Digging for Britain (2010–…): Season 9, Episode 5 - Episode #9.5 - full transcript
Everywhere you look, the rich
history of the United Kingdom
is there to be seen.
But hidden beneath our feet, there's
still a wealth of archaeological
treasure just waiting to be found.
That's why each year, up and down
the country,
our archaeologists dig down,
searching for fresh discoveries...
Another one...
...revealing the imprint
of ancient civilisations...
So we are looking at a completely
unknown Roman town.
That's crazy!
Wow!
...and unearthing priceless objects.
Oh, yeah, I can see that.
This is something special, isn't it?
Yeah, I've not seen anything
like it so far.
Every dig adds new pieces
to the ever-growing
archaeological jigsaw...
...that is the epic story
of our islands.
It's been an extraordinary year
full of challenges,
and yet I've been able to visit
so many exciting digs
up and down the country.
Oh, my goodness!
There have been spine-tingling
discoveries to witness.
That is the face of a Trojan.
Yes. My heart is racing!
And I'm even getting a chance
to use a trowel myself.
I'm joined by a trio of expert
investigators...
I can actually see the texture of
the weave and it's, what,
1,600 years old?
It's amazing that a small
DNA sample like this
can tell that really quite
big story.
...as they dig deeper for answers...
Exactly.
Finally, the archaeologists
bring their best finds
into the studio...
You can see that this object
has had a life of its own.
...for up-close analysis.
It's astonishing detail.
Welcome to Digging For Britain.
This time, we take a look at what
archaeologists have been unearthing
in the west of the UK.
A previously undiscovered Roman town
provides the ultimate
treasure hunt...
I found a couple of brooches,
I found a ring, a bracelet.
It is amazing, isn't it?
...a mysterious shrine surrounded by
child burials puzzles the experts...
Almost looks as if they're trying to
get these children as close to
whatever the central feature is.
...and archaeology solves the mystery
of a World War I I tragedy.
The first location on my
archaeological tour of the west
is tucked away in the spectacular
Mendip Hills,
16 miles south of Bristol.
I love the Mendip Hills.
I'm often to be found walking here
at the weekend, and here I am,
right up on the top.
North Somerset Levels over there,
the Somerset Levels
themselves to the south,
Glastonbury and Glastonbury Tor are
out there in the mist somewhere.
We're just catching that wooded
valley there,
which is the very top
of Cheddar Gorge,
which is full of caves which are
stuffed full of Palaeolithic
and Mesolithic archaeology.
Cheddar itself, of course,
home to the famous cheese.
But it wasn't the cheese that
attracted the Romans to Mendip -
it was the minerals.
The Romans arrived on Britain's
eastern shores in 43 AD,
and six years later, they reached
Somerset and the Mendip Hills.
The Romans came here
to mine Galena -
the ore that is smelted
to produce lead.
You'd expect this important industry
to fuel thriving local economies
and settlements in
the surrounding area.
But little evidence of that
has been found - until now.
In a valley nearby,
trenches are being dug
for huge new electricity cables,
and dozens of archaeologists
have been scouring the ground
after surveys revealed
signs of human activity.
It's a copper coin. See?
It's one of 500 coins
we've found so far.
Thankfully, they were armed with
our dig diary cameras.
As it turns out,
there's treasure to be found.
We've got this dolphin brooch,
with possible enamelling inside.
And we found
a jet spindle whorl.
Half a copper stylus.
I come from Rome to find a Roman
coin here in North Somerset.
What a brilliant way
to start the week!
The archaeologists expected
to find some evidence
of farming communities,
but what they found
stunned everyone.
So we're just on the edge
of the settlement here?
We're on the edge of
the settlement here.
Yeah. Still a huge amount of...
Mike Glyde is lead archaeologist
for the National Grid.
It's his job to make sure the
precious archaeology is excavated
and recorded before
the cables are laid.
This particular area was identified
requiring excavation in advance
of construction, and what we have
found here has far surpassed
anything any of us could
have really predicted.
We have over 1.5 metres
of unbroken stratigraphy,
dating from the late Iron Age
right through to late Saxon
Medieval period, and we've got a
totally unbroken settlement on site.
So we're seeing the huge amount
of social and economic development
of the town in fine detail.
That's amazing. So, basically
what these works have given you
is a cross section through
this town. Absolutely, yeah.
And presumably you knew there was
some Roman archaeology here.
Yeah, there's Roman remains in the
immediate vicinity of here. Yes.
But we are looking at a completely
unknown Roman town.
That's crazy!
I mean, you were expecting a little
bit of Roman activity here.
Yeah. Something fairly light. Yes.
Something it would take you maybe
a few weeks to dig. Exactly.
And how long have you been here?
Two years.
For the Romans, building a network
of roads to these outermost reaches
of the Empire was essential
for moving goods and troops.
And as they took road building
so seriously,
a lot can be learned from
digging one up.
Like this one, that clearly lay
at the heart of this community.
Is that a road? Yes, that is
our third Roman road...
Bob McIntosh is leading the Oxford
archaeology team.
So this is one of four
of our Roman roads.
Four?! All directly on top of each
other.
They're all fourth century -
this is the nicest one.
When does this road date to?
Just past 300.
So this is roughly Constantine.
There's a big phase of
infrastructure projects in Britain
during his reign... Yeah.
...rewarding his supporters
for making him emperor
because he's crowned in Britain
before conquering the rest
of the Roman Empire.
And it fits perfectly with our
settlement going from just
urban sprawl up the valley,
to big road being built through,
demolishing people's houses, which
you can see the foundations of
sticking out through
the road surface.
Constantine, famous for being
the first Roman emperor to convert
to Christianity, was actually
proclaimed emperor
in York in 306 AD.
His reign kick-started a new period
of economic prosperity
for Roman Britons, not least
for those who lived
in this vibrant settlement.
I've come right to the top of the
Mendip Hills to meet
county archaeologist Cat Lodge,
who's been looking at
the wider impact of this newly
discovered road and settlement.
It is fantastic being right up here
on top of the Mendip Hills
and getting this appreciation
of the geography.
Yeah, it's a very different
landscape from what you would
have seen in the Roman period.
It would've been extensive
salt marshes
and rivers weaving in and out.
And we've got the lead mines
over to the east of us here
and our new roadside settlement
down there to the west.
Yep. How's that changing your idea
of the Roman landscape of Mendip?
These routes, they were almost
completely new to us.
So our roadside settlement is really
giving us the possibility
that there was trade off Mendip
into the Bristol Channel.
In the Roman era, the nearest major
trade route for the lead mines
of the Mendip Hills was the epic
Fosse Way,
where it passed just to the
south east.
But the discovery of the new
roadside settlement suggests
there was another trade route,
taking lead straight from the mines
to the coast, where it could be
exported by ship
across the Roman Empire.
And you think that is all linked to
this - this economic activity,
this industrial activity up here
on the Mendip Hills?
I do. I mean, we've got evidence
from the 1950s in the vicinity
of metalworking very close to our
roadside settlement
that's being excavated.
It kind of all leads to that.
It's quite strange, isn't it?
I mean, looking out of this
landscape today,
it's a largely agricultural
landscape,
and you go back into the Roman
period and it seems
that there was more industry
going on back then.
Yeah, in terms of the industry,
I mean, we don't really
see anything like that now.
It's just the lumps and bumps
and earthworks that remain today.
Yeah, and then it's new
infrastructure that is opening up
this opportunity
to look at our heritage.
It really is.
Without these developments and
these infrastructure projects,
we wouldn't be finding sites like
this amazing roadside settlement
and understanding so much more
about the historic environment
around us and our
collective heritage.
Back at the spectacular settlement,
the team have uncovered more
of that heritage.
There's evidence for major butchery,
a bone workshop,
and several wells -
this one still almost intact.
I just found this little bit
of British Romano glass
and it's very nice -
you can see the bubbles.
And this is adding further
evidence of the fact
that this settlement
was a domestic one.
The mix of light industry
and domestic luxury suggests
this was an affluent community,
with this major road
as its main artery.
So this layer that you've got
exposed now, this is the heyday
of this Roman town, then?
Yeah, this is the town
at its peak.
This is also the phase with
by far the most imported finds
from the continent.
So there's plenty
of goods flowing in.
Presumably, they're exporting lead.
Yeah. Yeah. The people living
directly here are not lead miners.
They're living too well
for that. Yeah.
These are merchants or accountants
or some secondary industry
that is making money off of those
lead mines, I would assume. Yeah.
What a place to gain experience
for these young archaeologists,
like 24-year-old Mariah.
Have you find anything exciting
while you've been working here?
Yeah, actually, I found a coin
from the Domitian period.
I found a couple of brooches.
I found a ring, bracelet.
It's been a very good site.
It is amazing, isn't it?
I mean, to have this town in
the middle of countryside...
Honestly, and this is my first,
like, official site
because it's my first job
since university. Is it?
I'm living my best life, I will say.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been very
good to me. It sounds amazing.
I'm going to get a look at
some of the finds in a bit.
Thank you very much.
Bob has gathered together
just a handful of the hundreds
of treasures so far unearthed,
so I can have a closer look.
Some of your lovely finds.
Yeah, so first century,
we've got very early silver coin.
It is Emperor Domitian.
I can see that.
Yes, I can read that!
It's beautiful. So that's 90s AD.
He is only emperor for a few years.
Yeah. That gives us
a really nice, specific date
for that phase of the settlement.
So just as this Roman town
is starting to take off, really.
And already shows
a certain amount of wealth
because an average labourer would
make one of those denarii a day. OK.
So have you got any other finds
that are around that kind of
early phase of the site,
the first century?
Yeah, so the other one,
this is my favourite one -
first-century legionary
standard - issue turf-cutter.
Every Roman legionary would have
one of those in his pack.
So why are they clearing turf?
You cut the turf away
before you dig your ditches.
You're clearing all the vegetation
so you have clear lines of sight
from your defences.
Yeah. That's late first century.
So the soldier who carried
that almost certainly
was in the invasion of Britain
and would have campaigned
through this part of the country
and then has retired here
and kept his turf-cutter.
You could have used that
to de-turf this area. Exactly.
Yeah, that's why I like this one.
That is me 2,000 years ago.
And what about
these beautiful brooches?
When do they date from?
These ones are all first
to second century.
Now that's amazing. Look at that.
So that is particularly
high status, enamel-inlaid.
With the enamel still intact. Yeah!
Which I've not seen before.
Normally you get the settings,
but all the enamel was gone.
Yeah. Oh, that has to be one of the
most beautiful brooches I've seen,
and this hasn't even been
properly conserved yet. No, no.
That is as it came out the ground.
Yeah! Yeah. Wow. What a find.
What about that? That's lovely.
It's probably our best find so far.
Knife handle
for a little pocket knife.
Also from between
two of our road surfaces,
lodged between two cobbles.
I'm sure someone was very sad
to have lost this one.
That is lovely.
It's a dog chasing a...
It is a greyhound
chasing a hare, yeah.
And it is actually
for a folding knife.
The slot for the blade
to slide into is still visible
and you'd have been able to see
the blade between all the legs,
which is particularly stunning.
A little pocket knife
that would have opened like that.
Common motif for the later empire...
Yeah... dog chasing hare,
but you don't normally find it
in such a beautiful representation.
Whoever lost that must have been
really gutted.
Furious, I would imagine.
That's a fantastic set of finds
to tell the story
of this Roman town.
Digging here will finish
in just a few weeks' time,
and what's left
will be covered up once again.
But archaeologists now
have a treasure trove of new finds
to sift through to help them
understand more about
Roman life in Somerset.
MUSIC: Coins For The Eyes by
Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane
♪ We dig for the gods
that leave no bones
♪ For the ship that sailed
in the sunken sea
♪ The vessel locked
in the sky and stones
♪ The famine road
and the merchants keep... ♪
Across southern England
and extending into the west,
there's a huge band of chalk,
making the perfect canvas for art
on a monumental scale.
From horses to warriors,
these huge chalk figures
decorate our hillsides.
Now, we know that some of them
are prehistoric.
Others are the whimsical creations
of eccentric Georgian landowners.
But it can be extraordinarily
difficult to pinpoint the exact date
when such a chalk figure
was created,
and one that's kept
the archaeologists guessing
for centuries is also
the naughtiest of them all.
This enigmatic figure is carved
into the great southern chalk bed
near the small village
of Cerne Abbas in Dorset.
At 55 metres tall,
the Cerne Abbas giant
towers over the Dorset landscape.
With his phallus alone
proudly standing at 11 metres,
he's shocked and delighted people
for hundreds of years.
But incredibly, despite centuries
of speculation,
nobody knows when he was carved.
Mike Allen is one of
the archaeologists
determined to solve this mystery.
Everyone in British archaeology
knows about him,
but we haven't a clue about what
date he is, and that's one thing
that archaeologists
are normally very good at -
saying why they are there,
what was happening
and what date they are.
And in this case,
we can't answer
any of those questions.
Mike's joined forces with National
Trust archaeologist Martin Papworth
in a bid to find the answers.
The Trust acquired this monument
in 1920, and for the centenary,
they, too, wanted to solve
this puzzle.
It seems an ideal opportunity
to date this enigma of the giant.
Huge amounts have been written
about him.
Loads and loads of quite credible
theories of all different periods
of time have been put forward
for him, and we just wanted to know.
One theory is that
the Romans carved this figure
to represent the demigod Hercules,
famous for his strength
and his legendary sexual prowess.
He was often portrayed
holding a club.
But Mike thinks
he could be much older -
possibly similar in age
to other chalk figures
like the Uffington White Horse
in Oxfordshire.
The Uffington White Horse is
late Bronze Age, early Iron Age,
and I think that he fits
perfectly into that.
So I put my money strongly
into the fact that
he's a prehistoric deity
overlooking the landscape
in which they farmed.
The earliest historical record
is from 1694,
when the nearby St Mary's Church
lists repairs to "Ye Giant",
costing three shillings.
This first reference -
not long after Oliver Cromwell
was sworn in as Lord Protector
in 1653, - backs the legend
that the landowner
created this as a caricature
to mock the man known as
England's Hercules.
Martin Papworth is putting
his money on this later date.
There's no history, and it's such
an obvious figure on the hillside,
for goodness' sake. He can't be
much older than 17th century.
In their search for answers,
last year, Martin and Mike
were given special permission
to start excavating.
The figure is deeply carved
into the hillside, so to date it,
they must dig down through nearly
a metre of accumulated deposits
to get to the very earliest phase
of its construction.
We actually have some soil
and some materials
to date when he was constructed,
and little minute snails
that we find in this chalky soil
will help tell us that answer.
Mike can loosely date
the sediment using snail shells,
because some species only appear
after specific points in history.
These shells become date markers,
and when the snails from
the Cerne Abbas giant are analysed,
they reveal an incredible result.
Two of the species in here -
the helicellids - occur in Britain
in the medieval period or later.
And the fact they're here
suggests that the basal deposits
and all the deposits above
must be medieval or later,
which rather blows my idea
out of the water,
that he's a prehistoric monument.
He's clearly medieval or later.
Mike's theory of a Bronze Age date
is out of the running,
but Martin's 17th-century caricature
could still be correct.
For a more precise date,
our archaeological sleuths
have brought in extra firepower.
Phillip Toms is head
of Environmental Sciences
at the University
of Gloucestershire.
Using a type of luminescence dating,
he can date the giant
by finding out precisely
when the sediment underneath it
was last exposed to sunlight.
Within our samples, we're after
sand -sized grains of quartz,
and it's that quartz
that contains our signal
that will tell us how old
our samples are.
The disc that we're using
is just enough to hold the grains
that we need to measure.
There are about 100 grains
on this disc.
And for a typical measurement,
we'd probably measure
about 2,400 individual grains
of sand.
So our disc goes into this machine,
it spins into position.
We fire a green laser
onto each grain of sand
and out comes
the luminescence signal,
and it takes about a week
to measure.
Archaeological science is now going
to enable us to paint the picture
of the landscape
and the society he belongs to,
whereas before we
were just guessing.
It's very exciting.
Whole new ideas about what he
could be and what he symbolises.
A week later, and Phil's lab
has the results
that the Cerne Abbas
archaeology team is waiting for -
an accurate age for their giant.
We've conducted the analysis
and the dates have come out
somewhere between 700 AD
and 1100 AD.
So given most people's views
where it was either prehistoric
or Cromwellian in age, for it
to land in the medieval period
was a bit of a surprise
for everyone.
That means we've got to return
to the site
and think about our
interpretations of it again.
Martin and Mike have been stunned
by these results.
Now they know the Cerne Abbas giant
was created in the medieval period.
Well, we're surprised, aren't we?
This isn't what we expected at all.
I mean, I was convinced
he was post-medieval...
And I was convinced
he was prehistoric.
And I think, you know,
bit of archaeological science
has proven that neither of us
were right and we're both wrong.
It seems archaeologists
and historians
may have missed a big clue
right under their noses.
Everyone seems to have been
carried away with his nakedness
and the member
and no-one had actually really
thought about the obvious.
You know, the abbey
sitting behind us.
Below the giant once lay
Cerne Abbey, founded in 987,
right in the middle of the period
when we now know the giant
was created.
But what connection
could a huge naked figure have
to a Benedictine monastery?
Perhaps historians have focused
on the wrong appendage.
Just right next to his outstretched
hand is, in fact, the abbey,
which was established
at the same time.
The Abbey's wealth was created
largely by pilgrims,
venerating the local holy man,
St Eadwold of Cerne.
Legend has it that Eadwold lived
as a hermit on a nearby hill
after he planted his wooden staff
in the ground there
and it miraculously
grew into a tree.
Perhaps the club is really
a staff sprouting leaves.
Is he St Eadwold?
What do I think? I don't know.
I don't know who he is,
but this medieval date makes
all sorts of theories possible.
For our next dig,
we travel back in time a little,
to the first few centuries
of the early medieval period.
The location is in West Wales,
on a beach right on the tip
of Pembrokeshire.
This is Whitesands Bay, and out
there is the Atlantic Ocean.
The sea looks so benign today,
but this beach in West Wales
gets absolutely battered by storms.
And in 2014, a storm crashed in
and exposed a small cemetery
at the top of the beach,
prompting an archaeological
rescue operation
which is transforming
our understanding
of early medieval Christian
communities here in Wales.
Whoa!
That storm, and the danger
of more to follow,
was a call to arms
for archaeologists,
and soon a rescue mission
to lift and catalogue
the contents of the cemetery
was launched.
In 2016, Digging For Britain
joined the team
from Dyfed Archaeological Trust
and the University of Sheffield
as they made the discovery
that the cemetery contained
a concentration of child burials
almost perfectly preserved
in the sand.
So it seems to be a woman buried
with a baby
in the crook of her arms.
That's right.
That's incredible. Yeah.
Yeah. That's the baby's head, yeah?
Here's the mother's left arm.
It's rare to find this quantity
of infants in a communal cemetery.
It doesn't matter
what date it's from.
Here we've got a large number of
them because the preservation
in the sand has been so good
for skeletal remains.
There had been a late medieval
chapel on the site,
but beneath its foundations
were graves dating back
as far as the seventh century.
I of ant mortality rates were high
in this period, and the sand here
has preserved evidence
that enormous care
went into burying these children.
So what we've got here
is a really rather nice bone pin,
possibly a shroud pin.
And some of the burials that
we've had here, you can see
from the position of the skeleton -
the feet particularly -
that these people look like
they were wrapped in shrouds
when they were buried.
Five years on, and the dig team
has returned for another season.
I'm joining them to see
if they've found any new evidence
to suggest why so many children
were buried here.
Ken Murphy is the site director.
Ken, when I last caught up
with this site,
you had a lot of infant burials
at higher levels. We did.
We've still had loads and loads
of infant burials.
How many burials
have you had in entirety?
Entirety, about 250 together.
That's over several years.
But this year we've had about
150 in this quite small area.
One, two, three.
In the days before I arrived,
there was a fascinating discovery
that may provide some answers...
Do you want to come and have a look?
...as to why so many children
were buried here.
They were often placed in cists -
little stone-lined graves.
But this large cist appears
to have had some special status.
It almost looks as if they're
trying to get these children
as close to whatever
the central feature is.
Surrounded by those tiny skeletons
and decorated with carefully laid
quartz pebbles,
it was a tense moment
for the archaeologists
excavating this mysterious feature.
We've come down from this level,
it had a capping on the top.
Two burials have already been
extracted from here.
You can see where that slate
has been dragged out, splayed out.
So we're going to get all that
cleared away
before we investigate this
any further.
But at the moment,
this is a bit of a mystery to us.
We don't quite know
what's going on there.
A few days later, and I'm keen
to see what they learned
about this intriguing structure.
So, again, you've got this central
box-like feature there,
so what's this?
We thought it was going to be
a special grave.
It doesn't seem to be.
It seems to be more of a shrine,
so people tried to get their infants
as close as possible to this
to be buried.
One part of the feature
has even been cut away
to bury a child's body
as close as possible.
It's been smashed away here.
Smashed away. That's right.
It's quite an effort to go to.
So this is a very special place
where people wanted
to bury their newborn children
who obviously didn't survive.
Before there was even a chapel here,
this was clearly a sacred place,
where people buried their children
around this mysterious shrine,
and it dates to a time
in the seventh century
when Christianity was beginning
to take hold in Wales.
And Ken's found more evidence.
So, Ken, you've not had many finds
coming out of this site,
but then you do have spectacular
ones like this. It's lovely.
That's right, we don't really get
small finds as such,
but we do get these, and this
is a very good example of a...
Well, obviously
a cross-incised stone.
It would have been originally
standing upright as a grave marker,
but it had been reused
in our cist or shrine
as a side slab.
As far as we're aware,
that's the first time
we've actually got an incised cross
actually in situ, as it were.
Most of the known are just
loose in churches,
or in churchyards or whatever.
So actually to get one in situ
is really quite special. Yeah.
And the edges are... The edges
are really sharp. They are.
You can practically see the lines
where it's been... Absolutely.
...carved away again and again.
And we're completely clear
that this is Christians at work,
then. Yes. Oh, yes.
Not much doubt.
Similar examples
to this intriguing feature
can be seen across the water
in Ireland,
where small, rectangular cairns
have also been found
built on the earliest
Christian sites.
So do you think
there were connections
between this site
and Ireland, then?
Yeah, I mean, this actual site has
got a very sort of Irish feel to it.
This central structure we get
in there, circular structure -
is similar to some sites you get
on the west coast of Ireland.
From Dublin to here is probably
a day's journey by sea.
From here to...
Inland to eastern Wales
is probably three or four days
on foot or by horse.
And the Irish connection
doesn't stop there.
Records show a chapel was built
on this site centuries later,
and it was dedicated to Ireland's
most famous saint - Patrick.
In earlier centuries,
religious sites and cemeteries
were often separate.
Burial grounds like these,
with chapels later built on them,
are precursors to the churchyards
we're more familiar with.
Although archaeologists approach
their work objectively,
it's always poignant to excavate
tiny graves like these.
How's it going, Hayley?
How many infants
have you excavated here?
About five?
This bit was a bit of a wobble.
Had a bit of an emotional moment.
Yeah.
It's always poignant, I think,
digging child burials,
because, you know, you think
about the people that placed
that little body in the ground.
Exactly.
To find out more about the early
medieval people who lived and died
in West Wales,
archaeologist Cat Jarman
has travelled
to Sheffield University,
where skeletons from
the dig are being analysed.
Laid out in this lab
are some of the child skeletons
from the Whitesands dig.
Katie Hemer is a bioarchaeologist
like me...
Hi, Katie. Hi.
...meaning she forensically
analysed the bones to find out
more about the people
they belong to.
Such tiny bones, aren't they?
Yeah. This individual is about
two to three years of age.
These lower long bones here,
I mean, this looks very,
very curved to me. They do.
There's curvature in that one,
and there's quite notable bending
in this one, as well.
That evidence suggests
that maybe this individual
experienced Vitamin D
deficiency - rickets -
because you often get bowing
of the long bones in rickets.
This microscopic image
of an infant's tooth
shows how Katie's forensic analysis
found more evidence of widespread
Vitamin D deficiency.
You can notice there's sort of
these lines of blotchy
sort of black patches,
and that's basically dentine
that hasn't formed properly
because this individual
was deficient in vitamin D.
And it's really interesting
what this is actually telling us,
because vitamin D - you get that
from sunlight, don't you?
So presumably this means this child
was not getting enough sunlight.
What can you say about
why this is happening?
Perhaps they were poorly
and they were being kept indoors,
and therefore they weren't
getting, you know,
that exposure
that they really needed
and maybe that in time actually
led to them unfortunately dying.
Another skeleton backs
the archaeologists' theory
that some people travelled from
far away to the Whitesands site.
Katie's studied the sulphur content
in this young woman's bones.
Sulphur relates to the underlying
geology of a region.
The sulphur goes up
into the soil and the plants,
and then the people
eat those plants.
And we actually found
that their sulphur signature
was very different from the rest
of the people that we sampled.
Everybody else looked like they
were growing up on the coast,
but this person actually
had an inland sulphur signature.
Oh, so she's actually moved
and ended up there
later in her life? I think so.
I think that's what the sulphur
is showing, because this person's
signature was more consistent
with another population
that are sampled from south-east
Wales, much more inland,
really different from those
on the Pembrokeshire coast.
And that's quite interesting,
because it's as a woman, as well,
so it tells us something
about mobility among women
in this time and place
that we didn't really know
from other sources.
And I think it's also important
to our understanding
of the community. Not everyone
that was buried at the site
were local to that region
as children.
People were moving there,
people were being buried there
that weren't necessarily
native to that area.
So I think that's also really
important to our understanding
of who these people were,
what this community was all about
and what was going on
in early medieval Wales.
It's very rare to get
that much information
out of an early medieval
Welsh community like that.
So the fact that we're finding out
about children, especially -
we don't get children preserved
in cemeteries like this.
So the stuff that we can now find
out about disease, about illness,
just how people lived in those
communities, it's just adding
so much to the picture of the past
that we just didn't have before.
♪ Come and search
for we would search
♪ And looking for
a scarred land... ♪
Next, a return visit
to a place we recently featured
when exploring the south of England.
It's a vast
Special Area of Conservation
that straddles both
Hampshire and Wiltshire.
Salisbury Plain.
The plain consists of
around 300 square miles
of mostly chalky downland -
about half of it
used by the military.
But its rich past means
the sound of busy archaeologists
can often be heard
above the distant explosions.
I'm visiting a fantastic project
where archaeology
is being used as therapy,
but they're digging this particular
site because it's under threat.
It's threatened by
unscrupulous people
wishing to make financial gain
out of plundering,
looting our rich archaeological
heritage -
a heritage that belongs
to all of us.
It all started when
this pocket of land was surveyed
for potential use for construction.
Richard. Hello! I thought
I 'd find you in a trench
somewhere on Salisbury Plain.
Somewhere on Salisbury Plain. Yeah.
Well, you've chosen a good one.
MOD archaeologist Richard Osgood
commissioned a geophysical
survey of the site
that, to everyone's surprise,
revealed signs of
an early medieval cemetery - right
where the building was planned.
Usually, after the evaluation,
you've just left it there and said,
"Well, you know, we know
there's archaeology there."
"If we want to develop around here,
we can do that elsewhere."
Really good point.
What prompted the excavation here?
The problem for us is that when
we had the report given to us,
we were told as part of that,
'"We're really sorry,
'"but word has got out
about this particular site
' "and it's vulnerable.'"
And the reason it's vulnerable
is because there are going to be
metallic objects in these graves
and sadly it's at risk for these
groups called nighthawkers
who are, you know, non-scrupulous
metal detectors, frankly.
Metal detectorists
can be great on site,
but there's a group that just
don't play nicely, frankly. And...
I mean, if you've got people
coming in with metal detectors
and just digging down
to individual metal objects
in the ground, they're
disturbing these burials.
And then you lose any context,
don't you? I don't know,
it makes you weep, really,
it's a real shame.
Joining Richard on this
archaeological rescue mission
are volunteers from
Operation Nightingale.
This MOD project helps ex-servicemen
and women rehabilitate
after serving on the battlefield.
One of them
is Falklands War veteran Sean.
Sean, looks like
you've nearly finished. Oh, yeah.
We're on the final phase
of extraction of this skeleton.
And the most delicate part.
It's just a case of
very, very carefully
going round the edge
and then very, very carefully
loosening it
and then taking a gulp
and putting it in the bucket. Yeah.
And, Sean, do you think it's
the archaeology that's helped you,
or is it in being together
with people, do you...?
It's a bit of both,
but as you're digging away,
you zone out and it does stop you
thinking about the bad things.
But I find it just gives me
the peace to think,
'" Right, this is what I've
got to do next week.
'"This is where I'm going now
with the rest of my life.'"
I'm just waiting on news now,
and I might have a place
at Bradford University doing
a mature archaeology
undergraduates course. Really? Yeah.
At 65. Starting this year?
At 65. That's amazing.
There is light at the end
of the tunnel.
Now, look, we've been chatting,
I've been stopping you...
I 'd better get on... lifting
that skull. And it's drying out.
Ready? Ready.
Two-six.
Come on, darling.
All right.
Based on the team's latest findings,
this mysterious cemetery
has been dated to around
the seventh century AD.
So good early medieval date to it,
and that's from the artefacts that
we're finding now in these burials.
We did have a bit of excitement,
thought we might have some
early Bronze Age because there was
some nice prehistoric material.
There was a flint barbed
and tanged arrowhead,
it looked really nice,
and then that central thing!
This circle, that looks
kind of prehistoric to me.
Yeah, it does, but, no,
that's seventh century, as well.
And there was nothing with it,
disappointingly, because I dug it.
But for that person,
the mound was their testimony,
because you'd have seen it from
quite a distance away, I think.
So that's the kind of founder burial
and then all these other burials
are placed in later.
That's right. I think
the cemetery's built up
over, you know, a period
of 20, 30 years, maybe.
May not be a long period of time.
This impressive grave may have
been that of a local leader.
It's thought to have been covered
in a mound of bright white chalk,
which would have been visible
for miles around.
So we're right next to the burial
with the amethyst bead.
Again, nice size.
The surrounding graves are
much more modest but, in contrast,
do contain a range of fascinating
seventh-century grave goods.
Oh, wow.
We've just found another silver
coil, and this little coin.
There are bronze and silver rings...
Another ring just here.
It's all starting to come out.
...even a fragile
but recognisable bone comb.
Amongst these personal objects,
they discover small knives...
...and flint arrowheads...
...as well as some larger weapons.
So what's it made of? Iron.
We learn something about
who these people were
from the artefacts
buried with them -
objects they may have used
or worn in daily life,
or which may have been placed
in the ground by mourners.
But there are also clues
in the bones themselves,
with experts on hand
to help decipher them.
That's... If you remember me saying
about the greater sciatic notch?
So there's no difference, male
and female... No... This, no,
this means nothing at all.
Sharing her wealth of knowledge
is Jackie McKinley,
osteoarchaeologist
with Wessex Archaeology.
It's just brilliant having someone
with your level of expertise on site
because you can bring that
biography to the skeletons.
It's not just a skeleton -
it tells you so much
about who that person was
in life. Exactly.
I mean, this one here,
for instance, there's two...
There's two individuals in here.
But for me, the formation process
that's interesting
is, one, the soil
is really, really loose -
it suggests there might have been
something over the top of here,
maybe a wooden board
or something like that,
and stuff's slowly dropped in
over time.
So it'd be really interesting
to know if they were related
to each other. Yeah.
And if we do do DNA analysis
and they are related,
we will be able to see whether
it's a first-generation,
second -generation -
how much of a gap there is.
There's layers and layers of
information. There is, there is.
One of the things in archaeology
that is so intimate
are the human remains themselves.
The volunteers here are finding
new purpose through their work,
and protecting the valuable history
of these early medieval
plain-dwellers from destruction
by reckless modern treasure-hunters.
And by the end of the dig,
they've uncovered 21 graves.
Now, Richard has brought
some of the most exciting finds
from these graves
to the Digging For Britain tent
for a thorough inspection.
Richard, that was such a wonderful
dig, and you could see the way
that the veterans
were really benefiting
from the whole process
of archaeology.
It's counterintuitive,
isn't it, in some ways,
that you take
traumatised individuals
to a site with a load of burials.
But I think if you're finding
really lovely items
and you're concentrating so hard
in excavating them, it does work.
And in terms of finds, then,
these are some of the grave goods
that you discovered.
Yeah, we found quite a few.
I think probably about a third
of the graves had items in them -
some of them in better condition
than others.
But, nonetheless, I think they
tell you a really interesting story
about the seventh century at this
particular part of Salisbury Plain.
So we've got an iron knife
and an iron spearhead here.
Yeah, that's right.
So those were buried with an adult
male, on the edge of the area,
so maybe that's the earliest
burial that we've got on the site.
Yeah. And you move into
the seventh century
and we get a lot of jewellery
and it tends to be with
the female burials.
These are beautiful beads.
I know! Is that amethyst?
It is. It's exquisite, isn't it?
I mean, we've had quite a few
of these from a necklace.
The crafting that goes into
something like that is incredible,
and these have come from a distance.
So these have been traded
over quite a large area.
You get these over on
the Eastern Mediterranean.
I mean, maybe even as far as India.
This is ideas and goods
moving over big distances
at this point in time.
Some of them are tiny. Look at that
beautiful little blue bead.
Is that glass? It is.
I think that's my favourite.
The craft in that, to make it
this little flower shape...
Yeah... is just delightful,
isn't it?
And the colour, I mean,
it's just beautiful.
So summing up, then, Richard,
will you be doing further analysis
on the bones and teeth?
Yeah, that's right. That's the next
stage - all the 22 individuals
that came from this site will be
assessed to have a look and see
whether there are people
that have moved big distances,
or whether these are just
Wiltshire folk
that love the fashions
of the classical empire.
♪ Coins for the eyes
and keys for the door
♪ Fortress, grave goods
chambered too
♪ Abandoned villages
Rumours of war... ♪
I think sometimes history
as a subject
can seem quite abstract,
even esoteric.
And what I love about archaeology
is that it's a different way
of looking at the past.
It's all about the physical remains.
It's tangible.
And it can be such a great way
of engaging young people
with history - especially,
as we see in our next story,
when that history
is actually so recent.
Our final dig takes place
across the Irish Sea
in Northern Ireland,
near a village called Ballykelly
in County Londonderry.
In the grounds of a rectory,
a team of forensic archaeologists
and local students are searching
for the location of
a top-secret aircraft crash that's
been a mystery for many decades.
Immediately after
the plane crashed in 1942,
much of the debris
was quickly cleared
to prevent the highly classified
equipment on board
falling into enemy hands.
Dig leader Jonny McNee
has spent 18 months
painstakingly searching
for anything that remains.
What we're seeing
at the minute coming out
is just decomposed aluminium,
and that's a good indication
that this site that we're on,
that we're on the right spot,
that this is aircraft-related.
So it's a promising first sign.
During World War I I, aircraft
flying from nearby RAF Ballykelly
were helping to protect
vulnerable convoys of ships
bringing desperately needed supplies
from North America.
At the height of the Battle
of the Atlantic in 1942,
so many ships, materials and men
were being lost
to the lethal German U - boats
that the war itself
was in the balance.
Allied airmen were pushing
themselves and their aircraft
up to - and sometimes beyond -
their limits.
Keep on, keep on going,
Stephen, please.
The remaining debris that Jonny
and his team are searching for
is the result of one air crew
risking all on a secret mission.
Today we're looking for
tangible traces of the aircraft
that we can lift and retrieve
and preserve and put on display.
But, also, we're looking
for evidence
that will try to confirm to us
that our scenario of how the
aircraft crashed is actually here.
So the primary one is to say
this is the site of Beaufort AW271.
This is where it crashed.
These Bristol Beauforts
were torpedo bombers
based at Ballykelly Airfield,
testing cutting -edge
radar technology
enabling them to detect and
home in on surfaced submarines.
But it wasn't just the radar
that was experimental.
Records show that this crew
of Beaufort AW271
were also ordered to undertake
a pioneering experiment
to test if an injured airman
could be safely parachuted
from a plane
by pushing a dummy with a chute
out of a hatch.
The exercise went
catastrophically wrong.
The aircraft has come over
the top of the rectory,
with the parachute
unfortunately deployed outside
and wrapped around the tailplane.
It's just come over the trees
and has just belly-flopped
down onto the ground here
and exploded, killing three crew.
Flight Lieutenant Richard Holdsworth
and Duncan Livingstone,
both aged 22,
and 31 -year-old Flight Sergeant
Stanley Chadwick, all died.
It's been very emotional
because we're having to deal with
the tragic deaths of two dads
and an uncle,
so it's not like any other dig
where we turn up and we know
the airmen or the air crew
have bailed out safely
and all we're going to be
finding is parts.
Jonny was asked to find the crash
site by relatives of the crew.
Thankfully, there have been
no discoveries of human remains.
But evidence of a shattered airframe
is beginning to reveal itself.
I'm just wondering, could this be
a propeller blade?
But, again, we'll need to...
We'll need to clean, you know,
go back to our records, you know,
get an idea of what measurement,
but there's a nice curved edge here
that this... That's what
this could be, you know,
as the engines were being
revved up and slowed down
to try to get the aircraft
just to stay in the air
to make a controlled landing,
this thing has hit the ground
with these spinning
and this has just sheared off.
So there's a definite smooth edge
and a thinner edge here.
So we'll get that away
out of the sunlight,
get that bagged up and tagged.
It's now beyond doubt
that this is the crash site
that's lain forgotten
for almost 80 years.
Working with Jonny today
is daughter Grace,
who's joined by some of
her fellow college students.
It's very eroded,
but it seems cylinder...
Yeah, it's very, as you say, very...
You can see the metal coming
through here, as well. Right.
That's, you know, a substantial bit,
you know, it could be part
of the engine or something
like that, but well done.
Well spotted. Keep going.
The students
are just a few years younger
than the two flight lieutenants
who died here.
That's what that is. But this stuff
here that you've just found,
this is really exciting.
That's Perspex from our Beaufort,
showing clear evidence
of the fire that follows.
So, no, great, is that.
Well done. Get it into your bag.
And just write, you know, with one
of the Sharpies, where you found it.
The young team were asked
by the airmen's relatives
to help reclaim
any remaining wreckage.
Definitely a responsibility
because they're the ones trusting us
to be looking through where
their family actually passed away.
I don't know. It's just...
It feels like it's
sort of an emotional responsibility
more than anything.
So keep your eyes in for anything
like this and we can get the dates,
and also to see if you can find
any of the tips, you know,
the little pointy ends that were
the business end of the bullet,
keep having a wee look.
Yeah, that's...
You can see there,
that's nice and clean.
We've been talking to
Richard Holdsworth's daughter,
and she's just been telling me
that Richard wanted to learn
how to fly since he was
a young boy.
And it's just so sad
that what he loved so much
was his downfall in the end.
There is one last heavyweight find
for Jonny to remove.
It's concentric layers of lead
on a central column, probably
something to do with keeping
the weight in the tailplane down,
but we'll go and check
our schematic drawings
and we'll check to see what it is.
But nothing that's going to need us
to check our insurance very quickly.
So I'm just going to...
The site can be covered over
once again,
as the team have found
the last remnants of the plane,
and have hopefully brought
some long -awaited closure
for the families.
This has definitely been about
the human story -
for the crew and their memory,
for the relatives of the crew,
but the most important thing I think
for me and the level of trust
that was put on the team today
from the family members was,
was there a thorough clean-up
of the site in 1942?
Were their loved ones' remains
taken away?
And we can say
a most definite yes to that.
To thank you for the sacrifice...
Four months later, Jonny's team
returns to the crash site,
joined by the crew's relatives
and the RAF
to honour and commemorate the three
brave young men's sacrifice.
Ballykelly was an emotional,
intriguing dig.
Johnny and his daughter Grace
joined me
with those shattered remnants
of Bristol Beaufort AW271
to see what else
they can tell us about this crash.
This was a crash that you knew
quite a lot about
from the documentary evidence.
You knew how it happened,
with the parachute
wrapping around the tail.
Did you find any evidence
of that actual process
of the crash itself?
We think we might have got
one wee bit.
The crew were asked to simulate
pushing an injured airman
out of this little window here,
but as they pushed the dummy
and the parachute -
and we have an eyewitness
account of this -
they saw the parachute blossom
and wrap itself around
the tailplane.
So one minute the aircraft is
flying along, and the next minute
this parachute has wrapped
around the tail
and just completely
retards the speed.
And, poignantly, we found the piece
of burnt parachute cord. Yeah.
So that could have been
the remaining piece of evidence
of the actual cause of the crash,
then? Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Grace, you were there with
your dad at the Ballykelly site
doing this excavation. Have you done
many excavations like this before?
I have been doing them
since 2010, so lots of them.
Despite the early start
to the morning
and the wet
Northern Ireland weather,
I have actually really enjoyed it.
So he's not dragging you along.
Not really.
No, you're going willingly.
You're enjoying it. Yes.
And some of your friends
joined you, as well.
Yes, there's... There were six
of us, like, originally,
and then moved up to eight.
And did you find any of
these finds here? Yeah.
So once the digger had taken back
the first layer of soil,
the students went in and did
a grid search of the area,
and we found bullets
that have exploded...
These ones? ..within the fire. Yeah.
Yeah. So they haven't been shot.
They've just exploded because
of the heat. Just exploded
in the intense fire. Yeah. Yeah.
And then what's that?
That's an instrument dial.
And that's just the face.
Again, it's been blackened
by the heat and the fire,
but it was just one of the only
sort of small, recognisable
parts that we recovered.
And it really was very fragmentary
evidence, wasn't it?
Because, you know, this is a site
which has been cleaned up. Yes.
And this escaped recovery, this is
part of the propeller, is it? Yes.
What's it made of?
That's pure aluminium,
and it just shows you the ravages
of the fire. It's heavy.
Yeah. This was found in one
of the pits that was created
by the aircraft
as it fell to the ground.
And here we've got photographs
of those three young men
who died in this tragic accident.
And, actually, you're much closer in
age to these young men than I am.
How did it feel to be
excavating at this site?
It really put into perspective,
like, what they were put through -
at such a young age, as well,
and helped put in more emotion
to the dig, as well.
I mean, this is something that you
would normally be reading about
in history books at school.
Does it feel more real to you,
having done this?
It definitely means a lot more,
being hands-on with the projects
rather than just learning about
it because it, like, brings
more of a fun aspect into it, being
able to see it in real life.
Are you looking for
new recruits, Jonny? We are.
We have about 15 or 16, I am told,
that want to fill the shoes,
and we're going to go out
and look for another aircraft
and hopefully we'll
offer them the opportunity.
I really did enjoy it.
Next time on Digging For Britain,
a discovery in Scotland
that could rewrite
the history books.
We think this is maybe one of
the first pieces of evidence
that suggests the Picts
were writing. Ooh!
A community digs under Rochdale
Town Hall to discover its past.
I mean, the Industrial Revolution
is arguably the most important
event in human history.
And a Bronze Age find
that has stunned
even veteran archaeologists.
This is kind of once-in-a-career
kind of thing.
♪ Come and search,
for we would search
♪ And looking for a scarred land
♪ And dig for us as we have done
♪ To lay the dead out in the sun
♪ To lay us dead out in the sun. ♪
history of the United Kingdom
is there to be seen.
But hidden beneath our feet, there's
still a wealth of archaeological
treasure just waiting to be found.
That's why each year, up and down
the country,
our archaeologists dig down,
searching for fresh discoveries...
Another one...
...revealing the imprint
of ancient civilisations...
So we are looking at a completely
unknown Roman town.
That's crazy!
Wow!
...and unearthing priceless objects.
Oh, yeah, I can see that.
This is something special, isn't it?
Yeah, I've not seen anything
like it so far.
Every dig adds new pieces
to the ever-growing
archaeological jigsaw...
...that is the epic story
of our islands.
It's been an extraordinary year
full of challenges,
and yet I've been able to visit
so many exciting digs
up and down the country.
Oh, my goodness!
There have been spine-tingling
discoveries to witness.
That is the face of a Trojan.
Yes. My heart is racing!
And I'm even getting a chance
to use a trowel myself.
I'm joined by a trio of expert
investigators...
I can actually see the texture of
the weave and it's, what,
1,600 years old?
It's amazing that a small
DNA sample like this
can tell that really quite
big story.
...as they dig deeper for answers...
Exactly.
Finally, the archaeologists
bring their best finds
into the studio...
You can see that this object
has had a life of its own.
...for up-close analysis.
It's astonishing detail.
Welcome to Digging For Britain.
This time, we take a look at what
archaeologists have been unearthing
in the west of the UK.
A previously undiscovered Roman town
provides the ultimate
treasure hunt...
I found a couple of brooches,
I found a ring, a bracelet.
It is amazing, isn't it?
...a mysterious shrine surrounded by
child burials puzzles the experts...
Almost looks as if they're trying to
get these children as close to
whatever the central feature is.
...and archaeology solves the mystery
of a World War I I tragedy.
The first location on my
archaeological tour of the west
is tucked away in the spectacular
Mendip Hills,
16 miles south of Bristol.
I love the Mendip Hills.
I'm often to be found walking here
at the weekend, and here I am,
right up on the top.
North Somerset Levels over there,
the Somerset Levels
themselves to the south,
Glastonbury and Glastonbury Tor are
out there in the mist somewhere.
We're just catching that wooded
valley there,
which is the very top
of Cheddar Gorge,
which is full of caves which are
stuffed full of Palaeolithic
and Mesolithic archaeology.
Cheddar itself, of course,
home to the famous cheese.
But it wasn't the cheese that
attracted the Romans to Mendip -
it was the minerals.
The Romans arrived on Britain's
eastern shores in 43 AD,
and six years later, they reached
Somerset and the Mendip Hills.
The Romans came here
to mine Galena -
the ore that is smelted
to produce lead.
You'd expect this important industry
to fuel thriving local economies
and settlements in
the surrounding area.
But little evidence of that
has been found - until now.
In a valley nearby,
trenches are being dug
for huge new electricity cables,
and dozens of archaeologists
have been scouring the ground
after surveys revealed
signs of human activity.
It's a copper coin. See?
It's one of 500 coins
we've found so far.
Thankfully, they were armed with
our dig diary cameras.
As it turns out,
there's treasure to be found.
We've got this dolphin brooch,
with possible enamelling inside.
And we found
a jet spindle whorl.
Half a copper stylus.
I come from Rome to find a Roman
coin here in North Somerset.
What a brilliant way
to start the week!
The archaeologists expected
to find some evidence
of farming communities,
but what they found
stunned everyone.
So we're just on the edge
of the settlement here?
We're on the edge of
the settlement here.
Yeah. Still a huge amount of...
Mike Glyde is lead archaeologist
for the National Grid.
It's his job to make sure the
precious archaeology is excavated
and recorded before
the cables are laid.
This particular area was identified
requiring excavation in advance
of construction, and what we have
found here has far surpassed
anything any of us could
have really predicted.
We have over 1.5 metres
of unbroken stratigraphy,
dating from the late Iron Age
right through to late Saxon
Medieval period, and we've got a
totally unbroken settlement on site.
So we're seeing the huge amount
of social and economic development
of the town in fine detail.
That's amazing. So, basically
what these works have given you
is a cross section through
this town. Absolutely, yeah.
And presumably you knew there was
some Roman archaeology here.
Yeah, there's Roman remains in the
immediate vicinity of here. Yes.
But we are looking at a completely
unknown Roman town.
That's crazy!
I mean, you were expecting a little
bit of Roman activity here.
Yeah. Something fairly light. Yes.
Something it would take you maybe
a few weeks to dig. Exactly.
And how long have you been here?
Two years.
For the Romans, building a network
of roads to these outermost reaches
of the Empire was essential
for moving goods and troops.
And as they took road building
so seriously,
a lot can be learned from
digging one up.
Like this one, that clearly lay
at the heart of this community.
Is that a road? Yes, that is
our third Roman road...
Bob McIntosh is leading the Oxford
archaeology team.
So this is one of four
of our Roman roads.
Four?! All directly on top of each
other.
They're all fourth century -
this is the nicest one.
When does this road date to?
Just past 300.
So this is roughly Constantine.
There's a big phase of
infrastructure projects in Britain
during his reign... Yeah.
...rewarding his supporters
for making him emperor
because he's crowned in Britain
before conquering the rest
of the Roman Empire.
And it fits perfectly with our
settlement going from just
urban sprawl up the valley,
to big road being built through,
demolishing people's houses, which
you can see the foundations of
sticking out through
the road surface.
Constantine, famous for being
the first Roman emperor to convert
to Christianity, was actually
proclaimed emperor
in York in 306 AD.
His reign kick-started a new period
of economic prosperity
for Roman Britons, not least
for those who lived
in this vibrant settlement.
I've come right to the top of the
Mendip Hills to meet
county archaeologist Cat Lodge,
who's been looking at
the wider impact of this newly
discovered road and settlement.
It is fantastic being right up here
on top of the Mendip Hills
and getting this appreciation
of the geography.
Yeah, it's a very different
landscape from what you would
have seen in the Roman period.
It would've been extensive
salt marshes
and rivers weaving in and out.
And we've got the lead mines
over to the east of us here
and our new roadside settlement
down there to the west.
Yep. How's that changing your idea
of the Roman landscape of Mendip?
These routes, they were almost
completely new to us.
So our roadside settlement is really
giving us the possibility
that there was trade off Mendip
into the Bristol Channel.
In the Roman era, the nearest major
trade route for the lead mines
of the Mendip Hills was the epic
Fosse Way,
where it passed just to the
south east.
But the discovery of the new
roadside settlement suggests
there was another trade route,
taking lead straight from the mines
to the coast, where it could be
exported by ship
across the Roman Empire.
And you think that is all linked to
this - this economic activity,
this industrial activity up here
on the Mendip Hills?
I do. I mean, we've got evidence
from the 1950s in the vicinity
of metalworking very close to our
roadside settlement
that's being excavated.
It kind of all leads to that.
It's quite strange, isn't it?
I mean, looking out of this
landscape today,
it's a largely agricultural
landscape,
and you go back into the Roman
period and it seems
that there was more industry
going on back then.
Yeah, in terms of the industry,
I mean, we don't really
see anything like that now.
It's just the lumps and bumps
and earthworks that remain today.
Yeah, and then it's new
infrastructure that is opening up
this opportunity
to look at our heritage.
It really is.
Without these developments and
these infrastructure projects,
we wouldn't be finding sites like
this amazing roadside settlement
and understanding so much more
about the historic environment
around us and our
collective heritage.
Back at the spectacular settlement,
the team have uncovered more
of that heritage.
There's evidence for major butchery,
a bone workshop,
and several wells -
this one still almost intact.
I just found this little bit
of British Romano glass
and it's very nice -
you can see the bubbles.
And this is adding further
evidence of the fact
that this settlement
was a domestic one.
The mix of light industry
and domestic luxury suggests
this was an affluent community,
with this major road
as its main artery.
So this layer that you've got
exposed now, this is the heyday
of this Roman town, then?
Yeah, this is the town
at its peak.
This is also the phase with
by far the most imported finds
from the continent.
So there's plenty
of goods flowing in.
Presumably, they're exporting lead.
Yeah. Yeah. The people living
directly here are not lead miners.
They're living too well
for that. Yeah.
These are merchants or accountants
or some secondary industry
that is making money off of those
lead mines, I would assume. Yeah.
What a place to gain experience
for these young archaeologists,
like 24-year-old Mariah.
Have you find anything exciting
while you've been working here?
Yeah, actually, I found a coin
from the Domitian period.
I found a couple of brooches.
I found a ring, bracelet.
It's been a very good site.
It is amazing, isn't it?
I mean, to have this town in
the middle of countryside...
Honestly, and this is my first,
like, official site
because it's my first job
since university. Is it?
I'm living my best life, I will say.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been very
good to me. It sounds amazing.
I'm going to get a look at
some of the finds in a bit.
Thank you very much.
Bob has gathered together
just a handful of the hundreds
of treasures so far unearthed,
so I can have a closer look.
Some of your lovely finds.
Yeah, so first century,
we've got very early silver coin.
It is Emperor Domitian.
I can see that.
Yes, I can read that!
It's beautiful. So that's 90s AD.
He is only emperor for a few years.
Yeah. That gives us
a really nice, specific date
for that phase of the settlement.
So just as this Roman town
is starting to take off, really.
And already shows
a certain amount of wealth
because an average labourer would
make one of those denarii a day. OK.
So have you got any other finds
that are around that kind of
early phase of the site,
the first century?
Yeah, so the other one,
this is my favourite one -
first-century legionary
standard - issue turf-cutter.
Every Roman legionary would have
one of those in his pack.
So why are they clearing turf?
You cut the turf away
before you dig your ditches.
You're clearing all the vegetation
so you have clear lines of sight
from your defences.
Yeah. That's late first century.
So the soldier who carried
that almost certainly
was in the invasion of Britain
and would have campaigned
through this part of the country
and then has retired here
and kept his turf-cutter.
You could have used that
to de-turf this area. Exactly.
Yeah, that's why I like this one.
That is me 2,000 years ago.
And what about
these beautiful brooches?
When do they date from?
These ones are all first
to second century.
Now that's amazing. Look at that.
So that is particularly
high status, enamel-inlaid.
With the enamel still intact. Yeah!
Which I've not seen before.
Normally you get the settings,
but all the enamel was gone.
Yeah. Oh, that has to be one of the
most beautiful brooches I've seen,
and this hasn't even been
properly conserved yet. No, no.
That is as it came out the ground.
Yeah! Yeah. Wow. What a find.
What about that? That's lovely.
It's probably our best find so far.
Knife handle
for a little pocket knife.
Also from between
two of our road surfaces,
lodged between two cobbles.
I'm sure someone was very sad
to have lost this one.
That is lovely.
It's a dog chasing a...
It is a greyhound
chasing a hare, yeah.
And it is actually
for a folding knife.
The slot for the blade
to slide into is still visible
and you'd have been able to see
the blade between all the legs,
which is particularly stunning.
A little pocket knife
that would have opened like that.
Common motif for the later empire...
Yeah... dog chasing hare,
but you don't normally find it
in such a beautiful representation.
Whoever lost that must have been
really gutted.
Furious, I would imagine.
That's a fantastic set of finds
to tell the story
of this Roman town.
Digging here will finish
in just a few weeks' time,
and what's left
will be covered up once again.
But archaeologists now
have a treasure trove of new finds
to sift through to help them
understand more about
Roman life in Somerset.
MUSIC: Coins For The Eyes by
Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane
♪ We dig for the gods
that leave no bones
♪ For the ship that sailed
in the sunken sea
♪ The vessel locked
in the sky and stones
♪ The famine road
and the merchants keep... ♪
Across southern England
and extending into the west,
there's a huge band of chalk,
making the perfect canvas for art
on a monumental scale.
From horses to warriors,
these huge chalk figures
decorate our hillsides.
Now, we know that some of them
are prehistoric.
Others are the whimsical creations
of eccentric Georgian landowners.
But it can be extraordinarily
difficult to pinpoint the exact date
when such a chalk figure
was created,
and one that's kept
the archaeologists guessing
for centuries is also
the naughtiest of them all.
This enigmatic figure is carved
into the great southern chalk bed
near the small village
of Cerne Abbas in Dorset.
At 55 metres tall,
the Cerne Abbas giant
towers over the Dorset landscape.
With his phallus alone
proudly standing at 11 metres,
he's shocked and delighted people
for hundreds of years.
But incredibly, despite centuries
of speculation,
nobody knows when he was carved.
Mike Allen is one of
the archaeologists
determined to solve this mystery.
Everyone in British archaeology
knows about him,
but we haven't a clue about what
date he is, and that's one thing
that archaeologists
are normally very good at -
saying why they are there,
what was happening
and what date they are.
And in this case,
we can't answer
any of those questions.
Mike's joined forces with National
Trust archaeologist Martin Papworth
in a bid to find the answers.
The Trust acquired this monument
in 1920, and for the centenary,
they, too, wanted to solve
this puzzle.
It seems an ideal opportunity
to date this enigma of the giant.
Huge amounts have been written
about him.
Loads and loads of quite credible
theories of all different periods
of time have been put forward
for him, and we just wanted to know.
One theory is that
the Romans carved this figure
to represent the demigod Hercules,
famous for his strength
and his legendary sexual prowess.
He was often portrayed
holding a club.
But Mike thinks
he could be much older -
possibly similar in age
to other chalk figures
like the Uffington White Horse
in Oxfordshire.
The Uffington White Horse is
late Bronze Age, early Iron Age,
and I think that he fits
perfectly into that.
So I put my money strongly
into the fact that
he's a prehistoric deity
overlooking the landscape
in which they farmed.
The earliest historical record
is from 1694,
when the nearby St Mary's Church
lists repairs to "Ye Giant",
costing three shillings.
This first reference -
not long after Oliver Cromwell
was sworn in as Lord Protector
in 1653, - backs the legend
that the landowner
created this as a caricature
to mock the man known as
England's Hercules.
Martin Papworth is putting
his money on this later date.
There's no history, and it's such
an obvious figure on the hillside,
for goodness' sake. He can't be
much older than 17th century.
In their search for answers,
last year, Martin and Mike
were given special permission
to start excavating.
The figure is deeply carved
into the hillside, so to date it,
they must dig down through nearly
a metre of accumulated deposits
to get to the very earliest phase
of its construction.
We actually have some soil
and some materials
to date when he was constructed,
and little minute snails
that we find in this chalky soil
will help tell us that answer.
Mike can loosely date
the sediment using snail shells,
because some species only appear
after specific points in history.
These shells become date markers,
and when the snails from
the Cerne Abbas giant are analysed,
they reveal an incredible result.
Two of the species in here -
the helicellids - occur in Britain
in the medieval period or later.
And the fact they're here
suggests that the basal deposits
and all the deposits above
must be medieval or later,
which rather blows my idea
out of the water,
that he's a prehistoric monument.
He's clearly medieval or later.
Mike's theory of a Bronze Age date
is out of the running,
but Martin's 17th-century caricature
could still be correct.
For a more precise date,
our archaeological sleuths
have brought in extra firepower.
Phillip Toms is head
of Environmental Sciences
at the University
of Gloucestershire.
Using a type of luminescence dating,
he can date the giant
by finding out precisely
when the sediment underneath it
was last exposed to sunlight.
Within our samples, we're after
sand -sized grains of quartz,
and it's that quartz
that contains our signal
that will tell us how old
our samples are.
The disc that we're using
is just enough to hold the grains
that we need to measure.
There are about 100 grains
on this disc.
And for a typical measurement,
we'd probably measure
about 2,400 individual grains
of sand.
So our disc goes into this machine,
it spins into position.
We fire a green laser
onto each grain of sand
and out comes
the luminescence signal,
and it takes about a week
to measure.
Archaeological science is now going
to enable us to paint the picture
of the landscape
and the society he belongs to,
whereas before we
were just guessing.
It's very exciting.
Whole new ideas about what he
could be and what he symbolises.
A week later, and Phil's lab
has the results
that the Cerne Abbas
archaeology team is waiting for -
an accurate age for their giant.
We've conducted the analysis
and the dates have come out
somewhere between 700 AD
and 1100 AD.
So given most people's views
where it was either prehistoric
or Cromwellian in age, for it
to land in the medieval period
was a bit of a surprise
for everyone.
That means we've got to return
to the site
and think about our
interpretations of it again.
Martin and Mike have been stunned
by these results.
Now they know the Cerne Abbas giant
was created in the medieval period.
Well, we're surprised, aren't we?
This isn't what we expected at all.
I mean, I was convinced
he was post-medieval...
And I was convinced
he was prehistoric.
And I think, you know,
bit of archaeological science
has proven that neither of us
were right and we're both wrong.
It seems archaeologists
and historians
may have missed a big clue
right under their noses.
Everyone seems to have been
carried away with his nakedness
and the member
and no-one had actually really
thought about the obvious.
You know, the abbey
sitting behind us.
Below the giant once lay
Cerne Abbey, founded in 987,
right in the middle of the period
when we now know the giant
was created.
But what connection
could a huge naked figure have
to a Benedictine monastery?
Perhaps historians have focused
on the wrong appendage.
Just right next to his outstretched
hand is, in fact, the abbey,
which was established
at the same time.
The Abbey's wealth was created
largely by pilgrims,
venerating the local holy man,
St Eadwold of Cerne.
Legend has it that Eadwold lived
as a hermit on a nearby hill
after he planted his wooden staff
in the ground there
and it miraculously
grew into a tree.
Perhaps the club is really
a staff sprouting leaves.
Is he St Eadwold?
What do I think? I don't know.
I don't know who he is,
but this medieval date makes
all sorts of theories possible.
For our next dig,
we travel back in time a little,
to the first few centuries
of the early medieval period.
The location is in West Wales,
on a beach right on the tip
of Pembrokeshire.
This is Whitesands Bay, and out
there is the Atlantic Ocean.
The sea looks so benign today,
but this beach in West Wales
gets absolutely battered by storms.
And in 2014, a storm crashed in
and exposed a small cemetery
at the top of the beach,
prompting an archaeological
rescue operation
which is transforming
our understanding
of early medieval Christian
communities here in Wales.
Whoa!
That storm, and the danger
of more to follow,
was a call to arms
for archaeologists,
and soon a rescue mission
to lift and catalogue
the contents of the cemetery
was launched.
In 2016, Digging For Britain
joined the team
from Dyfed Archaeological Trust
and the University of Sheffield
as they made the discovery
that the cemetery contained
a concentration of child burials
almost perfectly preserved
in the sand.
So it seems to be a woman buried
with a baby
in the crook of her arms.
That's right.
That's incredible. Yeah.
Yeah. That's the baby's head, yeah?
Here's the mother's left arm.
It's rare to find this quantity
of infants in a communal cemetery.
It doesn't matter
what date it's from.
Here we've got a large number of
them because the preservation
in the sand has been so good
for skeletal remains.
There had been a late medieval
chapel on the site,
but beneath its foundations
were graves dating back
as far as the seventh century.
I of ant mortality rates were high
in this period, and the sand here
has preserved evidence
that enormous care
went into burying these children.
So what we've got here
is a really rather nice bone pin,
possibly a shroud pin.
And some of the burials that
we've had here, you can see
from the position of the skeleton -
the feet particularly -
that these people look like
they were wrapped in shrouds
when they were buried.
Five years on, and the dig team
has returned for another season.
I'm joining them to see
if they've found any new evidence
to suggest why so many children
were buried here.
Ken Murphy is the site director.
Ken, when I last caught up
with this site,
you had a lot of infant burials
at higher levels. We did.
We've still had loads and loads
of infant burials.
How many burials
have you had in entirety?
Entirety, about 250 together.
That's over several years.
But this year we've had about
150 in this quite small area.
One, two, three.
In the days before I arrived,
there was a fascinating discovery
that may provide some answers...
Do you want to come and have a look?
...as to why so many children
were buried here.
They were often placed in cists -
little stone-lined graves.
But this large cist appears
to have had some special status.
It almost looks as if they're
trying to get these children
as close to whatever
the central feature is.
Surrounded by those tiny skeletons
and decorated with carefully laid
quartz pebbles,
it was a tense moment
for the archaeologists
excavating this mysterious feature.
We've come down from this level,
it had a capping on the top.
Two burials have already been
extracted from here.
You can see where that slate
has been dragged out, splayed out.
So we're going to get all that
cleared away
before we investigate this
any further.
But at the moment,
this is a bit of a mystery to us.
We don't quite know
what's going on there.
A few days later, and I'm keen
to see what they learned
about this intriguing structure.
So, again, you've got this central
box-like feature there,
so what's this?
We thought it was going to be
a special grave.
It doesn't seem to be.
It seems to be more of a shrine,
so people tried to get their infants
as close as possible to this
to be buried.
One part of the feature
has even been cut away
to bury a child's body
as close as possible.
It's been smashed away here.
Smashed away. That's right.
It's quite an effort to go to.
So this is a very special place
where people wanted
to bury their newborn children
who obviously didn't survive.
Before there was even a chapel here,
this was clearly a sacred place,
where people buried their children
around this mysterious shrine,
and it dates to a time
in the seventh century
when Christianity was beginning
to take hold in Wales.
And Ken's found more evidence.
So, Ken, you've not had many finds
coming out of this site,
but then you do have spectacular
ones like this. It's lovely.
That's right, we don't really get
small finds as such,
but we do get these, and this
is a very good example of a...
Well, obviously
a cross-incised stone.
It would have been originally
standing upright as a grave marker,
but it had been reused
in our cist or shrine
as a side slab.
As far as we're aware,
that's the first time
we've actually got an incised cross
actually in situ, as it were.
Most of the known are just
loose in churches,
or in churchyards or whatever.
So actually to get one in situ
is really quite special. Yeah.
And the edges are... The edges
are really sharp. They are.
You can practically see the lines
where it's been... Absolutely.
...carved away again and again.
And we're completely clear
that this is Christians at work,
then. Yes. Oh, yes.
Not much doubt.
Similar examples
to this intriguing feature
can be seen across the water
in Ireland,
where small, rectangular cairns
have also been found
built on the earliest
Christian sites.
So do you think
there were connections
between this site
and Ireland, then?
Yeah, I mean, this actual site has
got a very sort of Irish feel to it.
This central structure we get
in there, circular structure -
is similar to some sites you get
on the west coast of Ireland.
From Dublin to here is probably
a day's journey by sea.
From here to...
Inland to eastern Wales
is probably three or four days
on foot or by horse.
And the Irish connection
doesn't stop there.
Records show a chapel was built
on this site centuries later,
and it was dedicated to Ireland's
most famous saint - Patrick.
In earlier centuries,
religious sites and cemeteries
were often separate.
Burial grounds like these,
with chapels later built on them,
are precursors to the churchyards
we're more familiar with.
Although archaeologists approach
their work objectively,
it's always poignant to excavate
tiny graves like these.
How's it going, Hayley?
How many infants
have you excavated here?
About five?
This bit was a bit of a wobble.
Had a bit of an emotional moment.
Yeah.
It's always poignant, I think,
digging child burials,
because, you know, you think
about the people that placed
that little body in the ground.
Exactly.
To find out more about the early
medieval people who lived and died
in West Wales,
archaeologist Cat Jarman
has travelled
to Sheffield University,
where skeletons from
the dig are being analysed.
Laid out in this lab
are some of the child skeletons
from the Whitesands dig.
Katie Hemer is a bioarchaeologist
like me...
Hi, Katie. Hi.
...meaning she forensically
analysed the bones to find out
more about the people
they belong to.
Such tiny bones, aren't they?
Yeah. This individual is about
two to three years of age.
These lower long bones here,
I mean, this looks very,
very curved to me. They do.
There's curvature in that one,
and there's quite notable bending
in this one, as well.
That evidence suggests
that maybe this individual
experienced Vitamin D
deficiency - rickets -
because you often get bowing
of the long bones in rickets.
This microscopic image
of an infant's tooth
shows how Katie's forensic analysis
found more evidence of widespread
Vitamin D deficiency.
You can notice there's sort of
these lines of blotchy
sort of black patches,
and that's basically dentine
that hasn't formed properly
because this individual
was deficient in vitamin D.
And it's really interesting
what this is actually telling us,
because vitamin D - you get that
from sunlight, don't you?
So presumably this means this child
was not getting enough sunlight.
What can you say about
why this is happening?
Perhaps they were poorly
and they were being kept indoors,
and therefore they weren't
getting, you know,
that exposure
that they really needed
and maybe that in time actually
led to them unfortunately dying.
Another skeleton backs
the archaeologists' theory
that some people travelled from
far away to the Whitesands site.
Katie's studied the sulphur content
in this young woman's bones.
Sulphur relates to the underlying
geology of a region.
The sulphur goes up
into the soil and the plants,
and then the people
eat those plants.
And we actually found
that their sulphur signature
was very different from the rest
of the people that we sampled.
Everybody else looked like they
were growing up on the coast,
but this person actually
had an inland sulphur signature.
Oh, so she's actually moved
and ended up there
later in her life? I think so.
I think that's what the sulphur
is showing, because this person's
signature was more consistent
with another population
that are sampled from south-east
Wales, much more inland,
really different from those
on the Pembrokeshire coast.
And that's quite interesting,
because it's as a woman, as well,
so it tells us something
about mobility among women
in this time and place
that we didn't really know
from other sources.
And I think it's also important
to our understanding
of the community. Not everyone
that was buried at the site
were local to that region
as children.
People were moving there,
people were being buried there
that weren't necessarily
native to that area.
So I think that's also really
important to our understanding
of who these people were,
what this community was all about
and what was going on
in early medieval Wales.
It's very rare to get
that much information
out of an early medieval
Welsh community like that.
So the fact that we're finding out
about children, especially -
we don't get children preserved
in cemeteries like this.
So the stuff that we can now find
out about disease, about illness,
just how people lived in those
communities, it's just adding
so much to the picture of the past
that we just didn't have before.
♪ Come and search
for we would search
♪ And looking for
a scarred land... ♪
Next, a return visit
to a place we recently featured
when exploring the south of England.
It's a vast
Special Area of Conservation
that straddles both
Hampshire and Wiltshire.
Salisbury Plain.
The plain consists of
around 300 square miles
of mostly chalky downland -
about half of it
used by the military.
But its rich past means
the sound of busy archaeologists
can often be heard
above the distant explosions.
I'm visiting a fantastic project
where archaeology
is being used as therapy,
but they're digging this particular
site because it's under threat.
It's threatened by
unscrupulous people
wishing to make financial gain
out of plundering,
looting our rich archaeological
heritage -
a heritage that belongs
to all of us.
It all started when
this pocket of land was surveyed
for potential use for construction.
Richard. Hello! I thought
I 'd find you in a trench
somewhere on Salisbury Plain.
Somewhere on Salisbury Plain. Yeah.
Well, you've chosen a good one.
MOD archaeologist Richard Osgood
commissioned a geophysical
survey of the site
that, to everyone's surprise,
revealed signs of
an early medieval cemetery - right
where the building was planned.
Usually, after the evaluation,
you've just left it there and said,
"Well, you know, we know
there's archaeology there."
"If we want to develop around here,
we can do that elsewhere."
Really good point.
What prompted the excavation here?
The problem for us is that when
we had the report given to us,
we were told as part of that,
'"We're really sorry,
'"but word has got out
about this particular site
' "and it's vulnerable.'"
And the reason it's vulnerable
is because there are going to be
metallic objects in these graves
and sadly it's at risk for these
groups called nighthawkers
who are, you know, non-scrupulous
metal detectors, frankly.
Metal detectorists
can be great on site,
but there's a group that just
don't play nicely, frankly. And...
I mean, if you've got people
coming in with metal detectors
and just digging down
to individual metal objects
in the ground, they're
disturbing these burials.
And then you lose any context,
don't you? I don't know,
it makes you weep, really,
it's a real shame.
Joining Richard on this
archaeological rescue mission
are volunteers from
Operation Nightingale.
This MOD project helps ex-servicemen
and women rehabilitate
after serving on the battlefield.
One of them
is Falklands War veteran Sean.
Sean, looks like
you've nearly finished. Oh, yeah.
We're on the final phase
of extraction of this skeleton.
And the most delicate part.
It's just a case of
very, very carefully
going round the edge
and then very, very carefully
loosening it
and then taking a gulp
and putting it in the bucket. Yeah.
And, Sean, do you think it's
the archaeology that's helped you,
or is it in being together
with people, do you...?
It's a bit of both,
but as you're digging away,
you zone out and it does stop you
thinking about the bad things.
But I find it just gives me
the peace to think,
'" Right, this is what I've
got to do next week.
'"This is where I'm going now
with the rest of my life.'"
I'm just waiting on news now,
and I might have a place
at Bradford University doing
a mature archaeology
undergraduates course. Really? Yeah.
At 65. Starting this year?
At 65. That's amazing.
There is light at the end
of the tunnel.
Now, look, we've been chatting,
I've been stopping you...
I 'd better get on... lifting
that skull. And it's drying out.
Ready? Ready.
Two-six.
Come on, darling.
All right.
Based on the team's latest findings,
this mysterious cemetery
has been dated to around
the seventh century AD.
So good early medieval date to it,
and that's from the artefacts that
we're finding now in these burials.
We did have a bit of excitement,
thought we might have some
early Bronze Age because there was
some nice prehistoric material.
There was a flint barbed
and tanged arrowhead,
it looked really nice,
and then that central thing!
This circle, that looks
kind of prehistoric to me.
Yeah, it does, but, no,
that's seventh century, as well.
And there was nothing with it,
disappointingly, because I dug it.
But for that person,
the mound was their testimony,
because you'd have seen it from
quite a distance away, I think.
So that's the kind of founder burial
and then all these other burials
are placed in later.
That's right. I think
the cemetery's built up
over, you know, a period
of 20, 30 years, maybe.
May not be a long period of time.
This impressive grave may have
been that of a local leader.
It's thought to have been covered
in a mound of bright white chalk,
which would have been visible
for miles around.
So we're right next to the burial
with the amethyst bead.
Again, nice size.
The surrounding graves are
much more modest but, in contrast,
do contain a range of fascinating
seventh-century grave goods.
Oh, wow.
We've just found another silver
coil, and this little coin.
There are bronze and silver rings...
Another ring just here.
It's all starting to come out.
...even a fragile
but recognisable bone comb.
Amongst these personal objects,
they discover small knives...
...and flint arrowheads...
...as well as some larger weapons.
So what's it made of? Iron.
We learn something about
who these people were
from the artefacts
buried with them -
objects they may have used
or worn in daily life,
or which may have been placed
in the ground by mourners.
But there are also clues
in the bones themselves,
with experts on hand
to help decipher them.
That's... If you remember me saying
about the greater sciatic notch?
So there's no difference, male
and female... No... This, no,
this means nothing at all.
Sharing her wealth of knowledge
is Jackie McKinley,
osteoarchaeologist
with Wessex Archaeology.
It's just brilliant having someone
with your level of expertise on site
because you can bring that
biography to the skeletons.
It's not just a skeleton -
it tells you so much
about who that person was
in life. Exactly.
I mean, this one here,
for instance, there's two...
There's two individuals in here.
But for me, the formation process
that's interesting
is, one, the soil
is really, really loose -
it suggests there might have been
something over the top of here,
maybe a wooden board
or something like that,
and stuff's slowly dropped in
over time.
So it'd be really interesting
to know if they were related
to each other. Yeah.
And if we do do DNA analysis
and they are related,
we will be able to see whether
it's a first-generation,
second -generation -
how much of a gap there is.
There's layers and layers of
information. There is, there is.
One of the things in archaeology
that is so intimate
are the human remains themselves.
The volunteers here are finding
new purpose through their work,
and protecting the valuable history
of these early medieval
plain-dwellers from destruction
by reckless modern treasure-hunters.
And by the end of the dig,
they've uncovered 21 graves.
Now, Richard has brought
some of the most exciting finds
from these graves
to the Digging For Britain tent
for a thorough inspection.
Richard, that was such a wonderful
dig, and you could see the way
that the veterans
were really benefiting
from the whole process
of archaeology.
It's counterintuitive,
isn't it, in some ways,
that you take
traumatised individuals
to a site with a load of burials.
But I think if you're finding
really lovely items
and you're concentrating so hard
in excavating them, it does work.
And in terms of finds, then,
these are some of the grave goods
that you discovered.
Yeah, we found quite a few.
I think probably about a third
of the graves had items in them -
some of them in better condition
than others.
But, nonetheless, I think they
tell you a really interesting story
about the seventh century at this
particular part of Salisbury Plain.
So we've got an iron knife
and an iron spearhead here.
Yeah, that's right.
So those were buried with an adult
male, on the edge of the area,
so maybe that's the earliest
burial that we've got on the site.
Yeah. And you move into
the seventh century
and we get a lot of jewellery
and it tends to be with
the female burials.
These are beautiful beads.
I know! Is that amethyst?
It is. It's exquisite, isn't it?
I mean, we've had quite a few
of these from a necklace.
The crafting that goes into
something like that is incredible,
and these have come from a distance.
So these have been traded
over quite a large area.
You get these over on
the Eastern Mediterranean.
I mean, maybe even as far as India.
This is ideas and goods
moving over big distances
at this point in time.
Some of them are tiny. Look at that
beautiful little blue bead.
Is that glass? It is.
I think that's my favourite.
The craft in that, to make it
this little flower shape...
Yeah... is just delightful,
isn't it?
And the colour, I mean,
it's just beautiful.
So summing up, then, Richard,
will you be doing further analysis
on the bones and teeth?
Yeah, that's right. That's the next
stage - all the 22 individuals
that came from this site will be
assessed to have a look and see
whether there are people
that have moved big distances,
or whether these are just
Wiltshire folk
that love the fashions
of the classical empire.
♪ Coins for the eyes
and keys for the door
♪ Fortress, grave goods
chambered too
♪ Abandoned villages
Rumours of war... ♪
I think sometimes history
as a subject
can seem quite abstract,
even esoteric.
And what I love about archaeology
is that it's a different way
of looking at the past.
It's all about the physical remains.
It's tangible.
And it can be such a great way
of engaging young people
with history - especially,
as we see in our next story,
when that history
is actually so recent.
Our final dig takes place
across the Irish Sea
in Northern Ireland,
near a village called Ballykelly
in County Londonderry.
In the grounds of a rectory,
a team of forensic archaeologists
and local students are searching
for the location of
a top-secret aircraft crash that's
been a mystery for many decades.
Immediately after
the plane crashed in 1942,
much of the debris
was quickly cleared
to prevent the highly classified
equipment on board
falling into enemy hands.
Dig leader Jonny McNee
has spent 18 months
painstakingly searching
for anything that remains.
What we're seeing
at the minute coming out
is just decomposed aluminium,
and that's a good indication
that this site that we're on,
that we're on the right spot,
that this is aircraft-related.
So it's a promising first sign.
During World War I I, aircraft
flying from nearby RAF Ballykelly
were helping to protect
vulnerable convoys of ships
bringing desperately needed supplies
from North America.
At the height of the Battle
of the Atlantic in 1942,
so many ships, materials and men
were being lost
to the lethal German U - boats
that the war itself
was in the balance.
Allied airmen were pushing
themselves and their aircraft
up to - and sometimes beyond -
their limits.
Keep on, keep on going,
Stephen, please.
The remaining debris that Jonny
and his team are searching for
is the result of one air crew
risking all on a secret mission.
Today we're looking for
tangible traces of the aircraft
that we can lift and retrieve
and preserve and put on display.
But, also, we're looking
for evidence
that will try to confirm to us
that our scenario of how the
aircraft crashed is actually here.
So the primary one is to say
this is the site of Beaufort AW271.
This is where it crashed.
These Bristol Beauforts
were torpedo bombers
based at Ballykelly Airfield,
testing cutting -edge
radar technology
enabling them to detect and
home in on surfaced submarines.
But it wasn't just the radar
that was experimental.
Records show that this crew
of Beaufort AW271
were also ordered to undertake
a pioneering experiment
to test if an injured airman
could be safely parachuted
from a plane
by pushing a dummy with a chute
out of a hatch.
The exercise went
catastrophically wrong.
The aircraft has come over
the top of the rectory,
with the parachute
unfortunately deployed outside
and wrapped around the tailplane.
It's just come over the trees
and has just belly-flopped
down onto the ground here
and exploded, killing three crew.
Flight Lieutenant Richard Holdsworth
and Duncan Livingstone,
both aged 22,
and 31 -year-old Flight Sergeant
Stanley Chadwick, all died.
It's been very emotional
because we're having to deal with
the tragic deaths of two dads
and an uncle,
so it's not like any other dig
where we turn up and we know
the airmen or the air crew
have bailed out safely
and all we're going to be
finding is parts.
Jonny was asked to find the crash
site by relatives of the crew.
Thankfully, there have been
no discoveries of human remains.
But evidence of a shattered airframe
is beginning to reveal itself.
I'm just wondering, could this be
a propeller blade?
But, again, we'll need to...
We'll need to clean, you know,
go back to our records, you know,
get an idea of what measurement,
but there's a nice curved edge here
that this... That's what
this could be, you know,
as the engines were being
revved up and slowed down
to try to get the aircraft
just to stay in the air
to make a controlled landing,
this thing has hit the ground
with these spinning
and this has just sheared off.
So there's a definite smooth edge
and a thinner edge here.
So we'll get that away
out of the sunlight,
get that bagged up and tagged.
It's now beyond doubt
that this is the crash site
that's lain forgotten
for almost 80 years.
Working with Jonny today
is daughter Grace,
who's joined by some of
her fellow college students.
It's very eroded,
but it seems cylinder...
Yeah, it's very, as you say, very...
You can see the metal coming
through here, as well. Right.
That's, you know, a substantial bit,
you know, it could be part
of the engine or something
like that, but well done.
Well spotted. Keep going.
The students
are just a few years younger
than the two flight lieutenants
who died here.
That's what that is. But this stuff
here that you've just found,
this is really exciting.
That's Perspex from our Beaufort,
showing clear evidence
of the fire that follows.
So, no, great, is that.
Well done. Get it into your bag.
And just write, you know, with one
of the Sharpies, where you found it.
The young team were asked
by the airmen's relatives
to help reclaim
any remaining wreckage.
Definitely a responsibility
because they're the ones trusting us
to be looking through where
their family actually passed away.
I don't know. It's just...
It feels like it's
sort of an emotional responsibility
more than anything.
So keep your eyes in for anything
like this and we can get the dates,
and also to see if you can find
any of the tips, you know,
the little pointy ends that were
the business end of the bullet,
keep having a wee look.
Yeah, that's...
You can see there,
that's nice and clean.
We've been talking to
Richard Holdsworth's daughter,
and she's just been telling me
that Richard wanted to learn
how to fly since he was
a young boy.
And it's just so sad
that what he loved so much
was his downfall in the end.
There is one last heavyweight find
for Jonny to remove.
It's concentric layers of lead
on a central column, probably
something to do with keeping
the weight in the tailplane down,
but we'll go and check
our schematic drawings
and we'll check to see what it is.
But nothing that's going to need us
to check our insurance very quickly.
So I'm just going to...
The site can be covered over
once again,
as the team have found
the last remnants of the plane,
and have hopefully brought
some long -awaited closure
for the families.
This has definitely been about
the human story -
for the crew and their memory,
for the relatives of the crew,
but the most important thing I think
for me and the level of trust
that was put on the team today
from the family members was,
was there a thorough clean-up
of the site in 1942?
Were their loved ones' remains
taken away?
And we can say
a most definite yes to that.
To thank you for the sacrifice...
Four months later, Jonny's team
returns to the crash site,
joined by the crew's relatives
and the RAF
to honour and commemorate the three
brave young men's sacrifice.
Ballykelly was an emotional,
intriguing dig.
Johnny and his daughter Grace
joined me
with those shattered remnants
of Bristol Beaufort AW271
to see what else
they can tell us about this crash.
This was a crash that you knew
quite a lot about
from the documentary evidence.
You knew how it happened,
with the parachute
wrapping around the tail.
Did you find any evidence
of that actual process
of the crash itself?
We think we might have got
one wee bit.
The crew were asked to simulate
pushing an injured airman
out of this little window here,
but as they pushed the dummy
and the parachute -
and we have an eyewitness
account of this -
they saw the parachute blossom
and wrap itself around
the tailplane.
So one minute the aircraft is
flying along, and the next minute
this parachute has wrapped
around the tail
and just completely
retards the speed.
And, poignantly, we found the piece
of burnt parachute cord. Yeah.
So that could have been
the remaining piece of evidence
of the actual cause of the crash,
then? Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Grace, you were there with
your dad at the Ballykelly site
doing this excavation. Have you done
many excavations like this before?
I have been doing them
since 2010, so lots of them.
Despite the early start
to the morning
and the wet
Northern Ireland weather,
I have actually really enjoyed it.
So he's not dragging you along.
Not really.
No, you're going willingly.
You're enjoying it. Yes.
And some of your friends
joined you, as well.
Yes, there's... There were six
of us, like, originally,
and then moved up to eight.
And did you find any of
these finds here? Yeah.
So once the digger had taken back
the first layer of soil,
the students went in and did
a grid search of the area,
and we found bullets
that have exploded...
These ones? ..within the fire. Yeah.
Yeah. So they haven't been shot.
They've just exploded because
of the heat. Just exploded
in the intense fire. Yeah. Yeah.
And then what's that?
That's an instrument dial.
And that's just the face.
Again, it's been blackened
by the heat and the fire,
but it was just one of the only
sort of small, recognisable
parts that we recovered.
And it really was very fragmentary
evidence, wasn't it?
Because, you know, this is a site
which has been cleaned up. Yes.
And this escaped recovery, this is
part of the propeller, is it? Yes.
What's it made of?
That's pure aluminium,
and it just shows you the ravages
of the fire. It's heavy.
Yeah. This was found in one
of the pits that was created
by the aircraft
as it fell to the ground.
And here we've got photographs
of those three young men
who died in this tragic accident.
And, actually, you're much closer in
age to these young men than I am.
How did it feel to be
excavating at this site?
It really put into perspective,
like, what they were put through -
at such a young age, as well,
and helped put in more emotion
to the dig, as well.
I mean, this is something that you
would normally be reading about
in history books at school.
Does it feel more real to you,
having done this?
It definitely means a lot more,
being hands-on with the projects
rather than just learning about
it because it, like, brings
more of a fun aspect into it, being
able to see it in real life.
Are you looking for
new recruits, Jonny? We are.
We have about 15 or 16, I am told,
that want to fill the shoes,
and we're going to go out
and look for another aircraft
and hopefully we'll
offer them the opportunity.
I really did enjoy it.
Next time on Digging For Britain,
a discovery in Scotland
that could rewrite
the history books.
We think this is maybe one of
the first pieces of evidence
that suggests the Picts
were writing. Ooh!
A community digs under Rochdale
Town Hall to discover its past.
I mean, the Industrial Revolution
is arguably the most important
event in human history.
And a Bronze Age find
that has stunned
even veteran archaeologists.
This is kind of once-in-a-career
kind of thing.
♪ Come and search,
for we would search
♪ And looking for a scarred land
♪ And dig for us as we have done
♪ To lay the dead out in the sun
♪ To lay us dead out in the sun. ♪