5 Things our ancestors left behind that we don’t understand
We have a pretty good idea of how our ancestors lived from the countless amount of artifacts and ruins we’ve found, but every once in a while our ancestors built or did something that was just plain weird. A huge amount of effort has gone into certain projects that don’t share any similarities with others we have recovered in any way whatsoever, which raises the question of what were they doing. Here are five of the strangest things built by ancient cultures that no one can explain to this day.
Plain of Jars – Laos
Situated in the Xiangkhoang Plateau of northern Laos is a range of hills that contain several thousand stone jars believed to have been made during the Iron Age, making them around 2,500 years old. The jars range from between 1 and 3 meters tall and are grouped into 90 different sites, with each site hosting between one and 400 jars. The jars all appear to have rims around the top which suggests they supported lids to keep whatever was inside safe, but only a few stone lids have been recovered, with the rest likely made from some kind of perishable material.
A large limestone cave has been found in the area which has two holes cut into the ceiling and is believed to have been used as some kind of crematorium, but if this is related to the reasons the jars are there is unknown. So far no one has a good answer as to why there are thousands of jars scattered across valley sides and floors, but whatever the reason is, the amount of work it would take to build this many stone jars up to 3 meters high during the Iron Age must have been for a very important reason indeed.
Roman Dodecahedrons – Discovered mostly in western and Southern Europe
A dodecahedron is a ball-like shape that has 12 flat sides, and for some reason, the Romans built hundreds of them. They were mostly made from either bronze or stone, which would have been expensive and time-consuming to do, but when it comes to their purpose no one seems to be able to agree on anything.
Since the objects have 12 sides, they are most commonly believed to be related to the zodiac symbols or months of the year, but there’s nothing on the objects themselves that indicates what each side means, no markings or symbols of any kind. Other popular suggested uses are toys for children, some kind of religious object, or a device used to build roads using some form of measurement, but Roman dodecahedrons vary in size with no apparent standard to them. The annoying thing about these objects is that with all the records the Romans kept, the Dodecahedrons aren’t mentioned a single time, leaving not a single clue to their purpose.
Nazca Lines – Peru
The Nazca people of Peru lived between 500 BCE and 500 AD, but because they didn’t keep any kind of written records, the exact dates are not known. The biggest question about their culture is why they decided to spend several hundred years creating over 800 miles (1,287.48 kilometers) of pathways around a 19 sq mile area. The pathways don’t seem to go anywhere, and they take turns and form shapes that don’t seem to make any sense.
Each line is no more than 6 inches deep and was created by cutting away the turf so the undersoil became baked and hard in the sun. There are over 70 animal shapes formed across the area, all of which were animals alive in the area at the time like dogs, herons, monkeys, lizards, fish, spiders, and a few others. The animal shapes are exceptionally straight and well-proportioned for such early people, but can only be seen accurately from about 1,500 feet (457.2 m) in the air. The most believed reason for their creation is for religious purposes, but the formation of the lines in between shapes doesn’t follow any kind of pattern and appears to be completely random.
Giant Stone Spheres – Costa Rica
On the DiquÃs Delta in Costa Rica, and appearing on the small nearby island of Isla del Caño are around 300 large stone spheres believed to have been created by the DiquÃs culture. This mysterious culture didn’t leave behind any records that talked about the spheres, and so far no had knows why they were built. They aren’t perfectly round and appear to have been carved by hand up to a size of just over 2 meters, with the smallest being only a few centimeters across.
The largest ones weigh around 15 tons but many of them are buried around 3/4 of the way into the ground. Apart from religious uses, the spheres are thought to be some kind of status symbol, perhaps lining the path to the home of an important person, but so far no one knows exactly why they are there, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s ever going to find out.
The underwater city of Yonaguni Jima – Japan
Situated close to the coast of Yonaguni island is an underwater rock formation, or possibly ruin, that would have to be at least 10,000 years old to have been built in the first place. The site was discovered in 1995 by accident and at first, it was just considered a unique natural rock formation, but if there’s one thing nature doesn’t do very well it’s perfect right angles, and this thing is covered in them. It appears to contain steps that navigate between the different raised areas around the site and seems to have stone carvings in some of the floors, though they are too heavily eroded to see properly.
It is still argued that the formation is natural, but not everyone is convinced as it seems a little too perfect and unlikely that nature could make such a shape. One argument that pushes it in favor of being naturally formed is where it was built, with the distance from the coast meaning it would have to be around 10,000 years old for it to be above the water. People that long ago simply didn’t have the technology to build things like this out of stone, and if it was an ancient culture then where was the rest of their civilization?
