Age of Ancestors A History of Ancient Britain


Age of Ancestors

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This is the story of how Britain came to be.

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Of how our land, and its people, were forged over thousands of years of ancient history.

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This Britain is a strange and alien world...

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A world that contains the hidden story of our distant pre-historic past.

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The occupation of Britain began with hunters, battling for survival through the Ice Age...

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It's fantastic, after 14,000 years, to get a glimpse of the way at least one individual was thinking.

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..and continued into a new age that came after the ice.

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Instead of hunting mammoth and reindeer in the snow,

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he hunted red deer in the wild wood.

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Now the journey continues...

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..with the next chapter in our epic story...

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Nothing like this had ever been seen in Britain.

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..the invention of farming and the massive social revolution that came with it.

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A brave new world that shaped our land and the way we lived...

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..forever.

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I'm going back 10,000 years, to a wild and untamed Britain.

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The Ice Age was over and a new Britain had emerged

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blanketed with trees - birch, alder, hazel and finally oak.

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Across the whole of our land,

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perhaps no more than a few thousand nomadic hunters

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lived by drawing everything they needed from that landscape.

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They had flint for tools.

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Red deer provided meat, antlers for picks and harpoons and needles,

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hides for shelters and clothes.

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These people didn't just live close to nature, they were part of nature.

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10,000 years ago Britain was still attached to mainland Europe,

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as it had been throughout the Ice Age.

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Now though, sea levels were rising and a new Britain was emerging.

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Gradually, Britain was becoming an island.

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Much of the land that had been home to nomadic hunters for thousands of years

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was disappearing beneath the waves.

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Here on the south coast, just off the Isle of Wight,

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there's a relic of that ancient world.

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Evidence of people who lived here just as all this was becoming sea.

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10,000 years ago there was no Isle of Wight.

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It was part of the English mainland to the North

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and still joined to Northern Europe and France to the South.

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And all of that out there, the Solent, was dry land.

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Which should mean out there, underneath the water,

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are the relics of a lost world and of the people who lived on it.

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It's a world that's being explored by archaeologist Gary Momber.

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And I'm going to join him.

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'I'm about to go back to a time when rising sea levels were turning land into tidal marsh,

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'when Britain was an island in the making.'

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The site is 8,000 years old, a time archaeologists call the Mesolithic,

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or middle stone age.

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It's opening a picture of the Mesolithic period

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that we're not getting from sites on land.

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So when the sea level was lower, we're further back in time,

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and we're finding the well-preserved remains.

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So it's actually the sea that's going to make it awkward for us

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is what has preserved what we're going to see..

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If it wasn't for the sea, it wouldn't be there.

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We're doing a final diver check.

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Diver's ready for the water.

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Once this was home to a coastal community of hunter gatherers

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living a way of life that had barely changed for thousands of years.

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What's been discovered here is more than an ancient hunting camp.

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It's the oldest boat building yard in the world.

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And it contains fragile evidence of the sophistication of the people who once lived here.

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-That was fantastic.

-It was. I could stay down there for hours when it's like that.

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So this piece of timber is how old? How long is it since it was worked?

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It's over 8,000 years old.

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It has come up in association with other bits and pieces,

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and one piece of timber in particular,

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which we believe may be part of a logboat.

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See those grooves, how clearly defined they are?

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-So that's woodworking? That's not natural erosion?

-No, that's woodworking.

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That's obviously part of something, with the grooves either side.

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So someone 8,000 years ago was working with a stone tool to create these grooves.

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You don't, as a general rule, you just don't see organic material coming out of Mesolithic sites.

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You get the stone tools, but to see what those stone tools were being used for,

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it's the other half of the equation.

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It's pretty unique and pretty special.

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The logboat is an extraordinary insight into the lives of the hunters who once lived here.

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Mesolithic life might have been nomadic,

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but it was largely carried out

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around the shorelines of Britain's coasts and rivers.

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The forested land of the interior was a dangerous, forbidding world.

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But all that was about to change.

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And all because of these - tiny grains of barley.

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Like the Solent boat builders, these are around 8,000 years old.

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But these aren't from the Isle of Wight.

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These are from more than 2,000 miles away to the south-east, what's now Syria.

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This is evidence of a new way of living, a world not of hunting, but of farming.

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When this new technology arrived in Britain

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it would nudge us towards a whole new era in our history,

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what we call the Neolithic - the new stone age.

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By producing food, farming communities could provide for bigger families, more children.

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And that meant better chances of survival for the whole group.

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Instead of hunting the wild herds, now farmers had new, domesticated breeds of cattle and sheep.

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Instead of gathering wild nuts and berries, farmers could grow most of what they needed from seed.

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The Neolithic revolution was to utterly change the way we thought about food and survival.

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But it was much, much more than that.

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It was also to profoundly alter our sense of ourselves as human beings, as part of the natural world.

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In a sense, as well as domesticating livestock,

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we were also domesticating ourselves.

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This revolution, when it finally reached our shores, would change everything.

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It would change the land, the things we ate.

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It would change our relationship with time.

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It would change our beliefs and the way we understand our place in thee universe.

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This change, the jump to farming,

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was the single greatest social revolution there's ever been.

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HORN BLARES

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To try and understand what happened when the radical new world of agriculture

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collided with the ancient world of the hunter,

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I'm leaving England behind and crossing the Channel to France.

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By 5,000 BC, Neolithic culture was spreading into Western Europe.

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For the hunting communities of Northern France, the new ways must have been completely baffling.

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In Brittany, there's a unique set of monuments -

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line upon line of ancient standing stones.

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These were not erected by Neolithic farmers, but by Mesolithic hunters,

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just as the first farmers started appearing on their doorstep.

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This place is just extraordinary.

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I've known about it for years, I've seen photographs of it countless times, but this is my first visit.

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And the impact of the stones is just breathtaking.

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Everywhere you look there are more of them.

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They're in every direction, line after line of them.

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When you look at any one of them, they weigh at least tens of tons.

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Some of them look like they weigh even more.

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They completely dominate the landscape, everywhere you look.

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We use extraordinary to describe a lot of things, but a place like really deserves the word.

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What we're looking at is the result of a collision,

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not just of cultures, but of two completely different belief systems.

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All of this might be the result of a monumental tipping point in human history.

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The hunters hauled the stones into place to demonstrate their strength

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in the face of people they didn't understand.

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But theirs was the "old" world.

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In just a few hundred years Neolithic culture took over.

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And many of these great standing stones became building material for something new...

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Neolithic stone tombs.

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Archaeologist Serge Cassen has studied them for over 20 years.

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Is there a connection between the change from lines of stones

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to tombs like this, and the change to farming?

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Yes. It is probably linked with this new process, this new economy,

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this full Neolithic, where life of animals,

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life of plants are very important inside this life-cycle.

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Inside one tomb, excavated by Serge,

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this decisive fork in history is marked by some remarkable rock art.

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So these are the old style Mesolithic hunting weapons,

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almost like a primitive boomerang to kill birds?

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-Exactly.

-So this is the old world, very male, very phallic.

-Yes.

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'One carving in particular brings it all home.'

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We can observe now carvings...

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Another throwing stick.

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Yes, the same shape, the same weapon, the same presentation, and under,

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we have the arcs from the Neolithic period, with this handle.

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-So this triangular shape.

-Yes.

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So you've got the new technology of the axe,

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on top of and even cutting into the old world.

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Yes.

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This is almost the moment, it's depicting the moment when the

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old world and the new world collide

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and after that collision, the new world is dominant over the old.

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Exactly.

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We may never fully understand a site like Carnac.

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We might never hear what those hunters were trying to say with the stones

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but to me, apart from anything else, they are a statement of defiance.

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They're saying to the farmers,

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"Come in. Bring your crops, bring your animals,

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"but be aware that we are here, that we've always been here.

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"We're part of this landscape and we belong to it."

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They're saying,

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"We may not last forever.

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"Our way of life may not last forever, but we will be remembered.

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"Not just for now but for all time."

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The age of the Mesolithic was coming to an end.

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By 4500 BC, the Neolithic revolution had conquered almost all of Europe.

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But around here, it came to a halt because of that.

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Farming might have swept across the land mass of Europe

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but the last few watery miles presented a different challenge.

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It would take hundreds of years, but that final leap across the Channel and into Britain was inevitable.

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Exactly how the new stone age came to Britain and what the local hunters made of it

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remains one of the greatest mysteries in all of our prehistory.

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The first farmers must have come to Britain by boat, bringing their families, domestic cattle and grain.

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These were pioneers, undertaking a perilous journey to a new and unknown land.

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And direct evidence of some of those first farmers can be found here in Kent.

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Wait till you see what's up here.

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Nothing like this had ever been seen before in Britain.

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This is one of the very earliest stone tombs.

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This is Neolithic behaviour.

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The people who built this were amongst the first

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to come and farm our land,

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and we're talking about 6,000 years ago.

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Today, the rich soil of Kent is still prime farming land.

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And together with its proximity to mainland Europe,

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you can see the attraction for the earliest farmers coming over.

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You have to remember that 6,000 years ago,

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when the first people arrived with the intention of farming here,

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all of that would've been woodland,

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so first of all they had to clear the trees, cut them down,

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burn them down,

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and then they had to build their homesteads.

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You can only imagine what the local hunters thought.

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Unlike the of Mesolithic hunters who hugged the coastline and river valleys,

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the first farmers began to break into the interior of Britain.

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And what they found was a wild and wooded place.

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For thousands of years, forests of oak and birch had grown, blanketing the landscape in green.

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This was home to red deer and elk.

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In the undergrowth, bears and wild pig.

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But this wild and ancient Britain was about to be transformed...

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..forever.

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The new farmers were technologists.

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This wasn't living off the land like the Mesolithic hunters

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but shaping it, adapting it, making IT work for THEM.

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These people weren't simply fitting into the world alongside nature.

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They were going to rule OVER it.

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Incredibly, some of those pioneers, the very mothers and fathers of this brave new world, have survived.

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Around 17 individuals were interred in that Neolithic tomb in Kent

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and these are the bones of just a few of them.

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There's a whole age range represented amongst the dead.

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These pelvis bones, this is a baby, and an older child through to

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older people, and old people in Neolithic terms is somebody my age.

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Somebody in their 40s would be pensionable.

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We often talk about the Neolithic revolution and the farming revolution

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and the effect it had on Britain and on the landscape.

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But what you also see here, and you have to remember all the time, are REAL people.

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This is part of a man's skull.

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These individuals are part of the most profoundly affecting

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living experiment that's ever been attempted.

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They trust their future

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to planting a few seeds in the spring in the hope of a harvest in the autumn.

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They keep some animals

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in the hope that that meat will be enough to sustain them and their families.

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It's a gamble, so whatever else you might want to imagine

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about this...man,

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he was certainly brave.

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It's traditionally been thought that farming gradually spread north

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and west from its first foothold in the south-east.

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But new evidence suggests this could be wrong.

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This is a piece of a bone from a domesticated cow -

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a classic Neolithic indicator.

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What makes this one unique, however, is that it wasn't found in the

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south-east of England, but in the deep south-west of Ireland.

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It may date from as early as 4,300 years BC.

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That's hundreds of years before the first trace of the Neolithic lifestyle in Kent.

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So far, no one has been able to explain what it's doing there.

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And the unexplained cow bone isn't the only evidence that's challenging

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the accepted story of how Neolithic culture spread through Britain.

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As far north as Orkney, there's also evidence of early farmers - in the shape of prehistoric voles.

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So here's a group of skulls. You can see characteristic skull shapes.

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This guy here is the field vole.

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This is the vole found most commonly in the UK mainland.

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This guy here is actually much more interesting.

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This is the vole that's found

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in Orkney, but is not found, importantly, in the UK and Ireland.

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Microtus arvalis - the Orkney vole -

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only lives on a few islands off the north-east tip of Scotland.

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The evidence of ancient vole bones shows

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that they first appeared at least 5,500 years ago.

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The question is, how did they arrive?

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The closest relatives that we have genetically to the Orkney vole

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population are from the Rhine valley in Germany,

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and maybe in Brittany.

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It's clear the voles aren't swimming from Europe to Orkney on their own,

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which means that humans are involved.

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It's thought the voles came amongst grain carried by early farmers.

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Not from the British mainland, but direct from France.

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It seems that the early settlers in Kent might represent only one route Neolithic culture took from Europe.

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There are also those earlier Neolithic expeditions to south-west Ireland,

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and the mysterious vole-carrying voyages direct to Orkney.

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What's emerging is something much more complex

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and subtle than the traditional view of the Neolithic revolution.

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Many people would have continued with a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle,

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supported by a few domesticated animals.

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And that way of life would have continued for hundreds of years at least.

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And then there were the settled farmers themselves.

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They would have continued to hunt to supplement their diet.

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However people took up the new ways, it's now thought that Neolithic culture

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in some form swept across the whole of Britain in just a few generations.

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But, with just a few fragments of evidence from 6,000 years ago,

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exactly how it all began might forever remain a mystery.

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What's more, across the whole of Britain there's precious little evidence of how those early farmers

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actually lived, which is why I'm leaving our shores yet again, headed this time for Ireland.

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Welcome to the west of Ireland, one of the wildest, most spectacular landscapes I've ever seen.

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In Britain,

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archaeologists have only discovered fragments of early farming.

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But here something's been preserved on a truly massive scale.

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What's special about this place is the ground.

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This landscape is blanketed in peat bog - slowly decaying vegetation that builds up layer upon layer.

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It takes thousands of years. But what has drawn me here isn't the bog itself,

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but what's hidden beneath it, as much as four metres beneath my feet.

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Just drive it in.

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It's like a knife through butter!

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Archaeologist Seamus Caulfield has been probing this bog with simple metal rods for over 40 years.

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So just about here.

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Put it in straight, vertical.

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'He's using them to map ancient stone walls, made by the Neolithic farmers who once lived here.'

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So that's the old ground surface coming on and then...

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You can hear that you are hitting stone now.

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It's beginning to look like it.

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CLUNKING

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-That's amazing.

-Listen to that again.

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Yeah, knock, knock.

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5,500 years ago, someone lifted a stone in place,

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and now we're hearing it for the first time.

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So how much have you found? How extensive is the wall?

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Something over 100 linear kilometres at this stage.

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-100 kilometres?!

-Yeah.

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You're joking! That's jaw-dropping.

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The scale of it, 5,500 years ago.

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Yes, it's just sitting there under the bog as it was.

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By probing every inch of this land, Seamus and teams of helpers

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have revealed far more than some buried walls.

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What they've found is the biggest Neolithic field system in the entire world -

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cattle enclosures that stretch almost as far as the eye can see.

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What are the fields for?

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It's a dairy economy. They have to wean the calves

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from the milk cows, separate the dry stock from the milking animals.

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There's herd management...

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is what is involved.

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-So they need lots of separate areas to keep bull calves and milking cows and all the rest?

-Yes.

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Typically in Ireland, the weather turns foul.

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But I'm determined to uncover some of this wall for myself.

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And here on the bog, there's only one way to do it.

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Clean the blade.

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Is this all just used locally, Seamus?

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This is just for folk to burn?

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That's 90% water at the moment, but it dries out, and that is the fuel we use all the time.

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So this is all for fuel?

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NEIL LAUGHS

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All I can say is, don't give up the day job.

0:29:320:29:34

You're right!

0:29:340:29:36

Look, there it is! Look at that.

0:29:410:29:43

That is the wall.

0:29:470:29:50

That's amazing.

0:29:500:29:52

Come here. Look at this. Look.

0:29:520:29:54

That's the top of a wall which is about a metre high.

0:29:540:29:57

It extends down about a metre beneath my feet.

0:29:570:30:00

The sun has risen and set two million times since these stones last saw the light of day.

0:30:000:30:06

The last hands to touch these before mine

0:30:060:30:09

were those of a Neolithic farmer 5,500 years ago.

0:30:090:30:14

Even on a foul day like today - and this is truly foul -

0:30:140:30:18

the sight of these, the touch of these, makes it worthwhile.

0:30:180:30:22

Doesn't it? Just about!

0:30:220:30:24

It does. It still does.

0:30:240:30:27

Amazing.

0:30:290:30:31

The Ceide field structures are a hidden wonder of the world.

0:30:380:30:42

But the walls aren't the only secret,

0:30:420:30:45

because the peat itself can reveal just what this world was like

0:30:450:30:49

5,000 years ago, and even what was being farmed.

0:30:490:30:54

-OK, you've got the top.

-Yeah.

0:30:570:31:01

The peat is preserving the record of human activity,

0:31:030:31:07

vegetation etc through time,

0:31:070:31:11

so it is like a history book of thousands of years.

0:31:110:31:17

By studying pollen grains preserved in the peat, Michael O'Connell

0:31:170:31:21

can identify what was growing in the ancient landscape.

0:31:210:31:25

This particular pollen grain comes from pine,

0:31:300:31:34

and pine was the dominant tree in Ceide Fields before farmers came.

0:31:340:31:37

At the early part of the Neolithic, the pollen totally changed

0:31:370:31:43

from being tree pollen-dominated to being herb and grass-dominated.

0:31:430:31:48

The change to grassland pollen shows that the trees were cut down

0:31:490:31:54

and replaced with pasture for grazing cattle.

0:31:540:31:57

But in amongst the grassland pollen, Michael has made an even more startling discovery.

0:31:580:32:04

We were really excited about these results.

0:32:060:32:09

This particular sample has quite a number

0:32:090:32:11

of cereal pollen, and of course this is really important

0:32:110:32:15

because it shows wheat and maybe also barley were grown.

0:32:150:32:18

So this was a really interesting and significant find.

0:32:180:32:24

Cereals and domestic animals transformed society,

0:32:290:32:33

but there was also a third Neolithic invention...

0:32:330:32:36

pottery.

0:32:360:32:38

Together, all three created a completely new diet,

0:32:390:32:44

a feature of Neolithic life studied by Jacqui Wood.

0:32:440:32:47

This is actually just wheat, just boiled - another new thing for the Neolithic.

0:32:470:32:53

-Some bread.

-A flatbread.

0:32:530:32:57

-That is so flavoursome.

-Now, this is a bit of prehistoric stew.

0:32:570:33:00

-Slow cooking?

-Slow cooking, absolutely.

0:33:000:33:03

Butter was a big thing in the Neolithic.

0:33:030:33:06

Bread and butter - what could be more quintessentially British?

0:33:060:33:10

I tell you what, absolutely everything is so substantial!

0:33:100:33:14

You wouldn't need much of anything, would you?

0:33:140:33:17

It sticks to your ribs - and everything else!

0:33:170:33:20

The new food might have seemed good, but human remains show evidence

0:33:200:33:23

of farmers being less healthy than hunters, with their diet of fresh fish and red deer.

0:33:230:33:29

No more, I beg of you!

0:33:290:33:32

And there was another price to pay.

0:33:320:33:36

This is actually a real quern - a Neolithic quern.

0:33:360:33:39

This is the genuine article?

0:33:390:33:41

This is the genuine article.

0:33:410:33:43

Put some grain on first.

0:33:430:33:45

-So this is some thousand years old?

-That's right.

0:33:450:33:47

What's the action?

0:33:470:33:49

Spread up and down, like that.

0:33:490:33:52

That sound is the sound

0:33:520:33:56

of the Stone Age, basically.

0:33:560:33:58

I'm doing this for a minute, but if you were put to work like this

0:33:580:34:02

on a daily basis, what kind of a toll, physical toll, would this have had on people?

0:34:020:34:07

We can actually see that it did have a toll.

0:34:070:34:10

In the archaeology, we find some skeletons where the parts of the

0:34:100:34:13

vertebrae are quite worn because of repeatedly doing this grinding.

0:34:130:34:18

You need to grind for a good hour every day to make enough bread for a family - every day.

0:34:180:34:25

So the daily grind, basically.

0:34:250:34:29

Despite all the individual hardships it brought, it was the sheer productivity

0:34:350:34:40

of farming that made it irresistible as a survival strategy.

0:34:400:34:44

'This is where our working lives began -

0:34:510:34:55

'invented by the first farmers of the Neolithic.'

0:34:550:34:59

This was a point of no return.

0:34:590:35:02

Farming was productive, so people could have more children

0:35:020:35:06

and open up more land and the population increased.

0:35:060:35:10

And there quickly came a day when they couldn't go back to hunting

0:35:100:35:13

even if they wanted to because there were simply too many people around.

0:35:130:35:17

And it wasn't just the daily grind.

0:35:220:35:24

This new age would usher in the idea of land ownership - and conflict.

0:35:240:35:30

The Neolithic would completely change how we thought about ourselves -

0:35:330:35:38

in this life and the next.

0:35:380:35:41

The Neolithic revolution changed our mindset.

0:35:470:35:50

Not only towards work, but the idea of the land and our relationship to it.

0:35:520:35:58

It changed our beliefs,

0:36:010:36:03

and evidence of these new beliefs can be found in massive stone tombs,

0:36:030:36:09

some of which mark our countryside even today.

0:36:090:36:14

One of the most impressive is in Wiltshire.

0:36:180:36:21

This great long mound was created by digging thousands of tons of chalk rubble from ditches on either side.

0:36:280:36:35

Some of the stones weigh 40 tonnes, and they were hauled here from as much as a mile away.

0:36:350:36:42

This is the work of a whole community, not just one family,

0:36:420:36:45

and its people, for whom the creation of this mattered as much

0:36:450:36:48

or more than anything else they were doing.

0:36:480:36:51

And these were busy farmers.

0:36:510:36:53

This isn't just a tomb.

0:36:530:36:55

This isn't simply about remembering a loved one.

0:36:550:36:58

This is about creating an entire world - one built

0:36:580:37:02

by the community of the living for the community of the dead.

0:37:020:37:05

And wait till you see what's inside.

0:37:050:37:07

About 40 people were buried here

0:37:110:37:14

around 3600 BC over a period

0:37:140:37:19

of maybe just 25 years or so.

0:37:190:37:22

What we think happened was, when someone died, if it was

0:37:220:37:26

deemed appropriate that they become part of this place, their body would be laid out,

0:37:260:37:33

maybe nearby, maybe even in here in the passageway, and then the natural process

0:37:330:37:38

of decomposition would begin and animals and birds would remove the flesh over a period of time.

0:37:380:37:44

And then, once there was little remaining, but the skeleton, the bones,

0:37:440:37:50

they would be gathered up and placed in the chambers.

0:37:500:37:54

Now, there was a particular logic to this place.

0:37:540:37:57

Old people and young people in separate chambers on either side of the passageway.

0:37:580:38:05

And then, further in, maybe adult males and females, again separated on either side of the passageway.

0:38:050:38:12

And then, all the way at the back,

0:38:120:38:16

just the remains of adult males.

0:38:160:38:18

They weren't laid out as individuals, as intact skeletons.

0:38:180:38:24

You would have a pile of skulls,

0:38:240:38:27

then a separate neat pile of vertebrae, then another pile of long bones.

0:38:270:38:33

That was important, because what is going on is a process by which

0:38:330:38:38

the loved ones cease to be just individuals, members of the community.

0:38:380:38:45

They become part of one collective presence, the ancestors.

0:38:450:38:51

Strangely, though, tombs like this weren't sealed, but left open.

0:38:530:38:59

In some ways they were more akin to temples

0:38:590:39:02

which you could enter to commune with the spirits of the dead.

0:39:020:39:07

And imagine what that felt like

0:39:070:39:09

for people who truly believed that their loved ones,

0:39:090:39:13

as well as the ancient dead, were somehow in here,

0:39:130:39:17

that their will was in here and that they were watching them and that they were aware.

0:39:170:39:23

So you would come in here

0:39:230:39:25

with great reverence and great respect, with the hairs going up on the back of your neck

0:39:250:39:30

and all over your body, as you wondered what would happen next.

0:39:300:39:35

But these great structures also had an earthly function.

0:39:430:39:47

All around us is rich and fertile farmland, highly valued.

0:39:490:39:53

By building this here, the people are laying claim to it.

0:39:530:39:58

This long barrow forged a permanent link between the community,

0:39:580:40:02

their ancestors, and the fields they had farmed for generations.

0:40:020:40:07

This is about the arrival of something new in our history, the concept of ownership.

0:40:070:40:14

But the notion of ownership, the idea that a place, a territory,

0:40:160:40:21

belonged to the tribe and their ancestors was to have consequences.

0:40:210:40:26

Up on top of this hill

0:40:370:40:39

is the site of one of the earliest examples of a great watershed in British history -

0:40:390:40:46

armed conflict.

0:40:460:40:48

SHOUTS AND BATTLE CRIES

0:40:490:40:51

Look at that for a view.

0:41:080:41:10

That's the Severn Valley down there.

0:41:100:41:13

Over there, ghostly in the mist, the Malvern Hills.

0:41:130:41:18

Over in that direction, the Forest of Dean.

0:41:180:41:21

Beyond that the Black Mountains, and onwards into Wales.

0:41:210:41:24

That's modern day Gloucester down there.

0:41:240:41:27

But of course, 5,500 years ago

0:41:270:41:31

that landscape would have been predominantly woodland

0:41:310:41:34

with the occasional farmstead and cleared field.

0:41:340:41:38

And in a sense, whoever controlled this high ground controlled the landscape below.

0:41:380:41:45

So if you wanted to lay claim to all of that valuable land, you had to take this, the top of Crickley Hill.

0:41:450:41:53

And what's been found up here is testament to that.

0:41:530:41:57

Look at these.

0:42:010:42:03

These are half a dozen flint arrowheads

0:42:030:42:05

and they're from a collection

0:42:050:42:07

of around 450 complete arrowheads or fragments

0:42:070:42:10

that were found scattered all across the top of Crickley Hill.

0:42:100:42:15

To my eye,

0:42:170:42:19

these are just the most beautiful things.

0:42:190:42:22

They're so symmetrical,

0:42:220:42:24

so beautifully shaped.

0:42:240:42:26

Look at the profile of that.

0:42:260:42:29

Look how fine it is.

0:42:290:42:31

How much effort has gone into taking off infinite numbers of tiny flakes

0:42:310:42:35

to produce that tear-shape arrowhead.

0:42:350:42:40

But as well as appreciating the beauty of them,

0:42:400:42:44

and some of these could be jewellery,

0:42:440:42:48

as well as appreciating that,

0:42:480:42:49

you have to appreciate that this is

0:42:490:42:52

also evidence of the cruel intention to kill.

0:42:520:42:56

5,000 years ago, the longbow was state-of-the-art technology.

0:43:060:43:11

What we've got here is a Neolithic longbow.

0:43:120:43:15

This particular piece of wood is ash.

0:43:150:43:18

It was cut down a year ago,

0:43:180:43:19

so it's not carrying too much moisture.

0:43:190:43:22

That makes it nice and springy.

0:43:220:43:23

Now, we've made a fairly heavy bow here.

0:43:250:43:29

If it bends and it works,

0:43:310:43:33

I hope your guy Neil has some strength behind him, because this...

0:43:330:43:38

..is no kids' bow.

0:43:420:43:44

Pine resin makes a strong Neolithic glue to fix the arrowheads.

0:43:460:43:51

And for the flights, crows' feathers.

0:43:530:43:57

So that is ready to go.

0:43:570:44:00

In the attack on Crickley Hill, the Neolithic bow proved decisive.

0:44:100:44:15

Right here, 5,500 years ago, the defenders were routed.

0:44:160:44:21

I'll show you how to use it, then see what you're like as an archer.

0:44:240:44:28

We're always looking for good archers on English territory.

0:44:280:44:31

Not Scots, surely!

0:44:310:44:33

You don't want that.

0:44:330:44:35

-Ooh, dead centre!

-So...

0:44:390:44:40

I'll do the Robin Hood shot

0:44:420:44:45

and I'll split that shaft.

0:44:450:44:47

I think I'll go for three fingers.

0:44:490:44:51

-Right-o.

-OK.

0:44:510:44:53

Put some shoulder behind it.

0:44:560:44:58

-NEIL LAUGHS

-Give me another arrow.

0:45:010:45:03

Go for it. I'm sure there's a lucky one in here for you.

0:45:040:45:07

That looks more like it. It was clearly the arrow that was wrong as opposed to my technique.

0:45:070:45:12

-Oh!

-Yes!

0:45:360:45:38

Even in the hands of a beginner, this weapon is lethal.

0:45:410:45:46

An arrow fired from 30 metres would have gone straight through any medium-sized animal...

0:45:460:45:50

..or human.

0:45:530:45:54

-What's the damage?

-Well, as I think you're going to see...

0:45:570:46:02

Check that out, right the way through.

0:46:020:46:05

That's flesh and bone. That's what these things are capable of.

0:46:050:46:10

Of course, up here on Crickley Hill it was being used against more than sides of pork.

0:46:100:46:14

Human beings were the prey that day.

0:46:140:46:18

-You wouldn't want it in your leg, would you?

-I would not!

0:46:180:46:21

Back at the Natural History Museum, there's direct evidence of this violent world.

0:46:280:46:34

Look at this poor chap.

0:46:360:46:37

The condition of his teeth suggests he died probably in his mid-20s, no older than that.

0:46:400:46:46

And he died because someone smashed his skull in

0:46:470:46:53

with a blunt object, maybe a stone axe, or a stone hammer.

0:46:530:46:58

And the wound was inflicted with such force that it caused

0:46:580:47:03

this fracture line

0:47:030:47:06

to radiate right round to the other side of his skull.

0:47:060:47:10

He would have been killed instantly.

0:47:100:47:12

And the violence

0:47:140:47:16

at that time wasn't limited to the men.

0:47:160:47:19

This is a woman's skull.

0:47:190:47:22

There's a wound here towards the front,

0:47:220:47:26

and then,

0:47:260:47:28

much easier to see, another dimpled wound

0:47:280:47:32

to the back of her head,

0:47:320:47:33

but she survived the attack that caused these wounds.

0:47:330:47:40

We know she survived because she lived long enough

0:47:400:47:43

for the wounds to heal over.

0:47:430:47:44

She also lived long enough to have lost all of her teeth

0:47:440:47:48

by the time she finally gave up the ghost.

0:47:480:47:50

What we can say about this is really quite shocking.

0:47:540:47:57

It means that if you lived in those first centuries of the Neolithic,

0:47:570:48:01

at least between 4000 and 3000 BC, people would have known about,

0:48:010:48:06

they would have witnessed, and they might even have experienced extreme physical violence.

0:48:060:48:11

There was a lot of it about.

0:48:110:48:13

In just a few hundred years, the population of Britain exploded

0:48:200:48:24

from just a few thousand hunters to perhaps 100,000 farmers.

0:48:240:48:30

As contact between groups became more frequent, people needed to find new ways of coming to terms with it

0:48:300:48:38

without always killing one another.

0:48:380:48:40

They also had to lay the foundations of a kind of local politics as well.

0:48:410:48:46

It was as if they were saying, "It's not enough to change the way we live, the way we work,

0:48:460:48:51

"we'll have to invent society as well."

0:48:510:48:54

This need to co-operate, to get along, gave birth to monuments on a truly grand scale.

0:49:070:49:14

The very act of hundreds or even thousands of people collaborating

0:49:150:49:19

would have bound Neolithic communities together.

0:49:190:49:23

The earthworks they created are so vast they remain etched into our landscape even today...

0:49:290:49:35

..despite the ravages of thousands of years of wind and rain.

0:49:360:49:41

One of those giant monuments can be found here in Wiltshire.

0:49:430:49:47

The trouble is it's so big that up close you can't even see it.

0:49:480:49:54

I'm right in the middle of something archaeologists call a cursus.

0:50:040:50:08

This one is 3km long and 150m wide.

0:50:080:50:14

Some are even bigger.

0:50:140:50:16

To be honest, you could be forgiven for walking right past it without even noticing.

0:50:190:50:25

Down there is the remains of a ditch.

0:50:250:50:28

It's very shallow now but it stretches almost as far as the eye can see.

0:50:280:50:33

It's barely perceptible, but in its original form, it would have been

0:50:330:50:37

quite distinct - chalky white soil against the green of the grass.

0:50:370:50:42

It would have marked out the interior as a very long, thin, lozenge shape.

0:50:420:50:48

These were originally called cursuses

0:50:480:50:50

because they were thought to be the remains of Roman racetracks.

0:50:500:50:54

But of course we now know that they're much, much older.

0:50:540:50:58

This thing was built by Neolithic farmers 3500 BC.

0:50:580:51:04

Today, the only way to really get a sense of the shape of monuments like this is from the air.

0:51:120:51:20

Even from up here, it's not that easy to see.

0:51:210:51:24

But after a while, you get your eye in

0:51:240:51:26

and you begin to see what it is you're supposed to be looking at.

0:51:260:51:30

From one end, the cursus can be seen cutting through a bank of trees,

0:51:300:51:35

almost like a gigantic runway disappearing off into the distance.

0:51:350:51:39

RADIO CHATTER

0:51:420:51:44

What you're struck with, more than anything,

0:51:490:51:51

is the scale of the thing.

0:51:510:51:53

And what hits you is the level of effort that was involved,

0:51:530:51:58

not to mention the sheer determination.

0:51:580:52:00

Of course, the big question is what does this shape symbolise?

0:52:010:52:06

Is it a boundary?

0:52:060:52:08

Is it a processional way?

0:52:080:52:10

Is it even a narrow vessel designed to contain the dead?

0:52:100:52:16

Perhaps it's a bit of all those things.

0:52:160:52:18

But the simple truth is, we don't know.

0:52:180:52:21

But there are other monuments we do know more about -

0:52:240:52:28

massive earthworks known as causewayed enclosures.

0:52:280:52:32

And there's one.

0:52:340:52:36

Three concentric circles,

0:52:360:52:37

like three necklaces looped around the hill, right down there.

0:52:370:52:42

These monuments are meeting points where people

0:52:450:52:48

came for large gatherings, perhaps at special times of the year.

0:52:480:52:52

For archaeologist Alasdair Whittle, they reveal the beginning of Stone Age society.

0:52:590:53:04

Causewayed enclosures are very exciting places and all sorts of things go on at them.

0:53:060:53:12

They could settle disputes, or meet husbands and wives,

0:53:120:53:17

marry people off?

0:53:170:53:19

I think all these things would have gone on.

0:53:190:53:22

Do we have the artefacts, do we have the things left behind?

0:53:220:53:27

We have lots of artefacts. That's one of the big things about these sites.

0:53:270:53:30

They're rich in material and we have lots of artefacts.

0:53:300:53:33

So, here we've got the top of the skull and the horns

0:53:330:53:41

-of a domesticated cow or ox.

-So how old is that skull?

0:53:410:53:46

A little over 5,500 years.

0:53:460:53:49

That's a hugely significant find for me to see something like that.

0:53:490:53:55

That's so early in the story of farming.

0:53:550:53:59

The thought that that beast was here when this

0:53:590:54:01

-was a shining white monument, looking out over woodland.

-Yes.

0:54:010:54:04

And it met its face, perhaps it was sacrificed, it was probably eaten.

0:54:040:54:09

Then we can look at this pot here.

0:54:090:54:11

Again, is this of a comparable age to the ox bone?

0:54:110:54:18

This is the same age. So we're looking at about 5,500 years old.

0:54:180:54:24

It's so redolent of everything the Neolithic is about.

0:54:240:54:28

The domesticated animals, the new ceramic, the new foods that were made possible because of this.

0:54:280:54:35

I keep thinking of a time capsule. Is this a conscious effort for people to remember

0:54:350:54:40

where they came from, how far they've come?

0:54:400:54:43

I think it is. I think memory's very important.

0:54:430:54:46

And coming to terms with a huge change.

0:54:460:54:50

Coming to terms with a really big change in existence, which has been

0:54:500:54:55

played out over these opening centuries of the Neolithic.

0:54:550:54:58

The early monuments of the new Stone Age are about people coming to terms with a whole new world.

0:55:010:55:08

Not only with each other, but the land itself...

0:55:080:55:12

..and their place within it.

0:55:130:55:15

This place encapsulates what these people who lived in Britain,

0:55:170:55:21

these early farmers, were trying to work out and to understand.

0:55:210:55:26

And discoveries made here

0:55:280:55:30

go some way towards summing it all up.

0:55:300:55:33

Look at this.

0:55:330:55:35

This is the ankle bone of a domesticated cow.

0:55:350:55:40

It was found buried within the ditch that encircles the topmost, innermost part of this hill.

0:55:400:55:48

That's where all the pottery was found as well.

0:55:480:55:50

What it represents is the world that the farmers were trying to create

0:55:520:55:58

- a safe, domesticated, controllable world.

0:55:580:56:04

By contrast, look at this one.

0:56:040:56:08

This is the ankle bone of a wild cow, an undomesticated animal.

0:56:080:56:13

You can see right away how much bigger it is than the bone from the domesticated cow.

0:56:130:56:20

Now, this wasn't found up here.

0:56:200:56:23

Instead, this was buried right at the base of the hill.

0:56:230:56:26

Down there, out there,

0:56:260:56:29

is the dangerous world.

0:56:290:56:31

The wild world. The uncontrolled, undomesticated world.

0:56:310:56:37

To me, there's something a little bit sad about that,

0:56:370:56:40

because it's the wild world,

0:56:400:56:42

that the old way of life of the hunters was so in tune with,

0:56:420:56:47

and yet it was that world

0:56:470:56:49

that the farmers were trying to be separate from,

0:56:490:56:51

to cut themselves off from.

0:56:510:56:54

Here, around 3,800 years BC,

0:56:540:56:59

the farmers were trying to make sense of all of that in their own minds.

0:56:590:57:05

Just where was the boundary between the wild and the domestic?

0:57:050:57:10

Where had the brave new world that they'd created actually brought them?

0:57:100:57:16

It's as though

0:57:160:57:19

they realised that now they had made their bed and that they would have to lie in it.

0:57:190:57:24

And to some extent, so must we.

0:57:240:57:28

'Next time my journey continues...'

0:57:330:57:37

Of course, what everybody's waiting for is the sunrise.

0:57:370:57:40

'..As I discover a whole new age.'

0:57:420:57:46

Which one can I have?

0:57:460:57:47

Take them all.

0:57:470:57:48

'A time of elite travellers.'

0:57:490:57:52

-To actually feel it working.

-Feel it. I wanted to hear it. I wanted to feel it.

0:57:520:57:56

That's a bit good.

0:57:560:57:58

'Vast, cosmic constructions.'

0:57:580:58:01

I see why you don't have this place open to the public.

0:58:010:58:05

'And the very invention of heaven itself.'

0:58:050:58:09

When some people died, they were to be sent to a new place, a different place.

0:58:090:58:14

Not down into the earth, but up into the sky.

0:58:140:58:18

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