How Was This Mysterious Ancient City Built So High Up? | Voyage To the American Stonehenge

Embark on a riveting journey to Lake Titicaca in the Bolivian Highlands, where ancient mysteries unfold amidst the remnants of Tiwanaku, often dubbed the "American Stonehenge." Join a team of archaeologists and adventurers as they challenge age-old theories using experimental archaeology. Using only ancient techniques and local materials, they reconstruct traditional reed boats to transport massive stone monoliths across the lake's daunting waters. Battling altitude, harsh conditions, and logistical challenges, they seek to prove the ingenuity of ancient civilizations while honoring indigenous knowledge. This documentary captures the spirit of exploration, cultural reverence, and the enduring quest for understanding our ancient past.

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[stephanieyee]

This was a fantastic video and a fantastic project. It was so good to see so many normal local people pitching in to help with launching the boat. This is how it would have been done in prehistory. The entire community would be involved in some way to build, and maintain, cities, walls, boundary ditches etc.
That boat was Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

[leonama]

What a beautiful and culturally sensitive narration of the heritage of this country. Thank you. I hope your work gets well recognized for its quality and cultural awareness.❤

[johnoryjr]

What amazing cultural, human nature, and cooperation amongst thy fellow citizens and their borders. The respect of one another, thy gods, nature, spirits/ancestors, was my favorite part of this highly respected video production. You achieved success by everyone's cooperation, everyone's best wishes for their neighbors and the foreigners that came unto them asking for permission to demonstrate their insights into old traditions. The wealth of knowledge learned now is getting an amazing plaza built to honor the achievement. Future generations will have more to experience through this one goal! Man, I suspect many of us would have volunteers to help, but the best volunteers were the local, indigenous people. I was moved to tears seeing the mixed population of men, women to children advancing towards the boat to help offload the stone. Their laughter when they collectively fell, one of my favorite moments! Well done. Glad you survived and realized that portion of your goal. What an amazing boat building experience too! Bravo to everyone's help. De amigos: gracias, gracias 🙏 💕 💖!!

[austinwald]

I remember learning about Lake Titicaca in 7th grade and the whole class cracking up and the teacher telling us to get it out of our system and start acting like adults lol.

[mats]

I love when people try to reconstruct ancient methods of building. If you want to know how it was build, you should try for yourself 😉

[teejaynumber]

Humans a few thousand years ago: *Learn how to chisel and stack rocks.
Researchers: "We can't figure out how they did it..."

[V.Hansen.]

You telling me they didn’t even ask the locals before coming up with their theories and trying to figure it out?

[jeffboerger]

I would imagine the simplest solution would be to wait for the lake to freeze. Then once the ice is thick enough drag the stones across the lake. Building boats is an extra step that requires significant materials and labour. The seasons with freezing temperatures often have the most available workers in agricultural cultures.

[A_Bone]

as interesting as this successful project turned out to be, i found the statement of being an archeologist & not a sailor to be extremely ironic. for an archeological project to prove how ancient indigenous people could have accomplished something by primitive means, not being a sailor, i would add, nor engineer, nor stone mason, nor local shaman, nor indigenous to the region...kind of sums up the disparity that exists in academic archeology, leaving questions unanswered & room for challenging thoughts.
just sayin'
✌️🐝➕

[AJDraws]

I wasn't expecting that Lake Tittiekaka. Burst out laughing and now my family are staring at me like I'm special.

[puffinjuice]

Super impressive! I'm surprised there werent any injuries though. There were so many moments where things could have ended in injury or death. Im glad nobody got hurt.

[SteveWarlee]

Sometimes using two smaller boats and those poles to lash together like a catamaran would work better

[terryhayward]

It is not impossible, but that is not the way it was done. I guess that you think the huge stone walls with perfectly cut blocks were made with bronze tools as well?
Strangely I have never seen a 12 ft circular saw made of bronze and powered by a man that could cut through hard stone.

[bobgillis]

Some of them were made of polymers, according to a German study that dated the organic components of the stones.

[Mrbfgray]

Ancients would be: "Why are you doing it like that? We used A-frames, block and tackle, it took 1/10th the number of ppl and 100X easier."

[UATU.]

The best thing I can say about this video is that at least Graham Hancock wasn’t in it.

[TheDanAge]

absorbing water makes it more buoyant? ... uhhh someone needs to go back to school... which is more buoyant an empty jug or a jug full of water?....

[danayneal]

Where were the young folks? I saw many fathers but very few sons pulling that stone off the boat. 😢

[whoeveriamiam]

if moving those massive stones was easy we wouldn't be building houses out of small bricks nowadays

[sethkaye]

What a waste of energy and time, all completely futile and obfuscational. This isn't archaeology it's disney grade slop.