WILLIAM SHATNER: A massive golden boulder,
dangling on a cliff,
a 2,000-year-old mechanical computer
built by the ancients,
and giant messages to the gods
that are only visible from the sky.
Today, we imagine ourselves to have reached the pinnacle
of humanity's achievements.
But despite all the advancements of our modern world,
the sight of a towering pyramid or an ancient monolith
still fills us with awe, and makes us ask the question--
how were ancient people with limited technology
able to build such incredible wonders?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
Here, at this archaeological site
located in the Beqaa Valley, is an ancient rock quarry
that contains giant stones
that were carved by ancient man thousands of years ago.
And some of these rectangular blocks are so massive
that they are larger than most railroad cars.
ANDREW COLLINS: What's so fascinating
about the Baalbek stones is their sheer size,
because there is nothing else in the world like it.
One of the huge blocks has been known for many centuries,
and is called "The Stone of the Pregnant Woman."
It's around 65 feet long
by about 15 feet wide and in height.
And this weighs around 1,000 tons.
And nearby to that is another stone called
"The Stone of the South."
VALI MAHLOUJI: The Stone of the South is 50 feet long
and 1,200 tons, which is equivalent to
the weight of more than three 747 jumbo jets.
So, the rocks are very large,
and they have attracted a huge amount of interest
from archaeologists, from travelers,
and from the people of Baalbek.
In 2014,
the German Archaeological Institute
were, uh, excavating
around The Stone of the Pregnant Woman,
and they came across an even larger block
that weighs 1,650 tons.
This is the largest block of stone
that's been carved for use in architecture
anywhere in the world.
HUGH NEWMAN: If you look
at the stone carefully, you can see it's been
almost like laser-precision cut.
It's such an impressive feat that, even today,
we can't even imagine how they could really have done it.
SHATNER: But perhaps what's even more incredible is
that ancient people managed
to transport some of these gigantic blocks
all the way up a hill roughly two-thirds of a mile away
to build one of the most spectacular structures
from antiquity--
the Roman Temple of Jupiter.
DAVID MIANO: We know when the Temple of Jupiter was built
because Strabo, the Roman geographer,
writing in the first century BCE,
early first century CE, he mentions the area.
That must have been when the temple was nearing completion.
But we can only guess
as to how they performed this amazing task.
SHATNER: The Temple of Jupiter's construction remains a subject
of fascination among archaeologists.
But an even greater mystery is the structure
upon which it was built-- an ancient stone platform
erected an unknown number of centuries earlier
by a mysterious civilization.
This platform was made out of massive stones transported
from the Baalbek quarry.
Most notable are three precision-cut, 800-ton blocks
that are known as the "Trilithon."
COLLINS: Each one of those Trilithon blocks is
around 60 to 65 feet in length,
about 15 feet deep.
And they are put together
in such a way as you can hardly even get a piece
of paper between the two.
MIANO: There is no way that the Romans
could have lifted one of these Trilithon stones,
even with one of their great cranes.
So the Trilithon are the remains of an even earlier temple.
But who the people were that established the settlement,
we have no idea.
And as to the question
of how the stones were carved and transported
and fit into place, we're struck with questions,
and they continue to stump us today.
We really have to question
how on earth did they move these stones?
How they moved them from the quarry--
which is just under a mile away--
and placed them there
is one of the big mysteries of the ancient world.
Even with today's modern cranes,
you would have to use so many of them
to move anything near that size.
There's no way it could've been done. It's almost impossible.
SHATNER: How were the massive Trilithon stones transported
and laid into place?
It's a mind-boggling feat that seems to defy explanation.
According to local folklore,
the giant stones of the Trilithon were carried
from the quarry by ancient giants
and positioned by genies using powerful magic.
But modern researchers have proposed a number
of possible scientific theories
to explain how the gigantic blocks were moved into position.
MICHAEL WYSESSION: One technique that's proposed
is that very large earth ramps were constructed,
used with many ropes and pulleys
to pull these massive blocks out of the ground
and slide them into position.
Recently, in 2014, they found evidence
for the use of capstans.
Now, these are rotating mechanisms
that could have moved the stone down the hill.
There was a circular abrasion on one of the stones
that indicated the usage of a capstan.
So, this could indeed have been the mechanism
that was used to move the stones.
SHATNER: Could the enormous blocks
of the Trilithon have been moved and positioned
using nothing more than ropes, logs and pulleys?
It's an interesting theory.
But perhaps the more important question is,
why would ancient people choose to use
such absurdly large stones in the first place?
MIANO: Some people think
that the reason that they used the stones was because
the hill there was kind of weak
and could be seriously undermined by an earthquake
or just ground erosion,
and they were afraid that it wouldn't stand.
So, maybe they used the bigger stones
to ensure that that part of the temple would hold.
But we just don't know.
COLLINS: There is no precedent, really,
or understanding, from an architectural point of view,
why you would create these blocks
forming the Trilithon at Baalbek,
particularly as they are
on the fifth course up.
And they also look so out of place, because above them,
you have much smaller blocks, around them much smaller blocks.
So there is a huge mystery to be uncovered here at Baalbek.
SHATNER: Archaeologists continue to investigate Baalbek
in the hope of learning who quarried its massive stones
and how they were moved into place.
For now, the only thing that we know for certain
is that this monumental ancient wonder dwarfs
what we're capable of today.
All over the world, people have had this obsession
with megalithic monuments and making things with big stones.
The Incas, for example, at Sacsayhuaman,
and then of course, the Easter Island heads,
or the stone circles in Stonehenge, and
Baalbek is another of these phenomena
that you find, and it really makes you wonder,
why did they do this? Why this size?
Why this weight? When it would be so much easier
to quarry smaller stones
and drag them over to the temples.
Perhaps they're just showing off.
"Look what we can do."
Did the civilization that carved
and moved the Baalbek stones do so simply
to demonstrate they could?
It's an extraordinary theory.
But what's even more remarkable is the fact
that the Baalbek stones aren't the only ancient wonder
that still exists today.
For instance, there's a 2,000-year-old city in Mexico
whose builders vanished without a trace.
SHATNER: Approximately 30 miles northeast of Mexico City
lies the highlands plateau known as the "Valley of Mexico."
During the 15th century,
the Aztec empire ruled over this region in central Mexico.
But not far from their capital city,
the Aztecs discovered the ruins of an even bigger metropolis
that was built centuries earlier by an unknown civilization
that vanished without a trace.
The Aztecs would name this mysterious city "Teotihuacán."
COLLINS: The Aztecs arrived at this site
in the 1400s, which was already ruined,
and it fascinated them because, obviously,
they did not know who had constructed it.
And they called it "Teotihuacán,"
which means "the place of the gods."
PETER JIMENEZ: The scale of Teotihuacán--
it's mind-boggling.
That's what really takes everybody back.
We're talking about the largest city
in the center of the Mesoamerican ancient world.
It's a great place, an incredible place.
SHATNER: All told, Teotihuacán covers
an astonishing eight square miles,
which is roughly the same size as ancient Rome.
At the heart of the city is a two-mile-long road
that the Aztecs named "The Avenue of the Dead."
It is dominated by three giant pyramids
dedicated to the Sun, the Moon,
and a legendary feathered serpent known as "Quetzalcoatl."
According to archaeologists,
the urban planning of Teotihuacán
was centuries ahead of its time.
COLLINS: It's thought that
possibly as many as 200,000 people
lived here at its peak.
But ultimately, the big mystery is,
we don't know who built Teotihuacán.
We know who built the Great Wall of China.
We know who built the Colosseum in Rome.
And yet, we don't know who constructed Teotihuacán.
So, why is this? The fact is,
the builders had no written language.
So, there was no record of who constructed it.
JIMENEZ: If you look at it, the city is built on a grid.
This is something that's fascinating.
Who were the city planners?
Who actually thought about this, and how to design it?
That's an interesting thing.
Because the planners behind this didn't have the wheel,
and there was no metal in Teotihuacán.
So, we're talking about, basically, stone tools
and humans moving clay, moving stones.
SHATNER: Although Teotihuacán remains shrouded in mystery,
archaeologists have carried out numerous excavations
to learn more about the origins of this magnificent city.
DAVID WALTON: Through archaeological research,
we know that the oldest constructions at Teotihuacán
are focused in the northern part of the city.
They date to around, oh, 300, 400 BC.
But it was really around 100 AD that we start
to see the monumental construction phases happening,
all the way up through around 600, 650 AD.
So, the rise of Teotihuacán took place
over a period of about 600 years.
If we could travel back in time
to Teotihuacán during its heyday,
we'd be seeing merchants selling things
along the Avenue of the Dead.
We would see people coming from all over Mesoamerica
to make pilgrimages to the monuments at the site.
It was definitely the cultural hub
of the entire region of Mesoamerica.
And then, there was a notable period of collapse.
SHATNER: But if Teotihuacán was such a thriving metropolis,
then it begs a question.
Why would the unnamed builders of this ancient city choose
to abandon it?
Well, according to archaeologists,
an important clue can be found along the ancient city's
central boulevard,
where there are burn marks on the ruins of several temples.
JIMENEZ: Teotihuacán was occupied
almost seven to eight centuries.
But the ceremonial precinct in downtown
was partially burned down around 550.
And then, the whole city falls apart after that.
WALTON: Along the Avenue of the Dead,
there was burning of these monuments and major temples.
Now, there are some different theories
on how this could have happened.
-(yelling) -The first theory is
that some external army, some external group came in
and sort of wiped out everything,
destroyed the downtown, and then people left.
But another theory that might explain why major areas
of downtown Teotihuacán were burned
would be civil war, an uprising of the local population.
SHATNER: Is it possible
that a civil war caused the original inhabitants
of Teotihuacán to leave their city?
Perhaps.
But some researchers believe the civilization
that built Teotihuacán vanished
because of something far more sinister.
Through archaeological research,
we actually have clear evidence
for human sacrifice at Teotihuacán.
One of the more gruesome discoveries that was made
at Teotihuacán,
in association with the Pyramid of the Moon,
was 12 skeletons
that had been bound behind their backs.
And of these, ten of them were decapitated.
They probably form part of a dark ritual
to appease the gods.
What I think happened is that people
rejected this program of human sacrifice.
That may have angered people of Teotihuacán,
and may explain why it was abandoned at that point in time.
But these are sort of dynamics that we just don't know yet
and are still worthy of future investigation at the site.
Did the builders of Teotihuacán
abandon their magnificent city
because of ritual human sacrifice?
Perhaps.
But the only thing we know for certain is that it was a city
that was far ahead of its time.
Which was also the case
with another wonder of the ancient world.
It's a 2,000-year-old bronze device that many claim
was the world's first computer.
SHATNER: The Aegean Sea, 1900.
Just off the coast of the small Greek island of Antikythera,
a group of Greek divers are hunting for sea sponges
when they come across the remains
of an ancient shipwreck.
MIKE EDMUNDS: What they discovered was the wreck
of a Roman-era trading ship.
And soon it was apparent that there was a lot
of archaeological stuff on board.
And during the years 1900 to 1902,
a major expedition was mounted from Greece
to pull up everything they could find.
There were statues, there were marbles,
beautiful glassware.
And it was clear from what else was on this ship
that this was a ship that had gone down in the classical era.
SHATNER: Dozens of priceless artifacts
were salvaged from the wreckage,
including one object that defied explanation.
It was the remains of a coral-encrusted
wooden and bronze box that, curiously,
looked like a clock.
EDMUNDS: They looked, and there were gear wheels
inside this bronze.
It was obvious from the rest of the stuff on the wreck
that this was from the classical world,
but gear wheels were not known from the classical world.
And it was then that they realized
that this particular piece of bronze was something special.
SHATNER: The artifact was sent
to the National Museum of Archaeology in Athens.
Archaeologists dated it to the second century BC,
along with the other relics found in the wreck,
but they were unable to determine
what function the geared object served.
For more than 50 years,
its purpose remained a mystery.
But in 1951,
British physicist Derek John de Solla Price
began a careful examination of the artifact
and found something astonishing.
The box contained the workings
of a highly sophisticated device.
By this point, the mechanism was in a bunch of different pieces.
There are seven major fragments labeled "A" through "G."
And there are 75 other, smaller fragments.
Derek de Solla Price took a renewed interest
in the mechanism.
And he was able to put the major fragments
into their correct position for the first time.
EDMUNDS: The Antikythera Mechanism, as it became known,
is made predominantly of bronze.
It would probably have been in a wooden case, originally,
possibly with bronze plates on the front and the back.
It was about the size of a shoebox, essentially.
There are two main display faces.
There's the front face and the back face,
and probably a handle on the side
that you would have turned in order to make the thing work.
On the front of the mechanism,
there's something looking rather like a clock face,
would be the best way to describe it.
SHATNER: In June 1959, Price published his findings
in the journal Scientific American,
and described the Antikythera Mechanism
as being, "an Ancient Greek Computer."
KAKU: This was a spectacular device.
It's an analog computer.
It doesn't use digital. It uses wheels and gears.
This was a device that we wouldn't see again
for another 2,000 years, until the 1800s.
SHATNER: But if the Antikythera Mechanism really was
an ancient computer, then what was it designed to do?
Well, in 2005,
an international team of researchers known
as "The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project"
used cutting-edge scanning technology
to obtain a detailed 3D image
of the device's inner workings for the very first time.
And the results were even more remarkable
than anyone could have imagined.
EDMUNDS: The X-ray tomography clearly laid out
what the gear trains must have been.
And also, a complete reading of basically all
the surviving inscriptions on the device, both inside and out.
And those inscriptions are an instruction book
on what the mechanism is and what it does.
And it's clear from those inscriptions
that it was intended
that the mechanism should display the positions
of the planets, as well as the Sun and the Moon.
IVERSEN: The Antikythera Mechanism
is an astronomical computing device
that also visualized
the revolutions and the time periods
of the Sun, the Moon and the five planets
that were visible in antiquity,
which are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
So, via the gear work,
it mimics the rotation
of the Sun and the Moon and the planets.
EDMUNDS: It displays many different things
at a given time.
Where the planets are in the sky,
where the Moon is in the sky
and what the phase of the Moon is,
are there going to be any eclipses
this month, and so on.
We've done some computer calculations
to work out how accurate the device would have been,
taking into account the shape of the teeth,
the slop in the gears, and so on.
And the answer is, it shows very accurately
the sort of behavior of these things.
The Greeks were thinking really deeply about the universe,
how it worked, what it means to have a universe
that's in some way mechanical, that is predictable.
The Greek astronomers and philosophers
were very interested in explaining the cosmos.
The idea is that the stars and the planets
and the Sun and the Moon, where they are in the sky,
affects what happens to our lives.
Just like the modern tradition of astrology.
STEPHEN BURROWS: The ancient people who created
the Antikythera Mechanism could see the cycles
that things occurred,
and they wanted a way to actually predict them.
And that's what this machine did.
It predicted the future,
and it's a brilliant piece of mathematics.
SHATNER: To this day,
no one knows who the ancient genius was
that invented the Antikythera device, or when.
And since there is no written record of its creation,
it is doubtful that we will ever know for certain.
But its existence raises an intriguing question.
Could there be other ancient technologies out there,
waiting to be found?
BURROWS: We think that this is
maybe hundreds of years ahead of its time,
but what we're missing are all the predecessors
that just didn't last that long.
I think there are a huge number of engineering feats
that we will never know about or that we haven't yet discovered.
The Antikythera device is a stark reminder
that we should never underestimate the ingenuity
of our ancient ancestors.
And that also is the case with a number
of mysterious symbols
that have been carved into the earth all over the world.
SHATNER: Located near the border of Russia and Mongolia,
this region is known for its vast grasslands.
But in 2021, archaeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences
made a remarkable discovery.
While conducting an aerial survey,
they spotted an enormous symbol, known as a geoglyph,
that was formed using carefully-arranged pebbles
and sandstones.
BAHN: In Central Asia,
we have something called "the Siberian Bull."
It's a very simple drawing, just done with dark stones,
making the outline of a tail and the back legs of an animal.
And, fortunately, it's linked quite closely
to an early Bronze Age burial,
so we reckon it must date back to 2000 BCE.
It is some 4,000 years old, and still there.
Research on this is still ongoing, but it shows
that there's still so much about these geoglyphs
and the beliefs and the values that were held
by the ancient people who made them that we do not know.
SHATNER: The Siberian Bull is ten feet tall
and 13 feet long, and is the first geoglyph
of an animal discovered in Central Asia.
But what's more remarkable is
that even larger ancient geoglyphs
have been found all over the world.
Many of them are so vast
that they can only be identified from the sky.
BAHN: Geoglyphs are an astonishing phenomenon.
They're found in many, many parts of the world,
primarily in deserts.
And they are often of huge size
involving an enormous amount of work.
Geoglyphs can be divided up really into the ones
that just look like geometric shapes to us,
and there are many, many of those.
You have lines, which just look like roads
or paths going on for miles.
And then, of course, you have what seem to us
to be depictions of birds, animals, humans.
And they must all have very different meanings
to the cultures that produced them.
NEWMAN: In March 2022,
archaeological researchers found
what could be the largest geoglyphs on the planet
in the Thar Desert of ancient India.
They stretch over a huge distance,
and one of them kind of forms into what appears
to be a kind of strange spiral.
There's other ones which are like sinuous serpents.
MIANO: One of the more fascinating geoglyphs is
the Uffington White Horse
that was found in Oxfordshire, England.
They dug trenches, and they filled them with chalk
to create this beautiful horse,
which itself is 3,000 years old.
And we expect to find more as time goes on.
SHATNER: Why did so many ancient cultures
across the world labor to carve these enormous figures
and symbols that could only be fully seen from the sky?
Well, according to some researchers,
it could be because the people who created the geoglyphs
intended them to be viewed, not by man, but by gods.
COLLINS: Why would you create geoglyphs,
which can be thousands of feet in size,
and only be seen from the air?
And of course, the answer is
that you're appealing to somebody or something
that is already in the air
and will see what you have done.
They were created to perhaps appease some kind of god,
to bring water, bring the rains.
It seems a reasonable supposition that a lot
of these images, which only make sense from the air,
were very much tied to things in the heavens.
There are astronomical orientations
of some of the lines,
and some figures may represent constellations.
But there are so many possibilities
because there are so many hundreds
of different geoglyph types
that you can't simply put one explanation on all of them.
SHATNER: Recently, a new theory has been proposed
to explain the famous Nazca Lines in Peru,
which date back more than 2,000 years.
BAHN: The great Nazca Lines are done
in one continuous line, the monkey or the spider.
We've always assumed
that the people who made the Nazca Lines
were trying to communicate with gods,
ancestors, spirits or whatever.
But there was an idea put forward quite recently
by an American scholar
who thought that some of the geoglyphs might be linked
to runoff from hills and channeling the water
and helping the crops to grow.
MIKE TUCKER: There's a trend in backyard gardening
called "permaculture," where the gardener digs trenches
and create swells or hills
to sequester the water or capture the rainfall,
so that way the ecosystem supports their own garden,
and they don't have to bring in extra irrigation.
So there's a theory that maybe the rain lands on these hills,
runs down and saturates the soil in these spirals,
and the other Nazca Lines so farmers could grow crops.
And the bigger the geoglyph, the more food you could produce.
But you can only produce as much food as you had runoff.
WYSESSION: In places like where the Nazca Lines are,
we see a very barren, arid, dry place currently.
But if you went back thousands of years,
you'd find alternating periods
of extreme rainfall events.
And so, the time when the Nazca Lines were built
was a time of occasional extreme rainfall.
And it's quite possible that they used these lines
as means of capturing water from these rare
but extreme rain events.
NEWMAN: We don't have written records
of what they were thinking or what they were doing
and why they were building these sites.
But the fact is, there are different theories
in different parts of the world
as to what they could have been created for.
But whether it's in a desert,
or whether it's, like, chalk hill figures
in Ancient Britain, at least they still exist,
and we can appreciate and study them today.
Are some of the massive geoglyphs
found all over the world
actually ingenious irrigation ditches?
(inhales sharply) It's an intriguing theory.
But not all ancient wonders have an apparent purpose.
Sometimes, they're so inexplicable
that we must simply marvel
at their improbability,
like in the case of a giant golden boulder
that appears to defy the laws of physics.
SHATNER: Perched on a cliff
3,600 feet above sea level
is something that, at first glance,
appears to be an impossible sight.
It's an enormous boulder that is covered in gold leaf
and hangs precariously over the edge of a cliff.
This giant rock is the size of a two-car garage,
and looks like it's about to fall off the precipice.
But, incredibly, it never has.
This extraordinary stone is known as
"The Golden Rock."
NEWMAN: The Golden Rock in Myanmar
is one of the most important sites in the Buddhist world.
It's a 600-ton granite boulder.
And the way it sits on the side of this kind of cliff,
this mountaintop, is-is absolutely amazing.
You can actually almost get underneath it.
And if you sneeze the wrong way, at the wrong angle,
it feels like it would just knock it off.
But it's been there for thousands of years.
MIANO: Everybody wonders how this rock doesn't fall.
It's 50 feet high and 25 feet in diameter.
How it doesn't fall...
it seems to defy the laws of physics.
It's a Buddhist holy site, and so on top of it sits
a pagoda 24 feet tall.
And yet, we still can't figure out how it's not falling.
DOMINIC STEAVU: This is the holiest
of objects for Buddhist people,
and it has indeed become a site of pilgrimage,
um, that is active throughout the year.
Pilgrims make offerings
by applying little squares of gold leaf.
And over time, this gold leaf has accrued
all over the rock to the extent that it is now covered in gold.
The earliest reliable documents attesting
to The Golden Rock being a site of pilgrimage
go back about 500 years to the late 15th century,
and these documents are tied to the Kingdom of Thay Taung
and, um, their official stately documents.
However, there is reason to believe
that The Golden Rock goes much further back in history
as a sacred site tied to the Buddha,
and that, in fact, it might go back all the way
to the time of the Buddha in the 5th century BCE,
so roughly 2,500 years ago.
SHATNER: Was The Golden Rock erected thousands of years ago?
And if so, how did this giant boulder
come to be positioned in such a precarious way?
Perhaps the answer can be found by examining
why Buddhists consider it to be such a holy site.
COLLINS: At some point in the distant past, it is said
that the Buddha gave a monk a single piece of hair.
And the monk accepted this
and handed it over to the ruling king.
And the king said that he would find a suitable shrine
so that it could be placed on top of that hair.
And apparently, they searched everywhere...
...and at the bottom of the ocean found
this huge, great boulder.
And it was then carried to the top of this mountain
and placed in this incredibly precarious manner.
And underneath it, apparently,
is the actual hair of the Buddha.
MIANO: There's a legend that the Buddha's hair
is what is holding that boulder in place,
suggesting that even one small strand of hair from his head
was powerful enough to hold up such a large and heavy stone.
SHATNER: The notion that a single hair--
even one from the Buddha himself--
is preventing a 600-ton boulder from succumbing
to gravity does seem a bit far-fetched.
So, why doesn't it fall?
Well, according to some experts,
it's likely due to an incredible feat of ancient engineering.
The word "engineer" means "ingenious."
And if you look at the relationship
between The Golden Rock and the edge of the cliff,
what we see is perfect balance, if you like.
The center of the weight of that piece of rock is
going through the point that it's connected
to the stone below. It must be.
Otherwise, it would be falling off the edge.
I would say that's nearly impossible.
But the thing to remember about the ancient people
who created these marvels that we see around the world is
that they understood mathematics,
and they understood physics.
SHATNER: Is it possible
that The Golden Rock is simply an ingenious feat
of ancient engineering? Perhaps.
But for the faithful, the mere existence
of such a wondrous sight is more important
than how it was achieved.
What The Golden Rock says about humanity is
that people need to feel in contact with the divine.
For the pilgrims who go to this sacred site,
it can be an incredibly powerful and moving experience
to be in contact with something that is most sacred
and most holy in your tradition.
And this is no different from the motivations
and what drove people to visit this site
for the last thousand, 2,000, 3,000 years.
The Golden Rock is proof that, in spite of everything
we've learned about physics and engineering,
there are some ancient wonders that still defy understanding.
But some experts believe that the key
to unlocking their secrets is to study
not the structures themselves, but rather, the DNA
of the people who built them.
SHATNER: Here, on the vast green pasture of Salisbury Plain,
stands perhaps the most storied wonder of the ancient world:
Stonehenge.
First constructed around 3100 BC,
these imposing sarsen and bluestone monoliths were rebuilt
and repositioned a number of times
over the next 1,500 years,
eventually settling into the current configuration.
But today, almost 5,000 years after its creation,
Stonehenge's original purpose remains
shrouded in mystery.
TIMOTHY DARVILLE: Stonehenge is a complicated monument.
It's a very long-lived monument.
We're always changing our interpretations of Stonehenge.
And this is in large measure because
these societies don't seem to have had writing.
They haven't written anything down--
that's come down to us, at least.
So, we're having to piece together
our understanding of the monument
from what we have in the archaeological record
in the monument itself.
SHATNER: For centuries,
researchers assumed that the ancient people
who constructed Stonehenge were native to the British Isles.
But that could be changing.
Because thanks to modern genetic technology,
researchers have been able to conduct DNA testing
on Stone Age skeletons that were recovered
in the area around Stonehenge.
And the results suggested
that Stonehenge's builders weren't native
to ancient Britain at all.
They may have arrived from much, much farther away.
COLLINS: It was generally thought
that Stonehenge-- it must have been built by the local people.
But new DNA evidence suggests
that the builders of Stonehenge
had come from distant Anatolia, modern-day Turkey.
NEWMAN: DNA analysis that shows this migration from Turkey
to Ancient Britain is very, very interesting.
Because what we're finding here is this direct connection
over a very long period
starting with sites
such as Göbekli Tepe, which was in Southeast Turkey.
Then we have similar stone structures like stone circles
or stone avenues in Portugal, along the Iberian Coast.
Then we have the sites in Brittany, France,
which again date to this very early phase.
And then we start seeing the megalithic constructions
of Ancient Britain.
So, this DNA analysis shows that
they were bringing this megalithic knowledge.
And this has now been proved, through DNA research,
from Turkey, through Europe, into Ancient Britain.
SHATNER: Is it possible that Stonehenge was constructed
by the same ancient people from Turkey
that built other massive stone monuments all over Europe,
as newly-discovered DNA evidence suggests?
It's one of many intriguing theories
about ancient engineering
that has been brought to light by modern technology.
DARVILLE: New technologies are
certainly going to open up a whole series of new questions.
And it's going to answer a few things
that we didn't know too much about.
So, there's still a lot of work to be done
in figuring out some of the secrets of ancient times.
We began to realize that the ancients had
astounding technology that we didn't think they had,
and some technologies
that are more advanced than our technology.
And the hope is, even though there's no written records,
using the science of DNA,
or another advanced technology,
we can get closer and closer to understanding
how they were able to build these gigantic structures.
SHATNER: Whether it's lost cities
or massive geoglyphs,
or ancient computers,
the technological and engineering ability
of our ancestors never ceases to amaze us.
One day, modern technology may help us unlock all the secrets
of these ancient wonders.
But until then, we'll just have to marvel at their existence,
and understand that they will remain...
unexplained.
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