Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 19, Episode 3 - The First Circle of Stonehenge - full transcript

♪♪♪

-Stonehenge...
Britain's Neolithic concentric

circles of ancient stone,

one of the most iconic
and mysterious monuments

ever constructed in Europe.

For generations, people have
argued over its origin,

its meaning, and its purpose.

But now a dedicated team
of archaeologists

and scientists have made
an incredible discovery,

one that rewrites the entire
history of Stonehenge.

The story begins with a series
of extraordinary digs



conducted over
the last 10 years,

roughly 150 miles
from Stonehenge

in western Wales.

Using the latest science
and their own determination,

archaeologists have unearthed
the remains

of another immense stone circle,

dismantled in order
to create Stonehenge,

a monument that stood
centuries earlier,

in another part of Britain.

"The First Circle
of Stonehenge."

♪♪♪

- "Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible in part by

contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.

Thank you.



♪♪♪

-In the south
of the British Isles,

on the high plateau
of Salisbury Plain,

stands Stonehenge,

the most iconic prehistoric
monument in Europe,

built 4,000 to 5,000 years ago

by a Stone Age people
now long forgotten.

♪♪♪

The looming megaliths
cast an impressive shadow,

but how they ended up here
is still unknown.

♪♪♪

The true origins of Stonehenge

have remained shrouded
in mystery.

But all that is changing.

British archaeologist
Mike Parker Pearson leads a team

that has been transforming
our understanding

of these ancient stones.

♪♪♪

-Although my work involves
many different aspects,

many different countries,

Stonehenge I think
really got its hooks into me.

As an archaeologist, you can't
not be interested in Stonehenge.

-The huge Sarsen stones

are what usually get
the most attention,

but Mike is interested

in the often-overlooked
bluestones.

-The bluestones are much smaller

than the great big stones
of Stonehenge.

They're generally not much
bigger than the human frame.

-Mike's excavations in 2008

revealed that,
despite their size,

they are central
to the Stonehenge story.

-When Stonehenge started out,

it looked very different
to how it looks now.

♪♪♪

-Mike's early work revealed

the original configuration
of Stonehenge.

♪♪♪

At the edge of the site,

he uncovered a ring
of ancient holes

that used to hold
the bluestones...

evidence Stonehenge used to look
very different from today.

These holes demonstrate
that the original monument,

dating from around 3000 BC,

was an enormous circle
made entirely of bluestones.

-So, this was a major surprise.

We'd always thought
that the first Stonehenge

was just a monument of earth,
a ditch and a bank,

but it had actually been
a stone monument

right from the beginning.

-For Mike, this revelation
was the start of a quest

to discover
the origins of Stonehenge...

a quest that would stretch
over more than a decade.

-To understand Stonehenge, the
secret is in the bluestones...

To find out
where they came from and why.

♪♪♪

-There is a long-held legend
about Stonehenge,

first recorded
in the Middle Ages.

♪♪♪

It tells of the wizard Merlin,

who led men westward,
to Ireland,

the Land of Giants... ♪♪♪

...where he found the stones

and, using his magical powers,
transported them to England.

♪♪♪

-Mythology and archaeology
make uncomfortable bedfellows,

but sometimes there are
kernels of truth.

We know about Troy from the
stories of Homer, for example,

and archaeologists
have sometimes wondered,

might there be something
in the Merlin tale?

-There may be,
because it turns out

the original bluestones
are not local.

-The bluestones actually
come from the far west.

It's not Ireland,
but it's almost there.

It's west Wales.

In fact, at the time
that the story was written down,

the west of Wales
had actually been regarded

as part of Ireland.

-Could there be
an archaeological foundation

to this fantastical story
of giants and magic?

A century ago,
archaeologists determined

that Stonehenge's
bluestone megaliths

came from the Preseli Hills
of Pembrokeshire, Wales,

almost 150 miles west
of Salisbury Plain.

This westerly direction

fits with the details
of the Merlin myth.

♪♪♪

In 2010, to understand why
Stonehenge was built

with stones from so far away,

Mike went to Wales to hunt
for the quarries

where they were mined.

Little did he know that he would
make a far greater discovery...

that once mined, these ancient
bluestones first formed

an even older,
long-forgotten monument.

This secret history
revolutionizes the understanding

of how and why
Stonehenge came to be.

♪♪♪

The investigation to pinpoint
the precise source

of the bluestones in Wales
gets under way.

♪♪♪

But the Preseli Hills
are vast...

and peppered with countless
outcrops of volcanic rock,

any one of which could be

where the Stonehenge bluestones
were mined.

♪♪♪

By comparing samples from
the Stonehenge bluestones

with rocks in the Preseli Hills,

20th-century geologists
made a crude match

with a couple
of southern outcrops.

But Mike isn't convinced.

He wants to find evidence
of quarrying activity,

and to ensure he digs
in the right place,

he needs the most up-to-date
geological analysis of the area.

♪♪♪

Geologist Richard Bevins
has mapped and sampled

hundreds of Preseli outcrops.

Each one is unique.

-Examining the rocks
of this area,

there... there are
subtle differences.

[ Clinking ]

♪♪♪

You have to have experienced
a lot of exposure

to spot the minor differences

which become critical.

-Richard's research is critical

when comparing
the Stonehenge bluestones

with the Welsh outcroppings.

But it alone is not enough.

With the help of Jane Evans,
Mike and Richard also use

the latest tools of geochemistry
to learn more.

♪♪♪

-The idea that we might be able
to use these methods

to pin down the absolute origin,
possibly, of some of these rocks

was a fascinating challenge.

I don't think
that it's ever been used

in the archaeological
context before,

so I think this was a first.

-Bluestone samples
from both Stonehenge

and the Preseli outcrops
are pulverized...

[ Machine clacking ]

transformed into
the finest sand...

then panned, like gold,
to separate out the minerals.

-We can look at the chemical
compositions of small crystals

for lots of different elements,

and then we can do
a matching of those elements,

almost like a fingerprint.

-A favorite mineral marker
is zircon,

nature's geological clock.

-Zircon is a very robust mineral

that never gets affected
by geological processes

and is, therefore, very good
for dating rocks.

-From the moment
zircon is formed,

the radioactive uranium atoms
inside it

decay into lead
at a steady rate.

By measuring the ratio
of uranium to lead

in a sample of rock,

one can determine a unique
isotopic signature

to calculate its precise age.

The results are game-changing.

The zircon age of
the Stonehenge samples

doesn't match the dates

for the outcroppings
suggested in the 20th century.

Instead, based on this key
research and other analysis,

two new outcrops are identified
as the source of the bluestones.

♪♪♪

-That was a really
exciting moment.

What the geologists had
discovered was not just

that archaeologists
and geologists

had been looking
in the wrong place

for the best part of 100 years,

but that here was somewhere
where we could actually

find the quarry
where monoliths were extracted.

-With the chemical analyses
of the stones

guiding them to look
in new locations,

Mike and his team
have discovered

the original
Stonehenge quarries.

Reality is replacing myth,

and the secrets that lay
within the ancient quarries

can now be revealed.

♪♪♪

But when were the stones
removed from the quarry?

It's time to dig.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

♪♪♪

In 2014, a full-scale study

at the outcrops
of Craig Rhos-y-felin

and the imposing Carn
Goedog gets under way.

♪♪♪

The team is looking for signs
that prehistoric people

extracted stone here
thousands of years ago.

♪♪♪

-We've got a date for 153,

and it's everything above that.

♪♪♪

-It isn't long
before the digs confirm

what the geology
had indicated...

clear evidence of quarrying of
Stonehenge's bluestone pillars.

Some of it is in plain sight.

-What we've got here are pillars

that have actually
been detached, ready to go.

One here, one there, one there,

and they're really like
a pack of cards

that have slipped,
one, two, three.

Just here, we have a wedge mark

where somebody has chiseled

just at that point when these
two were at the same height

to actually split them off,

and that must have been
the moment

when that fissure
opened right up

that this stone slid downwards.

-In the dig at the base
of the outcrop,

the team uncovers
strangely positioned stones,

suggesting the existence
of a bluestone production line.

-These provide
lots of pivot points

so that you can actually swing
and tip the pillar

so the bluestone
can then be balanced onto here,

and then we've got one end
on this trestle

and another one on this one,

and then you're poised
to get the bluestone away

and down to the valley.

♪♪♪

-But how did the stones travel
nearly 150 miles

to Salisbury Plain?

In the past, archaeologists
assumed the quarries

were located on
the southern slopes of Preseli,

which would have made it easier
to move the stones by sea

for the journey east

and avoid trekking
over mountains.

♪♪♪

But the recently
discovered quarries

are on the northern slopes
of the hills,

which suggests the stones
may have travelled overland.

-I think that there's a much
more plausible possibility

that they took those stones
as far as they could by land.

There's a much more feasible
land route

from the north side
going round the Preselis

and then picking up the natural
routeways that have been formed

by the system of valleys
in South Wales.

-Dragging these stones,

each the size and weight
of a small car,

almost 150 miles
seems a staggering feat

for Stone Age peoples.

Would it have been possible?

♪♪♪

James Dilley and Luke Winter
are experimental archaeologists.

-The Neolithic period
has a very small amount

of fragmentary evidence,

and what we can do
with experimental archaeology

is to start filling those gaps.

-They recreate circumstances
as they were

in the ancient past,

using only materials
and tools available then.

-So, the tools that we've found
in archaeology

may appear simple.
They're just rocks.

Some are sharp. Some are pointy.

But actually, they've been
very carefully made.

They've selected raw materials

that lend their characteristics
to work really well.

♪♪♪

So, the stone blade
is actually housed

inside this piece
of red deer antler here.

And the protein that makes up
this antler is so tough

and strong that it's...
It's not going to break.

I would have to put this
under huge force

to actually break this,
so it's really

such a great material
to be using as carpentry.

♪♪♪

-Here at the Ancient
Technology Centre,

they are testing
whether the bluestones

could have been transported
on wooden sleds.

-If you consider the route,
for example,

from Preseli to Stonehenge,

it's 140 miles across
all terrains, valleys.

And so what...
What became really apparent

was that we needed
to work out a method

that would encompass all those
terrains and make it feasible...

how you can take a stone,
encase it,

so that you can drag it
over any number of surfaces.

-Luke first experimented
with this method in 2018,

based on evidence collected
from Indonesia, Germany,

and even ancient Egypt.

-We looked at ethnographic
evidence for the way

that people have moved
sledges in recent times,

and we looked at
pictorial references

of how people were moving
heavy things 5,000 years ago,

and we incorporated that
to develop the sledge idea.

The stone we're fitting
the cradle round today

is about 1.2 tons,

and the bluestones
that came from Preseli,

they range in size from around
1.2 to about 3.2 tons,

so this is the smaller end
of the scale

for the bluestones.

So, this is called
a tusk tenon joint.

We have clear,
really solid evidence

for this type of joint
from the Neolithic.

When it goes together,
it's still reasonably loose,

and the thing that tightens it

is the peg
that drives through the hole.

♪♪♪

-Experimental archaeology
has demonstrated

just how effective these
Neolithic sleds could have been.

♪♪♪

-You can see we've got
two ends of the rope

running up the field.

We're going to split you down,
15 on each side.

-Today we're going to attempt
to pull this

with schoolchildren.

Obviously, we doubt
whether the Preseli stones

were moved by children.
We don't know that,

but we assume teams of adults,

muscular, strong, fit people.

So it's a real test.

-So, everyone's got a good,
firm grip on the rope?

Yep? No half measures.

Good, firm grip.

3, 2, 1.

Pull!

Go, go!

Go, go, go!

[ Children speaking
indistinctly ]

♪♪♪

Go, go, go!

Someone tell us when to stop.

♪♪♪

Okay, drop the rope

and give yourselves
a big round of applause.

-I thought that was fantastic.
So, that was just pulled.

So, that's nearly 1 1/2 tons
with the timber frame,

and that was pulled
by 30 13-year-olds.

We probably did 35,
40 meters up the slope,

and it's up an incline,
and I think it...

once again, it really...

It sort of shows
that this... this theory works.

You can pull a heavy weight
on a sled on raw ground

without the need
for huge timber arrangements

and sleeper trackways
or rollers.

And actually,
it was really surprising

how efficient it became.

Half the team didn't even seem
to be pulling much.

But fantastically successful.

- 1, 2, 3, yay!
- Yay!

♪♪♪

-The quarry excavations revealed

the ingenious
stone extraction techniques

of the Neolithic people.

And experimental archaeology
has shown

how the multi-ton bluestones

might have been transported
over land.

♪♪♪

Back at the quarries,

the archaeologists
have unearthed a new mystery

sparked by the charred remains
of a Neolithic snack.

In 2014, at the Craig
Rhos-y-felin quarry,

the team excavates
hazelnut shells

near a Stone Age fire pit... ♪♪♪

...evidence a Neolithic person
threw the remains of their meal

into the fire

at roughly the same time
as the bluestones were quarried,

preserving them
for more than 5,000 years.

♪♪♪

The charred hazelnut shells
were gathered and carbon-dated.

The shells were burned
around 3300 BC,

roughly 400 years

before Stonehenge's
bluestone circle was built.

-That leaves us with a mystery,

because where did they go?

Did it take them 400 years

to haul those stones
to Stonehenge?

I suspect not.

I think that there's
another place, maybe close by,

that these stones
were initially destined for.

-To explain the 400-year gap
between quarry and Stonehenge,

Mike theorizes
that the bluestones

could have originally
stood in Wales.

Once again, the Merlin myth
offers some perspective.

It describes not just stones

but also an existing
stone circle in the west,

called "The Giants' Dance."

The team wonders,
could the Stonehenge bluestones

have been part
of The Giants' Dance?

Is there any precedent

for this type
of monumental stone building

in this remote part of Britain?

-When archaeologists
talk about Preseli,

they don't normally think of it

as a great ceremonial center
in Neolithic Britain,

but actually, it's got one
of the densest concentrations

of Neolithic tombs anywhere.

-The area includes
one of the pinnacles

of Neolithic building activity,
dolmens.

These gravity-defying structures
were used as tombs.

The most famous Welsh example,
Pentre Ifan,

is only a few miles
from the bluestone quarries

where the Stonehenge slabs
came from.

♪♪♪

There is substantial evidence

that the Neolithic people
of Western Britain

were skilled stonemasons.

The people of ancient Wales
had a culture of stone building

that was largely absent
in the east of Britain.

-Britain was a divided island
when those earliest farmers

arrived in the Neolithic,
that, actually, the monuments

and the pottery
that they were using in the east

as opposed to the west
were substantially different.

-These two groups of people
began arriving in Britain

at the beginning
of the Neolithic period.

Archaeological
and now genetic studies

show how they spread west
across Europe,

around the coasts
and along major rivers.

DNA evidence reflects
the two different routes

the prehistoric Europeans
took to reach Britain...

East from Calais
and west from Brittany.

♪♪♪

Those who came from
the western edge of Europe,

settling in and around Wales,

developed a distinct style of
building huge stone monuments,

unlike the people
in the east of Britain.

♪♪♪

From modern France and Spain,

up through Wales
and into Ireland,

the remains of a large number
of huge Neolithic dolmens

and other stone tombs
can be found.

The people of the Preseli area
were experienced

in building stone monuments.

♪♪♪

Theorizing that an earlier stone
monument in Western Britain

would explain the gap

between when the bluestones
were quarried

and when they were used
for Stonehenge,

the team's search
intensifies in 2016.

In addition to the dolmens,

the landscape
around the quarries

is scattered with standing
stones of unknown age.

But there are no
obvious indications

about where the team should
search for this original circle.

-How on earth would we find
not just a stone circle,

but a stone circle
that had been taken down?

In other words, we were looking
for something

that would no longer exist
above ground,

and that's a big ask.

That's a real needle
in a haystack.

And for a long time, I thought,
what are the chances?

Very, very slim.

-To see the invisible,

Mike once again
turns to the latest science.

Aerial photographs are studied,
and then aerial photogrammetry

is used to map
sites of interest.

From the photos,
3-D models are created

and reveal hidden features
in the Preseli landscape.

The geophysics team then
analyzes promising sites

with ground penetrating radar.

They also use machines
that detect tiny changes

in the soil's magnetic field

that were caused by the heat
of ancient fire pits

and other human activity.

-It's a fantastic technique,
because it enables us

to cover these very large areas
quite quickly.

And it can identify
if there are actually monuments

or maybe houses, ditches,
pits, et cetera,

that are often associated

with the prehistoric archaeology
we're looking for.

♪♪♪

-They are searching among
the scattered standing stones

and ruined monuments for traces
of a circular shape...

something that could have been
the original bluestone circle.

The data suggests
many promising sites, but one,

in a field called
Pensarn, stands out.

-It's a low mound, but it could
be a prehistoric monument.

And from that period
of the Neolithic,

we know that
some of these mounds

had surrounds
of standing stones.

Now, of course we're a stone's
throw in that direction

from the main bluestone quarry.

We're a stone's throw
from the smaller one,

so this is the perfect position.

So who knows what we're about
to find there.

-Encouraged by the scans,

the search for
the lost circle begins.

♪♪♪

-Stone circles are generally
quite easy to find.

They've got whacking
great stones in them.

What we are looking for
is the depressions

and the hollows that were left
by the removal of the stones.

But also, don't just find
a hole in the ground...

You have to find a hole

with evidence
of a stone being removed.

So we're looking for pits
of a certain sort of size,

in a certain formation,
with certain characteristics,

and it's not easy.

♪♪♪

-I think this could work.

Isn't it? Yeah?

-The team quickly finds
what they're looking for...

Stone holes,
just below the surface.

-We're looking at features,

they're the size of the
bluestone holes at Stonehenge.

♪♪♪

-And then there is more.

-So, what Lisa's just uncovered

is that we have a...

A pit for a stone,
a standing stone.

It's got the packing in it,
but, totally unexpected,

it's got the broken-off stump
of the bluestone sitting in it.

So, this is the first
direct evidence

that these really are
stone holes.

Marvelous.

We may have done it.

♪♪♪

-And that isn't all.

In a nearby field,

the geophysics team
has made another discovery.

-What we've found here
is something very exciting.

We've got these big rings
within the data set,

and what we think
they might be related to

are circular enclosures,

some of which are quite large,
up to 40 meters across.

-It's possible they have found

not just a single
small stone circle,

but a whole complex of them.

Now their findings
must be carbon-dated

to prove a connection
with Stonehenge.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

In the meantime,

all the activity has sparked
the interest of the locals.

Mike's talks at the neighborhood
micro-brewery are packed.

-I think that is where the stone

that ended up at Stonehenge
was taken from.

Now today...
- The dig is very popular.

We have gateposts
that are huge standing stones

or were once standing stones.

We've got standing stones
in our fields that...

that we mow around in tractors,
and, you know, they're...

They are everywhere,
and you can't help

but wonder why, you know,
and what was it about this area?

-It's what we do this for,
just to tell the story.

They're really engaged.

It's their landscape.
It's where they live.

You know, it's what happened
under their feet

5,000 years ago,
you know, where they walk.

♪♪♪

-We came up with a new IPA

which is now one
of our core beers.

We thought we would call it
Hammerstone IPA.

So, could you guess
who the image is based on?

[ Laughs ]

-The team has made
a strong start,

but are they any closer
to understanding

the origins of Stonehenge?

[ Indistinct conversations ]

♪♪♪

The next phase of the dig
begins in September 2017.

Mike has now been investigating
Preseli for seven years.

But things no longer
seem so promising.

The test results
from the previous year's finds

have proven disappointing.

Carbon dating reveals
the Pensarn circle

is in fact a bluestone ring,

but from a Bronze Age tomb,

1,000 years after Stonehenge.

The team's hopes now lay in the
excavations of the new circles

detected by Kate's
geophysics team.

But as the dig progresses,

the likelihood that they are
Neolithic quickly fades.

The stone artifacts found
are uninspiring.

-Someone's thought,
"I can make that into an ax."

-Mm, because the shape
was already...

-Yeah, yeah. Basically,
you've got, yeah,

what you might call
trimming flakes,

taken off both directions
to give it the crudest of edges.

This is really
scraping the barrel.

♪♪♪

-The team realizes
this is not a Neolithic circle

but an Iron Age settlement.

Once again,
they are thousands of years off.

♪♪♪

-You think that,
"That has to be it.

It has to be it."

Perfect prehistoric
circular monuments,

and you think,
"Yes, this is it."

And even though
it's tremendous archaeology,

and anybody would be privileged
to dig it,

it's not what
you're looking for.

-Whether we're ever going
to find that stone circle,

that former stone circle,
that first Stonehenge,

I'm now, I'm afraid, doubtful.

At that point,
I was disappointed.

I thought that maybe we're not
going to find whatever it is.

Maybe it never really existed.

♪♪♪

-They've now excavated
every site on their list...

except one.

♪♪♪

The remaining location
is an overlooked collection

of four bluestones
on a site called Waun Mawn.

Waun Mawn means
"peaty moorland" in Welsh.

Government archaeologists
surveyed the site

in the 20th century

and described it as being
"very small" and "unremarkable."

-We'd given up, really,
on Waun Mawn,

because the geophysics hadn't
really produced very much.

Didn't pick up anything,
no sign of other holes

where stones
might have once stood.

But there's nowhere else
to look.

-Waun Mawn is now
the team's last hope.

They dig with spades
and shovels,

the weather making their work
even more difficult.

♪♪♪

-It is fairly
extreme archaeology.

The weather isn't fantastic.

We are bailing water
out of holes

which will eventually again
fill with rain.

I got sent to Waun Mawn
as a bit of a forlorn hope.

It's wet. It's exposed.

The wind never stops up there.

The students were rebellious,
and we were all very tired.

We didn't expect
to find anything,

but you can't just
chuck the job in...

"This is terrible.
The weather's bad.

Let's go home."

You have to excavate it.

-Sending Dave up the top
of the hill to Waun Mawn

was the last throw of the dice.

It was Last Chance Saloon.

But I'm glad we did,
because it changed everything.

♪♪♪

-What's this?

It's definitely a fill.

That looks fantastic.

We've found this
potential stone hole.

As well as color,
which is darker,

it's also a completely
different texture.

It's softer, it's more organic,

and it's clearly been disturbed.

So, you look for more,

and we found another one
at the other end of the arc.

When you start finding multiple
stone holes with missing stones,

that's the time
to start getting excited.

♪♪♪

Mike's madcap idea
actually had legs.

♪♪♪

-Where technology failed, hard
work has yielded a breakthrough.

♪♪♪

But there is still more
to be done.

The following year,
the team continues their work

at Waun Mawn.

The marshy soil means
the geophysical technology

is unusable,

and the team must rely
on their own experience

and observations
to find the holes.

-It's the texture that's...
That's really crucial

and the sound that it makes.

When you tap the natural,
and you tap the fill,

there's a much hollower sound,
an element of a drum to it.

It echoes a bit.

They are not easy to find,
but once you find them,

you very definitely know
they're there.

-Now if we ever get
a good day here [Laughs]

we can see the mountains
of Snowdonia.

If you look in that direction,

you can see Ireland
on a clear day.

So, these are really quite
extraordinary locations

for surveilling the world,

and it may be one of the reasons

that people are building
monuments in such places.

Yeah, so, we'll come out
three from here,

and we'll come out
three from there.

Going to put the kettles on.

Now, who's in charge
of tea duties today?

-When you're on excavation, you
forget about the outside world,

and it's just all of you
together.

There are people that you...

We've never been friends with
at university.

We've known them for two years.

You go on an excavation
with them,

and suddenly, friendships
are made.

It's this close environment
where you don't have

much personal space.
You don't have much time alone.

You're all wet,
you're all muddy,

and you just get through it.

And the way of getting through
it is just by being friends,

having fun, and just sort of
embracing it as much as you can.

♪♪♪

-As one hole after another
is unearthed,

the shape of a circle
is revealed.

♪♪♪

Its dimensions
have the team excited.

-Its diameter, 110 meters,
was exactly the same

as the outer perimeter
around Stonehenge.

♪♪♪

The chances of the two having
exactly the same dimensions

are really very slim.

Waun Mawn could be
the predecessor for Stonehenge.

♪♪♪

-But is there any evidence
of a direct connection

between the two monuments?

♪♪♪

An oddly shaped stone hole

provides an opportunity
to use photogrammetry again.

-We could see the exact shape
of the base of each stone

that had stood in them, and
one of them was very unusual,

because it had a slightly kind
of pentagonal cross-section.

And what was interesting was
that there was one at Stonehenge

which had a very similar form.

♪♪♪

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

♪♪♪

-Can they match the shape
of the Waun Mawn hole

to the stone at Stonehenge?

♪♪♪

It fits like a key in a lock.

♪♪♪

But this evidence alone
is not conclusive.

The team still doesn't know when
this circle was constructed.

Is it Neolithic?

And was it built
before Stonehenge?

-[ Speaks indistinctly ]

-The acidic soil has destroyed
almost all organic matter

that could have been
radiocarbon dated.

♪♪♪

So Mike calls on the specialist
services of Tim Kinnaird.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

-Well, we've got
the section covered now,

so I've covered it
in the black cover

and I'm going to
go back under now.

I'm going to clean back
an additional 10 centimeters

so that I can go in
and start to sample.

♪♪♪

-Tim isn't looking
for physical objects.

He is interested
in the soil itself,

which contains traces
of ancient sunlight.

-You can actually date sediments

by measuring the remnant energy

in the grains of quartz
in that sediment

since they were
last exposed to light.

And it's a technique
normally used by geologists,

Optically Stimulated
Luminescence.

OSL, we call it for short.

♪♪♪

He has to collect the samples
under darkness

so that he can be
absolutely sure

that the quartz grains
within his block of soil

have not been affected by light.

-They hope these samples
of soil from Waun Mawn

will reveal when the stones
were originally set in place.

When the soil is bombarded
by lasers in a lab,

trapped electrons are released,

revealing when the sample
was last lit by the sun.

But the analysis takes months.

Will Waun Mawn prove to be
from the wrong time period,

as all the other sites have?

In 2019, test results arrive,

and the OSL data
gives a likely construction date

of around 3300 BC...

exactly what the team
had hoped for

after almost a decade of work.

-Well, that was
a pretty good moment.

We had dated the thing,
and we knew

that it was shortly
before Stonehenge.

♪♪♪

-Fantastic news.
Absolutely fantastic.

I'm over the moon,
not just for myself

and the team, but for Mike.

It must have been a great weight
off his mind

that here he is. He's done it.

His theory's right.

He's bang on the money.

-Mike and his team have made
a groundbreaking discovery

and unveiled
a long-forgotten chapter

in the history of Stonehenge.

After years of searching
in the wind and rain,

they found the lost circle.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

The research proves that
the bluestones of Stonehenge

first stood in the Welsh hills,

centuries before being raised
in Salisbury Plain,

by a people steeped in a culture
of megalithic architecture.

♪♪♪

But what was the purpose
of Stonehenge?

We can only speculate.

Mike's theory is that it was
a place to venerate the dead.

-Everything we've been learning
about the megalithic monuments

is that they represented

or even were considered to be
the ancestors,

whether they were
components of tombs,

whether they were single
standing stones

or stone circles.

♪♪♪

Stone is permanent,
like the ancestors.

♪♪♪

-Mike believes
it was not just a place

for remembering the dead,
but also a marker in time.

♪♪♪

He calls in archaeo-astronomer
Clive Ruggles

to examine the site.

♪♪♪

-Well, this is a Total Station,

but what I'm using it for here

is for measuring
the azimuth of the sun,

the bearing of the sun
in the sky.

We can work out where
all the astronomical bodies,

the sun or the moon
or whatever we're interested in,

rise and set and would have
risen and set in the past.

-Mike thinks
that the Neolithic people

would have aligned the circle
to key times of the year,

linked to the position
of the sun... the solstices.

-They are the turning points
of the year.

So, from the deep gloom
of midwinter,

the knowledge that actually
the land will become warm

and fertile again.

And equally, midsummer
is the peak of that fertility,

and that that, too,
is about to change

as the days become shorter.

So, it's actually the movement
of the sun.

It's something that is utterly
permanent and eternal,

like the ancestors themselves.

-Where the sun rises
will have changed

over the last 5,000 years

by about the diameter
of the sun.

So, if we're looking...
Where the sun rose

on the longest day then
would be about a sun's diameter

further to the north
than it does now.

And when it rises at midwinter,

about the same further
to the south.

So, we can...
We can make that correction.

♪♪♪

-Clive has found
that Waun Mawn's stones

do indeed show
a solstice alignment.

♪♪♪

Two stones,
twisted at right angles,

form a target that aligns
with the midsummer sun

as it would have risen
5,000 years ago.

♪♪♪

It seems Waun Mawn

was an important site
for the Preseli people.

So why then
were these stones moved

more than 140 miles to the east?

♪♪♪

In the Merlin myth,
the stone circle was stolen.

♪♪♪

The legend holds that Merlin
came west with a large army.

Could the peoples of the east

and the stone builders
of the west have been at war,

a war that would cause
the easterners

to steal the Waun Mawn circle?

There is little to support
this theory.

Evidence of large-scale warfare
at the time

is as insubstantial
as Merlin himself.

♪♪♪

Instead, there are signs
that Waun Mawn is an example

of a different kind
of revolution

that eventually
spread across Britain.

♪♪♪

Stone circles first began to
appear on Britain's west coast

around the same time
the bluestones were mined,

3300 BC.

♪♪♪

Waun Mawn was at the forefront

of this new style
of stone monument,

which seems to be part of
a greater cultural intertwining.

-What's interesting
was that differences

were beginning to be erased...

that actually, people were using
the same pottery east and west.

They were building
the same kinds of monuments,

new circular forms like henges

and stone circles
in east and west.

-The later eastern circles
appear to have been inspired

by their western counterparts

and were always built
with local stone.

But the Stonehenge
bluestone circle is unique.

This is the only circle
known to have been relocated.

♪♪♪

It wasn't just inspired
by the west...

It was built
from western stones,

despite there
being viable quarries

local to the Stonehenge area.

So, if an army did not steal
the Waun Mawn circle,

are there any traces of the
people who did move the stones?

♪♪♪

When Mike's team excavated
Stonehenge's outer circle,

they unearthed thousands
of fragments

of cremated human bone.

♪♪♪

People were buried
around Stonehenge

almost as soon
as the bluestones arrived.

But who were they?

♪♪♪

By analyzing the type
of strontium in the bones,

scientists can determine
where they came from.

-People talk about
you are what you eat.

Basically, the strontium
isotope composition

that you pick up is related

to the composition
of the food you eat,

and the composition
of the food you eat

is related to the soil
and the underlying geology.

♪♪♪

-When a team
at Oxford University

conducted a strontium analysis
of the bone fragments,

the results were surprising.

Many individuals
from the earliest burials

were not from the area.

Jane Evans illustrates the data.

-So, you can see
that here's Salisbury.

We've now put in what would be
a local value,

and it highlights basically
the areas that are chalk,

in southern England.

So, anybody with a value
like that was probably

certainly living there
when that bone formed.

However, some of them
had higher values.

The areas where those
slightly higher values

come from are typical of Wales.

Those individuals
could well have come from

in and around southwest Wales.

-This looks to me
like a migration signal.

This is the beginning
of a group moving in,

settling themselves
on Salisbury Plain,

and then their descendants
continuing to live in that area.

♪♪♪

-To Mike, the bones
at Stonehenge suggest

these stones were not stolen

but may have been brought
by a group of people

who themselves were moving east.

♪♪♪

But why would the Preseli people

move their ancestral stone
circle to Salisbury Plain?

♪♪♪

It's now believed
they may have been drawn

by a unique feature
of the landscape.

♪♪♪

Beneath the soil of
the Stonehenge ceremonial avenue

lies a series of glacial
channels in the chalk,

stretching nearly 500 feet
to the northeast.

5,000 years ago, these channels
would have been visible

and, by coincidence,
aligned with the solstice sun.

Today's Stonehenge
is clearly aligned

with this natural feature,

similar to the original
bluestone circle in Wales.

-So, my guess
is what we're looking at

is people actually bringing
their very identity,

their ancestral identity with
them to reposition themselves

at one of the most
important ceremonial complexes

within Neolithic Britain.

-Around 3000 BC,
people from the Preseli Hills

may have been drawn
to Salisbury Plain

because of its natural
solstice alignments.

Mike's theory suggests that they
brought the stones with them

to remember their ancestors

and mark the eternal cycle
of the sun.

Salisbury Plain was about
to enter its golden age.

♪♪♪

The construction of
the Stonehenge bluestone circle

may have inspired others
who saw it,

becoming the seed
for the creation

of even greater monuments.

♪♪♪

Less than 2 miles
from Stonehenge

lies Durrington Walls,

the largest Neolithic site
ever discovered in Britain.

♪♪♪

At a time when settlements were
rarely more than a house or two,

the site was a temporary home
for thousands,

a pop-up town full of builders.

Around 2500 BC,

its residents constructed
a huge wooden circle,

called Woodhenge today.

Around that same time,

they repositioned
the bluestone circle,

adding the huge Sarsen stones
that define Stonehenge.

Salisbury Plain now had two
complementary sacred monuments.

-The stone circle of Stonehenge

was a place
associated with the dead.

Woodhenge was actually a place
associated with the living.

♪♪♪

-Animal bones excavated
at Durrington Walls

show it was a feasting site,

unmatched in Neolithic Britain.

♪♪♪

It was a place
for the living to celebrate,

next to a monument to the dead

that stood the test of time,

with Welsh bluestones
at its heart.

But Stonehenge began
with that forgotten stone circle

in the Welsh hills...

the original location
of Stonehenge's bluestones,

now rediscovered
thanks to Mike's determination.

♪♪♪

-The big story
is that Stonehenge

is built out of
another monument.

It's not the stones themselves
that are important.

It's the monument
that they came from.

And this really
has to change the way

that we think about Stonehenge,

because you're actually
linking two not just places,

but communities
and their monuments together.

This has been a 10-year search,
and we've finally got there.

It's a great feeling.

And as you can tell
with this wonderful weather,

we're really looking forward
to coming back.

♪♪♪

-Despite all of his work,

Mike still has many questions
he wants answered.

-So, I think there's
every possibility

that there are more
stone circles to be found.

Looking for these sites
is like a needle in a haystack,

and I think it's something
that I'm not going to give up on

until hell freezes over.

♪♪♪

-An unlikely discovery
on a hillside in West Wales

has rewritten the history
of Stonehenge.

♪♪♪

The monument's connection
to Wales

is deeper than experts
ever thought.

♪♪♪

And in an astonishing,
historical breakthrough,

we now know that the stones
of Stonehenge

didn't just come from Wales.

They first stood in
Wales... in a lost circle...

that has transformed
our understanding

of Stonehenge
and Neolithic Britain.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪