A History of Ancient Britain (2011–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Age of Bronze - full transcript

The discovery of tin and its amalgamation with copper to produce bronze kicked off a continental trade explosion which put the previously peripheral British isles, rich in both metals, at the center. The organizational requirements of mining and resulting wealth stirred the emergence of a rich, leading class which presided over the erection of major monuments, some even as personal tombs. Bronze became the reference commodity, measure as well as medium of wealth and prestige beyond its practical use.

Ripped By mstoll

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 followed the herds across Europe,

before Britain was an island.

It's fantastic after 14,000 years
to get a glimpse

of the way at least
one individual was thinking.

Then the first farmers came,



building monumental tombs
to their ancestors.

Nothing like this
had ever been seen before in Britain.

Before turning to the heavens

and creating some of the greatest
monuments of the ancient world.

Now, the journey continues,

with the next chapter in our epic story.

That is magic.

An age of bronze
and a whole new way of living.

The rise of individuals
controlling trade and wealth.

The beginnings of a practical,
domestic, almost modern Britain.

Britain, 2,500 years BC.

This is the height of the Stone Age.

People live by farming the land,

growing crops, keeping animals.



There's little evidence of
fixed villages, permanent settlement.

Instead, they seek out fresh
grazing land and fresh soil,

season by season.

Everything they have,
clothes, tools, food,

is gathered from the world around them.

One material lay at the very heart
of their world,

as it had done for thousands of years,

flint, and it was needed
in vast quantities.

Look at this.

It's a moonscape of deep hollows

and depressions.

There are literally hundreds of them.

These aren't the product
of ancient farming

or ancient settlements.

All of this was created
by ancient industry.

Each one of these hollows is
the remnant of an ancient mineshaft.

And there are 433 of them.

Some of the mineshafts
have been excavated,

so it's possible to enter
the very ground

that was worked
by our prehistoric ancestors.

It's a bit deeper than I thought.

Each shaft leads
to a network of tunnels,

hacked from the chalk bedrock
with basic tools.

This is red dear antler,

hunted or collected
in the forests above.

Then it's been used just as
the shape suggests as a pick.

You can see just how cramped
the conditions are down here.

And some of the tunnels are so small,

it's believed that
as well as men working down here,

there must have been children,

because some of the spaces are just too
small to believe it was grown-ups.

Now, here's what all the effort
is in aid of.

This black stuff here, this is flint.

They would have found a complete floor,
like a black floor of flint,

as if a black liquid had flowed in
and solidified.

Looks like glass or treacle toffee.

In any case,
this is what this mine was all about.

Flint, the life blood of the Stone Age.

If you're going to fell a tree,
build a house, shape wood,

make a dugout canoe,
you needed an axe like this.

But Britain,
and its ancient dependence on flint,

was about to change.

In 2,500 BC, a radical,
unimaginable, new technology

was about to hit Britain, metal.

We take it for granted.

It's quite literally the scaffolding
that holds up the modern world.

So much of what we have,
what we depend on,

is made of metal

But 4,500 years ago,
no one in Britain had ever even seen it,

yet it was about to catapult us
out of a Stone Age

and into a whole new chapter.

The arrival of metal

would bring a social
as well as a technological revolution,

the beginning of community life
and a world

that begins to look increasingly
like our own.

All of this change in an era
that we call the Bronze Age.

The story of how metal
first came to Britain

begins much further west,
in the hills of southwest Ireland,

because the rocks around this
stretch of water in County Kerry

are rich in copper ore.

And it was copper from here

that was used to make
the first metal objects

back home in Britain.

Archaeologist Billy O'Brien

has spent decades here discovering
evidence of ancient copper workers.

The typical rock I'm seeing
is just this dark,

with white veins through it. Is that...

Well, that's what miners would call
the country rock.

It's limestone with little pieces of
calcite veining running through it,

but there's no copper minerals
in that piece, I'm afraid.

So, when I think of copper, I'm thinking
about green colour, should that be...

Yeah, you're right.

Absolutely, copper oxidises
on the surface,

so it becomes green and blue,

and it's bright colours like that
you're looking for.

Right.

Oh, look. What about that?

Yeah, that's got
a lot of copper minerals.

You can see the green staining,
you can see the bright, sparkly

silver and gold
of the copper sulphide minerals.

Yeah, where you did it.

Yeah,
you can see the green instantly.

And those even sparkling.
It's like glitter.

And it's the glitter
that's actually the copper.

That would become the copper.

The copper minerals
against the limestone.

How on earth would you know
it was there?

I mean, surely to the average person,

thousands of years ago,
a stone is a stone is a stone.

How does anyone realise
there is a completely different material

hidden in here?

We know that there was a history
of Stone Age settlement

in this area going back
thousands of years.

And, at some point,
they would have noticed that

the limestone rocks
on this part of the lake

were streaked with copper minerals.

And this knowledge, they wouldn't
have known what to make of it,

but, at some point, they came in contact
with people from outside of Ireland

who were metal prospectors.

And the two would've come together
and with that outside expertise,

they would have eventually
started to mine here.

So it was a foreign expertise
that was required to triggered it all.

The very first copper mines
were dug in the Balkans

far to the south nearly 6,000 years ago.

By 3,000 BC, pockets of
copper technology were appearing

further west, in northern Italy
and along the Mediterranean coast.

But it wasn't until around 2,500 BC

that copper spread
through northwest Europe.

And prospectors came looking
for ore further north still,

in Ireland.

And all of this was cut out
by human labour?

There's good scientific evidence
from things like lead isotope analysis

that indicate that the first copper
from Ross Island came from this trench.

It's called the Blue Hole Mine.

And this copper was used very early on

and it circulated all over Ireland,
then into western Britain.

So when you find
the earliest copper tools in Britain,

wherever you find them,

the metal for them
has come out of this hole.

Well, certainly the ones in Ireland
and western Britain absolutely,

many of the ones in places
like Wales and Scotland,

some of the very earliest copper axes
came out of this hole.

It's just extraordinary
to be able to track a story,

like metal working, like copper,

all the way back
to one hole in the ground.

It's like following a river right back
to its spring, the source.

Next to the mine, workers would
have begun to process the rock.

How do you know all of this?

How do you know that this was
the process when it was done here?

We know that because of the tools
we found in the site.

The excavation of this work camp
and the surrounding mine site

produced thousands of these
stone hammers.

You can see they've got grooves
around the centre,

and that's because there were usually
handles put on them like this.

- So they've be worked, pecked away at?
- Exactly.

The purpose of the groove was to grip
the handle like this,

so that you could use it
with more force.

So they'd rather more
sophisticated tools than I've got?

Much more, yeah,
much more sophisticated.

Most sophisticated of all,
the secret of how to transform

the rock into gleaming copper.

Smelting copper ore
reguired cutting-edge technology.

Bellows, to create fire
that was hotter than anything

ever seen in Britain before.

You look at the colour of your flame,

experience suddenly tells you that,
look, I know it's ready now.

I can see it. I can feel it's ready.

For the locals, the new people
who could create glowing metal

from rock must have seemed
like magicians.

Oh, yeah.

Look at that!

That is magic.

Wow.

That's magic now,
what was that like 4,500 years ago?

Look, it's actually turning green.

You can see as well how it reacts
straightaway with the air

- as soon as it's out.
- Yeah.

You know, imagine if someone had
turned up in your village and said,

- "I'm gonna show you something."
- Yeah.

And then they go through
all that process, and then to see that,

to see that liquid leap in there,

and then turn into recognisable object.

Yeah. No, it's magic.

That's pure copper.

- I love it.
- Yeah.

So, amazingly,
it's the raw materials in these hills

and the technology that
transformed it into copper

that are in many ways
the foundations of our modern world.

The people who brought this technology

also brought a new
and very different culture

that was to spread throughout Britain,

and transform society.

They made and used
a distinctive kind of pottery.

This piece was actually found here.

Before it was broken,
it was part of a vessel

that looked a bit like this one.

We call these beakers.

And the people who made these,
used these, and were often

buried with them
alongside them in their graves,

are called the Beaker people.

Around 2,500 BC,

Beaker people first arrived in Britain,

bringing their new metal working skills
and a whole new culture.

And we know that, at least partly,

because of an early Beaker man
who was buried here,

on land between this school
and that housing estate,

4,500 years ago.

And here he is.

We've got beakers here,
real ones this time.

Terrified at the prospect
of even touching them,

because these are some of the oldest,
the earliest beakers in Britain.

This fragile, lovely is a beaker,
a classic.

Now, also in amongst this

dazzling array of grave goods is metal.

There are copper knives in here,
and this isn't just any metal.

Look at this. Here's one of them.

It's a copper knife, it would've been
in a wooden handle maybe coming out,

to give you a grip on it
and there's the cutting edge.

These are the oldest metal objects
found so far in Britain.

And alongside the earliest copper,

and I can't believe
I'm about to touch this,

is the earliest gold.

This is the earliest gold jewellery.

It's been wrongly described previously
as an earring.

But it's not.

It's a decoration for hair.

You would put it on
the end of pleated hair,

or a braid of hair.

Just for decoration.

Look at that. Look at that.
Look at how fine it is.

It feels as fragile as the foil
on a Terry's Chocolate Orange.

And I feel as if,
with an uncontrolled nervous twitch,

I might crush it flat. But look at it.

Amazing. I'll put it down.

Taking a tooth from the Amesbury Archer,

scientists could discover where
this new metalworker had come from.

First time we'd ever had
a tooth that old in our hands,

and it's amazing to be holding something
that old from another human being.

Teeth contain traces of atomic elements,
strontium and oxygen.

And the pattern of these traces

can reveal where someone
spent their childhood,

even after thousands of years.

We were absolutely overwhelmed
with the results.

It was absolutely amazing.

This guy didn't come from Britain.

The Amesbury Archer
wasn't just an early Beaker man,

but one of the original pioneers.

Born a thousand miles away,

in the Alps of central Europe.

You just can't possibly think
of somebody walking all that way.

I was amazed,
I was absolutely over the moon,

because he was different, you know.

And you see so many individuals

who are just like everybody else
and then, all of a sudden,

here's one guy
who's just totally different.

After travelling
a thousand miles,

the Amesbury Archer ended his days
here in Wiltshire,

buried alongside the things that were
important to him in life.

All of this, so far,
makes him fascinating,

and compelling.

But there's one last item in here

that makes this individual
crucial to our story.

It's this item here.

This is called a cushion stone.

It's used for working
and finishing metal.

Look at it. It's seen years of use.

Look how smooth it is.

He would've used the smooth surface
of this one to work,

to cold work metal,

and give it the finishing shape
and the finishing touches.

So, this individual,
this pioneer from Europe,

he didn't just own metal things.

He knew how to get metal,

how to make metal and how to work metal.

The arrival of Beaker people
in Britain was a tipping point

in the history of our land.

Before the new people arrived,
all our materials

were simply collected
from the natural world.

Stone, bone, shell, wood,

antler, animal sinew,

all of this and more had been used
in countless, ingenious ways.

And, of course,
people had been making pottery

for over a thousand years.

But the beaker people had brought
something completely new.

Not just copper technology,
but gold jewellery,

and the trappings of status,
perhaps, even wealth.

Metalworkers like the Amesbury Archer
were pioneering a new

and very different world
to that of the ancient past.

This was nothing less than the end
of the Stone Age

and everything that went with it.

Stone Age Britain had reached its peak

with the creation of massive,
cosmically aligned, communal monuments.

Even in death,
the ancestors shared a world,

often buried or cremated
in communal tombs.

But now, just a few incomers from Europe

had brought very different ideas
about how people fitted into society

and the world around them.

The Beaker people brought
a whole new sense of self,

of individuality.

Unlike most burials in the Stone Age,

the Amesbury Archer
was laid to rest on his own.

He was also buried with possessions,

things that showed what he did,
who he was.

An acknowledgement of his status,
if you like.

For the Beaker people,
all of this mattered.

But for British people in the Stone Age,
this was radical thinking.

Right on the cusp of this change,
the last great prehistoric monument

in Britain was begun.

It's this enormous mound, Silbury Hill.

It's almost certainly the largest
prehistoric mound

built anywhere in the world.

It's been calculated that it took
four million man-hours to build it.

And as for what it's for,

I'll be honest with you, nobody knows.

One thing we do know for certain,

the people who started building it

didn't live long enough
to see it completed.

It was the idea of Silbury Hill that
survived, generation after generation.

And now, of course, it's just a mystery.

It could be that this was
the last blossoming of the Neolithic

before the new, more individual,
Beaker ways took over.

Beakers, classic beakers,

that give the Beaker people their name,
are drinking vessels.

And they're associated
with a male-dominated culture,

of archery, metalworking and drinking.

Analysis of fragments of real beakers,

to see what they contained,

has shown that it was
almost certainly alcoholic.

Now...

So, in honour of the Amesbury Archer,
and the builders of Silbury Hill,

I'm gonna try some.

Good health.

Metal was only one part
of the new Beaker culture.

But for all their individual skills
and modern outlook,

the new metalworkers had a problem.

Copper might have looked good,

but it was so soft that it was
barely better than flint as a tool

But the Beaker people
also knew about another,

even more astonishing, metal

The metal that was to open up
a whole new age

was unlocked from the rocks
of the Cornish coast.

Because to make it,
you needed to combine copper with tin.

Bear with me.

Apparently it's quite distinctive
when you see it.

If you don't break an ankle on the way.

Look.

The secret to all of this,

what those early metalworkers
were on the hunt for,

is in this ribbon
of black and white rock.

It's very distinctive. You see it?

It's called cassiterite.
A rock that contains tin.

Britain had been a latecomer
to the Copper Age,

but the discovery of local tin,
a much rarer metal than copper,

was to propel Britain to the very
technological forefront of Europe.

And if you were very lucky,
you'd find something like this.

I wish you could feel it.

It looks like any ordinary pebble
but, trust me,

it's as heavy as a cannon ball.

And when you extract the tin itself,

it's as beautiful as silver.

And this is an ingot of tin.
It's very lovely.

They say that if you bend it...

It crackles.

They call that the cry of tin.

But more importantly,
if you have copper,

and you add this,
you transform it into bronze.

If you control the bellows speed,

it'll hold the perfect temperature
for casting.

With just the right mixture
of copper and tin,

metalworkers could create an alloy
that was hard enough

to make useful tools and weapons.

An impact that crumples copper

is no match for bronze,

the hardest metal of the ancient world.

No matter how often I do this,
I still find it quite challenging.

Moulds were made of stone
or clay.

- Fingers crossed, gentlemen.
- Fingers, everything crossed.

In this case, to cast something that was
unknown before bronze came along,

a sword.

That's fantastic.

Loving this.

- Right.
- Can you lift that off, Rob?

Okay, this is it.

- Right.
- That's it.

Oh.

- Okay, up.
- It's like a beating heart, look at it.

Okay, in you go.

- Bit lower.
- Like a fine wine.

That's it.
Well done, gentlemen.

Amazing.

It's like blood. Better than blood.

- Okay.
- That's good.

Lift it up a little bit.
That's it, we're there.

Wow. It's so visceral, isn't it?

Oh, definitely.

The moment of truth.

There we go.

Look at that. Behold!

That is amazing.
Look at the colour of it.

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

Look at that.

Yeah, even makes a ring.

- It's a very hard piece of bronze.
- Just amazing.

From liquid fire to metal sword
in a couple of minutes.

In the hands of master metalworkers,

bronze was leading Britain
into a whole new age.

Not only technologically,
but socially as well

Look at these obviously lethal weapons.

But swords are quite a late development

in the story of bronze,
in the story of metal.

If you're talking about early bronze,

then you have to look at axes.

These are some of
the earliest bronze objects

found so far in Britain.

These date from
as early as 2,200 years BC.

A carpenter would have coveted
an item like this,

because it would enable him to do
a better, faster job.

But bronze axes are about much more
than the utility of the object.

They're about status and prestige.

No humble carpenter could possibly have
dreamt of owning

something so valuable,
in the early days of bronze.

Much more than tools,
these are objects of desire.

There's a whole range
of sizes and styles,

although still early.

Look at the size of that one.

That's what that one is all about.
Bigger is better.

It's showing off.

And this one, which looks silvery

in colour rather than
the warm gold of bronze.

And that silvering has been achieved
by flashing tin

onto the surface of the bronze.

It doesn't make a better axe.
It just makes it more eye-catching.

This ushers in a whole new era,

because, for the first time,

it was a different way to get
and to demonstrate wealth.

After the time of the priestly class,

where status was conferred on people,

because of who they were
and what they knew,

now there's a different opportunity.

The bronze here has been brought
together from many sources.

The copper from southwest Ireland,
the tin from Cornwall.

But these were found
in the northeast of Scotland.

So the materials are moving
all over the country.

If you are someone
who can control those trade routes,

if you can get your hands on this

as it's moving through your territory,
and control it,

then you've got personal wealth,
and you've got the ability

to demonstrate and to show
that you are someone who matters.

Now, not everyone had to farm the land.

At least for a few
of Britain's population

of perhaps a quarter
of a million people,

new opportunities were emerging.

Specialist metalworkers, metal traders,

and, in particular,
those who controlled the trade routes,

could become seriously rich.

This was a new self-made elite,

for whom the Stone Age must have seemed
a quaint and distant memory.

In the Bronze Age,
it wasn't just the ancient,

sacred landscapes that were important,

but the practical landscapes
of natural harbours and river routes.

One of the most important trade routes

was the western entrance
to the Great Glen in Scotland.

A place studied by archaeologist
Alison Sheridan.

This glen is geographically
in a great position

to control the flow of metal
that's coming from Ireland,

up the Great Glen,
to northeast Scotland.

So, this valley finds itself at the hub
of what is effectively a busy motorway.

Yes, absolutely. Those people
who were able to control the flow

of copper, or tin, or both,
were gonna make it rich.

The tombs of some of the new,
rich bronze elite

of Kilmartin still survive.

Within this huge cairn,

there was only ever one person buried.

This is no mass grave.

This is for a single,
high-status individual.

This cairn was rebuilt
around this modern chamber,

that was itself built
to let people see this single grave,

this stone-lined kist.

There was only ever one grave
in this entire cairn.

So, this was an important individual.

But the most interesting thing
of all in here is the lid.

The capstone that was once laid on top
of this kist to seal it.

But before it was put down,
it was upgraded, reworked,

with these axe-heads, pecked,
and carved into the surface.

They're all over the place here.

So, the person, whoever he or she was,

was laid to rest in here,
and they would spend eternity

looking up at this stone.

Because it was the axe,
the metal of the axes,

that was the basis for the wealth
and the power of these people.

The new wealth fed a new demand
for luxury goods.

Alison, you don't often find
or see anything quite as stunning

- as that, do you?
- Mmm-mm.

What is it made of?

It's made of jet,
from Whitby, in Yorkshire.

This necklace had travelled
over 300 miles

to be worn by one special,
very rich woman.

It's actually semi-fossilized wood
of the monkey-puzzle tree family.

- Isn't that fantastic?
- It's great!

And you can actually see the grain
of the wood there.

And it feels... It doesn't feel as you'd
expect it to, because it looks as if

- it ought to be much heavier than it is.
- Yes.

It is quite like
handling varnished wood.

- It's wonderful. It's also warm.
- Uh-huh.

Yeah? I mean,
the jet is an amazing stone.

It's stone that is light,
it's stone that you can burn.

And it also has
electro-static properties.

This wasn't just precious bling.

This was supernatural power-dressing,
if you like.

It's something which would've protected
the woman in her dangerous journey

to the world of the gods
and the ancestors.

Now, how old did you say that was?

It's about 4,150 years old.

- And fragile?
- Yes.

So, this is a replica?

That's right, yes.
It was made for Kilmartin House Museum

by a modern-day
Whitby jet specialist worker.

- Would you like to try it?
- Oh, I'd love to.

- Oh!
- Okay.

Ooh.

Now, does it feel different than other
items of finery you've worn before?

Yes, it makes me feel like a queen.

It's just wonderful.

It's so comfortable,
so soft, so beautiful.

It would've been, originally
very tightly strung,

so it's this, you know, solid black mass
of precious, magical material.

- So, 4,100 and odd years ago...
- Yeah.

This part of Britain was centre stage?

Absolutely. Yeah.
So, in fact, at the time,

northern Britain and Ireland
were the epicentre of cool.

You know, they were the places where
the fashion trends were being created.

So, this is internationally significant.

And the person would've held her own
among the elites across Europe.

All right, so Britain is at the centre,
not on the periphery.

Yes, absolutely.

If this glen teaches us anything,
it's that by around 2,000 BC,

Britain had a real presence
in the world.

We had the natural resources,

and the technical skills
that meant we couldn't be ignored.

In the Mediterranean,
and the rest of Europe,

they'd had trade and wealth
for centuries.

Now, we had it, too.

The waters around Britain can be some
of the most treacherous in the world.

But to trade with Europe,
Bronze Age sailors had to brave them.

And a remarkable discovery made in Dover

reveals the sophistication
of their maritime prowess.

In 1992, while this underpass
was being dug,

the evidence emerged from the mud.

Incredibly, they found a boat,
a big wooden boat,

buried 20 feet underground, down here.

It's hard to believe,

surrounded down here by all this
concrete and these painted tiles,

but 3,500 years ago,
the boat came to rest

and was gradually buried
under layers and layers of mud.

And here it is.

This, quite simply, is the oldest
surviving sea-going vessel in the world.

It's absolutely fantastic.

At first sight, it's honestly
one of the most impressive

archaeological finds
I've ever laid eyes on.

Originally up to 20 metres long,

the Dover boat would have carried cargo
between Britain and mainland Europe,

scrap bronze and other metals,
perhaps also wool and fabrics.

A vessel this size would obviously
have taken some skilled handling.

It must've been either paddled,
with several of these,

or, the thinking more recently has been
that it might've been rowed.

Like a rowing boat on a paddling pond,
only on a much grander scale.

I've actually been given the privilege
of going inside the case.

This is the magic handle
that opens the door.

You don't get to do this in normal life.

There's a real atmosphere in here.

I don't know if it's just the case,

but it's almost like
being in here with someone,

rather than just something.

It's... It's as if the Bronze Age is,

and Bronze Age people
are preserved in here.

The boat's construction
relied on the expert skills

of carpenters using bronze axes.

Its hull, four enormous planks,
sewn together.

These are twisted yew branches.
They're called withies.

And they've been used
like thread, or cords.

So, the whole... The pieces
have been stitched together.

Almost as though, rather than wood,
it was made out of skin, or cloth.

It's the same sort of technology.
It's been sewn together.

Just on a kind of a giant scale.

Close up, there's a detail that reveals
how this boat ended its days.

It's... It was in good nick,
but at some point,

people have decided
to put it beyond use.

It's been scuttled, if you like.

You can see, at certain points,
where the withies,

those twisted yew branches,
have been cut deliberately.

So, for some reason,

it was thought appropriate
to put this boat,

this perfectly functional boat,
beyond the use of man.

In ancient Britain,
the earth was alive, and sacred.

So, anything taken from the earth,

whether wood or bronze,
was only borrowed,

and would, one day, have to be returned.

People in the past seemed to acknowledge
a relationship between themselves,

their belongings, and their landscape,
and something unseen.

They accept that there's a relationship,

that there's an obligation
that comes with ownership.

That death follows life,
and that debts have to be repaid.

So, an axe is buried or thrown away.

A polished macehead goes into a tomb
with the ancestors.

And a boat like the Dover boat,
even though it's still serviceable,

has to be returned to the world.

Look at this

beautiful rapier.

Look how fine it is.

You can imagine the use that was put to.

The handle here.

But it's been damaged
to put it beyond the use of men.

So, it's been bent over someone's knee,

and then the edge has been ruined
by striking it on a rock.

Look.

Before this was given back to the world,
it's been snapped.

Great force has been used.

This was probably a valuable,
cherished object.

But the time came for it to go away,

and so it was put out of reach
by destroying it.

Bronze Age discoveries are revealing
more than ancient lives,

but ancient beliefs as well

In some ways,
the people of the Bronze Age

were forging a new,
modern way of living.

But with the Dover boat, and with those
damaged pieces of valuable bronze,

we're also seeing
another side to Bronze Age life.

It's a glimpse of Bronze Age religion,
if you like.

And it's connected with water.

The only evidence we have

is the gifts
that were given to the gods.

Rivers, particularly those
that flow east in England,

were special places,

where people brought
treasured personal belongings

like swords, or cooking pots,
and threw them in.

And archaeologists think
that those things were offerings

to appease the gods.

So, living beside nature,

and trying to work out how to appease
the gods, how to keep them happy,

would presumably just have been
part of everyday life.

In the thousand years
since the Beaker people

first brought metal to our shores,

a wealthy Bronze Age elite had emerged.

By 1,500 BC, Britain was a rich,
well-connected land.

But, of course, almost all those riches
were the preserve of just a few,

those at the very top of society.

But one aspect of Britain
had barely changed,

the way people lived their lives

was pretty much the same
as it had been in the Stone Age.

They farmed the land,
as they had done for centuries.

But they moved around, season by season.

Apart from a few exceptions,

there's scant evidence
of permanent homes or permanent farms.

But all of this was about to change.

Come on.

A Bronze Age site in east Anglia
revealed the remains of something new.

A permanent farmstead with evidence
of houses built to last a lifetime.

Since the original discovery
in the 1980s,

some of the buildings
have been recreated.

To get a better idea
of how Bronze Age people lived,

you want to get inside
one of their houses.

So, there's no way
around reconstruction.

Because, although
the stone foundations survive,

the timbers of the roof, they perish.

So there's no alternative but to use
archaeological evidence and best guesses

to put together as close a replica
of a Bronze Age house as we can get.

An entire family
would occupy a single room,

with a central hearth for heating
and cooking.

It's quite interesting.
You don't need...

You don't need a hole in the roof
for the smoke.

The smoke just rises
and sits above head height

and then gradually seeps out
through the thatch.

The Bronze Age round house
formed a template for domestic living

that would last
for over a thousand years.

Bronze Age specialist Francis Pryor
discovered Flag Fen

and he's studied it ever since.

Francis, what would it
have been like to live

in the Bronze Age 1,200 years BC?

People were very relaxed.

They knew their place in society,
they ate well.

The archaeological evidence
doesn't suggest

that there was, let's say,
an underclass, a lower class

that wasn't properly nourished.

I mean, whenever you dig up
a Bronze Age burial,

9 times out of 10,
or 90 times out of 100,

the body is well nourished,
the bones are well-formed.

So, they had plenty of calcium,
and they ate a decent diet.

One of the things there isn't
much evidence for in the Bronze Age

is actual strife.

I mean, the population hadn't got so big

that people were
at each other's throats.

You know, everyone knew
what land they owned,

people lived in families.

You know, your week was organised.

Life, I think, in the Bronze Age
would've been pretty good.

As the Bronze Age matured,

settled life came
with an even bigger change.

A change that was one of the greatest
social transformations

in the whole of our history.

This sort of set up, these houses,

this winding road, this is
our classic view of rural Britain.

Permanent houses led to the beginnings
of the very first villages.

Fields all around,
houses close together.

These are the neighbours.

And that fundamentally changed
the way we related to a place.

And to one another.

It seems normal to us,
but it all had to be invented.

The whole idea of getting used to living
in the same house for your whole life,

the neighbours, getting used to seeing
the same faces day after day.

It seems obvious to us,

but until about 1,500 years BC,
this was shockingly new.

The wild moorlands of Devon contain
evidence of this new way of living.

If it's Bronze Age Britain
you're looking for,

this is the place to come.

Because beyond this patch of woodland,

is the finest relic we have
of that ancient landscape.

Dartmoor has the best preserved
Bronze Age landscape,

not just in Britain,
but in the whole of Europe.

These rocky outcrops, called tors,
are natural

But the landscape is also marked
by the work of people

who lived on these hills
3,500 years ago.

Faint criss-cross markings
are relics of Bronze Age field systems

that divide the land into plots,
farmed by families

living in their own homes.

But, really, what's impressive about it
is the scale.

Within this landscape,

the remains of some of the very earliest
Bronze Age round houses.

Proper entrance.

There's nothing temporary
or halfhearted about this.

This is permanent.

Whoever built this
wasn't moving on in a hurry.

Archaeologist Niall Sharples

has made an extensive study
of the Dartmoor landscape

and its buildings.

Activity areas.
Not rooms, not divided up,

no walls separating the room,
but one big room,

but divided into areas,
where they're doing different things.

So, you cook over here,
and then you make tools over here...

And then, in the other side,
over here, perhaps,

is sleeping and storage.

Perhaps a loom as well for weaving,

- at the back of the house, maybe.
- Uh-huh.

You know, those kind of activities
going on.

When they start building these houses,
this is here for the adult lifetime.

Their main social life
will be carried out

in this house,
and is focused on this house

for 20 to 30 years, something like that.

So, it's a permanent
part of the landscape.

And so, for the very first time
in history,

- people have a sense of place.
- Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. That's important.

Most radical of all,
these houses aren't isolated farmsteads.

Here on Dartmoor,
there's evidence of over 5,000 of them.

You know, there's another house
just over there. That's the neighbours.

That would... They would be
related kin of some sort.

There's another two houses over there.

Five, six, seven or eight,
maybe up to twelve houses

within this group of fields.

Take a tour of the neighbourhood now.

It does feel strangely

familiar, a layout like this.

You know, families in their own homes,

dotted across the landscape,
but they're within reach of each other.

You've got help at hand.

Morning, Niall!

Is this rain ever going to stop?

Shall we go
and do some farming?

I think I'll just stay in today.

Your children would grow up
with their children.

They would reach adulthood,
they would move into their own homes.

It's all exactly the same

as the way we think about
our communities and our neighbours.

Oh, it's got...
You've got impressive stones here.

- Yeah, it's good, isn't it?
- Yes!

We're very proud of them.
We think it worked out very well.

An Englishman's home is his castle,
and all that.

So it starts now.

A warm climate
had improved productivity,

perhaps doubling Britain's population

to around half a million people
in just a few hundred years.

Settlements weren't unknown
before 1,500 years BC,

but now they were occurring everywhere,

right across Britain and Europe.

- A fantastic view.
- It is.

Ties to the land
that were once tribal and ancestral

were now personal and practical.

Domestic life placed right at the heart
of everything these people did.

Viewed from up here,
it's a grand scheme, isn't it?

Very grand scheme. I mean,

there's nothing really like it
in any other period.

It's not a pattern of nature.

They wanted to impose
something that was man-made.

- How're you doing?
- All right.

Britain had come a long way
since 2,500 BC.

We were still in the Stone Age,

until the Beaker people arrived,

and showed us how to make metals
from glittering stones like these.

Until then, we were well behind
the rest of Europe.

Then, with the discovery of tin
in Cornwall,

we had bronze, and suddenly,
we were at the centre of trade.

But it wasn't until this big change,

around 1,500 years BC,
that we began to settle down

into the way of life
that we would recognise now.

There was even a sexual revolution.

It's likely that sons and daughters
were exchanged between hamlets

five, ten, twenty miles apart.

If you sent your daughter
to be betrothed to a neighbour's son,

that would've forged an alliance
between the families.

People that you could look to for help
when times turned bad.

A kind of Bronze Age insurance policy.

In the years since 1,500 years BC,

things begin to look a bit modern.

Those early settlements on Dartmoor,
though, didn't last.

Over just a few centuries,

possibly because of climate change
and over-farming,

the moors and those first villages
were abandoned forever.

But places like Dartmoor had set
a pattern for the rest of Britain.

And for the future.

Through thousands of years
of prehistory,

the building blocks of the world we know
had all been invented.

Society and class, religion and trade.

Now, by 1,000 BC,

the first neighbourhoods
and settled villages were seeds

from which city life
would eventually blossom.

From the strange and distant days
of the first hunters,

a very recognisable Britain
was beginning to emerge.

The ice finally retreated
around 11, or 12 thousand years ago.

People came.

There were shifts
in technology and belief.

And all of that has moulded
the Britain we know today.

The very shape of the land,
as Britain became an island.

The coming of farming,
with ideas of work,

and productivity, and community.

But it feels that, with the end
of the Stone Age

and the coming of Bronze,

that the distant, strange world
of our very early prehistory

finally came to an end.

Thousands of years
after the beginning of our journey,

Britain now lay
on the brink of new changes

that would continue
to transform our land.

The coming chapters in our prehistory
would see the age of iron,

the glories of Celtic warriors,

druids and kings,

and, finally, the Romans.

The building of towns,
the introduction of writing,

and the end of prehistory for good.

All that was still to come,

and yet the late Bronze Age marked
a massive turning point in itself.

It was as if we, as a people,
had come of age.

We had the keys to the door,

and we could mould the world
in our own image,

as individuals,
taking care of our own families.

But there was a price to pay.

That realisation, that thought,
three or four thousand years ago,

that we could impose
our vision on the world,

brought with it
a very grown-up responsibility.

Because, what kind of world
did we want to shape?

What kind of Britain
did we want to build?

And we're still living
with the responsibility today.

Because, in the great scheme of time,

we're still busy trying to find ways
to relate to one another.

And we're going to pass
the responsibility on

to our descendants.

And when they look back,
what will they think?

How will they remember us?

Ripped By mstoll