The Prehistory of Dark Souls

[Music] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] history begins with the written word in our world this Innovation dates to the late 4th millennium BC roughly 6,000 years ago when the inhabitants of Uruk a Sumerian city in Mesopotamia began scratching pictographic symbols onto clay seals so before this there is no history at least not in the sense that we mean it today because there was no writing but that is not to say that there was no culture in fact far from it the first use of tools dates all the way back to between 2 and 3 million years

ago jewelry has been found dated to 15,000 years ago anyone who has seen the incredibly detailed and beautifully evocative painting things at chave Cave in France dating to about 40,000 years ago will immediately understand that just because people don't write down their history does not mean that they don't have a rich cultural community so while our history begins at its earliest in the fourth millennium BC our prehistory is an equally fascinating Story a tale of Humanity's Origins and of our true nature and because our sources of information are so different it's up to the archaeologists

and anthropologists among us to tell it dark souls by comparison blurs the lines between prehistory and history deliberately the Mythic cosmogony of Dark Souls begins with the narration of the opening cutscene and for the sake of Simplicity let's just assume the narrator is reliable meanwhile history in Dark Souls begins with the written word the compilation of item descriptions and other documentary sources through which we can know many of the more recent specifics of the world but between and with fire came disparity and the written word of lordran is a massive Gap much like in our

own world heavily obscured by the depths of time and the lack of written evidence but no less significant or compelling to take just one minor example from what were shown in the opening cut scene after Gwyn and the others find the Lord souls he and his silver Knights attack the ancient dragons with Gwynn's bolts of lightning but what the hell happened in between those two scenes first we are shown naked primitive beings crawling from the dark towards the light of the first flame and then we are shown an army preparing for battle an army complete

with intricate standardized plate armor requires a high level of civilizational organization to say the least in fact the cynical among us might even say that such War making Innovations are the Hallmarks of civilizational structure in order to have an army like this there must be a complex specialized Society behind it for most of human existence there was no such thing as a soldier much less a knight most fighting was done by whoever was available using weapons which were likewise a matter of availability Gwyn and his Knights have skipped several Millennia of real world civilizational progress

in the span of a single scene not to mention by the time of this Cuts scene Gwyn is already a king or at least a lord again implying substantial hierarchy and organization that is not directly attested to nor explained and this is not specific to GW and his Knights the gold hemmed black set tells us that quana quote wore this gold hemmed black set before even the age of Fire end quote indicating that eolith 2 had societal structure a hierarchy codified in dress Etc even before the age of fire there is much that will never

be known about these periods these are events which are only implied but never directly spoken of like in our own world between the Age of Mythology and the age of proper written history lies the yawning Chasm of prehistory but just like in our own world just because we can't read about it doesn't mean we can't study it only we must rely on the archaeology to point us in the right direction and nowhere is this more true than in the ancient human settlement of ulil a City built a top a site where prehistoric man once dwelt

today ulil is a ruined Abyssal Wasteland before that it was a bustling human city with a flourishing culture of golden light magic we know the inhabitants of the city we meet in the DLC are human because the bload mask tells us their quote humanity went wild end quote but even before the events of the DLC long before the ornate tiled structures and Roman arches of ulil arose there were humans living on this land according to Chester quote ulil has brought the abyss upon itself fooled by that toothy serpent they upturn the grave of primeval man

and incited its orinary wrath end quote the use of the word primeval there is quite interesting as it seems to imply a human settlement before modern ulil and sure enough when we find menace's grave it does indeed Bear all the Hallmarks of a prehistorical people specifically a megalithic burial site the physical grave itself indicates based on its shape that mana's original form was humanoid or more specifically in the shape of the humanity Sprites we see throughout the chasm of the abyss of course by comparison to his current boss fight form we can tell that his

Humanity running wild has warped his physical form this is consistent with the description of his soul which tells us quote ancient Manis was clearly once human end quote physically twisting his form in much the same manner as happened to the human inhabitant of ulil the Grave is raised slightly and the form is molded into the stone which is actually quite a typical for Stone Age and Bronze Age burials as we will see but perhaps this was chosen by the Developers to clearly convey the human form of ancient Manis otherwise had he been buried in a

Dugout pit like most Stone Age burials we know of it would be much harder to convey this message speaking of his physical form the form into which he has mutated is informative as well with his recurrent horn-like protrusions this and the fact that he's a sorcerer based on his staff the sorceries he wields during his boss fight and his item descriptions makes this picture evocative of Stone Age specifically Middle Stone Age or misthic shamans he even uses an old wooden Catalyst quite fitting a Prem metalworking Society of the discovered Stone AG shamans the most famous

is at B durburg which was discovered in modern day Germany and dates to roughly 9,000 years ago based on the animal bones found at this and related sites archaeologists think think that shamans which is to say religious animists in the ancient human time period used to wear the bones and skins of animals to perform their rituals often specifically wearing antler headdresses to give themselves horns these are ideas fromsoft would later iterate upon with the antler horns of cleric beasts and bloodborne even going so far as to have brador scalp his slain cleric Beast compatriot and

Dawn his antlers thereafter of course given that this is prehistory we can't know precisely what these rituals were but it appears likely that they would commune with the spirit world including ancestor Spirits the word Shaman or Shamanism derives from the word for to know and is one of the commonest and earliest forms of religious practice the shaman is the Hallmark of the naturalistic religions that long predated our current religious landscape likewise the artifact perhaps grave good over which Mana obsesses is the broken pendant which reads quote half of a broken Stone pendant the vine appears

to originate from ulil a powerful magic can be sensed from this ancient stone end quote this too appears consistent with the materials used in miso and Neolithic periods largely Stones shells bones Etc all of this points to a stone age shamanistic tradition which with the Salient features being the artifact Made of Stone not metal as opposed to artorius as pendant which is explicitly from an orando and the chain of the pendant being made from a Vine again indicating a naturalistic religion so Manis in his time was likely a stone AG Shaman a kind of Proto

sorcerer if you will in the days of ancient man but the most evocative aspects of this site are these surrounding Stone pillars most of which are broken during the boss fight but one can still see the remnants after the fact and they indicate unambiguously that this is a megalithic burial site specifically of the Stone Circle type megalithic Stone circles are one of the most famous kinds of Neolithic although some date to the early Bronze Age cultural sites of course everybody knows about Stonehenge especially if you're a long-term viewer of the channel but Stonehenge is a

bit peculiar as it is not just a concentric Stone Circle but also a henge type site which refers not to the standing stones but to the surrounding ditch and embankment Stonehenge is almost the exception that proves the rule it has many peculiarities which are not necessarily generalizable to the rest of the stone circles and boy are there a lot of them over a thousand Stone circles have been found found just in Britain and Northwestern France and all dating to within a few Century Long window indicating this culture and practice was spread throughout the region by

a common people and though their exact purpose is not entirely known they seem to have been partially used as grave sites or Melia based on the presence of skeletons and cremated remains along with grave goods and given how early they appear in the archaeological record many in the third millennium BC and how much effort it would take to construct them with stone age or early Bronze Age Technology they reflect an unseen religious organization that may forever remain mysterious to us Beyond stating the obvious that this reflects a kind of ancestor worship we can't say much

about the precise usage of these Stone circles but there's something almost Universal about this practice because while the British versions may be the most famous they are certainly not restricted to Europe the hunter gatherer Jon people of prehistoric Japan in particular made many standing Stone monuments with at least superficial similarity to those in other parts of the world here they were probably not burial sites as there is no evidence of systematic burial unlike their European cousins instead some have been found to function as Sund dials but mostly they are thought to have been ceremonial sites

which in archaeology speak just means we really don't know so it makes sense in a way that Miyazaki and his team would fuse the prehistoric traditions of his own land specifically the Jan with the perhaps more recognizable prehistoric monuments of Britain especially as the game is set in a European setting returning back to menace's grave we can see that this all fits quite nicely he is buried in the middle of Neolithic concentric Stone circles clearly conveying his primeval Origins before we continue let's just appreciate Miyazaki and Cole for using IRL archaeology to convey this message

I know we make this point a lot but it is just so exceptional that it really needs to be pointed out without ever needing someone to directly tell us that manace dates back to the dawn of man so to speak to a pre literate Society of shamans and animism the story is right there all the same now to be fair no megalithic stone circles at least as far as we're aware have been found inside of a cave like this one but caves are sites of immense importance to the development of religious practices in human prehistory

shamanistic ritual implements burial sites and stunning wall art have all been found in caves across several continents there is even evidence from shanidar cave in modern Iraq though its interpretation is of course hotly contested that even neanderthals buried their dead in caves so ancient humanity and caves go a long way back to say the least if you wanted to depict the grave of primeval man putting a megalithic stone circle inside of a cave is a pretty ingenious way to do that but that was all long long ago Manis and his people have long since passed

on and over top their burial sites was built a golden age City in much the same manner as the Romans and later Anglo-Saxons and then later still the Normans provided successive waves of cultural influence onto the British Isles modifying but not eliminating the pre-roman pre-literate bronic culture vestiges of uil's ancient naturalistic religion remains here and there in the way that their sorceries are drawn not from Moon mag IC or crystals but from Golden Light in the way that their gardeners are literally turning into plants and their Sorcerers use birch tree branches as catalysts we can

see the remnants of uil's prehistoric past shining through ulusal we explore is dominated by Romanesque architecture again quite a fitting Choice by the developers the beautiful arches and rundas concealing at their depths the very origins of mankind in much the same way that actual Romanesque architecture would come to dominate Britain beautifully ornate Cathedrals and plazas built right over top the graves of primeval man but of course that is not where the story ends because the inhabitants of ulil would one day stumble across their own path deep in the chasm of the Abyss let us now

turn to the ulil sanctuary or if the original Japanese is to be trusted to the ulil mum sanctuary in English deres from the words meaning house or container for the sacred and the Japanese word rabo connotes that it is specifically a sanctuary where the dead or their Spirits are housed and worship so already just from the name we know this is a sacred Place one that likely houses Spirits we entered the sanctuary through a narrow tunnel of vegetation making the reveal of the sanctuary at large all the more stunning surrounding and defining the structure is

an arched colonade the roof of which has long since collapsed [Music] but of course the most remarkable and evocative features of this place are the statues of humanoid forms throughout the sanctuary one might simply guess that these statues represent the spirits being woried and while partially true the full story is far more intricate and fascinating than that the statues themselves are monoliths carved from a single Stone they have scratches circumferentially around the Torso which look vaguely like a writing script and these scratchings are also found on the facade as well as on some of the

uncovered Stone in front of the statues it's very hard to tell whether this is intended to convey a script or whether this is just a reused texture though if it is indeed writing it would indicate that they are built by a later Society than the one to which manace belonged either way we reached the same conclusion by the classical architecture of the colonade and the adjacent Arena these are structures of a later more advanced Society the form of the statues themselves however is where things start to get really interesting they are unmistakably in the form

of the humanity Sprites seen throughout the chasm of the Abyss from this we can immediately draw one critical conclusion the people that built this Sanctuary had already seen and were familiar with the chasm of the Abyss not only that but this was such a significant moment for them that they built a sanctuary to house Effigies of the humanity Sprites here the real world Archaeology is only partially useful the closest IRL cognate to something like this giant Humanity statues would be the moai from Easter Island or perhaps related Tiki and similar statues from South Dean cultures

in both cases the statues represent ancient humans in the case of the moai they are thought to represent ancestor worship to bring this back to ulil this would make a certain amount of sense after all the humanity Sprites by way of being fragments of the Dark Soul are in a sense the ancestors of all mankind in this world so it may be that the ulans were practicing a form of ancestor worship here but that is only a partially satisfying explanation for one the statues depict the larger and lesser forms of the humanity Sprites precisely what

is seen in the chasm of the Abyss but not exactly what you'd expect for ancestor worship and furthermore like the moai of Easter Island which all face the ocean from the nearby Bluffs these statues are oriented in a very particular manner in fact they are all arranged in a manner as to suggest that they are gazing ging inwards towards the central Hearth where today the bonfire sits this is not just any ancestor worship it seems this Sanctuary depicts a very specific Scene It depicts a scene of first Contact we know ulil by now is no

stranger to the chasm of the abyss and its secrets of course they eventually perturbed the grave of Manis and set his Humanity loose but what about before that based on the fact that there are not one but two elevators leading directly from ulil down to the chasm it's safe to say they visited the place fairly often and based on the scene in the ulil sanctuary we know they revered these Humanity Sprites a significant amount of time must have passed between the building of this sanctuary and the eventual catastrophe that would befall the city and once

again Miyazaki and his team have made that quite clear based on the architecture the San AR is classical and is already so old that it is collapsing only the archways and the facade remaining whereas ulil proper is Romanesque a later style and aside from the spreading Corruption of the Abyss is in pretty good shape at least structurally speaking so to return to the humanity statues what this all seems to convey is that at the time they were built prior to the current Peak age of ulil they reflected knowledge of the the chasm of the abyss

and the humanity contained therein and the peculiarities of this scene can be understood only with the knowledge that this Sanctuary commemorates a very specific Moment In Time the discovery of the chasm and the first contact with the humanity Sprites that is why both larger and smaller Humanity Sprites are shown just as they are today in the chasm that is why the colony was built around the sanctuary to enclose it in much the same manner as a cave in fact in real world British prehistory the most famous types of grave sites the long barrows and even

more so the dolman are thought to have been built for exactly this purpose as artificial caves in which to conduct shamanistic rituals and burials this is how Humanity adapted its religious practices for a Brave New World so one can imagine how this would have looked at its peak the initiate being walked through the narrow tunnel entrance then entering the massive enclosed Sanctuary like a grand artificial cave the flickering light of the central bonfire scattering dancing Shadows across the faceless forms of the humanity Sprites what a powerful scene this must have been even in its reconstruction

and finally commemoration of this scene of first Contact explains the peculiar orientation of the statues in the sanctuary this must have been how they were actually found during that very first encounter it's possible the central point of orientation was mance's grave itself that they were all found congregating around his grave but that's not exactly what we see in games and while possible we favor another interpretation today in the central Hearth the humanity statues face a bonfire and we know that humanity is drawn to the flame so imagine the first explorers of this cave stumbling across

the chasm their torch light faintly Illuminating the walls and being slowly surrounded by the humanity Sprites curious alien and Powerful drawn Like Moths To The Flame this is the Prometheus moment when Humanity discovered its attraction to fire this in Dark Souls and in the real world is the most important story we don't know the moment the first humans were drawn to fire poked at it carried it eventually mastered it is when everything changed for our species the first technological advance that began everything the most important moment of unknowable prehistory it is no coincidence that no

other mammal is drawn to fire including our own cousins non-human primates quite the opposite in fact modern humans the survivors of countless layers of genocidal competition with other hominids still present a common innate attraction to it it is no stretch to imagine that the first weird mutant of a primate that felt an urge toward fire rather than to run away from it would eventually learn to harness its power and with it a terrifying and deadly advantage over all those who would not and so began true Humanity selected for its ability to harness fire and everything

it afforded warmth light protection cooking metal in the paleoanthropological record the first evidence of a hearth appears 800 100,000 years ago in the Eastern Mediterranean in Dark Souls that Prometheus moment happens in ulil where we still see commemoration of Humanity's first gathering around a hearth like Elizabeth says may the Flames guide thee end quot and here in the ulusal sanctuary we have a representation of Humanity's dual nature we are drawn to the flame but we are born of the dark [Music]