All language subtitles for Strangest.Things.S02E02.Phin_track3_eng

NARRATOR: Can this weird
shattered skull

illuminate the human soul?

There were changes that made
him essentially

a worse person, less in control
of his impulses.

NARRATOR:
Could this bizarre device

have changed World War II?

The deadly power
of this device

comes not
from radioactive material

or from high explosives.

It comes from bats.

NARRATOR: What makes this odd
scrap of deer antler so strange?

You could call it the
Swiss Army knife of prehistory.

NARRATOR:
These are the most remarkable

and mysterious objects
on Earth,

hidden away in museums,
laboratories, and storage rooms.

Now, new research
and technology

can get under their skin

like never before.

We can rebuild them,

pull them apart,

and zoom in to reveal

the unbelievable,
the ancient,

and the truly bizarre.

These are the world's
strangest things.

In a display case
at Harvard University's

Warren Anatomical Museum

is one of the most astonishing
objects in medical science.

This is the shattered skull of

a 19th century American
railway worker.

When you look closely,
you can clearly

see that something truly
catastrophic has happened here.

NARRATOR: Now, using
state-of-the-art 3-D modeling,

we can investigate
this strange relic

like never before.

This is Gage's skull.

It shows evidence of
a truly traumatic injury.

There are two sections of
the skull missing.

There are also cracks
sprawling from those lesions.

There's also damage
behind the left

eye socket
and in the cheek bone.

BENECKE: When we see such
a wound in a forensic context,

we can almost certainly be
sure that this is nothing that

a person can survive.

NARRATOR: Incredibly,
Phineas Gage does survive,

but he is a completely
different person.

It is a revelation.

STEELE: The bizarre case of
Phineas Gage taught us something

fundamental about the way that
the human brain works.

WEST: For the first time,

you see that relationship
between who we are

and that meaty thing
inside our skulls.

NARRATOR:
How does this injury happen?

Why doesn't such traumatic
skull damage kill Gage?

Can the skull explain
his dramatic personality change,

and why is it such a game
changer for neuroscience?

September 13th, 1848,
Vermont, USA.

[train whistle blows]

AUERBACH:
This is a time of rapid

railroad expansion in America.

In Vermont, construction is
underway of what

is to be the Rutland
Burlington Railway.

[explosion blasts]

NARRATOR:
Phineas Gage's job is to prep

explosives to clear
the rocky landscape.

He uses a metal tamping iron

to compress the gunpowder
into drill holes.

So Phineas is tamping down
the gunpowder, as is normal,

and he turns to speak

to some men behind him, which
brings his head directly above

the hole full of gunpowder.

The tamping iron strikes
a spark on the rock...

detonating that gunpowder.

NARRATOR: The tamping iron
becomes a lethal projectile.

And it fires the tamping rod
right up into his skull.

The rather grisly path
this tamping iron

took was up behind
his left eye,

then out the top of his head,

where it just continued off
up and behind him.

NARRATOR: The bloodied iron rod
lands 25 yards away.

Gage is thrown to the ground,
a gaping hole in his head.

It's reported that his arms
and legs spasmed for a while,

but after a few minutes,
he's sitting up and talking,

and eventually,
they're able to load

him into a cart and take him
back to his hotel.

It's pretty remarkable
for someone who has a 13-pound

iron rod driven all the way
through their skull.

NARRATOR: 30 minutes later,
Gage is visited by physician

Edward H. Williams.

AUERBACH:
Phineas begins to vomit.

The effort of throwing up
apparently dislodges a piece of

brain tissue,
which is pushed out

the hole at
the top of his head

and lands at the feet
of the physician.

NARRATOR: Gage's case
is taken over by

local doctor, John Harlow.

He was able to put one finger
through the top of his skull

and a second finger through
the hole in his cheek

and make them touch
in the middle.

BENECKE: He had to remove part
of the brain that was just

attached with the tiny tissue
bridge, and at least

he could bring some
parts of the skin and put

a bandage and wrap it
around the head.

NARRATOR: Gage slips in and out
of consciousness.

AUERBACH: He had a fungal growth
on his exposed brain tissue,

and that pus was forming in
the wound,

even dripping
into Phineas's mouth.

NARRATOR: Gage is not expected
to survive.

His family prepare
a coffin for him.

AUERBACH: Phineas
is a very lucky man,

because his physician applies
silver nitrate, which is

a substance that had just
recently been introduced to try

to halt the infection,

and it actually works.

After a few days,
Phineas starts to recover.

NARRATOR: By the middle of
the following year, 1849,

Gage is strong enough to
return to work.

This massive injury
should have been lethal.

Does this skull hold
the secret

to his miraculous survival?

In 2012, neuroimaging experts
recreate Gage's brain by

combining CT scans of
the broken skull with MRI scans

of typical male brains.

It shows the hole in the top
of Gage's skull is

astonishingly neat,

considering the force pushing
the iron bar out.

Maybe that's because
his bar is unique.

AUERBACH: Phineas has
a custom-made tamping iron.

He's had a local blacksmith
put it together.

It weighs over 13 pounds,

and it tapers to a narrow point
at one end.

It's a bit like a javelin.

What that meant was this tiny
point was able to push

the brain and the skull smoothly
out of the way,

making a smaller,
smoother hole,

so there's less smash damage.

NARRATOR: But the recent
analysis of Gage's skull

reveals something even more
miraculous about his survival.

There are these huge
blood vessels on

the left and the right of
your head.

So since this giant needle
entered laterally on the side,

it's just a matter of
a hundredth of an inch

that these blood vessels were
not disrupted and disturbed.

That was plain luck.

In my whole life,

I've probably seen maybe five
of those cases

that were actually
survived by the patients.

NARRATOR: But following
his incredible survival,

friends claimed Gage
has become

quite literally
a different man.

Is the explanation for
this bizarre

transformation also hidden
inside this fractured skull?

NARRATOR: After a heavy iron bar
shoots through his skull,

Phineas Gage miraculously
recovers, but when he attempts

to return to his old job
on the railroad,

he is turned away.

It's reported that the balance

between his intellectual
faculties and his animal

propensities seems
to have been destroyed.

He is fitful, irreverent,
and indulging at times in

the grossest profanity.

There were changes that made
him essentially a worse person,

someone who was less in
control of

his impulses and less pleasant
to be around.

NARRATOR: The dependable,
easygoing Gage

has been wiped out.

He has been transformed into
someone very different --

stubborn,
temperamental, insolent.

His friends and acquaintances
say he is no longer Gage.

For centuries,

there'd been a debate about
whether our bodies were all

there was to us or if we had
this immortal soul that was

somehow separate and
encapsulated our personality.

WEST: For people back then,
it must have been really quite

a shock to realize that
you could change a personality.

This supposedly invisible,
intangible thing can be changed

by knocking out a piece of
something physical.

NARRATOR: The analysis of
Gage's skull reveals

the precise location of
the damage to his brain.

AUERBACH: The part of Phineas's
brain that has been damaged is

the left side of
the prefrontal cortex,

in the part of the brain known
as the frontal lobe.

This part of the brain is not
fully developed

and connected in little kids
and small children,

and this is why their behavior
and their consciousness is

different from that
of an adult person.

WEST: Generally, it's accepted
that the prefrontal cortex,

that bit at the front
that poor Phineas Gage

was unfortunate enough
to have,

you know, a chunk of it
knocked out of his head,

that this is generally
regarded as the area that's in

charge of our higher level
thinking and of impulse control.

And, if you think about it,

that's really what makes us
pleasant to be around

and capable of functioning
in society with other people.

NARRATOR: But there's another
unexpected twist

to the story of Phineas Gage.

NARRATOR: He later holds down
a number of jobs,

some of which require
significant focus and patience,

exactly the skills that are
apparently erased when

the iron bar rips through
his prefrontal cortex.

So is the story of his radical
personality change even true?

In the immediate aftermath of
the accident, the changes

to Phineas Gage's personality
and his ability to focus

on work, basically,
caused him to lose his job.

But just a few years later,

he was holding down
gainful employment.

AUERBACH: He eventually got
a job as a stagecoach driver,

and this is a job
that requires

a pretty extensive skill set.

The task of driving
a stagecoach requires incredible

motor control,
incredible cognitive function.

AUERBACH: You have to have
pretty good judgment,

you have to have agility,

you have to have the ability
to care for

and understand animals.

You also have to have
the ability to deal well

socially with passengers
on trips

that often last
hundreds of miles.

NARRATOR: This reads like
a list of the skills

apparently erased from Gage's
personality by the accident.

So is the story of
Gage's radical

personality transformation
just a tall tale?

WEST: The brain is not only
an incredibly complex bit of

machinery inside of us,
but it's also a very flexible

bit of machinery in that if
parts of it are damaged,

parts of it are removed,
it can reorganize,

rearrange itself,
and some bits

can take over functions that
other bits used to do.

STEELE: Psychologist
Malcolm MacMillan has written

extensively about Gage's story,
and he argues that

his brain must have regained
a lot of that social

and cognitive function.

NARRATOR: Recent research in
2019 suggests Gage's recovery

can be explained by the way
the brain automatically

reorganizes itself.

What's really astonishing
about this is the regenerative

capacity of the brain --
it can rewire itself

to pick up many
of the functions of

the missing parts of the brain,
and people with even quite

substantial amounts of physical

brain lost can go on to live
relatively normal lives.

NARRATOR: And 3D imaging also
reveals that most of the damage

seems to be
to the white matter

of Gage's brain rather than
the gray matter.

This could be key to

explaining his miraculous
psychological recovery.

Gray matter doesn't grow
back well,

but white matter
can regenerate.

It's this combination of
Gage's incredible good fortune

in terms of the trajectory of
the tamping iron

and the brain's incredible
regenerative ability that seems

to have combined to allow him
a few years later to go back,

not just to surviving, but to
thriving, to having

a relatively normal life,
to holding down a job,

to performing almost normally
in society

in spite of this very,
very nearly completely

fatal accident.

It's recently been suggested
that Gage's personality change

may only last for two
or three years.

Despite that,
the accident does kill him,

it just takes 11 years
to do it.

In 1860, following a series of
severe epileptic seizures,

likely resulting from
the accident,

Phineas Gage dies.

He is just 36 years old,

but he changes the world.

The case is still in every
neuroanatomical textbook,

and medical students would
certainly learn about the case.

The Phineas Gage case
is taught

to all first year
undergraduate

psychology students.

It's taught as the beginning
of the understanding of

the relationship between brain
structures and personality

and who we are.

NARRATOR: This one skull
and its unfortunate owner has

literally transformed our
insight into the human soul

and the nature of humanity.

Once locked away by
the U.S. military and now

lost is one of the strangest
weapons ever made.

The destructive power of this
device could destroy a city.

NARRATOR: But how it does this
is completely bizarre.

Now, using state-of-the-art
digital imaging,

we can reveal every detail
of this remarkable device.

Code-named Project X-ray,

it is quite literally born in
the fires of World War II.

There has never been a weapon
like it, before

or since, and there's a very
good reason for that.

NARRATOR:
Around five feet in length,

the giveaway is
its cylindrical body

is perforated
with tiny air holes

for its tiny passengers.

AUERBACH: The deadly power
of this device comes

not from radioactive material
or from high explosives.

It comes from bats.

NARRATOR:
This is the bat bomb.

This has to number among

the weirdest inventions of
the Second World War.

NARRATOR:
Who comes up with it?

Why bats?

How is this bizarre
device supposed to function?

And does it really work?

NARRATOR: By the end of 1941,
America is at war with Japan.

The bat bomb is designed to

help America strike back
after Pearl Harbor.

The shell looks like any other
bomb, but inside it,

there are lots of tiny trays.

Within one of these trays,
there are up to 40 bats.

In the whole of the bomb,

there are 1,000 bats,
and on each bat,

there is a tiny,
deadly device.

NARRATOR: These devices
are the secret to

the bomb's potential, because
they don't use high explosives.

A bunch of tiny explosives,
even thousands carried

by a bat really
isn't gonna do much damage.

The goal is not to blow things
up -- it's to start fires.

NARRATOR: The bat bomb
targets a specific weakness of

Japanese cities.

MARKS:
Most houses were made of wood,

and they were densely
packed together.

If you were to start a fire
in just a few houses,

the whole city
could go up in flames.

NARRATOR: The bombs
will be dropped from

an aircraft high above
the target city.

It will be loaded with
sleeping bats,

each armed with a tiny
incendiary device.

At 1,000 feet,
parachutes deploy,

and the outer casing
falls away.

Once the parachute opens,
the trays space out,

and they hang in a column
about 8 and 1/2 feet long,

NARRATOR: Exposed to the warmer
air, the bats start to wake.

BENECKE: As soon
as they were flying out,

they were ripping
the safety pin off,

and it set off
a time delay fuse.

NARRATOR:
The designer calculates that

with a 30 minute delay,
the bats can cover

an area 40 miles in diameter.

At the time,

a cluster of six U.S. M69
incendiary bombs might start

160 fires,

but the same weight of bat
bombs could start almost

4,800 fires.

So the plan is that bats
are going to burn

Japanese cities down

and this is going to be
the decisive blow

in the war for the Pacific.

NARRATOR: Who comes up
with the crazy idea

of using a bat
as a war machine?

MARKS: One of the strangest
things about this is that,

unlike many other weapons,

it's not devised in some kind
of special military laboratory.

It's dreamt up instead
by a dentist.

NARRATOR:
His name is Lytle S. Adams.

AUERBACH: In 1941, he makes
a trip to Carlsbad Caverns in

the U.S., and he reports

being fascinated
by these swarms of bats

that came streaming out of
the caverns at sundown.

When Adams is driving back,

he hears about Pearl Harbor
on the radio.

Having just seen the bats,
he thinks to himself, what if

each of those bats had
a tiny incendiary device?

You could really devastate
the enemy cities in Japan.

NARRATOR:
It sounds crazy,

but in the desperate
circumstances of war,

the military are prepared to
try almost anything that can

give them an edge,
no matter how weird.

The Second World War
is littered

with these outlandish
and exotic ideas about weapons.

NARRATOR: One of the most
outrageous appears in 1943.

The British Directorate of
Miscellaneous Weapons

Development
is asked to dream up

a way to penetrate
the concrete coastal defenses of

the Nazis' Atlantic wall.

What they come up with is
a self-propelled bomb,

the Panjandrum.

The Panjandrum is a very
freakish-looking device,

but it's a pretty
basic concept.

You just put rockets on
the edges of the wheels, like

a Catherine wheel,
and you light

the rockets, and it sort of
fires itself towards the enemy,

creating a breach
in their lines.

NARRATOR: Despite the top secret
nature of the project,

the beach chosen as a test
site turns

out to be a popular
destination for holidaymakers.

So these top secret tests
end up

happening to an audience of
holiday goers.

They light the rockets in
the Panjandrum,

and everything goes wrong
almost from the get-go.

The rockets start to dislodge
themselves, flying off in

different directions.

Meanwhile, the device itself
just careens across the beach.

NARRATOR: Unsurprisingly, the
Panjandrum never sees battle,

but the military probably
thought it was worth a try.

The problem is,
the military can't afford to

ignore these ideas just
because they seem outlandish

at first glance.

At some point, one of
these is going to work.

NARRATOR: One of the most
extraordinary is

a weapon designed to destroy
hydroelectric dams.

It's based on the idea of
skimming stones.

The bouncing bomb.

The idea is that you fly your
bombers down at a precise speed

and a precise height,

usually quite low, and you
release a bomb that immediately

starts to spin opposite of

the direction that
the plane is traveling.

So when it hits the water,
instead of sinking,

it bounces, and it skips quite
a considerable distance.

And if you drop it at just
the right place at just

the right speed,
it'll skip, skip, skip...

and then crash into
the face of the dam.

NARRATOR:
On the 16th of May 1943,

19 Lancaster bombers take off
to Bomb three German dams.

It's a costly operation,
but it's a very successful one.

Two out of three dams attacked
are completely destroyed.

NARRATOR: In 1942,
the bat bomb is born.

Its codename
is Project X-ray.

Will it turn out to be
as successful as

the bouncing bomb or as
disastrous as the Panjandrum?

Why does Adams believe bats
can make the difference?

NARRATOR:
In World War Two,

the safest time
to bomb is at night,

to avoid enemy fighters
and guns.

Gravity bombing
is inaccurate at best,

especially if you do it
at night, which is when

the U.S. Air Force
likes to operate, because

you have less chance of
getting shot down.

NARRATOR: It's hard for bombers
to hit anything,

because humans can't see in
the dark.

But bats can.

BENECKE: Bats can orient
during nighttime, because they

send off soundwaves,
and those soundwaves come back,

and they can interpret
the pattern of

what is in front of them.

Bats use their night sound
vision system to go back

and forth from roosting sites,

but also to hunt mostly
insects, moths, etcetera.

NARRATOR:
And where they like to rest

is another advantage
for a bat bomb.

MARKS: The idea is that they
drop it just before dawn,

so that the bats immediately
want to find

somewhere to nestle, somewhere
just like the eaves of a house.

So the fire would spread
before anybody

knows and cause
a lot of damage.

So they're a living,
breathing, agile,

almost undetectable weapon

that's gonna go exactly
where you want

them to go
to achieve the effect

you want to achieve.

NARRATOR: Adams' team select
the tiny Mexican free-tailed bat

as their flying
rodent of choice.

They are a good choice,
because you can fit

a lot of them into one of
these bombs.

It was estimated that
10 planes could carry

as many as two million bats
in these bombs.

NARRATOR: And these bats have
one final advantage.

When it gets cold, they enter
a state known as torpor.

BENECKE: In torpor,
they're just very sleepy,

they're not moving much,
their body temperature is low,

and they're just living
on their body fat.

NARRATOR: This is perfect
for Adams' plan,

because sleepy bats
are easy to handle,

arm, and load
into the bomb casing.

And they even set up
a refrigerated truck to keep

the bats in this hibernating
state until they need to

be deployed.

NARRATOR: But Adams
doesn't just need

his tiny mission specialists.

He needs
a deadly payload for them.

MARKS: By chance,
almost at exactly the same time,

American chemist Louis Fieser
invented a new substance,

which was highly
flammable, called napalm.

One of the things that makes
napalm a really

good fire starter is that
it's a jelly-like substance.

Once it's on fire, it starts to
run, and it flows down

the surfaces of buildings,

and it gets into all of
the nooks and crannies,

and it really spreads the fire.

NARRATOR: Adams and Fieser
come up with a payload

for the napalm containing

a time delay fuse that can be
stuck to the bats

with adhesive.

The biology and technology
seemed to marry up perfectly,

but will it actually work?

NARRATOR: In 1943,
bat bomb testing

takes place
in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

They get a real prime spot --

the newly-constructed
Carlsbad Air Force Base.

Now, it's completely empty.
It's not operational yet.

So it's got everything,
it's got hangars,

control towers, barracks.

But since they're
a top secret operation,

the bat bomb project gets
the whole base to themselves.

NARRATOR: Initial tests using
dummy bombs are a success.

AUERBACH:
It works like a charm.

They spend hours trying to
find the bats they've released,

and most of them end up in
eaves under the buildings

and barns and stuff
all around the base,

which is exactly what
they wanted the bats to do.

NARRATOR: It's going so well,
they decide to produce

a training film
for the air crews

that will actually
drop the bat bombs.

For the first time,

they arm the bats
with live incendiaries.

So the bats are cooled,
and they're supposed

to be in this torporous state
until they can raise

their temperature
and they wake up.

But here's the problem --

they're at an air base
in New Mexico,

which is a very hot climate.

Six of the armed bats wake up

and they do exactly what
they're supposed to do.

They fly off,
looking for a place

to roost,
and where else to roost

but under the eaves
of this brand-new,

otherwise abandoned air base.

NARRATOR: Everything works
according to plan,

which is a pity,
because they're not in Tokyo.

They're in New Mexico.

In a strange way,
it works exactly as expected.

The bats fly off.

They roost under the eaves of
the air base.

The incendiary devices go off.

And it burns
the entire base to the ground.

MARKS: Due to the top secret
nature of the experiment,

they're not even allowed to
bring in fire crews to put

the fire out --
they lose everything.

NARRATOR: Safe to say the trials
have not gone to plan.

So is this the end
of the bat bomb?

NARRATOR:
After a disastrous test burns

an American air base to
the ground,

It looks like curtains
for the bat bomb,

but the bats get a reprieve.

In 1943, the Army passed
the project to the Marines.

AUERBACH: The bat bomb concept
clearly works,

and it only cost them one
new airbase to prove it.

They decided to go ahead with
the full-scale testing of

the project, and then,
unexpectedly, in 1944,

the whole thing gets shut down.

NARRATOR: By this point,
the project has already

burned through
one brand-new air base

and $2 million dollars,

but is it actually cost
that cans the bat bomb?

The real reason is what, on
paper, looks like an even more

outlandish concept
than the bat bomb --

harnessing the energy
of the sun

in a small bomb
to devastating effect.

And we're talking here,
of course,

about the Manhattan Project.

NARRATOR: In 1944,
despite the fact that

it actually works,
the bat bomb is canned,

which probably comes as a big

relief to
the Mexican free-tailed bats.

In a small glass cabinet
at the British Museum

in London is a curious object
made from reindeer antler.

It was crafted during
the last great Ice Age.

It is truly ancient.

This object dates back
almost 10,000 years,

before the pyramids of
dynastic Egypt.

NARRATOR: Now, using
cutting-edge technology,

we can bring it
into the light.

It measures
6 and 1/2 inches long

by just over
2 inches wide.

On the front is
the unmistakable image of

a galloping horse.

There are signs of use and
wear both across the surfaces

and inside the hole.

We see scratches
and chips

and evidence
that there is an object

that was actively
and repetitively used.

But the question then becomes,
How was it used?

What was its function?

NARRATOR:
Who made it?

What secrets
does it hold about

our distant past?

Is it a piece of art,

a symbol of power,
or something else entirely?

1863.

France.

On the edge of the Vézère River,

paleontologist EÉdouard Lartet

and Englishman Henry Christy
stumble across a cave.

The site,
known Abri de la Madeleine,

turns out to be a unique window
into Stone Age life.

In the coarse way of that time,
hacking about

with shovels and picks,

they made some
remarkable discoveries.

NARRATOR:
They uncover flint blades,

spear points,
and numerous bone artifacts,

and this strange thing.

MacDONALD: The object was
remarkable for its form,

which was unusual,

with its large
central perforation,

but also because of the very
naturalistic rendering of

a horse engraved
onto the object.

NARRATOR: Finds like this
and others in the cave

are unlike any other
ancient human artifacts

discovered before.

This site represented
a whole new,

previously unknown culture,

the Magdalenian.

NARRATOR: The Magdalenian
peoples lived during the last

great Ice Age, between 17,000
and 11,000 years ago.

The strange carved antler
dates to around

14,000 years ago.

To work out what this is,
we need to understand the people

who created it.

Who are the Magdalenians?

The Stone Age world is often
depicted as crude

and simplistic,

but in the case of
the Magdalenians

nothing could be
further from the truth.

PLUMMER SIRES: This was a very
sophisticated culture.

They had a range of
specialized tools based on

the types of activities that

they were undertaking --
spears, harpoons, snares.

They were very attuned to
their surroundings, and they

hunted herd animals, like bison,
horses, and reindeer.

NARRATOR: So it's no surprise
that something made from

reindeer is a perfect example
of Magdalenian craftsmanship.

The reindeer clearly was
central to

the life of
the Magdalenians.

It was a food source, but they
made use of the antlers,

as well,
either from those carcasses

that they hunted
or when the animals

would shed
them seasonally.

NARRATOR: The first step in
the process of making

this strange thing
is to reduce

the antler
to the required size.

A key tool employed by these
ancient craftsmen is the burin.

PLUMMER SIRES: A burin
is a type of stone tool

with very fine edges,
almost like a chisel.

It's used
to either engrave or gouge

holes into things.

NARRATOR: Burins made from
hard local stones like flint

and chert are used to shape
and cut the baton.

MacDONALD: So the way
that we think this is done

is by using a tool
like a burin

and engraving a line
where you want to make a break

or separation before
striking a blow,

which will crack off
the bit that you don't want.

NARRATOR: The distinctive
hole in the center

uses a different process.

MacDONALD: Stone tools would be
used boring down from both

directions across the antler to

create a kind of hourglass
cross-section, and then once

that hourglass shape
was achieved,

it would be scraped and
smoothed out until you began to

get a more even perforation
like we see on this object.

NARRATOR: The most difficult
and time-consuming process

is likely the raised
engraving of the horse.

MacDONALD: The area of the body
of the horse would have been

initially smoothed to get rid

of the irregularity of
the antler,

but then the central portion
of the body would have been

left raised to add to
the effect.

NARRATOR: The material
from around the horse is then

carefully removed,
a painstaking and laborious job.

This is unusual, because most
of the other Magdalenian

representations
we have of animals

are simply carved into
a surface rather than using

this more
three-dimensional approach.

NARRATOR: Everything about the
object suggests it is special.

So what is it for?

NARRATOR: What is the purpose
of this astonishing

14,000-year-old object carved
from reindeer antler?

The archaeologists
who discover it certainly

think they know.

BELLINGER: Because of
the decorative element

of this thing,
when they first found it,

they interpret it as some sort
of symbol of authority,

like a scepter.

They called it
a bâtons de commandement.

NARRATOR: Examples of similar
objects are present in

many different cultures
from across the globe,

but there's a major stumbling
block to this explanation.

As time has gone on,
archaeologists

have found more than
400 of these objects.

How can you have an object
that is meant for the leader

of a small-scale
hunter-gatherer society

and yet have 400 of them?

This simply doesn't make sense

and places this object
more within

the realm of everyday
functional items.

NARRATOR: So is it some kind of
utility object, a tool?

If we look at the wear
on this object,

we see scratches and chips
and evidence that it is

an object that was actively
and repetitively used.

But the question then becomes,
how was it used?

What was its function?

NARRATOR: It's tricky to answer
this question, because

the ragged end of the baton
suggests it is broken.

But, using 3D imaging, we can
rebuild the damaged section.

This is how it may have looked
when it was first made,

14,000 years ago.

MacDONALD: Originally would have
been around 12 inches long,

so we're missing part of
its shaft,

which might have been lost in
the process of use.

BELLINGER: One early thought
was that this object might be

a harness of some kind
to use with an animal.

But there's a real problem
with that,

which is that animals
weren't domesticated

for another 10,000 years.

NARRATOR: So if not a harness,
then what?

Analysis of the holes
in 135 of these batons

reveal strange wear marks
symmetrically opposite

each other.

Asymmetric wear
suggested another use,

as a spear straightener.

So if you have a shaft of
a spear with a curve,

you would put it through
the hole, and then you could

pull towards yourself
to straighten out that bend

and creating that
distinctive wear pattern.

NARRATOR: This fits with other
archaeological finds,

such as the Murray Springs
shaft wrench,

a spear straightener
from the North American

Clovis culture, dating
back to around 11,000 BCE.

But this is far
from the only theory.

Another idea is that this was
a form of spear thrower.

NARRATOR: Known in
some cultures as atlatls,

spear throwers were used by
many peoples, from the Mayans

and Aztecs to Native Americans
and Australian Aboriginals.

A spear thrower effectively
lengthens your arm span,

and so it gives you a great
deal more leverage to add speed

and accuracy to your throw,

and that makes your spear
all the more lethal.

A harness, a shaft straightener,
a spear thrower?

To date, an incredible
40 different theories have

been proposed for the purpose
of this strange thing.

Which one is correct?

It's generally accepted today
that this baton

didn't have one use,
it didn't have two uses,

it had multiple uses,

You could call it the
Swiss Army knife of prehistory.

NARRATOR: This is
a 14,000-year-old multi-tool,

but if it's simply
a utilitarian tool,

why has so much effort been
poured into decorating it?

The Magdalenian is not
extraordinary just

for their technologies
and their tools and weapons.

They created some of the most
beautiful prehistoric art

that's been discovered to date

in the form of beautiful
carvings and wall paintings of

bison and wooly mammoth.

PLUMMER SIRES: And these are
really the types of art that

show you that they weren't
just surviving in

their environment,
they were thriving.

NARRATOR: And experts
now believe that when

this baton is first made,

the exquisite horse
carved on its surface

would not have been
the only one.

There may have even been,
originally,

a second horse
on this object.

NARRATOR: Why did
these ancient craftsmen

go to all this effort?

You know, what is art
doing on a functional tool?

NARRATOR:
And why a horse?

BELLINGER: Clearly,
the horse was very important

to these people.

Was it a key source of food?

Did they venerate it
for some reason

to do with
their religious ideology?

Who knows?

NARRATOR:
Detailed inspection suggests

one tantalizing
possible explanation.

Look closely,
and you can see small marks

behind the horse's shoulder,
marks that shouldn't be there.

BELLINGER:
There's a small mark on

the horse that otherwise is
so lifelike,

but this mark is not
anatomically correct, and it's

in just a spot
that makes you wonder,

is it almost a diagram
directing your spear to hit

right there,
and that'll be the lethal shot?

Comparing these notches
against the anatomy

of a horse reveals

they are directly positioned
over the heart.

And other artifacts from this
period also appear to display

the same kind of marks
that could indicate

a lethal spear strike.

Whatever the exact purpose of
the intricate carving,

it tells us something important.

These people had enough time
on their hands for decoration.

BELLINGER: Clearly, they're not
people living on the edge

of starvation.

There's time to devote to
the pursuit of art.

NARRATOR: But quite suddenly,
around 11,000 years ago,

the Magdalenian
vanish from history.

This was the end of the last
Ice Age, when the climate

changed drastically,

and a lot of the large animals
that they were hunting

became extinct.

These were major changes.

They just weren't able to
adjust to it.

And they disappeared.

NARRATOR:
When the Magdalenian vanish,

so does their wonderful
and sophisticated art.

But this astonishing artifact
remains, one of the oldest

and most beautiful
multi-tools ever found.