammam, which he believes may

be the actual location of

sodom and gomorrah, to try

and pinpoint the

cause of the destruction.

Concentrating on the soil

found in the destructive layer,

they discover tiny,

fractured sand grains called

shocked quartz.

These particles can only

form under extreme pressure of

725,000 pounds per

square inch or more.

Using laboratory furnaces,

researchers also find that

the pottery and mud bricks

at tall El-hammam started to

liquefy at temperatures

above 2,700 degrees fahrenheit,

which is hotter than molten lava.

This research team, they

determined that everything

about the destruction at tall

El-hammam is every bit as

unique as what we see

in a nuclear expl*si*n.

But of course, we're

not talking about bombs.

So the only scientific answer

to that question is there was

a cosmic event that

exploded onto this site.

This type of cosmic event

is known as an air burst.

Airbursts happen when a meteor

comes into earth's atmosphere

at tens of thousands of miles

an hour and then explodes.

It is a violent and high heat

event that destroys everything

in its path.

The resultant destruction

we find at tall El-hammam is

exactly what one would predict

if an air burst event had occurred.

So did a meteor really

destroy sodom and gomorrah?

And how can we scientifically be sure

about these cosmic events?

Well, because we've seen

them happen on earth before.

On the morning of June

30th, 1908, just after 7 am,

a massive expl*si*n rocks

a remote area in Siberia

near the tunguska river.

Witnesses report a dazzling

blue light streak across

the sky, followed by a deafening blast.

Shockwaves break windows

and knock people off their feet

hundreds of miles away.

An area of forest the

size of Rhode Island

is instantly flattened.

Scientists believe the tunguska

event, as it becomes known,

is caused when a meteor,

roughly 150 to 200 feet in

diameter, explodes in the atmosphere,

creating a devastating fireball.

Luckily, that expl*si*n

occurred in remote Siberia.

The only victims were trees

and an unknown number of

unfortunate reindeer.

But it seems the citizens of

tall El-hammam aren't so lucky.

Picture this.

Sometime around 1650 bc,

the people of tall El-hammam are

going about their day

blissfully unaware it will

be their last.

Miles above, a 100-foot space

rock is hurtling toward them at

38,000 miles per hour.

When the meteor hits the

atmosphere, it explodes

into a massive fireball.

The blast is a thousand

times more powerful

than the atom b*mb at Hiroshima.

The ground heats up to

3,600 degrees fahrenheit.

Wood, animals, and people

instantly burst into flame.

Seconds later, a

massive 740-mile-per-hour

shockwave rips through

the city, demolishing every

building, shearing them

off their foundations.

There are no survivors.

The city and its people

are here one moment

and then gone forever.

So could the cities of sodom

and gomorrah actually have been

tall El-hammam?

The pulverized buildings,

the hellish incineration,

even the blinding flash of

light attributed to the angels

could all be explained

by a meteor's blast.

When seen through the prism

of thousands of years, one man's

meteor really could

be another's angry god.

We can't confirm with complete

certainty that the ruins of

tall El-hammam and the

fabled sodom and gomorrah

are the same place.

But for the first time,

we can say, thanks to

extraordinary evidence, that

3,500 years ago, a meteor

wiped a vibrant and

thriving city off the map.

And here's the thing.

Meteor strikes like the ones at

tall El-hammam could in theory

happen at any time.

There are currently

more than 26,000 known

near-earth asteroids, and if

one were to strike near a big city,

the effects would be

devastating, biblical even.

We now head from two cities

destroyed to a monument that

has stood the test of time.

So this is probably one

place I don't need to introduce,

the world's most famous stone

circle that has been standing

in england long before

england was even a thing.

But today, over 5,000

years after it was constructed,

much about stonehenge

remains an enigma.

So let's start with the basics.

Stonehenge, huge

circle of stones on a hill

88 miles west of London.

And the first of its many

mysteries is how such huge

stones weighing up to 25

tons and over 20 feet tall could

have been assembled

here 5,000 years ago.

Now, new evidence will

tell us where they come from,

how they got there, and

why this wonder of the world

was created.

When we talk about the

lost colony of roanoke,

we're reminded that native

Americans were instrumental in

helping settlers survive

throughout our history,

but few were as vital as sacagawea.

At just 16 years old and

having just given birth, this young

shoshone woman joined Lewis

and Clark on their epic journey

to explore the uncharted west.

Sacagawea wasn't just a

guide, she was the expedition's

compass, navigating uncharted

territories, negotiating with

tribes, and ensuring

everyone made it through alive.

And she did it all while

carrying a newborn on her back.

Her legacy endures, with

more statues of sacagawea

across the U.S. than any other woman.

So while roanoke may

remain cloaked in mystery,

sacagawea's story is

literally carved in stone.

It seems stonehenge is built in two parts.

The first phase, constructed

in approximately 3100 bc,

is the henge, an elevated bank of dirt.

This henge has two entrances

and an enclosed area longer

than a football field.

Next, about six centuries

after the henge is created,

the builders shape larger

boulders known as sarsens

and erect them using a clever

system of ropes and timber to

leverage their massive weight.

And finally they arrange the

smaller blue stones named

for their bluish tint when

wet or freshly broken.

It is estimated building and

modifying stonehenge takes

over 1,500 years at the hands

of a staggering 100 generations.

So if you think a 40-hour

work week sounds like

a full-time job, think again.

At least your

great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren

don't need to finish your shift.

But another mystery

looms over stonehenge.

None of its massive stones

are native to the immediate area.

So where did its extraordinary

megaliths come from?

For centuries, the best

answer to where these monoliths

came from was Merlin,

the mythical wizard.

Just before the time of

king Arthur, Merlin is said to

steal the stones from Ireland

and then enlists giants to

reconstruct them at stonehenge.

At least, that's according

to middle age legend.

Putting Merlin to the side,

the true origin of stonehenge

remains unsolved for centuries.

But everything changes in 2020

when geomorphologist David Nash

makes a staggering

discovery about the iconic huge

sarsen stones and

where they came from.

I was contacted by English

heritage, who manage

the monument, and they had

a core that had been drilled

from the middle of one of

the stones at stonehenge.

They said, would we

like to have a look at it?

So we analyzed three

samples from that little bit of core

that effectively gave us,

you might think of it as

the fingerprint of stonehenge.

Now, on its own, that

doesn't tell you very much,

but where it is useful is if

you then can compare it with

similar chemical signatures

or fingerprints from areas

where sarsen stones occur naturally.

And we didn't think, I guess,

almost in our wildest dreams

that we would get a direct

hit, but of all of the areas that

we sampled, only one

had a direct chemical match.

And that was an area in

the marlborough downs,

a place called west woods.

West woods is 17 miles

north of stonehenge.

That's a long way to

travel with 25-ton rocks,

the equivalent of a humpback whale.

The question that still remains,

how did they move them?

I think the current consensus

is that they were probably

moved mainly by land.

So the sarsens were loaded

onto some kind of wooden sled.

And that sled would have

been dragged, basically,

to stonehenge.

If you think moving the

sarsen stone 17 miles is far,

wait until you hear how far

the blue stones traveled to get

to stonehenge.

In comparison to the sarsens,

there's been a lot more work

trying to figure out

whereabouts the blue stones

come from, so the blue stones,

they come from an area called

the preseli hills, which are in west wales.

So that's about 150

miles west of stonehenge.

And in breaking news, it

was recently determined that

the central altar stone came

from the far north of Scotland.

That's a 460-mile journey

for this megalithic monster.

So now that we know where these

stones came from and maybe how

they got here, the

biggest piece of the puzzle

is why why were

they brought here at all?

What was the purpose of

this enormous monument?

The builders didn't

leave any written records,

but over the years, compelling theories

have emerged.

In 2021, I met with

Michael Parker Pearson,

a stonehenge expert who had

an amazing discovery that might

help explain the

purpose of the monument.

When we dug here, what

we found was human remains.

That was just a fraction

of the number of people

who were buried here.

This place was full of

the cremated remains

of the dead.

It's basically the largest

cemetery within britain for

the whole of the third millennium bc.

Incredible.

But then, Pearson came up

with a groundbreaking new finding

that changes much of what

we know about stonehenge.

His theory suggests that people

journeyed to the monument

because the stones were

a sanctuary for healing,

believed to cure wounds and illnesses.

Archeologists have suggested

that the blue stones may have

themselves held some

kind of healing properties.

And this isn't just something

from the distant past.

There's pretty good records

of people visiting stonehenge,

chipping pieces off the

blue stones and then

taking them away with them.

So that might be a reason why

people bothered transporting,

you know, multi-ton boulders,

considerable distances from

west wales to the site where

the monument was constructed.

If stonehenge was a place

of healing, the word must have

gotten out, because the

people trying to get healed didn't

only come from wales, but from all over.

For example, the remains

of these two men, buried at

stonehenge around 2300 bc,

offer fascinating insights into

ancient migration.

There's isotopic evidence

showing that the older of

the two men was born in

the alps in central Europe,

traveling hundreds of miles

from what would now be known

as Switzerland.

The analysis of the other man

proved that he was a relative

who grew up locally.

Archaeologists have

dubbed the older man

the amesbury Archer because

of the many arrowheads found

with his skeleton.

This 40-year-old man had

an abscess that had destroyed

part of his jawbone and had

suffered an accident that had

ripped off his left kneecap,

undoubtedly leaving him in

constant pain and

possibly close to death.

It seems that he traveled on

foot to stonehenge all the way

from the alps in central Europe.

Could this have been one

last desperate roll of the dice to

heal his soon-to-be fatal injuries?

And even more intriguing

is what was found inside

the ailing man's burial,

fragments of blue stone,

providing more possible

evidence that he was

drawn from a distant land

to the healing stones of the henge.

Anyone who sees stonehenge

knows it was a sacred place.

The vast stones rising

up, standing tall with

a simple beauty.

But thanks to what scientists

have uncovered, we now know it

was also a place of

pilgrimage and healing.

And today, it still is.

Every year, more than a

million people travel from all over

the world, embracing the very

same magic our ancestors felt

5,000 years ago.

I'm Josh gates.

Until next time, travel adventurously.