0:00:06 > 0:00:10This is the story of how Britain came to be.
0:00:10 > 0:00:16Of how our land and its people were forged over thousands of years of ancient history.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27This Britain is a strange and alien world.
0:00:27 > 0:00:32A world that contains the hidden story of our distant prehistoric past.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40'From the enigmatic secrets of our greatest monuments...'
0:00:40 > 0:00:47It's fantastic after 14,000 years to get a glimpse of the way at least one individual was thinking.
0:00:47 > 0:00:52'..to the magical worlds inhabited by the first people to make this land their home.
0:00:55 > 0:01:01'Today, modern science and new archaeology are solving ancient mysteries,
0:01:01 > 0:01:07'and revealing the seismic shifts that created whole new ages.'
0:01:07 > 0:01:09That is magic.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15The first chapter in our epic story -
0:01:15 > 0:01:20a battle for survival in a hostile and icy world.
0:01:20 > 0:01:25This is the oldest complete human skeleton ever found in Britain.
0:01:25 > 0:01:31A world in which our land was being shaped by nature's most powerful forces
0:01:31 > 0:01:34into the Britain we know today.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44WIND HOWLS
0:01:49 > 0:01:56In every corner of Britain there are relics of a long-lost past.
0:01:57 > 0:02:02The rich heritage of a remote and distant history.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06It's a history that goes right back to the Romans...
0:02:07 > 0:02:11..the very first people who wrote down the names and places,
0:02:11 > 0:02:16the dates and events of life in Britain 2,000 years ago.
0:02:19 > 0:02:25But the world I'm about to enter will take us back even further back, into a far more distant past.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28ENGINE STARTS
0:02:31 > 0:02:34In south Wales, a team of archaeologists is searching
0:02:34 > 0:02:38for traces of ancient people who once lived here.
0:02:43 > 0:02:47What they're looking for are footprints,
0:02:47 > 0:02:51from 8,000 years ago.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56This is a world that only survives in the remains of people and objects...
0:02:58 > 0:03:02..fragments preserved by chance for thousands of years.
0:03:03 > 0:03:09And these precious relics give us glimpses of the people who once lived here.
0:03:09 > 0:03:14A people who survived, often against extraordinary odds.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20When I studied to become an archaeologist,
0:03:20 > 0:03:25it was the sheer challenge of understanding this ancient world that attracted me,
0:03:25 > 0:03:28and the legacy that its people left behind.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32I've come to the coast of south Wales
0:03:32 > 0:03:39to try to see some of the most intimate and poignant remains in the whole of Britain.
0:03:39 > 0:03:46Out there, beneath the waves, are a few of the most fragile and fleeting traces imaginable
0:03:46 > 0:03:50of a group of hunters who came here 8,000 years ago.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55The added challenge out here,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58is that as well as the tides,
0:03:58 > 0:04:03you've also got to deal with the fact that this fantastic evidence is usually concealed
0:04:03 > 0:04:07under feet of mud, as these banks shift about.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15So we've got a footprint there.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20You can just see the big toe, the heel emerging from the mud.
0:04:20 > 0:04:25With the side of the foot, the heel prominently marked,
0:04:25 > 0:04:29the arch of the foot, then the big toe and the rest of the toes.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31So rather than being a depression,
0:04:31 > 0:04:33the way they've been preserved
0:04:33 > 0:04:35is gradually filling the print with materials,
0:04:35 > 0:04:40- so they appear almost as a mould of the original footprint?- Yes.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45That's one of the best things I've ever seen.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47I knew about them, but until you see them
0:04:47 > 0:04:50it just doesn't seem...possible.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53What have we got here, then?
0:04:53 > 0:04:57'The prints reveal men, women and children,
0:04:57 > 0:05:02'an entire group of nomadic hunter-gatherers.'
0:05:02 > 0:05:08That's not a fossil of that person that day, that is the very day.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12What's interesting here is that these are very obviously part of a trail.
0:05:12 > 0:05:17There's another print there, rather poorly preserved.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21That's the right foot of the same person.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27'These were people who relied utterly on the natural resources
0:05:27 > 0:05:31'of wild plants, and the animals that lived alongside them.'
0:05:31 > 0:05:34If you were offered the chance to live this life...
0:05:34 > 0:05:36would you fancy it? Is it an easy life?
0:05:36 > 0:05:41They were subject to the natural hazards of the environment, the bad seasons, the harsh winter,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44the year when the fish simply didn't turn up,
0:05:44 > 0:05:46so there would have been times
0:05:46 > 0:05:51when these communities were under extreme pressure and difficulty.
0:05:51 > 0:05:528,000 years ago, right there.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03When you delve into the distant past, you soon realise
0:06:03 > 0:06:08that what you're discovering again and again are stories of survival.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12Sometimes of evidence, like those faint footprints in the mud.
0:06:12 > 0:06:17Other times it's the stories of people defying the odds in a hostile world,
0:06:17 > 0:06:20a world in which your very existence as a hunter-gatherer
0:06:20 > 0:06:26depends completely on your understanding of and your connection to the natural environment.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35300 generations separate us from the people who made those footprints,
0:06:35 > 0:06:39most of whom lived in a time before history,
0:06:39 > 0:06:43the time I want to discover.
0:06:43 > 0:06:49But human presence in Britain goes back much, much further still.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55Within the storerooms of London's Natural History Museum
0:06:55 > 0:06:59are the remains of someone who lived a staggeringly long time ago.
0:07:01 > 0:07:06So long ago that this human has even been classed as a different species.
0:07:11 > 0:07:17It's a real privilege to see these and to be so close to them.
0:07:19 > 0:07:24I can feel my hands starting to shake just with being in their vicinity.
0:07:24 > 0:07:29These are the oldest human remains ever found in Britain.
0:07:29 > 0:07:35It's two pieces of the same shinbone and two teeth.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40They were dug up at a place called Boxgrove in Sussex.
0:07:40 > 0:07:45The two teeth have got tiny scratches on them,
0:07:45 > 0:07:50and it's thought they were caused by the way this person ate meat.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52The meat would be gripped in the teeth,
0:07:52 > 0:07:56and the other bit slashed away at with a tool.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00There's enough of the shinbone
0:08:00 > 0:08:07to let us estimate that the individual stood about 1.8m tall, weighing 14 stone.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11It's always been known as Boxgrove Man,
0:08:11 > 0:08:15but from this there is no way of determining the sex,
0:08:15 > 0:08:17so it could be Boxgrove woman.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21So, 14 stone and looking like a boxer.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24She'd have been quite a showstopper.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26Heaven knows what her boyfriend was like.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31But perhaps most amazingly of all,
0:08:31 > 0:08:35Boxgrove Man lived half a million years ago.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39Think of that. Half a million years.
0:08:49 > 0:08:54'Chris Stringer is a world expert on our ancient human ancestry.'
0:08:54 > 0:08:59So what follows Boxgrove in the human story?
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Well, about 100,000 years later at Swanscombe in Kent
0:09:03 > 0:09:07we've got these human bones, the back part of a skull,
0:09:07 > 0:09:11beautifully preserved, but it has one interesting feature here,
0:09:11 > 0:09:14that depression is something we find in all Neanderthals.
0:09:14 > 0:09:21So we think Swanscombe could be a very early member of the Neanderthal line of evolution.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24So there were Neanderthals in Britain 400,000 years ago?
0:09:24 > 0:09:28That's right. Very early ones, and then for the next 300,000 or 400,000 years,
0:09:28 > 0:09:33whenever we find people in Britain, they are part of this evolving Neanderthal lineage.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38- And it was tools like this that they were making?- Absolutely.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43This is a hand axe, one of tens of thousands that have been found in the gravels at Swanscombe,
0:09:43 > 0:09:49so these people were making these tools, and probably using them to butcher animal carcasses.
0:09:49 > 0:09:55It's amazing, while on the one hand, you're talking about a different species of human, different from us,
0:09:55 > 0:10:00yet the tools they made and used fit so naturally into the hand.
0:10:00 > 0:10:05There's a real link to the humanity of these people, even if they are a different species from us.
0:10:06 > 0:10:12At what point, then, do we get modern human beings like you and I?
0:10:12 > 0:10:16Well, much later on. Modern humans had been evolving in Africa
0:10:16 > 0:10:20while the Neanderthals were evolving in Europe and coming to Britain.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25About 50,000 or 60,000 years ago, those modern humans started to come out of Africa,
0:10:25 > 0:10:30and 40,000 years ago they were in France,
0:10:30 > 0:10:33and here's one of the stone tools they were making there.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37- OK. So that's been made by hands the same as ours?- Absolutely.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41Imagine living in a world where there are different species of people,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44never mind different races or nationalities.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47There were several human species on Earth,
0:10:47 > 0:10:50we were just one of those experiments going on on how to be human.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00Between the distant age of our strange pre-human ancestors
0:11:00 > 0:11:04and the nomadic hunters who left behind their preserved footprints,
0:11:04 > 0:11:08the very first modern humans came to Britain.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15The earliest of all was found here,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17on the Gower peninsula in west Wales,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20a discovery made over 200 years ago.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27In 1823, an ambitious young scientist,
0:11:27 > 0:11:30the Reverend William Buckland, came here on a mission.
0:11:30 > 0:11:34He was in search of relics of the biblical flood.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40He'd heard that, bizarrely, elephant bones had been found
0:11:40 > 0:11:44in one of the caves that pepper this wild coastline.
0:11:45 > 0:11:50The thing is, the cave was towards the bottom of a near-vertical cliff,
0:11:50 > 0:11:54but Buckland couldn't wait, and it seems from what we know,
0:11:54 > 0:11:59that on 18th January 1823 he went right over the edge of this cliff on a rope,
0:11:59 > 0:12:02armed only with a pick and a stout pair of boots.
0:12:02 > 0:12:04And now I'm going to follow in his footsteps.
0:12:18 > 0:12:25Buckland didn't know it at the time, but he was about to discover more than some ancient animal bones.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28This was going to be the discovery of his life.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37Entering the cave would have been fantastically exciting for Buckland.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40As soon as he crossed the threshold he'd have fired up his lamp.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43And then, the good scientist that he was,
0:12:43 > 0:12:47he'd have begun to make a careful assessment of everything he could see,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50the whole scene, and all of that he recorded in meticulous detail.
0:12:52 > 0:12:57This is a book called Reliquiae Diluvianae, "Relics Of The Flood",
0:12:57 > 0:13:02and this volume is one of just a couple of copies of the first edition still in existence.
0:13:04 > 0:13:10It contains within it a depiction of the scene exactly as Buckland saw it and then drew it.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19Buckland has very helpfully drawn the whole scene - there's the cave itself from the outside,
0:13:19 > 0:13:23there's the cliff wall, and the man coming down on a rope on the outside.
0:13:23 > 0:13:29But more interestingly, he's made what is effectively an excavation plan of the floor of the cave.
0:13:29 > 0:13:35Here are the elephant bones and tusks that drew him to this cave in the first place.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39More intriguingly, he's also drawn a full-size human skeleton,
0:13:39 > 0:13:44and it's that human skeleton that's secured this cave its place in our history.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56It was Buckland himself who discovered it,
0:13:56 > 0:14:01uncovering it from beneath about six inches of earth, right here where I'm crouched down.
0:14:01 > 0:14:07What on earth was going on here? And more importantly, who on earth was it?
0:14:08 > 0:14:14As it happened, Buckland originally thought he'd found the remains of a local prostitute
0:14:14 > 0:14:16who had worked here during Roman times,
0:14:16 > 0:14:22and that when she'd eventually died she'd been buried in there, far away from civilised society.
0:14:22 > 0:14:25The Red Lady of Paviland.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29But Buckland was wrong,
0:14:29 > 0:14:34because he'd actually stumbled upon human remains from a far more distant past.
0:14:39 > 0:14:44Today the Red Lady is kept at the Oxford University Museum Of Natural History.
0:14:46 > 0:14:54Although there's no skull, much of the skeleton has survived, enough for scientists to reveal its story.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56Within a few decades of Buckland's death,
0:14:56 > 0:14:58people re-examined the skeleton.
0:14:58 > 0:15:03They looked at the shape of the pelvis, the shape of the long bones,
0:15:03 > 0:15:06the shape of the articulation surfaces.
0:15:06 > 0:15:12Any anatomy student today would recognise this as a skeleton not of a young woman but a young man.
0:15:13 > 0:15:21Forensic analysis also revealed that the so-called Red Lady died young, in his late 20s.
0:15:21 > 0:15:27But most importantly, his bones could also reveal just how long ago he lived.
0:15:27 > 0:15:33All the plants and animals on Earth build themselves predominantly out of carbon.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37A tiny proportion of that carbon is radioactive carbon, or carbon-14.
0:15:37 > 0:15:43When an animal dies, the amount of carbon-14 begins slowly to decline and degrade away.
0:15:44 > 0:15:50This process, called carbon dating, used a tiny amount of bone from the Red Lady.
0:15:53 > 0:15:58Carbon atoms from the bone gave scientists a date for when he was alive -
0:15:58 > 0:16:03an astonishing 33,000 years ago.
0:16:07 > 0:16:12These are the remains of the very first modern human known to have inhabited our land.
0:16:17 > 0:16:2433,000 years ago when the Red Lady was alive, Britain was very different to the one we know today.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30Not an island, but a peninsula.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36This was an age called the Palaeolithic, the old Stone Age,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39in which a few tens of thousands of nomadic hunters
0:16:39 > 0:16:41shared the whole of ancient Europe.
0:16:48 > 0:16:53You have to imagine small bands of hunters roaming through a landscape
0:16:53 > 0:16:56much colder than today, an open tundra.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00These were people whose survival depended utterly on following
0:17:00 > 0:17:06the migrating herds of reindeer, wild horse, and of course, mammoth.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14It's the mammoth bones that Buckland discovered,
0:17:14 > 0:17:20the ones he thought were elephant, that provide clues to the possible life and death of the Red Lady.
0:17:22 > 0:17:30These are the mammoth bones that sparked Buckland's visit to Paviland Cave in the first place.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35And for 200 years
0:17:35 > 0:17:38they'd seemed unaccounted for, possibly lost.
0:17:43 > 0:17:45We've rediscovered them,
0:17:45 > 0:17:50and are now able to bring them back together with the Red Lady for the very first time.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55Their existence means that this sketch made by Buckland,
0:17:55 > 0:18:02which has the human remains and the mammoth skull and tusks side by side, isn't based on fantasy.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05The rediscovery of the mammoth remains
0:18:05 > 0:18:11means that we might be able to see who the Red Lady was, even how he died.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19Perhaps we should imagine a hunting party,
0:18:19 > 0:18:23out on the vast plain below Paviland Cave.
0:18:23 > 0:18:28They bring a mammoth to bay, but before they can dispatch it, it kills one of their number.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32So they take the body, a young man, up to the cave.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35Inside, they dig a grave, and they lay him there.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39This is a funeral ritual.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42They also inter some of the remains of the mammoth that killed him.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48After all, this doesn't just do honour to their companion, but also to the beast.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52Now the two spirits are united in a shared death.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59It's an extraordinarily intimate human moment
0:18:59 > 0:19:01from 33,000 years ago.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07Here, on the furthest outreach of Europe,
0:19:07 > 0:19:13the Red Laddie's companions said goodbye to him for the last time and left.
0:19:17 > 0:19:22But the story of the Red Lady represents more than the burial of an intrepid mammoth hunter.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29Because the entire world he lived in,
0:19:29 > 0:19:34a way of life that had endured for thousands upon thousands of years, was coming to an end.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40The cause was climate change,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42on a massive scale.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50Welcome to the world of Ice Age Britain.
0:19:50 > 0:19:51WIND HOWLS
0:19:52 > 0:19:5430,000 years ago,
0:19:54 > 0:20:00the land we call Britain, along with the rest of the planet, was cold, and getting colder.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07Forget the chill of today's British winters.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11This was cold on a completely different scale,
0:20:11 > 0:20:14the frozen grip of the last Ice Age.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19For any nomadic hunter who ventured this far north,
0:20:19 > 0:20:24life would have been unbelievably tough, and ultimately impossible.
0:20:24 > 0:20:30Eventually the glaciers, advancing southwards all the while, turned Britain into a frozen wilderness.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44The Ice Age reached its peak 18,000 years ago,
0:20:44 > 0:20:49all but wiping out the entire population of western Europe.
0:20:52 > 0:20:58Just a few groups of people survived in pockets of refuge far to the south.
0:21:04 > 0:21:09For thousands of years, almost the whole of our land was utterly barren and desolate,
0:21:09 > 0:21:14deserted not just by people, but by all large animals.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17It was so cold, not even the mammoths could cope with it.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20But then, from around 14,000 years ago,
0:21:20 > 0:21:23there was a period of relative respite.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26And here, "relative" is an important word.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28The conditions were still unbelievably harsh,
0:21:28 > 0:21:34but the ice had lifted just enough to allow a few bands of hardy hunters to return to Britain.
0:21:38 > 0:21:44These people left behind an exquisite object near to what's now the city of Sheffield.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53Inside this box, the oldest art ever found in Britain.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02Made 13,000 years ago, it's tiny, and unique.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10Its creator - an Ice Age hunter.
0:22:16 > 0:22:23It's a fragment of horse bone with an engraving of a horse etched into it,
0:22:23 > 0:22:26but it's infinitely more than that,
0:22:26 > 0:22:31because what you've got a snapshot of here
0:22:31 > 0:22:34is a whole sequence of thoughts.
0:22:34 > 0:22:38Someone selected the bone,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41the surface of the bone has been prepared
0:22:41 > 0:22:45in the same way an artist would prepare a canvas,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48and it's been done with fantastic skill.
0:22:48 > 0:22:52The hairs of the mane look like hackles
0:22:52 > 0:22:55that are raised in fear or excitement.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58Although it's on this slither of bone,
0:22:58 > 0:23:01the legs are suggested, and they're galloping legs.
0:23:01 > 0:23:03Everything about it is alive.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07The horse couldn't be more active and more vibrant.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10It's miraculous.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19The horse's head was found here, in a valley of caves near Sheffield.
0:23:24 > 0:23:31And recent excavations have revealed that it wasn't the only treasure left behind by the Ice Age hunters.
0:23:33 > 0:23:39'In 2003, archaeologist Paul Bahn found the only cave art ever discovered in Britain.'
0:23:44 > 0:23:47It was this panel where we found our major discovery.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49Figures on ceilings are very hard to understand
0:23:49 > 0:23:52because you don't know from which direction to look at them.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57this is actually an engraved and bas-relief ibis, a water bird.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01You can see the great beak sweeping around, there's a mouth, there's the eye.
0:24:01 > 0:24:04They've engraved the top of the head, here's the neck,
0:24:04 > 0:24:09and then this beautiful oval body, which is probably natural, but they have outlined it a little bit.
0:24:09 > 0:24:13It's amazing that you hear sculptors in the modern age
0:24:13 > 0:24:18talk about seeing the block and feeling that something wants to be released from it,
0:24:18 > 0:24:20and that's obviously a very old idea,
0:24:20 > 0:24:23that someone was in here and looked at natural features and thought,
0:24:23 > 0:24:25"an ibis wants to come out of that rock."
0:24:25 > 0:24:30I think so. One of the most characteristic features of cave art all over western Europe
0:24:30 > 0:24:34is constant use of natural shapes in the rock, and clearly that's what's been done here.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45'Meticulous searching revealed traces of more engravings,
0:24:45 > 0:24:50'all of them created within just a few generations, when the Ice Age briefly lifted.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57'They depict animals important to the people who came here.
0:24:57 > 0:25:02'Some of them are not even meant to be seen.'
0:25:02 > 0:25:04You can see the old floor level here.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08There's not much space between that and the ceiling, they're crawling at this point,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11and with their little flickering lamps held in their hands,
0:25:11 > 0:25:14it's very difficult for them to get this far into the caves.
0:25:14 > 0:25:21'13,000 years ago someone was driven to venture into the darkest depths of this cave,
0:25:21 > 0:25:24'simply to make a drawing.'
0:25:24 > 0:25:28I think they're a series of long-necked birds,
0:25:28 > 0:25:33but the important thing about this panel is that it's so difficult to reach, and it's in total darkness.
0:25:33 > 0:25:37Yeah, what is the point of art if no-one sees it?
0:25:37 > 0:25:41Well, there's an important percentage of cave art all over western Europe
0:25:41 > 0:25:45which is deliberately placed in these very hard-to-reach spots.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49They're making them for something else, something non-human to see,
0:25:49 > 0:25:52maybe a god, a spirit, an ancestor, the forces of nature.
0:25:52 > 0:25:58I suppose they may not have seen themselves as being quite as separate and different from animals
0:25:58 > 0:26:04as we do, they may have seen these and themselves as all creatures that roamed the same habitat.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08I think they were very much people of their environment, of everything around them,
0:26:08 > 0:26:12and I'm sure they felt the animals were their kin, their brothers, their sisters.
0:26:12 > 0:26:19It's fantastic after 14,000 years to get a glimpse of the way at least one individual was thinking,
0:26:19 > 0:26:24that took the initiative to crawl down here with a lamp and make that,
0:26:24 > 0:26:30and then left for it never to be seen again. That's a moment in some individual's life.
0:26:37 > 0:26:43Just a few hundred years after the Creswell cave art, the ice was back, and with a vengeance.
0:26:44 > 0:26:49Britain once again became an empty, desolate, frozen land.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56The last wave of glacial conditions came around 13,000 years ago,
0:26:56 > 0:27:00a time geologists call the Younger Dryas,
0:27:00 > 0:27:03or more tellingly, the Big Freeze.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14It's hard to imagine just how hostile this climate became.
0:27:14 > 0:27:21In Scotland 13,000 years ago, the ground was buried under a blanket of ice up to a kilometre thick.
0:27:26 > 0:27:31Glaciers scoured the landscape, shaping the very mountains and the lochs we see today.
0:27:38 > 0:27:45'For Ice Age expert Jim Hansom, it's a landscape that tells a story of colossal environmental power.'
0:27:51 > 0:27:57So if we were standing here at the very end of the Ice Age, what would we have been looking out at?
0:27:57 > 0:28:0311,000 years ago the glacier terminus, the edge of the glacier, would be at our feet.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05The lake wouldn't be here,
0:28:05 > 0:28:09and we would be looking at a gradient of ice disappearing off into the north.
0:28:09 > 0:28:12As the glacier melted back,
0:28:12 > 0:28:16then water was impounded into this hollow,
0:28:16 > 0:28:19and that's what the Lake of Menteith is.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23So everything we can see here has been touched by the ice?
0:28:23 > 0:28:26Oh, absolutely, ice is a major moulder of the landscape.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30That's one of the reasons why this is a classic place to see the elemental effect of ice
0:28:30 > 0:28:34and what it can do to the landscape.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39'Britain was being sculpted on a geological scale.'
0:28:43 > 0:28:47Behind us is the glacier basin that's now occupied by the lake,
0:28:47 > 0:28:50and the glacier's bulldozed a whole series of mounds,
0:28:50 > 0:28:53little hills that mark out the edge of the glacier.
0:28:53 > 0:28:54We call them moraines.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58So there's so much force that it's rippling the landscape in front of it.
0:28:58 > 0:29:04Exactly right, exactly right. A bit like standing on a loose carpet, and the carpet rucks up in front of you.
0:29:04 > 0:29:07That's exactly the process, so substantial force.
0:29:07 > 0:29:10So all around the leading edge of the glacier, then,
0:29:10 > 0:29:14there would be these dumps of material that have become hillocks and humps?
0:29:14 > 0:29:20- That's correct.- So there would have been a nose of ice here which has gone,
0:29:20 > 0:29:24and it's left all the bulldozed material that was on its nose.
0:29:24 > 0:29:26That's correct. That's correct.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31'The effect of the ice was astounding.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35'But when it finally melted around 11,000 years ago,
0:29:35 > 0:29:40'the power of ice was replaced by the power of water.'
0:29:41 > 0:29:45This is just extraordinary. You could be dropped down here
0:29:45 > 0:29:50and you would have no way of knowing what part of the world you were in. It's so other-worldly.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54It's like Jurassic Park. It's tremendous.
0:29:56 > 0:30:01Now...did this river cut this gorge?
0:30:01 > 0:30:05No, the river's far too small for the gorge. We call it a misfit stream.
0:30:05 > 0:30:11So when it comes to... In terms of the last Ice Age, what has happened to create this?
0:30:11 > 0:30:14Well, during the last the last Ice Age, as the glaciers retreat,
0:30:14 > 0:30:18- the melt water's got to go somewhere. - Right. That's a lot of ice.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20That's half a kilometre of ice, very close.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24It can't go to the south because there's rising hills, the Campsie Fells.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28It can't go to the west, so it comes in this direction, straight through this gorge.
0:30:28 > 0:30:30That gives it great erosive power,
0:30:30 > 0:30:34so the sheer elemental force of water coming down through here would've been tremendous.
0:30:34 > 0:30:38It's like a Karcher high pressure hose, but on a massive scale.
0:30:38 > 0:30:40It is, eroding the valley.
0:30:40 > 0:30:47It's hard to think of a more graphic illustration of the raw power of just rushing water.
0:30:47 > 0:30:52Sheer power, sheer power. We couldn't have been standing here at this time 10,000 years ago.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02The final retreat of the ice ended the age of the Palaeolithic.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06The remote world of the Red Lady and the mammoths he hunted.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12The icy world of the cave artists of Creswell Crags.
0:31:13 > 0:31:19Ever since the ice peaked 18,000 years ago, a new Britain had gradually begun to appear.
0:31:21 > 0:31:23Now, as the ice melted,
0:31:23 > 0:31:28the coast and the Western Isles of Scotland were taking on the form we recognise today.
0:31:30 > 0:31:37In the east, the Norwegian trench had begun to open into what would one day become the North Sea.
0:31:39 > 0:31:44But despite the rising sea levels, 10,000 years ago in the south,
0:31:44 > 0:31:48Britain remained firmly attached to the continental mainland.
0:31:55 > 0:32:00Gradual warming allowed the first intrepid hunters to return to a new
0:32:00 > 0:32:07and very different land, where frozen tundra was giving way to the first forests of birch and alder.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15They brought a new culture, new ways of surviving
0:32:15 > 0:32:18and a whole new era in our history.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24This new warmer world with its different animals and plants
0:32:24 > 0:32:28presented the people who came here with a whole new set of challenges.
0:32:30 > 0:32:37So much so that archaeologists were moved to give this period its own name, the Mesolithic.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39The Middle Stone Age.
0:32:41 > 0:32:47It was to this period that I was particularly drawn when I was a student of archaeology.
0:32:47 > 0:32:51And it was to the islands off the coast of Scotland that I came
0:32:51 > 0:32:54as I was learning the skills of excavation.
0:32:55 > 0:33:00Now, more than 20 years later, new finds in the Hebrides
0:33:00 > 0:33:06are giving us a unique insight into how people survived in this newly-emerging land.
0:33:16 > 0:33:22You've got very finely worked flint blades here.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25Look at those beautiful long blades and you can see,
0:33:25 > 0:33:28it's been very delicately chipped around the edge.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31And that had been used as barb or a point,
0:33:31 > 0:33:35or maybe a little blade of a knife, some points maybe as drill bits.
0:33:35 > 0:33:40It's the classic Mesolithic artefact.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42These tiny little items actually classify...
0:33:42 > 0:33:47Unfortunately so, unfortunately so, yeah, yes, indeed.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52Steve Mithen's excavations have uncovered
0:33:52 > 0:33:57an entire Mesolithic fishing camp from 9,000 years ago.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01When we sieve the deposits very finely, we find fish bones...
0:34:01 > 0:34:03How are they catching the fish?
0:34:03 > 0:34:10We do have one artefact that we found here which is a tip of an antler harpoon or a little fish spear.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14Now, it's made from the tine of a Red Deer antler.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17We've only got the final tip of it.
0:34:17 > 0:34:21We can see that has been worked and smoothed down, so it's a rather precious artefact.
0:34:26 > 0:34:27The ice melted.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31Bands of intrepid hunters returned to the land.
0:34:31 > 0:34:36From that day to this, our land has been continuously occupied.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39They were still hunters, they were still nomadic,
0:34:39 > 0:34:42but they were more settled within the landscape.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46A person might be born, live and die in the same area.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50That's a different relationship to a place.
0:34:50 > 0:34:56Compared to the Palaeolithic, in the Mesolithic, the Middle Stone Age, what we're beginning to see
0:34:56 > 0:35:02is not just a continuity of people that leads all the way to us today,
0:35:02 > 0:35:07it's also about the first people who you could say were born and bred British.
0:35:14 > 0:35:19Remarkably, the remains of one of these people have survived.
0:35:19 > 0:35:26One of a population of perhaps just 1,000 or so who occupied Britain around 9,000 years ago.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33And I've come back to London's Natural History Museum to meet him.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43This is the skull of Cheddar Man.
0:35:43 > 0:35:49His is the oldest complete human skeleton ever found in Britain.
0:35:49 > 0:35:55The rest of his bones are collected here in these white boxes.
0:35:55 > 0:35:59He lived over 9,000 years ago,
0:35:59 > 0:36:05which means that either he or his immediate ancestors were among
0:36:05 > 0:36:11those very first re-colonisers of the British Isles after the last Ice Age.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14I look at this skull
0:36:14 > 0:36:19and I can even begin to imagine his face, what he looked like...
0:36:20 > 0:36:22..and it's a strange feeling.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27Unlike the Red Lady or the Cresswell artists,
0:36:27 > 0:36:31this man didn't live in an icy world.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35By the time he was alive, the open tundra
0:36:35 > 0:36:39was giving way to forests of birch and alder.
0:36:39 > 0:36:44So instead of hunting mammoth and reindeer in the snow,
0:36:44 > 0:36:49he hunted Red Deer in the wild wood.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54You can tell from the condition of his teeth
0:36:54 > 0:36:57that he grew up enjoying a good diet,
0:36:57 > 0:37:03but despite that, still in his 20s, this man died.
0:37:03 > 0:37:05Look at this...
0:37:05 > 0:37:10This ugly, ragged crater on his skull,
0:37:10 > 0:37:12just to the right of his nose,
0:37:12 > 0:37:15that's the result of bone infection.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19The infection may have followed an injury,
0:37:19 > 0:37:24or it may have been disease that started perhaps in his sinuses and spread.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27But in any case it would've been debilitating,
0:37:27 > 0:37:31it may have caused fever, it may ultimately have caused his death.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36So, despite the fact there was plenty of meat around,
0:37:36 > 0:37:39there was no guarantee of a long, healthy life.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49Little remains of the people of the Mesolithic.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53They lived lightly on the land, close to nature
0:37:53 > 0:37:57and discoveries like those on the island of Coll are rare.
0:37:57 > 0:38:02But there are other ways to discover what their lives must have been like.
0:38:04 > 0:38:08We're going to need a quantity of these skins, fresh off the animal.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11Smelly, but warm.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17John Lord is a professional flint knapper,
0:38:17 > 0:38:23who's been experimenting with ancient technology for over 35 years.
0:38:23 > 0:38:28He's agreed to give me a direct taste of Mesolithic life.
0:38:28 > 0:38:29Neil's going to be up against it.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32He's going to start to think about the Mesolithic people
0:38:32 > 0:38:38when he starts to work on this stuff and make a harpoon point and needles and things out of the antler.
0:38:38 > 0:38:39It really is laborious work.
0:38:41 > 0:38:47The idea is to spend 24 hours depending on ancient technology.
0:38:47 > 0:38:52This can be used to make scrapers, knife blades, arrow points.
0:38:52 > 0:38:55It really is a little Swiss army flint.
0:39:00 > 0:39:06John is going to help me camp right by the spot once occupied by Coll's Mesolithic fish-trappers.
0:39:08 > 0:39:13Look at that. It's like watching a borrower arrive from the sea in a button.
0:39:19 > 0:39:25Shelters were light and portable, a frame of branches, tied with rope made from tree bark.
0:39:26 > 0:39:31Over the top - fresh, raw deerskin.
0:39:31 > 0:39:35- I'm thinking they must have smelt fairly ripe.- Yeah, they smell.
0:39:35 > 0:39:40If you want some time on your own, work on a skin that's a bit ripe. Nobody will come near you for weeks.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43Oh, I'm getting a definite whiff of it now.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45- Are you?- Definite scent of a butcher's shop...
0:39:47 > 0:39:50..which is what I expect to smell like in the morning.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55Fire was vital for warmth and cooking...
0:39:55 > 0:39:58Oh, it's glowing red.
0:39:58 > 0:40:00There you go, there you go...
0:40:02 > 0:40:06..but also crucial for tool-production.
0:40:06 > 0:40:08Oh, yes, it's coming away.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14This deer antler will become a harpoon,
0:40:14 > 0:40:22made in exactly the same way as Steve Mithen's 9,000-year-old fragment, found on this very spot.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27- Gosh, the hours and hours of someone's time. - It is, it's just time.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29But it's starting to look lovely.
0:40:33 > 0:40:36There they are, finished.
0:40:39 > 0:40:44What are the chances do you think of this fine handmade weapon collecting something?
0:40:44 > 0:40:49Well, if there's any fish, they're in trouble.
0:40:52 > 0:40:59Unfortunately, for all of John's skill, we can't recreate generations of experience.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03I haven't seen a fish the whole time we've been here.
0:41:03 > 0:41:07Instead, dinner has come from the local butcher's.
0:41:07 > 0:41:08That'll do us.
0:41:08 > 0:41:13Of course, on Coll, they used to hunt, in the main, hare.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16But they're a protected species, so here we are, saddled by the rabbit.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20- Just slide, yeah?- Yeah.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22Nothing would be wasted.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25Animal parts were as useful as their meat.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28In the deer, what we do is open up the spine
0:41:28 > 0:41:33and pull out what's called the back strap, it's a really strong sinew.
0:41:33 > 0:41:34This is the back strap.
0:41:34 > 0:41:39Each fibre has a tremendous strength of its own, but this is the sort of thing
0:41:39 > 0:41:42that they used to sew their clothes together.
0:41:42 > 0:41:47It's like nylon or plastic. It's got a shine on it.
0:41:47 > 0:41:48Yes.
0:41:48 > 0:41:54The sense of connection you get with the past, to use a piece of flint
0:41:54 > 0:42:01to make your tools, channel in your mind, in exactly the same way as people did in the past.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23After an uncomfortable night, I'm able to share one more thing
0:42:23 > 0:42:27with the Mesolithic people who once lived here.
0:42:30 > 0:42:34The view of dawn over the island of Mull in the distance.
0:42:38 > 0:42:46Having spent 24 hours preparing tools, making fire, there are glimpses that you can have.
0:42:46 > 0:42:53Handling, you know, fragments of stone and long ago burnt wood and hazelnut shell...
0:42:53 > 0:43:00is two dimensional. But there is a third dimension that is to be had by doing the things that they did.
0:43:04 > 0:43:06And the smells.
0:43:06 > 0:43:11When we were doing the thing with the... Putting the skins on the branches to make that shelter,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14that pervasive smell, that animal smell,
0:43:14 > 0:43:20the world must have been imbued with that,
0:43:20 > 0:43:26because they were working with animal all the time for food and for bone, for gut and for antler.
0:43:28 > 0:43:33The smell of the burnt antler is a smell like burnt human hair.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36It's a very evocative smell.
0:43:36 > 0:43:41And something as pungent as a smell just knocks that,
0:43:41 > 0:43:47rips that veil aside and their world of 10,000 years ago is right there.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54Archaeologist Steve Mithen is discovering
0:43:54 > 0:43:59just how sophisticated the lives of these Mesolithic hunters were.
0:43:59 > 0:44:06It turns out that his Coll fishing camp was only a small part of a much bigger picture.
0:44:06 > 0:44:11Some of the artefacts that we excavate have clearly been brought to the island from elsewhere.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15You don't get deer on this island today, you didn't have them here in the Mesolithic,
0:44:15 > 0:44:19so that deer must have been hunted on another island and the artefact was brought over here.
0:44:19 > 0:44:25These Mesolithic people, they weren't having permanent villages or permanent settlements.
0:44:25 > 0:44:30The essence of their lifestyle was moving from island to island and to the mainland,
0:44:30 > 0:44:33moving to where the particular resources were.
0:44:36 > 0:44:42Unlike Palaeolithic hunters, these people didn't follow herds over hundreds of miles,
0:44:42 > 0:44:46but took all they needed from their local environment.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50They moved between a network of islands...
0:44:50 > 0:44:58Coll, Colonsay, Oronsay and to the south, Islay, all had something different to offer.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07On Colonsay, Steve is discovering the remains
0:45:07 > 0:45:11of one of the most important resources of Mesolithic Britain.
0:45:11 > 0:45:17The shells of more than a third of a million hazelnuts.
0:45:17 > 0:45:22What they may have been doing is gathering large quantities
0:45:22 > 0:45:25in the autumn and then storing them as a food through the winter.
0:45:25 > 0:45:30If you roast them and crack them, you can grind them down to a paste and then it's quite an easy thing,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33food, nutritious food to carry away and take away.
0:45:33 > 0:45:37On that scale, it almost sounds like a processing plant.
0:45:37 > 0:45:42Yeah, yeah, the scale of activity here was just astonishing when we discovered it.
0:45:42 > 0:45:48It shows that they weren't just living from day to day, scrabbing out an existence.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50It was a really carefully planned activity.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58But hazelnuts were only part of the diet for these ancient hunters.
0:46:01 > 0:46:06On the nearby island of Oronsay, there's evidence that shellfish were consumed...
0:46:08 > 0:46:10..on a massive scale.
0:46:10 > 0:46:18It's a remarkable island because there's no less than five Mesolithic shell mounds on the island.
0:46:18 > 0:46:23We're standing on one of them now and these are literally rubbish dumps from coastal foraging.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26- You can see in the rabbit burrows. - Yeah.
0:46:26 > 0:46:31You can see these shells are eroding out by the edge of the rabbit burrow here.
0:46:31 > 0:46:38'Every one of these shells was discarded by a Mesolithic hunter around 9,000 years ago.'
0:46:38 > 0:46:42This is the waste from Mesolithic coastal foraging.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46Limpet shells, periwinkles, dog whelks
0:46:46 > 0:46:49and amongst all that, there'd be fish bones,
0:46:49 > 0:46:53we've got seal bones, all sorts of things.
0:46:59 > 0:47:05Yet another island was home to red deer, a key source of meat, skins and antler.
0:47:07 > 0:47:12We're just flying over the Rinns of Islay at the moment and the Rinns
0:47:12 > 0:47:16in recent times have been fantastic territory for hunting Red Deer.
0:47:16 > 0:47:20I think that's exactly what they were doing in the Mesolithic.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24So the antler tip that we've got from the site at Fiskary Bay,
0:47:24 > 0:47:26that could have come from a deer on this island.
0:47:26 > 0:47:31So the things they needed were scattered all over the landscape, the raw materials were...
0:47:31 > 0:47:35- Yeah, that's right.- The various food groups they wanted, the hazelnuts,
0:47:35 > 0:47:37the rest of the vegetables, the medicines
0:47:37 > 0:47:41and it's a constant shopping trip, going from shop to shop.
0:47:41 > 0:47:43Yeah, yeah, that's right.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49Steve's discoveries are revealing a whole new way of living,
0:47:49 > 0:47:52a systematic exploitation of different resources
0:47:52 > 0:47:55available on different islands.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00The people who lived here were moving season by season,
0:48:00 > 0:48:03within a landscape they must have known intimately.
0:48:11 > 0:48:17How much of the whole picture do you think you've glimpsed in your decades here?
0:48:17 > 0:48:20I think we've just got a small fraction at the moment.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23I hope over the next couple of decades we'll get more pieces,
0:48:23 > 0:48:27maybe the big pieces like where the base camps are, those aggregation sites.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30I think we will find them eventually and get a real more complete picture
0:48:30 > 0:48:34of what that Mesolithic lifestyle would have been like.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41The world of Mesolithic Britain was characterised by small communities
0:48:41 > 0:48:45living very separate, isolated lives.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53It's estimated that at any one time, the whole of Mesolithic Britain may have been populated
0:48:53 > 0:49:00by as few as 5,000 people, as many as you'd find today in just a handful of London streets.
0:49:02 > 0:49:08Apart from the hunting party or their extended family, they might never see another living soul,
0:49:08 > 0:49:12and that must have shaped the way they saw themselves in their world.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18From fragments of evidence, it's possible to recreate something of the way these people lived,
0:49:18 > 0:49:21much harder to understand is what they believed.
0:49:21 > 0:49:23But there are some clues.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34Here at the British Museum, there's a relic
0:49:34 > 0:49:38experts believe is nothing less than a sign of Mesolithic religion.
0:49:42 > 0:49:47The skull of a Red Deer that's been carefully worked by hand.
0:49:49 > 0:49:53This is an astonishing object.
0:49:53 > 0:49:56It's 10,000 years old.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59The feeling you get from something of that age,
0:49:59 > 0:50:01even before you touch it, is tangible.
0:50:01 > 0:50:07The thing you do notice right away are these two holes.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11You might think they represent the eyes, but they don't.
0:50:11 > 0:50:16They're to take a hide strap made from animal skin,
0:50:16 > 0:50:21because this is to be worn as a head dress.
0:50:21 > 0:50:23It's been suggested from time to time
0:50:23 > 0:50:26that this might have been worn as part of a disguise,
0:50:26 > 0:50:28but that seems highly unlikely.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31Apart from anything else, this is heavy,
0:50:31 > 0:50:35the stumps of the antlers would have snagged on branches
0:50:35 > 0:50:39and made the work of hunting even more difficult.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42It seems much more likely
0:50:42 > 0:50:47that this is part of a rite, a ritual, a ceremony.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51When the person wore this,
0:50:51 > 0:50:57they became something else, something more than a man.
0:50:57 > 0:51:00If you imagine it being worn on the head
0:51:00 > 0:51:04along with maybe the full pelt of the animal,
0:51:04 > 0:51:08by donning this and performing the ritual,
0:51:08 > 0:51:11a transformation took place.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14The person would believe
0:51:14 > 0:51:20and be seen to be becoming a Red Deer stag.
0:51:20 > 0:51:22Or even more interestingly,
0:51:22 > 0:51:26some sort of hybrid, part man, part animal.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30Mesolithic people may have felt themselves to be
0:51:30 > 0:51:37so much a part of nature, living within it, enveloped by it
0:51:37 > 0:51:41and dependent upon it, not just in the practical everyday sense,
0:51:41 > 0:51:46but in a profoundly magical and spiritual way as well.
0:51:46 > 0:51:50But as we know, nature can be a very cruel mistress.
0:51:53 > 0:51:57At the beginning of the Mesolithic, after the big freeze,
0:51:57 > 0:52:01Britain was still firmly attached to mainland Europe.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04But as sea-levels continued to rise,
0:52:04 > 0:52:08that connection was reduced to a narrow and marshy land-bridge.
0:52:10 > 0:52:13Britain was becoming an island.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19But its fate was sealed by a sudden catastrophe
0:52:19 > 0:52:22that devastated its low lying coastal plains
0:52:22 > 0:52:25and the communities that depended on them.
0:52:38 > 0:52:41The coast of north-east Scotland.
0:52:41 > 0:52:48Here, at Montrose, there's evidence of the greatest natural catastrophe Britain has ever witnessed.
0:52:48 > 0:52:54A force of nature that ripped through the fragile communities of Mesolithic Britain.
0:52:55 > 0:53:00The event was discovered by geologist David Smith.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03- It's behind this mud. - And the mud has come from where?
0:53:03 > 0:53:05It's come down from the cliff above.
0:53:06 > 0:53:12So if we clean this up now, you'll see the section rather better.
0:53:12 > 0:53:16'Behind the mud there should be a bank of continuous clay.
0:53:16 > 0:53:18'But here, there's something else.'
0:53:18 > 0:53:20So what are we looking at then?
0:53:20 > 0:53:23Well, we're looking at a layer of sand.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26- That really fine stuff there?- It is.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29As far as you are concerned, sand like that shouldn't be there?
0:53:29 > 0:53:33Shouldn't be there. Not in that amount and that extent.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37Only one thing could have been responsible.
0:53:38 > 0:53:45A cataclysmic wave that struck the north-east coast of Britain around 6100 BC.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52One of the greatest tsunamis ever recorded on Earth.
0:53:54 > 0:53:56The tide goes out very quickly.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58And the next thing we'd notice
0:53:58 > 0:54:00would be a slight wind coming from offshore.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03And the next thing after that would be a noise,
0:54:03 > 0:54:06a noise like an express train as it got closer and closer.
0:54:06 > 0:54:12The waves would have been maybe as much as ten metres high.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15If you were down there and caught in it, is there any surviving it?
0:54:15 > 0:54:18Could you let it take you and swim away from it?
0:54:18 > 0:54:23No, there is not way you could have survived. The speed is just so great.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27Anybody standing out on the mudflats at that time
0:54:27 > 0:54:31would well have been dismembered by the power of the wave.
0:54:31 > 0:54:35- Gosh, so it just comes in so fast it would just tear people apart? - Torn apart, yes, yes.
0:54:37 > 0:54:39A giant landslide in Norway
0:54:39 > 0:54:43is thought to have sent the great wave charging towards Britain from the north.
0:54:48 > 0:54:54It hit the coastline with such force that it continued 40km inland, killing indiscriminately.
0:54:58 > 0:55:04In a single moment, the British landscape had been reshaped, forever.
0:55:09 > 0:55:14By 6100 BC, Britain was well on its way to becoming an island.
0:55:14 > 0:55:21Already narrow, possibly even tidal channels were cutting us off from the rest of continental Europe.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26But what the great wave did was seal our fate in the most dramatic way possible
0:55:26 > 0:55:30as those narrow sea channels were ripped wide open.
0:55:45 > 0:55:52Here at the other end of Britain, the people who made those footprints in these mudflats of south Wales
0:55:52 > 0:55:56were in all likelihood blissfully unaware of the great wave,
0:55:56 > 0:56:01far less of the devastation it had caused in the east.
0:56:01 > 0:56:04They were the unknowing survivors
0:56:04 > 0:56:10of perhaps the greatest natural disaster ever to strike our land.
0:56:10 > 0:56:16And it strikes me that so much of the story of our early prehistory is about survival,
0:56:16 > 0:56:20whether it be the companions of the Red Lady of Paviland,
0:56:20 > 0:56:22out hunting the mammoth,
0:56:22 > 0:56:28or the artist who etched the image of a horse head into rib bone
0:56:28 > 0:56:31while the Ice Age waxed and waned,
0:56:31 > 0:56:36or the people who faced and survived the tsunami.
0:56:36 > 0:56:378,000 years ago,
0:56:37 > 0:56:41the people living in the land that would become Britain
0:56:41 > 0:56:46were living through a watershed in our story.
0:56:46 > 0:56:52Those footprints aren't just traces of the people who made them,
0:56:52 > 0:56:56they're also a snapshot of a moment,
0:56:56 > 0:57:02THE moment when this land became an island.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05The people here had become different,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08they'd been made different.
0:57:10 > 0:57:15At the same time, they'd been made a wee bit special as well.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25Next time, my journey continues.
0:57:25 > 0:57:32The last hands to touch these before mine, were those of a Neolithic farmer 5,500 years ago.
0:57:32 > 0:57:38As I discover a whole new age, the age of ancestors.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42Nothing like this had ever been seen before in Britain.
0:57:42 > 0:57:49When we left nature behind and set out on the greatest social experiment ever seen.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53Surely a chap wouldn't be put to work grinding grain!
0:57:54 > 0:57:57The seismic revolution that came with farming.