0:00:02 > 0:00:05This is Antigua, one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean,
0:00:05 > 0:00:08and a place that we think of today as a kind of paradise.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11It's a place where people come on honeymoon,
0:00:11 > 0:00:14a playground of the super rich.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17It's famous for its beautiful beaches, exotic waters and tropical fruit.
0:00:20 > 0:00:25But when the young naval captain Horatio Nelson came here in 1784
0:00:25 > 0:00:28to serve at what was then a hugely important naval base,
0:00:28 > 0:00:32he wrote to a friend, "I detest this country."
0:00:32 > 0:00:37And he described that stunning harbour as an infernal hole.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40'It's hard to imagine what Nelson could've found
0:00:40 > 0:00:43'that was so extraordinarily unpleasant here.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46'But remarkable new research now underway in Antigua
0:00:46 > 0:00:49'is uncovering graphic evidence of what it was
0:00:49 > 0:00:53'that turned this island, in the age of Nelson, into a kind of hell.
0:00:56 > 0:01:01'As a historian studying and writing about the era of the great sailing ships,
0:01:01 > 0:01:04'I've come here to find out for myself
0:01:04 > 0:01:07'what a voyage to Antigua at the end of the 18th century
0:01:07 > 0:01:11'would've meant for British sailors.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29'August 2010 and the island of Antigua is battered by storms
0:01:29 > 0:01:33'in the wake of Hurricane Earl.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39'Massive rainfall sent torrents coursing down into the sea,
0:01:39 > 0:01:44'splitting open channels and ravines in the hillsides and beaches.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49'When the rain subsided, after several days,
0:01:49 > 0:01:52'locals who went out to survey the damage
0:01:52 > 0:01:54'down here on the south of the island,
0:01:54 > 0:01:56'in the bay known as English Harbour,
0:01:56 > 0:01:59'were confronted with an unexpected sight.'
0:01:59 > 0:02:03The water backed up all in this area behind the berm here,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06and when it found the path of least resistance out
0:02:06 > 0:02:11it carved a channel and that channel exposed sidewalls
0:02:11 > 0:02:13from which were sticking out femurs
0:02:13 > 0:02:18and jaw bones, two skulls that we found, quite a lot of bones.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23I think eventually we came up with 110 bones, 120 bones, something like that.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25They weren't deposited straight out on the beach,
0:02:25 > 0:02:28they were scattered all along the beach in both directions.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31So you were just walking along, picking up pieces of human?
0:02:31 > 0:02:35It was quite eerie. And looking about this high and seeing the cranium of a human being
0:02:35 > 0:02:38and it's got this yellowish-brown glow to it,
0:02:38 > 0:02:41you immediately know they're quite ancient.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45That's the moment it hit me, and that's where the adrenaline rush comes.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48"Holy cow! This is not my normal Saturday morning walk."
0:02:48 > 0:02:51"What do I do with these things?"
0:02:51 > 0:02:54But there were so many and there wasn't an option to rebury them here.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58And the next best thing I could do was call Reg Murphy
0:02:58 > 0:03:02at the Dockyard Museum and find out what do I need to do?
0:03:02 > 0:03:06How do we take care of these things properly?
0:03:12 > 0:03:15X marks the spot and we're going to start right here.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18'Antiguan archaeologist Dr Reg Murphy
0:03:18 > 0:03:21'is one of the leading historians in the Caribbean,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25'and he is now preparing for an excavation of the beach.'
0:03:25 > 0:03:30They'll be somewhere between two feet to five feet. So we can expect anything.
0:03:32 > 0:03:38'The aim is to try and find out exactly who is buried here on the Antiguan coastline and why.
0:03:38 > 0:03:44'It's part of a bigger project to reassess the colonial story of an island
0:03:44 > 0:03:47'which turns out to be one of the most richly endowed
0:03:47 > 0:03:51'and the least researched sites of British imperial history.'
0:03:52 > 0:03:55Right along here, you can see it's a lighter sand,
0:03:55 > 0:03:59then dark compost material, then beneath that, sandy again.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02So we know these are the frequencies of hurricanes.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06The beach is never the same. The sand is always moving.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10So this is good news because it shows that there is good stratigraphy, good deposition,
0:04:10 > 0:04:13which will hopefully mean intact burials deep down.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16So it's in perfect condition, what I hope to see.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19But now is the hard work.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27'Antigua was one of a string of British possessions in the Caribbean,
0:04:27 > 0:04:32'inconveniently interrupted by the occasional French island.
0:04:35 > 0:04:37'Through much of the 18th century,
0:04:37 > 0:04:41'the West Indies, highly valued for their lucrative commodities,
0:04:41 > 0:04:44'were the scene of a sequence of colonial wars
0:04:44 > 0:04:48'as the European powers of Spain, Holland, France and Britain
0:04:48 > 0:04:51'jostled for ownership of the islands.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56'But in the last decades of the century,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59'Britain emerged as the dominant power in the region,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03'thanks to the supremacy of her naval fleet.'
0:05:05 > 0:05:07Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries,
0:05:07 > 0:05:12this natural harbour was a safe haven for naval ships sheltering during the hurricane season.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14The main business of the dockyard
0:05:14 > 0:05:17happened just the other side of the headland over there.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20For many of the naval vessels, the powerful ships of the line,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23the fast frigates, the nimble cutters and sloops,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25they anchored here at Galleon Beach.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29Consequently, over the centuries, this stretch of sand was imprinted
0:05:29 > 0:05:32with the footsteps of many thousands of sailors coming and going.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35And for many, this was their first taste of the Caribbean.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38But for some, it was their last.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52'During the hurricane season,
0:05:52 > 0:05:56'this harbour would have contained as many as 20 warships,
0:05:56 > 0:05:59'vessels of the Royal Navy's Windward Island fleet.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02'They sailed here from all over the empire
0:06:02 > 0:06:05'and their role was to protect British trade.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11'Some of them carried a grim cargo.
0:06:11 > 0:06:17'Dead sailors, victims of virulent and little-understood tropical diseases.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21'It seems likely that they rowed them ashore
0:06:21 > 0:06:24'and buried them as quickly as they could here on the beach.
0:06:25 > 0:06:30'At least, that's the theory Reg Murphy has been working on
0:06:30 > 0:06:33'since the bones appeared after the hurricane.'
0:06:33 > 0:06:38OK, we're looking for clues as to who the people on the beach could possibly be.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40And how did they come to be on that beach?
0:06:40 > 0:06:43And this is by William Brazen,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46and this is the dockyard in 1754,
0:06:46 > 0:06:48just when they're completing the expansion of the naval yard
0:06:48 > 0:06:53to the west side, where we are now. But the interesting point is,
0:06:53 > 0:06:57this is the beach where we are excavating, Freeman's Bay,
0:06:57 > 0:07:00and here is Fort Charlotte, Fort Berkeley,
0:07:00 > 0:07:02and here is a frigate moored right in the middle of the bay.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05Just like we thought, stern to that very beach.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09So if you were onboard that ship and something happened to you, you died overnight,
0:07:09 > 0:07:12the closest place for burial would be that beach.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20'To investigate what appears to be some kind of beach graveyard,
0:07:20 > 0:07:24'Reg has put together an international team of archaeologists.'
0:07:24 > 0:07:26We know a lot of this is fill,
0:07:26 > 0:07:28we know a lot of it is going to be modern,
0:07:28 > 0:07:32so we can move a little bit more quickly through the upper levels
0:07:32 > 0:07:34and then once we hit historic deposits,
0:07:34 > 0:07:38slow down and be a little more careful about what we're looking for.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41'Dr Samantha Rebovich is an American historian
0:07:41 > 0:07:44'working for the National Parks of Antigua.'
0:07:44 > 0:07:49We're hoping that we come across some fairly intact human remains
0:07:49 > 0:07:52that we can then do more testing on.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57'If a burial site is located, bio-archaeologists on the team
0:07:57 > 0:08:00'plan to undertake tests on skeletal remains
0:08:00 > 0:08:05'to analyse diet, illnesses and physical condition of the dead.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09'They also hope that the dig will help answer
0:08:09 > 0:08:14'one of the more baffling questions about the sailors and soldiers on Antigua.'
0:08:14 > 0:08:16And one of the historical mysteries
0:08:16 > 0:08:20is why was the mortality rate so high in the West Indies?
0:08:20 > 0:08:26'Unfortunately, the timeframe for this dig is very limited.'
0:08:26 > 0:08:31In an ideal world, you would have as much time in the world to do archaeology,
0:08:31 > 0:08:36but we're moving a bit quickly with this excavation, and for several reasons.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38We are technically in hurricane season,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41so there's always that idea in the back of our head
0:08:41 > 0:08:43that we want to get in and get out.
0:08:43 > 0:08:47You always want to move a little bit faster when you're dealing with human remains,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49because you don't want to leave them exposed for very long.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52So it is a bit of a trade-off
0:08:52 > 0:08:54in terms of how meticulous we can be,
0:08:54 > 0:08:56but at the same time, we are always very careful.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03'So what were Britain and her navy doing in Antigua?'
0:09:07 > 0:09:09This is what it was all about.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14A fashionable and addictive stimulant at the very heart of the British and European economies,
0:09:14 > 0:09:16sugar.
0:09:16 > 0:09:21'The island was colonised by the English in 1632.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25'And over the next 50 years, sugar was gradually established
0:09:25 > 0:09:28'as the dominant and determining feature of the island's life,
0:09:28 > 0:09:32'landscape, economy and culture.'
0:09:32 > 0:09:37Antigua was an important part of the British Caribbean,
0:09:37 > 0:09:42producing sugar for metropolitan consumption back in Britain.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46That sugar was produced on large plantations
0:09:46 > 0:09:50and those plantations employed the labour of enslaved people,
0:09:50 > 0:09:53imported from Africa.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59'Caribbean sugar was a major provider of revenue,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02'both for the British and also the French exchequer.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05'In fact, the largest French colony in the West Indies, Haiti,
0:10:05 > 0:10:08'then known as Saint Domingue,
0:10:08 > 0:10:12'produced more sugar than all the British islands put together.
0:10:12 > 0:10:18'Sugar was a principal source of commercial and military rivalry between the two countries.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21'And when France threatened the British West Indies
0:10:21 > 0:10:23'during the American War of Independence,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27'Britain immediately redeployed troops to the Caribbean,
0:10:27 > 0:10:33'preferring to sacrifice America than lose control of her sugar islands.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37'It's no surprise that only a few years after the end of that war,
0:10:37 > 0:10:43'Nelson found himself patrolling the Caribbean with a fleet of warships.'
0:10:43 > 0:10:47It's so easy to think of Nelson only in terms of his great naval battles,
0:10:47 > 0:10:51the victories of the Napoleonic Wars at the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar.
0:10:51 > 0:10:56But like so many of the sailors of his era, Nelson spent much of his life
0:10:56 > 0:10:59and the formative years of his career in the Caribbean.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06Nelson was very familiar with the West Indies and the Caribbean.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08His first voyage at the age of 13
0:11:08 > 0:11:11was on a merchant ship which went to the West Indies.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15And he spent most of the War of American Independence
0:11:15 > 0:11:21in the West Indies and on the North American station based basically in Jamaica.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26He saw his first real fighting in the West Indies and Central America.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29And he had his first commands in the West Indies,
0:11:29 > 0:11:34he commanded two frigates and a brig during the American War of Independence in the West Indies.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36So this was an area he knew very well.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43'On 28th of July 1784, at the age of 28,
0:11:43 > 0:11:47'Captain Nelson sailed the Boreas into English Harbour
0:11:47 > 0:11:50'where he spent four long hurricane seasons.'
0:11:51 > 0:11:54English Harbour in the age of Nelson
0:11:54 > 0:11:56was far more than just a safe haven for passing ships.
0:11:56 > 0:12:01It was the industrial epicentre of British naval power in the Caribbean.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06Over there in the dockyards there were furnaces for smelting iron and boiling tar,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10and the air would've been thick with burning sulphur,
0:12:10 > 0:12:13brimstone, used to cleanse the inside of filthy ships.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16The water would've been disgusting.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20The waste from all of the industrial processes was just thrown into the sea.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24And we know from archaeological excavation over where the ships were at anchor
0:12:24 > 0:12:27that the seabed is literally feet thick with rubbish,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30and the sailors simply threw overboard everything that they didn't need.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37Think about the sewage.
0:12:37 > 0:12:43When a fleet was here, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people were living on ships at anchor.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46And their raw sewage went straight into the sea.
0:12:46 > 0:12:51There's barely any tide here, there are no ocean currents that can come and cleanse this place.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55So in the age of sail, this magnificent harbour was a cesspit.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03And the ships themselves were desperately unhealthy places,
0:13:03 > 0:13:07with so many people crammed into such a confined space.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11And out here on the water, it's also incredibly hot.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13It's a bit like being in the crater of a volcano.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17And these hills stifle the wind.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20Life on those ships must've been unbearable.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28'But then, frankly, you were lucky to be alive.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32'Tropical fevers, mostly diseases borne by mosquitoes,
0:13:32 > 0:13:34'flourished across the Caribbean,
0:13:34 > 0:13:37'largely as a result of the destruction of the natural ecology
0:13:37 > 0:13:40'by plantation farmers.'
0:13:40 > 0:13:45Malaria was a problem. Yellow fever in particular caused havoc.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49Anybody serving in the British Army or in the British Navy
0:13:49 > 0:13:52who discovered that they were being posted to the Caribbean
0:13:52 > 0:13:55would certainly have been terrified by that prospect.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58They would've been terrified
0:13:58 > 0:14:03not really because of the sorts of military experiences that they might have in the Caribbean,
0:14:03 > 0:14:08they would've been terrified because of the reputation the Caribbean had
0:14:08 > 0:14:11as a charnel house, as a place where people died,
0:14:11 > 0:14:13a place where people died of disease.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19'Up above the harbour are the remnants of a large military compound,
0:14:19 > 0:14:23'part of a vast defensive system of fortifications
0:14:23 > 0:14:28'that surrounded the island as protection against the threat of French invasion.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34'Towards the end of the first day of digging at the beach excavation site,
0:14:34 > 0:14:39'Reg Murphy took me to visit the old military cemetery attached to the compound
0:14:39 > 0:14:43'to look at the grave of the young wife of an officer who died
0:14:43 > 0:14:46'while her husband was serving on the island.
0:14:46 > 0:14:51'The inscription captures something of the fear and the misery
0:14:51 > 0:14:53'of serving in this tropical outpost.'
0:14:53 > 0:14:57It says, "Sacred to the memory of Harriott, the beloved wife
0:14:57 > 0:15:03"of Sergeant Major TW Hipkin of HM 54th Regiment
0:15:03 > 0:15:07"who fell a victim to the withering effects..."
0:15:07 > 0:15:09Now, that's important. Withering effects.
0:15:09 > 0:15:11"..of this climate and dysentery
0:15:11 > 0:15:16"on 23rd June, 1851."
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Now, that's just before this regiment left.
0:15:19 > 0:15:23"Aged 33 years old. The last tribute of her sorrowing husband."
0:15:23 > 0:15:25So he's buried his wife here.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28He left her behind. And the funny thing is,
0:15:28 > 0:15:33less than 100 officers or men were allowed to bring their wives, but she accompanied him out here.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37And it's sad to see that she's still here and he moved on.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41But what's important is, died of the withering effects of this climate.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44When people are withering, I take it to mean they are sickly,
0:15:44 > 0:15:48the heat, not just the heat, maybe the food, maybe the water.
0:15:48 > 0:15:52What else is making you wither? Is it that you've been poisoned?
0:15:52 > 0:15:56And then the dysentery. Well, we know that that's really efficient.
0:15:56 > 0:16:01So you get a sense of her losing weight, becoming weaker, becoming sicker,
0:16:01 > 0:16:05and they were certainly clear that it was the climate that was to blame.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10So this is a monument, a megalith to the 54th Regiment.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13They served all through the Caribbean islands.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17But they lost more in Antigua than anywhere else, so the monument was erected here.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21So Antigua was a more unhealthy place than other islands in the Caribbean?
0:16:21 > 0:16:23It is known as the graveyard of the Englishman.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26And that would've been for some serious reason.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29Most other islands never acquired such an infamous label.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31Diseases were killing all the troops that were sent out here.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34The fact that we have got such order up here in the hills
0:16:34 > 0:16:39really raises the question of why there was so much chaos down on the beach.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41To me, it means one thing, epidemic.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44If you have a lot of bodies you have to deal with very quickly,
0:16:44 > 0:16:49suddenly the beach becomes a very fast disposable place.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52'The aim of the archaeological investigation on Galleon Beach
0:16:52 > 0:16:57'is to locate an intact grave that will help substantiate Reg's theory
0:16:57 > 0:17:02'and provide a real identity for the bones uncovered by the hurricane.
0:17:02 > 0:17:04'But as with any archaeological dig,
0:17:04 > 0:17:07'you don't always get what you're looking for.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12'The British were by no means the first sailors to use this harbour.
0:17:12 > 0:17:17'There's evidence of human occupation on Antigua from 5,000 years ago.
0:17:17 > 0:17:19'And this sheltered bay would have been a landing point
0:17:19 > 0:17:22'for Caribbean tribes, known as Arawaks,
0:17:22 > 0:17:26'who travelled and settled here long before the arrival of Columbus
0:17:26 > 0:17:29'and European colonisation.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34'Two days into the dig, Reg has yet to uncover any sailors' bones.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38'But he has hit upon an Arawak midden, or rubbish dump.'
0:17:38 > 0:17:42So, easy to collect, you've just come in, you're tired, you're hungry,
0:17:42 > 0:17:45you grab the closest resource you can find, shellfish nearby,
0:17:45 > 0:17:50you've got lunch, you've got fire pits, and we have what we think is a post hole for a building here.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54So they had shelter, stay for a little while, refresh, and then they move on to another island.
0:17:54 > 0:17:59What I have found is bits of a broken stone axe.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02You can see it was used.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05And this material, this type of rock comes from St Martin.
0:18:05 > 0:18:10So they were definitely coming in, bringing materials.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14The kind of thing they'd have used to crack open shells. Or would it have been sharper than that?
0:18:14 > 0:18:16Cut up and repair your canoe. It would've been a lot sharper.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19- OK, so more like an axe than a hammer?- Yes, it's an axe.- OK.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21This is a scraper. It's a beautiful tool.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25Re-pointing along here. It's still razor-sharp after all these years.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28So a scraper is something that might have been used for butchering?
0:18:28 > 0:18:32Yeah. Or for scraping meat, or for woodworking, the canoes were important to them.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35What we have here is the lip of a conch shell.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38As simple as it looks, you take this
0:18:38 > 0:18:41and then you, it's the first phase, then you cut along here.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44- It's the thinnest part. If you notice, the middle is thicker.- Yes.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46It gets really thin, you break along there,
0:18:46 > 0:18:48and you sharpen this end and you have a beautiful axe.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52But the interesting thing about this site, though, is in all of this we are finding...
0:18:53 > 0:18:58..a European thimble. I don't think they used thimbles back then. This is a very old thimble.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02It's a classic sailors' tool, they had a sailors' palm to drive big needles through canvas,
0:19:02 > 0:19:06but also smaller ones to do smaller, more delicate work.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09Repair the uniforms, sew up your buttons, and all sorts of things.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12So this is an amazing artefact.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21'It may seem like an innocuous clue,
0:19:21 > 0:19:25'but for me, that thimble immediately takes you onboard
0:19:25 > 0:19:27'one of those frigates lying out in the bay.'
0:19:29 > 0:19:35A tiny thimble might seem like a strange object to associate with a sailor on a massive warship.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40Yes, ships like these were built for war.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42The hull is three feet thick to protect the sailors from enemy shot
0:19:42 > 0:19:45and bristling with cannon.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49But they were also the sailors' home.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53The ship's weather deck would've been a hive of activity.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56Men cleaning the deck, exercising at gun drill
0:19:56 > 0:19:59and queuing to go aloft to trim the sails.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03The very best of those men would've carried a thimble in their pocket.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09And what a home it must've been.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Hundreds of men living together on a gun deck like this
0:20:12 > 0:20:16with very little access to fresh air or light,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19in a space that is shared with livestock.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23And then you get sent to the Caribbean,
0:20:23 > 0:20:26where the heat from the tropics turns the fresh food rancid
0:20:26 > 0:20:29and the water green with slime.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36The further forward you come in a ship,
0:20:36 > 0:20:39the more cramped and dark it becomes.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44But it's up here, beyond the hammocks, underneath the forecastle,
0:20:44 > 0:20:47where a sailor might find a little space for himself
0:20:47 > 0:20:50in a gap between watches to write a letter home
0:20:50 > 0:20:52or to mend his tattered clothes,
0:20:52 > 0:20:55perhaps with a tiny copper thimble.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59After months of living in these conditions,
0:20:59 > 0:21:02you can just imagine how desperate people would have been
0:21:02 > 0:21:06to get off their ship and feel dry land beneath their feet.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13'However, shore leave was a rare commodity.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16'Desertion was extremely common,
0:21:16 > 0:21:18'so most sailors who arrived in English Harbour
0:21:18 > 0:21:23'would hardly ever have left their ship, except under strict controls.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26'Unless, of course, they were sick, or dead.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37'At the dig site, there's an air of disappointment.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41'Reg's excavation, although full of interesting prehistoric artefacts,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46'failed to unearth any of the hoped-for sailors' remains.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49'However, right at the end of the day,
0:21:49 > 0:21:53'there have been some significant developments in the second trench.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56'Fragments of a body are beginning to emerge.
0:21:56 > 0:22:01'Professor Tamara Varney from Lakehead University, Ontario,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04'is one of the senior archaeologists on the dig.'
0:22:04 > 0:22:07We're just packing up for the day,
0:22:07 > 0:22:11and so we back-filled a little bit of the site, of the unit,
0:22:11 > 0:22:16so that there's not bones going to be unprotected overnight.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20So what we found in this corner is we found a foot
0:22:20 > 0:22:24and it's in very bad shape so we've put a very light cover over it.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27- And what's under the mysterious yellow tray?- This?
0:22:27 > 0:22:32Well, this is a very scientific hiding device,
0:22:32 > 0:22:36which hides this very poorly-preserved skull.
0:22:36 > 0:22:40- Wow!- And this is probably not related to that leg bone there.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44- Because it's on a different layer, is that how you worked that out? - Yeah.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46And what we have removed from there, though,
0:22:46 > 0:22:49because we don't want them to go missing because they're so exciting,
0:22:49 > 0:22:51are some buttons that Paula found.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54These two buttons, the first one that we found
0:22:54 > 0:22:58was found in the screening of some of the sand we removed from the site.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02And the second one we found up against the shinbone.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05And they are very exciting, they're lovely buttons.
0:23:05 > 0:23:11The back is brass and the front has some mother-of-pearl inlay.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14So that suggests quite a high status burial?
0:23:14 > 0:23:18It could suggest that this individual that they were found with
0:23:18 > 0:23:21was of higher rank than some of the other sailors.
0:23:21 > 0:23:26What's really exciting with these buttons is that they are a little more ornate than the buttons
0:23:26 > 0:23:28we've typically found at military sites in the past.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31And with this mother-of-pearl inlay,
0:23:31 > 0:23:37it's just a lot more elaborate than a plain, home-made bone button or a shell button,
0:23:37 > 0:23:42which were typically found on undergarments or pants and shirts,
0:23:42 > 0:23:46and so that leads us to believe that there's somebody of higher rank
0:23:46 > 0:23:49than the other sailors that we've uncovered at this site
0:23:49 > 0:23:52and at a nearby Royal Navy hospital cemetery.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57'So who did these buttons belong to?
0:23:57 > 0:23:59'They're not from a naval uniform.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02'Perhaps they belonged to a gentleman passenger,
0:24:02 > 0:24:05'perhaps a planter off to visit his estate.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10'What's remarkable is that so much of the landscape and buildings
0:24:10 > 0:24:14'that their owner would have seen if he had made it on shore alive
0:24:14 > 0:24:20'are still being used today, just as they would have been 250 years ago.
0:24:20 > 0:24:25'One extraordinary relic from the 18th century that's still beautifully preserved
0:24:25 > 0:24:28'is this enormous water-collecting tank.'
0:24:30 > 0:24:33There are no rivers or lakes on Antigua.
0:24:33 > 0:24:38All of the fresh water they used to drink, to cook, to clean, had to come from the sky.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43Water pours down this slope into vast collection chambers underneath.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46The sailors would then roll their barrels up here and fill them up
0:24:46 > 0:24:48and take them back to the ships.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54'But what's really remarkable is the graffiti that survives on the surrounding walls.'
0:24:54 > 0:24:57It's a magnificent resource because handwriting is so personal,
0:24:57 > 0:25:00you get a real sense of the people who were here.
0:25:00 > 0:25:05Here we've got John Webb, who's chosen to carve his name deep, using very straight lines,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08and a very clear 'O' there.
0:25:08 > 0:25:14Further up, we've got James Gates, who's used a much more cursive hand.
0:25:15 > 0:25:17The ship Roebuck here,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21another date, 1743 here.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25EG, 1740.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29Down here, IDWH and 1748.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33It's almost like what you would do on the walls in a prison,
0:25:33 > 0:25:37these men are putting their marks here, they're saying that they've been here,
0:25:37 > 0:25:39they're saying that they've endured.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42They're saying that they've survived.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55'After three days' work at the excavation unit,
0:25:55 > 0:25:58'a miraculously complete figure has appeared in the sand.
0:26:00 > 0:26:05'Matt Brown is a bio-archaeologist from City University, New York.'
0:26:06 > 0:26:12We managed to uncover the skeleton that we identified earlier today, or yesterday.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17Look at where the hands are, they're actually laid over the pelvis area.
0:26:17 > 0:26:19- He looks very neat, doesn't he? - Yes. Yes.
0:26:19 > 0:26:24And from what I understand, sometimes they'd wrap them in their hammocks,
0:26:24 > 0:26:29so that helped to keep that individual in line.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34That makes sense. You could almost see the shape of him being squashed together by his hammock.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36His head's slightly raised, hunched forwards.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40Can you give me a rough idea of what period we're looking at?
0:26:40 > 0:26:43As far as dating the individual skeleton,
0:26:43 > 0:26:46you'd likely want to have some kind of artefacts, that kind of thing,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50that would go along with the skeleton and give you some idea of a date.
0:26:50 > 0:26:55But as of right now, we don't have any kind of evidence of any kind of artefacts here.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59So the mother-of-pearl buttons that we found at the end of the day yesterday,
0:26:59 > 0:27:03- they're actually from a different layer.- From a different layer and from a different individual.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06- So probably someone completely different.- Yeah.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10- So it emphasises the complexity of this site.- Yeah. Definitely.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13So, Cory, what's going on up this end?
0:27:13 > 0:27:16What we're doing is we're starting to uncover
0:27:16 > 0:27:18a part of the mandible here.
0:27:18 > 0:27:24You can see it's just the teeth which are still intact in some areas right here.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28It's incredibly vivid, isn't it? When the teeth emerge, it makes it so much more human almost.
0:27:28 > 0:27:33Absolutely. And you can see right away that there's a bit of dental wear on it,
0:27:33 > 0:27:36so you can see, from normal use.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40It's really nice to see that we have something there that can be added to
0:27:40 > 0:27:45all the other ways in which you can age, or at the least use different age composites to look at.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55We've come to the end of three really hard days' digging.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58And there still seems so much more that we need to do,
0:27:58 > 0:28:02and as always with archaeology, there is a limited timeframe within which to do it.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06We've pulled all of these skeletal remains from a trench no more than two metres square,
0:28:06 > 0:28:08and it's only the second trench that we've dug.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10There's more material coming up all the time.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13We simply don't know what's going to come next.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16And such a wealth of material from such a confined space
0:28:16 > 0:28:21really makes you think about the complexity of the human story that played itself out here.
0:28:23 > 0:28:28'Naval life in the tropics was undoubtedly arduous and dangerous.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31'But what was the island itself like?
0:28:32 > 0:28:36'30 minutes' drive inland, another archaeological dig is underway,
0:28:36 > 0:28:41'excavating one of Antigua's first and largest sugar plantations.
0:28:41 > 0:28:45'British sailors who came here in the 18th century
0:28:45 > 0:28:48'were well aware that the island was wholly given over
0:28:48 > 0:28:53'to the brutal business of industrial-scale sugar cultivation.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55'The whole island was a sea of cane.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58'And if anyone lived a hellish existence here,
0:28:58 > 0:29:02'it was undoubtedly the hundreds of thousands of slaves
0:29:02 > 0:29:04'who were sent here from West Africa.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11'Betty's Hope plantation was founded in the mid-1600s
0:29:11 > 0:29:16'by one of the island's earliest colonisers, Sir Christopher Codrington.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23'The archaeological investigation of the Codrington plantation
0:29:23 > 0:29:26'is headed by Californian professor Georgia Fox.
0:29:26 > 0:29:32'Working with a team of students, she's currently excavating the main planter's house.'
0:29:32 > 0:29:35The scale of the industry, the plantation at one time was about 700 acres,
0:29:35 > 0:29:39and, of course, there was a whole cadre of people working here,
0:29:39 > 0:29:43the managers, the overseers, the servants, and about 400 slaves.
0:29:43 > 0:29:45So it was the huge operation, it was an industrial complex.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48'We escaped from the dust and sun
0:29:48 > 0:29:51'into one of the old sugar-crushing windmills.'
0:29:51 > 0:29:53So what is the purpose of the excavation at the moment?
0:29:53 > 0:29:58Well, this is the first plantation house to be excavated on Antigua.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01So it's important for local island history,
0:30:01 > 0:30:05but there are so few plantations that have been fully excavated in the Caribbean region,
0:30:05 > 0:30:10there still is a lot of work to be done to understand how plantations functioned.
0:30:10 > 0:30:13Historians write about plantations and plantation life,
0:30:13 > 0:30:16but the archaeology fleshes out those details
0:30:16 > 0:30:21through the excavation, the material culture, the buildings, the artefacts.
0:30:21 > 0:30:26So they might tell a slightly different story, we don't know. The artefacts don't lie.
0:30:26 > 0:30:31We have a whole complex of support buildings to the north of the great house
0:30:31 > 0:30:35which included a servants' quarters, a doctor's office,
0:30:35 > 0:30:39the overseer's office, and other buildings which we're looking for now,
0:30:39 > 0:30:42and then we're also looking for the original slave housing,
0:30:42 > 0:30:44the pre-emancipation slave housing.
0:30:44 > 0:30:46And would that slave housing have been nearby,
0:30:46 > 0:30:49or was that in a slightly separate location?
0:30:49 > 0:30:53Yes, it would've been nearby, because the planters always wanted to keep an eye on their slaves.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56But at the end of the day, we're also trying to look at
0:30:56 > 0:30:59not just the plantation as a system,
0:30:59 > 0:31:02but trying to understand the lives of the people who lived and worked here,
0:31:02 > 0:31:05whether they were the owners or the slaves.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09And so we want to have a more holistic picture of plantation life.
0:31:15 > 0:31:17'Central to the work at Betty's Hope
0:31:17 > 0:31:21'is a search for more detailed archaeological information about slave life.
0:31:22 > 0:31:25'A few shards of rough slave pottery have been unearthed.
0:31:25 > 0:31:32'But there is precious little solid evidence of their homes, culture or experiences.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40'On an island where the majority of the population are descended from slaves,
0:31:40 > 0:31:46'a more detailed and forensic understanding of slavery on the plantations is essential
0:31:46 > 0:31:49'in helping future generations of Antiguans
0:31:49 > 0:31:53'develop a proper understanding of the darkest part of their national story.'
0:31:59 > 0:32:02We've had a phone call from the guys excavating down on the beach
0:32:02 > 0:32:06and they started to uncover another skeleton in the same trench.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11So we're heading back to English Harbour as quickly as we can.
0:32:12 > 0:32:14It's a bit of a jumble, as you can tell.
0:32:14 > 0:32:20We've got a lot of different bones popping up in places that are not anatomically correct.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23So we've got some fibula here,
0:32:23 > 0:32:26another fibula down here.
0:32:26 > 0:32:29Bits of pelvis, pelvic bone over here.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33And we are finding a lot of coffin nails, though, which is very interesting,
0:32:33 > 0:32:35So I just found one here.
0:32:35 > 0:32:39We've got one here, two over here.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42One is actually in a jumble of pelvic bones,
0:32:42 > 0:32:46and this is the individual that we're pretty confident
0:32:46 > 0:32:49was associated with the buttons that we found the other day, those fancy buttons.
0:32:49 > 0:32:51So in total, how many buttons have we found?
0:32:51 > 0:32:55We found a total of five buttons, which is pretty exciting.
0:32:55 > 0:32:58And they're kind of across the individual,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01but as I said, the individual is pretty jumbled up
0:33:01 > 0:33:05so we can't really infer too much about the placement of the buttons at the moment.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13'Each bone from the site is carefully removed and wrapped
0:33:13 > 0:33:16'to be taken for analysis by Tamara in the project workshop.'
0:33:16 > 0:33:20Since I've been working in Antigua for the last 15 years,
0:33:20 > 0:33:25I've been specifically interested in the British Navy in Antigua
0:33:25 > 0:33:28and how they lived here and how they adapted to life in the Caribbean.
0:33:28 > 0:33:34They're dealing with the heat, they're dealing with lack of water,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37sometimes lack of rations, that sort of thing.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41'Central to Tamara's analysis is a detailed examination of diet,
0:33:41 > 0:33:46'as revealed by the mineral content in each individual set of bones.'
0:33:46 > 0:33:49I also do what we call archaeological bone chemistry.
0:33:49 > 0:33:54And so I investigate what they were eating over their lifetimes
0:33:54 > 0:33:58and if that diet changed once they got to Antigua.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01One, two, three.
0:34:01 > 0:34:08Initially, my work was basically looking at elemental components of diet,
0:34:08 > 0:34:12which are later transformed into body tissues.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15And because you essentially are what you eat,
0:34:15 > 0:34:19you can get a very generalised look at what people were eating.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23People coming from Britain would've been eating a very different diet
0:34:23 > 0:34:28than people living in the Caribbean or slaves being transported from Africa.
0:34:28 > 0:34:33And in that way, I can separate the Europeans from the Africans.
0:34:34 > 0:34:38'Working on bone samples taken during an earlier dig
0:34:38 > 0:34:42'at the site of the cemetery of the naval hospital in English Harbour,
0:34:42 > 0:34:44'Tamara was able to confirm that Europeans
0:34:44 > 0:34:48and Africans were buried alongside one another,
0:34:48 > 0:34:51'contradicting some of the notions of racial segregation
0:34:51 > 0:34:54'in the 18th century Caribbean.'
0:34:54 > 0:34:57One of the interesting things about the naval hospital cemetery
0:34:57 > 0:35:00that I dug a few years back
0:35:00 > 0:35:05is that there there are people of African and European ancestry,
0:35:05 > 0:35:11and you can really see how when the Navy brought sailors and soldiers here
0:35:11 > 0:35:14that they didn't live as long as the Africans.
0:35:14 > 0:35:19It's astonishing how young many of the sailors and soldiers are,
0:35:19 > 0:35:21when we estimate their age of death from their bones.
0:35:24 > 0:35:30Seeing these bones being taken out of the ground with such delicacy and care really makes you wonder
0:35:30 > 0:35:35whether the bodies were put into the ground in the first place with any ceremony and dignity.
0:35:35 > 0:35:39These men were husbands, they were sons, there were fathers.
0:35:39 > 0:35:41Were their families ever told what had become of them?
0:35:41 > 0:35:44Were they ever told where they'd been buried?
0:35:44 > 0:35:49The longer I spend at this dig, it's clear that this is far more than just a scientific exercise.
0:35:49 > 0:35:53There's a human tragedy here that we need to understand.
0:36:05 > 0:36:12'The first skeleton from the dig has now been laid out in Tamara's workshop for preliminary analysis.'
0:36:12 > 0:36:14So, Tamara, what can you tell us about him?
0:36:14 > 0:36:18Well, I can tell you that he was in his late 30s when he died,
0:36:18 > 0:36:20and he's male,
0:36:20 > 0:36:24and he was about four-11, five foot in stature.
0:36:24 > 0:36:28So what are you actually specifically looking at when you're gauging the age of a skeleton?
0:36:28 > 0:36:34We're looking to see how rugged it is and how much porosity is there
0:36:34 > 0:36:36and how dense the surfaces are.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39And on a much younger skeleton, what does it look like? Is it shiny?
0:36:39 > 0:36:44It would be much more rugged and a little more coarse.
0:36:44 > 0:36:50- So this is very much the first stage in the way you plan to go forward. - Yes.- What do you do next?
0:36:50 > 0:36:54What I'll do next is examine each one of the bones a little more carefully
0:36:54 > 0:36:59to see if there's any subtle traces that indicate something about health.
0:36:59 > 0:37:03Can you get indication of disease being a cause of death?
0:37:03 > 0:37:07You know, it's very rare to be able to find an indicator of the cause of death,
0:37:07 > 0:37:10cos cause of death is usually from soft tissue cause.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13What we might be able to deduce
0:37:13 > 0:37:17is if he had a traumatic death
0:37:17 > 0:37:21or if it was a disease which left a lot of indication on the bone,
0:37:21 > 0:37:23which I can already say is probably not.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26It's probably an acute cause of death.
0:37:29 > 0:37:34'The main work on this skeleton will take place back in her lab in Canada
0:37:34 > 0:37:37'where Tamara is keen to pursue a new line of research,
0:37:37 > 0:37:43'looking at the phenomenon of lead poisoning amongst the Caribbean sailors.'
0:37:43 > 0:37:46One of the historical questions has been what was the...
0:37:46 > 0:37:49what led to the high mortality rate
0:37:49 > 0:37:52of the Royal Navy and military in the West Indies?
0:37:52 > 0:37:58And one of the historical, sort of, hypotheses
0:37:58 > 0:38:02is a combination of alcoholism and lead poisoning,
0:38:02 > 0:38:04with lead poisoning coming from the alcohol.
0:38:08 > 0:38:13The most important by-product of sugar production is rum.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17And rum, after sugar, is the most important export
0:38:17 > 0:38:20of the sugar islands.
0:38:20 > 0:38:25Rum is an extremely important part of local life on the islands,
0:38:25 > 0:38:32and planters were renowned for their high living and their drunken antics and behaviour.
0:38:34 > 0:38:38'Rum was also regularly doled out to the slaves.
0:38:38 > 0:38:41'But the greatest consumers of rum on Antigua
0:38:41 > 0:38:43'would have been the sailors and soldiers
0:38:43 > 0:38:46'for whom it was the anaesthetic of choice.'
0:38:46 > 0:38:49This is a very old bottle and would've likely held rum.
0:38:49 > 0:38:56We know that every sailor got his traditional pint a day served in two batches, mixed with lime and water.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00So the grog was a very traditional naval drink and they had to have it.
0:39:00 > 0:39:06In fact, we find an old poster advertising for 200,000 gallons of rum in Antigua
0:39:06 > 0:39:10to be purchased to supply the military forces in the eastern Caribbean islands.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13Also, remember, they're surrounded by plantations.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15It's cheap rum, new rum especially,
0:39:15 > 0:39:18the first distillation was really cheap.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21I think this rum was probably very poisonous.
0:39:21 > 0:39:28All the piping, all the tubes, all the worms that the rum has been distilled in is made of lead.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31We know from the records that they drank a lot of it in addition to their rations.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34They're probably taking themselves to an early grave with lead poisoning,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37and of course, once you get sick, you get sent to the hospital
0:39:37 > 0:39:40to treat the dry bellyache, the flux that they all complained about,
0:39:40 > 0:39:43probably caused by lead poisoning from the rum.
0:39:43 > 0:39:48And again, they bleed you, the only treatment they had was bleeding, blistering and mercury.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52That doesn't really help the lead in your body if that is the problem.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55There's something a little more to it than the yellow fever, malaria.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57I think rum was seriously poisonous.
0:39:59 > 0:40:03'It's this lead content in the rum and its absorption into the sailors' bones
0:40:03 > 0:40:07'that has been the subject of Tamara Varney's most recent research.'
0:40:09 > 0:40:12I've been working with some new technology called a synchrotron,
0:40:12 > 0:40:17which is basically a large atom accelerator that creates brilliant, brilliant light,
0:40:17 > 0:40:20which allows us to take our analysis to levels
0:40:20 > 0:40:23which was previously not possible.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25And with that we can look at,
0:40:25 > 0:40:29not just the amount of lead that has been accumulated into bone over a lifetime,
0:40:29 > 0:40:34we can actually look at the distribution of that lead inside the bone,
0:40:34 > 0:40:36and if it's been incorporated into the bone,
0:40:36 > 0:40:39as opposed to just being a contaminant from the burial environment.
0:40:39 > 0:40:44'Tamara's research indicates that, thanks to the rum,
0:40:44 > 0:40:48'young British men were heavily poisoned with lead while they were in Antigua.
0:40:48 > 0:40:51'This would have compromised their immune systems,
0:40:51 > 0:40:56'making them especially vulnerable to whatever tropical diseases they encountered.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59'It's another fragment of information
0:40:59 > 0:41:01'that only adds to the grim picture of naval life
0:41:01 > 0:41:05'that sailors, like those now appearing in increasing numbers
0:41:05 > 0:41:09'in the excavation trenches, would have endured.'
0:41:10 > 0:41:15So, Sam, we've got another extraordinary jumble of bones here. Can you tell me what's going on?
0:41:15 > 0:41:21- Sure. Well, right now, you're looking at at least six individuals. - Six?- Yes.- Crikey!
0:41:21 > 0:41:23So that's six more from what we've already discovered?
0:41:23 > 0:41:27- Yes.- All in this one small area? - Yes.
0:41:27 > 0:41:34- So, right here we've got an individual, and you're seeing two lower leg bones coming out.- Yep.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37Down here further,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39we've got two feet, and they are beautifully preserved.
0:41:39 > 0:41:43They're just poking out of the sand, they'd just been chucked on top of each other.
0:41:43 > 0:41:47Yeah, they're just, you know, someone was definitely lying down with their feet up in the air.
0:41:47 > 0:41:52And with these, we've got another one of our fancy buttons and a coffin nail.
0:41:52 > 0:41:57Here we've got what looks like a very well-preserved skeleton coming out.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00We're very excited about this one. This is burial number four.
0:42:00 > 0:42:04And you can see we've got two patellas here.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07Oh, very neatly placed together.
0:42:07 > 0:42:09Yes, absolutely, and you've got a bit of pelvis,
0:42:09 > 0:42:14and the spine coming up, so this looks like it's going to be a really great find.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17So we're going to work on this area next
0:42:17 > 0:42:19and see where it goes from there.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22'Amongst this collection of bones
0:42:22 > 0:42:25'was an unexpected and disconcerting discovery.'
0:42:26 > 0:42:30So what we're looking at with those individuals that you saw in the trench
0:42:30 > 0:42:33is we're looking at adults and some sub-adults,
0:42:33 > 0:42:36or people that are juveniles and children.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39- So there were kids in there? - Yes, there certainly were.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42And on ship, there were children
0:42:42 > 0:42:45and young boys that were apprenticed on the ships.
0:42:45 > 0:42:47Do you get a sense of what age we're talking about here?
0:42:47 > 0:42:50One is under 14, and one is definitely under 16,
0:42:50 > 0:42:53and you can tell that from which growth plates are not fused.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56But we haven't really had a good look at them as yet.
0:42:56 > 0:43:02- So there's more to come, but we think there are children buried amongst fully-grown adults?- Yes.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07'We know that boys were commonly employed on ships as servants,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10'as top men in the rigging,
0:43:10 > 0:43:13'and as powder monkeys during battle.
0:43:13 > 0:43:18'But these juvenile skeletons are still a poignant discovery
0:43:18 > 0:43:23'and one that further contributes to the identification of the bodies as sailors.
0:43:23 > 0:43:25'What's going to be much harder to pin down
0:43:25 > 0:43:28'is the ship that they came from.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32'Thanks to naval records, we know that one vessel,
0:43:32 > 0:43:37'whose crew seems unlikely to have buried any of its number on Galleon Beach,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40'was Horatio Nelson's HMS Boreas.'
0:43:40 > 0:43:43Nelson did actually quite well
0:43:43 > 0:43:46during this three or four years in the Boreas.
0:43:46 > 0:43:51He suffered very few casualties through fevers.
0:43:51 > 0:43:55And scurvy wasn't a problem for him
0:43:55 > 0:44:00because one of the upsides of being in ports so often
0:44:00 > 0:44:05was of course you did have ready access to fresh provisions,
0:44:05 > 0:44:09water, fruit, vegetables, these sorts of things,
0:44:09 > 0:44:13which became much more problematic when you were on deep sea journeys.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17So the scurvy problem wasn't such a great one,
0:44:17 > 0:44:19and he managed to avoid the fevers.
0:44:19 > 0:44:22It was a difficult command
0:44:22 > 0:44:25and Nelson did try to bring to it
0:44:25 > 0:44:29elements that would make it more tolerable.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33One of the things he used to persuade sailors to do
0:44:33 > 0:44:37was to involve themselves in amateur dramatics.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40They used to devise plays.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43They used to dress up and perform these plays
0:44:43 > 0:44:47and Nelson and the officers would go and watch them.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51And it was interesting to see men capering about in women's dresses
0:44:51 > 0:44:54and going through this type of performance.
0:44:54 > 0:45:00He also encouraged dancing and juggling and various other activities.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03'The main reason for the health of Nelson's crew
0:45:03 > 0:45:05'was probably not the dancing
0:45:05 > 0:45:09'but the relative peace in the Caribbean in the mid 1780s.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15'The worst outbreaks of disease occurred during times of war
0:45:15 > 0:45:18'and it was during the years immediately after Nelson was in Antigua,
0:45:18 > 0:45:23'in the 1790s, that the island witnessed the most intense period of militarisation.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27'Thanks to Britain's war with revolutionary France,
0:45:27 > 0:45:31'Antigua became the most heavily fortified island in the region
0:45:31 > 0:45:35'and a garrison for up to 5,000 troops.'
0:45:36 > 0:45:39The arrival of large numbers of Europeans
0:45:39 > 0:45:42into Caribbean port towns,
0:45:42 > 0:45:47which is exactly what happens when you get battalions of troops arriving from Europe,
0:45:47 > 0:45:52Europeans without any previous exposure to yellow fever
0:45:52 > 0:45:54who've built up no immunity to tropical fevers,
0:45:54 > 0:45:57all arriving at one time in one place,
0:45:57 > 0:46:02create the perfect conditions for fever to tear through their ranks.
0:46:04 > 0:46:09'And this is exactly what happened in the early 1790s.
0:46:09 > 0:46:14'The revolution in France created turmoil in her colonies in the Caribbean
0:46:14 > 0:46:17'and France's and most lucrative possession,
0:46:17 > 0:46:22'Saint Domingue, witnessed a violent and successful slave-led revolution.
0:46:22 > 0:46:27'French and British troops poured into the Caribbean as the conflict spread,
0:46:27 > 0:46:30'although many of them never made it into battle.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34'By far the majority of the ensuing casualties
0:46:34 > 0:46:37'were caused by tropical fever.'
0:46:43 > 0:46:46English Harbour was notorious for disease
0:46:46 > 0:46:49and became known as one of the most unhealthy spots in the Caribbean.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53But it's likely that many of the sailors buried on Galleon Beach
0:46:53 > 0:46:56were dead before they even arrived in Antigua.
0:46:56 > 0:47:01An extraordinary account survives of one ship that arrived in May 1793,
0:47:01 > 0:47:03HMS Experiment.
0:47:06 > 0:47:13'HMS Experiment was a war ship that had recently visited the port of St George in Grenada.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16'During her stay there, she appears to have been infected
0:47:16 > 0:47:19'by a ship newly arrived from West Africa
0:47:19 > 0:47:21'with a virulent strain of yellow fever
0:47:21 > 0:47:24'known as Bulam fever.
0:47:26 > 0:47:30'Shortly after contagion, the Experiment was instructed by the admiralty
0:47:30 > 0:47:35'to assume duties patrolling the waters around St Kitts and Antigua.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40'I managed to track down the naval documents
0:47:40 > 0:47:42'relating to HMS Experiment.'
0:47:42 > 0:47:46The journal of the proceedings of His Majesty's ship Experiment,
0:47:46 > 0:47:50kept by her captain, Simon Miller.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53She was sailing off Dominique, she'd left Grenada,
0:47:53 > 0:47:58and she's 42 miles to the north of Dominique when things start to go wrong.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01He notes here, "Company very sickly."
0:48:01 > 0:48:06The next day, after some entries about the day-to-day life of the ship,
0:48:06 > 0:48:09again he's put, "Ship's company very sickly."
0:48:09 > 0:48:13You can tell he's a man who's starting to get really worried about what's happening.
0:48:13 > 0:48:20The day after that, "Departed this life, Richard Ellis, at 11. Committed his body to the deep."
0:48:20 > 0:48:22These entries continue for a number of days.
0:48:22 > 0:48:28"Ship's company sickly" again, that was just a day after they buried Richard Ellis at sea.
0:48:30 > 0:48:32Then something really interesting happens.
0:48:32 > 0:48:36Discipline starts to break down on board.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41The captain has to punish Daniel Denton with 12 lashes for contempt.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44And the next day,
0:48:44 > 0:48:47he's punished another sailor called Jonathan Monroe,
0:48:47 > 0:48:49this time with 36 lashes for theft.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53They're still sailing from Dominique towards Antigua.
0:48:53 > 0:48:57And then once again, on the same day, "11, departed this life,
0:48:57 > 0:49:02"Thomas Woollingly, at midnight committed his body to the deep."
0:49:02 > 0:49:05And the very next day, he has to punish Henry Wood
0:49:05 > 0:49:08with 12 lashes for neglect.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18By the time the Experiment arrived at the mouth of English Harbour,
0:49:18 > 0:49:20she was like a ghost ship,
0:49:20 > 0:49:23the few surviving men on board her incapable of bringing her in.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27One of the defensive strengths of this harbour
0:49:27 > 0:49:30is the narrowness of the inlet,
0:49:30 > 0:49:33but it made the whole process of actually getting in incredibly difficult
0:49:33 > 0:49:36for these massive and cumbersome sailing warships.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38To help them, they'd run lines ashore
0:49:38 > 0:49:42and wrap them around strong points like this, it's a cannon sunk into the stone.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46Now, this was far beyond anything that the crew of the Experiment could cope with,
0:49:46 > 0:49:48so they made the signal for assistance
0:49:48 > 0:49:52and a crew from the frigate Sole Bay rowed out to help.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55It was an act of suicide.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59Every single member of that rescue party was infected and died.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04'The muster books of the Experiment and the Sole Bay, 'the lists of men on board,
0:50:04 > 0:50:09'paint a vivid picture of the rapid demise of the ships' crews.'
0:50:10 > 0:50:14Richard Warren, discharged, dead.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17Charles Norbrun, discharged, dead.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19Thomas Rouston,
0:50:19 > 0:50:21Robert Tozer,
0:50:21 > 0:50:24Francis Juno,
0:50:24 > 0:50:26William Sutherland,
0:50:26 > 0:50:28Jonathan Leach,
0:50:28 > 0:50:31George Cook,
0:50:31 > 0:50:33William Tiller,
0:50:33 > 0:50:35Sam Dyer,
0:50:35 > 0:50:38Robert Giles, all dead.
0:50:39 > 0:50:44Here, too, we have the boatswain, who was Thomas Carrington,
0:50:44 > 0:50:46he's recorded as having two servants,
0:50:46 > 0:50:49so these would've been two boys learning the trade of the boatswain.
0:50:49 > 0:50:54Jonathan Burnett, discharged, dead on 21st October.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59And another boatswain servant, David Richards,
0:50:59 > 0:51:02he died on exactly the same day.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05It just makes you wonder if these are the boys
0:51:05 > 0:51:08that are buried on Galleon Beach.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12'We'll never know exactly who the bones now being excavated belonged to,
0:51:12 > 0:51:16'but over 200 sailors from the Experiment,
0:51:16 > 0:51:18'the Sole Bay and other infected ships
0:51:18 > 0:51:22'died in the Bulam fever epidemic in English Harbour
0:51:22 > 0:51:25'towards the end of 1793.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29'And it's more than likely that the bodies of Francis Juno,
0:51:29 > 0:51:32'Robert Tozer, Richard Warren,
0:51:32 > 0:51:35'Jonathan Burnett and all the others
0:51:35 > 0:51:39'were hurriedly disposed of here on the sand dunes.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43'The full extent of this beach burial site, however, is unclear.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47'And for now, it will have to remain a subject for speculation
0:51:47 > 0:51:49'as this dig is now beginning to wind up.'
0:51:49 > 0:51:54Yesterday we found those two perfect feet just sticking out of the sand. What happened to them?
0:51:54 > 0:51:58We decided, based on the amount of time we have left for this dig,
0:51:58 > 0:52:01that it's better to leave this individual in place,
0:52:01 > 0:52:05cos we actually found that this individual extended further
0:52:05 > 0:52:08and we'd actually have to cut this all the way back
0:52:08 > 0:52:11to remove or to expose it, at least.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15So when we leave this trench, there's still going to be more archaeological material left.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19Yeah, there'll still be individuals here, and it's better that way.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24You don't want to take individuals out if you don't have the space or the time to do the analysis.
0:52:24 > 0:52:26Do you think we've recovered sufficient material
0:52:26 > 0:52:29to be able to tell the story adequately well?
0:52:29 > 0:52:33I think, depending on the analyses that are going to be run,
0:52:33 > 0:52:36as far as sailors, you have a large span,
0:52:36 > 0:52:39a large range of individuals on these boats coming in.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43If they are dying of disease, it's not just affecting older individuals,
0:52:43 > 0:52:45it's affecting all age groups.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49'Time has run out for the archaeologists.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52'They're leaving at least two unexcavated skeletons in the ground
0:52:52 > 0:52:55'and they are now pretty confident that there are many more,
0:52:55 > 0:52:59'perhaps hundreds of bodies buried in this sand dune.
0:53:01 > 0:53:06'For the benefit of future archaeologists returning to this fascinating site,
0:53:06 > 0:53:08'the team are leaving a message behind,
0:53:08 > 0:53:13'a simple clue that this small patch has already been dug.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23'We know that some of the sailors that came to Antigua
0:53:23 > 0:53:26'in the 18th century did enjoy the warm seas,
0:53:26 > 0:53:29'the fresh fish, the Caribbean colours, the fruit, the rum.
0:53:29 > 0:53:32'But the brutality of naval life,
0:53:32 > 0:53:35'the overwhelming heat and the constant fear of disease
0:53:35 > 0:53:38'on this polluted, heavily-militarised,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41'factory-farmed slave island
0:53:41 > 0:53:44'undoubtedly turned Antigua into a kind of hell
0:53:44 > 0:53:48'for most of the men and women who ended up here.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58'But what about Nelson?
0:53:58 > 0:54:02'He had no qualms about the business of the island.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06'As a senior officer, his comforts and living conditions
0:54:06 > 0:54:09'were far easier than they were for his crew.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13'He didn't suffer from sickness until the end of his Caribbean posting.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17'So what made him quite so miserable in English Harbour?
0:54:21 > 0:54:27'The answer was boredom, frustration and a girl called Mary Moutray.
0:54:28 > 0:54:30'English Harbour was a tiny settlement,
0:54:30 > 0:54:34'but the resident British Commodore, Sir John Moutray,
0:54:34 > 0:54:38'had an attractive wife 30 years his junior.'
0:54:42 > 0:54:46Moutray's house, wishfully known as Windsor,
0:54:46 > 0:54:48was up here on the hill behind the dockyard
0:54:48 > 0:54:52where you can feel the breeze coming in from the open sea.
0:54:52 > 0:54:56And it was at Windsor where Nelson and his good friend, Cuthbert Collingwood,
0:54:56 > 0:54:59found a measure of respite from their naval duties
0:54:59 > 0:55:01in the company of Moutray's beguiling young wife.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06'Unfortunately, it was a short-lived friendship.'
0:55:06 > 0:55:10Mary left Antigua with her husband
0:55:10 > 0:55:13in the late spring of '85.
0:55:13 > 0:55:19So Nelson only knew her for, really, between August and May.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23But it actually almost destroyed him.
0:55:23 > 0:55:28He talks in his letters about her being the most amiable person
0:55:28 > 0:55:30that he had ever known.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33He was absolutely lost.
0:55:33 > 0:55:39And the first time he went back to English Harbour after she left,
0:55:39 > 0:55:41he walked up the hill to the house
0:55:41 > 0:55:45and he was so distraught at the sight of this place
0:55:45 > 0:55:50where, as he said, "I've spent more happy hours here than anywhere else."
0:55:52 > 0:55:57'He wrote to his brother, "This country appears now intolerable,
0:55:57 > 0:56:00"my dear friend being absent.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02"It is barren indeed.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05"English Harbour, I hate the sight of."
0:56:07 > 0:56:09'Given Nelson's feelings about this place,
0:56:09 > 0:56:12'it's ironic that the dockyard at English Harbour
0:56:12 > 0:56:15'is now universally known as Nelson's Dockyard.
0:56:15 > 0:56:20'But I think it's an important reminder of the historical significance of this site.'
0:56:22 > 0:56:26So, if you think about the bigger picture, how important is the work
0:56:26 > 0:56:28that you guys are doing for Antigua?
0:56:28 > 0:56:33I think it was, for example, at one point in time, on the frontier of the empire.
0:56:33 > 0:56:35This is where... They had to protect the resources here.
0:56:35 > 0:56:37It was valuable because of the sugar.
0:56:37 > 0:56:40Once the sugar was gone and they had no value, they were forgotten.
0:56:40 > 0:56:46Emancipation, slaves were freed, and we are a small little marginal country of the Eastern Caribbean.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50For us, we are still trying to learn about our past.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53What's written, the history is his story, the tale told by the winner.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57What do we know about our history, really, from an Antiguan perspective?
0:56:57 > 0:56:59If you go back to the history books, who wrote our history?
0:56:59 > 0:57:02There are no official historians here.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05So we pick up all these accounts written all over the world.
0:57:05 > 0:57:10And archaeology, to me, is like, we shake the old historical tree and see what drops out of it,
0:57:10 > 0:57:14and in a lot of cases, we find it's not exactly quite right.
0:57:14 > 0:57:17For example, look at that building across the hill up here.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20That was apparently built for King William IV when he was here in 1787.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23It wasn't built until 1805.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26Thanks to archaeology, we figured that out.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28So archaeology tests these things
0:57:28 > 0:57:31and we are now looking at it from our perspective as Antiguans
0:57:31 > 0:57:33and from what's actually physically there.
0:57:35 > 0:57:39'The archaeological work of Reg and his colleagues is important
0:57:39 > 0:57:42'not just for Antigua but also for Britain.
0:57:43 > 0:57:47'It's helping piece together the far from complete history
0:57:47 > 0:57:50'of the relationship between our two Atlantic islands.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56'In particular, the excavation of Galleon Beach
0:57:56 > 0:57:59'brings into focus a dark and forgotten chapter of that story
0:57:59 > 0:58:03'and provides a poignant moment of commemoration
0:58:03 > 0:58:06'for the hundreds, probably thousands of young sailors
0:58:06 > 0:58:09'of the British Navy who died in Antigua
0:58:09 > 0:58:11'not in battle but in their hammocks,
0:58:11 > 0:58:13'hastily disposed of at the time
0:58:13 > 0:58:16'and forgotten ever since.'
0:58:20 > 0:58:24Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:24 > 0:58:24.