Ancient sites around the world have easily been found and identified through the great buildings long gone societies left behind.
If architecture doesn’t exist, other things, like manuscripts and artefacts hint at the past.
Some civilisations, however, left little to nothing behind, making it extremely difficult for archaeologists to piece together any picture about them.
The Middle East was once home to some of the world’s oldest cultures, yet many of them have been lost for this reason.
Yet, traces of once-thriving communities exist in some remote regions, including one ancient site that US spy planes previously discovered during the Cold War.
Anthropologist Dr Jesse Casana is one of these people and was previously given access to a catalogue of photographs taken by the CORONA Spy satellite, something that flew over various places of interest to the US between 1960 and 1972.
Operated by the CIA, the satellite used the most advanced technology of the day to take detailed and high-definition pictures of secluded areas in places like the Middle East.
Dr Casana found some of the region’s and world’s oldest settlements in the photographs, which captured parts of the countryside that used to be far more rural than they are today.
The sites were explored during the Smithsonian Channel’s documentary, ‘The Life of Earth: The Age of Humans’.
“We were able to document something like 10,000 previously unknown archaeological sites that through the history of 150 years of archaeologists working in the Middle East, no one had ever documented,” Dr Casana explained.
In 2007, the images heralded a breakthrough when researchers identified a contender for the world’s oldest and first city.
They believe what they found to be at least 4,000 years older than the Pyramids of Egypt.
Known as Tell Brak, the city is largely a mystery, although experts believe the locals once called it Nagar.
Located in northeastern Syria, Tell Brak sits near the Turkish and Iraqi borders and is considered one of the largest ancient sites in what was Mesopotamia.
People first settled there more than 8,00 years ago, and soon transformed Tell Brak into an advanced metropolis, something helped by its strategic location on a major route from the Tigris Valley northwards to the mines of Anatolia and westwards to the Euphrates and the Mediterranean.
Because of this, researchers believe that the city would have acted as a commercial centre, with traders arriving from far and wide.
Some of the subsequent excavations carried out at the site have found evidence of the mass production of bowls and other items made of obsidian and white marble, as well as stamp seals and sling bullets.
The city’s population was skilled and made things like flints, weapons, and grinding basalt for blocks.
Cuneiform tablets have also been found, a system of ancient writing widespread throughout the Middle East, suggesting that 5,000 years ago Tell Brak was a dominant city.
