Age of Cosmology A History of Ancient Britain


Age of Cosmology

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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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We began as hunters who came from mainland Europe

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before Britain was an island.

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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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..and continued into a new age,

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as the first farmers built monumental tombs to their ancestors.

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Nothing like this had ever been seen before in Britain.

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Now the journey continues

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with the next chapter in our epic story.

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What everybody is waiting for is the sunrise!

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An age of cosmology when our lives were ruled by the sun and the stars.

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The birth of earthly power and social class,

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set against some of the greatest wonders of the ancient world.

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I'm going back almost 6,000 years

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to a Britain in the throes of the Neolithic revolution.

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The first farmers were forging a whole new relationship with the land...

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..a land that was alive with spiritual meaning.

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The wild wood that bordered their fields,

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the boundary between land and sea...

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..and mountains

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that touched the very sky.

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Places like the Lake District,

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with its dramatic valleys and crags, held a special power.

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If your understanding of the world was rooted in stone,

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then this landscape, that seems to shout the very word "stone",

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would have seemed especially important.

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And here in the central fells, the shout is particularly clear.

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Archaeologist Mark Edmonds has spent 30 years on the trail

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of the ancient people who came here in search of something very special.

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5,000, 6,000 years ago, chances are no-one is living here full time.

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They come here because the highest ground probably has good grazing.

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But what drew them up here was not the chance of living here full time,

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that would happen many years later.

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It was the stone that brought them up, that they came for.

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Over 5,000 years ago, Neolithic people climbed these same precarious paths.

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What they were heading for were high outcrops of volcanic rock called Greenstone.

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The crags that are worked the most are some of their highest and most difficult to get to.

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I think that's part of the attraction of the place, that it involves risk and danger.

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-OK, so nearly there.

-Mmm-hmm.

-Nearly there.

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The debris of ancient stone-working still lies all around.

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Hundreds of off-cuts of very special stone axes.

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-This is what we've climbed for.

-Look at this stuff, this is amazing!

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-I know, it's ridiculous, isn't it?

-It's the volume of it.

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So every single bit of this is the result of people making tools?

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There was stone to be had that could be worked to a fine finish.

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-This was a must have raw material?

-It's an extraordinary raw material.

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-So this whole area was an axe factory?

-Yep.

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You don't find many of the axes themselves up here,

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but fortunately I have brought some with me

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and this is what we call in the trade a rough-out.

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So that's halfway through the process of making?

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Yeah. It's absolutely exquisite.

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It's a thing of beauty, unfinished or not.

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This is what they looked like when they left the crags.

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Pop that down there.

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Once you get into the Lowlands where people would have been living,

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that's when the more glacial, slow process of grinding, polishing

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would be undertaken to get them down to something like that.

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How long does it take to get from that

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-to the finished article?

-You can see in the two forms

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already the idea of what it's going to look like is there.

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In accustomed hands, you can make one of these in about 45 minutes, flaking as you go.

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This, at least several hundred hours, possibly even thousands of hours

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to get a good lustre and polish which brings out the colour of the stone.

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Why go to that effort? It doesn't make it a better axe, does it?

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It doesn't, it doesn't improve the effect of the tool.

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I think what's important about these things is not that they're tools,

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but they were also important because they were tokens of identity.

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They said something about the people who made them and used them.

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It wasn't just the stone that made these axes special,

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but where it came from -

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the sky.

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Although it's a mountain, what we're dealing with here is a monument,

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a place that draws people up, draws people together,

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at which they can work the stone

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to produce objects that matter to them,

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because they say something about who they are.

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So in sense the journey from the low country up here, takes several days,

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exposing yourself to danger, to the risk of falling, to come up into the clouds sometimes as well,

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is as much a rite of passage as anything else,

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an activity that's as much ceremonial, possibly spiritual as it is practical.

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The Cumbrian axe factory reveals a relationship between people,

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their landscape, and stone itself.

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This belief system would change over time.

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It would develop into something more complex, and for us, something fantastically enigmatic.

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Something that represents the beginning of a whole new age in our history.

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A time experts refer to as the Age of Astronomy -

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when we moved away from this more earthly ancestor worship

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towards something much more cosmic.

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What we see is a radical change in thinking

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that manifested itself in something staggering -

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the construction of monuments in stone

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on an unprecedented and massive scale,

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some of them astronomically aligned.

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What's becoming clear is that for people living 5,000 years ago,

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this new age wasn't bringing a new way of thinking about their ancestors.

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Rather it was a new way of thinking about themselves

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as individuals within an increasingly complicated society

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and an internationally connected world.

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All of that, and the universe itself.

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Where did we fit into time and into the cosmos?

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In a valley just beneath the greenstone axe factory,

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there's evidence of these new ideas.

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Places like this have an atmosphere.

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When you happen across one in the landscape

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it makes you pause and think and wonder -

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you know, what's going on?

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Stone circles are almost unknown outside Britain and Ireland,

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but we have hundreds of them.

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And they're often found in the most dramatic of locations.

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First of all, this place, these stones, mattered.

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This is quite a small stone circle, but still the effort involved

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suggests you don't go moving things this size just for fun.

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And building monumental structures like this

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was part of a tradition that lasted for over a thousand years.

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5,000 years ago, people living here in Cumbria, and all over Britain,

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were making spiritual connections that had never been made before...

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..not just between their lives and the land,

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but between their lives and the sky,

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the cosmos as well.

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Perhaps the very idea of heaven.

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This is a new Britain, the Neolithic reaching its very height,

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and it's one of the most mysterious and glorious periods

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in all of pre-history.

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Welcome to the Orkney islands, off the northern tip of Scotland.

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I've come here to explore a landscape that holds

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some of the best-preserved Stone Age structures in Britain.

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Here, there are relics of the lives and the beliefs

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of people who lived here at the very height of the Neolithic.

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Orkney is a wild place, whipped by North Atlantic winds.

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Even from the air there's not a tree to be seen.

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But it's more than the wind that's responsible.

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There were trees on Orkney, once upon a time.

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But it's thought that the first farmers cut them down

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to prepare fields for crops and keeping animals

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and given that Orkney's not a big place, it didn't take long to clear the lot.

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Fortunately, though, Orkney was rich in another building material.

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The whole island is made of this - horizontally bedded,

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fractured sandstone that splits very easily into useful slabs and sheets.

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And around 3,300 BC the people living here began to use this stuff

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to build some of the most enduring structures of the ancient world.

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Magnificent stone tombs and vast stone circles

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give us a unique insight into an extraordinary moment in our history,

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When we first turned our spiritual gaze towards the heavens.

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Here, even domestic houses have been preserved in stone,

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the very homes of the people who were pioneering this new age.

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Some of the most special are perched on the far west coast of Orkney.

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Here it is, Skara Brae.

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It's an extraordinary place,

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and it lets us get as close as we could possibly hope to

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the way domestic life was lived on Orkney in the Stone Age.

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The village was occupied for over 600 years, from about 3,100BC.

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What you've got are eight houses arranged on either side of a long winding passage,

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and because the whole thing is semi-subterranean,

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it does a great job of keeping the wind out, cutting down the draughts.

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'And because there wasn't any wood available, it wasn't just

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'the houses that were built of stone, but everything inside as well.'

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Right.

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This is the inside of one of the houses.

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What you notice right away is a big square hearth for a big roaring fire.

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These are bed recesses, places where people would have laid out their bedding.

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This arrangement here

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looks a bit like a dresser because it is a dresser.

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It's directly opposite the only entrance

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so it's the first thing that guests see as they enter,

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and on these shelves you would put the things that mattered,

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the equivalent of somewhere to put the good wedding china.

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Everything about this design, this house, is so clever and so human.

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But wonderful and evocative though this place undoubtedly is,

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it's all a bit too neat and tidy, a bit sterile, the grass is too mown.

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The first time I came here I heard a song in my head,

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and I've heard it every time since - it's Flintstones,

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meet the Flintstones, modern Stone Age famil-ee.

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What you want here in addition to the sights

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are the sounds of conversation and lives being lived,

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the smells of that human activity.

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But we can get closer.

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-You all right?

-Yeah, lead on!

-OK, here we go.

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'Alison Sheridan, a specialist in pre-historic artefacts, is showing me one house

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'that's so well-preserved people aren't usually allowed inside.'

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It's not the easiest place to get into, is it?

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No, but it's cosy!

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So what would life have been like for the Skara Brae residents, do you think?

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It would've been pretty comfortable by the standards of the age,

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because you've got this wonderful central hearth,

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so it may have been dark because of the roof but it would have been warm.

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They've also got a convenience, they have a toilet.

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How do you know that's a toilet and not a storage space?

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Well, there's a drain underneath it.

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-And they did find poo!

-Really?

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-So the hard evidence is there?

-Yes.

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'Remarkably, these houses also contained artefacts,

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'the precious possessions of the people who were living here 5,000 years ago.'

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I never found anything like this in my entire life.

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Miserable bits of broken stone was all I ever found.

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-So what have we got?

-Anything but miserable bits of stone. These are absolutely amazing.

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What are they generally called, if you were to group them as a class of find?

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Enigmatic carved stone objects.

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Only because archaeologists haven't worked out what they are.

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And in the absence of materials we would consider precious,

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like gold or silver, these have to be the equivalent of it.

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Because of the time and the skill they represent.

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Yes, we're in an age before the earliest metal.

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So the stone itself is not intrinsically valuable

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but as an object, it meant a lot.

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What about the rest?

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These pieces of jewellery...

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-They found something like 8,000 beads in this structure.

-In this house?!

-Yes.

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Right. So on a practical level, it says someone has the time to do this

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rather then being out growing, herding, whatever.

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Someone can set aside part of their day, perhaps all of their time to specialising,

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-and being provided with everything else they need by the rest of the village?

-That's right.

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These are just wonders - which one can I have?

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Take them all!

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We know where you live!

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But as well as jewellery and carved stones,

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this house also revealed a darker secret.

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Intriguingly, two adult women's skeletons were found under the bed.

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-Uniquely.

-Below floor level?

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Yes, it's as if during the lifetime of the house, they lived here,

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-they died here, they were buried here.

-And put under the bed?

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Like Granny under the bed. It was a house for the living, but also a house for the dead.

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The precious artefacts and the presence of human remains

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might mean that these houses were special.

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No-one can be sure, but the people who lived here

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might not have been ordinary farmers

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but some of the earliest priests of a new religion.

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Within just a few miles of Skara Brae, built around the same time, is this...

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A stone tomb constructed on a truly grand scale.

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Fantastic.

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Already you get the sense that you've left one world behind

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and come somewhere different.

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And what you're rewarded with

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after bending down and struggling through

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is access to a masterpiece, in every sense of the word.

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What you also see right away is the similarity between the interior of

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this tomb and the interiors of the houses in Skara Brae.

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And in fact there was a house here once upon a time.

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And a circle of standing stones, all before the tomb was ever built.

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It's a classic example of somewhere domestic being altered,

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becoming something other, something ritual.

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Over here,

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again, a shadow of something domestic -

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it's a recess, similar to a bed,

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but of course the people put away in there are having a much, much deeper sleep.

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Maeshowe is a triumph of ancient architecture,

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not only in its stonework,

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but in the way it's been positioned in the landscape.

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For a few days each midwinter,

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the setting sun is framed by two distant hills

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on the neighbouring island of Hoy.

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And as the sun drops onto the horizon,

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it shines through the passage, lighting up the inner chamber.

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Maeshowe was aligned to the heavens

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and to the dramatic features of the Orcadian landscape.

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When you look around here,

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you realise that you're surrounded by hills and water.

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It's a natural amphitheatre.

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It's a stage set for drama.

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And it's here, across the promontory from Maeshowe,

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that the Neolithic people of Orkney

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decided to build another extraordinary monument in stone.

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The Ring of Brodgar is one of the biggest stone circles we know about anywhere.

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It's over 100m across, and while there are 21 stones standing today,

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in its original form there would have been as many as 60.

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And that's not all...

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This stone circle was also surrounded by a ditch -

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not just any ditch, this is ten metres across

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and over three metres deep and it's not just cut into the soil,

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it's been cut into the living bedrock.

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It's been estimated that it would have taken 100 men six months just to cut the ditch.

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This is on an epic scale.

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The Ring of Brodgar is vast,

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but incredibly, it actually forms part of something even bigger.

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And here's a clue...

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The ditch isn't actually complete.

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There's a causeway right here and another one on the other side.

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It's thought that these are an entrance and an exit,

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which means perhaps the stone circle isn't itself a destination,

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it's some kind of portal maybe,

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something you pass through on the way to something else.

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And that somewhere else is down there, just across the peninsula.

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The Ring of Brodgar points you across a narrow land-bridge

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towards another even older stone circle, the Stones of Stenness.

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Few of the original stones survive, but those that do

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reveal yet more connections to this monumental landscape.

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What's striking here is the way some of the stone are positioned.

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This pair here are aligned so that when you look through the gap,

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Maeshowe is perfectly framed against the hillside.

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Originally there would have been a complete ditch encircling the monument.

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And the thinking is that that ditch would have held water, so it would have appeared as a moat.

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So maybe what you have 5,000 years ago is the builders,

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the architects of this monument

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creating an island within an island,

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a miniature, a microcosm of their world as they saw it.

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The creation of monumental architecture around 5,000 years ago

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can be seen in a sense as an evolution of earlier Neolithic culture.

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After all, these people had been building

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huge earthen enclosures and vast cursus monuments for generations.

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It was the connections between the monuments

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and astronomical alignments that was new.

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The earth, the landscape, was as important as it had always been.

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But now it was being seen as part of a bigger picture.

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The skies, the sun and the moon, the heavens.

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That's what this Age of Astronomy seems to have been all about.

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Our human need to understand our place in the cosmos

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still resonates today.

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This is midsummer,

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just before dawn at the most famous stone age monument of them all.

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This place, Salisbury Plain...

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..has been attracting people for millennia, and it still does.

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There are literally thousands of people here.

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Some of them have come to worship ancient gods,

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some to connect with Mother Earth.

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Some have come in search of themselves.

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But to be honest, I think a lot of them are here just because everyone else is, just for the spectacle.

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DRUMMING

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

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which will be over there, and by my reckoning,

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will be in, oh, several minutes' time.

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Can't wait!

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Funny thing is that it's actually very hard to see the sunrise

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because of all these stones and all these people.

0:25:400:25:43

Oh, there she blows.

0:25:560:25:58

Presumably, its arrival today means,

0:26:100:26:14

well, something different to every one of these people here.

0:26:140:26:17

There's several thousand of them, so that's several thousand meanings.

0:26:170:26:22

Take your pick.

0:26:220:26:23

But what did Stonehenge mean to the people who gathered here 5,000 years ago?

0:26:280:26:33

To begin to answer that, you have to go back to the stones themselves.

0:26:350:26:39

And I don't mean the most obvious ones.

0:26:410:26:44

The sarsen stones, and the huge trilithons,

0:26:440:26:47

they weren't part of the original monument.

0:26:470:26:50

If you want to get back to the start of Stonehenge, you have to look at

0:26:500:26:54

these smaller stones that are all around the interior.

0:26:540:26:58

Unlike the sarsens, which were dragged here from just 20 or so miles up the road,

0:26:580:27:03

these are from much, much further away, off to the west.

0:27:030:27:07

The wild south-west of Wales.

0:27:230:27:26

High in the Preseli Hills, the rolling landscape

0:27:270:27:30

is broken by huge outcrops of a very distinctive stone.

0:27:300:27:34

Now, the thing is, studies have shown that this kind of stone

0:27:400:27:44

is identical to the original boulders of Stonehenge,

0:27:440:27:48

built over 200 miles away in that direction.

0:27:480:27:51

'Geologists call this a spotted dolerite.

0:27:510:27:54

'And this is the only place in Britain where this particular type exists.'

0:27:540:28:00

This has been amazing to me for more than half of my life.

0:28:000:28:03

I mean, why do it at all?

0:28:030:28:05

What motivated them? Why these stones, from here?

0:28:050:28:09

Now, it does have to be said there are a couple of things about this rock that are unusual.

0:28:110:28:17

First of all, I'm going to don my Stone Age goggles...

0:28:170:28:19

..and hit this as hard as I can.

0:28:210:28:22

Now, on that fresh face there...

0:28:270:28:30

..if I wet that freshly broken face,

0:28:310:28:36

look at that, isn't that lovely?

0:28:360:28:37

See how it changes colour? It goes this soft blue shade.

0:28:370:28:42

Obviously, it's why this stuff is known as bluestone.

0:28:420:28:46

And it's speckled throughout with these little flecks of feldspar.

0:28:460:28:50

These properties, these unique freckles, would have made this rock seem very special.

0:28:500:28:56

It might even have seemed magical.

0:28:560:28:58

We might never know exactly why this place and these crags were chosen.

0:29:000:29:06

But it reminds me of the Lake District axe-makers on a much grander scale.

0:29:060:29:13

What we do know for certain, though, is that this place was important.

0:29:130:29:17

So important that it filled ancient people with an urge so powerful

0:29:170:29:22

that they were able to find the strength and the will to move over 200 tonnes of this rock

0:29:220:29:27

and use it to set up the first stone circle of Stonehenge.

0:29:270:29:32

Now THAT takes some belief.

0:29:320:29:34

5,000 years ago, the Stonehenge we see today simply didn't exist.

0:29:420:29:47

Instead, there was a much simpler circle.

0:29:490:29:52

After their long journey from Preseli, the bluestones were put up in a great big circle,

0:29:560:30:01

round the outside, on the inner edge of this bank.

0:30:010:30:04

So for 500 years or so, the bluestone circle WAS Stonehenge.

0:30:040:30:09

And then, for some reason, the people living around here

0:30:090:30:13

decided to give themselves an even bigger challenge.

0:30:130:30:16

Around 2,500 BC, a new generation of builders

0:30:210:30:26

created their ultimate monument.

0:30:260:30:29

Using massive blocks of local sandstone, they constructed something unprecedented -

0:30:290:30:35

a ring of standing stones capped with lintels.

0:30:350:30:38

Inside, a horseshoe of yet more stones.

0:30:420:30:45

And at the same time, for good measure,

0:30:470:30:49

they moved the original boulders of bluestone right into the centre.

0:30:490:30:55

Unlike the bluestones, these gigantic sarsens

0:30:550:30:59

were only transported 20 miles or so, from up the road.

0:30:590:31:03

But given that each one weighs anything up to 40 tonnes,

0:31:030:31:07

well, the effort required to shift them was phenomenal.

0:31:070:31:10

This new Stonehenge marked special days in the cosmic calendar -

0:31:130:31:18

spring and autumn,

0:31:200:31:22

as well as the well known alignment on the midsummer sunrise.

0:31:220:31:25

But the midsummer sunrise exactly matches another event -

0:31:320:31:37

the setting sun...

0:31:370:31:38

..at midwinter.

0:31:400:31:41

The latest evidence suggests that our most famous prehistoric monument of all

0:31:430:31:49

might not have been a celebration of summer and life...

0:31:490:31:52

..but a commemoration of winter...

0:31:540:31:56

..and death.

0:31:570:31:58

Like the Orkney monuments, Stonehenge is not alone.

0:32:050:32:10

Nearby, this field contains all that remains of

0:32:100:32:14

an ancient site of winter gathering.

0:32:140:32:17

Have a look at these!

0:32:230:32:25

Animal bones and teeth.

0:32:250:32:27

Just a sample of the thousands of animal remains

0:32:270:32:31

found scattered all across the site.

0:32:310:32:33

These are pig bones.

0:32:340:32:36

Piglets are usually born in the springtime

0:32:360:32:39

and the vast majority of the pig remains at Durrington Walls

0:32:390:32:43

show that adult animals were slaughtered at around nine months -

0:32:430:32:46

that's in midwinter.

0:32:460:32:49

Also, the teeth reveal that the animals had been

0:32:490:32:54

specifically fattened up prior to the feasting,

0:32:540:32:58

and we can tell this because the teeth are rotten.

0:32:580:33:01

What we have here isn't just casual feasting.

0:33:010:33:05

This is one final commemoration, one big celebration of life,

0:33:050:33:12

before the ancestors commenced their journey to Stonehenge

0:33:120:33:16

and the land of the dead.

0:33:160:33:17

It's thought that each winter,

0:33:190:33:21

people would come here from hundreds of miles around

0:33:210:33:24

to commemorate the lives of their ancestors...

0:33:240:33:27

..and to ensure the souls of the recently dead

0:33:290:33:31

reached the safety of the afterlife at Stonehenge itself.

0:33:310:33:35

I think it's fascinating that everyone believes they know Stonehenge.

0:33:410:33:46

It's like the Mona Lisa or the Pyramids.

0:33:460:33:49

It's so familiar, it's hard to see it with fresh eyes.

0:33:490:33:53

I think we've discovered something by coming here.

0:33:540:33:57

I think we've discovered a new Stonehenge,

0:33:570:34:00

and it's as far from the golden warmth of a midsummer sunrise

0:34:000:34:04

as it's possible to get.

0:34:040:34:06

It's somewhere that still carries a charge.

0:34:080:34:11

You can feel it.

0:34:110:34:13

And if you come here at midwinter,

0:34:130:34:15

you can feel that charge just a little bit more.

0:34:150:34:18

The coldness of the stones, the open landscape.

0:34:200:34:24

It's not hard to believe

0:34:240:34:26

that this place is somewhere that belongs to the dead.

0:34:260:34:31

When we look back to the time of the great monuments of the Neolithic,

0:34:560:34:59

we see a whole new age dawning, in belief, but also in society.

0:34:590:35:05

There's no doubt that the creation of these vast monuments was a religious act.

0:35:080:35:13

It's about finding and defining a place in the universe,

0:35:130:35:17

in time, in life and in death.

0:35:170:35:19

The special objects found at Orkney,

0:35:200:35:23

the arrangement of the temple complex,

0:35:230:35:25

these things imply the existence of a priestly class

0:35:250:35:29

that the farmers themselves were supporting.

0:35:290:35:33

And the sheer scale of these enterprises,

0:35:330:35:35

the planning and engineering required by Stonehenge,

0:35:350:35:39

by the Ring of Brodgar, suggests that some group was in charge,

0:35:390:35:43

and they were out to impress.

0:35:430:35:45

Because these monuments themselves were connected.

0:35:450:35:49

We know people were moving between these great monuments

0:35:510:35:55

because of this.

0:35:550:35:57

It's a style of pottery.

0:35:570:35:59

It's called grooved ware because of the grooves that decorate the surface.

0:35:590:36:05

It was made first of all in Orkney.

0:36:050:36:08

It's also the first pottery we know of in Britain and Ireland

0:36:080:36:13

with a proper flat base.

0:36:130:36:15

This style of pottery was subsequently found at Stonehenge,

0:36:150:36:19

in the south of England, and it's found at all points in between.

0:36:190:36:24

What the experts are now imagining is a kind of elite world travel, if you like,

0:36:240:36:29

where important people

0:36:290:36:31

moved between the great Neolithic monuments on a kind of Grand Tour.

0:36:310:36:37

On three, lads.

0:36:370:36:39

Haon, do, tri!

0:36:390:36:41

'5,000 years ago,

0:36:460:36:48

'there was only one way for a serious Neolithic traveller to get around.'

0:36:480:36:52

Is she doing what she's supposed to, Clive?

0:36:520:36:55

She's doing exactly what she's meant to do, so very impressed.

0:36:550:36:58

-And it's completely dry.

-She is.

0:36:580:37:02

'I'm joining the crew of a sea-going currach, built by Irish boat-builder Clive O'Gibney,

0:37:020:37:08

'using 5,000-year-old technology -

0:37:080:37:12

'a frame of hazel, covered with cow hide, and sealed with pitch.'

0:37:120:37:17

It's as smooth as spreading a nice piece of butter on bread.

0:37:170:37:20

-Every now and again I can convince myself I'm in time with somebody.

-That's it.

0:37:200:37:25

If it's with me, Neil, we're in trouble. We're both out.

0:37:250:37:28

-'Rowing's all very well...'

-All right, lads, give it a crack.

0:37:290:37:32

'but Clive believes that longer voyages would have required some sort of sail.'

0:37:320:37:37

OK. Now I'm going to go overboard if we do this.

0:37:370:37:40

In the Neolithic, there was no cloth technology,

0:37:400:37:45

so Clive has used hazel rods and strips of cow hide.

0:37:450:37:49

No-one has ever attempted anything remotely like this before.

0:37:490:37:54

We need everybody to be calm.

0:37:540:37:57

I'm going to move that way with the sail, over towards you.

0:37:570:38:01

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

0:38:010:38:03

You're all right, lads, sit down.

0:38:040:38:06

Do you hear it?

0:38:080:38:10

All the way.

0:38:100:38:11

'It's a heavy and cumbersome rig...

0:38:150:38:17

'..but amazingly, it actually seems to work!'

0:38:190:38:22

So how does it feel, Clive, seeing this for the first time?

0:38:320:38:35

I'm delighted with myself.

0:38:350:38:36

-It's one thing imagining it, but to actually feel it working...

-Feel it.

0:38:360:38:41

I wanted to hear it, I wanted to feel it and that's what we're getting now.

0:38:410:38:45

-It's one of the best experiences I've had in my life.

-It's definitely a sailing currach.

0:38:450:38:48

It's definitely a sailing currach, there you go, Neil.

0:38:480:38:53

-Will we just go to England?

-Aye, come on.

0:38:530:38:55

I've got the lunch, and a dram of something in there.

0:38:550:38:58

It's easy to imagine boats like this

0:39:010:39:03

sailing between the great sites of Neolithic Britain,

0:39:030:39:07

carrying people, ideas, beliefs, and precious objects.

0:39:070:39:15

One remarkable find epitomises this age of elite travel.

0:39:230:39:28

It was discovered just north of Dublin,

0:39:280:39:30

but it's thought it was made across the sea in Britain.

0:39:300:39:35

This is a ceremonial macehead.

0:39:430:39:45

It's 5,000 years old, there or thereabouts,

0:39:470:39:50

and it's made from a single piece of beautifully worked flint.

0:39:500:39:53

In every possible way, it's an object of wonder.

0:39:540:39:57

Now, the person who made this wasn't just technically skilled,

0:40:000:40:06

but also an artistic genius.

0:40:060:40:08

Do you see the way that that spiral there suggests two eyes?

0:40:100:40:15

And the hole to take the shaft of the mace could be the mouth.

0:40:150:40:19

The hole for the shaft has been drilled out.

0:40:190:40:24

Now this is from a time before any metal,

0:40:240:40:26

so the drill bit was a piece of wood

0:40:260:40:29

and the abrasive action has been achieved by using sand or ground quartz.

0:40:290:40:34

But even saying that, you're still looking at countless hours, days,

0:40:340:40:39

maybe even weeks of painstaking effort to create that perfect smooth hole.

0:40:390:40:43

It's technically flawless,

0:40:460:40:48

but it also reveals a level of sophistication

0:40:480:40:51

and refinement of design that you simply don't see

0:40:510:40:55

in any other artefact of the period in Britain or in Ireland.

0:40:550:41:00

This new art speaks of power and prestige.

0:41:020:41:07

Of an emerging world of priests and chieftains, people whose status

0:41:070:41:11

was displayed in the possession of rare and exquisite objects.

0:41:110:41:15

As well as Stonehenge and Orkney,

0:41:220:41:24

it seems that these people also came to Ireland.

0:41:240:41:28

5,000 years ago, travellers sailed or rowed up here, the River Boyne,

0:41:310:41:37

to the most sacred landscape of them all,

0:41:370:41:39

The Bru na Boinne, the "Palace of the Boyne".

0:41:390:41:42

This is another sacred landscape,

0:41:510:41:53

constructed around 3,200 BC, which means it probably predates

0:41:530:41:59

the bluestone phase at Stonehenge, and the stone circles of Orkney.

0:41:590:42:03

This could be where it all began.

0:42:030:42:06

And right at the centre, a mecca for tourists from all over the world

0:42:060:42:10

is this massive passage grave, Newgrange.

0:42:100:42:14

Of course, the mound as you see it today isn't original.

0:42:200:42:23

It was excavated in the 1960s and then reconstructed in this...

0:42:230:42:28

well, very confident style.

0:42:280:42:30

I'm in two minds about it, actually. On the one hand,

0:42:300:42:33

it's very striking and attracts a lot of people,

0:42:330:42:36

maybe inspires a lot of people to find out more.

0:42:360:42:38

But on the other hand, it's a bit brutal and a bit overdone.

0:42:380:42:42

It's kind of like "Stalin does the Stone Age".

0:42:420:42:45

Inside, though, its magic still rings out.

0:42:530:42:56

This is the very earliest building of the new Neolithic cosmology,

0:42:570:43:03

created hundreds of years before even the Egyptian pyramids.

0:43:030:43:07

What strikes you immediately is how much this feels like Maeshowe

0:43:100:43:13

on Orkney, with this narrow low passageway

0:43:130:43:17

leading from the world of light to the dark world within.

0:43:170:43:20

And in fact, this may have been the inspiration for Maeshowe,

0:43:200:43:23

because this tomb was built first.

0:43:230:43:25

And again, like Maeshowe, there are three recesses

0:43:350:43:39

that once upon a time would have held the remains of the dead.

0:43:390:43:43

But this one is altogether more rough-hewn than Maeshowe.

0:43:430:43:47

It lacks the perfection, it's more Stone Age, if you like.

0:43:470:43:50

Like Maeshowe on Orkney,

0:43:530:43:55

Newgrange is carefully aligned on the movement of the sun.

0:43:550:43:59

Above the entrance

0:43:590:44:00

there's a stone frame that lets light into the passage, a roofbox.

0:44:000:44:05

If I get down here, you can see what I mean.

0:44:080:44:12

On a day like today, it doesn't let a lot of sunshine in,

0:44:120:44:17

but once a year,

0:44:170:44:19

on December 21st, the winter solstice,

0:44:190:44:21

the sun is directly in front of the entrance

0:44:210:44:25

and the roofbox lets the sun all the way up this passageway

0:44:250:44:30

until it illuminates the entire chamber.

0:44:300:44:33

It lasts for about 17 minutes,

0:44:350:44:37

and then the chamber is plunged into darkness for another year.

0:44:370:44:41

Now, that trick makes this place

0:44:410:44:45

one of the earliest astronomically aligned buildings anywhere in the world.

0:44:450:44:49

Like the other monuments, Newgrange marks midwinter.

0:44:520:44:56

But here, there's an additional clue to Neolithic belief.

0:44:560:45:00

That time flows in a cycle.

0:45:000:45:03

And even in death, there is a promise of rebirth.

0:45:030:45:07

There's a reason for the alignment of the passageway.

0:45:120:45:15

It's to allow the sun to illuminate this stone and pick out this carving,

0:45:150:45:21

the only carving in the recess.

0:45:210:45:23

It's something called a triple spiral,

0:45:230:45:26

the very earliest example of a triple spiral.

0:45:260:45:30

It's one continuous carving with no beginning and no end.

0:45:300:45:35

It's a kind of perfect form.

0:45:350:45:37

The illumination of this carving once a year,

0:45:370:45:40

in a piece of religious theatre, lay at the very heart of the beliefs

0:45:400:45:45

of the people who designed and built this place.

0:45:450:45:49

The great sacred sites of Newgrange, Stonehenge and Orkney were magnets

0:45:510:45:57

for elite travellers who,

0:45:570:45:59

5,000 years ago, took inspiration and ideas from one another.

0:45:590:46:04

What we're left with today are monuments that are unique in Europe,

0:46:040:46:08

created by powerful and commonly held religious beliefs.

0:46:080:46:14

From the Orkney Islands in Scotland to the Preseli mountains in Wales,

0:46:140:46:18

from the Lake District in the north of England to Stonehenge in the south

0:46:180:46:22

and finally here in Ireland, it's all connected.

0:46:220:46:26

And all that time, there must have been some sort of priestly caste

0:46:280:46:32

marshalling all that effort.

0:46:320:46:34

The people who carried the maceheads.

0:46:340:46:37

And in some of the tombs surrounding Newgrange,

0:46:370:46:39

there are clues to their sacred beliefs, and, in particular,

0:46:390:46:43

to the treatment of some of the first elites of ancient society.

0:46:430:46:46

Within sight of Newgrange lies yet another tomb, Knowth.

0:46:530:46:57

More than 400 of its stones are covered in swirling, abstract art,

0:47:080:47:13

almost half of all the megalithic art in the whole of Western Europe.

0:47:130:47:17

This is where the precious macehead was found.

0:47:230:47:28

And it wasn't the only spectacular discovery.

0:47:280:47:30

Archaeologist George Eogan has been studying Knowth for 50 years.

0:47:320:47:36

You could picture that you had a religious person, the equivalent of a priest

0:47:400:47:45

who could stand here

0:47:450:47:47

before the entrance, and in between,

0:47:470:47:52

you have this splendid sandstone, six feet or so in height,

0:47:520:47:58

with a vertical line which leads up the centre of the passage.

0:47:580:48:02

So what would have happened inside?

0:48:020:48:04

Who gets in there?

0:48:040:48:06

I would think only a small number of people went inside,

0:48:060:48:11

probably even an individual,

0:48:110:48:13

who just took the remains and placed them in the tomb.

0:48:130:48:18

-Can we have a look?

-We can indeed.

0:48:180:48:20

Good. Lead on.

0:48:200:48:21

Back in 1968,

0:48:280:48:30

George was the first person in modern times to break into the tomb.

0:48:300:48:35

-How long is the passage?

-About 140 feet.

0:48:350:48:38

-Are you winning?

-It'll take me a long time. No hurry.

0:48:430:48:47

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

0:48:540:48:58

-It's not the easiest place.

-No.

0:48:580:49:00

Oh, my. Oh, I say.

0:49:020:49:06

-Look up.

-Now, that's a bit good.

0:49:060:49:09

And this is as it was? This hasn't been reconstructed?

0:49:120:49:15

No, not at all.

0:49:150:49:18

What was it like the very first time you came in here?

0:49:180:49:21

How did you feel to be the first person in here in goodness knows how long?

0:49:210:49:25

Well, it was unbelievably exciting.

0:49:250:49:29

What George found were the untouched remnants of ancient sacred rites,

0:49:360:49:41

a time capsule of Neolithic belief.

0:49:410:49:44

And scattered in and around this exquisitely carved basin

0:49:460:49:50

was evidence of something new in Stone Age society -

0:49:500:49:53

burnt human remains.

0:49:550:49:57

These are some of the earliest remains

0:50:040:50:06

of ritual cremation ever found.

0:50:060:50:09

The skull is easiest to find, because the skull is very distinctive.

0:50:090:50:14

It has an inner and outer layer,

0:50:140:50:16

and some spongy bone in between.

0:50:160:50:20

Although only fragments survive,

0:50:200:50:22

under expert eyes, these remains reveal a wealth of information.

0:50:220:50:28

Some areas of the skull are more important than others.

0:50:280:50:31

This part in particular is the petrous portion of the temporal bone

0:50:310:50:36

and it survives very well because it's thick.

0:50:360:50:39

From this, I can identify which side of the skull it came from,

0:50:390:50:44

so it's useful in determining the number of individuals.

0:50:440:50:47

If I have two left temporal bones, I have two different individuals.

0:50:470:50:51

Forensic science reveals that Knowth contained over 100 cremated bodies.

0:50:530:50:58

But those cremations were accumulated over centuries of use.

0:51:010:51:05

The radiocarbon dates showed that that was over approximately a 300-year time span.

0:51:060:51:12

That works out at one cremation every two to three years.

0:51:120:51:17

So therefore, cremation wasn't that common.

0:51:170:51:20

What Laureen Buckley's work shows is that the new practice of cremation was unusual.

0:51:210:51:28

This rarity, and the discovery of the Knowth macehead,

0:51:280:51:31

suggests that it was an honour

0:51:310:51:33

reserved for only the very highest levels of late Neolithic society.

0:51:330:51:37

The cremated remains at Knowth show that there was a hierarchy

0:51:420:51:47

at play which determined how your mortal remains were treated.

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Put simply, if you were important, your remains were burnt, cremated.

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And presumably that meant that your spirit was being treated differently

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and was going to go somewhere different

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than the remains of those left behind on Earth simply to be buried.

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I'm going to have my own experimental cremation right here in the shadow of Knowth tomb.

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The thing is, cremating a body

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is about much more than just lighting a fire,

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it's a technological challenge,

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which is why I've brought two Dublin firemen with me.

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We need to get it between 1,500-1,700 degrees Celsius

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in order to totally cremate the body.

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And how long does it have to sustain that temperature

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to do away with something like a human body?

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About two to three hours, but then the idea of building the pyre like this is that it holds its structure.

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As it ignites, the structure remains intact and then collapses inwards.

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Lovely.

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Since I can't find anyone to volunteer,

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we've taken a trip to the local butcher's.

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At around 70 kilos,

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a medium-sized pig makes a good substitute for an average adult man.

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Almost a third of its weight is fat and that's important,

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because although wood is needed to get things going,

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the main fuel in a cremation is the body itself.

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We've ordained that our cremations

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are performed out of sight and out of mind,

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but this is really what it's all about.

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Flesh and bone being consumed by the flames and turned into smoke.

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I quite like it.

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It's a process that takes hours,

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time enough to reflect upon a leader's life

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and their journey to another world.

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You have to try and imagine the impact of this on people

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5,000 years ago.

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When a chieftain or priest died,

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their body would be consumed by fire and be reduced to virtually nothing.

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And then to see the few earthbound remains,

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a handful of dust and crumbling bones,

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picked out of the embers and placed in a recess in that tomb for ever...

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..while all the rest of them had disappeared into the sky.

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Who can imagine what impact that would have?

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The following morning, and only a few smoking embers remain.

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As a first attempt at Neolithic cremation, I think that's quite good.

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The flame has done away with most of the body.

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So I've sent that pig into the afterlife, if you like.

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The discoveries in Ireland show a new society emerging

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though the late Neolithic, a society where status mattered.

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It determined the objects you possessed in life,

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and how your body was treated in death.

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This was a society where ideas travelled,

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and where new beliefs were manifested

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in the greatest ancient monuments the world had ever seen.

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And it's in those very monuments that today,

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we're able to glimpse the very birth of a whole new concept of existence.

0:56:130:56:18

From around 3,000 to 2,500BC was the time when we became aware

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of our place, not just here on Earth, but within the cosmos.

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The great tombs, the stone circles,

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they were an attempt to make sense of the movement of the sun and the moon,

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of an entire universe that shapes and governs our lives, and our time.

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Those forces went way beyond the reach of the ancestors.

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So much so, that from now on when some people died,

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they were to be sent to a new place, a different place.

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

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It seems to me that it was in the Neolithic that people conceived of an idea that endures to this day,

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that somewhere up here was heaven.

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'Next time, my journey continues...'

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Look at that!

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'..as I discover a new age...'

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That is magic.

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-'..one forged in metal...'

-Are you impressed?

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Very. I'm deeply, deeply impressed.

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'..by a new people...'

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He knew how to get metal, how to make metal and how to work metal.

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'..a people inventing a whole new way of living.'

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As well as men working down here, there must have been children.

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Some of the spaces are just too small.

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