A History of Ancient Britain (2011–…): Season 2, Episode 1 - Age of Iron - 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 epic story
of our distant, prehistoric past.

From a time of Celtic glory...

The owner of this is a man
who's being seen by his followers

as nothing less than a king.

To a new mysterious religion.

Whoever wore this was obviously
a Christian, a believer.

And the technological breakthroughs
that created whole new ages.



You've got the basis of mass production
there, haven't you?

Today, modern science
and new archaeology

are solving ancient mysteries.

And revealing the seismic shifts
that transformed Britain.

It shows the way in which the Romans,

quite literally,
brought the modern world.

They brought the future with them.

The latest chapter in our epic story...

That's the lot of the Bronze Age miner.
God bless him.

From a golden age of bronze...

And then there's this
magnificent cauldron.

It's so modern, somehow.

To a Britain in crisis.

Everything about this place says,
"Keep out."



A time of economic meltdown,
sudden climate change

and the dawn of a new era of iron.

Ripped By mstoll

I'm going back 3,000 years to late
Bronze Age Britain, 1,000 years BC,

an island that is home
to perhaps half a million people,

living in farmsteads and hamlets
spread right across the land.

Here, on this wild stretch
of Devon coastline,

near the town of Salcombe,

you can see field boundaries
clinging to that slope over there.

They're not modern.
They're not medieval either.

In fact, they're around 3,000 years old.

These boundaries were created
by self-sufficient Bronze Age farmers.

Up close, strangely enough,

the lines are actually harder to see.
It's because they're so big.

The lines that were so obvious
from over there

are actually the bracken
that's growing on the real boundary,

which is a heaped-up earthen bank.

In this field,
and in the fields that surround it,

3,000 years ago, Bronze Age farmers
were growing oats and rye

or keeping cattle or sheep.

By the late Bronze Age,
what we see emerging is a Britain

that has the first glimmers of a world
that we would recognise today.

Permanent settlements with neighbours,
people keeping animals and growing crops

and sealing peace and stability
that has lasted for generations.

The Bronze Age was a kind of golden age
in our history,

one in which a warm
and generally favourable climate

enabled a growing population
to expand into newly-cultivated lands.

It was as if we had finally come of age,

after countless thousands of years
of dramatic struggle for survival

and turbulent upheavals in society.

Our story first began in times so remote
that the people who occupied Britain

were even a different species.

These are the oldest human remains
ever found in Britain.

Boxgrove Man lived
half a million years ago.

From around 30,000 years ago,
bands of modern humans came to Britain,

hunting the herds of horse and reindeer.

It's a fragment of horse bone with
an engraving of a horse etched into it.

It's miraculous.

This was a struggle for survival
in Ice Age Europe

when Britain was a peninsula.

But when the ice retreated,
around 10,000 years ago,

a new land of forests
and rivers emerged,

attracting new generations
of nomadic hunters.

Instead of hunting mammoth
and reindeer in the snow,

he hunted red deer in the wild wood.

As the ice continued to melt,
sea levels rose.

And by 6,000 BC,
Britain became an island.

2,000 years later,
the first farmers came,

bringing seed, livestock
and a whole new way of life,

as well as sophisticated,
cosmological beliefs.

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.

They created some of the greatest
monuments in all of prehistory.

Vast passage tombs,

stone circles,

and the monument of Stonehenge itself.

But the arrival of metal
brought the Stone Age to an end.

From a time of cosmological priests,
status now came from owning bronze.

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, of showing off.

Bronze Age Britain ushered in
a new world of commerce and trade,

opportunities to gain
wealth and prestige.

Just off the Devon coast,

a team of archaeologists is discovering
a relic of this new world,

the wreck of a trading vessel
that sank here 3,000 years ago.

What are we actually looking for?

We're looking for ingots, Neil.
There's two sorts of ingots here.

There's both copper and tin ingots
have been found on this site.

And that's precisely the two metals
that you need to make bronze.

- That's right, yeah.
- We're in 50 feet of water here.

How do we find the cargo?

We find the cargo with a metal detector.

Exactly like the sort of thing
you'd use on a farmer's field, isn't it?

It's exactly the same
piece of kit really.

It looks like an electric shock
waiting to happen.

It does, doesn't it?

Three, two, one. Drop, diver.

When the boat sank,
it was laden with copper and tin,

the valuable resources
of the Bronze Age.

The boat's timbers have long decayed.

But some of its precious cargo
still survives.

The Salcombe boat is evidence
of an economy based on bronze

and a modern and mobile social class,
the metal dealers of their day.

One of the divers
has got a signal.

So this is the first time
that the contents of this bag

has been in the open air

- for as long as 3,000 years.
- That's right. That's right.

Wow, look at that!

Now that is unmistakable, isn't it?

The heft of it, the weight
and the colour.

So, how much of this material
have you recovered?

Or have the team recovered?

The team's recovered
almost 300 ingots now,

which come to a total
of about 85 kilograms.

But it wasn't only raw metal
that went down with the boat.

Neil, this is a sword that was found
two or three dives ago now.

Now that is a bit more recognisable
than a copper ingot.

Was that being moved as metal or was it
there as a sword, a fighting weapon?

I think this is somebody's
personal possession for defence.

The defence of the boat
and the defence of the cargo.

The copper ingots are anonymous,
in a way,

but a find like this is such
a priceless personal belonging.

It really speaks of a person,
doesn't it?

You can imagine he'd only be willingly
parted from it along with his life.

That's right. He may have lost his life
at the same time as his sword.

By analysing samples
of excavated metal,

scientists can discover more
about the Salcombe wreck's cargo.

The analysis of what
we've looked at so far from Salcombe

suggests that that particular ingot
did not come from Devon or Cornwall.

Copper contains
an atomic signature

that can reveal where it was mined.

We can link copper in Britain
with a range of areas in the continent.

Trade in bronze
wasn't confined to Britain.

This was an international economy.

From the Alps, Brittany,

down through central France, Spain,
maybe even Portugal.

The Salcombe finds are revealing
more than a coastal trading vessel

moving cargoes of domestic
copper and tin.

The boat that sank here 3,000 years ago

was a link in a long chain
of international trade,

which connected Britain
to the very heart of Western Europe

through the exchange of bronze.

Metals had come to Britain
1,500 years earlier, around 2,500 BC,

brought by the first metal prospectors
arriving from continental Europe.

In amongst this dazzling array
of grave goods

is metal.

Look at this. Here's one of them.
It's a copper knife.

It would have 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.

But it was when copper was mixed
with tin

that a technical revolution occurred,

turning two soft metals
into a new alloy,

hard enough to keep a sharp edge.

Bronze.

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

The Stone Age had been characterised
by vast communal monuments.

But the Bronze Age would be different,

with personal, domestic life
at its heart.

Unlike these massive stones,

metal technology would make it possible
to cast and work exquisite objects,

the like of which
had never been seen before.

A collection at the National Museum
of Wales

reveals just what Late Bronze Age
workers were capable of

after 1,000 years
of technological innovation.

All of these items were crafted
around 700 years BC

and there are all types.

There are socketed bronze axe-heads,
different sizes and weights.

The edge on this one has obviously
been struck against something hard

with considerable force at some point.

But I particularly like
this little item here.

This is a bronze razor for shaving.

And it's when you handle
and see pieces like this

that you get that sense
of real living people.

I have to say, I've often wondered

just how effective a razor
like this would have been.

I can just about imagine keeping
facial hair under control with it,

but I think the idea
of a modern, clean shave

would still be some centuries
in the future when this was in vogue.

And then there's this magnificent
cauldron, also made of bronze.

These strips have been individually
punched hundreds of times

to take these hundreds and hundreds
of pointed, delicate rivets.

And then there are the separately cast
big hoop handles.

It really is fantastic.

And the cauldron itself
is a powerful symbol.

There's more going on here than
just cooking and feeding people.

Because the cauldron, for a long time,
was symbolic of much more.

It's about regeneration
and it's about life itself.

And so this, whether or not
it's being used for cooking,

is a powerful, iconic symbol.

Trade in bronze was fueled by demand
from a high-class elite.

Not everyone had the wealth
for a bronze razor,

let alone a feasting cauldron.

For those at the top,
bronze was a material of desire,

a source of status and wealth.

And right across Europe, people of means
couldn't get enough of it

Britain, on the far north-western
fringe of Europe,

was well-placed to take advantage
of this insatiable demand.

And that was because
of our natural resources.

Down in Cornwall, there were
large reserves of a rare metal, tin,

a key ingredient
in the manufacture of bronze.

Not for nothing was Britain later known
as the Tin Islands.

But as well as tin, you needed copper.

And just wait till you see
what's further along this headland,

above Llandudno in north Wales.

Great Orme, the biggest prehistoric mine
in the entire world.

The mining operation began here as
an opencast pit about 4,000 years ago.

That's 1,000 years
before the Salcombe wreck.

And once the surface deposits
were exhausted,

there was only one place to go,
underground.

Miners hacked a web of tunnels
down through the bedrock,

penetrating over 20 metres
below the surface.

I'm only fighting
to manoeuvre my way through here.

What you have to bear in mind
all the time

is that Bronze Age miners
had to cut these holes

through the rock
and then, at the same time,

removing the ore, getting it out,

and the spoil, all the waste,

the wrong kind of rock
that they didn't want,

they had to get rid of that as well.

So, the physical effort of all that
is just incredible.

Just have to turn on my back
for a minute.

Oh, my! Just in front of me
is the entrance to

well, to call it a tunnel...
It's about 20 centimetres wide.

Uh, it's backfilled with rubble
at the moment,

but, at some point,
somebody was in there working.

Somebody very small or, more likely
I suppose, somebody very young.

It's just terrifying.

So far, archaeologists have excavated
eight kilometres of tunnels

and over half the network
still remains undiscovered.

Enough ore was mined here
to make around 2,000 tonnes of bronze.

Right at the heart of the mine,
several of the copper veins converged.

And, in excavating them, in mining them,

the Bronze Age miners
created this enormous, cavernous space.

Every cubic metre of space
has been created by people.

This is probably the largest prehistoric
man-made chamber anywhere in the world.

It's ironic that bronze itself
was too valuable to use down here.

So the miners had to make do
with rock and bone.

This is an actual
Bronze Age hammer stone.

This would have been used
to expose the ore, but, also,

even more unbelievably, I suppose,
to dig the tunnels.

Imagine having to dig these spaces out

with tools no more
sophisticated than this.

And then once they were in here,
once the copper was visible to them,

they turned to these.
This is a rib bone from an animal.

It looks like a pick and it is a pick
and it was used to dig out the ore.

Such simple technology.

But, of course, the glaring reality
that I've been overlooking

is the fact that the miners then
wouldn't have been able to use light.

If they had lit fires
or used oil-burning lamps,

the flames would have been
consuming the oxygen

that they depended on
for their very survival.

So the only viable option
was to work in the dark.

It's like a whole collection of
nightmares all in one place.

Confined spaces,
tens of metres underground.

That's the lot of the Bronze Age miner.
God bless him.

For hundreds of years, the Bronze Age
had sharpened divisions in society,

around the idea that status and wealth

could be gained through
the exchange of the metal.

But, now, the very bronze economy
that had given some people

financial opportunity
and social mobility

was spinning out of control

The insatiable appetite for bronze
all across Britain and Europe

went way beyond practical needs.

After all, there's only
so many bronze axes

that anyone needs to cut down a tree.

Instead, what we've got is bronze
as a unit of exchange.

And it's this that's fuelling
the digging of mines like the Great Orme

and the international coastal trade.

By around 1,000 years BC, the bronze axe
has become a kind of proto-currency.

Wealth divorced from
its practical use as a metal.

And, a bit like the economic bubbles
that we see today, that spelt danger

because a change
in the attitude to bronze

would have far-reaching consequences,
not just for the Bronze Age elite,

but for all of British society.

By 800 BC, Britain,
along with the rest of Europe,

was heading for an economic meltdown.

A golden era, that had lasted for
over 1,000 years, was about to end.

Bronze, the international currency
of exchange, began to be dumped.

The astonishing display on this table

is the Langton Matravers
bronze axe hoard.

They were found back in 2007
by a metal detectorist

investigating a farmer's field
in Dorset.

At first, he possibly thought
he was just finding one or two of these.

But then it turned into dozens
and then into hundreds.

And, by the end, he had nearly
400 socketed bronze axes.

It's unbelievable.

Examination of them reveals
that most were never used as axes.

They were made, probably locally,
and, alost immediately,

buried in the ground.

Deposited, discarded.

Huge amounts of buried bronze
from this time

have been discovered all over Britain,

the moment when
the economic bubble burst

and axes like this
became all but worthless.

These hoards mark an extraordinary
turning point in our history.

Bronze, much sought after, much valued,

the very base of power and exchange
across Britain and Europe,

was being thrown away.

But, sometimes, discoveries from
this time don't only contain bronze.

Back at the National Museum of Wales,

the Llyn Fawr hoard contained
a new, technological wonder.

Alongside the bronze axes
and the magnificent feasting cauldron,

this hoard included a material that
had never been seen in Britain before.

What makes this collection special
is right here.

These are sickles for harvesting a crop.

These two are made of bronze,

but this one is made of iron.

And it's one of the earliest iron
objects ever found in Britain.

It's a stepping stone
between two technologies

because the craftsman who made this
has used iron to create an object

that looks as though
it were made of bronze.

This spine here

would have been necessary
to give the bronze blade strength,

but it's not necessary here.

The craftsman has still gone
to the bother of creating it.

And the socket has been made
by folding and hammering

a flat piece of iron into a tube,

when it would have been much simpler
and more practical

just to have a flat tang
and haft it that way.

So it's as though the craftsman
who was working with it

was experienced in bronze and
is using his bronze-making experience

as best he can to try and work
with this new material.

This marks the transition
between bronze and iron.

It's the start of a whole new age.

Ironwork first appeared in the
Eastern Mediterranean around 1,200 BC.

By 800 BC, it was beginning to be used

by a new, elite culture
in central Europe.

This was the beginning of the Iron Age.

In time, iron would transform Britain.

Not just technologically,
but socially as well

What we're seeing,
at the end of the Bronze Age

and the beginning of the Iron Age,

isn't as simple as an old technology
being replaced by a new one.

Bronze had a role in society
that went way beyond its practical uses

as a material for making tools
to harvest wheat or cut up meat.

Its value as an exchange currency
was the basis for social relations.

It had a ritual,
even a religious, significance.

Iron, though, would never have
the same cache as bronze

and the new economy of the Iron Age
would not be based on metal at all,

but on agriculture, animals and grain.

In this Britain,
land would be at the forefront

and tribal chiefs would fight
for territorial power.

In 800 BC, though,
all that was still to come.

Because, strangely,

it seems that iron didn't
actually come into use

until centuries after
the Bronze Age ended.

And that leaves experts with one of the
biggest problems in all of prehistory.

Apart from a few rare finds,
like the Llyn Fawr treasures,

there's just not a lot of iron around
in 750 BC

or, indeed, for hundreds
of years thereafter.

This massive tipping point
in our history,

the shift from bronze to iron,
seems to have a mysterious gap in it.

It might be that even
the remote existence of iron

destabilised the economy,

contributing to the end
of the Bronze Age

and a crisis that would last
for 200 years.

Recent research, however,
is suggesting that

all this came at a time of sudden
and severe climate change.

By studying the larvae
of Scottish midges from 750 BC,

scientists are finding evidence
of a colder, wetter Britain.

Different midge species are happiest
at different temperatures,

and when they find themselves in a lake
that the temperature suits them,

they're going to be extremely abundant.

Preserved remains of midges
from thousands of years ago

can reveal the climate
they once lived in.

We find that
around about 800 BC,

there's a change in the composition
of the midge assemblage.

We get an increase in cold water species
and a decrease in warm water species.

And this happens over
a very short period of time.

So it's probably around
about 50 years or so.

And this corresponds with other evidence

that we have from pollen
and from peat bogs,

where the indication is that
the temperature declined,

but also precipitation, or rainfall,
increased at the same time.

In 750 BC,

sudden climate change
was a matter of life and death.

Too little rain
and your crops would wither,

too much and there would be
no ripening, no harvest.

Just as the bronze economy
was collapsing,

Britain's population also fell,

possibly for the first time
since the Ice Age.

This was a dual crisis that was driving
Britain into a period of social turmoil,

a crisis that would utterly
reshape British society.

An army training ground in Wiltshire

contains the remains of over a century
of massive regional gatherings.

That's how I'm going to insist
on arriving on site from now on.

Absolutely. I think everybody
should have one of them.

Archaeologist Niall Sharples
is finding clues to how people here

were responding to changing,
frightening times.

This was a time of crisis.

This is a time where
there's a major transformation.

Bronze was used for all sorts of things,
but, primarily,

it's creating relationships of status
within communities.

So, when the bronze goes,

you have to find social mechanisms
to structure that society.

It's not too much to look at.

Wealth now was not measured
in bronze, but in livestock.

And people came here
to show it off in a new way.

Under our feet,
there are thousands and thousands

of pieces of broken-up pottery,

broken-up fragments of bone,
carbonised plant remains,

all the kind of implements and tools
and debris of their lives on this spot.

There's quite a lot of material
lying on the surface,

but we can probably clear away
some of the nettles,

we'll see it a bit clearer.

I mean, there are very large pieces
of animal bones.

- It's a bone.
- That's probably a bit of cow.

And big bits of pots here.

Here you can see pottery,
some more bone there.

A nice sheep's jaw. You know,
a couple of nice bits of pottery...

By slaughtering animals
and sharing their meat,

you could strengthen relationships
and gain prestige.

What I think we're seeing is,
we're seeing an attempt

to create relationships
between a fairly large region

based upon feasting and based
upon conspicuous consumption.

So rather than by showing
that you matter

by having a particularly
expensive bronze object,

you show that you matter
because you've got

all the surplus food, surplus animals,
that you can just use up.

There's always someone who's bringing
more food, killing more cattle,

killing more pigs,
bringing cattle instead of sheep.

You know, those kind of...

It's a way of creating distinctions,
so you can structure society

and break it down
into the really important people,

the people with the maximum amount
of wealth,

access to good animals,
access to good crops,

access to the best-quality pottery,
that kind of thing,

and the lowest, who've got a few sheep,
a crummy little pot.

Remarkably, the remains of one man
have survived from these times.

When he lived, around 2,500 years ago,

Britain was going through
a time of transformation.

It's safe to assume that he was a farmer

and, given the time in which he lived,

he was probably dealing
with a tougher climate

than that which had been
known to his forefathers

a few hundred years before him.

It was colder, wetter.

So he might have been
experimenting with new crops.

He might have been keeping
more livestock to compensate.

If he was a livestock farmer,
then he may, from time to time,

have taken some of the beasts
to one of those midden sites

and slaughtered them there

to take part in one of
the great feasting rituals,

the great feasting events.

But the way this man was buried

gives clues not just to
changing relationships in life,

but changing beliefs in death.

He was found buried in a pit,

which sounds casual,
almost as if he'd been thrown away,

but it wasn't casual,
there was ritual at play.

And we know that because he'd been
laid to rest in the foetal position,

curled into a ball,

and his knees were so tightly
pulled up towards his chest,

that, in death, he must
have been tightly bound up,

possibly in a funerary shawl or shroud.

For the longest time, the funeral
tradition had been cremation,

and so, to suddenly get burials,
people being put into the ground intact,

marks a change.

And that's always significant
because a change in the way

people are being treated in death

suggests that they
were living differently,

that life was different.

The remains of another man,
who lived in Yorkshire 200 years later,

is a clue to changing Iron Age beliefs.

When we found the skull in the ground,
it was face down

and there was only the skull, the jaw
and a finger bone.

At the base of the skull, were the first
and second vertebrae of the neck,

still in position.

And, basically, that was it.

Remarkably though,
this skull still contained

a 2,500-year-old brain.

What this seems to be telling us,
this brain,

is that this person died very quickly.

Not only do we have
remnant brain chemistry in here,

but we have remnants of the structures
of the fine components within the brain.

But we don't have putrefaction.

And it's usually putrefaction
that destroys the brain,

turns it to soup
in a very short time after death.

So, perhaps this brain went into
the ground very quickly after death.

The man's vertebrae
preserved evidence of just how he died.

It's incomplete,
it's lost its arch across here.

And this is consistent with hanging.

And then, we've got a series
of very, very fine cuts,

about nine cuts across the vertebrae.

Somebody has taken a small knife
and felt their way through the flesh

to find the gap between
the second and the third vertebrae

in order to take the head off the body.

This wasn't just a killing.
It seemed to be a ritual,

a human sacrifice.

What you see in the early Iron Age
is a change of beliefs.

There were offerings of valuables
in the Bronze Age.

But in the Iron Age, you get
more and more offerings of animals,

and sometimes, perhaps, people as well.

It's as though people living through
the bronze crisis and climate change

felt forced to reassess their lives

and their place
in the bigger scheme of things,

and, for some, that was a path
leading to a grisly end.

The period between 800 and 600 BC

is one of the most mysterious
in all of prehistory.

And, yet, so much of what was going on
resonates with our own age.

Economic collapse,
fear of climate change.

But, back then, there were no scientists
or central banks to explain or to help.

So the crisis affected everyone,
though in different ways.

The end of bronze had a different impact
in the north than it had in the south,

in the uplands and in the lowlands.

What we also start to see this time
is the beginning of something else

that we would recognise
from Britain today,

and that's the emergence
of strong regional identities.

As society became more locally focused,

people began to find local solutions
to problems, local to them.

When Britain's climate began to
improve once more, around 600 BC,

with warmer, drier summers,

the regions continued to develop
in different ways.

In the far north of Scotland,

people began to construct
massive stone towers called brochs.

Here at Gurness on Orkney,
there's a classic example.

There's banks and ditches
encircling a little settlement

of low, stone houses.

But the whole scene is dominated
by that wall.

And that's the base
of a massive stone tower

that, at one stage, would have stood
as much as 10 metres, 30 feet high,

head and shoulders above the wall line
of any modern house.

And you can only imagine the impact
that it would have had

on anybody who came
to visit or attack here,

400 years BC.

Little is known of the people
who lived here or what they believed.

So we can only speculate
on the kind of society this was.

Here, on the inside, you can see
the setting for an iron-shod post

that would have supported
a big timber door

that would have slammed shut
against these stone faces here.

These slots would have
taken a massive timber

that would have locked,
barricaded the door from the inside.

Everything about this place says,
"Keep out."

Meanwhile, largely in the south,

farming communities were
creating something very different,

some of the most famous features
of the Iron Age.

One of the best examples
is at the top of this scree slope.

Wait till you see Tre'r Ceiri,
the tower of the giants.

It's a hill fort,
one of the iconic symbols of the age.

Tre'r Ceiri is actually
quite a late hill fort.

But they start appearing over much of
southern Britain from around 600 BC

and are often overlooking plains
of fertile, agricultural land.

The thing about these places
is they weren't just defensive.

The term "hill fort"
is pretty misleading.

The threat of conflict wasn't always
the spur for their construction.

These were elevated places
where people lived.

Some experts even think that they were
a kind of communist-style collective.

And they do certainly seem to be
about sharing labour

and sharing produce
for communal benefit.

Perhaps the development of hill forts

bore some relationship
to the great midden gatherings,

the local connections made through the
sharing and display of animals

and grain.

These were farming communities.

And when there was surplus production,

seeds and crops stored in storage pits
could be exchanged.

Food, not bronze, represented wealth
in this newly-emerging world.

And the more land you could cultivate,

the more successful
your community could be.

One thing that was common across Britain
was that, by around 500 BC,

iron finally began
to appear in quantity.

Britain was at last about to embark
upon the Iron Age proper.

After the initial impact of the
bronze crisis, around 750 years BC,

things started to settle down.

From the brochs in the north
to the hill forts in the south and west

and all manner of farmsteads
and settlements in between.

By 500 BC,
there was a kind of stability.

People had got over the seismic effects

on the great international
bronze economy.

This was a turning point in our history

when iron finally began to appear
across Britain in increasing quantities.

It would change the way people lived,

it would change the settlement
of Britain as a whole.

It would lead,
in just a few hundred years,

to the population increasing
to unprecedented levels.

And at its heart was a revolution
in farming and food production.

Discoveries of ironwork from this time

reveal an extraordinary
leap forward in technology.

These wee treasures here
are some of the Fiskerton Tools.

They were deposited or discarded
in Lincolnshire

around 2,500 years ago.

This is a hammerhead, handle here.

The most obvious point of interest
is the wear on the business end.

That lip has been caused because
that hammer has been used repeatedly,

pounding against a hard surface,

probably used to hammer in iron nails,
apart from anything else.

This is a hand saw.

It's broken, due to corrosion.

But this is the handle.
It's made of antler.

Beautifully worked and polished
with lovely detailing

to make it an attractive object,
as well as a useful one.

The blade has broken due to corrosion
during 2,500 years.

It's so thin, and some of that
may be down to corrosion,

but it would have been thin anyway

because a saw blade in order to work
has to be thin.

Right, that begins to show
the versatility of iron over bronze

because you couldn't achieve that
with cast bronze.

So this is a job for iron.

Possibly best of all is this one.

You don't even need me
to say the word really.

But it's a file.

And see how the cutting edges
have been so carefully

worked into that, cut into the metal.

It's so... It's so modern.

If someone was to show you this and say,

"This is from my
great-grandfather's toolbox,"

you'd be forgiven for believing them.

There's nothing different about it
from the tools we use today.

And et it's 2,500 ears old.

The time of crisis was becoming
a distant memory

as the population of Britain
grew rapidly.

Agricultural surplus lay at the heart
of a newly emerging economy.

And that depended heavily on iron.

Iron was a metal that could be hammered
into all manner of shapes and forms,

not just cast.

And, unlike bronze,
it wasn't the preserve of some elite.

Iron, instead, was the metal
of the people.

Working tools for working men.

All of that, combined with its strength
and its widespread availability,

was to transform our world.

And not just another step
into the future.

Iron working became a part
of village life right across Britain.

It's much better than the bronze
because it's a little bit more elastic,

so it's not going to snap
if you hit something hard.

And if it does bend,
you can always straighten it again.

If it breaks, you can weld
the two pieces back together again.

And the iron, also, you can sharpen
and keep putting an edge on,

say for the sickle, where you're
cutting your corn or your hay,

you can keep sharpening it.
It's much more versatile.

Bronze casting
remained a specialist art,

but anyone could heat
and reshape an iron tool

It's that sound as well.
It's knowing that that ringing sound

would have been a permanent
background noise.

- Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes.
- That ringing sound.

It looks best just while there's
still a light in it, isn't it?

For the rest of the time,
it's just gonna be cold metal,

but, for now, it's got heartbeat.

You can see it's dulling down
and it's becoming utilitarian.

And such a simple, commonplace object.
A sickle.

Yeah, just a sickle.

But, at the moment, it's got the magic,
hasn't it?

Iron had another advantage.
The ore was everywhere.

This was a metal that could be local.

It didn't depend
on a complex trade network.

So by about 400 BC, as iron objects
were beginning to appear in earnest,

they became ubiquitous
and the effects of the new technology

were felt right at the cutting edge
of the agricultural economy.

Dave Freemman and Simon Jay
are directors of Butser Ancient Farm

and study Iron Age
farming techniques hands on.

Right then, where are my mighty oxen?

- We're here.
- Oh, dear. Right.

Mush!

Oh!

What is this exactly?

It's an ard,
it's a very early form of plough.

It's basically a piece of tree.

Although, I'm guessing...

This one has the addition
of an iron tip, yes.

Okay.

In the Bronze Age, then,

they weren't ever tempted
to put bronze tips on their ploughs?

It may have been tried,
but, unfortunately,

of course, bronze doesn't stand up
to wear and tear the same.

With it being casting,
it's likely to break.

Right. And when it breaks, you have to
make it molten again and cast it again.

Whereas an iron tip, of course,
you take it to the nearest fire,

get it hot and hit it with something.

Oh, it's quite simple, if I could
get the hang of a straight line.

And so these started to be visible
from, what, 400, 500 BC?

Yes, they are.
The later you go into the Iron Age,

the more iron there is available
and the more people that's working it.

It wouldn't be hard to persuade people
why this was a good idea.

They would very rapidly begin to see
what the advantage was.

- Yes. You want to go for another one?
- Yeah.

Oh. Oh, disastrous!

It's a disaster for Scotland.

Iron ploughs allowed
heavier soils to be turned,

so more land could be cultivated.

And there were other innovations

that added up to an agricultural
and commercial revolution.

How does it work? Why is a hole
in the ground a good way to store grain?

I need to show you
a finished hole.

- Okay.
- Come over this way.

Oh, so there's a great big hole
under there, is there?

That clay cap is covering a storage pit
that's fully loaded.

Right. And what's the magic
that that provides?

The clay cover keeps out
moisture, air and light.

The grain that's inside the pit, where
it's touching the walls of the pit,

sucks moisture out of the chalk
and attempts to germinate.

And, of course, in germination,
you actually use oxygen,

produce carbon dioxide.

Because the pit is sealed,
it runs out of oxygen and it hibernates.

It actually goes to sleep.

- So time stops.
- It does indeed.

And for quite some considerable period.

You can actually store this
quite safely a full year.

Occasionally, we've got them
to work for two years,

so it's an enormous backup.

And you can well imagine how something
like a reliable surplus of grain

becomes almost like money.
You can almost spend it.

On the hill forts particularly,
where you've got the extra space

and the political control,

then we don't know how much
was kept as a reserve

by whoever it was that
controlled that particular area.

Your hill forts become a market town
as well as a bank.

So you invent debt.

Yes.
Yes, you could give a farmer grain

who had an accident.
Yes, then he's in debt to you.

- He owes you one.
- Yes.

Trade in grain was the basis
of this new agricultural economy

and new devices were invented
to process it.

Some of the very first machines.

For grinding grain,
we use querns.

You're probably looking at anything
up to an hour on a saddle quern.

- It looks incredibly primitive.
- Backbreaking.

You can tell from skeletons,
the wear and tear on bodies.

A great leap forward
was the rotary quern.

The grain will go through several times.

You're starting
to see little flecks, look.

That's where the grain
is actually being torn apart.

Yes, you would just keep
cycling it through.

It's just such a quantum leap.
That's clearly Stone Age.

This has got a design element about it,
it's a composite tool,

made of multiple parts.

Huge timesaver as well.

Iron Age housewives
must have loved them.

Yes.

And, of course, it frees up
an enormous amount of manpower.

You can see how
a momentum would build up.

If you've got iron tools,
you can make more of these,

- you're producing more grain.
- Yes.

These produce more flour, more bread.
You can feed more people.

- Population increase.
- Absolutely, yeah.

And it will just keep on
building and building.

All these factors combined,
ploughs, pits, stores and querns

and better weather.

The fields of Britain had probably
never been so productive

and, from around 400 BC,
there was a population explosion.

The crisis that followed the Bronze Age
was over

and a new Britain was emerging.

This bronze axe was the symbol of an age
that had lasted for over 1,000 years.

But it was a symbol of the past,
a metal that represented a golden age

with its benign climate
and international economy.

Bronze had created an elite.

So it's not surprising that
it had class overtones as well

There was also a spiritual aspect.

Bronze was about more than
simply making tools,

it was the glue
that held society together.

But this axe made of iron,
several hundred years later,

never had that kind of value in itself.

The making of iron
might still have been magical,

but iron tools were entirely practical.

And that set the tone for an age in
which iron technology put agriculture,

and, therefore, the land,
at the very heart of society.

Wealth and power
could be grown and stored,

bought and sold.

In many ways, we'd lost something.

The magic of the Bronze Age
replaced with something modern.

And what it would lead to
would be power structures

that compared to the bronze elite
would seem modern as well.

Next time, my journey continues

as I encounter a whole new age,

a time of powerful Celtic warriors.

He was laid in his grave
and, soon thereafter,

three spears were thrust in.

Magical Druid priests.

What events did he witness
and what power did he wield?

And those at the very bottom
of British society.

Look at this.

It's an iron slave chain.

It's over 2,000 years old.

Ripped By mstoll