Digging for Britain (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Prehistory - full transcript
We might be a small island,
but we've got a big history.
Everywhere you stand,
there are worlds
beneath your feet.
And so every year,
hundreds of archaeologists
across Britain
go looking for more clues.
Who lived here, when, and how?
You can even see
the architecture of the bone
- inside the jaw there.
- Yes.
Archaeology is
a complex jigsaw puzzle
drawing together everything
from skeletons to swords,
temples to treasure.
And it's still sharp.
From Orkney to Devon,
were joining this year's quest
on sea, land, and air.
We'll share all of the questions
and find some of the answers
as we join the teams
in the field
digging for Britain.
The further back in time we go,
the more rare those glimpses
of our ancestors become.
Tonight we're going into
deep prehistory,
and this is where archaeology
really comes into its own.
With no written records,
those pieces of evidence
that we pull out of the ground
are the only clues we have
to the mysterious world
of prehistoric Britain.
I'm on a journey through
a million years of history
that will take me from Orkney
to the south coast.
I'll be discovering art
made by ice age Britons...
Is this a leg down here?
Is it coming down to a leg?
Yeah, that's right.
The are legs here.
...and seeing how farming
first developed here.
See some more teeth
sticking up here.
Yeah.
I'll be finding out
how the sea holds clues
to the birth of trade.
And as we travel through time,
we'll see how a culture emerged
that still resonates today.
So, when was she found?
Our journey begins before
Britain was even an island,
when a broad river
flowed through East Anglia.
And this is where archaeologists
are trying to find out
when the first people
arrived in Britain.
For over 200 years,
archaeologists have
searched these lands
for signs
that early human species
may once have lived here.
But the first humans
to have emerged from Africa
were tropical.
They just weren't adapted
to cold climates,
and they could not have survived
in northern Europe.
Now, on this beach in Norfolk,
archaeologists are finding
remarkable evidence
that may challenge this belief.
I've been following
this project for years,
and the archaeologists are about
three weeks
into this year's dig,
so I've been really excited
about coming here
to find out
how they've been getting on.
The team are part
of an internationally
renowned project
searching for clues that will
help them date this site.
So, Nick, you're a few weeks in.
Nick Ashton
of the British Museum
is leading the excavation.
And what sort of evidence
are you finding
in these
ancient river sediments?
We're getting pollen from
these fine-grained sediments.
We're getting wood.
We're getting other
plant remains, little seeds.
Ah, we're also getting beetles,
and they're very good
for reconstructing climate.
And on top of that,
we're getting animal remains,
animal bones and teeth,
and they really help
with the dating of the site.
To retrieve that evidence,
every bucketload excavated
must be painstakingly examined.
So it's all happening down here.
Ah. What have you got
for us, Sophie?
Nothing at the moment?
-Not much.
Do you want the sieve there?
Oh, wow. Some pebbles.
Some pebbles at the moment.
So each sieveload
is checked and sorted.
And there doesn't appear
to be anything in that.
Over a five-year period,
they've sifted through
70 tons of sediment.
But sometimes
it's the most unlikely finds
that provide vital clues.
- Oh, no... pine cones.
- Ah.
Oh, right.
And there is quite a weathered
but surviving pine cone.
- Really?
- A part of one, yeah.
You could look
at the structure of that
and confirm the exact species.
When you're looking
this far back in time,
even a single find like this
pine cone core is crucial.
Find by find, the archaeologists
can reconstruct
this mysterious lost world...
A pine forest that was inhabited
by creatures
no longer seen in Britain.
Simon Parfitt from
the Natural History Museum
is an expert
on prehistoric mammals.
And what's that
in that box down there?
- Okay, this thing.
- It looks like a stone.
It looks like a stone.
Believe it or not,
it's a hyena dropping.
This is fossilized hyena poo.
So we know there were
hyena here as well.
There were hyenas,
so you've got large carnivores.
We've got
this fantastic rodent jaw...
- That's beautiful.
- ...with some of the teeth
And this is
an extinct beaverlike rodent,
and it was semiaquatic, living
along the banks of the river.
It's such
a beautifully preserved fossil
I mean, you can even see
the architecture of the bone
inside the jaw there.
Yes, yeah.
It's a wonderful thing.
It's because we know when each
of these species became extinct
that these fossils are
helping us to date the site.
This is a tooth of a mammoth.
And this is in fact one of
the earliest forms of mammoth
that we find
in this part of the world.
This helps us with the date
because this is quite primitive.
So we have a fantastic record.
And you can tell that
from the teeth?
That's right, yeah.
It has very distinctive teeth.
You can see
this is the chewing surface,
and you have a series of plates,
and they're very widely spaced.
And this is a feature
of primitive mammoths.
Later mammoths, the plates
tend to get closer together,
the enamel gets thinner.
So that's one of the features
we can use to identify it.
This tooth
belonged to a type of mammoth
that died out
over 700,000 years ago,
so its position
in these sediments
gives another vital clue
to the archaeologists.
With the various types
of dating,
we're able to say
that the site dates
somewhere between 800,000
and a million years old.
So that's the date
of those sediments
that we were looking at
in the trench,
between 800,000
and a million years old?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Fantastic.
This project really is unique.
So many important discoveries
are made by pure chance,
especially in prehistory,
where something might be found
in a quarry
or when a road is being built.
But here the archaeologists have
set out to find something new
to make an important discovery,
and they've done it.
Because what's being found here
are not just animal
and plant finds.
It's not just evidence
of a vanished landscape
from perhaps
a million years ago.
There are finds suggesting
humans could have
lived here then too.
Actually today we recovered
one of the rare artifacts
that we're also getting
from the site,
and this is really exciting
because it shows that humans
were living here at that time.
This has just come out today.
This is a small flake.
It's slightly broken,
but you can see
all the telltale signs
of human manufacture.
This tiny object
is a waste flake
left over
from making flint tools.
So this is evidence
of humans in Britain
going back
possibly a million years
Yeah, and so it makes it,
by a long way,
the oldest site
in northern Europe.
The oldest human site
in northern Europe.
So I'm holding in my hands
a piece of evidence
of the earliest humans
to inhabit this island
going back
nearly a million years.
They have found
over 70 pieces of flint
which show signs of
human working.
And amongst them are even
some intact stone tools.
This... We actually nicknamed
this the "butter knife"
because it's so pretty.
But you can see all the evidence
of human working there,
that bulb
of percussion rings coming out
from all that
characteristic rippling.
And actually on this piece
they've modified that edge.
It would certainly be ideal
as some sort of...
- You know, for cutting meat.
- Yeah.
So this is the original sort of
knife and fork
of the old Stone Age.
And it's still sharp.
Mm, and after 800,000,
a million years.
No human remains
have yet been found
to confirm who made these tools,
but it was
a truly ancient species,
some 750,000 years older
than even the Neanderthals.
So Happisburgh has pushed back
the earliest human occupation
of Britain
by at least 200,000 years.
But what's really remarkable
is that the humans living here
back then
were surviving
in extremely harsh conditions.
At this time, Britain was
approaching an ice age.
How did these early species
manage to survive here?
Were they more advanced
than we previously thought?
These are the questions
now facing experts
like Chris Stringer from
the Natural History Museum.
So, what were
these capabilities?
Did these people
have control of fire?
Did they have clothes?
Whether they had clothing,
whether they had
the use of fire,
we can't tell from here.
They must have had ways
of keeping warm.
Well, that's right, yes.
I mean, the environment
was comparable to, say,
southern Scandinavia
at the present day.
And, yes, I think, you know,
stick us in the winters
in southern Scandinavia today,
and we would
have problems coping.
So we'd have to imagine,
probably,
that there was
at least basic clothing
and probably the use of fire.
But the evidence
has yet to be found.
It does make us look again
at these earlier human species,
and perhaps they were
more sophisticated
than we've
given them credit for.
Yes, that's right. Yeah.
Their capabilities
were far greater,
and that's really exciting.
So we have to make them,
in some ways,
certainly more like us
than we would have believed.
We know there were
people here in Britain
nearly a million years ago.
They were surviving in
incredibly cold conditions.
It gives us newfound respect,
I think,
for those earlier human species.
And at the end of the day,
it's these insignificant finds
that archaeological revolutions
are made of.
We don't know how long
those people survived here,
but they were eventually wiped
out by the vicious climate.
For hundreds of thousands
of years,
Britain went through some of
the most violent climate
changes in world history,
which repeatedly
forced people out.
So these were not our ancestors.
To find them,
we have to go forward
hundreds of thousands of years
to the end of the last ice age
and to a site
in modern-day Nottinghamshire
where they once lived.
It wasn't until
around 13,000 years ago
that Britain became recolonized
by modern humans...
Homo sapiens, people like us...
And this time
they were here to stay.
And they were living in caves
like these at Creswell Crags
at the end of the last ice age.
We know that these people were
physically identical to us,
but archaeologists
are relentless in their search
to find out just how similar
they were to us in other ways,
searching for those
elusive things
which let us feel
truly connected to them.
Cave art can speak to us
like nothing else,
a distant echo from an ancient
world with no written language.
And since the discovery
of the famous Lascaux rock art
in France in the 1940s,
the hunt has been on to find
similar rock art in Britain.
Archaeologists scoured the walls
of caves like these
but found nothing,
and they put that down
to Britain
being such a challenging
environment back then,
that people were just surviving,
clinging on to existence
with their fingernails.
They didn't have time
for frivolities like rock art.
That belief was turned
on its head by discoveries
made in this cave,
where I met Ian Wall.
He's an archaeologist
and director of Creswell Crags.
- After you.
- Thank you.
So you're now standing
at the level
that we think
our prehistoric ancestors were
12,000, 13,000 years ago.
So it's the best place
to actually view
the rock art
that they were creating.
So I can see a few
scratches on the walls here.
Would you like to come and
stand here, and I'll show you?
This is one of the first figures
that was discovered in 2003.
But you can just pick out some
fainter engraved lines here.
At first I struggled to see
what Ian was seeing.
Gradually an image emerged.
This is the top of a neck
of an animal.
Yeah, all right,
you're convincing me.
And the ear.
And coming down here,
you can see a mouth.
- Is that the mouth there?
- Yes.
And that's the chin
running underneath. Yes.
Is this a leg down here?
Is it coming down to a leg?
Yeah, that's right.
There are legs here.
And then the underbelly
of the animal.
That's remarkable.
There it was,
appearing right before my eyes,
the image of a deer.
We can imagine perhaps
how important this creature
would have been
to our ancestors.
It was almost certainly
one of the things
that kept them alive.
So how do you know
that that is ice age?
Crucially you get
these deposits of flowstone...
It's redeposited calcite...
And that forms
a thin skin of deposit,
and sometimes that lies over
the top of these engraved lines.
That's this white area here?
That's right, yes.
And that can be dated
fairly precisely
with a technique
called uranium series dating.
Right, so if you can date
that flowstone,
then if the engravings
are underneath it,
they must predate it.
- That's right, yes.
- So how old is that flowstone?
So it's roughly around
13,000 years old.
So we really are
looking at ice age art?
Yes. That's the clincher.
This is the oldest rock art
to be found
anywhere on these islands.
So much of archaeology is about
how people live their lives
in quite a mundane way...
The tools they made,
the diet they were eating,
that sort of thing.
But here we've got art,
which is something
a little bit different,
and it does give you
a real connection
back to those people.
It's incredibly evocative.
You can imagine them
in that cave
making those images on the wall.
And I rather like the mystery
that we will never know
what it really means.
I'm on my way to a dig in Orkney
where archaeologists
are finding out more
about early farmers
and their mysterious beliefs.
My destination
is the tiny island of Westray,
home to a site
called the Links of Noltland,
where one of this year's most
exciting digs is happening.
Wow, what a way to see
an archaeological site,
this bird's-eye view,
looking straight down on it.
Looks great.
Can't wait to get down there.
Many Neolithic sites
are monumental and ceremonial.
They're really impressive,
but it's like
going to a cathedral
to find out
how everyday people live today.
This site is different.
I've come here because
archaeologists are unearthing
vital evidence of early farms.
And these are the extraordinary
and rare remains
of a 5,000-year-old village
where the farmers once lived.
Archaeologists here are
uncovering a remarkable story
of a struggle to survive.
Then, as now,
these islands must have felt
like the edge of the world.
I was given a tour around
the site by Richard Strachan.
It's almost always
windy in Orkney.
The weather can be
on your side sometimes.
A little bit of rain on a site
is very good as well,
archaeologically.
It keeps the soil nice
and moist. It is challenging.
Yeah, it is like you have
four seasons in one day,
I can't believe it was raining
this morning,
and now we've got sunshine.
That's very normal here.
Should we go over
and have a look
at what some of
the archaeologists are finding?
The buildings are covered
with a layer
of ancient rubbish or midden.
And it's from this
that many of the signs
of everyday prehistoric life
are appearing.
The whole site is basically
sealed by this midden material,
and this is containing
the shell, the bone,
all that sort of stuff.
And you can see that we're
getting pottery too within this,
we're getting flint.
Is that a piece of pottery
down there?
Yeah, this is
a fantastic piece of pottery
that Sean's just uncovered.
You can see
the wonderful decoration on it.
'Cause this archaeology
is only centimeters
below the surface, isn't it?
Yeah, you can see, literally.
You look, and in places
it's very, very shallow.
Under the sand is the evidence
the archaeologists
have been hoping for...
Proof that people here
were growing barley,
which was one of the earliest
plants to be domesticated.
Hazel Moore is directing
excavations here.
I want to go and talk to
Hazel about something
rather interesting
over this side of the site.
What's the evidence
for the barley farming?
Um, carbonized cereal grain
coming from these
midden deposits.
They had field systems
which run from the settlement
down the slope,
and they were middening
and enriching the soils there.
So presumably that was
for growing their crops
all around the settlement.
From the field system, evidence
of composting is emerging.
Each layer of soil
tells a story of a struggle
to make farming work here.
When we actually look
at the profiles,
the soil profiles
from the earliest times,
what we have
are cultivated soils
swamped again and again
by blowing sand.
So do you think
this would have been
a challenging environment
to be farming in?
Yes, yeah. I mean,
it's challenging nowadays.
It wouldn't have been
any different then.
Its light sandy soils
are ideal for cultivation,
in that they can be
worked easily and turned easily,
but they're also very prone
to erosion,
and it's a very windy place.
The conditions here would have
made it difficult to survive
just growing crops.
But new finds are showing
that domesticated animals
were extremely important
to these early farmers.
But yet again, amongst the
seemingly mundane finds,
there are marvelous glimpses
of a vanished world.
Emerging from the soils
is something
which has stunned
the archaeologists.
The skulls of 40 cattle
built into the foundations
of a wall.
How strange.
- Can we get a bit closer to it?
- Yeah, we can do.
Yeah, you can come
and have a look down here.
This is really peculiar.
You can see a whole line
of them here.
This is the outer face
of the wall along here,
the stones,
and that's the inner face there.
So they're placed into
the core of the wall,
into the thickness of the wall.
How peculiar, because that means
that they wouldn't
have been visible
when the building was standing.
No, they would have
been placed there
when the wall was being built.
They were the foundation level
of the building.
And you can see how they sort of
relate to each other.
They've been
put in sequentially, these ones,
and the horns are actually
overlapping on those ones,
and they've put some stones in
and then some more cattle skulls
all along.
It's making them
part of a building.
It's almost
monumentalizing them, isn't it?
It's somehow enshrining them.
Imbuing the building with their
spirit or whatever, yeah.
Building them into
the very foundations.
This strange discovery
reinforces what the researchers
have learned
about the importance
of livestock
to those early farmers.
It's easy to see why cattle
were so important
in this fragile
and remote landscape.
And it's yet another glimpse
into a mysterious
ancient mind-set.
This is just utterly bizarre,
these cattle skulls built into
the fabric of a building.
We'll never know
exactly what they mean,
but they obviously represent
some complex beliefs.
The archaeologists now know
that this land was farmed
for around 50 generations,
but eventually the struggle
proved too great.
Overcome by the wind and sand,
they gave up
and abandoned their village.
It appears that the buildings
were deliberately filled in
with rubble,
within which
archaeologists found
what could be a defining
symbol of the farmers' defeat.
And of course this is something
we found last year
which really is quite unique,
and we haven't seen anything
like this
from the whole of Scotland.
You've brought her to show me!
How lovely.
There she is in all her glory.
- You can take her out.
- Very small.
Yeah.
This tiny figurine is known
as the Westray Wifey.
And despite
her homespun appearance,
she may be
the earliest known expression
of religious identity
ever found in Scotland.
She's really sweet.
She's got a very
cartoonlike face, hasn't she?
She has.
You can just pick out
that she has eyes
and a very sort of
curvy eyebrow.
Yeah.
And she's got this
sort of very rough mouth,
but she's also got arms
down by her sides.
Yeah, yeah.
And then scratches
on the top of her head as well.
- Yeah, like her hair almost.
- Indicating hair, yeah.
Where the figurine was found
makes her even more intriguing.
She seems to have been
carefully positioned
in the abandoned ruins.
It seems like she was probably
put there deliberately
as a closing deposit.
She was placed there,
and then there's no evidence
that anybody ever came
and did anything here again.
So that was probably
their way of marking
the close of that settlement.
She's really sweet.
Hazel believes
that Wifey's placing
may have been a ritual end
to the farmers' long struggle.
We're actually seeing how people
thought, you know,
that they decided
that this was a good way
to close this building off
at the end of the period.
So it gives you
much more of an insight
into how peoples' minds worked
at the time.
If the researchers are right,
then the Westray Wifey
is unique,
a 5,000-year-old
household goddess perhaps.
Figurines of this type are
usually thought to be goddesses
or, you know, some religious
deity kind of thing.
Given that she's the only one
that we have
and we don't have
widespread representations,
it's hard to argue that
she is definitely a goddess,
but seems that
she must be representational
of some concept,
religious concept.
It's rather wonderful to hold
this tiny little figurine.
It's rather hard to know
what she meant
to the people that made her,
but nonetheless
she's a fantastic little message
from the past.
And utterly unique.
But just days after
I left the dig,
a second figurine was unearthed,
bolstering Hazel's belief
that these may have been
household goddesses.
This is just the third season
of digging here.
Every day, more of
the mysterious settlement
is revealed.
For thousands of years
people had buried their dead
in communal graves.
Then around 4,500 years ago
something changed
in that time-honored ritual,
and people began to be buried
in individual graves,
something which seems
much more familiar to us today.
This is Culduthel man.
He was discovered in 1975,
and he had been buried
in the new way.
This is very well preserved,
considering this is
a 4,000-year-old skeleton.
His skeleton is curated
by Alison Sheridan.
In his grave,
archaeologists found a beaker,
a distinctive clay pot
that was the symbol
of this new burial style.
We know that Beaker burials
started on the continent,
but once they arrived here
they spread rapidly
throughout the country.
And the question that has
perplexed archaeologists
for 150 years
is how that Beaker culture
spread so far so quickly.
Now a team of archaeologists
is using cutting-edge science
to work that out.
They want to know if it was
just the ideas that traveled
or if the people did too.
Janet Montgomery and Jane Evans
are analyzing
the isotopic signatures
of Beaker skeletons
like Culduthel man
to find out where they lived
and whether they moved
during their lifetimes.
To do that, they must
painstakingly extract
some tooth enamel from
each Bronze Age individual.
We only need
a very small amount,
less than a match-head size
of tissue.
But you have to make sure
when you take it
that it's not contaminated.
It has to be cleaned,
it has to be carefully removed
so you don't mix up the tissues
and that it's free from any
contamination from the burial.
What we want to do
is take something
that tells you about the person
when they were alive,
not what's happened
during the time
their body's
been buried in the ground.
Chemicals in each sample tell
us where that person grew up.
We know where
they were then buried,
so we can tell if someone
moved during their lifetime
or if they stayed
in their childhood home.
Janet and Jane have analyzed
over 250 Beaker skeletons,
in this way.
The project has been
five years in the making,
It's the biggest-ever survey
of our prehistoric ancestors,
and Culduthel man
is the latest to join it.
His teeth
were in such poor condition
that Jane had to use
a different technique
to extract the sample.
These teeth have got almost
no enamel remaining on them.
So, what I did,
instead of slicing the tooth up,
I had to pick off
very carefully with forceps
small fragments of the enamel.
Jane managed to obtain a sample,
but once she got the results
she was convinced
there had been a mistake.
It was only after I got
the enamel results in triplicate
that I was convinced
and happy enough
with the results to tell
everybody else what we'd got.
The analysis has been
carried out here
at the
British Geological Survey,
and after five years
the researchers
are just beginning to bring
all their results together
and draw some conclusions.
I wonder how our man
from Culduthel has done.
The isotope composition
that his teeth gave
suggested that he came from
an area of this type of rock,
this area of Antrim,
and it's the Antrim basalts.
So you think he's Irish?
That is the most likely place
for him to have come from.
How interesting.
And so he managed to make
it from his childhood site here
to his burial site
up around here.
So around 4,000 years ago
Culduthel man moved 300 miles
across the seas
from his Irish home
to his Scottish grave,
where he lay buried
in a signature Beaker burial.
But Culduthel man is just one
of the 250 skeletons
from around the country
which could explain
how the Beaker culture spread.
What about the isotope project
as a whole?
What is it telling you about
this period in the Bronze Age
and about populations
moving around?
A lot of the evidence that
I've got from this project
and other data, they seem
to be very mobile at this time.
The survey reveals
some intriguing results
showing our ancestors
traveling long distances
across the country.
Results from Beaker burials
in the Yorkshire Wolds area,
for example, showed that over
50% of the individuals sampled
had moved there
from somewhere else,
some from as far afield
as Scotland.
It's interesting because
I think you tend to think
that people
in these prehistoric societies
were perhaps a lot more
settled than that.
The further back you go,
the more settled they were.
- It doesn't work that way.
- No.
This project is
really interesting
because of the scale of it.
They've looked at
250 individuals,
and that means we can start
to answer
some of those big questions
about the population of Britain
during the Bronze Age.
I'm on my way to meet a group
of amateur archaeologists
who are uncovering a remarkable
story about Bronze Age Britain.
4,000 years ago
these waters would have been
buzzing with ships.
Bronze Age Britons
were traveling and trading
the length of this coast.
I'm heading towards a site
that has yielded
a treasure trove
of beautiful objects
and vivid proof of
the early importance of trade
and the risks that traders ran.
We're about half a mile
off the coast,
near Salcombe in South Devon.
We're approaching
really carefully
because there are divers
down there at the moment.
- Hello.
- Hi.
- Morning.
- Hello, Alice!
- Hello!
- Hello!
These aren't
professional archaeologists.
They're divers
who found a love for history.
And for me, that makes
what they're finding here
all the more special.
It's real dedication here.
These guys are down at Salcombe
every few weeks,
diving in the same spot,
constantly looking
for new objects
that are coming up
from the seabed.
The team dive using
underwater metal detectors
to scan the seabed.
In the last few months,
their dedication has paid off
with a massive haul of objects
which have been sent
to the British Museum,
where they're being analyzed
by curator Ben Roberts.
In total,
we've got over 300 objects.
We're still working
through them at the moment,
and they're still being found.
That's the fantastic thing.
What's amazing about this
particular collection of objects
is it encapsulates
where we were culturally
about 3,000 or so years ago.
You have swords, and this was,
for your Bronze Age warrior,
what you would have used in
conflict against your neighbors.
And we have plenty of evidence
for warfare at this time.
Also you have large-scale trade.
This is proper large-scale trade
in commodities.
So that's the next couple
of divers going down.
The divers can spend up to
an hour at a time underwater
at a depth of 10 meters.
I was talking to Jim,
and he said that the seabed,
the sediments, the gravels, move
around quite a bit down there,
so every time they dive, there
might be something new exposed.
The group dive
around once a month.
Because the seabed
is constantly moving,
it's impossible to predict
whether they'll find anything.
Perhaps the most eye-catching
of the finds
so far examined
at the British Museum
is the exquisite jewelry.
Usually when we find
Bronze Age gold from this time,
somewhere about just over
3,000 years ago,
we find relatively simple
gold objects.
So for instance,
here you have a fragment
of what would have been
a twisted gold neck ring,
where you take your gold bar
and you twist it.
Similarly,
you have gold bracelets.
These are solid-bar bracelets.
They've just taken
a bar of gold,
and they've just twisted it
around the wrist.
What this means
is that these bracelets here
are just far in excess of
anything that had come before.
Here you have eight strands
of gold wire
that have been twisted
on their own
and then bound together
to create
this stunning little bracelet
which, when it
came off the seabed,
was just perfectly coiled.
These represent
the absolute pinnacle
of Bronze Age goldworking.
So, what we've got here is
this small group of divers
who are spending
all their free time
combing the seabed
down here in South Devon,
and they're making
really significant discoveries
that are helping us
to understand the Bronze Age
that little bit better.
Both the divers and Ben have
reached the same conclusion
about why these objects
are here.
Although we're still
finding objects
and the story's
still being written,
I think this is probably
a shipwreck.
And I say that
because we're finding things
that we don't
normally find on land
and we don't normally find
when they've been
deliberately placed in rivers
and deliberately placed in bogs,
as we have all over Britain.
The group have discovered
one of the oldest shipwrecks
in Britain.
No remains of the ship itself
have been found,
but most of the objects
were probably its cargo.
But there's a mystery here too.
The majority of the objects
date to around 2,300 B.C.,
but some date
to a few centuries later.
Ben has been trying to work out
why this could be.
I think there's only two ways
that you can really explain
why these objects ended up
off the south coast of Devon
in the same place.
And one is a shipwreck, um,
or maybe two shipwrecks,
and the other one is to say they
were deliberately placed there.
So we have this tradition
in the Bronze Age
of placing bronze
and gold objects
in special points
in the landscape
such as hillsides
or in bogs and springs.
So it's possible that it was
a combination of the two,
with one taking place
slightly earlier as a shipwreck
and one potentially later
as a dedication.
It's really hard to say.
So the objects with the later
dates may have been an offering
thrown into the sea
in remembrance
of that original shipwreck.
It's a touching thought.
Although the gold objects
found by the divers
are the most beautiful
and striking,
they are not the most important
of the finds.
Instead, it's some
much more mundane lumps of tin.
These ingots that we have...
Absolutely the first tin ingots
that have ever been found in the
Bronze Age in northern Europe.
Very exciting for me.
I understand not necessarily
aesthetically beautiful
for everyone else,
but nonetheless very exciting.
The tin ingot represents
this missing link
in our Bronze Age world
between the finished
bronze objects
that we have here,
the bronze ingots.
So it's these that represent our
first evidence of the tin trade
in this part of the world.
So it's these,
for an archaeologist,
that are actually more exciting
even than the gold.
Archaeologists have long
suspected that the South West,
with its naturally occurring
tin ore,
would have played a central role
in supplying this raw material
across Europe.
This is the crucial evidence
they've been waiting for,
found by our amateur team.
Those bubbles coming up there
mean there's a couple of divers
just about to break the surface,
which is very exciting.
I wonder what they've found.
- Hello, Mick.
- Hi.
- Welcome back.
- Ohh!
Welcome.
Did you find anything?
An old bullet.
It's not Bronze Age, is it,
Mick.
No.
That's very disappointing.
Well, they didn't
find anything today,
but undoubtedly there's more
of this Bronze Age shipwreck
to come to light here, and of
course what we're looking at
is a 3,000-year-old tragedy.
Imagine this boat laden
with tin and copper ingots
making its way
along the coast here,
and perhaps they were just
in sight of a safe harbor
when disaster struck.
We'll never know whether
the crew managed to survive,
but their precious cargo
of copper and tin
was claimed by the sea.
We started
our million-year journey
with finds of rudimentary flint
tools made by ancient hominids.
As we've traveled forward
through time
to discover
this complex trading society,
everything has become
more familiar.
What strikes me
is that in our prehistory
are quite clearly the roots
of what we think of today
as our culture, our way of life.
And what really brought
that home were some discoveries
made in the grave of a chieftain
in Forteviot in Scotland
last year.
When Howard Carter
opened Tutankhamun's tomb,
he reportedly said, "I see
things, wonderful things!"
This is what really happens
when archaeologists make
those amazing discoveries.
[Bleep] me!
[ Bleep ]
Oh, my God! Oh!
Oh, my God.
This is the dramatic
moment last year
when archaeologists
filmed themselves
as they lifted the capstone
of a 4,000-year-old tomb.
It would change
our understanding
of how Bronze Age people
buried their loved ones.
After discovering the tomb
with geophysics,
archaeologists Kenny Brophy
and his team
had to wait a year
to be able to open it.
- Oh, my God!
- Got some metal.
This is cool as [bleep]
We might have to bleep that out.
Yes, well, there was a lot
of excitement on site.
This is an incredibly
exciting moment in archaeology,
isn't it, because a lot of
archaeological excavation
is about painstakingly removing
thin layers of soil,
very gradually
uncovering things.
This is a rather momentous
uncovering of a grave.
It must be quite exciting to be
standing there at the time.
It was. I mean, it was really
a set-piece moment.
There was a real sense
that we just didn't know
what we were going to find,
which is one of
the great excitements
of archaeology, of course,
but this really was a mystery.
Oh, for Christ's sake,
we're having...
The stone-lined grave,
known as a cist,
held many treasures,
and it would prove to be
the grave
of a Bronze Age chieftain.
But there was one big surprise.
No sign of his body remained.
This is really peculiar,
isn't it?
You've taken this stone off
the top of this cist burial,
and you're confronted
with objects
which are, you know, fantastic,
you know you've got
organic remains.
But there's no skeleton.
Well, that was the thing
that immediately struck us,
because I imagined
in my mind's eye
that when the cist was opened we
would see a skeleton lying there
maybe with a nice piece
of pottery next to it.
And nothing I saw conformed
to anything that I expected.
But the team did recover
this mysterious white material.
One thing that we did notice
when we were digging
was that there was
a kind of white powder
stuck to the side of the cist.
It was this powder
that would solve the mystery
of the missing skeleton.
We found that it is some kind
of calcite substance,
which would suggest
it came from bone,
and that bone was perhaps
broken down by body fluids
that were leaking from the body,
and then the bones
all dissolved.
Right, so this is bone mineral,
but bone mineral
that's been dissolved
and then redeposited
inside that grave.
- Essentially, yes.
- Yeah.
- And this is all that's left?
- Yeah, this is all that's left.
So, essentially that bag
of material there
is probably the only remnants
that are left
of the person
who was buried in this cist,
which is, I suppose, a sad end,
really, to this person.
From almost the first moment,
the team suspected
they had a high-status burial,
and one key find
confirmed that...
This magnificent dagger.
This is very elaborate,
isn't it?
It's a fantastic piece
of Bronze Age technology
involving a large blade
of bronze,
which is a copper and tin alloy,
rivets holding it together,
a bone handle,
a band of gold which is
holding it all together.
There's wooden pins
involved here as well.
So this is an object
that's not just about
the metal of the dagger.
It's about
so much more than that.
This is a really beautiful,
elaborate object.
The sheer rarity of these
in the archaeological record
suggests that what
we're dealing with here
is someone who was
very important
and someone who this dagger,
perhaps,
was a symbol of their power
and symbol of their importance.
So it was entirely appropriate
that when they died,
that ended up
in the grave with them.
After the initial discovery,
it's back here at the lab
that most of the work
has been done
to identify the objects
found in the grave.
We found a group of objects that
were perhaps in a leather bag,
and these include these
strange-looking objects here.
A lump of a metallic substance
which is iron ore called
limonite, a yellow iron ore,
and then it's lying on top of
this stone tool
which is made of flint.
These objects served
a very particular purpose
in the Bronze Age.
The combination of these two
suggest that this is probably
some kind of fire-making kit.
A strike-a-ight that maybe
was something portable
that could be carried about.
And, Kenny, do you think
a fire-making kit like this
would have been something
that everybody
would have been carrying around
or just particular
special people?
The balance of probability
is that these were objects
associated with powerful people.
Perhaps making fire
was something
that powerful people
were associated with.
But we can't rule out the fact
that these may be
everyday objects
that everyone had
'cause everyone needed fire.
We know exactly
what it was used for,
but we're not sure whether that
use was a special magical use
or perhaps whether
it's something as ordinary
as a box of matches.
All we know is that the people
burying this person
thought he should have it
with him in the grave.
Yes, yeah.
But for me, the most exciting
finds from this grave
are also the smallest ones.
And there they are.
In amongst those objects
in the grave,
archaeologists also found
these tiny things.
They're flower heads.
Now, archaeologists often find
pollen in graves,
but pollen could get there
because it's blown in
or perhaps arrives
in the grave in food and drink
that had been placed in there
with the body.
But here what we have is actual
flower heads of meadowsweet.
So we know for the first time
that Bronze Age people
placed flowers
in the graves of their dead,
that flowers were part of
the Bronze Age funeral ritual
just as they are today.
This is a piece of meadowsweet
just waiting to flower
in the summer.
So we know that whoever it was
that was interred in that grave
at Forteviot,
he was buried there
during the summer months.
And I just find it amazing
that something so ephemeral,
those flower heads,
have survived
through thousands of years.
And whilst the physical remains,
the bones of that person,
have long since disappeared,
what we have got is the evidence
of this incredibly tender act
of placing flowers
in somebody's grave.
It's something that gives us
a real sense of connection back
to those Bronze Age people.
In our million-year journey,
we've found out that our history
goes back much further
than we ever thought possible.
And we've seen that, over time,
a complex society emerged
in which the foundation stones
of our own can be found.
We've discovered a rich culture
that has developed
since those ice age artists
first left their mark
in the caves.
And what this journey shows us
is that our prehistory
is still
a part of who we are today.
And it's a part of our story
that's only revealed
with the help of archaeology.
And so the digging continues.
but we've got a big history.
Everywhere you stand,
there are worlds
beneath your feet.
And so every year,
hundreds of archaeologists
across Britain
go looking for more clues.
Who lived here, when, and how?
You can even see
the architecture of the bone
- inside the jaw there.
- Yes.
Archaeology is
a complex jigsaw puzzle
drawing together everything
from skeletons to swords,
temples to treasure.
And it's still sharp.
From Orkney to Devon,
were joining this year's quest
on sea, land, and air.
We'll share all of the questions
and find some of the answers
as we join the teams
in the field
digging for Britain.
The further back in time we go,
the more rare those glimpses
of our ancestors become.
Tonight we're going into
deep prehistory,
and this is where archaeology
really comes into its own.
With no written records,
those pieces of evidence
that we pull out of the ground
are the only clues we have
to the mysterious world
of prehistoric Britain.
I'm on a journey through
a million years of history
that will take me from Orkney
to the south coast.
I'll be discovering art
made by ice age Britons...
Is this a leg down here?
Is it coming down to a leg?
Yeah, that's right.
The are legs here.
...and seeing how farming
first developed here.
See some more teeth
sticking up here.
Yeah.
I'll be finding out
how the sea holds clues
to the birth of trade.
And as we travel through time,
we'll see how a culture emerged
that still resonates today.
So, when was she found?
Our journey begins before
Britain was even an island,
when a broad river
flowed through East Anglia.
And this is where archaeologists
are trying to find out
when the first people
arrived in Britain.
For over 200 years,
archaeologists have
searched these lands
for signs
that early human species
may once have lived here.
But the first humans
to have emerged from Africa
were tropical.
They just weren't adapted
to cold climates,
and they could not have survived
in northern Europe.
Now, on this beach in Norfolk,
archaeologists are finding
remarkable evidence
that may challenge this belief.
I've been following
this project for years,
and the archaeologists are about
three weeks
into this year's dig,
so I've been really excited
about coming here
to find out
how they've been getting on.
The team are part
of an internationally
renowned project
searching for clues that will
help them date this site.
So, Nick, you're a few weeks in.
Nick Ashton
of the British Museum
is leading the excavation.
And what sort of evidence
are you finding
in these
ancient river sediments?
We're getting pollen from
these fine-grained sediments.
We're getting wood.
We're getting other
plant remains, little seeds.
Ah, we're also getting beetles,
and they're very good
for reconstructing climate.
And on top of that,
we're getting animal remains,
animal bones and teeth,
and they really help
with the dating of the site.
To retrieve that evidence,
every bucketload excavated
must be painstakingly examined.
So it's all happening down here.
Ah. What have you got
for us, Sophie?
Nothing at the moment?
-Not much.
Do you want the sieve there?
Oh, wow. Some pebbles.
Some pebbles at the moment.
So each sieveload
is checked and sorted.
And there doesn't appear
to be anything in that.
Over a five-year period,
they've sifted through
70 tons of sediment.
But sometimes
it's the most unlikely finds
that provide vital clues.
- Oh, no... pine cones.
- Ah.
Oh, right.
And there is quite a weathered
but surviving pine cone.
- Really?
- A part of one, yeah.
You could look
at the structure of that
and confirm the exact species.
When you're looking
this far back in time,
even a single find like this
pine cone core is crucial.
Find by find, the archaeologists
can reconstruct
this mysterious lost world...
A pine forest that was inhabited
by creatures
no longer seen in Britain.
Simon Parfitt from
the Natural History Museum
is an expert
on prehistoric mammals.
And what's that
in that box down there?
- Okay, this thing.
- It looks like a stone.
It looks like a stone.
Believe it or not,
it's a hyena dropping.
This is fossilized hyena poo.
So we know there were
hyena here as well.
There were hyenas,
so you've got large carnivores.
We've got
this fantastic rodent jaw...
- That's beautiful.
- ...with some of the teeth
And this is
an extinct beaverlike rodent,
and it was semiaquatic, living
along the banks of the river.
It's such
a beautifully preserved fossil
I mean, you can even see
the architecture of the bone
inside the jaw there.
Yes, yeah.
It's a wonderful thing.
It's because we know when each
of these species became extinct
that these fossils are
helping us to date the site.
This is a tooth of a mammoth.
And this is in fact one of
the earliest forms of mammoth
that we find
in this part of the world.
This helps us with the date
because this is quite primitive.
So we have a fantastic record.
And you can tell that
from the teeth?
That's right, yeah.
It has very distinctive teeth.
You can see
this is the chewing surface,
and you have a series of plates,
and they're very widely spaced.
And this is a feature
of primitive mammoths.
Later mammoths, the plates
tend to get closer together,
the enamel gets thinner.
So that's one of the features
we can use to identify it.
This tooth
belonged to a type of mammoth
that died out
over 700,000 years ago,
so its position
in these sediments
gives another vital clue
to the archaeologists.
With the various types
of dating,
we're able to say
that the site dates
somewhere between 800,000
and a million years old.
So that's the date
of those sediments
that we were looking at
in the trench,
between 800,000
and a million years old?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Fantastic.
This project really is unique.
So many important discoveries
are made by pure chance,
especially in prehistory,
where something might be found
in a quarry
or when a road is being built.
But here the archaeologists have
set out to find something new
to make an important discovery,
and they've done it.
Because what's being found here
are not just animal
and plant finds.
It's not just evidence
of a vanished landscape
from perhaps
a million years ago.
There are finds suggesting
humans could have
lived here then too.
Actually today we recovered
one of the rare artifacts
that we're also getting
from the site,
and this is really exciting
because it shows that humans
were living here at that time.
This has just come out today.
This is a small flake.
It's slightly broken,
but you can see
all the telltale signs
of human manufacture.
This tiny object
is a waste flake
left over
from making flint tools.
So this is evidence
of humans in Britain
going back
possibly a million years
Yeah, and so it makes it,
by a long way,
the oldest site
in northern Europe.
The oldest human site
in northern Europe.
So I'm holding in my hands
a piece of evidence
of the earliest humans
to inhabit this island
going back
nearly a million years.
They have found
over 70 pieces of flint
which show signs of
human working.
And amongst them are even
some intact stone tools.
This... We actually nicknamed
this the "butter knife"
because it's so pretty.
But you can see all the evidence
of human working there,
that bulb
of percussion rings coming out
from all that
characteristic rippling.
And actually on this piece
they've modified that edge.
It would certainly be ideal
as some sort of...
- You know, for cutting meat.
- Yeah.
So this is the original sort of
knife and fork
of the old Stone Age.
And it's still sharp.
Mm, and after 800,000,
a million years.
No human remains
have yet been found
to confirm who made these tools,
but it was
a truly ancient species,
some 750,000 years older
than even the Neanderthals.
So Happisburgh has pushed back
the earliest human occupation
of Britain
by at least 200,000 years.
But what's really remarkable
is that the humans living here
back then
were surviving
in extremely harsh conditions.
At this time, Britain was
approaching an ice age.
How did these early species
manage to survive here?
Were they more advanced
than we previously thought?
These are the questions
now facing experts
like Chris Stringer from
the Natural History Museum.
So, what were
these capabilities?
Did these people
have control of fire?
Did they have clothes?
Whether they had clothing,
whether they had
the use of fire,
we can't tell from here.
They must have had ways
of keeping warm.
Well, that's right, yes.
I mean, the environment
was comparable to, say,
southern Scandinavia
at the present day.
And, yes, I think, you know,
stick us in the winters
in southern Scandinavia today,
and we would
have problems coping.
So we'd have to imagine,
probably,
that there was
at least basic clothing
and probably the use of fire.
But the evidence
has yet to be found.
It does make us look again
at these earlier human species,
and perhaps they were
more sophisticated
than we've
given them credit for.
Yes, that's right. Yeah.
Their capabilities
were far greater,
and that's really exciting.
So we have to make them,
in some ways,
certainly more like us
than we would have believed.
We know there were
people here in Britain
nearly a million years ago.
They were surviving in
incredibly cold conditions.
It gives us newfound respect,
I think,
for those earlier human species.
And at the end of the day,
it's these insignificant finds
that archaeological revolutions
are made of.
We don't know how long
those people survived here,
but they were eventually wiped
out by the vicious climate.
For hundreds of thousands
of years,
Britain went through some of
the most violent climate
changes in world history,
which repeatedly
forced people out.
So these were not our ancestors.
To find them,
we have to go forward
hundreds of thousands of years
to the end of the last ice age
and to a site
in modern-day Nottinghamshire
where they once lived.
It wasn't until
around 13,000 years ago
that Britain became recolonized
by modern humans...
Homo sapiens, people like us...
And this time
they were here to stay.
And they were living in caves
like these at Creswell Crags
at the end of the last ice age.
We know that these people were
physically identical to us,
but archaeologists
are relentless in their search
to find out just how similar
they were to us in other ways,
searching for those
elusive things
which let us feel
truly connected to them.
Cave art can speak to us
like nothing else,
a distant echo from an ancient
world with no written language.
And since the discovery
of the famous Lascaux rock art
in France in the 1940s,
the hunt has been on to find
similar rock art in Britain.
Archaeologists scoured the walls
of caves like these
but found nothing,
and they put that down
to Britain
being such a challenging
environment back then,
that people were just surviving,
clinging on to existence
with their fingernails.
They didn't have time
for frivolities like rock art.
That belief was turned
on its head by discoveries
made in this cave,
where I met Ian Wall.
He's an archaeologist
and director of Creswell Crags.
- After you.
- Thank you.
So you're now standing
at the level
that we think
our prehistoric ancestors were
12,000, 13,000 years ago.
So it's the best place
to actually view
the rock art
that they were creating.
So I can see a few
scratches on the walls here.
Would you like to come and
stand here, and I'll show you?
This is one of the first figures
that was discovered in 2003.
But you can just pick out some
fainter engraved lines here.
At first I struggled to see
what Ian was seeing.
Gradually an image emerged.
This is the top of a neck
of an animal.
Yeah, all right,
you're convincing me.
And the ear.
And coming down here,
you can see a mouth.
- Is that the mouth there?
- Yes.
And that's the chin
running underneath. Yes.
Is this a leg down here?
Is it coming down to a leg?
Yeah, that's right.
There are legs here.
And then the underbelly
of the animal.
That's remarkable.
There it was,
appearing right before my eyes,
the image of a deer.
We can imagine perhaps
how important this creature
would have been
to our ancestors.
It was almost certainly
one of the things
that kept them alive.
So how do you know
that that is ice age?
Crucially you get
these deposits of flowstone...
It's redeposited calcite...
And that forms
a thin skin of deposit,
and sometimes that lies over
the top of these engraved lines.
That's this white area here?
That's right, yes.
And that can be dated
fairly precisely
with a technique
called uranium series dating.
Right, so if you can date
that flowstone,
then if the engravings
are underneath it,
they must predate it.
- That's right, yes.
- So how old is that flowstone?
So it's roughly around
13,000 years old.
So we really are
looking at ice age art?
Yes. That's the clincher.
This is the oldest rock art
to be found
anywhere on these islands.
So much of archaeology is about
how people live their lives
in quite a mundane way...
The tools they made,
the diet they were eating,
that sort of thing.
But here we've got art,
which is something
a little bit different,
and it does give you
a real connection
back to those people.
It's incredibly evocative.
You can imagine them
in that cave
making those images on the wall.
And I rather like the mystery
that we will never know
what it really means.
I'm on my way to a dig in Orkney
where archaeologists
are finding out more
about early farmers
and their mysterious beliefs.
My destination
is the tiny island of Westray,
home to a site
called the Links of Noltland,
where one of this year's most
exciting digs is happening.
Wow, what a way to see
an archaeological site,
this bird's-eye view,
looking straight down on it.
Looks great.
Can't wait to get down there.
Many Neolithic sites
are monumental and ceremonial.
They're really impressive,
but it's like
going to a cathedral
to find out
how everyday people live today.
This site is different.
I've come here because
archaeologists are unearthing
vital evidence of early farms.
And these are the extraordinary
and rare remains
of a 5,000-year-old village
where the farmers once lived.
Archaeologists here are
uncovering a remarkable story
of a struggle to survive.
Then, as now,
these islands must have felt
like the edge of the world.
I was given a tour around
the site by Richard Strachan.
It's almost always
windy in Orkney.
The weather can be
on your side sometimes.
A little bit of rain on a site
is very good as well,
archaeologically.
It keeps the soil nice
and moist. It is challenging.
Yeah, it is like you have
four seasons in one day,
I can't believe it was raining
this morning,
and now we've got sunshine.
That's very normal here.
Should we go over
and have a look
at what some of
the archaeologists are finding?
The buildings are covered
with a layer
of ancient rubbish or midden.
And it's from this
that many of the signs
of everyday prehistoric life
are appearing.
The whole site is basically
sealed by this midden material,
and this is containing
the shell, the bone,
all that sort of stuff.
And you can see that we're
getting pottery too within this,
we're getting flint.
Is that a piece of pottery
down there?
Yeah, this is
a fantastic piece of pottery
that Sean's just uncovered.
You can see
the wonderful decoration on it.
'Cause this archaeology
is only centimeters
below the surface, isn't it?
Yeah, you can see, literally.
You look, and in places
it's very, very shallow.
Under the sand is the evidence
the archaeologists
have been hoping for...
Proof that people here
were growing barley,
which was one of the earliest
plants to be domesticated.
Hazel Moore is directing
excavations here.
I want to go and talk to
Hazel about something
rather interesting
over this side of the site.
What's the evidence
for the barley farming?
Um, carbonized cereal grain
coming from these
midden deposits.
They had field systems
which run from the settlement
down the slope,
and they were middening
and enriching the soils there.
So presumably that was
for growing their crops
all around the settlement.
From the field system, evidence
of composting is emerging.
Each layer of soil
tells a story of a struggle
to make farming work here.
When we actually look
at the profiles,
the soil profiles
from the earliest times,
what we have
are cultivated soils
swamped again and again
by blowing sand.
So do you think
this would have been
a challenging environment
to be farming in?
Yes, yeah. I mean,
it's challenging nowadays.
It wouldn't have been
any different then.
Its light sandy soils
are ideal for cultivation,
in that they can be
worked easily and turned easily,
but they're also very prone
to erosion,
and it's a very windy place.
The conditions here would have
made it difficult to survive
just growing crops.
But new finds are showing
that domesticated animals
were extremely important
to these early farmers.
But yet again, amongst the
seemingly mundane finds,
there are marvelous glimpses
of a vanished world.
Emerging from the soils
is something
which has stunned
the archaeologists.
The skulls of 40 cattle
built into the foundations
of a wall.
How strange.
- Can we get a bit closer to it?
- Yeah, we can do.
Yeah, you can come
and have a look down here.
This is really peculiar.
You can see a whole line
of them here.
This is the outer face
of the wall along here,
the stones,
and that's the inner face there.
So they're placed into
the core of the wall,
into the thickness of the wall.
How peculiar, because that means
that they wouldn't
have been visible
when the building was standing.
No, they would have
been placed there
when the wall was being built.
They were the foundation level
of the building.
And you can see how they sort of
relate to each other.
They've been
put in sequentially, these ones,
and the horns are actually
overlapping on those ones,
and they've put some stones in
and then some more cattle skulls
all along.
It's making them
part of a building.
It's almost
monumentalizing them, isn't it?
It's somehow enshrining them.
Imbuing the building with their
spirit or whatever, yeah.
Building them into
the very foundations.
This strange discovery
reinforces what the researchers
have learned
about the importance
of livestock
to those early farmers.
It's easy to see why cattle
were so important
in this fragile
and remote landscape.
And it's yet another glimpse
into a mysterious
ancient mind-set.
This is just utterly bizarre,
these cattle skulls built into
the fabric of a building.
We'll never know
exactly what they mean,
but they obviously represent
some complex beliefs.
The archaeologists now know
that this land was farmed
for around 50 generations,
but eventually the struggle
proved too great.
Overcome by the wind and sand,
they gave up
and abandoned their village.
It appears that the buildings
were deliberately filled in
with rubble,
within which
archaeologists found
what could be a defining
symbol of the farmers' defeat.
And of course this is something
we found last year
which really is quite unique,
and we haven't seen anything
like this
from the whole of Scotland.
You've brought her to show me!
How lovely.
There she is in all her glory.
- You can take her out.
- Very small.
Yeah.
This tiny figurine is known
as the Westray Wifey.
And despite
her homespun appearance,
she may be
the earliest known expression
of religious identity
ever found in Scotland.
She's really sweet.
She's got a very
cartoonlike face, hasn't she?
She has.
You can just pick out
that she has eyes
and a very sort of
curvy eyebrow.
Yeah.
And she's got this
sort of very rough mouth,
but she's also got arms
down by her sides.
Yeah, yeah.
And then scratches
on the top of her head as well.
- Yeah, like her hair almost.
- Indicating hair, yeah.
Where the figurine was found
makes her even more intriguing.
She seems to have been
carefully positioned
in the abandoned ruins.
It seems like she was probably
put there deliberately
as a closing deposit.
She was placed there,
and then there's no evidence
that anybody ever came
and did anything here again.
So that was probably
their way of marking
the close of that settlement.
She's really sweet.
Hazel believes
that Wifey's placing
may have been a ritual end
to the farmers' long struggle.
We're actually seeing how people
thought, you know,
that they decided
that this was a good way
to close this building off
at the end of the period.
So it gives you
much more of an insight
into how peoples' minds worked
at the time.
If the researchers are right,
then the Westray Wifey
is unique,
a 5,000-year-old
household goddess perhaps.
Figurines of this type are
usually thought to be goddesses
or, you know, some religious
deity kind of thing.
Given that she's the only one
that we have
and we don't have
widespread representations,
it's hard to argue that
she is definitely a goddess,
but seems that
she must be representational
of some concept,
religious concept.
It's rather wonderful to hold
this tiny little figurine.
It's rather hard to know
what she meant
to the people that made her,
but nonetheless
she's a fantastic little message
from the past.
And utterly unique.
But just days after
I left the dig,
a second figurine was unearthed,
bolstering Hazel's belief
that these may have been
household goddesses.
This is just the third season
of digging here.
Every day, more of
the mysterious settlement
is revealed.
For thousands of years
people had buried their dead
in communal graves.
Then around 4,500 years ago
something changed
in that time-honored ritual,
and people began to be buried
in individual graves,
something which seems
much more familiar to us today.
This is Culduthel man.
He was discovered in 1975,
and he had been buried
in the new way.
This is very well preserved,
considering this is
a 4,000-year-old skeleton.
His skeleton is curated
by Alison Sheridan.
In his grave,
archaeologists found a beaker,
a distinctive clay pot
that was the symbol
of this new burial style.
We know that Beaker burials
started on the continent,
but once they arrived here
they spread rapidly
throughout the country.
And the question that has
perplexed archaeologists
for 150 years
is how that Beaker culture
spread so far so quickly.
Now a team of archaeologists
is using cutting-edge science
to work that out.
They want to know if it was
just the ideas that traveled
or if the people did too.
Janet Montgomery and Jane Evans
are analyzing
the isotopic signatures
of Beaker skeletons
like Culduthel man
to find out where they lived
and whether they moved
during their lifetimes.
To do that, they must
painstakingly extract
some tooth enamel from
each Bronze Age individual.
We only need
a very small amount,
less than a match-head size
of tissue.
But you have to make sure
when you take it
that it's not contaminated.
It has to be cleaned,
it has to be carefully removed
so you don't mix up the tissues
and that it's free from any
contamination from the burial.
What we want to do
is take something
that tells you about the person
when they were alive,
not what's happened
during the time
their body's
been buried in the ground.
Chemicals in each sample tell
us where that person grew up.
We know where
they were then buried,
so we can tell if someone
moved during their lifetime
or if they stayed
in their childhood home.
Janet and Jane have analyzed
over 250 Beaker skeletons,
in this way.
The project has been
five years in the making,
It's the biggest-ever survey
of our prehistoric ancestors,
and Culduthel man
is the latest to join it.
His teeth
were in such poor condition
that Jane had to use
a different technique
to extract the sample.
These teeth have got almost
no enamel remaining on them.
So, what I did,
instead of slicing the tooth up,
I had to pick off
very carefully with forceps
small fragments of the enamel.
Jane managed to obtain a sample,
but once she got the results
she was convinced
there had been a mistake.
It was only after I got
the enamel results in triplicate
that I was convinced
and happy enough
with the results to tell
everybody else what we'd got.
The analysis has been
carried out here
at the
British Geological Survey,
and after five years
the researchers
are just beginning to bring
all their results together
and draw some conclusions.
I wonder how our man
from Culduthel has done.
The isotope composition
that his teeth gave
suggested that he came from
an area of this type of rock,
this area of Antrim,
and it's the Antrim basalts.
So you think he's Irish?
That is the most likely place
for him to have come from.
How interesting.
And so he managed to make
it from his childhood site here
to his burial site
up around here.
So around 4,000 years ago
Culduthel man moved 300 miles
across the seas
from his Irish home
to his Scottish grave,
where he lay buried
in a signature Beaker burial.
But Culduthel man is just one
of the 250 skeletons
from around the country
which could explain
how the Beaker culture spread.
What about the isotope project
as a whole?
What is it telling you about
this period in the Bronze Age
and about populations
moving around?
A lot of the evidence that
I've got from this project
and other data, they seem
to be very mobile at this time.
The survey reveals
some intriguing results
showing our ancestors
traveling long distances
across the country.
Results from Beaker burials
in the Yorkshire Wolds area,
for example, showed that over
50% of the individuals sampled
had moved there
from somewhere else,
some from as far afield
as Scotland.
It's interesting because
I think you tend to think
that people
in these prehistoric societies
were perhaps a lot more
settled than that.
The further back you go,
the more settled they were.
- It doesn't work that way.
- No.
This project is
really interesting
because of the scale of it.
They've looked at
250 individuals,
and that means we can start
to answer
some of those big questions
about the population of Britain
during the Bronze Age.
I'm on my way to meet a group
of amateur archaeologists
who are uncovering a remarkable
story about Bronze Age Britain.
4,000 years ago
these waters would have been
buzzing with ships.
Bronze Age Britons
were traveling and trading
the length of this coast.
I'm heading towards a site
that has yielded
a treasure trove
of beautiful objects
and vivid proof of
the early importance of trade
and the risks that traders ran.
We're about half a mile
off the coast,
near Salcombe in South Devon.
We're approaching
really carefully
because there are divers
down there at the moment.
- Hello.
- Hi.
- Morning.
- Hello, Alice!
- Hello!
- Hello!
These aren't
professional archaeologists.
They're divers
who found a love for history.
And for me, that makes
what they're finding here
all the more special.
It's real dedication here.
These guys are down at Salcombe
every few weeks,
diving in the same spot,
constantly looking
for new objects
that are coming up
from the seabed.
The team dive using
underwater metal detectors
to scan the seabed.
In the last few months,
their dedication has paid off
with a massive haul of objects
which have been sent
to the British Museum,
where they're being analyzed
by curator Ben Roberts.
In total,
we've got over 300 objects.
We're still working
through them at the moment,
and they're still being found.
That's the fantastic thing.
What's amazing about this
particular collection of objects
is it encapsulates
where we were culturally
about 3,000 or so years ago.
You have swords, and this was,
for your Bronze Age warrior,
what you would have used in
conflict against your neighbors.
And we have plenty of evidence
for warfare at this time.
Also you have large-scale trade.
This is proper large-scale trade
in commodities.
So that's the next couple
of divers going down.
The divers can spend up to
an hour at a time underwater
at a depth of 10 meters.
I was talking to Jim,
and he said that the seabed,
the sediments, the gravels, move
around quite a bit down there,
so every time they dive, there
might be something new exposed.
The group dive
around once a month.
Because the seabed
is constantly moving,
it's impossible to predict
whether they'll find anything.
Perhaps the most eye-catching
of the finds
so far examined
at the British Museum
is the exquisite jewelry.
Usually when we find
Bronze Age gold from this time,
somewhere about just over
3,000 years ago,
we find relatively simple
gold objects.
So for instance,
here you have a fragment
of what would have been
a twisted gold neck ring,
where you take your gold bar
and you twist it.
Similarly,
you have gold bracelets.
These are solid-bar bracelets.
They've just taken
a bar of gold,
and they've just twisted it
around the wrist.
What this means
is that these bracelets here
are just far in excess of
anything that had come before.
Here you have eight strands
of gold wire
that have been twisted
on their own
and then bound together
to create
this stunning little bracelet
which, when it
came off the seabed,
was just perfectly coiled.
These represent
the absolute pinnacle
of Bronze Age goldworking.
So, what we've got here is
this small group of divers
who are spending
all their free time
combing the seabed
down here in South Devon,
and they're making
really significant discoveries
that are helping us
to understand the Bronze Age
that little bit better.
Both the divers and Ben have
reached the same conclusion
about why these objects
are here.
Although we're still
finding objects
and the story's
still being written,
I think this is probably
a shipwreck.
And I say that
because we're finding things
that we don't
normally find on land
and we don't normally find
when they've been
deliberately placed in rivers
and deliberately placed in bogs,
as we have all over Britain.
The group have discovered
one of the oldest shipwrecks
in Britain.
No remains of the ship itself
have been found,
but most of the objects
were probably its cargo.
But there's a mystery here too.
The majority of the objects
date to around 2,300 B.C.,
but some date
to a few centuries later.
Ben has been trying to work out
why this could be.
I think there's only two ways
that you can really explain
why these objects ended up
off the south coast of Devon
in the same place.
And one is a shipwreck, um,
or maybe two shipwrecks,
and the other one is to say they
were deliberately placed there.
So we have this tradition
in the Bronze Age
of placing bronze
and gold objects
in special points
in the landscape
such as hillsides
or in bogs and springs.
So it's possible that it was
a combination of the two,
with one taking place
slightly earlier as a shipwreck
and one potentially later
as a dedication.
It's really hard to say.
So the objects with the later
dates may have been an offering
thrown into the sea
in remembrance
of that original shipwreck.
It's a touching thought.
Although the gold objects
found by the divers
are the most beautiful
and striking,
they are not the most important
of the finds.
Instead, it's some
much more mundane lumps of tin.
These ingots that we have...
Absolutely the first tin ingots
that have ever been found in the
Bronze Age in northern Europe.
Very exciting for me.
I understand not necessarily
aesthetically beautiful
for everyone else,
but nonetheless very exciting.
The tin ingot represents
this missing link
in our Bronze Age world
between the finished
bronze objects
that we have here,
the bronze ingots.
So it's these that represent our
first evidence of the tin trade
in this part of the world.
So it's these,
for an archaeologist,
that are actually more exciting
even than the gold.
Archaeologists have long
suspected that the South West,
with its naturally occurring
tin ore,
would have played a central role
in supplying this raw material
across Europe.
This is the crucial evidence
they've been waiting for,
found by our amateur team.
Those bubbles coming up there
mean there's a couple of divers
just about to break the surface,
which is very exciting.
I wonder what they've found.
- Hello, Mick.
- Hi.
- Welcome back.
- Ohh!
Welcome.
Did you find anything?
An old bullet.
It's not Bronze Age, is it,
Mick.
No.
That's very disappointing.
Well, they didn't
find anything today,
but undoubtedly there's more
of this Bronze Age shipwreck
to come to light here, and of
course what we're looking at
is a 3,000-year-old tragedy.
Imagine this boat laden
with tin and copper ingots
making its way
along the coast here,
and perhaps they were just
in sight of a safe harbor
when disaster struck.
We'll never know whether
the crew managed to survive,
but their precious cargo
of copper and tin
was claimed by the sea.
We started
our million-year journey
with finds of rudimentary flint
tools made by ancient hominids.
As we've traveled forward
through time
to discover
this complex trading society,
everything has become
more familiar.
What strikes me
is that in our prehistory
are quite clearly the roots
of what we think of today
as our culture, our way of life.
And what really brought
that home were some discoveries
made in the grave of a chieftain
in Forteviot in Scotland
last year.
When Howard Carter
opened Tutankhamun's tomb,
he reportedly said, "I see
things, wonderful things!"
This is what really happens
when archaeologists make
those amazing discoveries.
[Bleep] me!
[ Bleep ]
Oh, my God! Oh!
Oh, my God.
This is the dramatic
moment last year
when archaeologists
filmed themselves
as they lifted the capstone
of a 4,000-year-old tomb.
It would change
our understanding
of how Bronze Age people
buried their loved ones.
After discovering the tomb
with geophysics,
archaeologists Kenny Brophy
and his team
had to wait a year
to be able to open it.
- Oh, my God!
- Got some metal.
This is cool as [bleep]
We might have to bleep that out.
Yes, well, there was a lot
of excitement on site.
This is an incredibly
exciting moment in archaeology,
isn't it, because a lot of
archaeological excavation
is about painstakingly removing
thin layers of soil,
very gradually
uncovering things.
This is a rather momentous
uncovering of a grave.
It must be quite exciting to be
standing there at the time.
It was. I mean, it was really
a set-piece moment.
There was a real sense
that we just didn't know
what we were going to find,
which is one of
the great excitements
of archaeology, of course,
but this really was a mystery.
Oh, for Christ's sake,
we're having...
The stone-lined grave,
known as a cist,
held many treasures,
and it would prove to be
the grave
of a Bronze Age chieftain.
But there was one big surprise.
No sign of his body remained.
This is really peculiar,
isn't it?
You've taken this stone off
the top of this cist burial,
and you're confronted
with objects
which are, you know, fantastic,
you know you've got
organic remains.
But there's no skeleton.
Well, that was the thing
that immediately struck us,
because I imagined
in my mind's eye
that when the cist was opened we
would see a skeleton lying there
maybe with a nice piece
of pottery next to it.
And nothing I saw conformed
to anything that I expected.
But the team did recover
this mysterious white material.
One thing that we did notice
when we were digging
was that there was
a kind of white powder
stuck to the side of the cist.
It was this powder
that would solve the mystery
of the missing skeleton.
We found that it is some kind
of calcite substance,
which would suggest
it came from bone,
and that bone was perhaps
broken down by body fluids
that were leaking from the body,
and then the bones
all dissolved.
Right, so this is bone mineral,
but bone mineral
that's been dissolved
and then redeposited
inside that grave.
- Essentially, yes.
- Yeah.
- And this is all that's left?
- Yeah, this is all that's left.
So, essentially that bag
of material there
is probably the only remnants
that are left
of the person
who was buried in this cist,
which is, I suppose, a sad end,
really, to this person.
From almost the first moment,
the team suspected
they had a high-status burial,
and one key find
confirmed that...
This magnificent dagger.
This is very elaborate,
isn't it?
It's a fantastic piece
of Bronze Age technology
involving a large blade
of bronze,
which is a copper and tin alloy,
rivets holding it together,
a bone handle,
a band of gold which is
holding it all together.
There's wooden pins
involved here as well.
So this is an object
that's not just about
the metal of the dagger.
It's about
so much more than that.
This is a really beautiful,
elaborate object.
The sheer rarity of these
in the archaeological record
suggests that what
we're dealing with here
is someone who was
very important
and someone who this dagger,
perhaps,
was a symbol of their power
and symbol of their importance.
So it was entirely appropriate
that when they died,
that ended up
in the grave with them.
After the initial discovery,
it's back here at the lab
that most of the work
has been done
to identify the objects
found in the grave.
We found a group of objects that
were perhaps in a leather bag,
and these include these
strange-looking objects here.
A lump of a metallic substance
which is iron ore called
limonite, a yellow iron ore,
and then it's lying on top of
this stone tool
which is made of flint.
These objects served
a very particular purpose
in the Bronze Age.
The combination of these two
suggest that this is probably
some kind of fire-making kit.
A strike-a-ight that maybe
was something portable
that could be carried about.
And, Kenny, do you think
a fire-making kit like this
would have been something
that everybody
would have been carrying around
or just particular
special people?
The balance of probability
is that these were objects
associated with powerful people.
Perhaps making fire
was something
that powerful people
were associated with.
But we can't rule out the fact
that these may be
everyday objects
that everyone had
'cause everyone needed fire.
We know exactly
what it was used for,
but we're not sure whether that
use was a special magical use
or perhaps whether
it's something as ordinary
as a box of matches.
All we know is that the people
burying this person
thought he should have it
with him in the grave.
Yes, yeah.
But for me, the most exciting
finds from this grave
are also the smallest ones.
And there they are.
In amongst those objects
in the grave,
archaeologists also found
these tiny things.
They're flower heads.
Now, archaeologists often find
pollen in graves,
but pollen could get there
because it's blown in
or perhaps arrives
in the grave in food and drink
that had been placed in there
with the body.
But here what we have is actual
flower heads of meadowsweet.
So we know for the first time
that Bronze Age people
placed flowers
in the graves of their dead,
that flowers were part of
the Bronze Age funeral ritual
just as they are today.
This is a piece of meadowsweet
just waiting to flower
in the summer.
So we know that whoever it was
that was interred in that grave
at Forteviot,
he was buried there
during the summer months.
And I just find it amazing
that something so ephemeral,
those flower heads,
have survived
through thousands of years.
And whilst the physical remains,
the bones of that person,
have long since disappeared,
what we have got is the evidence
of this incredibly tender act
of placing flowers
in somebody's grave.
It's something that gives us
a real sense of connection back
to those Bronze Age people.
In our million-year journey,
we've found out that our history
goes back much further
than we ever thought possible.
And we've seen that, over time,
a complex society emerged
in which the foundation stones
of our own can be found.
We've discovered a rich culture
that has developed
since those ice age artists
first left their mark
in the caves.
And what this journey shows us
is that our prehistory
is still
a part of who we are today.
And it's a part of our story
that's only revealed
with the help of archaeology.
And so the digging continues.