A History of Ancient Britain (2011–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Age of Cosmology - full transcript

This is the story
of how Britain came to be.

Of how our land, and its people,

were forged over thousands of years
of ancient history.

This Britain is a strange
and alien world.

A world that contains the hidden story
of our distant, prehistoric past.

We began as hunters
who came from mainland Europe,

before Britain was an island.

Instead of hunting mammoth
and reindeer in the snow,

he hunted red deer in the wild wood.

And continued into a new age,

as the first farmers built
monumental tombs to their ancestors.



Nothing like this
had ever been seen before in Britain.

Now the journey continues,

with the next chapter in our epic story.

Of course, what everybody's waiting for
is the sunrise.

An age of cosmology,

when our lives were ruled
by the sun and the stars.

The birth of earthly power
and social class,

set against some of the greatest
wonders of the ancient world.

Ripped By mstoll

I'm going back almost 6,000 years

to a Britain in the throes
of the Neolithic Revolution.

The first farmers were forging
a whole new relationship with the land,

a land that was alive
with spiritual meaning.

The wild wood
that bordered their fields,



the boundary between land and sea,

and mountains that touched the very sky.

Places like the Lake District,
with its dramatic valleys and crags,

held a special power.

If your understanding of the world
was rooted in stone,

then this landscape, which seems
to shout the very word "stone,"

would've seemed especially important.

And here in the Central Fells,
the shout is particularly clear.

Archaeologist Mark Edmonds
has spent 30 years

on the trail of the ancient people
who came here

in search of something very special

Five or six thousand years ago,
the chances are

no one is actually
living here full time.

They come here
because the highest ground

probably has good grazing.

But probably what drew them up here

was not the chance
of living here full time.

That would happen many years later.

It was the stone that brought them up,
it was the stone that they came for.

Over 5,000 years ago,

Neolithic people climbed
these same precarious paths.

What they were heading for

were high outcrops of volcanic rock
called greenstone.

The crags that are worked
the most are some of the highest,

and some of the
most difficult to get to.

And I think that's part of
the attraction of the place,

is that it involves risk,
it involves danger.

- Okay. So, nearly there. Nearly there.
- Mmm-hmm.

The debris of ancient
stone working still lies all around.

Hundreds of offcuts
of very special stone axes.

And this is what we've climbed for.

- Look at this stuff. This is amazing.
- I know. It's ridiculous, isn't it?

It's the volume of it.

So, every single bit of this
is the result of people making tools?

There was this stone
to be had that could be worked

and worked well to a fine finish.

So, this is a must have
raw material.

It's an extraordinary
raw material.

So, this whole area is an axe factory?

Yeah.

You don't find many of
the axes themselves up here.

But, fortunately,
I've brought some with me.

And this is what we call in the trade
a rough out.

So, that's halfway through
the process of making?

Yeah. It's absolutely exquisite.

It's a thing of beauty,
unfinished or not.

This is what they would've
looked like when they left the crags,

and then, pop that down there,

once you get down into the lowlands,

down into the areas where people
traditionally would've been living,

that's when the more glacial,
slow process of grinding and polishing

would be undertaken
to get them down to something like that.

How long does it take to get
from that to the finished article?

Well, you can see
in the two forms

that already the idea of what
it's gonna look like is there.

In accustomed hands, you can make
one of these in about 45 minutes,

flaking as you go.

This, at least several hundred hours.

Possibly even thousands of hours
to get a really good lustre,

a good polish which brings out
the colour of the stone.

And why go to that offort?

Because it doesn't make a better axe,
does it?

No, it doesn't. It doesn't improve
the effectiveness of the tool very much.

I think what's important
about these things

is not simply that they're tools,

but they were also very important
because they were tokens of identity.

They said something about the people
who made them and used them.

It wasn't just the stone
that made these axes special,

but where it came from, the sky.

Although it's a mountain,

what we're dealing with here
is a monument.

A place that draws people up,
draws people together,

at which they can work the stone,
to produce objects that matter to them,

because they say something
about who they are.

So, in a sense, the journey
from the low country, up here

probably takes several days.

Exposing yourself to danger,
to the risks of falling,

to come up into the clouds
sometimes as well,

is as much a rite of passage
as anything else.

An activity that's as much ceremonial,
possibly spiritual, as it is practical.

The Cumbrian axe factory
reveals a relationship

between people, their landscape,
and stone itself.

This belief system
would change over time.

It would develop into something
much more complex.

And, for us,
something fantastically enigmatic.

Something that represents the beginning
of a whole new age in our history.

A time the experts refer to
as the Age of Astronomy,

when we moved away from this
more earthly ancestor worship

towards something much more cosmic.

What we see
is a radical change in thinking

that manifested itself
in something staggering.

The construction of monuments in stone
on an unprecedented and massive scale.

Some of them astronomically aligned.

What's becoming clear is that
for the people living 5,000 years ago,

this new age wasn't bringing a new way
of thinking about the ancestors,

rather, it was a new way
of thinking about themselves

as individuals within an
increasingly complicated society,

and an internationally connected world.

All of that, and the universe itself.

Where did we fit into time
and into the cosmos?

In a valley just beneath
the greenstone axe factory,

there's evidence of these new ideas.

Places like this,
they have an atmosphere.

When you happen across one
in the landscape,

it makes you pause, and think,
and wonder, you know,

"What's going on?"

Stone circles are almost unknown
outside Britain and Ireland,

but we have hundreds of them.

And they're often found
in the most dramatic of locations.

First of all, this place,
these stones, mattered.

This is quite a small stone circle,

but still the effort involved

suggests you don't go
moving things this size just for fun.

And building monumental
structures like this

was part of a tradition
that lasted for over 1,000 years.

Five thousand years ago,
people living here in Cumbria,

and all over Britain,

were making spiritual connections
that had never been made before.

Not just between their lives
and the land,

but between their lives and the sky,
the cosmos, as well,

perhaps, the very idea of Heaven.

This is a new Britain,

the Neolithic reaching its very height.

And it's one of the most
mysterious and glorious periods

in all of prehistory.

Welcome to the Orkney Islands,
off the northern tip of Scotland.

I've come here to explore a landscape

that holds some of the best preserved
Stone Age structures

in the whole of Britain.

Here, there are relics
of the lives and the beliefs

of the people who lived here
at the very height of the Neolithic.

Orkney's a wild place,
whipped by North Atlantic winds.

Even from the air,
there's not a tree to be seen.

But it's more than the wind
that's responsible.

There were trees on Orkney
once upon a time.

But it's thought that
the first farmers cut them down

to prepare fields
for crops and keeping animals.

And given that Orkney's not a big place,

it didn't take long to clear the lot.

Fortunately, though, Orkney was rich
in another building material

The whole island is made of this.

Horizontally bedded, fractured sandstone

that splits very easily
into useful slabs and sheets.

And around 3,300 BC,

the people living here
began to use this stuff

to build some of the most enduring
structures of the ancient world.

Magnificent stone tombs
and vast stone circles

give us a unique insight

into an extraordinary moment
in our history,

when we first turned our spiritual gaze
towards the heavens.

Here, even domestic houses
have been preserved in stone,

the very homes of the people
who were pioneering this new age.

Some of the most special

are perched on the far west coast
of Orkney.

Here it is, Skara Brae.

It's an extraordinary place,

and it lets us get as close
as we could possibly hope to,

to the way domestic life was lived
on Orkney in the Stone Age.

The village was occupied
for over 600 years,

from around 3,100 BC.

What you've got are eight houses,

arranged on either side
of a long, winding passage.

And because the whole thing
is semi-subterranean,

it does a great job
of keeping the wind out,

cutting down the drafts.

And because there wasn't
any wood available,

it wasn't just the houses
that were built of stone,

but everything inside as well

Right.

This is the inside of one of the houses.

What you notice straight away

is the big, square hearth
for a big, roaring fire.

These are bed recesses.

There are places where people
would have laid out their bedding.

This arrangement here
looks a bit like a dresser,

because it is a dresser.

It's directly opposite
the only entrance,

so it's the first thing that guests see
as they enter.

And in here, on these shelves,
you'd put the things that mattered.

It's the equivalent of having somewhere
to put the good wedding china.

Everything about this design,
this house,

is so clever, and it's so human.

But wonderful and evocative
though this place undoubtedly is,

it's all a bit too neat and tidy.

It's a bit sterile.
The grass is too mown.

The first time I came here,
I heard a song in my head,

and I've heard it every time since.

And it's Flintstones.
Meet The Flintstones.

Modern stone age family.

What you want here,
in addition to the sights,

are the sounds of conversation
and lives being lived,

the smells of all that human activity.

But we can get closer.

- You all right?
- Yeah, lead on.

Okay. Here we go.

Alison Sheridan,
a specialist in prehistoric artefacts,

is showing me one house
that's so well preserved

people aren't usually allowed inside.

Gosh, it's not the easiest place
to get into, is it?

No, but it's cosy.

So, what would life have been like
for Skara Brae residents, do you think?

It would've been pretty comfortable,
by the standards of the age,

because you've got
this wonderful central hearth.

So, it may have been dark,
because of the roof,

- but it would have been warm.
- Okay.

They've also got convenience.

They have a toilet.

How do you know that's a toilet
and not a storage space?

Well, there's actually
a drain underneath it.

And, actually, they did find poo.

- Oh, really?
- Mmm.

- Oh, so the hard evidence is there?
- Yes.

Remarkably,
these houses also contained artefacts.

The precious possessions of the people
who were living here 5,000 years ago.

I never found anything like this
in my entire life.

Miserable bits of broken stone
was all I ever found.

- So what have we got?
- Anything but miserable bits of stone.

These are absolutely amazing.

What are they generally called
if you were to group them

as a class of find?

- Enigmatic carved stone objects.
- Okay. All right.

Only because archaeologists haven't
worked out exactly what they are.

And in the absence of materials
that we would consider precious,

like gold and silver, I suppose,
these have to be the equivalent of it.

Because of the time that they represent,
and the skill that they represent.

That's right. 'Cause we're in an age
that's well before the earliest metal.

So, the stone itself
is not intrinsically valuable,

but as an object, it meant a lot.

And what about the rest of them?
These pieces of jewellery...

Yeah. In fact, they found something like
8,000 beads in this structure.

- In this house?
- Yes.

Right. So, on a very practical level,

it says that someone's got the time
to do this,

rather than being out growing,
herding, whatever.

Someone is able to set aside
part of their day,

or maybe all of their time,
to specialising.

Absolutely. Yes.

And being provided
with everything else they need

- by the rest of the village.
- That's right.

These are just wonders.
Which one can I have?

Take them all.

We know where you live.

But as well as jewellery
and carved stones,

this house also revealed
a darker secret.

Intriguingly, two adult women skeletons
were found underneath the bed.

Uniquely.

- You mean, below floor level?
- Yes.

It's as if during the lifetime
of the house,

they lived here, they died here,
they were buried here.

- Under the bed.
- Granny under the bed.

It was a house for the living,
and it's also a house for the dead.

The precious artefacts
and the presence of human remains

might mean that
these houses were special

No one can be sure,

but the people who lived here
might not have been ordinary farmers,

but some of the earliest priests
of a new religion.

Within just a few miles of Skara Brae,
built around the same time, is this.

A stone tomb
constructed on a truly grand scale.

Fantastic.

Already you get the sense
that you've left one world behind

and come somewhere different.

And what you're rewarded with,

after bending down
and struggling through,

is access to a masterpiece,
in every sense of the word.

What you also see right away
is the similarity between

the interior of this tomb

and the interiors
of the houses in Skara Brae.

And, in fact, there was a house here
once upon a time

and a circle of standing stones,
all before the tomb was ever built.

It's a classic example of
somewhere domestic

being altered, becoming something other,
something ritual.

Over here, again,
a shadow of something domestic.

It's a recess, similar to a bed.

But, of course,
the people put away in there

are having a much, much deeper sleep.

Maes Howe is a triumph
of ancient architecture.

Not only in its stonework,

but in the way it's been positioned
in the landscape.

For a few days, each midwinter,

the setting sun is framed
by two distant hills

on the neighbouring island of Hoy.

And as the sun drops onto the horizon,
it shines through the passage,

lighting up the inner chamber.

Maes Howe was aligned to the heavens,

and to the dramatic features
of the Orkadian landscape.

When you look around here,

you realise that you're
surrounded by hills and water.

It's a natural amphitheatre.

It's a stage set for drama.

And it's here, across the promontory
from Maes Howe,

that the Neolithic people of Orkney

decided to build another
extraordinary monument in stone.

The Ring of Brodgar is one of the
biggest stone circles that we know about

anywhere.

It's over 100 metres across.

And while there are 21 stones
standing today,

in its original form,
there would have been as many as 60.

And that's not all

This stone circle was also
surrounded by a ditch.

Not just any ditch.

This is ten metres across,
and over three metres deep.

And it's not just cut into the soil,

it's been cut into the living bedrock.

It's been estimated that
it would have taken 100 men

six months just to cut the ditch.

This is on an epic scale.

The Ring of Brodgar is vast,

but, incredibly, it actually forms
part of something even bigger.

And here's a clue,

the ditch isn't actually complete.

There's a causeway across it,
right here.

And there's another one
on the other side.

It's thought that these are
an entrance and an exit.

Which means, perhaps,

that the stone circle is itself
a destination.

It's some kind of portal, maybe.

Something you pass through,
on the way to somewhere else.

And that somowhere else is down there,

just across the peninsula.

The Ring of Brodgar points you
across a narrow land-bridge

towards another even older stone circle,
the Stones of Stenness.

Few of the original stones survive.
But those that do,

reveal yet more connections
to this monumental landscape.

What's striking here is the way
some of the stones are positioned.

This pair here are aligned
so that when you look through the gap,

Maes Howe is perfectly framed
against the hillside.

Originally, there would have been
a complete ditch

encircling the whole monument

And the thinking is that that ditch
would have held water,

so that it would appear as a moat.

So, maybe what you've got
5,000 years ago

is the builders,
the architects of this monument,

creating an island within an island.

A miniature, a microcosm of their world
as they saw it.

The creation of monumental architecture
around 5,000 years ago

can be seen, in a sense, as an evolution
of earlier Neolithic culture.

After all, these people had been
building huge earthen enclosures

and vast cursus monuments
for generations.

It was the connections
between the monuments

and astronomical alignments
that was new.

The earth, the landscape,
was as important as it had always been.

But, now, it was being seen
as part of a bigger picture.

The skies, the Sun and the Moon,
the Heavens.

That's what this Age of Astronomy
seems to have been all about.

Our human need to understand
our place in the cosmos

still resonates today.

This is mid-summer,

just before dawn,

at the most famous
Stone Age monument of them all.

This place, Salisbury Plain,

has been attracting people
for millennia.

And it still does.

There are literally
thousands of people here.

Some of them have come to
worship ancient gods.

Some, to connect with Mother Earth.

Some have come in search of themselves.

But to be honest,
I think a lot of them are here

just because everyone else is.

Just for the spectacle.

Of course, what everybody's waiting for
is the sunrise,

which will be over there.

And, by my reckoning,
will be in several minutes' time.

Can't wait.

Funny thing is, it's actually
very hard to see the sunrise,

because of all these stones
and all these people.

Oh. There she blows.

And, presumably, its arrival today means

something different
to every one of these people here.

And there're several thousand of them,
so that's several thousand meanings.

You can take your pick.

But what did Stonehenge mean

to the people who gathered here
5,000 years ago?

To begin to answer that,

you have to go back
to the stones themselves.

And I don't mean the most obvious ones.

The Sarsen stones,
and the huge trilithons,

they weren't part of
the original monument.

If you want to get back to
the start of Stonehenge,

you have to look at these smaller stones

that are all around the interior.

Unlike the sarsens,

which were dragged here
from just 20 or so miles up the road,

these are from much, much further away,
off to the west.

The wild southwest of Wales,

high in the Preseli Hills,
the rolling landscape is broken

by huge outcrops
of a very distinctive stone.

Now, the thing is, studies have shown

that this kind of stone is identical
to the original boulders of Stonehenge,

built over 200 miles away,
in that direction.

Geologists call this a spotted dolerite.

And this is the only place in Britain
where this particular type exists.

This has been amazing to me
for more than half of my life.

I mean, why do it at all?

What motivated them?

Why these stones from here?

Now, it does have to be said

there are a couple of things
about this rock that are unusual.

First of all, I'm going to don
my Stone Age goggles,

and hit this as hard as I can.

Now, on that fresh face there,

if I wet that freshly broken face...

Look at that! Isn't that lovely?

See how it changes colour?
It goes to this soft blue shade.

Obviously, it's why this stuff
is known as bluestone.

And it's speckled throughout
with these little flecks of feldspar.

These properties, these unique freckles,

would have made this rock
seem very special.

It might even have seemed magical.

We might never know exactly

why this place and these crags
were chosen,

but it reminds me of
the Lake District axe makers

on a much grander scale.

What we do know for certain though
is that this place was important.

So important,
that it filled the ancient people

with an urge so powerful

that they were able to find
the strength and the will

to move over 200 tonnes of this rock

and use it to set up
the first stone circle of Stonehenge.

Now, that takes some belief.

Five thousand years ago,

the Stonehenge we see today
simply didn't exist.

Instead, there was
a much simpler circle.

After their long journey from Preseli,

the bluestones were put up
in a great big circle

round the outside,
on the inner edge of this bank.

So for 500 years or so,
the bluestone circle was Stonehenge.

And then, for some reason,
the people living around here

decided to give themselves
an even bigger challenge.

Around 2,500 BC,

a new generation of builders
created their ultimate monument

Using massive blocks of local sandstone,

they constructed
something unprecedented,

a ring of standing stones
capped with lintels.

Inside, a horseshoe of yet more stones.

And at the same time, for good measure,

they moved the original boulders
of bluestone right into the centre.

Unlike the bluestones,
these gigantic sarsens

were only transported 20 miles or so
from up the road.

But given that each one
weighs anything up to 40 tonnes,

well, the effort required to shift them
was phenomenal.

This new Stonehenge marked
special days in the cosmic calendar.

Spring and autumn,

as well as the well-known alignment
on the mid-summer sunrise.

But the mid-summer sunrise
exactly matches another event,

the setting sun

at mid-winter.

The latest evidence suggests that our
most famous prehistoric monument of all

might not have been a celebration
of summer and life,

but a commemoration of winter and death.

Like the Orkney monuments,
Stonehenge is not alone.

Nearby, this field contains
all that remains

of an ancient site of winter gathering.

Have a look at these.

Animal bones and teeth.
Just a sample, really,

of the thousands of animal remains
found scattered all across the site.

These are pig bones.

Piglets are usually born
in the springtime.

And the vast majority of the pig remains
at Durrington Walls

show that the adult animals
were slaughtered around nine months.

That's in mid-winter.

Also, the teeth reveal

that the animals had been specifically
fattened up prior to the feasting.

And we can tell this
because the teeth are rotten.

What we have here
isn't just casual feasting.

This is one final commemoration.

It's one big celebration of life
before the ancestors

commenced their journey to Stonehenge
and the land of the dead.

It's thought that each winter

people would come here
from hundreds of miles around

to commemorate
the lives of their ancestors.

And to ensure the souls
of the recently dead

reached the safety of the afterlife,
at Stonehenge itself.

I think it's fascinating that everyone
believes they know Stonehenge.

It's like the Mona Lisa or the Pyramids.

It's so familiar,
it's hard to see it with fresh eyes.

I think we've discovered something
by coming here.

I think we've discovered
a new Stonehenge.

And it's as far from the golden warmth
of a mid-summer sunrise

as it's possible to get.

It's somewhere
that still carries a charge.

You can feel it.

And if you come here at mid-winter,

you can feel that charge
just a little bit more.

The coldness of the stones,
the open landscape,

it's not hard to believe

that this place is somewhere
that belongs to the dead.

When we look back to the time of
the great monuments of the Neolithic,

we see a whole new age dawning

in belief, but also in society.

There's no doubt that the creation
of these vast monuments

was a religious act.

It's about finding and defining
a place in the universe,

in time, in life and in death.

The special objects found at Orkney,
the arrangement of the temple complex,

these things imply the existence
of a priestly class

that the farmers themselves
were supporting.

And the sheer scale
of these enterprises,

the planning and engineering
required by Stonehenge,

by the Ring of Brodgar,

suggests that some group was in charge,
and they were out to impress.

Because these monuments themselves
were connected.

And we know that people were moving
between these great monuments

because of this.

It's a style of pottery.

It's called groovedware because of
the grooves that decorate the surface.

It was made first of all in Orkney.

It's also the first pottery we know of
in Britain and Ireland

with a proper flat base.

This style of pottery was subsequently
found at Stonehenge,

in the south of England.

And it's found at all points in between.

What experts are now imagining

is a kind of elite world travel,
if you like,

where important people move
between the great Neolithic monuments

on a kind of grand tour.

Right, in on three, lads. Haon, d?, tr?!

Five thousand years ago,

there was only one way for a serious
Neolithic traveller to get around.

So, is she doing what
she's supposed to, Clive?

She's doing exactly
what she's meant to do.

- Yeah?
- So, very impressed.

- And it's completely dry.
- She is.

I'm joining the crew
of a sea-going currach

built by Irish boat-builder
Clive O'Gibny

using 5,000-year-old technology.

A frame of hazel, covered with cow hide,
and sealed with pitch.

It's as smooth as spreading a nice
piece of butter on a bread, isn't it?

Every now and again,
I can persuade myself

I'm in time with somebody.

That's it. Aye, well,
if it's with me, Neil,

- then we're both out.
- We're in trouble.

Rowing is all very well.

All right, lads. Give it a crack.

But Clive believes
that longer voyages

would have required some sort of sail.

Okay. Now, I'm going
to go overboard if we do this.

In the Neolithic,
there was no cloth technology.

So Clive has used hazel rods
and strips of cowhide.

No one has ever attempted
anything remotely like this before.

So we just need everybody,
sort of, to be calm.

Now, I'm going to move that way
with this sail.

It's the moment of truth, Clive.

- Over towards you.
- Whoops!

Yous are all right, lads.
Sit down.

Do you hear it? All the way.

- Let go.
- You got her?

It's a heavy and cumbersome rig.

But, amazingly,
it actually seems to work.

So how does it feel, Clive,
seeing this for the first time?

I feel thrilled
and delighted with myself.

It's one thing imagining it,
but actually feel it working...

I wanted to hear it,
I wanted to feel it.

And that's exactly
what we're getting now.

It's one of the best experiences
I've had in my life.

It is definitely a sailing currach.

Definitely a sailing currach.
There you go, Neil.

Will we just go to
England, Clive?

Aye, c'mon. Where will we go?
I got the lunch.

I've got a dram of something in there.

It's easy to imagine
boats like this

sailing between the great sites
of Neolithic Britain,

carrying people, ideas, beliefs,
and precious objects.

One remarkable find
epitomises this age of elite travel

It was discovered just north of Dublin,

but it's thought it was made
across the sea in Britain.

This is a ceremonial macehead.

It's 5,000 years old,
there or thereabouts,

and it's made from a single piece
of beautifully worked flint.

In every possible way,
it's an object of wonder.

Now, the person who made this
wasn't just technically skilled,

but also an artistic genius.

Do you see the way that spiral there
suggests two eyes

and then the hole to take the shaft
of the mace could be the mouth.

The hole for the shaft
has been drilled out.

Now this is from a time
before any metal,

so the drill bit was a piece of wood,

and the abrasive action has been
achieved by using sand or ground quartz.

Even saying that, you're still
looking at countless hours and days,

maybe even weeks, of painstaking effort
to create that perfect smooth hole.

It's technically flawless.

But it also reveals a level of
sophistication and refinement of design

that you simply don't see
in any other artefact of the period

in Britain or in Ireland.

This new art
speaks of power and prestige,

of an emerging world
of priests and chieftains,

people whose status was displayed

in the possession of rare
and exquisite objects.

As well as Stonehenge and Orkney,

it seems that these people
also came to Ireland.

Five thousand years ago, travellers
would have sailed or rowed up here,

the River Boyne, to the most
sacred landscape of them all.

The Br? na B?inne,
the "Palace of the Boyne."

This is another sacred landscape
constructed around 3,200 years BC,

which means that it probably predates
the bluestone phase at Stonehenge,

and the stone circles of Orkney.
This could be where it all began.

And right at the centre, a mecca
for tourists from all over the world,

is this massive passage grave,
Newgrange.

Of course, the mound as
you see it today isn't original

It was excavated in the 1960s
and then reconstructed in this,

well, very confident style.

I'm in two minds about it actually.
On the one hand,

it's very striking
and attracts a lot of people,

maybe inspires a lot of people
to find out more.

But, on the other hand,
it's a bit brutal. It's a bit overdone.

It's kind of like
Stalin does the Stone Age.

Inside, though,
its magic still rings out.

This is the very earliest building
of the new Neolithic cosmology,

created hundreds of years
before even the Egyptian pyramids.

What strikes you immediately is how much
this feels like Maes Howe on Orkney

with this narrow, low passageway

leading from the world of light
into the dark world within.

And, in fact, this may have been
the inspiration for Maes Howe,

because this tomb was built first.

And again, like Maes Howe,
there are three recesses

that once upon a time would
have held the remains of the dead.

But this one is altogether more
rough hewn than Maes Howe.

It lacks the perfection.
It's more Stone Age, if you like.

Like Maes Howe and Orkney,

Newgrange is carefully aligned
on the movement of the Sun.

Avove the entrance, there's a stone
frame that lets light into the passage,

a roofbox.

If I get down here,
you can see what I mean.

On a day like today,
it doesn't let a lot of sunshine in.

But once a year, on the 21 st
of December, the winter solstice,

the Sun is directly
in front of the entrance,

and the roofbox lets the sunlight
all the way up this passageway

until it illuminates the entire chamber.

It lasts for about 17 minutes,

and then the chamber is plunged
into darkness for another year.

Now, that trick makes this place

one of the earliest astronomically
aligned buildings anywhere in the world.

Like the other monuments,
Newgrange marks mid-winter.

But here, there's an additional clue
to Neolithic belief.

That time flowsin a cycle.

And even in death,
there is a promise of rebirth.

There was a reason
for the alignment of the passageway.

It's to allow the Sun
to illuminate this stone

and to pick out this carving,
the only carving in the recess.

It's something called a triple spiral,

the very earliest example
of a triple spiral.

It's one continuous carving
with no beginning and no end.

It's a kind of perfect form.

The illumination of this carving
once a year,

in a piece of religious theatre,
lay at the very heart

of the beliefs of the people
who designed and built this place.

The great sacred sites of Newgrange,
Stonehenge, and those on Orkney,

were magnets for elite travellers
who, 5,000 years ago,

took inspiration and ideas
from one another.

What we're left with today
are monuments that are unique in Europe,

created by powerful
and commonly-held religious beliefs.

From the Orkney Islands in Scotland
to the Preseli mountains in Wales,

from the Lake District
in the north of England

to Stonehenge in the south,
and finally here in Ireland,

it's all connected.

And all that time, there must have been
some sort of priestly caste

marshalling all that effort,
the people who carried the maceheads.

And in some of the tombs
surrounding Newgrange,

there are clues to their sacred beliefs,
and, in particular,

to the treatment of one of
the first elites of ancient society.

Within sight of Newgrange,
lies yet another tomb,

Knowth.

More than 400 of its stones are covered
in swirling, abstract art.

Almost half of all the Megalithic art
in the whole of Western Europe.

This is where the precious macehead
was found.

And it wasn't the only
spectacular discovery.

Archaeologist George Eogan
has been studying Knowth for 50 years.

You could picture
that you had a religious person,

the equivalent of a priest, you see,

who could stand here
before the entrance,

this is directly opposite the entrance,

and in between, you have this splendid
sandstone, six feet of so in height,

with a vertical line which leads
up the centre of the passage.

So, what would have happened inside?
You know, who gets in there?

I would think that only a very small
number of people went inside,

probably even an individual,

who just took the remains
and placed them in the tomb.

- And, we can have a look?
- We can, indeed.

Good. Lead on.

Back in 1968,

George was the first person
in modern times to break into the tomb.

- How long is the passage?
- About 140 feet.

Are you winning?

Oh, it'll take me a long time.

No hurry.

Right. I see why you don't have
this place open to the public, George.

- It's not the easiest place.
- No.

Oh, my.

- Oh, I say.
- Look up.

Now that's a bit good.

And this is as it was?
This hasn't been reconstructed?

Oh, no, not at all.

What was it like
the very first time you came in here?

How did you feel to be the first person
in here for goodness knows how long?

Well, I felt a bit...
Unbelievably exciting.

What George found

were the untouched remnants
of ancient sacred rites,

a time capsule of Neolithic belief.

Magnificent!

And scattered in and around
this exquisitely carved basin

was evidence of something new
in Stone Age society,

burnt human remains.

These are some of the earliest remains
of ritual cremation ever found.

Well, the skull is the easiest to find

because the skull is very distinctive.

It has an inner layer and an outer layer
and a bit of spongy bone in between.

Although only fragments survive,
under expert eyes,

these remains reveal
a wealth of information.

Some areas of the skull
are more important than others.

And this part, in particular, is called
the petrous portion of the temporal bone

and it survives very well
because it's thick.

And from this, I can identify
which side of the skull it came from.

So it's useful in determining
the number of individuals.

Because if I've got
two left temporal bones,

then I've got two different individuals.

Forensic science reveals that

Knowth contained
over 100 cremated bodies.

But those cremations were accumulated
over centuries of use.

The radio carbon dates showed that

that was over
approximately 300-year time span.

And that works out at one cremation
every two to three years.

So, therefore,
cremation wasn't that common.

What Laureen Buckley's work
shows

is that the new practice
of cremation was unusual

This rarity, and the discovery
of the Knowth macehead,

suggests that it was an honour
reserved for

only the very highest levels
of late Neolithic society.

The cremated remains at Knowth
show that there was a hierarchy at play

which determined how
your mortal remains were treated.

Put simply, if you were important,
your remains were burnt, cremated.

And, presumably,
that meant that your spirit

was being treated differently
and was going to go somewhere different

than the remains of those left behind
on Earth, simply to be buried.

I'm going to have
my own experimental cremation

right here in the shadow of Knowth Tomb.

The thing is, cremating a body is about
much more than just lighting a fire.

It's a technological challenge,

which is why I've brought
two Dublin firemen with me.

We need to get it between
1,500 to 1,700 degrees Celsius

in order to totally cremate the body.

And how long does it have to
sustain that kind of temperature

to do away with something
like a human body?

About two to three hours.

But then the idea
of building the pyre like this

is that it holds its structure.

So, as it ignites, the structure remains
intact and then it collapses inwards.

Lovely.

Since I can't find anyone to volunteer,

we've taken a trip
to the local butchers.

At around 70 kilos, a medium-sized pig

makes a good substitute
for an average adult man.

Right.

Almost a third of its weight is fat,
and that's important,

because although wood is needed
to get things going,

the main fuel in a cremation
is the body itself.

Now we've ordained that our cremations

are performed out of sight
and out of mind,

but this is really what it's all about.

Flesh and bone
being consumed by the flames

and turned into smoke.

I quite like it.

It's a process that takes hours,

time enough to reflect
upon a leader's life,

and their journey to another world.

You have to try and imagine
the impact of this

on people 5,000 years ago

when a chieftain or a priest died,

their body would be consumed by fire
and be reduced to virtually nothing.

And then to see
the few earthbound remains,

a handful of dust and crumbling bones,

picked out of the embers and placed
in a recess in that tomb forever,

while all the rest of them
had disappeared into the sky.

Who can imagine
what impact that would have?

The following morning,
and only a few smoking embers remain.

As a first attempt
to Neolithic cremation,

I think that's quite good.

The flame has done away
with most of the body.

So I've sent that pig
into the afterlife, if you like.

The discoveries in Ireland
show a new society emerging

through the late Neolithic,
a society where status mattered.

It determined the objects
you possessed in life,

and how your body was treated in death.

This was a society
where ideas travelled,

and where new beliefs were manifested

in the greatest ancient monuments
the world had ever seen.

And it's in those very monuments
that today we're able to glimpse

the very birth of a whole new concept
of existence.

From around 3,000 to 2,500 BC,

was a time when we became aware
of our place,

not just here on Earth,
but within the cosmos.

The great tombs, the stone circles,

they were an attempt to make sense
of the movement of the Sun and the Moon,

of an entire universe that shapes
and governs our lives and our time.

Those forces went way beyond
the reach of the ancestors.

So much so that, from now on,
when some people died,

they were to be sent to a new place,
a different place.

Not down into the earth,
but up into the sky.

It seems to me
that it was in the Neolithic

that people first conceived
of an idea that endures to this day,

that somewhere up here was Heaven.

Next time, my journey continues.

Look at that.

As I discover a new age.

That is magic!

One forged in metal

- Are you impressed?
- I'm deeply, deeply impressed.

By a new people.

He knew how to get metal,
how to make metal,

and how to work metal.

A people inventing
a whole new way of living.

As well as men working down here,
there must have been children

because some of the spaces
are just too small.

Ripped By mstoll