25,000-Year-Old Advanced Ice Age Site of Mal'ta | Ancient Architects

Siberia is a huge but often overlooked landmass when discussing the human story, and although intensive excavations have taken place in the past century, it is still quite a poorly understood region in the prehistoric era.
It’s estimated that the earliest human occupation was some time around 40,000 years ago, with small groups of big-game hunters migrating into this region from the west, living in harsh climatic conditions and long, dry winters.
By around 20,000 years ago, two principal cultural traditions had emerged, the Afontova Gora, which comprises a number of archaeological sites on the banks of the Yenisei River, and the Mal’ta-Buret, situated on the upper Angara River in the area west of Lake Baikal in the Irkutsk Oblast.
The Mal’ta-Buret Culture is named after the two principle archaeological sites, Mal’ta and Buret and they do, without doubt, bring forth some of the most breathtaking finds ever recovered from the Ice Age world.
In this video I take a look at the Mal'ta Palaeolithic Site, the best understood and show some of the incredible, unique and relatively advanced discoveries from this long forgotten Ice Age culture.
I also follow on from my previous video and take a short look at Palaeolithic migrations of hunter-gatherers and how Siberia may well be the key to understanding not just the development of European and Middle Eastern civilisations, but also the Americas.
All images are taken form Google Images and the below sources for educational purposes only. Please subscribe to Ancient Architects, Like the video and please leave a comment below.
Sources:
The Siberian Paleolithic site of Mal'ta: a unique source for the study of childhood archaeology, Liudmila Lbova, 28 January 2021, Cambridge University Press
The Formation of the Aurignacian in Europe, Janusz K. Kozlowski and Marcel Otte, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Winter, 2000), pp. 513-534
Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans, Maanasa Raghavan et al, Nature. 2014 Jan 2; 505(7481), pp. 87-91.
donsmaps.com/m...
www.historyfil...
The Pleistocene Art of Asia, Bednarik, Robert G, 1994, Journal of World Prehistory. 8 (4), pp. 351-75
Northeast Asia in Prehistory, Chard, Chester S, (1974), Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Siberian Paleolithic Archaeology: Approaches and Analytic Methods, Dolitsky, A.B. and Ackerman. R.E. et al, (1985), Current Anthropology. 26 (3), pp. 361-78.
Delporte H., 1979: L'image de la femme dans l'art préhistorique, Paris, Picard.
Bednarik R., 2010: An overview of Asian palaeoart of the Pleistocene, IFRAO Congress, September 2010 - Symposium: Pleistocene art of Asia (Pre-Acts)
#AncientArchitects #Palaeolithic #MaltaBuret

[@AncientArchitects]

I first released this video in 2022 but I needed to make a few adjustments/updates to the content, so here it is re-released! Thanks for watching everyone.

[@orchidorio]

I am very excited about this new knowledge!!! Thank you for providing it!!

[@FacesintheStone]

It’s very weird that the art style with the light carvings that we study are not on these artifacts shown. My artifacts have mammoths on them, they have to be around the same time.

[@ajkaajka2512]

@EuroWarsOrg maybe mixed genes with neanderthal gave us this tolerance? just guessing.

[@ajkaajka2512]

@EuroWarsOrg Interesting. I didn't know that. thanks.

[@ajkaajka2512]

@EuroWarsOrg Could it be some link with Vikings?

[@koustav318]

I lost this channel 1 year a go I found it today very happy

[@AncientArchitects]

Brilliant - thanks

[@browsebig]

He's awesome

[@Sevenigma777]

Well I hope this time you subbed so you don't "lose" the channel

[@leskirby8478]

Yes very interesting

[@robstewart1703]

You have some catching up to do 😅

[@barrywalser2384]

Fascinating information, as always. The artwork found at Mal’ta was stunning. Thanks for sharing with us Matt!

[@kariannecrysler640]

I enjoyed the updated version of this very much. Thanks for all the hard work putting these together for us all.✌️💗🤘

[@AncientArchitects]

Thanks for watching

[@mirandamom1346]

Ok, I have to admit that I was expecting a video on archaeological sites of Malta. 😬

[@AncientArchitects]

Oh sorry!

[@lewisjones85]

Same here, thinking that’s not where Malta is lol😅

[@finflwr]

Same 😂

[@jenswurm]

Same here... And watching it from Malta right now 😜

[@JM-nm3bg]

I decided to watch because even in the ice age, people living on Malta would NOT have needed full seal fur outfits like shown on the preview.

[@floydriebe4755]

hi, Matt! re-released with some changes....always good....the history of humans changes with every new discovery....thanks to you and a few colleagues, we are kept up to date👍🤩 thank you!

[@robertevans8126]

Sharing ... I was there 10 years ago, and found MALTA a great place to visit :)

[@AncientArchitects]

👍

[@rhondasisco-cleveland2665]

I’ve been waiting for discoveries of ice age settlements. There’s probably so much underwater. They would have sought out lowlands,(mountains are colder) and the ice lowered water levels, so most sites would obviously be underwater now.

[@mpetersen6]

During the Ice Age you would have been better off camping on top of a hill as long as you are out of the wind than down in a valley. But yes living near the shore of the world ocean would have been best. Plus remember there were still warm places on Earth. Tropical species did not go extinct after all.

[@monakw]

Thanks mate!

[@AncientArchitects]

Cheers

[@onenewworldmonkey]

Not knowing this site or much about this area of the world made me watch like a child watching a Christmas movie. I was glued. Thank you. It makes me wonder about the topography and the routes of caribou migrations and how or if they correlate to the human ranges you showed with the arrows.

[@free_gold4467]

I learn so much from your channel, fantastic quality content, thank you.

[@graemerigg4029]

As someone who collects modern figurines it's amazing to find we have been doing it for over 25000 years.

[@StephiSensei26]

Super Matt! Great information. Thank you so much.

[@dalekiernan5386]

Once again you have done a great job in explaining something that is incredibly hard to explain and is ongoing research. Thanx!

[@alpha_echo_diDi]

Nice and informative video, nice work Matt 👍🏻

[@sahastintitli532]

Quite the same artwork on ivory as the "dame de Brassempouy" from France known as the oldest face representation dated 25000 years ago !!!!! The Lady of Brassempouy, also called Lady with the Hood, is an ivory figurine representing a human head, dating from the Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian, 29 to 22,000 years AD). Discovered in 1894 in France, in the Landes commune of Brassempouy by the prehistorian Édouard Piette, this iconic representation of prehistory constitutes one of the oldest realistic representations of a human face, and undoubtedly even the oldest known .

[@AncientPuzzles]

The Malta boy (MA-1 sample) is one of the best Ancient North Eurasian references, genetically intermediate between modern West Eurasians and Native Americans👍🏻

[@JonDoe-mz4dx]

That sample is a genetic ancestor to all Europeans and Native Americans.

[@JonDoe-mz4dx]

The later Lake Baikal sample is the descendant of the union of the Malta Boy sample and the pre historic genetic ancestors of East Asia.

[@JonDoe-mz4dx]

The Lake Baikal sample showed 40% DNA inherited from Malta boy. And 60% from various Asian related groups.

[@JonDoe-mz4dx]

The Lake Baikal sample is also ancestor to all Native Americans.

[@JonDoe-mz4dx]

See the timeline there?

[@robertneff7267]

Fascinating update, thank you!

[@tarkajedi3331]

I FOUND THIS ENLIGHTENING. YOUR WORK AS ALWAYS IS OUTSTANDING...........

[@leecatherall3934]

Yet another great video, big thanks as always x x x

[@davidharrison8975]

Awesome!

[@AncientArchitects]

👍

[@debbralehrman5957]

Thanks for video always enjoy the information you bring. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🌺

[@visi7013]

Nice One as Usual/Always! Cheers

[@YrjoPuska777]

Was the stone technology of those people, similar to what we found in Göpekli Tepe, bit later after the ice started melting, causing floods and potentially made people run towards middle east. If yes, perhaps some guy named Noah lived up there ;)

[@OkieSketcher1949]

Interesting. I enjoyed listening and learning a few things. Thanks.

[@user-ri1ti6go7s]

Very interest info and ideas I haven't seen elsewhere but I am very interested in the back migrations and mixing that. Humans have done over ancient history and how interconnected we are.... Much more than we realise. It's great. This area of siberia will I am sure reveal much fascinating history about human kind thank you for this site

[@revolvermaster4939]

Excellent presentation AS USUAL!

[@fvertscreeningAAron]

geez iv missed watching ur clips. i thought u must have stopped posting cause u havent been in my neewsfeed thingee?? so happy i can binge watch everything iv missed.

[@bosse641]

Wow.

[@AncientArchitects]

Enjoy

[@marcycami]

I really like yours vids , but I have to criticise you the choosing of 5he migration map , it just not the rig h t one, if we take in consideration of the low lands such as doggerland and others. Witch increases greatly the possibility and route paths of them. Thank u for ur works😊

[@FacesintheStone]

This is my kind of video! Fantastic as always 🗿👁️🌀

[@user-wm4oe4kk7t]

Thanks a lot for sharing!

[@Ruthdawg420]

Another great video🎉

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

I love your videos, they are always so fascinating and extremely informative, many thanks

[@maxdaly8185]

I suspect these wooden figures are actually decorative spools or spindles for making clothes, something like that. Great video.

[@amytayloramytaylor]

I agree. They look like spools or pegs because of the minimal arms and legs and the fact that they don’t look like they would stand up on a surface like most little figurines or statues.

[@maxdaly8185]

Maybe the female figurines like the Venus of Willendorf were spools given as gifts to expectant mothers, and they would then use them to sew their children’s clothing as they grew? It would explain the knob like heads and pointed legs… prob were made for twirling @@amytayloramytaylor

[@HonestBottom]

Fascinating, thank you!

[@keithstevens5614]

Very informative video. I also wanted to find out more about the Gravettian village discovered in the Czech republic dated at 25,000 years old and featuring similar stone bases for dwellings as the ones found in Malta.

[@TheDemonation13]

great job on this presintation

[@oscargranda5385]

Excelent......as allways!!!thanck you😊😊😊😊

[@leejones5810]

6.49 they think they wore shorts or nothing covering their legs...... In the ice age 😂😂😂

[@palladen1933]

Great job, that's a lot of work 😮

[@dropnoelfield295]

Thanks mate👍👍

[@leejones5810]

The snake design look exactly like the ones from Turkey and Gobekli Tepe

[@AncientArchitects]

That's ok! I know what you mean!

[@leejones5810]

@@AncientArchitects Cheers, love your channel and the work you do educating the masses 👍🍻

[@ivokolarik8290]

Awesome video

[@deanharris7149]

Great video

[@salilsahani2721]

Thank you :)

[@adamofgrayskull7735]

Brilliant stuff ,another piece of the puzzle.🤘😆🤘

[@peteram9527]

GeoNomad has some good videos tracing human migration through DNA which are well worth watching.

[@DelusionalDoug]

Excellent information. It is interesting how waves of migration from Siberia to Europe came from prehistoric to ancient times took place. The Sythians, Cossacks, Huns, and Mongols to name a few. Now, however, Siberia’s population is quite small compared to the rest of the world.

[@samperry8386]

I wonder if these guys ever tamed a mammoth and used them for dragging stuff and riding on. Nice video.

[@rogerscottcathey]

Gobi is interesting too.

[@AncientArchitects]

I'll look into it for a video

[@onixotto]

My brain just flew over all that. I'll try in 10 years.

[@jameskeefe1761]

It is thought that the Male Haplogroup R was present at Mal'ta before it was common in Europe. It may have spread from Mal'ta to Southern Russian Steppe where it was common among Proto-Indo-Europeans, who spread it further into Western Europe. There are very few or no R samples from before 4000 BC in Europe. Before 4000 BC European populations were dominated by I and G, I being common among Western Hunter Gatherer, G among Neolithic Farmers. So the Mal ta R genes ended up in Europe due to the massive Indo-European expansion that also made Indo-European language family dominate. Today generally European population, this is a rough oversimplification, are based on 3 ancestral populations, the original population of Western Hunter Gatherer, the Neolithic Farmer population, and the Siberian population. The Neolithic farmers from about 10,000 BC developed agriculture and expanded perhaps from Turkey. The WHG and Neolithic Farmers may not have interactive much, WHG farmers being more mobile and elusive and with a low population density may have avoided the neolithic farmers. Neolithic farmers may have had a hard time avoiding the Indo-Europeans due to higher population density and being more tied down to specific locations may have made them a sitting duck. Indo-Europeans may have originally domesticated the horse which allowed them to conquer a large area from the Russian Steppe.

[@J0hnnybee]

Good video

[@YunaOnHome]

It’s a fascinating area that sadly doesn’t get much credit. The parts that confused me are how it’s environment reacted to the ice age much differently and later than Europe and north America. However when it did it was much more sudden and it’s mighty central rivers and other topography isolated and doom migrating animals and it’s dependents like ourselves.

[@tinatieden8499]

wouldnt it be fascinating to see them thru a looking glass IRL. how amazing the world must have looked wayyyy back then. wow just imagine.

[@susannebrunberg4174]

Pretty interesting indeed

[@bryan-nz]

I'm grateful to live in this age, and not 25K years ago.. but if I did live back then, I probably would've been the guy that carved lots of duck idols or something. Modern historians would be confused as to the meaning of all these duck carvings found in Siberia. I was just bored, man!

[@MrCharliejaera]

Hahaha👌

[@Chill_Mode_JD]

Must pay homage to our duck overlords

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

Perhaps good eating in the summer months when the mammoths had migrated elsewhere?

[@Meursault_1111]

He could do an amazing, and hysterical version of “The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger”!!

[@phoneguy4637]

I find it almost scandalous how the sibirian stoneage culture is neglected by modern science. look at those artworks!

[@dougg1075]

Bet they were tough as nails

[@inthefade]

What is that on the right side at 2:40 😮😶🤯

[@patriciaoudart1508]

👍🧡💚🙏Thanks. If statues are representation of children to teens, the lines or dots are the birth calendar, writing years. This site is very interesting by the expression from the statues, seem's they represent one person in particular, not a generic one. Feminine statues were a fecondity symbolism and tool , so important for the tribe. Not sure they were in a so cold region at the time. Datation is a big question, not sure it is right, I study the question, not so easy to fix datation previously to 12.000. but very interesting to see those artefacts, thanks 👌😺

[@oker59]

I've always thought the ice ages stalled Human development for tens of thousands of years. Homo Sapiens have been around for 200,000+ thousand years. The Blombos cave in southern Africa shows a comparable technological/cultural sophistication; Blombos cave goes back 200,000 years ago. They migrated up through Africa(a big continent!), and then the ice ages came and went a few times. Humanity finally stumbled on civilization this last time the ice receded.

[@mpetersen6]

Climatic changes brought on by the current Glacial Era (1) likely spurred human evolution. Both physically and once we began to make and use simple tools our technology. 1) Started around 3 million years ago in the Northern Hemisphere and 30 million years ago in the Southern. In the Northern Hemisphere it was likely triggered by the blocking of ocean currents between the Atlantic and Pacific by the creation of Central America. In the Southern Hemisphere by the opening of the Drake Passage and the development of the Circumpolar Current which blocked warm Equatorial water from reaching far south. This allowed Antarctica to freeze over. The Southern Ice Age did not have as much effect though.

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

​@@mpetersen6although those people wouldn't have been homo sapiens, I find it interesting how homo sapiens got from primitive hunter gathering to a sophisticated culture like at goblekli tepe

[@dougalexander7204]

Interesting.

[@tomsmith8511]

The world's archaeological society are amazed at 12 thousand year-old Gobekli Tepe and yet here we see evidence that people were living like it elsewhere on the globe 15 thousand year's older than that. So much of our history is lost to the sands of time.

[@Sgt.chickens]

I mean gobekli tepe is a much larger site with stone construction and stone carvings. This site is impresive but clearly not the same.

[@hansthebeast9740]

So that is the second anthropomorphic lion figurine from the Stone Age I have seen images of.

[@grobozo]

It would be interesting to know what the seasonal temperatures were at the time. It must have been much colder than it is now. Adapting to cold weather required humans to become more technically advanced just to survive.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

Quite striking, the figure with the braid over her shoulder. I wonder how they felt about it? Was art never finished for them too? There is a constant dissatisfaction with artistic expression. When is it "finished"?

[@napalmholocaust9093]

You really are going to call it a Venus? It surpasses them all.

[@chrissonnenschein6634]

Malta had so much archselogically in the Victorian era... many picturebooks if you dig in archived picture books..l

[@pplusbthrust]

In my book 25,000 is a lot.

[@myboloneyhasafirstname6764]

Maybe this confluence of people’s in Anatolia formed the communities/culture that used all the underground cities and tunnels around Capadocia and the region. Maybe after they buried Gobleki Tepi.

[@michaelholt7994]

The mal'ta sculptures beads etc,are remarkably similar to those in Malta, so close,they must be from the same culture.

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

I also wss curious about the possible name link with malta, possibly not just a coincidence 🤔

[@michaelholt7994]

@@aidanmacdougall9250 I've been to those megalithic sites and museum on Malta,so many of the carvings are exactly the same.cannot be a coincidence.ahd of course not so long ago,Malta and all the other islands in that archipelago were connected to mainland Italy.

[@joshua3171]

unlike modern humans starting from around the time of agriculture humans constantly moved

[@MajiSylvamain]

your map doesn't help, just a quick note, neither the Black sea or Caspian existed at that time, if you look it up, there are sites that help create more accurate geological maps, that will help with visualisation of ancient human migration. 😺 🖖👍

[@lostmotives817]

So I guess the San tribe weren't the first people to be discovered as the first people on earth

[@dougg1075]

Enjoy the video? Couldn’t click fast enough:)

[@dragonfox2.058]

💜💜💜💚

[@AncientArchitects]

👍

[@annesimon537]

The very intriguing "24 000 year old body shows kinship to Europeans and American indians" has not been explained enough. How is it possible to have such a kinship 24000 years ago?? Those 2 continent are separated by the Atlantic ocean. The image on parentage shows east America not west America (would've made more sense with Bering straight). Excellent video.

[@JJ-fq4nl]

Low sea levels during the ice age. They walked & boat following the shore line. The Bering Strait was Beringia, dry land.

[@susannebrunberg4174]

The Beringe straight, or land, was under the ice during latest ice-age

[@annesimon537]

@@JJ-fq4nl from Europe??

[@annesimon537]

@@susannebrunberg4174 Still, Europe is very far away! And it shows the east coast, not West coast.

[@JonDoeNeace]

Common ancestors from that far back.

[@frowgbat]

Not one mention of the loch ness/dinosaur figurine?!!?!?! wtffff

[@lostinpa-dadenduro7555]

I find it hard to believe that people sat around for some 200,000 years, in many ways being static technologically, them all of a sudden, whoosh, Sumer. Is it possible that there could have been cities 100,000 years ago but all traces are gone and we just don’t know?

[@AveragePicker]

It is easy to look back, knowing what we know, and not realize how difficult some things were to even be able to get into a position to start to figure out. Chimps in a variety of areas have learned to fashion thin sticks to fish out termites from nests. Congolese chimps have taken it one step further and frayed the ends of the stick. Chimps using sticks for termites has been going on for who knows how long. And in all that time not a single one has tried making a pot with a lid to keep termites in for later. You're falling into an easy trapping of conflating time with technological development and understanding because we tend to easily be able to see certain advances in fairly rapid succession. You might as well be asking why France in 1132AD hadn't invented nuclear power. What took so long? "Technology" wasn't static, nor was Sumer suddenly in existence. We mark a year in a slightly arbitrary manor as a reference point but it is a gradual build to get there. We tend to measure the formation of "civilization' by: Something large enough to be considered a city. Non nomadic population Architecture Formation of social classes Writing system To get that you typically need to be bringing in somehow, a surplus food supply. There are a lot of areas that qualify as sort of proto civs. That ability to be able to settle down and begin separating out tasks and skills has an immense impact on developing, but reaching that state can be incredibly difficult. (There are still "uncontacted" tribes or tribes deciding to stay secluded living in a sort of stone age type of setting.) Iron could be largely mined off the surface initially. But, how long was it overlooked in favor of bronze? Who's the group, what resources do they have, what are their main concerns, what conditions are they most effected by...it all also plays into it. If my group is mostly concerned with waking up tomorrow and covering enough distance to catch up to some Elk, even if there is iron ore in this area...or copper...how likely am I to pick some up and take it with me to experiment with? In the video, look at all the different materials. That isn't static, that is progress, and learning and discovering properties.

[@nancyM1313]

👾tyvmuch!

[@klauszinser]

I thought its the Island of Malta.

[@jesperandersson889]

nested maps of culture (factals)

[@merlinwizard1000]

47th, 20 September 2023

[@themoviesite]

Girls having been playing with dolls for a long time....

[@trianglemountainmotors1210]

Good yes

[@cougar2013]

Looks like we had some plentifully busty ladies back then. Gotta be well fed to get there. Must have been a stable and comfortable age.

[@JonnoPlays]

Maybe they were more like ancient barbies, with a body style that was idealized according to sexual preferences but physically unattainable by anyone alive at the time.

[@cougar2013]

@@JonnoPlays or maybe dudes just love a bodacious rack by nature 😆

[@Flumstead]

By- cal.

[@Lemma01]

Right, Matt - we're saying these folks could carve a bit of tusk into an identifiable "lady-shape", and we've found a boxful of these BUT they do not appear to have carved a bloke? Really? Odd, if that's the case...

[@AveragePicker]

🤷‍♂First action figure, which let's face it is just a doll with good marketing, didn't come along until 1964. The vast vast vast majority of dolls were and still are female. ...It's also possible we are looking at very early pornography. 🤷‍♀lol

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

Appreciation that all people come into this world through females so they are the creators of man?

[@mombaassa]

7:28 to 7:40. Unpleasant facts, for those dismissive of the Soloutrean Hypothesis. People need to remember that orthodox belief on the peopling of North America and the Soloutran proposal, are not mutually exclusive. Ignoring DNA evidence, does not make academics look impartial or professional.

[@TheAdeybob]

Nice work, Amelia...and thank you for braving the youtubes on the internets. Some sentences did peter off a bit, but that's nothing you can't overcome. Maybe talk into a mirror for practice.

[@vickonstark7365]

👍🏼

[@Turdfergusen382]

Landlords and AirBnB are the devil.

[@ccreel64]

I wonder if recent DNA testing has been done on the human remains from Mal’ta to see if they’d interbred with Denosivans.

[@raresaturn]

I've seen butcher's apostrophes but this is ridiculous

[@pantherplatform]

*DREAM STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELA*

[@robbyakes8736]

Your accent too strong ,cannt hear words

[@ShortbusMooner]

😁👍

[@BlueSteel331]

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