I'm kind of feeling like the middle 'stall' (J I believe) would possibly be trading stained glass instead. In a stall I wouldn't immediately expect stained glass to be part of the structure (even though the other 2 stalls each have piece as well), and Locus J has 3 of them. It wouldn't explain the wheat much, but that might either just be food (as stated in other places) or a combined stall I guess. Not having this stall selling food also leaves the very real possibility of Locus A being something of a bakery where food is also sold. Further more, I think we can safely state that it's very possible this ruin is from before capitalism was widely adopted as a social system (judging / assuming from the depth of the ruins and widespread use of pots mainly), it's also possible that food was also used for trading. While gold might have a good value that can be stored for a long time, traveling merchants and tradesmen (the people who spend the bulk of their time making the armor or smelting or whatever) would need a way to get food, trading their crafts with farmers for food seems like a very real possibility and could explain why we find wheat throughout the whole site.
I think the lack of leather and metal armor in the place shows there might have been pillaging after everyone was left or killed, and as for the wheat, it's defineteley a bread placeholder and Locus A and Locus B are probably involved in food production and Locus I is probably a small open-air agricultural cache that got raized.
Something older players would recognize that you may not in the armoring workshop- double stone slabs were used at blacksmithing villager buildings in place of anvils before the Village and Pillage update, where they updated it and replaced it with an anvil. Combined with the lack of metal elsewhere, the stone anvil is a heavy indicator that this civilization did not have enough metals for everyday use. Their furnaces and blast furnaces would be used in smelting mostly gold for decoration, plants for dyes, bread, and finally clay and terracotta for pottery and construction material. In base minecraft, you can only mine gold with iron or better tools, so rules of the game would indicate the little iron they found was largely used in collecting valuable things like emeralds and gold for decoration/religious views (totems are made of both), OR the people traded for gold and emeralds from other civilizations.
I was thinking the same thing! Especially since it would align with their theory that the civilization used leather armor as metal armor was not found and would have survived so it's absence strongly suggest it was never used
In fact there are actual anvils in the Trail ruins and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think erosion can make an anvil to the last stage (damaged anvil) and by the other various iron related blocks like cauldrons, stone cutters, and the metallurgy blocks like smithing tables and smelting furnaces might indicate a more advanced smelting of iron moreover with the point that gold is not as widely used unlike iron.
I'm actually really impressed at the consistency and nature of the trail ruins. I hadn't given the trail ruins any attention when they released, but it's pretty obvious that there are multiple different structures built for different purposes in the ruins. I think you've done a great job at uncovering and analyzing them.
My head canon answer to 'where are the villagers who worked here?' is: Every single zombie or skeleton you met. (some Curse of Undeath- theyve deteriorated a bit)
The entire time I was looking at Locus B, a kiln came to mind. Given the amount of terracotta and clay this civilization used, a kiln would be a necessary structure.
I assume the associated village would've been constructed from organic materials like wood and straw, so wouldn't leave behind any appreciable ruins because it would all have rotted away
@@daskalosBCE SomethingI I'd be interested in seeing explored is if there are any nearby villages or other ruin sites, how the may or may not be connected
There are however, variants of the trail ruins, and given MC's generation code, it's obviously not gonna generate all variations right next to eachother (tho that would be cool to have them all connected), so the living quarters might just be one of those variants. I plan to make a project connecting them all, and since there's 4 variants of the trail ruins with the roads, I'm going to assume this village may have been shaped like a plus sign, with each tower on the ends. That's just my guess on it tho.
21:31 Even if they don't use metal armours, they would still need to smelt the the gold needed for trimming, (there were golden trims back in the museum, right ?), and the iron to make the smithing table. The dyes can be used to tint leather armours, so I don't think they're out of place. Green dye in particular is obtained by putting cactus in a furnace, which could justify the presence of a regular furnace on top of the blast one. I don't remember seing any green dyes around, but there _is_ a green candle in that building.
There’s also a heavy presence of brown candles and terracotta, which indicates to me that travelers from Jungle biomes likely passed through the area and traded cocoa beans with the ruin’s inhabitants.
With the name being "trail" ruins I think it's a market built on a path between towns and villages, a place for people to rest and restock. The minecraft world can be quite dangerous and fighting lots of mobs will break down your tools and armor so the workshop could be a place to maybe mend or buy replacement gear. Additionally this could perhaps explain the lack of armor on site, people stopped, repaired their gear, fed their horse and left. Why would you leave your armor behind? This could suggest that the civilization traveled a lot and had many settlements far enough away from each other to make building these worthwhile. What's interesting is that similar sherds/armor trims can be found in other structures, I think this also suggests that these people traveled and communicated with other cultures, spreading (or learning) different technology. One more thought I had: Is it possible that the shaft in the blast furnace building was a place to store coal? have the blast furnaces at the bottom and let gravity do the work of moving the coal next to the furnace ready to be shoveled in. I'm also wondering if it could be an interpretation of a real life blast furnace where fuel and ore is filled from the top. Of course there's no way of telling really. But I think it's a safe bet to say it's for processing ore.
It could be that they were a semi-nomadic culture, who built these permanent settlements to rest, resupply, and process their ores and resources, while living in more mobile or temporary structures... Maybe this place is somewhere they would seasonally return when their inventories got full to process all their ores, restock on food, repair their armor, etc?
It could’ve been a possibility that the town was looted before us or raided in its lifetime, which could explain the wrecked state of the brick smelting function, and that gold nugget at the end/start of the road could’ve been the trail of a thief. This could also explain the pottery “falling” and leaving sherds in different places, as pillagers could’ve broken them looking for treasure inside.
Just wanted to say that in Minecraft smelting clay makes bricks, so that smelting operation could've been for the pottery and the brick buildings. (Also smelting terracotta makes glazed terracotta. And clay also makes terracotta) So, just from a Minecrafter prospective, that smelting building could've been the base operation for essentially the entirety of the trail ruins
Yeah, all the brick slats in the basement are kind of puzzling but could be interpreted as shelves. So: a pit filled with ceramic shelves and intense fire below? That's a kiln.
The realization at 14 minutes in of the locus being a workshop complex honestly blew me away. I always figured that the loot in suspicious gravel was random, but with how well everything came together, I’m tempted to believe it’s intentionally placed to some degree.
Interesting that an emerald was in leather workshop, and you didnt say much about it. Emeralds are used in minecraft as money to trade with villagers. But if we are looking from perspective of reality, this might have been a jewelry on horse armor. Also with leather workshop - it may have been a stop for horses, while merchants done their buisness, kind of stable, to feed them and do some work on them, such as horse shoeing, and you need instruments for that, so workbench comes in handy.
@@WalkinStereotypeexactly my thought, especially with all of the templates around it, it feels like it might have been used as a more “upper-class” trim, so to soeak
I think the sherds are being named by the player based on what is on the sherd and what the player has experienced. The sherd that has a creeper on it is called danger and the one that is vaguely a villager is called friend.
creepers seem to signify danger or at least beware more than this though as they are chiseled into the desert temples which are booby trapped. I think it's reasonable to assume that walking explosives that try to kill you would be representative of danger regardless of timeframe or culture.
The modeling of creepers suggest that they are more ancient than zombies or skeletons, perhaps they are *the* oldest creature in Minecraft, at least older than intelligent life, as they explode when they get nervous and have social anxiety.
i think you nailed it for the most part! in modern day minecraft villages the tower structure is a church, also villagers tend to live in the building they sell in, but trade is the main purpose of villages in minecraft, so yea you’re definitely right about this being a place of trade. being said, most villager homes are wooden, & pillagers could’ve stolen all the valuable metal then burnt down their houses, leading to the ruin of the village
Remember, you can't think in modern terms. It's one of the toughest things to do as an archaeologist. Still, with that said, it appears as a place of trade
I found a beer brewery in mine! it had a lot of wheat, sheaf sherd, more sherds, and a cauldron! I found little banner crafting room that had a flower pot with blue dye right next to it, so I'm thinking a lot of the dyes are actually organic material. Because the blue dyes are from either a lapis or a corn flower so I think my loom artist had a corn flower. There was also quite a bit of white dye and that's only made with bones. I'm super excited for my build and I'm super thankful you're posting this series it's helped a lot!
11:04 Okay, this building. I have seen this one specific piece generated in one Trail Ruins structure in a world I played in, and both from that and from your videos excavating these ruins, I believe the Coarse Dirt that used to be in there is *crucial* for the interpretation of the room. Considering there is a hoe, and that the blocks there were *specifically* Coarse Dirt (which I believe is not seen anywhere else in the ruins), I think the room was meant for wheat production. Very small, yes, but at least that's what I think Edit: considering there are the wheat sherds in that room, but that it's also connected to that one room with the crafting table which connects to the one with the cauldron, I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess that there were leatherworkers who wanted ease of access to their materials: a work station connected to a small wheat farm but also to a leatherworking room. Cows, maybe? Cows are bred using wheat, at least in the game
There was a bunch of coarse dirt here and there in the previous videos, so it does pop up in the ruins. But it obviously doesn't normally generate underground and thus is likely to be significant, so it's a but of a shame that he ignored it
What further solidifies Locus G as a smelting operation in my opinion is the fact that the criss crossed beams and the basement look like an over sized kiln
Regarding the note on the pottery and dye, it's common for paint to wear away, and perhaps microscopic analysis would reveal fragments of paint. Additionally, could the road have originally been surfaced in something that wore away? Amazing work on the information books!
Thanks! I think the dye and associated clay/sherds are absolutely connected in the way you are suggesting. Roads can be plastered which is a definite possibility
3:57 Just a theory but the clay could be remains or representation of brick as part of the brick crafting recipe contains clay. It could be broken up, decomposed, or practically dusted/pulverized prick with only one of its most basic elements left. This is also supported by some of the tower being built out of brick.
Locus B could be a oven or place to cook food or heat up clay pots or smelt armour. 18:37 could be an area to dry clay pots with the brick beams being used as the storage place to let the clay pots dry
@@daskalosBCEI’ve been trying to recreate what the village may have looked like via the download, and I was trying to figure this out. You mentioning the relation between the tower and the workshop where the feed troughs were. It’d have to be an important structure for them to make the base brick - I wonder if it was a wooden silo next to the tower that was crushed? It’d make sense to have a good foundation for a silo and near the feed troughs for easy access?
Do you plan on making a restored replica of the ruin? Maybe using world edit to clone the ruins then using your interpretation to make a model Edit: Also that location next to the tower is almost certainly a brick oven, the 4 fire places give this away the most, but also how the red terracotta tapirs towards the top would imply it curves up into a chimmeny, and the red terracotta is likely just bricks that worn over time
5:28 Commented on a previous video; I think that in Minecraft, for one reason or another, there isn’t a lot of well developed cellulose and other sturdy plant matter consuming fungus/bacteria around. This is further hinted at by the presence of coal at very high levels in the stone. Nothing exists to break down these woody plants for some reason.
19:43 I wonder of all the brick work there isn’t maybe to create some sort of draft for that smelting operation as well. All those crisscrossing beams, and passages for air.
In my layman's perspective, from reading the comments and watching this video; here's my unnecessarily long-winded interpretation: Locus A "The Watchtower": The highest point, meant to survey the land. - The unfired clay could be remnants of the wall (like a type of plaster?) or like you said, stored in the pot. Locus B "The Kiln": Could be a multipurpose oven for food (like bread) and to fire the clay, terracotta, and pots. - The size and shape of the space seems to indicate either a furnace with a large vent for heating(although this building is detached from all the others) or more than likely a kiln with space for racks above the fires. Locus C "The Leatherworker's", Locus D "Horse Stable", and Locus E "Dyer's Room": These three definitely seem to be related, I agree on this. The purpose seems to be leatherworking for people and animals. Either horses or dogs, or both. - This might be a stretch but the trough in Locus E could be for mass dying. Perhaps it held water for cloth and leathers to soak in (Is that how things are dyed??? I have zero knowledge on this.) Locus F "The Lounge": This I can 100% agree on. This is definitely a communal space as indicated by the hearth, chairs, and benches. - The sherds and armor trims could be templates or concepts that would be used in projects at the kiln. Maybe people brought them over to show off and get a second opinion. Loci G & H "Heavy Metals": As indicated by the Smithing Table and many Blast Furnaces, I agree, this is likely a space for metal armors to be produced. - The separation of above & below in Locus G could indicate either a display room or armory, in my opinion. A space for gearing up and/or storage. Loci I, J, & K "Storage Sheds": This is where we disagree. I'm lumping these three together for a specific reason. I believe these could simply be storage sheds as indicated by their differing contents. - Locus I could be storage for husbandry tools, for the horses in the stables. - Locus J could be for pre-processed goods, hence the wheat. - Locus K could be for clay and dye storage. In conclusion, I believe this to be some form of military instillation. The existence of a trough and dividing wall in Locus D, plus one of the walls being open air, leans to it being a sort of stable. Add that to the whole complex seeming to focus on armor, and even tool or weapon production pushes me more towards "military". The lack of a sleeping area seems off to me though. Perhaps this complex was already around and was repurposed and converted to what we see today, and all the soldiers slept in temporary tents.
That’s why I’m only 99 percent on board with the marketplaces theory. I would like to point out the lack of defensive fortifications that might go against the outpost theory
Only thing I can really add is that I'm thinking some of the clay blocks are deteriorated terracotta from the walls. It took me way too long to figure out you make terracotta blocks out of clay.
I literally just typed that a little while ago in response to another comment and thought about deleting it because "nah, no one would believe that" haha! thanks for confirming I wasn't totally full of it to think of that!
I'm currently getting my undergrad in Anthropology and I'm taking an Archeology class. It's so cool that my feild of study made it into one of the most popular video games ever sold. This video series has been an absolute joy to watch through I really appreciate all the time and hard work you put into it. You really inspire me to continue with my own studies!
I think since there are pot sherds and campfires in locus b might indicate that it was used to bake clay? Originally Mojang wanted unbaked clay pots to be smelted with a fire below it. It wasnt a campfire but its similar nonetheless. Idk, just my theory? Edit: also the dead bush might be dead plants from agriculture
in Minecraft campfires can be a cheap beacon because you can see the smoke far away, so locus B could be used for drying the pots or be a more visible beacon for far off travelers.
14:30 it can be a leather workshop, with 2 sections fir cows (for leather) and the cauldron can be used for : leather dying OR feeding/ water holder (drinking) for cows
On the Brick building with the smelters @19:58 Perhaps it is a collapsed structure, and the bricks and smelters were not orgirionaly in the basement? The first floor's walls are mostly gone after all.
Maybe they used the wheat not as food but as straw? In the world of pottery, straw can be incredibly useful for reinforcing mud bricks (heck in Minecraft wheat is a neccesary component of mud brick, so it could have just worn away from the walls).
Some questions What happens if a modern dead body was found in a excavation spot Have you gone on a dig? What happens if you find a non related artifact? What happens if you found a non related fossil? Would you collect it and hand it off to a paleontology department
1. The police would be called (it’s not common but I’ve heard of it before) 2. Yes, many. I’ve even been the lead on a couple 3. It all depends on the artifact 4. I’ve found a fossil on a dig before, it shows that the people collected it. No need to turn it over to a paleontologist, it’s still part of the archaeological record
The campfires could have been part of the top of the tower. As in it was a lighthouse that collapsed/toppled and the top is now lying in a pile upside down.
The fact that its called 'trail ruins', could also vouch for the merchant outpost. Maybe the 'trail' was something like the silk road irl, which also must have had some kind of trading outposts like this one ? Also, the presence of merchants should also mean that they had some bodyguards with them so thats maybe why you thought this could have also been a military outpost. Great video and I look forward for more. Cheers !
14:20 Cauldrons aren't used to dye leather in Java Minecraft, which you're playing. In Java, they are ONLY used for water and lava storage. The cauldron could represent a trough for water or food.
@@kierianiis I completely honestly forgot that leather-workers existed in the game. They're such a niche type of villager compared to the more useful ones.
I'm thinking this might be some sort of civilian outpost? There are no signs of permanent residential structures. just leather worker, armorer, communal hub and tower. Stalls could be just the last stalls erected before site was abandoned so might not have been a permanent feature. So I'm thinking either Nomadic merchant outpost or Military outpost that lets merchants use the other side of the road.
Keep in mind that some organic buildings wouldn’t have lasted as well as the brick especially if they were thatched roof/waddle and daub construction (not to say that those things exist in Minecraft)
One answer to the lack of a village surrounding it could have been that the community that made use of the place of commerce was widely decentralised. Either nomadic, or simply widely spread out agricultural communities. Having a small marketplace that people can gather at and visit to meet their needs while the surrounding area wasn't fully able to support them living together seems like it could have some utility. If I remember right, some semi settled societies worked like that?
The first thing that came to my minde when I saw Locus B was a beacon of smoke. I don’t know how far from reality this idea is, I know nothing about archeology, but the way it has many campfires together inside a tall structure, which looks like a chimny, could be used so travellers could find the place from far away.
something i found slightly interesting is that beetroot seeds mainly spawn in 'hardy' places like in desert villages, abandoned mineshafts, dungeons, and even end cities.
I would assume that there was an associated village in the immediate vicinity of the Ruins, but were made with organic materials like woods, scaffolds, fences, etc. hence why there are these buildings, and yet no buildings that would indicate residency by the local populace. The ruines indicate industry for a decent population, yet no residency buildings
The ground floor of locus G may have been a shop of some kind? That would explain why the furnaces were located in the basement, where people would be able to tend to the furnaces without worrying about potential clients. Because it’s right next to the structures that look like stalls, it would make sense for the products from the smithy to have been displayed and sold there, as the area looks like a market place of sorts
i think the constant appearance of wheat throughout is following how similarly the mud brick is made in the game, it uses mud and wheat to created packed mud so my guess is as the buildings deteriorate, the wheat is slowly seeping out the bricks, or it could represent insulation or the remanence of a once thatch roofing on some buildings. i believe it’s beyond just food resources and agriculture but part of the architecture itself
Since it was mostly buried under stone, maybe we're looking at a Pompeii type situation. A primarily wooden town, buried under lava and ash, where only the market square, which was mostly made of less flammable materials like terracotta and stone, survived. That conflicts with the presence of wood and wheat, though... maybe it was buried under a mudslide that then solidified into sedimentary rock?
I think the depth and surrounding material was more of the developers wanting to bury a large structure rather than the developers thinking about lore to be honest
as far as i'm aware, each individual structure generated has a specific name- i believe locus D /is/ actually called the Stables, so you may have been spot on! the latter half of Wattles' video "TRAIL RUINS: Minecraft 1.20's Biggest Mystery - Everything To Know" has been the only resource online i've been able to find detailing individual structure names, so take what i say with a grain of salt :) something else i've seen theorized upon is the relevance of armor templates. there could be a possibility that the names "wayfinder", "raiser", "shaper" and "host" may have responded to categories of professions? who knows LOL. i have absolutely LOVED your videos on this subject and this is exactly the type of analysis i've been hoping for these amazing structures to receive! :D
It's possible that the cauldron in building E could have been like a trough for animals to drink from. I know they can't actually drink from it in the game, but it's a possibility thats what represents. Since there was originally a layer of dirt in the part that went down, it would make sense. It would be weird to do armour dying on the dirt. It could be where the cows were kept to get the leather!
I'm definitely on the same page with your interpretation. The only amendment I'd make is that the leathery is using *cows.* Horses in Minecraft don't really care about wheat, sure you can feed it to them, but that's about it. You need carrots and apples and sugar to deal properly with horses. The absence of these is a strong factor in ruling out horses being present. Cows also typically drop more leather whereas horses usually only give you one piece. Wheat is also the go-to for luring, breeding, and feeding cows. Wheat is also used to craft the solid mud blocks. As for the fire pit, I believe that part of the leather making process is to smoke or dry the leather. So that would make sense with its proximity to the workshop.
The smithing table and lack of metal armor in Building H as well as the abundance of armor templates throughout the site suggest to me that Building H decorated existing leather armor rather than making new metal armor. That, or the site was ransacked at some point by invaders, which would explain the lack of any metal armor or materials in Buildings G and H as well as the apparent lack of metals and gemstones throughout the site (as far as I could tell, the only metals/gemstones were the emerald in Building E and the gold nugget on the path), in which case metal armor is a definite possibility. That being said, I'm not an archaeologist, so there may be flaws in my hypothesis that I don't know enough to see
This is such a joyful video. Regarding all the wheat - I could imagine it also being used as a stand-in for hay or some other form of bundled plantlife, perhaps treated in some way that made it survive the times; could that be what the suspected awning was made out of?
The gold is interesting. It shows up in archaeology in drowned ruins, providing some sort of link between the trail ruins and the predecessors of the drowned. It is also strongly associated with the nether and the denizens thereof. Which were they trading with?
Seeing as theres dye in every structure, id guess that the dye is from crumbled paint from the walls or ceiling maybe, like something to do with the materiality of the structures themselves and not to do with the function of each building?
i think part B of the trail ruin could be a bakery for making bread because there are campfires and wheat and coal. the dyes could have represented flour, because they are white (or yellow which i guess could represent yellow flour). the pottery sherd could have been used to store water. part A, i think could have been an outpost or a watchtower, because the tower itself is really just a huge staircase with no rooms or anything. maybe there were many pots there to store water or even flowers. hard to say.
I don't know much; but I do know some minecraft stuff. Following the conclusion that the ruins are some sort of marketplace, the presence of gold (presumably used as a currency) might suggest a presence of ancient Piglins, as they are the only Mob in game that uses gold as a currency.
They're the only mob that uses gold for currency now. That doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't used as a currency for anyone in antiquity. Gotta think outside of the current age :)
I have a theory about why you didn't find any metal armour in the ruins! There are metal fastenings to leather armour and goods. Saddles have stirrups and buckles and rivets, leather armour has buckles and rivets, and I strongly suspect that the leather focused area also made leather goods like saddles (which need to be correctly fitted to the horse in order to not hurt the horse, hence the holding areas), and the metal working place down the road made the horse shoes and the other hardware. It would be quite convenient to duck down the road for rivets and buckles after all. Perhaps the metal work area also made trinkets to sell in the market...
If all three buildings were connected, what if the lead above the emerald is actually part of the cauldron room? After all, you put the item frames on the block on which the item was found, so it was actually part of its wall. To me this suggests that the room which you call a feed was actually a grain storage.
I’m wondering, given that the block pallet is almost if not identical and given the shapes of the ruined walls, if Locus B might actually be the toppled roof of Locus A. It could explain how at least one pot smashed and scattered like it did. Then again, the campfires might suggest otherwise, though it’s not uncommon to see them used for their shape in builds to represent structural or decorative elements.
Beetroots can be used to make red dye, maybe the seeds near the ceiling in E came from the garden they were growing in, like whatever ceitter put them there found them in the ground nearby.
I'm wondering if, due to how prevalent and evenly spread the wheat is, it might be a stand in for scraps of surviving rushes that used to be scattered on the floors of the interiors like they did in medieval times (broad term I know). That's the best explanation I can come up with for the oddity.
Locus B could be a disposal area. Moldy wheat, broken pots, dye that wasnt favored or lost its vibrancy, and so on. It also could have been in part, related to the tower, in which a pot of wheat fell off of the tower, in the direction of the Burn pit. The burn pit could also serve as a predator deterrent, and illumination source.
Just played the Minecraft world and read everything it’s very epic. Could just be an ancient type of village where villagers and/or wandering traders stayed at but the pillagers or zombies wiped them out and looted the place (only the pillagers would loot ofc), or they moved, or just died out. Like we sometimes see the modern villages abandoned that are beat up and full of cobwebs and zombie villagers, and with time, it will also be buried underground. There’s still trading stalls, workstations, and armory buildings (blacksmiths) of the present, modern villages, and they still meetup every day around the center of the village like the social area with the campfire. There is also farms and animal pens, both of which are possible things that could be here in the trail ruin.
That was such an excellent interpretation! It totally is a market! I would not have reached that conclusion. Furthest I would have got was "this where they worked"
Locus E, cauldrons can be used for potion making as well(you put a bucket of water into the cauldron, and each cauldron can fill three glass bottles if water, which is PRECISELY how many slots a brewing stand has), and again. When I build, specifically in creative, I use cauldrons in my sheep pen, and stables as their "troughs". More for looks than function, since animals dont actually drink water, but, if I find a mod where they do, cauldrons would be where my penned and stabled animals would drink from. But.your idea of being a leather shop makes sense too.
The building with the camp fires i feel like could be a place to do smoke signals. Theres the burn and danger sherd which could be becuase the smoke signal warns of danger. Theres dyes that maybe they used to change smoke signal colors. And unlike the rest of the buildings theres not even a hint of a roof so the smoke can escape.
I love this so much! I totally agree, and I just want to add one bit of potential story I thought of as you were looking at the place with the campfires - what if the pot with burn and danger sherds was a bomb? Someone threw a pot filled with gunpowder into the large oven that all the merchants used for food or pottery or whatever, during whatever chaotic event led to the place being eventually abandoned?
Maybe the tower was a storage area? I know when I build in my worlds, I usually Incorporate a storage silo, or even a storage tower. The tower doing double duty as a lookout tower for mobs, as well as a place to store extra, often combat related items such as arrows, gunpowder, etc. Maybe that is why there were sherds, dyes, and even clay inside it. Especially in the historical context of dyes being VERY valuable in ancient times, often. Used for royalty, or other high class citizenry. Wouldnt want pillagers(or their amcestors) to steal your dyes. (I may comment on every locus you bring up, sorry if thos seems like spam)
i genuinely believe that all of the wheat serves not as remnants of food (maybe the seeds do instead) but rather as part of the packed mud industry since it is the agent used to pack the mud and mud bricks are so abundant in the structure
woohooo i finally got to watch the interpretation!! yeeee. i'm so glad you included the fact that you aren't 100% sure for some of the builds because there just isn't enough evidence to suggest otherwise. absolutely loved this and can't wait for more series ^^ (i can finally start watching the bronze series soon XD)
for some reason my theory about why no armour whas found in the smelting and armour opperation might be because whatever caused the place to become a ruin, might hav happend right after they had build those buildings but before they could be propperly used?
first time someone finally finds a logical interpretation of the ruins. because a lot of people that wanted to understand the ruins on RUclips just used commands to destroy everything including the artefacts to see wtf is happening or went to the files. but you got through it by using a lot of pacience and a non care about the view and the hype or whatever.
I have to say, I've LOVED this whole series SO much! I'm kinda sad to be getting so close to the end of it, do you think there's any chance of you doing any of minecraft's other ruins in a similar way? Obviously, they aren't buried, so there wouldn't be an excavation per se, but it would still be SO interesting to see you approach the jungle temple, the desert pyramid, maybe even ocean monuments or drowned ruins from a real life angle like this! Not to mention, there are fascinating military ruins in the nether! And if you play in peaceful, it wouldn't be prohibitively dangerous necessarily. Honestly, I'm mostly just hoping we won't be seeing the end of this series after the trail ruins! I know some of the other types of ruins don't have artefacts hidden in the sand (though some of them do), but there's still so much that could be so fun to explore!
@@daskalosBCE ABSOLUTELY fair, I understand that totally. For what it's worth, I don't know how others feel, but I'm SO curious to see what kinds of insight you could draw from minecraft's other ancient structures!
@@daskalosBCEI think something that might let you teach something new would be to go to one of the other structures that also has sherds and armor trim and discuss how to interpret similar artifacts found in disparate locations. If you do a drowned ruin you could talk about underwater archaeology and anaerobic preservation!
I could also excavate another trail ruin and then start to compare and make observations of the civilization as a whole. I’m not sure how I’ll go about it. I set out to make this a stand alone series, but I may tackle some things in the future. We shall see
I feel like your conclusion is spot on! When you were getting toward the end, I was thinking "a trading outpost". 😃 What a great episode! I was totally engaged through the whole thing, watching your ideas and conclusions develop. 🤩
I downloaded the world and walked through immediately after the premiere. Your design and lighting are so perfect. It makes the experience so immersive. Good luck dying in your hardcore world! (If you haven't seen his videos, I promise I'm being nice)
Keeping the artifacts in-situ with the item frames really came in clutch to help tell the story of the site! I loved discovering this build right along with you :D I wonder if the Howl pottery sherd being found in the armourers workshop was a sneak peek at dog armour being added to the game 🤔 Maybe a stretch, I dunno
The coars dirt that you excavated out of Locus D is supposed to be the floor for that "trough." Also, based on the layout, it seems like it could have been a small stable and the wheat was the animal feed and the Sherds marked with wheat was what was used for storage.
I think I can expand a little further. This is a place for people to stop at during their journeys from place to place. Here, people could stock up on new armor, get more food, get fresh horses, buy new pots to carry things in, and talk to other travelers in the meeting place. After all, the structure is called a "Trail Ruin." There are also some real life versions of this. During the rule of Kublai Khan in the Mongolian Empire, roads were improved all across Asia and Europe. Rest stops were built every 50 miles, and they served a much similar purpose to the trail ruins.
@@daskalosBCE I worked in game development for a bit, enough to know that whoever designed the trail ruins would be over the moon that a real archeologist did an excavation of their site.
That building is the only one still puzzling to me, the crisscross beams are confusing, but I feel I've seen something similar looking once in a real life article or something, just can't remember what is was for. But I'm with you on the heating for now, there might have been (deteriorated) grills between the beams (so people can still walk the full surface of the floor), with the beams controlling even dispersion of the hot air upward
For locus B as the user Ladyairili said, I'd say that was a Kiln, you got the fire and Danger shrds which could have been some kind of sign or like warning lable, like a hazard line. You got the dyes often used for coloring terrecotta, wheat which is used in mud bricks and irl needs to be fired in order to harden into what you use for construction. And even the armor trim could be a sign that part of the decoration process was using the kiln to heat up the metal or mineral bands so they would fuse to the leather or armor itself. This could even tie into those random bits of clay on top of the tower, if you notice they're just across from the Kinl, which could indicate the y were thrown up there. Maybe the person using the kiln was angry at someone on the tower and threw two pieces of clay, the first one either missing, or knocking the pot down, and the second one either knocking the pot down or hitting the person that the kiln worker was angry at. For locus C, I mostly agree, although I wouldn't say it was a workshop, a crafts room, or like artisan room maybe, but not a workshop as it only has the crafting bench. So it looks more like a place where you may go to get some hasty repairs or maybe have the final tweaks to your trim done by a specialist. For locus D, based on the layout of the room and the two large retangular holes across from the pen like structures, I'd say it could have been a stable of some kind. Those wholes are A too large, and B to purposeful to have merely been a result of errosion, you can tell cause of the lack of debris visible elsewhere in the building. The small dips in the floor look like where you'd put haybale bedding for your horse to sleep on, so in a way it's basically a garage that could hold up to two horses. Thats why theres not a wall between them, as you'd want to be able to walk across the way to get to your two horses, the wall wall (aka the mudbrick wall thats over the dip) would separate the hoses themselves. With the support pillar its attached to likely being where a fence gate was supposed to go originally, with the hoe possibly even being a stand in for a plow you'd drag behind the horses using a yoke. For locus E, I can actually support the idea it was a pen by clarifying stuff with the cauldron, it can both wash leather, and in bedrock be used to *dye* leather. However in addition, as it holds water, you can actually take drinks from it using bottles, so it could very easily be a water trough that animals would drink from. With the trims and die being from the last few people guarding it before they died... although your interpretation of the three different rooms is interesting. Locus F feels self explanatory, so i don't have anything to add to it For locus G, I again have to agree, the way those rows of bricks stretch across the gap look like they are make shift drying/baking racks. Criss crossing over eachother with space between each layer and the two furnaces heating the whole thing up, although because of the racks I'd disagree on smeltery. As if you're heating metal you don't want it to be dripping down to the bottom like that, it looks more like what you'd use to finish the creation of a pot. The armor trims just feel to me like where someone wearing armor was, with the trim itself being all thats left of their armor. For Locus H, now *this* is the blacksmit/smeltery, you got the furnace, and blast furnace, and like WalkinStereotype said, the double smoothstone slab represents a stone anvil. If you look at other blacksmit structures, you'll quickly realize that that little alcove below where the iron are situated would normally have magma in it, or lava. Which represents molten metal i suspect, meaning where as locus G was the like a kiln or oven, Locus H is a metal workshop and blacksmithing building where the armor and weapons are made. Locus I-K, same as F, you pretty much got it down pat, it seems to be a stall like those found in villages. and thats about all I have to say...
It's really interesting to see this kind of analysis. To my knowledge, the items inside of suspicious gravel and sand is random- Different structures have different lootpools, but the items at any given position is random. Nonetheless it's really cool how the drops for your ruin actually ended up making a lot of sense. I'm confident that this kind of analysis is 100% what Mojang intends for people to do with these structures. What REALLY stands out to me by far is the analysis of the buildings. I don't think I would've considered the idea of there being support beams, but I think you're spot on with the gaps being evidence of wood that's since decayed. They clearly put a lot of care into the design of this structure.
This is SO COOL & fascinating!!! 😮 What fun to uncover the ruins & see stories of the ruins unfold. And to think about what is going on in the ruins. :3 Ty so much for such a fun, fascinating, cool series! 😎
So I’m 99 percent on this interpretation. The 1 percent of me says military outpost
idk probably was religious tbh
@@Tyneras 😂so true!
I'm kind of feeling like the middle 'stall' (J I believe) would possibly be trading stained glass instead. In a stall I wouldn't immediately expect stained glass to be part of the structure (even though the other 2 stalls each have piece as well), and Locus J has 3 of them. It wouldn't explain the wheat much, but that might either just be food (as stated in other places) or a combined stall I guess.
Not having this stall selling food also leaves the very real possibility of Locus A being something of a bakery where food is also sold.
Further more, I think we can safely state that it's very possible this ruin is from before capitalism was widely adopted as a social system (judging / assuming from the depth of the ruins and widespread use of pots mainly), it's also possible that food was also used for trading. While gold might have a good value that can be stored for a long time, traveling merchants and tradesmen (the people who spend the bulk of their time making the armor or smelting or whatever) would need a way to get food, trading their crafts with farmers for food seems like a very real possibility and could explain why we find wheat throughout the whole site.
@@Tyneras That is comedy gold!
I think the lack of leather and metal armor in the place shows there might have been pillaging after everyone was left or killed, and as for the wheat, it's defineteley a bread placeholder and Locus A and Locus B are probably involved in food production and Locus I is probably a small open-air agricultural cache that got raized.
Something older players would recognize that you may not in the armoring workshop- double stone slabs were used at blacksmithing villager buildings in place of anvils before the Village and Pillage update, where they updated it and replaced it with an anvil. Combined with the lack of metal elsewhere, the stone anvil is a heavy indicator that this civilization did not have enough metals for everyday use. Their furnaces and blast furnaces would be used in smelting mostly gold for decoration, plants for dyes, bread, and finally clay and terracotta for pottery and construction material. In base minecraft, you can only mine gold with iron or better tools, so rules of the game would indicate the little iron they found was largely used in collecting valuable things like emeralds and gold for decoration/religious views (totems are made of both), OR the people traded for gold and emeralds from other civilizations.
I didn't know about the slab thing. That makes perfect sense then that the building is an early armorers stand
The way this added my immersion was SICK my friend thank you
I was thinking the same thing! Especially since it would align with their theory that the civilization used leather armor as metal armor was not found and would have survived so it's absence strongly suggest it was never used
In fact there are actual anvils in the Trail ruins and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think erosion can make an anvil to the last stage (damaged anvil) and by the other various iron related blocks like cauldrons, stone cutters, and the metallurgy blocks like smithing tables and smelting furnaces might indicate a more advanced smelting of iron moreover with the point that gold is not as widely used unlike iron.
the importance of knowing the history of native cultures in an area for interpretation
I'm actually really impressed at the consistency and nature of the trail ruins. I hadn't given the trail ruins any attention when they released, but it's pretty obvious that there are multiple different structures built for different purposes in the ruins. I think you've done a great job at uncovering and analyzing them.
Thank you!
My head canon answer to 'where are the villagers who worked here?' is: Every single zombie or skeleton you met. (some Curse of Undeath- theyve deteriorated a bit)
That’s a cool idea! I like it
Except for that one trader who got away but is now doomed to forever wander the overworld with his camel.
Have you tried turning your Totem of Undying off and on again?
Thus turning Minecraft into a Horror game. Good Job.
The entire time I was looking at Locus B, a kiln came to mind. Given the amount of terracotta and clay this civilization used, a kiln would be a necessary structure.
Also, all the campfires at Locus B are surrounded by the structure itself; they are not open fires. That also strongly suggest a kiln.
And that one random bit of wheat could be kindling for the kiln instead of a food related use
I can also see this. The pottery class back in my highschool was in a basement, and the kiln was also in the same basement and in a separate room.
@@BuildersOfBlocksit could also have been a brush for painting dye onto the pottery.
It's also right next to the potter's stall
It would be awesome if you could interview the Minecraft developer who led the trail ruins development. Get their insights as well as share your own.
That would be super awesome! Matter of fact, if anyone has connections and can make that happen I’d be up for it!
I assume the associated village would've been constructed from organic materials like wood and straw, so wouldn't leave behind any appreciable ruins because it would all have rotted away
This is a definite possibility
@@daskalosBCE SomethingI I'd be interested in seeing explored is if there are any nearby villages or other ruin sites, how the may or may not be connected
There are however, variants of the trail ruins, and given MC's generation code, it's obviously not gonna generate all variations right next to eachother (tho that would be cool to have them all connected), so the living quarters might just be one of those variants. I plan to make a project connecting them all, and since there's 4 variants of the trail ruins with the roads, I'm going to assume this village may have been shaped like a plus sign, with each tower on the ends. That's just my guess on it tho.
21:31 Even if they don't use metal armours, they would still need to smelt the the gold needed for trimming, (there were golden trims back in the museum, right ?), and the iron to make the smithing table.
The dyes can be used to tint leather armours, so I don't think they're out of place. Green dye in particular is obtained by putting cactus in a furnace, which could justify the presence of a regular furnace on top of the blast one. I don't remember seing any green dyes around, but there _is_ a green candle in that building.
Good eye on that green!
There’s also a heavy presence of brown candles and terracotta, which indicates to me that travelers from Jungle biomes likely passed through the area and traded cocoa beans with the ruin’s inhabitants.
With the name being "trail" ruins I think it's a market built on a path between towns and villages, a place for people to rest and restock. The minecraft world can be quite dangerous and fighting lots of mobs will break down your tools and armor so the workshop could be a place to maybe mend or buy replacement gear. Additionally this could perhaps explain the lack of armor on site, people stopped, repaired their gear, fed their horse and left. Why would you leave your armor behind?
This could suggest that the civilization traveled a lot and had many settlements far enough away from each other to make building these worthwhile. What's interesting is that similar sherds/armor trims can be found in other structures, I think this also suggests that these people traveled and communicated with other cultures, spreading (or learning) different technology.
One more thought I had: Is it possible that the shaft in the blast furnace building was a place to store coal? have the blast furnaces at the bottom and let gravity do the work of moving the coal next to the furnace ready to be shoveled in. I'm also wondering if it could be an interpretation of a real life blast furnace where fuel and ore is filled from the top. Of course there's no way of telling really. But I think it's a safe bet to say it's for processing ore.
It could be that they were a semi-nomadic culture, who built these permanent settlements to rest, resupply, and process their ores and resources, while living in more mobile or temporary structures... Maybe this place is somewhere they would seasonally return when their inventories got full to process all their ores, restock on food, repair their armor, etc?
It could’ve been a possibility that the town was looted before us or raided in its lifetime, which could explain the wrecked state of the brick smelting function, and that gold nugget at the end/start of the road could’ve been the trail of a thief.
This could also explain the pottery “falling” and leaving sherds in different places, as pillagers could’ve broken them looking for treasure inside.
Just wanted to say that in Minecraft smelting clay makes bricks, so that smelting operation could've been for the pottery and the brick buildings. (Also smelting terracotta makes glazed terracotta. And clay also makes terracotta) So, just from a Minecrafter prospective, that smelting building could've been the base operation for essentially the entirety of the trail ruins
That’s a definite possibility
Can blast funrnaces actually be used to smelt bricks ? I thought they could only be used on metals.
I assumed that the blast furnaces in the basement are there to not just smelt stuff but to heat the building too. Correct me if my theory is wrong
Yeah, all the brick slats in the basement are kind of puzzling but could be interpreted as shelves. So: a pit filled with ceramic shelves and intense fire below? That's a kiln.
I think that is correct in Java, but I'm not a Minecraft expert by any means@@StickmanCorp
The realization at 14 minutes in of the locus being a workshop complex honestly blew me away. I always figured that the loot in suspicious gravel was random, but with how well everything came together, I’m tempted to believe it’s intentionally placed to some degree.
Interesting that an emerald was in leather workshop, and you didnt say much about it. Emeralds are used in minecraft as money to trade with villagers. But if we are looking from perspective of reality, this might have been a jewelry on horse armor. Also with leather workshop - it may have been a stop for horses, while merchants done their buisness, kind of stable, to feed them and do some work on them, such as horse shoeing, and you need instruments for that, so workbench comes in handy.
I cover the individual artifacts in the museum :)
Emeralds are also used in armor trim
@@WalkinStereotypeexactly my thought, especially with all of the templates around it, it feels like it might have been used as a more “upper-class” trim, so to soeak
I think the sherds are being named by the player based on what is on the sherd and what the player has experienced. The sherd that has a creeper on it is called danger and the one that is vaguely a villager is called friend.
creepers seem to signify danger or at least beware more than this though as they are chiseled into the desert temples which are booby trapped. I think it's reasonable to assume that walking explosives that try to kill you would be representative of danger regardless of timeframe or culture.
The modeling of creepers suggest that they are more ancient than zombies or skeletons, perhaps they are *the* oldest creature in Minecraft, at least older than intelligent life, as they explode when they get nervous and have social anxiety.
With the chiseled sandstone in the desert temples as well, I think creepers had religious significance to their civilization
i think you nailed it for the most part! in modern day minecraft villages the tower structure is a church, also villagers tend to live in the building they sell in, but trade is the main purpose of villages in minecraft, so yea you’re definitely right about this being a place of trade. being said, most villager homes are wooden, & pillagers could’ve stolen all the valuable metal then burnt down their houses, leading to the ruin of the village
Remember, you can't think in modern terms. It's one of the toughest things to do as an archaeologist. Still, with that said, it appears as a place of trade
I found a beer brewery in mine! it had a lot of wheat, sheaf sherd, more sherds, and a cauldron!
I found little banner crafting room that had a flower pot with blue dye right next to it, so I'm thinking a lot of the dyes are actually organic material. Because the blue dyes are from either a lapis or a corn flower so I think my loom artist had a corn flower. There was also quite a bit of white dye and that's only made with bones.
I'm super excited for my build and I'm super thankful you're posting this series it's helped a lot!
White dye can also be made with Lily of the Valley! They spawn in forests.
@@sophiahedges9863 I was actually about to say that lol
11:04 Okay, this building. I have seen this one specific piece generated in one Trail Ruins structure in a world I played in, and both from that and from your videos excavating these ruins, I believe the Coarse Dirt that used to be in there is *crucial* for the interpretation of the room. Considering there is a hoe, and that the blocks there were *specifically* Coarse Dirt (which I believe is not seen anywhere else in the ruins), I think the room was meant for wheat production. Very small, yes, but at least that's what I think
Edit: considering there are the wheat sherds in that room, but that it's also connected to that one room with the crafting table which connects to the one with the cauldron, I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess that there were leatherworkers who wanted ease of access to their materials: a work station connected to a small wheat farm but also to a leatherworking room. Cows, maybe? Cows are bred using wheat, at least in the game
There was a bunch of coarse dirt here and there in the previous videos, so it does pop up in the ruins. But it obviously doesn't normally generate underground and thus is likely to be significant, so it's a but of a shame that he ignored it
What further solidifies Locus G as a smelting operation in my opinion is the fact that the criss crossed beams and the basement look like an over sized kiln
Regarding the note on the pottery and dye, it's common for paint to wear away, and perhaps microscopic analysis would reveal fragments of paint.
Additionally, could the road have originally been surfaced in something that wore away?
Amazing work on the information books!
Thanks! I think the dye and associated clay/sherds are absolutely connected in the way you are suggesting. Roads can be plastered which is a definite possibility
3:57
Just a theory but the clay could be remains or representation of brick as part of the brick crafting recipe contains clay. It could be broken up, decomposed, or practically dusted/pulverized prick with only one of its most basic elements left. This is also supported by some of the tower being built out of brick.
Locus B could be a oven or place to cook food or heat up clay pots or smelt armour.
18:37 could be an area to dry clay pots with the brick beams being used as the storage place to let the clay pots dry
I’m starting to think locus B is the top of the tower that fell
@@daskalosBCE potentially, but then why would there be a foundation below it?
@@kasnickijakub who knows, but it seems to fit, and they are the only two buildings that share the exact same blocks.
There may have been a small temporary building right there like the stalls, or a smaller building that collapsed. Who knows?
@@daskalosBCEI’ve been trying to recreate what the village may have looked like via the download, and I was trying to figure this out. You mentioning the relation between the tower and the workshop where the feed troughs were. It’d have to be an important structure for them to make the base brick - I wonder if it was a wooden silo next to the tower that was crushed? It’d make sense to have a good foundation for a silo and near the feed troughs for easy access?
Keep in mind that wheat is used to make packed mud, so might as well be building material, other than food.
Very true!
@@daskalosBCEor maybe money? Using food as money isn't too far fetched
Do you plan on making a restored replica of the ruin? Maybe using world edit to clone the ruins then using your interpretation to make a model
Edit: Also that location next to the tower is almost certainly a brick oven, the 4 fire places give this away the most, but also how the red terracotta tapirs towards the top would imply it curves up into a chimmeny, and the red terracotta is likely just bricks that worn over time
It’s a possibility, we will have to wait and see how I feel.
5:28 Commented on a previous video; I think that in Minecraft, for one reason or another, there isn’t a lot of well developed cellulose and other sturdy plant matter consuming fungus/bacteria around. This is further hinted at by the presence of coal at very high levels in the stone. Nothing exists to break down these woody plants for some reason.
19:43 I wonder of all the brick work there isn’t maybe to create some sort of draft for that smelting operation as well. All those crisscrossing beams, and passages for air.
In my layman's perspective, from reading the comments and watching this video; here's my unnecessarily long-winded interpretation:
Locus A "The Watchtower": The highest point, meant to survey the land.
- The unfired clay could be remnants of the wall (like a type of plaster?) or like you said, stored in the pot.
Locus B "The Kiln": Could be a multipurpose oven for food (like bread) and to fire the clay, terracotta, and pots.
- The size and shape of the space seems to indicate either a furnace with a large vent for heating(although this building is detached from all the others) or more than likely a kiln with space for racks above the fires.
Locus C "The Leatherworker's", Locus D "Horse Stable", and Locus E "Dyer's Room": These three definitely seem to be related, I agree on this. The purpose seems to be leatherworking for people and animals. Either horses or dogs, or both.
- This might be a stretch but the trough in Locus E could be for mass dying. Perhaps it held water for cloth and leathers to soak in (Is that how things are dyed??? I have zero knowledge on this.)
Locus F "The Lounge": This I can 100% agree on. This is definitely a communal space as indicated by the hearth, chairs, and benches.
- The sherds and armor trims could be templates or concepts that would be used in projects at the kiln. Maybe people brought them over to show off and get a second opinion.
Loci G & H "Heavy Metals": As indicated by the Smithing Table and many Blast Furnaces, I agree, this is likely a space for metal armors to be produced.
- The separation of above & below in Locus G could indicate either a display room or armory, in my opinion. A space for gearing up and/or storage.
Loci I, J, & K "Storage Sheds": This is where we disagree. I'm lumping these three together for a specific reason. I believe these could simply be storage sheds as indicated by their differing contents.
- Locus I could be storage for husbandry tools, for the horses in the stables.
- Locus J could be for pre-processed goods, hence the wheat.
- Locus K could be for clay and dye storage.
In conclusion, I believe this to be some form of military instillation. The existence of a trough and dividing wall in Locus D, plus one of the walls being open air, leans to it being a sort of stable. Add that to the whole complex seeming to focus on armor, and even tool or weapon production pushes me more towards "military".
The lack of a sleeping area seems off to me though. Perhaps this complex was already around and was repurposed and converted to what we see today, and all the soldiers slept in temporary tents.
That’s why I’m only 99 percent on board with the marketplaces theory. I would like to point out the lack of defensive fortifications that might go against the outpost theory
3:52 I thought the clay was just left over from the clay walls. That would explain why it’s on and around the walls
Only thing I can really add is that I'm thinking some of the clay blocks are deteriorated terracotta from the walls. It took me way too long to figure out you make terracotta blocks out of clay.
Will be interesting to see the ruins re-built as they may have been.
Stained glass theory: its the awning that got blown around once it was destroyed, and wound up everywhere.
I literally just typed that a little while ago in response to another comment and thought about deleting it because "nah, no one would believe that" haha! thanks for confirming I wasn't totally full of it to think of that!
I'm currently getting my undergrad in Anthropology and I'm taking an Archeology class. It's so cool that my feild of study made it into one of the most popular video games ever sold. This video series has been an absolute joy to watch through I really appreciate all the time and hard work you put into it. You really inspire me to continue with my own studies!
I think since there are pot sherds and campfires in locus b might indicate that it was used to bake clay? Originally Mojang wanted unbaked clay pots to be smelted with a fire below it. It wasnt a campfire but its similar nonetheless. Idk, just my theory?
Edit: also the dead bush might be dead plants from agriculture
in Minecraft campfires can be a cheap beacon because you can see the smoke far away, so locus B could be used for drying the pots or be a more visible beacon for far off travelers.
14:30 it can be a leather workshop, with 2 sections fir cows (for leather) and the cauldron can be used for : leather dying OR feeding/ water holder (drinking) for cows
Wouldn't be the first time a cauldron was repurposed for another use.
On the Brick building with the smelters @19:58 Perhaps it is a collapsed structure, and the bricks and smelters were not orgirionaly in the basement? The first floor's walls are mostly gone after all.
I’d have to look at it again but I think I came to that conclusion due to the amount of material above them as well
Maybe they used the wheat not as food but as straw? In the world of pottery, straw can be incredibly useful for reinforcing mud bricks (heck in Minecraft wheat is a neccesary component of mud brick, so it could have just worn away from the walls).
That makes so much sense.
Some questions
What happens if a modern dead body was found in a excavation spot
Have you gone on a dig?
What happens if you find a non related artifact?
What happens if you found a non related fossil? Would you collect it and hand it off to a paleontology department
1. The police would be called (it’s not common but I’ve heard of it before)
2. Yes, many. I’ve even been the lead on a couple
3. It all depends on the artifact
4. I’ve found a fossil on a dig before, it shows that the people collected it. No need to turn it over to a paleontologist, it’s still part of the archaeological record
The campfires could have been part of the top of the tower. As in it was a lighthouse that collapsed/toppled and the top is now lying in a pile upside down.
Yep! I had just mentioned that in another comment. I actually directed it in the video but cut it out due to time
The fact that its called 'trail ruins', could also vouch for the merchant outpost. Maybe the 'trail' was something like the silk road irl, which also must have had some kind of trading outposts like this one ? Also, the presence of merchants should also mean that they had some bodyguards with them so thats maybe why you thought this could have also been a military outpost. Great video and I look forward for more. Cheers !
14:20 Cauldrons aren't used to dye leather in Java Minecraft, which you're playing. In Java, they are ONLY used for water and lava storage. The cauldron could represent a trough for water or food.
They are also leatherworkers’ workstation, which I believe is what he’s referring to.
@@kierianiis I completely honestly forgot that leather-workers existed in the game. They're such a niche type of villager compared to the more useful ones.
I'm thinking this might be some sort of civilian outpost? There are no signs of permanent residential structures. just leather worker, armorer, communal hub and tower. Stalls could be just the last stalls erected before site was abandoned so might not have been a permanent feature. So I'm thinking either Nomadic merchant outpost or Military outpost that lets merchants use the other side of the road.
Keep in mind that some organic buildings wouldn’t have lasted as well as the brick especially if they were thatched roof/waddle and daub construction (not to say that those things exist in Minecraft)
When I was excavating trail ruin I found 3 music discs.
Dang! Lucky you! I didn’t find a single one :(
One answer to the lack of a village surrounding it could have been that the community that made use of the place of commerce was widely decentralised. Either nomadic, or simply widely spread out agricultural communities. Having a small marketplace that people can gather at and visit to meet their needs while the surrounding area wasn't fully able to support them living together seems like it could have some utility. If I remember right, some semi settled societies worked like that?
The first thing that came to my minde when I saw Locus B was a beacon of smoke. I don’t know how far from reality this idea is, I know nothing about archeology, but the way it has many campfires together inside a tall structure, which looks like a chimny, could be used so travellers could find the place from far away.
something i found slightly interesting is that beetroot seeds mainly spawn in 'hardy' places like in desert villages, abandoned mineshafts, dungeons, and even end cities.
The campfire part is probably used to cook, bake, etc everything in general.
I would assume that there was an associated village in the immediate vicinity of the Ruins, but were made with organic materials like woods, scaffolds, fences, etc. hence why there are these buildings, and yet no buildings that would indicate residency by the local populace. The ruines indicate industry for a decent population, yet no residency buildings
The ground floor of locus G may have been a shop of some kind? That would explain why the furnaces were located in the basement, where people would be able to tend to the furnaces without worrying about potential clients. Because it’s right next to the structures that look like stalls, it would make sense for the products from the smithy to have been displayed and sold there, as the area looks like a market place of sorts
i think the constant appearance of wheat throughout is following how similarly the mud brick is made in the game, it uses mud and wheat to created packed mud so my guess is as the buildings deteriorate, the wheat is slowly seeping out the bricks, or it could represent insulation or the remanence of a once thatch roofing on some buildings. i believe it’s beyond just food resources and agriculture but part of the architecture itself
You are onto something there.
I was in Usbekistan recently, and they use mudbrick with a mudplaster on top that contains straw.
Since it was mostly buried under stone, maybe we're looking at a Pompeii type situation. A primarily wooden town, buried under lava and ash, where only the market square, which was mostly made of less flammable materials like terracotta and stone, survived.
That conflicts with the presence of wood and wheat, though... maybe it was buried under a mudslide that then solidified into sedimentary rock?
I think the depth and surrounding material was more of the developers wanting to bury a large structure rather than the developers thinking about lore to be honest
@@daskalosBCE Probably, I'm just trying to think of a lore reason for why they're buried
as far as i'm aware, each individual structure generated has a specific name- i believe locus D /is/ actually called the Stables, so you may have been spot on! the latter half of Wattles' video "TRAIL RUINS: Minecraft 1.20's Biggest Mystery - Everything To Know" has been the only resource online i've been able to find detailing individual structure names, so take what i say with a grain of salt :) something else i've seen theorized upon is the relevance of armor templates. there could be a possibility that the names "wayfinder", "raiser", "shaper" and "host" may have responded to categories of professions? who knows LOL. i have absolutely LOVED your videos on this subject and this is exactly the type of analysis i've been hoping for these amazing structures to receive! :D
It's possible that the cauldron in building E could have been like a trough for animals to drink from. I know they can't actually drink from it in the game, but it's a possibility thats what represents. Since there was originally a layer of dirt in the part that went down, it would make sense. It would be weird to do armour dying on the dirt. It could be where the cows were kept to get the leather!
The pottery sherds were for wheat and fire, and the pot they were on was at the top of a tower, so maybe the tower was for some kind of offering?
I'm definitely on the same page with your interpretation. The only amendment I'd make is that the leathery is using *cows.* Horses in Minecraft don't really care about wheat, sure you can feed it to them, but that's about it. You need carrots and apples and sugar to deal properly with horses. The absence of these is a strong factor in ruling out horses being present. Cows also typically drop more leather whereas horses usually only give you one piece. Wheat is also the go-to for luring, breeding, and feeding cows. Wheat is also used to craft the solid mud blocks.
As for the fire pit, I believe that part of the leather making process is to smoke or dry the leather. So that would make sense with its proximity to the workshop.
The smithing table and lack of metal armor in Building H as well as the abundance of armor templates throughout the site suggest to me that Building H decorated existing leather armor rather than making new metal armor. That, or the site was ransacked at some point by invaders, which would explain the lack of any metal armor or materials in Buildings G and H as well as the apparent lack of metals and gemstones throughout the site (as far as I could tell, the only metals/gemstones were the emerald in Building E and the gold nugget on the path), in which case metal armor is a definite possibility.
That being said, I'm not an archaeologist, so there may be flaws in my hypothesis that I don't know enough to see
oh my GOSH locus b is totally the top of the tower that collapsed off, and the campfires were to act as a beacon!!
I mention that in a response to a comment. I had originally suggested it asa possibility in the video but cut it for time
This is such a joyful video. Regarding all the wheat - I could imagine it also being used as a stand-in for hay or some other form of bundled plantlife, perhaps treated in some way that made it survive the times; could that be what the suspected awning was made out of?
maybe. It could have also been wool carpets or some other sort of biodegradable material. Heck, it could have all bee stained glass for all we know!
@@daskalosBCE Oh right, fully forgot about wool for a second there. Probably more likely, yeah.
18:12 *aggressively clicks f5 twice*
yeah I got a little excited and the keyboard was punished for it, haha!
The gold is interesting. It shows up in archaeology in drowned ruins, providing some sort of link between the trail ruins and the predecessors of the drowned. It is also strongly associated with the nether and the denizens thereof. Which were they trading with?
Seeing as theres dye in every structure, id guess that the dye is from crumbled paint from the walls or ceiling maybe, like something to do with the materiality of the structures themselves and not to do with the function of each building?
This would make such a fun assignment in a university course
i think part B of the trail ruin could be a bakery for making bread because there are campfires and wheat and coal. the dyes could have represented flour, because they are white (or yellow which i guess could represent yellow flour). the pottery sherd could have been used to store water. part A, i think could have been an outpost or a watchtower, because the tower itself is really just a huge staircase with no rooms or anything. maybe there were many pots there to store water or even flowers. hard to say.
I had originally thought that too about locus B (I cut it due to time). It would be nice if you could place flour onto campfires to get bread
The packed mud could also represent patches in the mud brick, either to repair damage or fill openings that were no longer needed.
very true
I don't know much; but I do know some minecraft stuff. Following the conclusion that the ruins are some sort of marketplace, the presence of gold (presumably used as a currency) might suggest a presence of ancient Piglins, as they are the only Mob in game that uses gold as a currency.
They're the only mob that uses gold for currency now. That doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't used as a currency for anyone in antiquity. Gotta think outside of the current age :)
Don’t forget Daskalos that emeralds and gold were found, so the smelting building could have been a refinery.
I have a theory about why you didn't find any metal armour in the ruins!
There are metal fastenings to leather armour and goods. Saddles have stirrups and buckles and rivets, leather armour has buckles and rivets, and I strongly suspect that the leather focused area also made leather goods like saddles (which need to be correctly fitted to the horse in order to not hurt the horse, hence the holding areas), and the metal working place down the road made the horse shoes and the other hardware. It would be quite convenient to duck down the road for rivets and buckles after all.
Perhaps the metal work area also made trinkets to sell in the market...
If all three buildings were connected, what if the lead above the emerald is actually part of the cauldron room? After all, you put the item frames on the block on which the item was found, so it was actually part of its wall. To me this suggests that the room which you call a feed was actually a grain storage.
I’m wondering, given that the block pallet is almost if not identical and given the shapes of the ruined walls, if Locus B might actually be the toppled roof of Locus A. It could explain how at least one pot smashed and scattered like it did. Then again, the campfires might suggest otherwise, though it’s not uncommon to see them used for their shape in builds to represent structural or decorative elements.
I would suggest you check out my restoring video
@@daskalosBCE
It's on the list!
Good! I think you'll be satisfied with my conclusions :)
Beetroots can be used to make red dye, maybe the seeds near the ceiling in E came from the garden they were growing in, like whatever ceitter put them there found them in the ground nearby.
definite possibility
I'm wondering if, due to how prevalent and evenly spread the wheat is, it might be a stand in for scraps of surviving rushes that used to be scattered on the floors of the interiors like they did in medieval times (broad term I know). That's the best explanation I can come up with for the oddity.
Campfire building is a bakers hut and im 99% sure building H is a potter
Locus B could be a disposal area. Moldy wheat, broken pots, dye that wasnt favored or lost its vibrancy, and so on.
It also could have been in part, related to the tower, in which a pot of wheat fell off of the tower, in the direction of the Burn pit.
The burn pit could also serve as a predator deterrent, and illumination source.
Just played the Minecraft world and read everything it’s very epic. Could just be an ancient type of village where villagers and/or wandering traders stayed at but the pillagers or zombies wiped them out and looted the place (only the pillagers would loot ofc), or they moved, or just died out. Like we sometimes see the modern villages abandoned that are beat up and full of cobwebs and zombie villagers, and with time, it will also be buried underground. There’s still trading stalls, workstations, and armory buildings (blacksmiths) of the present, modern villages, and they still meetup every day around the center of the village like the social area with the campfire. There is also farms and animal pens, both of which are possible things that could be here in the trail ruin.
That was such an excellent interpretation! It totally is a market! I would not have reached that conclusion. Furthest I would have got was "this where they worked"
Locus E, cauldrons can be used for potion making as well(you put a bucket of water into the cauldron, and each cauldron can fill three glass bottles if water, which is PRECISELY how many slots a brewing stand has), and again. When I build, specifically in creative, I use cauldrons in my sheep pen, and stables as their "troughs".
More for looks than function, since animals dont actually drink water, but, if I find a mod where they do, cauldrons would be where my penned and stabled animals would drink from.
But.your idea of being a leather shop makes sense too.
The building with the camp fires i feel like could be a place to do smoke signals. Theres the burn and danger sherd which could be becuase the smoke signal warns of danger. Theres dyes that maybe they used to change smoke signal colors. And unlike the rest of the buildings theres not even a hint of a roof so the smoke can escape.
I love this so much! I totally agree, and I just want to add one bit of potential story I thought of as you were looking at the place with the campfires - what if the pot with burn and danger sherds was a bomb? Someone threw a pot filled with gunpowder into the large oven that all the merchants used for food or pottery or whatever, during whatever chaotic event led to the place being eventually abandoned?
Maybe the tower was a storage area?
I know when I build in my worlds, I usually Incorporate a storage silo, or even a storage tower.
The tower doing double duty as a lookout tower for mobs, as well as a place to store extra, often combat related items such as arrows, gunpowder, etc.
Maybe that is why there were sherds, dyes, and even clay inside it. Especially in the historical context of dyes being VERY valuable in ancient times, often. Used for royalty, or other high class citizenry. Wouldnt want pillagers(or their amcestors) to steal your dyes.
(I may comment on every locus you bring up, sorry if thos seems like spam)
i genuinely believe that all of the wheat serves not as remnants of food (maybe the seeds do instead) but rather as part of the packed mud industry since it is the agent used to pack the mud and mud bricks are so abundant in the structure
I think locus b and a are pottery like or like work areas but I haven’t watched the whole thing yet give me a sec to see if he thinks the same thing
woohooo i finally got to watch the interpretation!! yeeee. i'm so glad you included the fact that you aren't 100% sure for some of the builds because there just isn't enough evidence to suggest otherwise. absolutely loved this and can't wait for more series ^^ (i can finally start watching the bronze series soon XD)
Glad you enjoyed it!
for some reason my theory about why no armour whas found in the smelting and armour opperation might be because whatever caused the place to become a ruin, might hav happend right after they had build those buildings but before they could be propperly used?
first time someone finally finds a logical interpretation of the ruins. because a lot of people that wanted to understand the ruins on RUclips just used commands to destroy everything including the artefacts to see wtf is happening or went to the files. but you got through it by using a lot of pacience and a non care about the view and the hype or whatever.
Thank you! I think my approach was better than a lot of the others as well. Look at how many of them missed the cavities in the ground for example.
I have to say, I've LOVED this whole series SO much! I'm kinda sad to be getting so close to the end of it, do you think there's any chance of you doing any of minecraft's other ruins in a similar way? Obviously, they aren't buried, so there wouldn't be an excavation per se, but it would still be SO interesting to see you approach the jungle temple, the desert pyramid, maybe even ocean monuments or drowned ruins from a real life angle like this! Not to mention, there are fascinating military ruins in the nether! And if you play in peaceful, it wouldn't be prohibitively dangerous necessarily.
Honestly, I'm mostly just hoping we won't be seeing the end of this series after the trail ruins! I know some of the other types of ruins don't have artefacts hidden in the sand (though some of them do), but there's still so much that could be so fun to explore!
I’m not against expanding this series, but only if it has value/merit/purpose. I don’t want to examine structures just to milk the algorithm
@@daskalosBCE ABSOLUTELY fair, I understand that totally. For what it's worth, I don't know how others feel, but I'm SO curious to see what kinds of insight you could draw from minecraft's other ancient structures!
@@daskalosBCEI think something that might let you teach something new would be to go to one of the other structures that also has sherds and armor trim and discuss how to interpret similar artifacts found in disparate locations. If you do a drowned ruin you could talk about underwater archaeology and anaerobic preservation!
I could also excavate another trail ruin and then start to compare and make observations of the civilization as a whole. I’m not sure how I’ll go about it. I set out to make this a stand alone series, but I may tackle some things in the future. We shall see
I feel like your conclusion is spot on! When you were getting toward the end, I was thinking "a trading outpost". 😃 What a great episode! I was totally engaged through the whole thing, watching your ideas and conclusions develop. 🤩
I downloaded the world and walked through immediately after the premiere. Your design and lighting are so perfect. It makes the experience so immersive.
Good luck dying in your hardcore world! (If you haven't seen his videos, I promise I'm being nice)
Next Up: Ancient Cities, Biome Temples, and Nether Strongholds!
Keeping the artifacts in-situ with the item frames really came in clutch to help tell the story of the site! I loved discovering this build right along with you :D
I wonder if the Howl pottery sherd being found in the armourers workshop was a sneak peek at dog armour being added to the game 🤔 Maybe a stretch, I dunno
For the leather workshop, a trough for cattle for the leather itself is a possibility.
The coars dirt that you excavated out of Locus D is supposed to be the floor for that "trough." Also, based on the layout, it seems like it could have been a small stable and the wheat was the animal feed and the Sherds marked with wheat was what was used for storage.
Be sure to check out my trail ruins rebuilding video. I address that
I think I can expand a little further. This is a place for people to stop at during their journeys from place to place. Here, people could stock up on new armor, get more food, get fresh horses, buy new pots to carry things in, and talk to other travelers in the meeting place. After all, the structure is called a "Trail Ruin." There are also some real life versions of this. During the rule of Kublai Khan in the Mongolian Empire, roads were improved all across Asia and Europe. Rest stops were built every 50 miles, and they served a much similar purpose to the trail ruins.
I hope mojang sees this and updates how TR generates so they make more sense, that would be cool
Unfortunately I doubt they watch me, they’re too busy watching doc exploit the game, haha!
@@daskalosBCE I worked in game development for a bit, enough to know that whoever designed the trail ruins would be over the moon that a real archeologist did an excavation of their site.
That would certainly be cool!
If you follow the path a bit further, you'll stumble upon a bronze age megaron 🤣
Dye all over the place could just be fragments / pigment of color from the terracota all over the place
Locus B could’ve been a fire signal for wary travelers to let them know they were close by.
When i first saw the brick building with the basement,
It reminded me of some kind of underfloor heating,
Would that have been possible?
That building is the only one still puzzling to me, the crisscross beams are confusing, but I feel I've seen something similar looking once in a real life article or something, just can't remember what is was for.
But I'm with you on the heating for now, there might have been (deteriorated) grills between the beams (so people can still walk the full surface of the floor), with the beams controlling even dispersion of the hot air upward
@@DutchDogMom86 ok :)
For locus B as the user Ladyairili said, I'd say that was a Kiln, you got the fire and Danger shrds which could have been some kind of sign or like warning lable, like a hazard line. You got the dyes often used for coloring terrecotta, wheat which is used in mud bricks and irl needs to be fired in order to harden into what you use for construction. And even the armor trim could be a sign that part of the decoration process was using the kiln to heat up the metal or mineral bands so they would fuse to the leather or armor itself.
This could even tie into those random bits of clay on top of the tower, if you notice they're just across from the Kinl, which could indicate the y were thrown up there. Maybe the person using the kiln was angry at someone on the tower and threw two pieces of clay, the first one either missing, or knocking the pot down, and the second one either knocking the pot down or hitting the person that the kiln worker was angry at.
For locus C, I mostly agree, although I wouldn't say it was a workshop, a crafts room, or like artisan room maybe, but not a workshop as it only has the crafting bench. So it looks more like a place where you may go to get some hasty repairs or maybe have the final tweaks to your trim done by a specialist.
For locus D, based on the layout of the room and the two large retangular holes across from the pen like structures, I'd say it could have been a stable of some kind. Those wholes are A too large, and B to purposeful to have merely been a result of errosion, you can tell cause of the lack of debris visible elsewhere in the building. The small dips in the floor look like where you'd put haybale bedding for your horse to sleep on, so in a way it's basically a garage that could hold up to two horses. Thats why theres not a wall between them, as you'd want to be able to walk across the way to get to your two horses, the wall wall (aka the mudbrick wall thats over the dip) would separate the hoses themselves. With the support pillar its attached to likely being where a fence gate was supposed to go originally, with the hoe possibly even being a stand in for a plow you'd drag behind the horses using a yoke.
For locus E, I can actually support the idea it was a pen by clarifying stuff with the cauldron, it can both wash leather, and in bedrock be used to *dye* leather. However in addition, as it holds water, you can actually take drinks from it using bottles, so it could very easily be a water trough that animals would drink from. With the trims and die being from the last few people guarding it before they died... although your interpretation of the three different rooms is interesting.
Locus F feels self explanatory, so i don't have anything to add to it
For locus G, I again have to agree, the way those rows of bricks stretch across the gap look like they are make shift drying/baking racks. Criss crossing over eachother with space between each layer and the two furnaces heating the whole thing up, although because of the racks I'd disagree on smeltery. As if you're heating metal you don't want it to be dripping down to the bottom like that, it looks more like what you'd use to finish the creation of a pot. The armor trims just feel to me like where someone wearing armor was, with the trim itself being all thats left of their armor.
For Locus H, now *this* is the blacksmit/smeltery, you got the furnace, and blast furnace, and like WalkinStereotype said, the double smoothstone slab represents a stone anvil. If you look at other blacksmit structures, you'll quickly realize that that little alcove below where the iron are situated would normally have magma in it, or lava. Which represents molten metal i suspect, meaning where as locus G was the like a kiln or oven, Locus H is a metal workshop and blacksmithing building where the armor and weapons are made.
Locus I-K, same as F, you pretty much got it down pat, it seems to be a stall like those found in villages.
and thats about all I have to say...
Some of the dye could be the remnants of flowers. Since flowers make dye, it could be that flowers were in the now broken pots.
19:33 when I found that building for the first time I always thought it was a mine of some sort
@gametheory if you make a lore video and need info about the ruins, this is the video
Fire pit area could be a kiln? Dry pottery, bake bread, dye for the clay and candles ect
It's really interesting to see this kind of analysis.
To my knowledge, the items inside of suspicious gravel and sand is random- Different structures have different lootpools, but the items at any given position is random.
Nonetheless it's really cool how the drops for your ruin actually ended up making a lot of sense. I'm confident that this kind of analysis is 100% what Mojang intends for people to do with these structures.
What REALLY stands out to me by far is the analysis of the buildings. I don't think I would've considered the idea of there being support beams, but I think you're spot on with the gaps being evidence of wood that's since decayed. They clearly put a lot of care into the design of this structure.
I'm amazed you got any information out of those items. I'm pretty sure they are completely random.
This is SO COOL & fascinating!!! 😮 What fun to uncover the ruins & see stories of the ruins unfold. And to think about what is going on in the ruins. :3 Ty so much for such a fun, fascinating, cool series! 😎