0:00:02 > 0:00:06Stonehenge - our greatest ancient monument.
0:00:06 > 0:00:08It has captivated and intrigued us
0:00:08 > 0:00:12since the very beginning of recorded history.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14In fact, there's nothing else in Britain
0:00:14 > 0:00:17that fires our collective imagination
0:00:17 > 0:00:21quite like these mysterious standing stones.
0:00:24 > 0:00:27Some of our greatest archaeologists and historians
0:00:27 > 0:00:30have helped to drive our fascination with Stonehenge.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32For centuries, they've been attempting to solve
0:00:32 > 0:00:34the riddle of the stones,
0:00:34 > 0:00:38trying to answer some of the really important questions
0:00:38 > 0:00:40about this enigmatic structure.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42How was it built?
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Who built it, and why?
0:00:46 > 0:00:50Over the past seven decades, the BBC has been on location,
0:00:50 > 0:00:54as historians and archaeologists have tried to tackle
0:00:54 > 0:00:56these fundamental questions.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04At the forefront of documenting their work
0:01:04 > 0:01:06has been the history series Timewatch.
0:01:09 > 0:01:11During its three decades on our screens,
0:01:11 > 0:01:15Timewatch investigated some of the most exciting archaeological digs
0:01:15 > 0:01:17in and around Stonehenge,
0:01:17 > 0:01:20as well as exploring the leading theories of the day.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25I'll be using Timewatch,
0:01:25 > 0:01:27and 70 years of BBC history archive,
0:01:27 > 0:01:29to look at how our understanding
0:01:29 > 0:01:33and our view of Stonehenge has changed over the decades.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37And that's been a process driven by new archaeological discoveries,
0:01:37 > 0:01:40by ground-breaking scientific research
0:01:40 > 0:01:42and by the evolution of compelling
0:01:42 > 0:01:47and often contradictory theories about how it was constructed,
0:01:47 > 0:01:50about the people who made it and about the purpose behind it.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01Britain's most famous stone circle stands timeless,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04imposing and mysterious on Salisbury Plain.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09But today's Stonehenge is just the final version of many
0:02:09 > 0:02:12different incarnations that once stood on this site.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17We now know the monument evolved through several distinct phases.
0:02:19 > 0:02:24The first was a circular ditch and bank, built around 5,000 years ago.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28Wooden or stone posts were added to form an inner ring.
0:02:29 > 0:02:34Then, some 500 years later, around 2,500 BC,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37the monument we know today was constructed.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40Giant sarsen sandstones were used to create an inner
0:02:40 > 0:02:43horseshoe of five trilithons.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46Around these were two rings of bluestones...
0:02:47 > 0:02:49..and the monument was then surrounded
0:02:49 > 0:02:53by a final ring of lintel-topped sarsens.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57Over the next few millennia, the ravages of time
0:02:57 > 0:03:02and the robbing of some stones left us with a partial, ruined monument.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07For the past five centuries, scholars and antiquarians
0:03:07 > 0:03:10have pored over the stones, trying to make sense of them,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14and often fitting the evidence into their own pet theories.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16Over the last 100 years or so,
0:03:16 > 0:03:20advances in archaeology have really driven forward our understanding,
0:03:20 > 0:03:25helping to dispel some of the myths and misunderstandings of the past.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33The archaeologists went beyond the legends,
0:03:33 > 0:03:38in search of hard evidence to help them solve the riddle of Stonehenge.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44One of the biggest mysteries of all is how such huge stones
0:03:44 > 0:03:47were brought to Salisbury Plain in the first place,
0:03:47 > 0:03:51especially as many of them are known to have travelled a great distance.
0:03:53 > 0:03:58In 1954, one of the first ever archaeology programmes on television
0:03:58 > 0:04:01attempted to solve this conundrum.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03The eminent archaeologist Richard Atkinson...
0:04:03 > 0:04:05Good evening.
0:04:05 > 0:04:06..devised an experiment to try
0:04:06 > 0:04:09to explain how the important bluestones,
0:04:09 > 0:04:15originating from west Wales, were carried 150 miles to Wiltshire.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22This is the raft we devised for the experiment.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25It's made up of three long, narrow punts.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27The copied bluestone was made of reinforced concrete
0:04:27 > 0:04:30and weighed nearly a ton and a half.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33With it sitting securely on the platform, we set off,
0:04:33 > 0:04:37punting upriver with some boys of Brownstone School as crew.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41Even though they weren't perhaps the most expert punters in the country,
0:04:41 > 0:04:43we had no trouble moving it upstream,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46even where there were shallow parts and bends.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48With the raft towed instead of punted,
0:04:48 > 0:04:50which of course could only have been done
0:04:50 > 0:04:52where there was a firm bank available
0:04:52 > 0:04:54and not in marshy or overgrown country,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56the raft moved at a fine pace,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59with the help of a man on board to steer.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02In fact, this part of the experiment showed that there would have been
0:05:02 > 0:05:05no difficulty in transporting the bluestones upriver
0:05:05 > 0:05:07with just a few men,
0:05:07 > 0:05:09even if the river was narrow and shallow.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13Now, for the experiment on land.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15For this, we used a rough wooden sledge
0:05:15 > 0:05:17which would probably have been made of oak.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20With the copied bluestone lashed in position,
0:05:20 > 0:05:22the weight to be moved is about a ton and a half.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29Now, with 24 gallant volunteers from Canford School hauling,
0:05:29 > 0:05:31off we go.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33But, no, 24 can't do it.
0:05:33 > 0:05:34Can 28?
0:05:39 > 0:05:41No, it's still too much for them.
0:05:41 > 0:05:42Can 32?
0:05:43 > 0:05:44Yes, they can,
0:05:44 > 0:05:47and off the sledge goes.
0:05:47 > 0:05:49It is pretty hard work for the boys,
0:05:49 > 0:05:53so I calculate that to allow for sustained pulling up slopes,
0:05:53 > 0:05:56this stone would need 40 men to handle it like this.
0:05:56 > 0:05:57Now suppose one puts rollers,
0:05:57 > 0:05:59consisting of roughly cut logs,
0:05:59 > 0:06:01under the sledge.
0:06:01 > 0:06:02What happens then?
0:06:02 > 0:06:05This time, the hauling is being done by four...
0:06:07 > 0:06:08..eight...
0:06:09 > 0:06:10..and 14 boys.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14And off we go,
0:06:14 > 0:06:17with less than half the previous hauling party,
0:06:17 > 0:06:19moving the sledge quite easily.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22The trouble here is coping with the steering of the sledge,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25and getting the rollers into position,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28which needs a lot of organisation and experience.
0:06:31 > 0:06:32When Richard Atkinson and his team
0:06:32 > 0:06:35undertook their research in the early 1950s,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38experimental archaeology was really quite revolutionary.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42The idea was to take existing theories and to test them
0:06:42 > 0:06:45using practical, hands-on experiments.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49And in doing so, they gained a real appreciation of the ingenuity
0:06:49 > 0:06:52and the skill of the Neolithic engineers.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55Not only that, but through the medium of television,
0:06:55 > 0:06:59they demonstrated to a mass audience that experimental archaeology
0:06:59 > 0:07:03could be a really useful tool in understanding our ancestors.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07I think the thing about Atkinson's experiment with moving a stone
0:07:07 > 0:07:11is that it was done in a very kind of gentlemanly way,
0:07:11 > 0:07:17in a very British, mid-20th century, almost public-school environment.
0:07:17 > 0:07:19And, of course, that's not really what things were like
0:07:19 > 0:07:21in the Neolithic when Stonehenge was built,
0:07:21 > 0:07:24and I think if we are to really understand
0:07:24 > 0:07:26how those stones were moved,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29we need to think not just about the really small ones but the big ones,
0:07:29 > 0:07:31and we also need to try and get ourselves into the
0:07:31 > 0:07:35Neolithic frame of mind, which is so different from our own.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39I think what's happened since Atkinson's time
0:07:39 > 0:07:44is that we've realised that there are many ways of moving a stone,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47particularly one of those little Welsh bluestones.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51And I think we've actually learned rather more from what people
0:07:51 > 0:07:55do with stones in their own societies around the world today.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59And actually, the overengineering that we often try
0:07:59 > 0:08:03and put into these projects is maybe not necessary.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07Richard Atkinson's experiments proved that moving
0:08:07 > 0:08:10the bluestones would certainly have been possible.
0:08:10 > 0:08:15But in time, new evidence would emerge that cast doubt on the whole
0:08:15 > 0:08:18theory that humans were involved in moving the stones at all.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26In 1972, the BBC series Chronicle investigated a new hypothesis
0:08:26 > 0:08:29put forward by the geologist Geoffrey Kellaway.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33He believed that Atkinson was wrong
0:08:33 > 0:08:34and that, in fact,
0:08:34 > 0:08:39natural forces had delivered the bluestones from Wales to Wiltshire.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47'In 1970, the M5 motorway across the West Country was well under way,
0:08:47 > 0:08:52'when it came up against a limestone ridge near Clevedon in Somerset.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55'So, in went the bulldozers and the explosive experts,
0:08:55 > 0:08:59'to loosen and remove four and a half million tons of rock.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03'But when the rock face was removed,
0:09:03 > 0:09:08'something of startling significance for British geology stood revealed.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11'For the section of rock showed Mr Kellaway that once upon a time
0:09:11 > 0:09:16'an immense ice sheet had cut a path for itself through the hard rock.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20'Kellaway believes that the ice sheet moved eastwards across Wales,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24'and in so doing, tore huge rocks from the Preseli Mountains
0:09:24 > 0:09:28'of Pembrokeshire and carried them the 150 miles to Salisbury Plain.'
0:09:28 > 0:09:31So, it's the great bluestone controversy -
0:09:31 > 0:09:32and in the studio tonight
0:09:32 > 0:09:37a direct confrontation between geology and archaeology.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40On my left, we have the original iceman,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42Geoffrey Kellaway the geologist.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44And on my right, Professor Richard Atkinson,
0:09:44 > 0:09:47who speaks for the accepted archaeological view.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49Professor Atkinson,
0:09:49 > 0:09:53do you think that Mr Kellaway is talking nonsense?
0:09:55 > 0:09:58If I were to say yes, that would be rude.
0:09:58 > 0:10:00But what I would like to say
0:10:00 > 0:10:04is that I should like to see a great deal more evidence about this.
0:10:04 > 0:10:10If the bluestones were brought by ice to somewhere on Salisbury Plain,
0:10:10 > 0:10:16it seems to me highly improbable that what was brought was
0:10:16 > 0:10:19subsequently sufficient just for the needs of the builders
0:10:19 > 0:10:22of Stonehenge and left nothing over.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24Well, this is a basic problem, Mr Kellaway, isn't it,
0:10:24 > 0:10:29that the ice brought a certain number of nicely shaped bluestones
0:10:29 > 0:10:31to a specific spot, dumped them there and nowhere else,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35because there is no trail of bluestones all the way from Preseli?
0:10:35 > 0:10:39No, there couldn't possibly be a trail all the way from Preseli,
0:10:39 > 0:10:41unless we had done sufficient underwater work
0:10:41 > 0:10:44to trace them up to the Somerset coast.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48Now, the point is that it's no good looking at Stonehenge
0:10:48 > 0:10:49as a collection at the present time.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51It's just a collection of erratics.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54I mean, most of them are worked stones.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57Their exteriors tell you absolutely nothing about what they were
0:10:57 > 0:11:00before they were trimmed. This is just the whole trouble with them.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04You can't tell anything by looking at the exterior of the existing
0:11:04 > 0:11:07stones seen above ground at Stonehenge.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10What nobody has explained is why rotten stones,
0:11:10 > 0:11:12that have in fact come out of a peat bog,
0:11:12 > 0:11:15which are absolutely useless for building, which have come from
0:11:15 > 0:11:18north or central or south Wales, we don't quite know which,
0:11:18 > 0:11:20why those should be gathered together
0:11:20 > 0:11:23in heaps on Salisbury Plain.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26We do know they were using the same rock, the same Preseli rock,
0:11:26 > 0:11:27for making axes,
0:11:27 > 0:11:29and that these have been found at considerable distances.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33I mean, in the eastern part of Wales, for instance, in Devon
0:11:33 > 0:11:37and in the vicinity of Stonehenge and in that case, of course,
0:11:37 > 0:11:40the source may have been the stones of Stonehenge itself.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43The distribution of these axes in itself is very interesting,
0:11:43 > 0:11:46because I've been plotting these, and, in fact,
0:11:46 > 0:11:48they show, in many cases,
0:11:48 > 0:11:51a clear relationship to the inferred directions of glaciation
0:11:51 > 0:11:54deduced on totally independent grounds.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56But in many cases they don't.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59I mean, if you take for instance the axes from Tievebulliagh,
0:11:59 > 0:12:02on the coast of Antrim in Northern Ireland, you cannot
0:12:02 > 0:12:05pretend that ice has carried these to the shores of Aberdeenshire.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08Before we take too many packs of axes, gentlemen,
0:12:08 > 0:12:09thank you very much indeed.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11The glacial argument's an interesting one,
0:12:11 > 0:12:13and it's a tricky one,
0:12:13 > 0:12:16because there certainly was glaciation in west Wales.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20The problem is that nobody has yet come up with a satisfactory
0:12:20 > 0:12:23arrangement of glaciers which would have transported the
0:12:23 > 0:12:27stones eastwards from the Preseli Hills across to Salisbury Plain.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30The furthest the glaciers could reasonably carry them would be
0:12:30 > 0:12:33into South Wales, and that's why Kellaway's discovery,
0:12:33 > 0:12:37which isn't entirely as clear-cut as perhaps it seemed back then,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40was at least an interesting piece in the jigsaw puzzle.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43However, we've now come to understand
0:12:43 > 0:12:46that there is no material on Salisbury Plain
0:12:46 > 0:12:51that's been carried from west to east by glacial action.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54Geoffrey Kellaway's glaciation theory has cast a long shadow
0:12:54 > 0:12:57over the story of Stonehenge.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59Understanding how the stones were moved
0:12:59 > 0:13:00might seem like a detail,
0:13:00 > 0:13:03but in fact it's crucial to understanding
0:13:03 > 0:13:05how this monument was built
0:13:05 > 0:13:08and how it fits into the wider story of Neolithic Britain.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12The debate between some geologists
0:13:12 > 0:13:15and the archaeological community continues to this day,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19and it will probably never be completely resolved,
0:13:19 > 0:13:21as each side interprets the evidence differently,
0:13:21 > 0:13:24finding support for their own theories.
0:13:24 > 0:13:29So, for now, the journey of the bluestones remains mysterious
0:13:29 > 0:13:30and contentious.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37In the 1990s, experimental archaeology underwent
0:13:37 > 0:13:39something of a renaissance.
0:13:39 > 0:13:41Right, let's see if we can shift that stone!
0:13:41 > 0:13:4440 years on from the work of Richard Atkinson,
0:13:44 > 0:13:48a new project attempted to shed light on how the biggest stones
0:13:48 > 0:13:53of all had been stood on end to create the five giant trilithons.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00Julian Richards, together with engineer Mark Whitby,
0:14:00 > 0:14:04had been given the task of finding out how Stonehenge was built.
0:14:04 > 0:14:05For me, this has been one of those projects
0:14:05 > 0:14:08which the nearer you got to it the more difficult it became.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10Or, the more frightening it became.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12The reality of taking two 40-ton stones
0:14:12 > 0:14:13and turning them on their ends
0:14:13 > 0:14:19without using any machine power whatsoever is quite a daunting task.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22I don't think people have really stopped to think about
0:14:22 > 0:14:25the problem at Stonehenge in a realistic way.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28All the theories are put together by people who haven't actually
0:14:28 > 0:14:30been faced with the practical task of doing it.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35The first step in moving the giant concrete replica upright
0:14:35 > 0:14:38was to dig a huge pit beneath the stone.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42That just left the problem of levering it into the hole.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46There's no evidence that the Stonehenge area had
0:14:46 > 0:14:49hordes of people available to build monuments.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52So Mark Whitby's method uses as few people as possible.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56He has an ingenious plan to tip the 40-ton stone
0:14:56 > 0:14:58as if it were a seesaw.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00The basic concept is we've put six tons now
0:15:00 > 0:15:03on the back of the stone, by dragging it up these ramps.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06When it travels a certain distance along, this stone is going to stop.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08However, before it reaches that point,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11it will have passed this magic point of the centre of gravity
0:15:11 > 0:15:14and we'll be inducing the force
0:15:14 > 0:15:16which will make the whole stone start to turn.
0:15:16 > 0:15:18One, two, three.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25This is a real point of sort of crisis for us, in a way.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27I have never done it before.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29I don't know anybody who has done this before,
0:15:29 > 0:15:32so we are in the experimental stages.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34Watch that the rovers don't pull back on you.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36OK? Good luck.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38Right, take the strain.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44One, two, three, pull!
0:15:49 > 0:15:54THEY GROAN
0:16:02 > 0:16:05CHEERING
0:16:14 > 0:16:15Oh!
0:16:17 > 0:16:20LAUGHTER
0:16:20 > 0:16:23It's literally just dropped just as we planned it to drop.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25And the only thing which is slightly different is
0:16:25 > 0:16:27it's kicked out the back here. But that's...
0:16:27 > 0:16:30That's just better than we expected. That means it's more upright.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33I think it's probably one of the most spectacular ways
0:16:33 > 0:16:36one can think of getting a stone this size into a stone hole.
0:16:36 > 0:16:41I've heard comments that it was perhaps an overengineered approach.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44I'm not convinced about that.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47I mean, the people who built Stonehenge were very sophisticated,
0:16:47 > 0:16:50and were obviously capable of thinking out
0:16:50 > 0:16:52grand schemes like that and carrying them through.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54And I don't see why,
0:16:54 > 0:16:58especially after you'd perhaps had a go with some smaller stones,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01that somebody wouldn't have come up with an idea like this.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04"Let's use the weight of some smaller stones to help us
0:17:04 > 0:17:06"move a bigger one."
0:17:06 > 0:17:09So, I don't find it completely implausible.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13What's interesting with experiments at Stonehenge is that
0:17:13 > 0:17:15almost all of them have been done for television.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17So we get this great visual spectacle
0:17:17 > 0:17:21and a wide public thinks about how Stonehenge was built.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23But the funny thing is that archaeologists themselves
0:17:23 > 0:17:25have not done these experiments.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28They haven't been conducted scientifically and methodically
0:17:28 > 0:17:32and recorded in great detail and, you know, different
0:17:32 > 0:17:34ways of building Stonehenge
0:17:34 > 0:17:37compared logically and systematically with other ways.
0:17:37 > 0:17:42And so, what experiments we've had haven't actually told us that much.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46So, I think there's great scope there for somebody out there now,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50you know, to develop projects and systematically think about
0:17:50 > 0:17:52how Stonehenge was built,
0:17:52 > 0:17:55and to move on our understanding of the monument.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59Experimental archaeology might have helped to paint
0:17:59 > 0:18:02a picture of how Neolithic man could have tackled
0:18:02 > 0:18:05such daunting challenges,
0:18:05 > 0:18:07but understanding how this feat of engineering was
0:18:07 > 0:18:11achieved doesn't tell us much about the people who did it.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19The quest to uncover who built Stonehenge has a long history.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21In the Middle Ages it was said that
0:18:21 > 0:18:23Merlin had conjured it into existence.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28But by the 17th century a consensus had emerged that it was
0:18:28 > 0:18:30probably built by the Romans.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37In 1989, the BBC series Chronicle investigated
0:18:37 > 0:18:39the work of William Stukeley,
0:18:39 > 0:18:42who, in the 18th century, had challenged the status quo
0:18:42 > 0:18:46and he came up with a whole new creation myth for Stonehenge.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53But before tackling Stonehenge, Stukeley had spent much of his life
0:18:53 > 0:18:57investigating other stone circles, including nearby Avebury.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05With his experience of Avebury and other stone circles,
0:19:05 > 0:19:09Stukeley was sure that Stonehenge could not possibly be Roman.
0:19:09 > 0:19:11The fact that no Roman author had ever once mentioned it
0:19:11 > 0:19:14also seemed pretty conclusive evidence.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18But he came up with some ingenious forms of proof of his own.
0:19:18 > 0:19:20First, he reckoned that if it was Roman,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24then its dimensions should be in Roman units of measurement.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27Whoever makes any ancient building, he said,
0:19:27 > 0:19:29commonly forms it upon the measure in use
0:19:29 > 0:19:31among the people of that place.
0:19:31 > 0:19:33So, by reading the classical authors
0:19:33 > 0:19:37and studying Roman remains in St Albans and London,
0:19:37 > 0:19:40he worked out for himself the length of the Roman foot,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42about 11 1/2 English inches,
0:19:42 > 0:19:45which is about right for the standard Roman foot.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49He then set about testing whether multiples of Roman feet
0:19:49 > 0:19:51fitted the dimensions of Stonehenge.
0:19:53 > 0:19:54In two and a half days,
0:19:54 > 0:19:57he and an aristocratic patron, Lord Winchilsea,
0:19:57 > 0:19:59took some 2,000 measurements.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03The Roman foot, he concluded, did not fit.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05And he came up with another measurement
0:20:05 > 0:20:08of 20 4/5 English inches that did.
0:20:08 > 0:20:10This, he persuaded himself,
0:20:10 > 0:20:13was the standard unit used at all stone circles -
0:20:13 > 0:20:14the druid cubit.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19Stukeley was developing a very patriotic view
0:20:19 > 0:20:22of ancient British achievements.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26He saw in Stonehenge the origins of all architecture.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32By Stukeley's reasoning, if the Romans hadn't built Stonehenge,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35then it must have been created by those who inhabited Britain
0:20:35 > 0:20:37before them,
0:20:37 > 0:20:40the mysterious priestly class of Druids.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46The white-robed figures of the summer solstice
0:20:46 > 0:20:48are largely Stukeley's creation.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55They may bear little relationship to any ancient reality,
0:20:55 > 0:20:59but Stonehenge and the Druids have become part of the British psyche
0:20:59 > 0:21:01as THE symbols of our ancient past.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06I think probably the perception that the Druids built Stonehenge
0:21:06 > 0:21:09does get under the skin a little bit.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13Stonehenge was built a long time before the kind of Druidic orders
0:21:13 > 0:21:17that Caesar would have experienced and Caesar said something about.
0:21:17 > 0:21:22This was a monument that was built way back - at least 1,500 years,
0:21:22 > 0:21:26probably 2,000 years before those people were around.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31So it's a bit disingenuous to imagine that we can make
0:21:31 > 0:21:33a connection between the two.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37Stukeley's Druid theory has lingered on in the public consciousness
0:21:37 > 0:21:41despite a century of archaeological evidence to the contrary.
0:21:41 > 0:21:46Its tenacity demonstrates the power of a romantic idea.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50Sometimes a fiction is simply more appealing than the truth.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58But theories about who built Stonehenge have not just
0:21:58 > 0:22:02stood still since the antiquarians and amateurs of the past.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Modern professional archaeologists have got in on the act too
0:22:05 > 0:22:08and some of them have been granted permission
0:22:08 > 0:22:10to dig at Stonehenge itself.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14One of the largest and most important excavations
0:22:14 > 0:22:18of the 20th century was undertaken in the early 1950s
0:22:18 > 0:22:22by Richard Atkinson and Professor Stuart Piggott.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25During their survey work at the monument,
0:22:25 > 0:22:28they stumbled across what they thought was a smoking gun,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32tangible evidence at last of who built Stonehenge.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37Now, finally, we must direct our attention
0:22:37 > 0:22:40to some most interesting discoveries which Professor Piggott
0:22:40 > 0:22:44and Mr Atkinson made during their excavations.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47Now, Richard, tell us about these interesting engravings.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51Well, this was something discovered quite by chance last year
0:22:51 > 0:22:53when we were digging at Stonehenge.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55I was photographing modern,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58let's say 17th- and 18th-century inscriptions on the stones,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02and as I was focusing my camera on one of the modern names,
0:23:02 > 0:23:06I saw the outlines of a prehistoric dagger and an axe.
0:23:06 > 0:23:11Some of you may remember seeing these on Newsreel last year
0:23:11 > 0:23:13shortly after the discovery was made.
0:23:13 > 0:23:15Here they are.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19Those are the stones on which the main carvings lie.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23Here is the dagger on the left and the axe on the right.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27The dagger appears to be a form unknown in Britain
0:23:27 > 0:23:29or Northern Europe - it may be Greek.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32The axe, on the other hand, is a local British type.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34This is the sort of bronze axe
0:23:34 > 0:23:38which is represented on the stones made in Ireland
0:23:38 > 0:23:42in the middle of the 16th century BC or thereabouts.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45But this is entirely a chance discovery
0:23:45 > 0:23:48and one which one must be very grateful for
0:23:48 > 0:23:50for the luck of getting.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54The discovery of these carvings helped Richard Atkinson
0:23:54 > 0:23:59concoct a new hypothesis that Stonehenge had in fact been built
0:23:59 > 0:24:03under the influence of the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilisation
0:24:03 > 0:24:05of the Eastern Mediterranean.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10In the mid-1950s, when Atkinson put forward his Mycenaean theory,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12archaeology was dominated by a movement
0:24:12 > 0:24:15known as culture-historical archaeology.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19It included the idea that all advanced ancient knowledge
0:24:19 > 0:24:23must have spread from the Near East across the rest of the known world.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27It was hard for archaeologists like Atkinson to accept that
0:24:27 > 0:24:32native Neolithic Britons, who he considered to be howling barbarians,
0:24:32 > 0:24:34could possibly have built Stonehenge
0:24:34 > 0:24:39without the guiding hand of an advanced civilisation.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47In fact, the carving of the dagger and the axe found by Atkinson
0:24:47 > 0:24:51were almost certainly made many centuries after Stonehenge was built
0:24:51 > 0:24:55and had nothing at all to do with Mycenae.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00The whole idea of culture diffusionism
0:25:00 > 0:25:04was really something first articulated by the Germans
0:25:04 > 0:25:08and of course had a major impact on Nazi archaeology.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12But the notion, I think, that...
0:25:12 > 0:25:15out of the East comes civilisation
0:25:15 > 0:25:19was something that even the leading thinkers of the time
0:25:19 > 0:25:23were working on, and, of course, with very good reason,
0:25:23 > 0:25:28because we know that agriculture comes from the Middle East,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32we know that urbanism started in the Middle East
0:25:32 > 0:25:35and, of course, we do have imports across Europe
0:25:35 > 0:25:39that come out of the Eastern Mediterranean and further.
0:25:39 > 0:25:41So it wasn't a bad idea at all.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46This notion that there was some foreign influence at play
0:25:46 > 0:25:49during the building of Stonehenge would soon be challenged
0:25:49 > 0:25:52by a revolution in archaeology itself.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58In the 1960s, a movement called New Archaeology
0:25:58 > 0:26:01swept away many of the old ideas about how you could approach
0:26:01 > 0:26:03the study of the past.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07This new way of thinking put humans in an ecological context
0:26:07 > 0:26:11and suggested you could see cultural change happening
0:26:11 > 0:26:14as a response to environmental change
0:26:14 > 0:26:17and not just because of an influx of people
0:26:17 > 0:26:19and ideas from other cultures.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22New Archaeology also enthusiastically embraced
0:26:22 > 0:26:27what were then novel scientific techniques like radiocarbon dating,
0:26:27 > 0:26:31and as whole edifices of old theory came tumbling down,
0:26:31 > 0:26:34new hypotheses began to emerge.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42By the mid-1980s, this new archaeology was at its peak.
0:26:43 > 0:26:47And in 1986, the science series Horizon examined the work
0:26:47 > 0:26:50of one of its leading proponents, Colin Renfrew.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54Renfrew had reassessed old discoveries
0:26:54 > 0:26:58to formulate new theories about who had built Stonehenge.
0:26:58 > 0:27:00In this Horizon,
0:27:00 > 0:27:05his focus fell on some important graves that surrounded the monument.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10Around 2,100 BC, Stonehenge had become a most attractive place
0:27:10 > 0:27:14to be buried, and some of the people buried there were very special.
0:27:14 > 0:27:16Witness their grave goods.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20An unprecedented wealth of gold and lovely objects.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24Earlier archaeologists labelled this the Wessex culture.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28Earlier archaeologists were perplexed by all this finery.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31They couldn't imagine that these things had been produced in Britain
0:27:31 > 0:27:36by local barbarians so, as usual, they produced an invasion idea
0:27:36 > 0:27:40and they thought that all the good things of the Wessex culture
0:27:40 > 0:27:43had been brought about by some invading warrior aristocracy.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47And so they saw these individual objects perhaps as imports
0:27:47 > 0:27:51or, at any rate, as inspired by objects found elsewhere.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55For instance, these gold-bound amber discs are rather like one in Crete
0:27:55 > 0:27:59so the idea came about that all these things might be inspired
0:27:59 > 0:28:01by Crete or from Mycenae,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04but from the East Mediterranean world.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06But we today take a very different view.
0:28:06 > 0:28:10We recognise that all of these objects were made
0:28:10 > 0:28:12in the British Isles.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14Who were the patrons of these British craftsmen?
0:28:14 > 0:28:16Who owned this wealth?
0:28:17 > 0:28:22Within sight of Stonehenge, there is a barrow of special significance.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24It's known as Bush Barrow.
0:28:24 > 0:28:26It was excavated in the 19th century.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30When they dug down, they found a single male skeleton
0:28:30 > 0:28:32with his grave goods.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36He was lying in an extended position with all his finery around him.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39And if we think of his skull here,
0:28:39 > 0:28:42here on his chest was this magnificent gold breastplate.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46And at his left shoulder, this bronze axe.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49And, here, the shaft of a mace
0:28:49 > 0:28:52which must have been an emblem of rank.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55And since he was buried overlooking Stonehenge with all this rich
0:28:55 > 0:28:58material, I think this must have been the Lord of Stonehenge.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02Certainly he was an important chief and I think he must have been
0:29:02 > 0:29:05the paramount chief of the whole of southern England.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08And Stonehenge was his centre, where the political ceremonies
0:29:08 > 0:29:10and the religious rituals took place.
0:29:11 > 0:29:16Stonehenge was the centre of this man's rule over southern England.
0:29:16 > 0:29:20If he didn't build Stonehenge, then his father or grandfather did.
0:29:20 > 0:29:24We shall never know his name or the name of his people.
0:29:24 > 0:29:26But, thanks to the New Archaeology,
0:29:26 > 0:29:31we do know that Stonehenge was built by these very early Britons.
0:29:31 > 0:29:33Thanks to the New Archaeology,
0:29:33 > 0:29:37it's also possible for the first time to give credit where it's due.
0:29:37 > 0:29:40The people of late Neolithic Britain who built it
0:29:40 > 0:29:43are as worthy of admiration as the Romans or the Mycenaeans
0:29:43 > 0:29:46who were once believed to have done so.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50The shattering of the link between Stonehenge and Mycenae
0:29:50 > 0:29:53was a body blow to a whole generation of archaeologists.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56Their theory had also become politically important,
0:29:56 > 0:30:00playing into ideas about nationhood and the British Empire.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04They had essentially helped to forge a powerful foundation myth
0:30:04 > 0:30:07linking the greatest Bronze Age civilisation
0:30:07 > 0:30:09with their own British forebears.
0:30:09 > 0:30:15And then New Archaeology came along and blew that all out of the water.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18And just as their theory of the Mycenaean connection was being
0:30:18 > 0:30:23discredited, so the British Empire was crumbling around their ears.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29The tricky question of who exactly built Stonehenge
0:30:29 > 0:30:31may never be fully resolved
0:30:31 > 0:30:35and, of course, the Neolithic Britons left us no written records
0:30:35 > 0:30:37to help us solve this puzzle.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43But this question of who built the monument has in recent decades
0:30:43 > 0:30:47been overshadowed by the even more taxing question,
0:30:47 > 0:30:49why was it built?
0:30:49 > 0:30:53What drove our ancient ancestors to build such a vast
0:30:53 > 0:30:55and complex structure?
0:30:55 > 0:30:58Over the past 70 years, archaeologists have agonised over
0:30:58 > 0:31:03the evidence and a number of often contradictory theories have emerged.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09It had been recognised as far back as the 18th century
0:31:09 > 0:31:12that Stonehenge seemed to be aligned with the position of the sun
0:31:12 > 0:31:14at the summer solstice.
0:31:14 > 0:31:18But in the 1960s, some took this idea even further,
0:31:18 > 0:31:22casting Stonehenge as an ancient astronomical observatory
0:31:22 > 0:31:24or even a celestial computer.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29Spearheading this new interpretation was astronomer Gerald Hawkins
0:31:29 > 0:31:34who, in 1972, appeared on the BBC's Sky At Night.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41One man who has done a tremendous amount of research into the
0:31:41 > 0:31:45astronomical significance of Stonehenge is Professor Gerald Hawkins.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49We now know it's much more than simply a monument.
0:31:49 > 0:31:53It is also a kind of primitive astronomical computer.
0:31:54 > 0:31:58The Aubrey holes. 56 of them. A significant number?
0:31:58 > 0:32:00Very, very, of course.
0:32:00 > 0:32:02The most critical number for the moon.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06It's three nodal revolutions of the moon's orbit.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09When the Stonehenge people came here,
0:32:09 > 0:32:11they started with these holes,
0:32:11 > 0:32:14the ditch at the bank and this circle,
0:32:14 > 0:32:17and therefore they indicated that they knew
0:32:17 > 0:32:20what they were doing right at the very outset.
0:32:20 > 0:32:22Do tell us exactly how they were used.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25I've suggested that they were a counting device.
0:32:25 > 0:32:27They don't mark anything
0:32:27 > 0:32:31but they will foretell what will happen year by year.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35And, originally, I would suggest or I suggested that they counted
0:32:35 > 0:32:39one hole each year and they would mark it by a stone like this.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42And this would tell them what was going to go on,
0:32:42 > 0:32:44such as eclipses during the solstice.
0:32:44 > 0:32:46Because of the 56 Aubrey holes
0:32:46 > 0:32:49and because of the alignments at Stonehenge, it could be said
0:32:49 > 0:32:53to be more a moon observatory than an observatory for the sun.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58And just as the sun rises over the Heel Stone at midsummer,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01the moon rises over the Heel Stone at midwinter.
0:33:01 > 0:33:05These trilithons at the centre, these great archways,
0:33:05 > 0:33:07are transit instruments.
0:33:07 > 0:33:11Each one points to a particular place for the sun or the moon.
0:33:11 > 0:33:13They're not made for walking through,
0:33:13 > 0:33:16they're made for looking through - they're observational.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19- You can't walk through there, Patrick.- Well, I'll have a go.
0:33:19 > 0:33:21- Here we go.- No.- No.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23- Are you stuck?- I just can't.
0:33:23 > 0:33:25You cannot walk through.
0:33:25 > 0:33:29This particular archway was used for observing over there
0:33:29 > 0:33:34the midwinter sunrise and it's a very accurate alignment.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39Gerald Hawkins' astronomical theory caused a sensation at the time
0:33:39 > 0:33:42and worldwide publicity helped to cement the idea
0:33:42 > 0:33:44in the public consciousness
0:33:44 > 0:33:48that Stonehenge was some sort of enormous ancient computer.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52Well, that idea was enthusiastically taken up by the counterculture
0:33:52 > 0:33:55and New Age movements of the '60s and '70s
0:33:55 > 0:33:59and both groups held up Stonehenge as the ultimate proof
0:33:59 > 0:34:03that there was some special lost wisdom of the ancients
0:34:03 > 0:34:07just waiting to be revealed and decoded.
0:34:07 > 0:34:12I remember reading Hawkins' book on a deserted railway station
0:34:12 > 0:34:16when I was a teenager and it blew my mind.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20It was the most extraordinary and provocative idea
0:34:20 > 0:34:23I had ever come across with regard to prehistory.
0:34:23 > 0:34:29So you can understand why this was such a bombshell at the time.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33The professional archaeologists hated it because these were ideas
0:34:33 > 0:34:38way beyond the notion of these rather primitive barbarians,
0:34:38 > 0:34:41because what he was effectively saying is that this is
0:34:41 > 0:34:45a very sophisticated society and they have got quite a complex
0:34:45 > 0:34:48understanding of astronomy and mathematics.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51And it really took off.
0:34:51 > 0:34:56You can see, basically, generations of people who have been
0:34:56 > 0:34:59massively influenced by that idea.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03It wasn't just the public that embraced Hawkins' ideas.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07His work also inspired a group of so-called archaeoastronomers,
0:35:07 > 0:35:11who would, in time, come to challenge the basis of his thesis.
0:35:11 > 0:35:16In 2004, an episode of the BBC series Meet The Ancestors
0:35:16 > 0:35:18explored how these celestial theories
0:35:18 > 0:35:21have moved on since the 1960s.
0:35:23 > 0:35:25One of the main forms of theory at Stonehenge
0:35:25 > 0:35:28is people trying to find pairs of stones and see whether
0:35:28 > 0:35:32they are aligned on rising positions of the sun or the moon.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35One of the problems with all these theories about alignments
0:35:35 > 0:35:38is that everything has to align somewhere
0:35:38 > 0:35:40and if you have a complicated site like Stonehenge,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43you can pick a lot of pairs of stones,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46there are many places where the sun and the moon rise
0:35:46 > 0:35:49at different times in their cycles you can align them upon,
0:35:49 > 0:35:52of course it's quite easy to find chance alignments.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54But there is one alignment
0:35:54 > 0:35:56that doesn't seem to be a matter of chance.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58So every year, at midsummer,
0:35:58 > 0:36:01tens of thousands of people come to Stonehenge
0:36:01 > 0:36:03to witness the sunrise.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06But Clive thinks these people could have come here
0:36:06 > 0:36:08at precisely the wrong time of year
0:36:08 > 0:36:12and that they're looking in totally the wrong direction.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15The ceremonial approach to Stonehenge
0:36:15 > 0:36:17comes from that direction.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20People approach the monument from the north-east.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24Now, if you think about approaching something like a church,
0:36:24 > 0:36:26you don't wander into a church and then get inside
0:36:26 > 0:36:29and turn around to look at the altar.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31If you go into a sacred place,
0:36:31 > 0:36:33the focus of attention is straight in front of you.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36Applying the same argument to Stonehenge,
0:36:36 > 0:36:39we might expect that if people were approaching along the avenue,
0:36:39 > 0:36:42the focus of attention as they came into the monument
0:36:42 > 0:36:44was not the midsummer sunrise behind them
0:36:44 > 0:36:47but the midwinter sunset in front of them.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53If Stonehenge was in some way built to mark the winter solstice,
0:36:53 > 0:36:58then what was so important about the deep midwinter over 4,000 years ago?
0:37:00 > 0:37:04The clues that can best help us answer this question
0:37:04 > 0:37:07come, amazingly, from this.
0:37:09 > 0:37:13What makes tiny snails like these so useful to archaeologists
0:37:13 > 0:37:17is that their shells can tell us about the prehistoric landscape.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22Environmental archaeologist Mike Allen has spent 15 years
0:37:22 > 0:37:25looking through hundreds of soil samples from around Stonehenge,
0:37:25 > 0:37:29some dating back to long before the monument was built.
0:37:31 > 0:37:36In each sample, Mike looked for tiny fragments of preserved snail shell.
0:37:37 > 0:37:40Different species and different groups of species
0:37:40 > 0:37:42live in different types of environment
0:37:42 > 0:37:45so by looking at all the different types of snail in there
0:37:45 > 0:37:48and looking at the percentages, we can analyse them
0:37:48 > 0:37:53and carefully work out what the landscape probably was in the past.
0:37:53 > 0:37:56He discovered that it used to look very different.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00The biggest single change occurred at the time
0:38:00 > 0:38:02that the stones were erected at Stonehenge.
0:38:02 > 0:38:05That's when the landscape moved from an open pasture
0:38:05 > 0:38:09to a very intensively farmed landscape with crops and animals
0:38:09 > 0:38:12and people living in and working in that landscape.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16So as Stonehenge was being built, the people living around it
0:38:16 > 0:38:19were undergoing a radical change in lifestyle,
0:38:19 > 0:38:22moving away from hunting animals in woodland
0:38:22 > 0:38:24and towards an economy based on farming.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28If the crops failed or their animals died,
0:38:28 > 0:38:30starvation was inevitable.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35And that threat was at its most terrifyingly real
0:38:35 > 0:38:38in the depths of winter.
0:38:39 > 0:38:41In the middle of winter, the people around here
0:38:41 > 0:38:44would have been desperate for the days to get longer,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47for light to return and for their crops to grow.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50More than at any other time of year,
0:38:50 > 0:38:53this is when they would have needed to ask their gods for help.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56And at other prehistoric sites around Europe,
0:38:56 > 0:38:59there's powerful evidence that the winter solstice
0:38:59 > 0:39:02was the most important moment in the whole year.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05Very often we try and make Stonehenge more simple
0:39:05 > 0:39:06than it really was.
0:39:06 > 0:39:10There's a temptation always to try and reduce Stonehenge
0:39:10 > 0:39:14down to a single purpose, a single meaning, a single set of ideas
0:39:14 > 0:39:17and perhaps a single set of activities going on there.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21And really that's to do Stonehenge a great injustice.
0:39:21 > 0:39:23It's a complicated monument.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26Lots of different things happened there at different times.
0:39:26 > 0:39:28It's a very long-lived monument.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31It's a monument which I'm sure meant different things
0:39:31 > 0:39:33to different people.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36We could take an analogy, and it is only an analogy,
0:39:36 > 0:39:39with a medieval cathedral, which was used for burials,
0:39:39 > 0:39:42it's used for weddings, it's used for harvest festivals,
0:39:42 > 0:39:45it's used for all sorts of things at different times of the year
0:39:45 > 0:39:48and it has a different complexion, a different feel,
0:39:48 > 0:39:50a different meaning to those who are there at that time.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53And Stonehenge, I'm sure, behaved in that sort of way.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56It's an architectural structure which is the container,
0:39:56 > 0:40:00the crucible, within which lots of interesting things happen.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05This idea that Stonehenge was built to mark the midwinter solstice
0:40:05 > 0:40:07is an enduring one
0:40:07 > 0:40:10and it has firmly entered into the public consciousness.
0:40:10 > 0:40:14Today, many people visit the site on the shortest day of the year.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21Other archaeologists felt there might be more to the great monument
0:40:21 > 0:40:24than just acting as an astronomical marker.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29But discovering what actually took place inside Stonehenge
0:40:29 > 0:40:31has proven problematic.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35The Stonehenge precinct has been repeatedly dug
0:40:35 > 0:40:38and interfered with since at least the 17th century.
0:40:38 > 0:40:41Curious but well-meaning antiquarians
0:40:41 > 0:40:43have been all too eager to dig up the monument
0:40:43 > 0:40:45and the surrounding landscape.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49So it's likely that much crucial evidence has been lost
0:40:49 > 0:40:51and will never be recovered.
0:40:51 > 0:40:54Archaeologists today need to work with the knowledge
0:40:54 > 0:40:58that there will always be missing pieces to this puzzle.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01With that in mind, some archaeologists came up
0:41:01 > 0:41:05with a counterintuitive way to shed new light on the monument,
0:41:05 > 0:41:08going back to the much older investigations
0:41:08 > 0:41:11and re-examining the theories of the antiquarians.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16In 1985, Timewatch featured the work of Aubrey Burl,
0:41:16 > 0:41:19who combined up-to-date astronomical ideas
0:41:19 > 0:41:23with the evidence uncovered by the antiquarians.
0:41:25 > 0:41:30To us, Stonehenge is this configuration of stones.
0:41:30 > 0:41:33But the place itself has a history which is older
0:41:33 > 0:41:35than even the oldest of them.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38The latest theory on its origins comes from Aubrey Burl,
0:41:38 > 0:41:41an authority on stone circles in Britain.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44But what do you think this place was built for?
0:41:44 > 0:41:46I think in the first place, long before these stones,
0:41:46 > 0:41:49this was a charnel house, a place where the dead were brought
0:41:49 > 0:41:52until the flesh rotted from their bones,
0:41:52 > 0:41:55and the entrance of this house pointed across there
0:41:55 > 0:41:59to the north-east, where the moon rose at its most northerly.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02Now, long before Stonehenge, there were other burial places
0:42:02 > 0:42:06on Salisbury Plain, all around Stonehenge, called long barrows
0:42:06 > 0:42:08and they also pointed towards moonrise.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11And in them we find dead bones, pits filled with earth
0:42:11 > 0:42:13and skulls of oxen -
0:42:13 > 0:42:15exactly the same things we find here at Stonehenge.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17There are pits filled with earth,
0:42:17 > 0:42:20and just where we are standing, at the very centre,
0:42:20 > 0:42:22people like Inigo Jones, the Duke of Buckingham,
0:42:22 > 0:42:25dug here in 1620 and dug up skulls of oxen.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29If you put those things together with the moonrise, surely that
0:42:29 > 0:42:32means that Stonehenge was somehow connected with death and burial.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36We're never going to get a full picture of what happened.
0:42:36 > 0:42:38It's in the nature of archaeology.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40As somebody said,
0:42:40 > 0:42:46we work with bad samples of depleted information.
0:42:46 > 0:42:48But I don't think that really stops us
0:42:48 > 0:42:52from trying to work out what the unknowns are.
0:42:52 > 0:42:56The useful thing about the early work in Stonehenge
0:42:56 > 0:43:00was that it was quite concentrated in the centre,
0:43:00 > 0:43:04where they may not have done as much damage as we now think.
0:43:04 > 0:43:08It's funny being an archaeologist and working at Stonehenge,
0:43:08 > 0:43:12because if we just discovered it like some 19th-century explorer
0:43:12 > 0:43:15in the South American jungle,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18there would be this great blank canvas and this fabulous ruin
0:43:18 > 0:43:22and you could start from scratch, but Stonehenge isn't like that.
0:43:22 > 0:43:24There have been generations of studies and thought
0:43:24 > 0:43:27and this thicket of ideas and information
0:43:27 > 0:43:30that sometimes can get in the way.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35The idea put forward by Aubrey Burl that Stonehenge was somehow
0:43:35 > 0:43:39linked to death and burial was taken a step further
0:43:39 > 0:43:43by another group of archaeologists in the 1990s.
0:43:43 > 0:43:45Their work was part of a wider movement
0:43:45 > 0:43:48which began to question some of the principles and methods
0:43:48 > 0:43:53of the New Archaeology that had taken hold in the 1960s.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57This new movement's followers called themselves
0:43:57 > 0:43:59interpretive archaeologists.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06This rejection of New Archaeology was in part due to a belief
0:44:06 > 0:44:09that a scientific approach to the evidence could end up
0:44:09 > 0:44:14underplaying the role of symbolism and ritual in human societies.
0:44:14 > 0:44:16At a site like Stonehenge,
0:44:16 > 0:44:18which surely has ceremonial significance,
0:44:18 > 0:44:21this new breed of archaeologist found the perfect place
0:44:21 > 0:44:24to test their philosophy.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27Interpretive archaeology brings to bear a whole new set of thinking
0:44:27 > 0:44:31about the past and it stands in quite a contrast
0:44:31 > 0:44:33with the New Archaeology that went before it.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37New Archaeology was in large measure concerned with societies,
0:44:37 > 0:44:40with communities, with groups of people - cultures, if you like.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42The interpretive archaeologies that have come after it
0:44:42 > 0:44:45are much more concerned with the individual,
0:44:45 > 0:44:48the way that people play a role, the way we do what's called agency.
0:44:48 > 0:44:50We act in a responsible and active way
0:44:50 > 0:44:53in thinking about how we behave in the world,
0:44:53 > 0:44:57that we take, for example, meaning out of materials.
0:44:57 > 0:44:59It's often dressed up as the idea of materiality,
0:44:59 > 0:45:03the way that materials influence the way that we do things.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06And just as Stonehenge was a fantastic site to explore
0:45:06 > 0:45:09in the New Archaeology, it has become a real focus of attention
0:45:09 > 0:45:12in the interpretive archaeology that comes after it
0:45:12 > 0:45:14because it gives us so many opportunities
0:45:14 > 0:45:18to think about stone, for example, to think about sequences,
0:45:18 > 0:45:22to think about the way people could behave in a monument like this,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25the way that space is structured inside the monument,
0:45:25 > 0:45:27the way that we would move around within it,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30and we can put ourselves, if you like,
0:45:30 > 0:45:32into the shoes of Neolithic people
0:45:32 > 0:45:35and think about how that place would have been experienced.
0:45:37 > 0:45:41In 1998, the BBC investigated how an anthropological approach
0:45:41 > 0:45:45to the monument might help to shed new light on its purpose.
0:45:46 > 0:45:48As part of the programme,
0:45:48 > 0:45:51an academic from Madagascar visited the site
0:45:51 > 0:45:55and compared Stonehenge to monuments in his own homeland.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26Unlike other circles, no leftovers of feasting,
0:46:26 > 0:46:29no quantities of bone or broken pottery
0:46:29 > 0:46:32had been found inside Stonehenge.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35This truly was hallowed ground.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39I think we're looking at a building which was actually reserved
0:46:39 > 0:46:42for a completely different group of entities,
0:46:42 > 0:46:45very probably not human beings at all
0:46:45 > 0:46:50but effectively the spirit world in whatever form it may have been.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56But can we tell what went on inside the holy of holies?
0:46:56 > 0:47:00The trouble is the lack of ritual remains inside Stonehenge.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03There's only really the stones.
0:47:03 > 0:47:05And yet they hold the key.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07Their positions, their shapes,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10even their textures are all full of meaning.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15It was only by chance that archaeologists spotted differences
0:47:15 > 0:47:17in the surfaces of the stones.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21It's the first clear confirmation that worshippers
0:47:21 > 0:47:25moved inside the circle but also of how they moved.
0:47:25 > 0:47:29In each trilithon, one upright is always smooth and slim,
0:47:29 > 0:47:31the other rough and bulky.
0:47:31 > 0:47:36This pattern is repeated right round the arc of trilithons.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39It was rather like the Stations of the Cross in a church,
0:47:39 > 0:47:42where you have to walk around to follow the story.
0:47:43 > 0:47:46The gaps in the trilithons themselves
0:47:46 > 0:47:49may also have been meant as supernatural doorways.
0:47:50 > 0:47:54They are extremely narrow, they are not for humans to go through,
0:47:54 > 0:47:58so I think we're definitely looking at people who have
0:47:58 > 0:48:02the ability to go into trance states,
0:48:02 > 0:48:05to move between...this world
0:48:05 > 0:48:09and the worlds of the spirits and the dead and so forth.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13I think what was important about interpretive archaeology
0:48:13 > 0:48:15for understanding Stonehenge
0:48:15 > 0:48:19was that it took us away from ideas of economy
0:48:19 > 0:48:21and social organisation
0:48:21 > 0:48:25to think about why did they build it the way they did,
0:48:25 > 0:48:28why did they build it in the place that they did,
0:48:28 > 0:48:32why was it related to certain natural features
0:48:32 > 0:48:35and other prehistoric monuments.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38So, thinking about the symbolism in part
0:48:38 > 0:48:44but also ideas about human agency, human motivation,
0:48:44 > 0:48:48so it took us away from some rather kind of dry aspects
0:48:48 > 0:48:50of social inquiry,
0:48:50 > 0:48:54and out of that, I think, came some really extraordinary answers
0:48:54 > 0:48:56that we hadn't expected.
0:48:56 > 0:49:00At the same time as this "place of the ancestors" theory
0:49:00 > 0:49:04was taking shape, another group of archaeologists was formulating
0:49:04 > 0:49:09a radically different interpretation as to why Stonehenge was built.
0:49:09 > 0:49:13In 2008, Timewatch followed the first major excavation
0:49:13 > 0:49:16inside Stonehenge for over 40 years.
0:49:17 > 0:49:22This dig was led by Tim Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25They believe that Stonehenge was a place of healing
0:49:25 > 0:49:28and that the so-called bluestones held the key
0:49:28 > 0:49:30to understanding the monument.
0:49:32 > 0:49:34The stones we're looking at are the bluestones.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36These are the ones that we see on the right of us now.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38These are the small stones.
0:49:38 > 0:49:40Bringing those bluestones here really made the difference.
0:49:40 > 0:49:42The target of our attention is the bluestones.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45- Bluestones...- Bluestones. - Bluestones.
0:49:45 > 0:49:50The team focused their dig on one of these distinctive smaller stones.
0:49:50 > 0:49:53They hope to find evidence that pilgrims were chipping off pieces
0:49:53 > 0:49:57of the bluestones to take away with them as healing relics or charms.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02To explore if there was any other evidence for this healing theory,
0:50:02 > 0:50:07Timewatch investigated the story of a recently discovered skeleton.
0:50:08 > 0:50:12In 2002, at Amesbury, just two miles from Stonehenge,
0:50:12 > 0:50:17archaeologists discovered a remarkable grave.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19It contained the richest collection of Early Bronze Age grave
0:50:19 > 0:50:21goods ever found in Europe.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25Amongst the finds were numerous arrowheads,
0:50:25 > 0:50:30leading to the buried man being nicknamed the Amesbury Archer.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35So is there anything in this skeleton that might support
0:50:35 > 0:50:38Darvill and Wainwright's healing theory?
0:50:39 > 0:50:42Now as soon as this skeleton was laid out, there was one thing
0:50:42 > 0:50:44that struck us as immediately obvious.
0:50:44 > 0:50:50And that was that there had been some major trauma to this left knee.
0:50:50 > 0:50:52HORSE NEIGHS
0:50:52 > 0:50:55HE SCREAMS
0:50:58 > 0:51:02So what were the physical consequences of his injury?
0:51:06 > 0:51:09The most obvious effect of this trauma
0:51:09 > 0:51:13is evident at the end of the femur or the thigh bone.
0:51:13 > 0:51:14What you've got is a groove,
0:51:14 > 0:51:19running down there towards the knee joint, and a hole.
0:51:19 > 0:51:24Now that hole is evidence of infection within the bone itself,
0:51:24 > 0:51:27the pus from which is draining through this hole.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30I mean, it would have been excruciatingly painful.
0:51:33 > 0:51:36Professor Tim Darvill believes that this is what brought
0:51:36 > 0:51:38the Amesbury Archer to Stonehenge.
0:51:40 > 0:51:42This is a man who was not awfully well
0:51:42 > 0:51:44when he got to this part of southern England.
0:51:44 > 0:51:47This is a man who was probably motivated
0:51:47 > 0:51:53in his travels to find some relief, to find some way of getting better.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57After 12 days of digging, the team uncovered evidence which
0:51:57 > 0:52:01suggested that in the past, people had indeed been chipping
0:52:01 > 0:52:04away at the bluestones, adding weight to their healing theory.
0:52:06 > 0:52:09They also found some crucial organic remains.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12By using radiocarbon dating, they hope to reveal
0:52:12 > 0:52:15when the bluestones had first arrived on site.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20And what they discovered was striking.
0:52:23 > 0:52:25It was previously thought that the bluestones
0:52:25 > 0:52:30arrived at Stonehenge around 2,600 BC.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33But that was essentially an educated guess.
0:52:33 > 0:52:37The new accurate date from the Stonehenge dig shows that the
0:52:37 > 0:52:42bluestones actually arrived in 2,300 BC -
0:52:42 > 0:52:46300 years later than was thought.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49And what's even more remarkable is that the new
0:52:49 > 0:52:54date for the arrival of the bluestones at Stonehenge coincides
0:52:54 > 0:52:59exactly with the date of the burial of the Amesbury Archer.
0:52:59 > 0:53:03Our new date for Stonehenge actually gives us, if you like,
0:53:03 > 0:53:05a glimpse of the moment in prehistory
0:53:05 > 0:53:08when things are happening at and around Stonehenge,
0:53:08 > 0:53:12and it's quite extraordinary that the date of the Amesbury Archer
0:53:12 > 0:53:16is identical with our new date for the bluestones at Stonehenge.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21The healing theory is still hotly debated
0:53:21 > 0:53:24and doesn't convince some archaeologists.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29In parallel with Darvill and Wainwright's work,
0:53:29 > 0:53:32another major project was launched that would add weight to the
0:53:32 > 0:53:36idea that Stonehenge was in fact a place of the ancestors.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41This project focuses not on Stonehenge itself,
0:53:41 > 0:53:44but on the ceremonial landscape that surrounds it.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48In 2011, the archaeologist
0:53:48 > 0:53:52and broadcaster Neil Oliver investigated its findings,
0:53:52 > 0:53:55concentrating on the settlement of Durrington Walls,
0:53:55 > 0:53:58which lies some two miles from the monument itself.
0:53:59 > 0:54:01Stonehenge is not alone.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06Nearby, this field contains all that remains
0:54:06 > 0:54:09of an ancient site of winter gathering.
0:54:15 > 0:54:19Have a look at these. Animal bones and teeth.
0:54:19 > 0:54:20Just a sample, really,
0:54:20 > 0:54:25of the thousands of animal remains found scattered all across the site.
0:54:26 > 0:54:28These are pig bones.
0:54:28 > 0:54:30Piglets are usually born in the springtime,
0:54:30 > 0:54:35and the vast majority of the pig remains at Durrington Walls
0:54:35 > 0:54:38show that the adult animals were slaughtered at around nine months.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41That's in midwinter.
0:54:41 > 0:54:47Also, the teeth reveal that the animals had been specifically
0:54:47 > 0:54:51fattened up prior to the feasting and we can tell this
0:54:51 > 0:54:52because the teeth are rotten.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57What we have here isn't just casual feasting.
0:54:57 > 0:55:00This is one final commemoration.
0:55:00 > 0:55:05It's one big celebration of life before the ancestors
0:55:05 > 0:55:09commenced their journey to Stonehenge and the land of the dead.
0:55:11 > 0:55:15It's thought that each winter, people would come here from hundreds
0:55:15 > 0:55:18of miles around to commemorate the lives of their ancestors...
0:55:20 > 0:55:23..and to ensure the souls of the recently dead reached
0:55:23 > 0:55:27the safety of the afterlife at Stonehenge itself.
0:55:32 > 0:55:36The coldness of the stones, the open landscape -
0:55:36 > 0:55:40it's not hard to believe that this place
0:55:40 > 0:55:43is somewhere that belongs to the dead.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51This idea that Stonehenge was built as a shrine to the dead will
0:55:51 > 0:55:54continue to be refined as more evidence is collected.
0:55:56 > 0:55:58But it's not the end of the story.
0:55:58 > 0:56:01And it takes its place alongside all of the other theories,
0:56:01 > 0:56:04none of which can yet be discounted.
0:56:05 > 0:56:10Our greatest ancient monument remains as enigmatic as ever.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16Stonehenge stands at the middle of a great archaeological problem,
0:56:16 > 0:56:19the problem of understanding what was going on during the fourth
0:56:19 > 0:56:22and third and second millennia BC in southern Britain,
0:56:22 > 0:56:25and Stonehenge not so much holds the key
0:56:25 > 0:56:30but it provides the pivot on which those understandings can be built.
0:56:30 > 0:56:32When you look at the attempts people have made over
0:56:32 > 0:56:35the centuries to understand Stonehenge, you can always see
0:56:35 > 0:56:40that those ideas come from the times in which those thinkers were living,
0:56:40 > 0:56:43you know, so in a century's time, if we're still here,
0:56:43 > 0:56:45people will look back on 21st-century archaeology and say,
0:56:45 > 0:56:50"Well, you know, the ideas that they come up with, of course, they came from their own societies.
0:56:50 > 0:56:54"They had nothing to do with Stonehenge, but we have the answer." And that's always going to continue.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58In some ways, the mystery of Stonehenge will not be solved,
0:56:58 > 0:57:04but every theory gets us that little bit closer towards it.
0:57:04 > 0:57:09We'll never know the names of the people who put it up, for example,
0:57:09 > 0:57:13but we'll know an awful lot about what their lives were like
0:57:13 > 0:57:18and their motivations for building such an extraordinary edifice.
0:57:23 > 0:57:25Over the centuries, our understanding of Stonehenge
0:57:25 > 0:57:30has been in constant flux, and from the antiquarians of the 18th century
0:57:30 > 0:57:33through to the archaeologists of today, every generation
0:57:33 > 0:57:38views this iconic monument through their own particular prism.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44But in the past century, many of the myths have been exploded
0:57:44 > 0:57:47through the tireless efforts of archaeologists.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52Thanks to their work, we now know when the monument was built
0:57:52 > 0:57:55and how it evolved over time.
0:57:59 > 0:58:02Over the 70 years that the BBC has been following the Stonehenge
0:58:02 > 0:58:06story, this iconic structure has been portrayed as a myriad
0:58:06 > 0:58:10different things - an astronomical calculator, a temple of healing
0:58:10 > 0:58:14and as evidence that the ancient Greeks influenced our ancestors.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17But despite all the competing theories,
0:58:17 > 0:58:20innovative experiments and new discoveries,
0:58:20 > 0:58:25Stonehenge still holds on to some of its most precious secrets.
0:58:25 > 0:58:30And in the end, perhaps it's that enduring mystery which keeps
0:58:30 > 0:58:33Stonehenge alive in our collective imaginations.