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>>We can only see as far forward as we remember back.

>>I don't know what the future's going to be.

And there may not be a future.

There may not be one.

It may all end in disaster of one kind or another.

>>The Greek historian Plato believed

that there had been many great civilizations that

had disappeared in a variety of catastrophes.

Today, humanity has forgotten the past.

In the human unconscious, there is an extremely powerful force

that acts on an individual, keeping him

from seeing with clarity the obvious symptoms

of his next death.

Only in the last moments are the eyes of the soul opened,

and man understands his situation and accepts it.

The landslide of all the empires and all the human institutions

is evident as soon as one studied the past.

Why do we believe in a progress without end?

Everything dies around us.

High atop a vast plateau in the wild Carpathian

Mountains of old Europe, there is

an unknown enigmatic sculpture that strikingly resembles

the Great Sphinx of Egypt.

For that reason, he was named the Carpathian Sphinx.

Could there be a link between the Carpathian Sphinx

and the Great Sphinx of Egypt?

Could the Carpathian Sphinx be the result

of a lost civilization?

While living in Boston, I go and I check all the libraries

sources I can find.

I'm convinced by why what I find.

I decide to leave the United States.

And I return to Eastern Europe, to the homeland

I left 15 years before.

The Sphinx was calling me to unravel its hidden story.

I had to solve the mystery.

Could the Carpathian Mountains and the Sphinx

have a central yet forgotten role

in the history of the world?

>>I'm probably best known in certain circles

for my work on the Sphinx.

I'm only going to mention that very briefly, because I

sort of feel like I have to.

Because in many ways, it does set the stage for what we're

here about at this conference, conference on procession,

ancient knowledge, and really pushing things way back.

And this work that goes back almost two decades

now for myself personally really set the stage for much of what

has come later.

And I'm not claiming any credit here.

I'm giving credit to the Sphinx.

And it's also changed my life.

Sometimes I think-- usually I think for the better.

Sometimes I wonder what I got myself into.

So I really started on the Sphinx work

when I was very young.

This is me about 20 years ago.

And what it really is indicated doing,

at least for some people-- and this

was part of the controversy, and part of why we're here now--

is talking about if you push the date the Sphinx back,

does it mean that we have to view history differently?

Do we have to rewrite history?

>>Dr. Robert Schoch, a geologist from Boston University,

is an expert in ancient stone.

He had studied the Egyptian Sphinx for many decades,

and he believes that the Egyptian Sphinx

is much older than traditionally believed, dating back

many thousands of years before the rise of Egyptian culture.

>>The head was re-carved into the human form

that it takes now.

Parts of the Sphinx itself, if you look at to this day,

it's been heavily repaired.

Some of those repairs go back 4,000 and more years,

because it was a much more ancient statue.

Thousands of years earlier, things were happening in Egypt

at a much earlier period than conventional archaeologists,

conventional historians have ever admitted or suspected.

>>Dr. Schoch believes that the fundamental ideas

and the great knowledge of Egyptians

to be more ancient than the Egyptian civilization itself.

Dan Braneanu, a researcher from Bucharest,

has spent the last 40 years investigating what he believes

is the legacy of a lost civilization.

All around the Carpathian Mountains and the plateau

where the Sphinx is located, Dan Braneanu

sees great evidence of a lost civilization.

[speaking foreign language]

Daniel Ruzo, a Peruvian archaeologist

and protohistorian from Peru, has

come to believe that there once had

been a great worldwide civilization that had

been destroyed in a cataclysm.

This civilization left marks all over the world,

in all the continents.

Ruzo found proof in England in such monuments

as the Stonehenge, in France in Fontainebleau.

Wherever he looked, he found proof.

He became aware that the civilization was especially

a mountain civilization that lived

on the high peak of the mountains

in all the continents.

In 1954, Ruzo discovered Marcahuasi, a small plateau

high atop the Andes mountains in Peru.

Marcahuasi, up to this date, remains a mystery.

There are faces here of women.

He called this one the Monument to Humanity.

Ruzo believed that the Monument to Humanity

was one of the most important sculptures ever made.

In 1968, Ruzo came to the Carpathian Mountains

in Romania.

Here, Ruzo found the proof that he was searching for.

Everywhere he looked on the Bucegi Massif

in the Carpathian Mountains, he found proof

of a very ancient culture.

He believed here was the door to the treasure of a lost people.

Ruzo believed that the treasure is not a material

one, but a spiritual treasure.

Ruzo investigated the area around the Carpathian Sphinx,

and he found tantalizing proof of this lost civilization

here as well.

"The Carpathian Sphinx is an ancient monument

sculpted before the flood, destroyed in the face,

and being very corroded by wind and rain."

Ruzo concluded that the Carpathian Sphinx, just as

the Monument of Humanity in Marcahuasi,

was the important legacy of a lost people.

When he returned to Peru, Ruzo published

a book called "The Fantastic History of a Discovery."

And in that book, he wrote about a trip to Romania.

He dedicated a chapter to what he saw in the Carpathian

Mountains, and he said, "the Romanian Carpathian Mountains

were at the center of the oldest European civilization known

today."

His conclusions were made after he saw the Carpathian Sphinx.

Ruzo died in 1991 before he was able to find

this worldwide vanished civilization.

But his work paved the road for later research.

Ruzo was confident that he was right,

and that one day, someone will clarify the mystery

and fill the empty question marks.

Who were these vanished people that left their imprints

in these monuments?

"It is in these sacred mountains where

people found their salvation after the flood,

and where they will be saved when

the next catastrophe occurs.

It is vital today to find these sacred mountains

and sacred caves.

Here we are in front of an original sculpture, known

all over the world, that has not been

reproduced in historical times.

Being so used to a three-dimensional landscape

starting in Sumerian times, we had failed until today

to see the sculptures considered made by nature."

"The strangest apparition on the plateau

is the Sphinx, a huge rock with an enigmatic profile

around which a protohistorical legend had been formed.

The legend says that a sphinx is a statue made

in times long forgotten by the people of a lost civilization."

>>Sort of U shape.

You can't tell this from down at the base of the mountains.

It's really like a fortress up there.

>>From a distance, it looks very abrupt, uninviting,

with steep rocky areas that are very hard to climb.

But the reality of the mountain is actually

something different.

>>Interestingly, once you get up there, you get the unexpected.

It opens up into a huge plateau.

>>The Sphinx is at a central point on the plateau.

Going south directly from the Sphinx,

there is a group of enigmatic rocks

called The Peaks of Longing.

From here, in direct line to the north, one can see the Sphinx

and then the highest peak called Omu,

the Peak of the Human Being.

>>Something that's very interesting

looking at the Sphinx in Romania,

looking at the plateau, looking at the surrounding area

is at high elevation, you have these incredible structures.

They can be seen before from a very great distance.

They certainly seem like markers or signposts, or something that

might attract ancient peoples.

And I think this is something we have to take very seriously.

>>Many of the rocks on the plateau have feminine names.

This one is called the Big Old Lady Rock.

These ones are the old ladies of Cocora Mountain.

This is the Mountain of the Old Lady.

The Ialomita Valley hides the mountain called the Goddesses

Mountain.

The highest peak in Bucegi, facing the north direction,

the Peak of the Human Being.

This mountain is called the Origin or the Beginning

Mountain.

The main river flowing down the valley

below the Goddesses Mountain was called Naparis,

which means "Heavenly One."

So the question is, why are all these women

names in this mountain, and the sacred names,

such as the Mountain of the Goddesses and the mountain

called Human Being?

Could there have been here a religious matriarchal society

at one point in time?

Could there have been a very ancient feminine worship?

"The origin of these names must be discovered

as the myths as well as the sculptures

are before the time of the flood."

The Sphinx has multiple profiles, best

seen in the changing light.

Where do the orbits of the Sphinx point to?

Why are there all these figures, especially the ones looking

west towards the setting sun?

The profile that resembles the Egyptian Sphinx

is looking north.

The profile that resembles an anthropoid face

is looking west.

Why does one profile look towards the north and another

towards the west?

One to the northern sky and the other one

towards the setting sun?

Why?

And where is the door to the treasure?

Who is this spirited god?

Will I ever find out?

The enigmatic faces are only seen

from certain points of view.

They are best seen with the changing light, the shadows

of the moon, and the sun.

Will the sun point to a secret direction?

Ruzo believed these monuments point

to the sacred treasure found in caves.

And what is the mystery of the gigantic rock

resembling very much a podium, a stage?

Could this place have been used for some type of performers,

from some rituals of a vanished humanity?

A vast crowd could have been in the valley, looking up

at somebody performing, singing or dancing on the top.

Could this be the door to the treasure?

Could this relate back to the Sphinx, to the caverns

that Daniel Ruzo was talking about?

Could the spiritual treasure Daniel Ruzo was talking

about be found in these caves?

This cave is on the mountain called Goddesses Mountain.

Could there be any choices here that would

point to a lost civilization?

Daniel Ruzo considered that only an expert could find this door.

Where do I need to look to find the answers?

Could this be an ancient religious center,

as Daniel Ruzo had concluded?

Could there be a spiritual treasure here?

>>Some people think the world of long ago

contains a body of great secrets,

like some treasure trove of insights that will unlock

the universe's hidden doors.

>>Or new undiscovered technologies

they will free us from drudgeries.

I doubt that such is the case.

The gifts of the ancient world go much deeper.

>>I think when we look for this lost civilization,

there may have been lost civilizations,

but they were not necessarily what we expect

or what many people expect.

That is, they were not a mirror image

in the past of what we are today.

>>"They lived around the mountains and carved into them.

They appreciated the natural beauty

and had high mental abilities."

Ruzo called them "the guardians of an ancient wisdom."

"It was a magical work done by a culture whose science

and understanding of the world was different from the present.

It was from these people that we had inherited

all our ancient wisdom, our sense of religion

and spirituality.

The world we had today was the legacy of a lost civilization.

All the symbolic systems, all the legendary characters,

all the myths and the legends do not

have the name of the author.

We have inherited them from a vanished humanity."

>>If Daniel Ruzo was right about an ancient lost civilization,

was this ancient lost civilization actually

what we would now call Neanderthals?

So going back tens of thousands of years into the last ice age.

>>Could the Neanderthals be the anonymous authors

of our legends and myths?

Of our ancient wisdom?

Could the lost civilization that Daniel Ruzo

had been searching for his entire life

without finding be the extinct Neanderthal civilization?

Is there any valid evidence to support

such an original hypothesis?

Born in London to working class parents

and spending most of his days in England and Wales,

on the surface, Stan Gooch's life

may not have seemed particularly exciting.

But it was his remarkable intellectual journey

that distinguished him as a person

and where his legacy lies.

In relative isolation, Stan Gooch

studied the elements of human evolution and the human psyche,

and he came to an astonishing conclusion.

>>We are a hybrid species.

We are a cross-breed between two very different types

of early man, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon.

>>Gooch authored many books, including "Total Man,"

"Personality and Evolution," "The Neanderthal Question,"

"Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom,"

and "The Double Helix of the Mind."

However, Gooch never gained a popular audience,

critical acclaim, or monetary remuneration

that he had hoped for.

Indeed, Gooch became convinced that the establishment

was deliberately ignoring him.

By the late 1980s, he had all but

given up his studies and writing,

and went almost into total seclusion.

In the end, Gooch did entertain the thought

that perhaps after his death, his contributions

might be widely acknowledged.

Gooch was convinced that the Neanderthals

had been underestimated.

>>For Stan Gooch, Neanderthals were their own species.

They had their own culture.

They had their own civilization even.

He used terms like cities of dreams,

that they built cities of dreams.

They had a dream culture.

They had an advanced, sophisticated culture.

>>Gooch believed that the ancient moon worship was

possessed by the Neanderthals.

>>Neanderthal was, in fact, nocturnal,

or at least semi-nocturnal and worshipped the moon,

whereas Cro-Magnon was a daylight creature, a hunter

and whatever, and worshipped the sun.

>>The Neanderthals lived in Europe

during the ice age for at least 100,000 years.

Neanderthals' range included all of Europe

and parts of Asia, the Middle East, and the Levant.

During the time of the Neanderthals in the Carpathian

Mountains, there was a high population

of cave bears, one of the biggest populations in Europe.

There is still a puzzling mystery

why Neanderthals went extinct, but a number

a possible scenarios have been proposed by scientists,

ranging from natural disasters, massive earthquakes,

and catastrophic volcanic eruptions

in Europe, but also human diseases.

It is clear if the Cro-Magnon massively

eliminated Neanderthal on purpose,

or if they were already doomed.

Contrary to popular belief, many Neanderthal populations

in Europe had light skin, green eyes, and red hair.

>>Typically, people had the concept of Neanderthals

as being dark, brutish, ape-like, if you would,

and the Cro-Magnons, our ancestors,

were the light-skinned, fair-haired individuals.

May be totally opposite.

That in fact, the early archaic Homo sapiens

were much darker than the Neanderthals

that they came in contact with in Europe.

Gooch predicted this long ago.

>>Neanderthals were much stronger than modern humans.

The body type of a Neanderthal can easily

be compared to that of a modern wrestler or body builder.

They were not delicate, nor what we would consider beautiful.

But surprisingly, Neanderthals were highly emotional

and a very sensitive bunch.

There is strong evidence from their anatomy

suggesting they had a very well-developed vocal apparatus.

Powerful voices, perfect pitch, and a more sensitive inner ear

than the one of the modern human.

Steve Mithen, an archaeologist from the UK,

thinks Neanderthals were the most musically developed

human species that ever lived.

They were musically inclined, amazing singers,

and they were great performers.

"The Neanderthals were a nocturnal species,

and they worshipped the moon.

They came out at the night and performed ceremonies

for the moon goddess, especially at full moon or new moon.

Anatomical evidence for a nocturnal lifestyle

rests on the Neanderthals' very large, round eye sockets,

and very large ear apertures.

Large eyes in particular are the special hallmark

of a nocturnal creature.

The Neanderthals learned how to not fear the darkness.

And in the process, they fell in love with the night sky.

The Neanderthals worshiped the northern sky.

They considered that the still center of the heavens

was in the north.

They worshipped the northern constellations,

the constellation of the little bear and the big bear."

According to Stan Gooch, the cave bear ritual

of the Neanderthals is the oldest ritual

in the world performed by a human species.

"The Neanderthal may have been far more intelligent

than we recognize.

Neanderthal man appeared to know far more about the stars,

for example, than one would suppose.

I mean, our general picture of Neanderthal

is obviously of a shambly ape.

And Stan argued that, in fact, he knew an enormous amount

about the heavens, and also about procession

of the equinoxes, and about all kinds of other things."

Symbolic behavior was central to the Neanderthal culture.

Neanderthals made advanced stone tools, cook their meals,

and ate vegetables.

They wore jewelry and body painting,

had their own language system, and lived

in complex social groups.

They collected and preserved crystals and minerals,

and probably made figurines.

In Stan Gooch's view, Neanderthals

were culturally advanced people, highly civilized in spirit

with a deep sense of religion and practiced herbal medicine.

"The Neanderthal society was fully ruled by women.

They were the ultimate authority.

The night and moon ceremonies of Neanderthal

were presided over by priestesses."

>>We've got the sun, the positive, and the moon,

the negative, or whatever you want to call them.

It's incredible, really.

And that's why the moon and the sun

fascinate us so much, because they reflect, as it were,

literally, our own duality.

>>"The Neanderthal society was peaceful, compassionate,

and loving to one another.

Central to their life was religion and magical practices.

Neanderthals were what we would call today magicians,

also shamans, and also wizards.

Cro-Magnon's life was rooted in the concept of male ownership.

This was a society fully ruled by man.

It was a society who worshipped the sun

and lived for daylight."

>>They were about hunting and producing

weapons, things like that.

Cro-Magnon was certainly superior.

But if you're talking about knowledge of herbs,

then I would say Neanderthal was superior.

It depends on what you're talking about.

>>He was interested in things like brain structure.

He pointed out rightfully that Neanderthals on average

had larger brains than modern humans.

But these larger brains were differently arranged,

differently proportioned than our modern humans.

So for instance, a very important point of Gooch,

one that he makes over and over in his writings and books,

is that Neanderthal brains had larger cerebellums.

The brain of humans, be it Neanderthal or modern humans,

is composed of a cerebrum and a cerebellum.

The cerebellum is sometimes referred to

as the smaller brain, the lesser brain.

It's essentially, one could argue,

a separate brain housed inside and underneath, anatomically,

the rest of the brain.

Gooch points out that the cerebellum was larger

in Neanderthals.

He attributes, and I believe perhaps rightfully so,

based on clinical evidence, that the cerebellum is really

the seat of many mental abilities,

many mental processes that we to this day

have a very poor understanding of.

So for instance, dreams may originate primarily

in the cerebellum.

Certain types of artistic impulses,

religious impulses, impulses of the sacred,

certain, we could call it loosely philosophical

and cyclical impulses.

>>My view is that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon

cross-bred in central Europe some 30,000,

35,000, 40,000 years ago.

>>When Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon interbred,

Stan Gooch believes each side made a unique contribution.

At one level, this was a cultural cross-fertilization.

But at a deeper level, it was a genetic encounter.

Neanderthal contributed our religious genes,

while Cro-Magnon contributed our scientific endowment.

A project to sequence the Neanderthal genome

took off in 2006 with the participation

of the Planck Institute in Zurich, Switzerland,

and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in Boston.

In May 2010, the genome project revealed shocking results.

Interbreeding between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon

took place, resulting from 1% to 4%

of the current European and Asian populations

having Neanderthal genes.

>>"You have these two cultures meeting, very different world

views.

Essentially a duality.

The scientific on the one hand, the religious

on the other hand.

I can imagine the Cro-Magnons studying the Neanderthals,

perhaps surreptitiously at first, trying to understand,"

well, what are these weird people doing?

What is all this about?

What are these strange rituals and practices,

these ceremonies, this dancing, this singing

that they were observing?

What this is all about?

Cro-Magnons could not necessarily

understand what was going on.

They tried to figure out what was going on,

but it was very alien to them.

>>Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal did not interbreed peacefully,

in my opinion.

Basically, it was Cro-Magnon raping Neanderthal woman.

That's how we arose.

And that's why it says in the Old Testament, when

the sons of God came into the daughters of men,

these were the mighty men of old.

Their offspring were the mighty men of old.

Sons of God, Cro-Magnon, male.

Daughters of men were her, female, Neanderthal.

It was Cro-Magnon raping Neanderthal woman,

in my opinion, that produced us.

>>Our culture, our religious impulses,

many of our institutions, societal

institutions are really a combination

of both Neanderthal institutions or religious aspects, if you

want to call it that, and Cro-Magnons,

that the Cro-Magnons really adopted or inherited,

or actually took over many Neanderthal concepts,

many Neanderthal mental innovations.

For instance, maybe symbolism, religious ceremonies.

Many of what, in a most deep-seated way,

make up our culture, make up our identity as we see it today.

>>A lot of our culture and our beliefs and our disbeliefs

come from Neanderthal.

So we've incorporated much of the Neanderthal material

into our lives.

Now in particular-- I'm picking on this in particular--

I maintain that the story of Christ and the Resurrection,

all of it, is simply a distorted version of the ancient moon

religion.

Crucified on the cross.

The cross is the symbol for the moon

in all pre-Christian cultures worldwide.

He's crucified on a Friday, which is Friars Day.

She's the moon goddess.

He's resurrected on Monday, which is my Moon Day.

And he's resurrected three days later, then he dies.

Now three is important for several reasons in the moon

culture.

One, the moon has three colors, white, red, and black.

So the moon has three colors.

And what's more important than that?

Oh, yeah.

The other thing, of course, is that earth, moon, and sun

are considered to be mother, father, child.

And the earth is the child, the daughter of the sun

and the moon.

That was part of the moon religion.

So the three is important for several reasons.

Christ is said to be born of the 25th of December.

Now that's three days-- did you say

three-- three days after the shortest day when the sun is

reborn every year after the moon sacrifices him

on the shortest day.

She sacrifices him, and then resurrects him

so that life can continue.

>>Could the story of Jesus Christ

be based upon a far older story of Neanderthal rituals?

Could our most cherished religious beliefs

originate with the Neanderthals, such as the concepts

we have of immortality and resurrection?

Could the Bible be an actual historical source

that had preserved some of the Neanderthal fundamental wisdom,

preserving it for us in a veiled form?

Ralph Solecki, an archaeologist who worked at the Smithsonian

Institution, went to do an excavation in northern Iraq

in a cave called Shanidar.

What he discovered he published in a book

called "Shanidar: The First Flower People."

In the cave of Shanidar, Solecki discovered

nine Neanderthal skeletons, the most ever found in one cave.

During the excavations that took many years to uncover,

Solecki discovered something extraordinary

that changed completely the perception of Neanderthal up

to that point.

This was 1971.

What he discovered was a burial with flowers.

The Neanderthals had buried their dead

with seasonal flowers that also had medicinal purposes.

This was quite shocking to discover,

the compassion of these people and the fact

that they believe in an afterlife.

The flowers found in the Shanidar cave

are found in Bucegi.

It was a spring burial with flowers that

were white, violet, and yellow.

In his excavations, Solecki discovered other things

that changed our perception of Neanderthal.

He discovered the skeletons of handicapped and old people,

so it meant that the Neanderthal had

to take care of their sick and their old.

Isn't that such a human touch?

Solecki called the Neanderthals people

with such good characters.

We should be proud to have them as our ancestors.

This is a far cry from the view of Neanderthal

held for most of this century, that they were

a brutal subspecies of humans.

In light of recent evidence, Neanderthal

emerges shockingly close to a modern human,

a sensitive, highly intelligent creature

with a well-developed culture and a well-developed sense

of self.

Like any good scientific theory, Gooch's ideas

are subject to testing and further exploration.

Two hours walking distance from the Sphinx,

there is a cave called the Bear Cave,

because a lot of cave bear remains had been found here,

as well as Neanderthal tools and two Neanderthal hearths.

It is possible, I believe, that the Neanderthals used

this cave not only for living, but they

used it to perform rituals.

Daniel Ruzo considered that everywhere else

in the world, the legends and the sculptures

had been forgotten.

But here in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania,

the legends keep alive the memory.

A legend called the Ialomita Cave, collected by the Romanian

Queen Elizabeth, talks about an old magician, an old wizard who

was isolated here, who lived in seclusion,

and who practiced herbal medicine,

and who was very, very knowledgeable.

Another legend talks about Zalmoxis.

>>The cult of Zalmoxis.

This was recorded by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus,

but clearly goes back to much more ancient times.

I suspect it actually goes back to Neanderthal times.

>>And when he emerged, he was designated "God of Immortality

and of the Night."

>>It was clearly a cult that believed in immortality,

that there was something beyond physical death.

There was something beyond the material existence.

There was something that we might

call a soul that would continue, that would survive.

This is actually not a belief that the ancient Greeks,

for instance, had, but it seems to have been a belief

that the Neanderthals had.

>>The Bats Cave has not been properly excavated

since the 1950s when Neanderthal remains had been found here.

The evidence in the Carpathian Mountains

shows that a Neanderthal cave bear

ritual is 75,000 years old, the oldest in the world.

>>It's important, in my mind, to carry out new excavations,

not looking for just the same old, same old,

but also looking for new evidence with a new view,

with a new frame of mind.

No flowers have been found yet with

any other prehistoric burials.

We offer the suggestion here that up to this time,

no one has looked for the evidence.

>>In early August, I returned to Bucharest to welcome a very

special guest.

[music playing]

>>Yeah, we do.

>>[inaudible]

>>Yeah. [inaudible] where they were excavating before.

>>Yes, exactly.

>>[inaudible]

>>Very important, yes.

>>Even looking today, I found-- for instance, here's a tooth.

>>Oh, wow.

>>The remains of a tooth.

It looks to me like a--

>>Pretty big.

>>Pretty big.

A bear, ancient bear.

You can see the root.

You can see the crown.

It looks to me like a molar tooth.

But to just come in here, just be looking for a few minutes,

and to find it right on the surface.

>>Also, there's not only one type of ritual

that they found with cave bears.

That there were different formations,

different arrangements.

So that implies complexity of thinking.

>>Exactly.

Different rituals, maybe, for different specific things.

So there are variations on a theme.

So there's a continuity.

There's a connection.

But there's also the variations.

So it shows a real complexity.

So here you have a connection, I think,

at least anthropomorphic.

A human connection between caves on the one hand

and stone sculptures on the other hand.

I find this absolutely amazing.

Everyone looks at one side of the Sphinx

and sees a face there.

It looks like a modern face.

But if we walk around to the other side, look what we have.

This is a face.

>>We have an anthropoid looking face.

>>Exactly.

But it looks like a Neanderthal.

A Neanderthal face with a big eye socket, low forehead.

You can see the mouth and the nose here.

And notice-- and I think this is very telling, very important--

the way it's facing.

This face is looking toward the west.

And we're here in the evening.

The sun is setting.

Look how the sun is lined up.

>>Direct line to the eye.

>>Direct line to the eye.

This Neanderthal-type face is looking toward the west,

looking toward the setting sun.

Now it's been speculated that Neanderthals

were a more nocturnal species.

If that's the case, what sun would they be interested in?

The setting sun.

The sun that sets as they come out

for their nocturnal activities, their ceremonies,

their rituals.

So they would not be looking toward the east

as many modern cultures do, but toward the west.

The setting sun, which would be significant and important

to them, because essentially, that would start their day.

That would start their ceremonies.

And here we have a Neanderthal-like face

looking toward the setting sun.

Yeah, looking at this face as a geologist,

looking at the types of rock, you've

got several different layers of rock.

You've got more fine sandstones.

You've got conglomerates.

You've got rocks that are set within the rock.

That's all natural.

>>Yes, like that one.

>>Like these pink rocks and these darker blackish rocks.

And then you have what looks like a little hat on top of it,

which is a slightly different rock,

different lithology again.

So you've got a very complex interplay of different rock

types, and that's all natural.

Then you have them shaped into this face, this profile.

And that's where I start to wonder,

is that totally natural erosional features,

or is there the possibility that it

started to look like a face because

of natural erosional features?

Is it possible that maybe people came, they pecked away at it,

they modified it a little bit to look more like a face?

We know from other places that does happen.

Now when I've walked around this, looked at it closely,

it's so badly eroded that it's, I would say, virtually

impossible to tell at this point if there's

any kind of artificiality to it.

There could have been.

I can't say for certain.

But I think more importantly in a way, it doesn't matter.

Because you've got this profile, you've got this structure.

It's clearly recognizable as a face, as a human profile.

When you walk around to the other side,

you've got another clearly recognizable profile.

They're oriented in important directions,

this one toward the north, the other face that looks more

Neanderthal toward the west.

That's significant in both cases.

So whether they're natural or whether they're

artificial or some combination of both,

I can see that they were incredibly important.

They would have attracted attention in ancient times

just as they do now.

Many sacred sites around the world are natural,

and they're maybe even considered more sacred

because they are natural.

They're from nature.

They're from the gods.

>>Exactly.

So it looks like a miracle.

>>That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

>>The natural rock has a shape of a face or an animal.

>>Exactly.

>>Without any--

>>Any human touch, any artificialities.

So in some ways, one could argue that if this is fully natural,

it's even more spectacular, even more important,

because it's an indication of something that

could be considered from the gods' sacred divinity.

>>Exactly.

If this is completely natural, I'm

a lot more impressed and moved than if it was

sculpted by the hand of man.

>>So I see this as a huge head.

But really, only the upper portion of the head,

what I call the emerging head.

And if you look at it, this to me looks like a nose.

So you've got a nose starting here.

>>It's a huge nose.

>>Huge nose.

You've got an eye socket here.

And then above the eye socket, the brow ridge.

And then a low forehead.

And what's interesting is this forehead

is not like a modern forehead, but much lower.

The whole skull, the whole head is pulled back,

elongated toward the back portion.

Which, to me, says this is a Neanderthal head.

It's not a modern head, but it's a Neanderthal head

or a Neanderthal face emerging from the bedrock.

>>Exactly.

Top of face.

>>Yeah.

It's like it's being born from the bedrock.

And so not only do you have this face sort or this emerging

head, which I think is very recognizable--

>>Oh, yeah.

>>Neanderthals would have recognized it.

But you also have-- look what we're standing on.

Sort of this staging area right in front of it,

which I think could have been used

for ritual purposes, ceremonies, initiations.

It would make a perfect place.

It's like a-- I don't want to call it

an altar, but a stage where things could take place

with the backdrop of the head.

Here on this area in front of the emerging head,

where I've suggested that ceremonies, rituals may

have been taking place, look what we have.

What this is is sort of a scooped out area.

>>It's almost a round--

>>Yeah.

It's a round, sort of basin area.

If you put your hand in it, it's filled with rainwater now

and sediment.

It's actually quite deep.

>>Very.

I mean, that is deep, and I'm not really touching the end.

>>Yeah, it's quite deep.

>>It's just sediment.

>>Yeah.

It's just sediment that's collected in modern times.

But what I think we have here is really a depression or basin

area that would have been perfect

for ritualistic purposes, for different ceremonial purposes.

It may have started out as a natural depression,

but I believe it was probably enhanced by people rubbing it,

scratching it.

You see in more recent ancient sites from only a few

thousand years ago, say at temple complexes in Egypt,

in Turkey, places where people will rub the rock.

They'll scrape it, and it makes depressions.

They're trying to get the sacredness, the power

from that sacred site.

This may have been formed initially the same way, formed

this depression.

This now serves for ceremonial purposes.

>>How many people would you need--

>>Oh, many--

>>In order to create something like this.

>>Oh, a lot if you're scraping it like that.

>>Over a very long period of time.

>>Over a very long period of time.

>>Thousands and thousands--

>>Of generations, potentially, if they're doing it by hand

and rubbing it or scraping away at it.

But once you have it, you've got this depression,

this basin that could be used for any number

of ceremonial purposes.

Maybe it was filled with water and used for some kind

of cleansing ritual.

Maybe it was used for some kind of sanctified or holy water.

We still have those concepts today,

either cleansing rituals as you go

into a sacred place or holy water that

brings the power of the sacred site,

and lets you may be ingest it or sprinkle it on yourself.

Baptism.

We still use water from a basin from a depression.

Maybe it was used to collect some kind of sacrifice

for the gods.

Maybe it was filled with liquid.

Maybe some kind of drink.

Maybe it was used to collect blood if there

were sacrifices of animals.

>>We saw a little bit higher, that basin area

that may have been used for ceremonial purposes.

To me, this is very similar.

This is not exactly a basin.

Possibly it was at one point, if this has eroded back

in more recent times.

You can see there some breakage there.

But what it looks like is an area that eroded out.

You can put your hand--

>>Almost.

Because I really cannot reach in the end.

>>No, it goes way back.

>>Probably up to--

>>At least back to there.

And what it looks to me like is a place

where people may have been scraping

at it, removing material.

It's a slightly different rock here in the general matrix.

It would have attracted attention.

You see it's sort of an orange-ish, reddish color.

But like you see at other sacred sites of more recent origin,

it may have been a place where people scratched

it to try to get a little bit of powder,

a little bit of the, essentially, power,

the sacred power of this spot.

Another feature that is on the plateau that really struck me

is what we can call the bearded head or the bearded man's head.

It's a huge structure.

Very powerful, very moving in my mind.

And I suspect that whether it's natural or artificial

or some combination of both, this

is something that may have survived

from a very long time ago, geologically,

and may have moved people and been recognized

by people, specifically Neanderthals,

before the end of the last ice age.

That they would have recognized this as looking like a face,

as a bearded face, just like we do now.

It almost looks to me like what some people's image of God is.

You know, a Judeo-Christian bearded male figure.

Interesting that you find it up in the mountains.

And you approach it, and it seems to be, in my mind,

a sacred, ritualistic setting.

I'm told that the name that's been given to it is the Mechid.

It's a name that goes back.

We don't know exactly how long.

But it's called the Mechid, which loosely

translates as the church.

And this suggests right away that there's something special

about this area.

What is the Mechid?

It's this incredible limestone formation, huge formation,

incredibly symmetrical.

And it appears to me as if it were a stage or a podium,

but of enormous scale.

At a scale-- I think of giants.

It's a huge scale.

And it's symmetrically arranged.

It itself is symmetrical.

And it sits in the little valley area that forms, in my mind,

a natural amphitheater.

This, I can't help but think, would form a perfect stage

for ceremonies, for ritual practices,

for initiation, for other types of

sacred and religious practices.

In fact, maybe at night it would be even more dramatic

if there were huge bonfires on the Mechid,

if various trees like evergreen trees were thrown onto bonfires

and then sparked up like fireworks.

If there was drumming, if there were singing, music, voices.

So I think this could be a very powerful setting

for ceremonial purposes.

All of the pieces, in my mind, come together

here to suggest that this is a central location.

The river, the ancient name for the river, which effectively

originates at the Mechid, is sometimes

interpreted or translated as divine river,

or the heavenly river.

So here we have more allusions to the divine, to the sacred.

But there's still more.

On one side of the valley, the rock formations,

the rock peak is referred to as the Origin

Peak, or the beginning peak.

This suggests to me a religious connotation

of the origins of the universe, the cosmos, of people.

How did things originate?

Sort of in a Judeo-Christian sense, a genesis?

How did life itself and the universe, the cosmos originate?

On the other side of the valley, the formations

are known as the Goddesses.

Clear reference to divinity, especially

if we're talking about Neanderthals,

and they put a lot of emphasis on women and goddesses.

So we've got the Goddesses.

We've got the Origins.

We've got the Mechid.

We've got the heavenly or divine river.

And then if we keep going further north beyond the Mechid

to the highest peak, we have the Peak

of the Human Being, which suggests

to me that origins of life, the origins of humanity.

Processions would be carried on, going up

the river valley from the south up toward the Mechid.

As you ascend up the river valley toward the plateau,

you find the Mechid as a very central location.

There's nothing else like this in the vicinity.

There's nothing like this in the area.

There's nothing like this potentially in all of Europe.

So perhaps this was a focal point, a gathering place

for ancient Neanderthal people from a very

broad geographic region.

I could see this very much as a gathering

place for sacred rituals, for ceremonies.

And in fact, as I've looked at the maps,

as I've looked at the geology and the topography,

the geography of this region, you

don't have anything like this anywhere else.

You don't have a place that's at high altitude

where from below, it looks like huge mountain peaks.

In fact, we're in the Carpathian Mountains.

But then when you get up to the top, it's like a fortress,

and it opens up into this plateau.

>>And in the middle of the fortress, there is--

>>Structures like this.

>>This natural or artificial feature.

>>Here it is.

So this would be a gathering point.

I see it very much as a gathering

point, a ceremonial point.

And I wonder as I think about how widespread the populations

were that would gather here periodically, because there's

no other area that's as well-suited as this

for, I believe, hundreds of kilometers.

So if we're talking about Neanderthal culture

and consistent rituals over a large geographic area,

consistent beliefs, shared beliefs,

shared religious ceremonies, periodically, they

would gather all together to exchange stories,

to participate in ceremonies that would bond

different communities together.

I think this is the perfect spot for that.

We know that there's a strong Neanderthal presence here.

We have a number of caves, caves that occur along the river

valley as you ascend up toward the Mechid

and up toward the plateau.

These caves to this day preserve evidence

of Neanderthal presence, evidence

of Neanderthal rituals.

>>The anthropoid face of the Sphinx looks towards the west

to the Old Lady Mountain.

Inside that mountain, there is a cave considered

sacred for a very long time.

Robert and I, we go to investigate.

And this is the bear hole.

>>Oh, OK?

[yell]

>>Very echo-y.

The perfect place for some type of musical ceremony.

>>Yeah.

I mean, maybe there were ritual feasts in a chamber like this.

>>What's the behavior of-- what was the behavioral of ice age

bears?

>>Right.

And also--

>>Would it be natural for-- would so many of them

come here to die?

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

And they just all decided to come here

when they were about to die.

>>It's also possible that perhaps they

were used in rituals.

>>That's what I'm thinking.

They'd be using tame bears.

>>Yes.

And if this place was used for performance,

it would make a lot of sense that they

would have the dancing bears.

[water rushing]

Beautiful.

>>Really incredible space.

It's an amazing experience.

>>I don't know.

For me, it creates an experience that

is really extraordinary, very moving.

But it's hard to find the right words.

>>Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not easily put in language.

See, I'm wondering how they're physically following

the river at this point.

>>Because the best would be 20 meters down.

>>Right.

>>And the river is--

>>And the river's going through that pass.

>>Yeah.

And here it would be almost the same - almost narrower.

>>Right.

See, what I'm saying, where would they

be walking unless they're walking right in the river?

>>That's what I would think, that they

would be walking in the river.

>>People could have been coming from many even hundreds

of kilometers or more away, gathering at a certain time.

Maybe this was something that happened every few years.

Maybe it was even major ceremonies that

occurred once in a generation.

And it was a pilgrimage.

And we can very much imagine-- and I

think it's more than just imagination.

We can reconstruct, start to reconstruct

how such a pilgrimages occurred, and what practices would have

been carried out along the way.

Maybe initiations were carried out along the passage,

getting up to the plateau.

>>We are really the combination, in many ways,

of both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.

And one question is, can we successfully

integrate these two aspects?

Arguably, Neanderthals were much closer to nature.

They understood how they fitted into nature much better

than Cro-Magnons.

>>The overall experience of one going into this cave

would be it's sort of similar for a Neanderthal.

>>Oh, I think it would be very similar.

What an incredible experience here.

>>Especially if they had better night vision.

>>I was going to say, if they had better night vision.

And also, what were they using for illumination?

Even with really good vision, they

had to have some kind of illumination.

What are the acoustics in here?

Oh, well--

[yelling]

[clapping]

[yell]

>>That's pretty good.

>>This place could be used for some sort of musical rituals.

>>Yeah.

>>Worked well.

You got good acoustics, potentially.

You've got sort of a natural chimney.

You've got water that you could channel through.

You probably keep a fairly-- you know,

temperature-wise, fairly close tolerances year-round,

naturally.

>>Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

>>A perfect place to live.

>>It creates very interesting shapes all of a sudden.

Things start to emerge.

>>Yeah.

Yeah, isn't that amazing?

Just one candle.

>> For me-- I don't know for you--

everything is a lot more organic and alive.

>>Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

Because I think the harsh headlamps and flashlights,

they sort of flatten everything.

You don't see the texture to it.

It washes things out.

>>And imagine now a ceremony here and a musical performance.

>>Oh, yeah.

With things like pine trees and whatnot.

If you brought in the pine branches,

you know how if you light them, they just all of a sudden,

for a short period of time, you have-- it's like fireworks.

>>Exactly.

>>And I could see them doing things

like that for dramatic effect and at certain times.

You know, during a ceremony.

I bet a lot of the hearths and a lot of the fire

remains that are found had nothing to do with warmth.

It was probably ritualistic.

I mean, they were used to the climate.

>>Exactly.

And they would have fur.

>>And they would have fur and whatnot.

And in fact, if anything, I could say during these rituals,

they might have been overheated because they're not-- you know,

fires get really hot like that.

And if you're used to the natural climate, and relatively

cold conditions, and that's what is normal for you,

you wouldn't want to be building these huge fires

just to get really hot, then to go back out

and get really cold.

You

>>Build a huge fire, and then also wear the fur,

and you would be boiling up.

That's the traditional image you see everywhere of Neanderthals.

>>Huddling around the fire.

>>All around the fire, wearing furs.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

That's probably not the case at all.

Christmas traditions, which of course are way pre-Christian,

bringing in a tree, bringing in-- what

do you call it-- wreaths and vines.

>>Yes.

>>And does that go back 100,000 years or more?

>>This was covered with snow and ice.

The caves that we are going to see in a bit

were probably covered by glaciers.

>>Or on the edge of a glacier somehow.

This is the Bear Cave.

Reminds me of a pyramid in the sense of the height.

Oh, you know, I bet the floor may have been lower back then.

>>Exactly.

With all these deposits.

>>Yeah, deposits inside here.

Oh, yeah.

I can see, it's-- getting more and more beautiful.

Oh, wow.

It's like a cathedral.

You don't get-- at least I don't get this feel from a quote,

"real church," unquote.

Modern church.

>>So it makes so much sense that this

would be, like you said before, a ritual cave.

>>I'm thinking if they were bringing

crystals in or special stones, things probably

take them out again.

>>Yeah.

>>Use them.

Or I'm even thinking if they were

using some kind of crystals or whatnot,

they might bring them in, sort of sanctify

them, if I could put it that way.

And then they'd want to take them with them.

So it's not like we expect-- it's not

like we would expect them to leave their valuables just

laying about for us to find later.

Yeah.

>>Stunning.

>>Those are really stunning.

Yeah.

>>What a beautiful environment.

>>Yeah.

Oh, this is really interesting how it works.

>>A few candles and a few crystals,

and suddenly, you have an extraordinary, unexpected

experience away from modern life and time.

What do think about this setting with all the--

with about 15 candles?

>>Yeah, it's beautiful.

This is the first church or sanctuary or cathedral.

Whatever you want to call it.

>>Very much, yeah.

It has the feel of a cathedral.

>>Yeah.

I mean, I think the modern, artificial churches

and cathedrals, they're trying to imitate this.

Not vice versa.

>>Yes.

It makes me really feel religion, but not--

>>Well, spirituality.

>>In a very deep and personal sense.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not like an organized religion, but a real deep feeling

of sanctity and spirituality, I would say.

>>You go into a cathedral in many cases, one that's

not illuminated by modern lighting,

but it's illuminated the more traditional way

with very subdued lighting, essentially, in my mind,

you're going to an artificial cave.

I think that many of the churches and cathedrals we

see now from medieval or Renaissance

times, for instance, are actually

a legacy, a legacy of the cave, the cave being

used as a ritualistic site.

Some of these legacies may go back tens of thousands

of years.

I suspect, for a Neanderthal culture,

for Neanderthal civilization, maybe the single most important

thing, the most central point was their religion, what

we would now call religion.

I'm not sure they would have used that term, because it

may have been so all-encompassing for them

that it was well beyond what we think of religion now

in a modern, Western sense.

But the religiosity, the mental world that they developed.

And we'll call it a religious/magical sense.

And they may have been incredibly sophisticated,

incredibly developed.

I think possibly well beyond where we are today.

The Cro-Magnons, I would speculate,

tried to put it into simplistic terms.

Well, what's going on with these other people,

these Neanderthals?

Who are they?

We can't really understand what's going on,

so they try to categorize it in simple terms.

Well, sometimes it's black, sometimes it's white,

sometimes they're doing good things,

sometimes they're doing bad things.

And our modern concept of things like a good god, a bad devil,

angels versus Satan may have come

from a simplistic Cro-Magnon understanding

of much more subtle, much more nuanced Neanderthal rituals

and religion.

I suspect for Neanderthals, it wasn't a simple category

of good on one side and bad on the other side,

or what we would call God and devil.

It may have been much more nuanced.

It may have seemed you need both aspects.

I even think of ancient religions in a classical sense.

For instance, ancient Egyptians.

They did not make this same distinction

between good and bad as modern society often does.

They realized that for the working

of the cosmos, the universe, in a general sense as they saw it,

there had to be both good and bad.

You had to have both sides, or what

we would call good and bad.

They were just two ends of a continuous spectrum.

And I suspect that Neanderthals saw a lot of gray area also.

>>I would say, well, we've got to accept that we are,

you know, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon in one.

It's not easy to do.

>>What we really have to do is to take our dual aspects,

the Cro-Magnon aspects and Neanderthal aspects,

combine them so that either overpowers the other,

hit a balance between them.

And if we can do that successfully,

we may, in fact, create something

that rises above either.

>>It could have been some sort of ritual or pilgrimage

that would come here.

>>Right.

Right.

>>Sort of a returning.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

>>Returning to the beginning.

>>Yeah.

Maybe certain times of year.

Or there may even be times that even bigger groups got together

on a more lengthy cycle.

>>Cyclic.

>>Yeah.

Cyclical maybe.

You know, based on a lunar cycle of the-- what is it?

The 19-year return, or something like that,

which was essentially be a generational thing.

And you might have a huge sort of congregation of--

>>Hundreds or--

>>If not more.

>>Possibly thousands of people.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which would have been-- and you can visualize.

It would have been really amazing.

>>It's something that makes it very intimate and personal.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

>>At the same time, it's also very public and communal,

but it's also very private.

>>Yeah.

But it's reminding me of being in the caves.

So you get in almost that intimacy here,

but then you can go out and it's sort of ties them together.

>>It's almost as though-- yeah, like I said, the shock.

They were bringing out whatever.

>>Exactly.

>>And you're exposing it.

>>Exactly.

And that's what's happening here.

>>To the people in the community.

and to the nature.

>>Exactly.

It really does look like that.

And because our civilization, it's based on such triviality.

>>It seems today we are missing something vital

to our human well-being.

We are missing that deep connection with nature

the Neanderthals had so well developed.

How would rediscovering Neanderthal values

impact our civilization today?

What will this new awareness bring to our lives?

They lived around the mountains and carved into them.

They appreciated the natural beauty

and had high mental abilities.

Ruzo called them the guardians of an ancient wisdom.

It was a magical work, done by a culture whose science

and understanding of the world was different from the present.

>>I think modern society or people in modern society

are afraid to deal with a lot of things.

I think they're almost a terrible stereotype

or generalization, but they're afraid to deal with anything

that's really meaningful.

It's not a given that a culture has to be materialistic.

>>Archaeologist Ralph Solecki ended his book

"Shanidar: The First Flower People"

saying, "in the face of the growing evidence,

we will be forced to accept Neanderthal

as our real human ancestor."

>>And so you have this dichotomy between religion and intuition

with Neanderthals, reason and logic with Cro-Magnons.

And Stan Gooch says that it was sort of monumental

when the two met.

Also, you had two different world views coming together.

Neither really understood the other.

So Neanderthals didn't really understand

these new Cro-Magnons that were invading their territory.

The Cro-Magnons didn't really understand

what the Neanderthals were doing with all these weird rituals

and ceremonies and dancing and singing.

That was foreign to them.

They tried to figure it out, what they called magic.

>>Exactly.

And they probably-- I mean, how would you see these rituals?

They would have to spy probably at night.

>>Night.

Yeah.

Try to figure out what's going on.

>>From a distance.

>>It must have been very mysterious, very

scary to the Cro-Magnons to see these people doing

all these things.

You know, when you don't understand something,

you fear it in many cases.

Much of our culture--

>>And our beliefs--

>>--and our beliefs--

>>Our religious practices--

>>--that's inheritance from Neanderthals.

So we, in a cultural sense, carry

on many Neanderthal traditions.

>>Erik Trinkaus, a leading Neanderthal expert,

is convinced that a cult of immortality

was invented by the Neanderthals.

He thinks the Neanderthals were the first ones to practice

burials, and that Homo Sapien, Cro-Magnon, learned how to bury

the dead from the Neanderthals.

He observed how they buried and how they did their practices,

and so he copied them.

Daniel Ruzo had said that the Carpathian Mountains were

at the center of the oldest European civilization known

today.

The first age was the age of truth and knowledge.

The people lived around the sacred mountains

of pyramidal summits, and carved into them

for us and for the future generations,

signaling the caves.

"The cave represents the other world, but also

the entire universe.

It is a place that constitutes a world--

>>--in itself.

The ritual cave sometimes imitates the night sky.

In other words, it is an mago mandi, a universe in miniature.

Living in a cave does not necessarily

imply going down among the shades.

It can as well imply living in a different world, a world that

is vaster and more complex because it incorporates

various modes of existence, and hence is full of riches

and countless virtualities."

>>"Here in the mountains of Romania lies the blood of men,

the subterraneous tunnels where humanity saved itself

during the flood.

These are the caverns of the treasure referred

to in so many world legends."

>>The Egyptian Sphinx is part of a larger complex,

just like the Carpathian Sphinx is part of a larger complex.

So in both cases, I believe we're

talking sacred ceremonial sites that held incredible importance

to their respective people, to their respective populations.

>>"It is in these sacred mountains

where people found their salvation after the flood,

and where they will be saved when

the next catastrophe occurs.

It is vital today to find these sacred mountains

and sacred caves."

>>They and other ancient-- you know,

certain other ancient peoples, but we'll focus on Neanderthals

for now-- were much more sophisticated in ways

that we don't even have a good language to describe.

I mean, you have traditions around the world.

The golden age, which I think is not

referred to a materialist golden age.

Our civilization has progressed one way, materialistically.

And that type of sophistication, we've plummeted.

To judge a culture like the Neanderthals

by the scanty remains, physical remains, it's sort of insane.

In fact, Neanderthals, with their traditions,

with their concepts, they were the pioneers.

Looking at the universe with its cosmic rhythms, untold beauty,

and great dangers, they understood themselves

as part of something bigger than they themselves were.

They knew their place in the order of things.

We need to recover that sense of the world.

>>In waking up to the new paradigm,

we recover something long lost, something

very old in ourselves.

"When you climb a mountain, you go with humility and devotion,

as in a cathedral, where you enter not to conquer a creed,

but to rediscover yourself, to rediscover something

inside yourself, hidden for so long,

that awaits to be awakened.

>>When you climb a mountain, you go with humility and devotion

as in a cathedral, where you enter not to conquer a creed,

but to rediscover yourself, to rediscover something

inside yourself, hidden for so long that

awaits to be awakened."

>>Here's a setting where effectively

in the mythology and the religious beliefs,

humans may have originated.

And maybe this was the most important,

the most sacred, the most central location

for Neanderthal populations as a whole.

It's as if you're approaching an incredible cathedral,

and incredibly holy spot.

And as you approach it, you come to various points

where you prepare yourself for the ultimate adventure,

the ultimate religious experience at the highest

peaks.

So this entire complex, which in many ways

is symbolized by the Carpathian Sphinx,

is a huge, religious, ceremonial, ritualistic complex

that must have been incredibly important

to the Neanderthal people for generations and generations,

probably thousands and thousands of generations

over tens of thousands of years.

Really important to me to be able to come

here and experience firsthand the caves,

to experience firsthand the plateau,

to experience firsthand the Carpathian Sphinx.

To me, in fact, in some ways, we can

think of the Carpathian Sphinx as being

a symbol for a lost world.

Literally a lost people, a lost culture.

The mountain is a lost cathedral,

and the Carpathian Sphinx is the lost altar.

[singing]

[music playing]