The UK’s weather is getting wilder. This year we’ve been soaked with record-breaking rainfall and have sweltered in soaring temperatures. We’ve endured the pandemic but we’ve also seen some of our most extraordinary destructive weather yet. We’ll take you to the eye of the storm, and into the heat of this year’s exceptional weather. We’ll be asking what today’s wild weather tells us about the UK’s future climate. Because climate change is going to affect all our lives. Panorama: Britain’s Wild Weather, Justin Rowlatt reporting, BBC 2020
Our winters have got 12% wetter on average over the last 60 years. ibid.
Across the UK there are 1.8 million people whose homes are at risk of sea or river flooding. Many are in areas of low-lying ground. But despite the risks, we are still building homes in flood-hit areas. ibid.
Vulnerable places along the east Anglian coast have seen the same: sea-level rises and storms eating away at land and homes. ibid.
These are some of the floods of 2021. The extreme weather across the globe this summer is unprecedented. Increasing air temperatures means more volatility in global weather patterns. The UK is particularly vulnerable to climate change. One in six homes in the UK are now at risk from flooding. What was once an exceptional event will now be a regular feature in our lives. It Takes a Flood, captions, ITV 2021
It’s the last night of 1953; Britain is under attack. From the Shetlands to the Thames Estuary few are spared the impact of an enormous storm bearing down on Britain. This vast storm is the engine behind a national disaster. The Great Flood of ’53, Channel 5 2023
Off the north coast of Scotland a powerful storm pushes south. ibid.
Princess Victoria ferry: Lifeboats and survivors float in the sea for hours … The greatest loss of life in British waters since World War II. ibid.
A new and dangerous phenomenon develops: tidal surge … The surge arrives in Norfolk … A national disaster. ibid.
In May to July 2007 Great Britain was pounded by more rain that any other summer on record. Entire counties were deluged with a month’s rainfall in just a few hours creating catastrophic floods. Rising floodwaters saw 20,000 families forced to flee their homes. The Great Flood of ’07, Channel 5 2023
Your barrier should have been built 50 years ago after the floods of ’28. Play for Today: London is Drowning, flood prevention planning meeting, BBC 1981
The subject that I’m investigating is human pre-history. Ancient Apocalypse s1e1: Once There Was a Flood, Graham Hancock reporting, Netflix 2022
My suspicion is humans are a species with amnesia. We have forgotten something incredibly important in our own past. And I think that that incredibly important forgotten thing is a lost, advanced civilisation of the Ice Age. ibid.
I’ve spent decades searching for proof of this lost civilisation at site around the globe. ibid.
An advanced human civilisation much older than our own, lost to history … New discoveries keep on pushing that horizon back. One such discovery has been made here in Indonesia. On the most populated island, Java, about four hours south of Jakarta, near the village of Karyamukti. ibid.
What if an advanced civilisation flourished here in Indonesia during the Ice Age? ibid.
Because Gunung Padang is like no place on Earth … You see these blocks scattered across the mountain. Oddly hexagonal stone slabs strewn about everywhere. Thousands of them. It’s quite a spectacle. ibid.
These rocks have been cut, repurposed as building materials and placed by human hands. ibid.
Traces of structures show up all over the hill … on carefully laid out terraces. ibid.
‘This site consists of two cultural layers.’ ibid. Archaeologist
The entire hill is ringed by retaining walls of columnar basalt. ibid.
At least three large rectangular chambers. One around 10 metres down, perhaps an entrance hall of some kind … A third chamber between 20 and 30 metres deep. ibid.
Core drilling: Those sections had been laid out 11,500 years ago. ibid.
Around 100 feet or so he [Dr Hillman] hit the earliest layer of construction … as far back as 24,000 years ago. ibid.
What happened was a literal great flood. ibid.
One of the most mysterious and revealing mythologies in prehistory comes down to us through the ancient cultures of Mexico. Ancient Apocalypse s1e2: Survivor in a Time of Chaos
A land of fertile valleys and simmering volcanoes. This is the Puebla region, east of Mexico City. ibid.
This hill isn’t the natural feature it’s often mistaken for. It’s the most massive monument ever built anywhere in the world … This is the Great Pyramid of Cholula … [and] rose to at least 213 feet, 65 metres … 400 x 400 metres at its base. ibid.
They were stunned at what they discovered inside … 8 kilometres of tunnels … The Pyramid of Cholula is simply the latest in a whole series of more ancient pyramids hidden beneath. ibid.
You start off with a place that for one reason or another is regarded as sacred. ibid.
According to myth, the Great Pyramid of Cholula was built by a race of giants. ibid.
Malta: It’s called Ggantija. And it certainly is a giant of a megalithic structure. For decades, it was thought to be the oldest freestanding monumental structure on Earth. Ancient Apocalypse s1e3: Sirius Rising
The construction of these walls required the lifting of hundreds of massive megaliths. Some weighing up to fifty tons. And what we see today is only roughly half of the temple’s original height. ibid.
Two connected temples with over-shaped chambers, their walls were painted red. And a series of altars where charred remains of animal bones were found, suggesting ritual sacrifices or feasting.
Ggantija isn’t Malta’s only megalithic temple. ibid.
How much more of Malta’s prehistory lies hidden beneath the waves? ibid.
The Bahamas. These are the Bimini Islands. Just under 60 miles off the coast of Miami, Bimini is separated from the mainland of America by a deepwater channel known as the Straits of Florida. Ancient Apocalypse s1e4: Ghosts of a Drowned World
A massive structure of carefully laid giant stones with every appearance of being a megalithic roadway or paved terrace. ibid.
In their excitement they announced to the world they had found the road to Atlantis itself. ibid.
The slabs are remarkably straight-edged and parallel. ibid.
This part of the Bahamas has been underwater for thousands of years. ibid.
To the ancients, stargazing would have been the greatest show on Earth. The most entertaining way to pass their long dark nights. Ancient Apocalypse s1e5: Legacy of the Sages
Ancient pyramids and temples all around the world connect sky and ground with precise alignments of the Sun, Moon and stars. ibid.
Gobekli Tepe: It shouldn’t exist. Archaeologists accept that it dates back to around 11,600 years ago, making this the oldest acknowledged monument structure on Earth. It’s a highly sophisticated, highly advanced megalithic site. ibid.
It’s older even than the invention of the wheel. ibid.
What is this place? … How ambitious and imposing it must have been in its prime. ibid.
Megaliths weighing up to ten tons … How these massive blocks were lifted and set in place nobody knows. ibid.
Symbols of animals are to be found everywhere at Gobekli Tepe. ibid.
How did a community of Stone Age hunter-gatherers succeed so brilliantly at building with megaliths at their very first attempt? ibid.
Up to 20 other stone enclosures inside the hill and up to 200 pillars. Most remain unexcavated. ibid.
In 2019 Turkish archaeologists began excavations at another site about an hour’s drive east, called Karahan Tepe. ibid.
There was no agriculture at Gobekli Tepe when it was built. ibid.
Around 10,000 years ago all the structures were buried, rapidly and quite deliberately at the same time. ibid.