Basking in the land of my ancestors. I come from some of the most notorious & well known (of their day, at least) explorers, gold miners & treasure hunters of the American Southwest.
Second photo is my grandfather, discoverer of âCoronadoâs 7 Lost Gold Minesâ.
The spirit of exploration runs deep.
Last two slides are a couple of the magazines my grandfather was mentioned in.
When I was 20 years old, I read âThe Lost City of Zâ & it changed my life. I could no longer ignore this deep calling Iâd had since childhood to explore & study the ancient world. 7 years later, on the exact day of the 100th year anniversary of Percy Fawcettâs disappearance â Iâm talking with @joerogan about The Lost City of Z. Life is mysterious, isnât it?
From the Bronze Age to Platoâs Athens - weâre taking a journey across the land of Ancient Greece this November (15-21st). If youâve ever dreamed of standing in the Athenian acropolis, or walking through the monolithic gates at the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, you should join us later this year.
The Greek world is filled with so much myth & mysteryâfar more than most people even realize.
Comment GREEK if youâre interested in learning more & Iâll DM you the infođď¸
The western most point of the United States - the Napali coast of Kauai.
The primordial valleys & isolated landscapes of this coast hide thousands of ancient royal burial sites, the pacificâs rarest species, & isolated biomes that no human has ever set foot in.
While Iâm in Kauai for the next couple weeks, Iâm doing research on Kauaiâs early human historyâwhich caused the extinction of over 100 species unique to the Hawaiian Islands.
One of the coolest & largest was the âHawaiian Dodoâ - the Moa Nalo.
It was a large flightless bird with a turtle-like beak. It was about 3ft tall & weight ~20-25lbs.
One of the coolest (& tragic) parts of human history is our interactions with wildlife that, more often than not, left behind lost worlds of species that no longer exist todayđŚ¤
Jaguars are coming back to the US!đ
Another Jaguar has been spotted living in the wilderness of Arizonaâthat makes two in the last year. Since the 1950s Jaguar populations in the Americas have been absolutely decimated, and it wasnât until 40-50 years ago they were finally declared a protected species. I hope one day we will see the US repopulated with Jaguars.
ANOTHER Jaguar has been caught on game camera in Arizona. This is huge for Jaguar re-wilding in the United States.
Jaguars are native to North America: they could be found from California all the way to Appalachia just ~300 years ago.
Our big cat species were decimated from 1700-1900. Hopefully one day we will see cats across the US again đ
The Strait of Magellan is so deadly (even in the modern day) that ~440 Years Ago, the Spanish Empire abandoned & doomed over 200 Conquistadors, & left them to their fate at the bottom of the world.
Eventually, when every single Conquistador died from exposure, being attacked by Native Patagonians, or starvation⌠the colony they built fell into ruins & was reclaimed by the wilderness.
By the late 1700s, nobody even knew where the colony originally was & it disappeared from the maps.
But, just last month, Chilean archaeologists Simon Urbina and Soledad GonzĂĄlez DĂaz, in partnership with the Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG), followed the original Spanish & English journals to a location along the Strait of Magellanâand using LiDAR, they finally rediscovered the lost colony of Puerto del Hambre âPort Famineâ after over 400 years.
The original sources describe a silver Spanish coin being placed on top of a corner foundation block & the colonyâs church⌠and when they excavated the siteâs main structure, like something out of a movie, the 400+ year old silver Spanish coin was sitting right where the old journal said it would be.
LiDAR mapping is going to revolutionize archaeology & bring about an entirely new era of explorationđ°ď¸
In the late 1600s, European explorers in South Africaâs southern Cape first encountered the âBluebuckâ, a lost species of antelope: that was documented for its striking, unique blue coat. Already rare, it was driven to extinction by overhunting and habitat loss... by the year 1800, the Bluebuck had been hunted to extinction.
But today, @colossal is pioneering its return through advanced genome editing and roan antelope surrogates, aiming to soon resurrect this lost species đ§Ź
Iâm very excited to be a part of this announcement, as well as soon announce a project I am developing with @colossal
#colossal #colossalbiosciences #bluebuck
