Table of Contents
Origins Explained is a cave roundup, and the opening claim matches the title. In 2000, the channel says, a marine engineer and her husband were scanning Cuban waters for a project tied to Fidel Castro’s government when sonar showed geometric masses rather than wrecks. A later pass with a museum geologist and a camera robot pictured stacked blocks, gateways, and house-like forms. The channel says the survey pair disliked that name and preferred an ancestral city, while some commentary pushed the date tens of thousands of years before the Egyptian state and guessed at a sudden drowning. Depth, missing follow-up dives, and rumors of official quiet are left hanging. The video then leaves the Caribbean for an Illinois pirate cave, an Australian stick rite, Sulawesi paintings called the oldest storytelling pictures, glowworm limestone in New Zealand, tunnels under London, a Sicilian quarry abandoned as Carthage advanced, a bone-filled sea cave, Buddhist temples on the Silk Road, and a coda on thumbs. These are the channel’s reports, not one excavation.
Key points
- The channel’s first story is a 2000 Cuban sonar hit that newspapers branded Atlantis.
- It says the surveyors preferred an ancestral city, while others suggested a very great age and a sudden flood.
- It stresses depth, a lack of later dives, and speculation that officials went silent.
- Later chapters retell an Illinois pirate cave and an Australian rite meant to harm a victim.
- Sulawesi pictures of hunters and a pig are presented as the oldest known narrative art.
- The remaining tour mixes London depths, a Sicilian quarry, a bone-filled sea cave, Silk Road cave temples, and thumbs.
Short quotes
Paul and Pauline found large stone structures
Origins Explained, Origins Explained cave stories
The Cuba segment says the survey pair came upon big built forms on the seabed. Watch at 1:38
Quarry had been operational for 150 years
Origins Explained, Origins Explained cave stories
Before the Carthage attack, he says, that Greek stone pit had already run for a century and a half. Watch at 23:44
Gansu Province along the former Silk Road trade route is a series of 500 handcarved caves
Origins Explained, Origins Explained cave stories
The China stretch places five hundred carved cave temples on the old Silk Road in Gansu. Watch at 38:43
Video by Origins Explained. Watch on YouTube.