0:00:04 > 0:00:05Priceless treasures.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11Ancient ruins.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16And the fragile remains of long-dead people.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21Archaeology isn't like written history.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24It's the very stuff of the past.
0:00:26 > 0:00:29And people have always been fascinated
0:00:29 > 0:00:32by ancient remains and the stories they told.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39But over the past 100 years, the pace of archaeological discovery
0:00:39 > 0:00:45has changed, every bit as much as the world we live in.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48Like the rest of our lives, archaeology has been subject
0:00:48 > 0:00:52to incredible advances in science and technology, and has allowed us
0:00:52 > 0:00:57to see the past in ever more precise detail and has been used
0:00:57 > 0:00:58to provide objective truth
0:00:58 > 0:01:01for what was once just conjecture and opinion.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07I've been tracing the very history of archaeology itself
0:01:07 > 0:01:10from its very beginnings in religion,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14to the great discoveries of the 18th and 19th centuries.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22Now I'm going to enter the 20th century
0:01:22 > 0:01:26and the beginning of the modern age of archaeology,
0:01:26 > 0:01:31an age driven by a quest for scientific objectivity,
0:01:31 > 0:01:36but also by passions, the lust for fame and glory,
0:01:38 > 0:01:42and the lure of powerful forces.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45The new and sometimes extreme politics.
0:02:08 > 0:02:13Just over 100 years ago, an amateur archaeologist from Sussex
0:02:13 > 0:02:17made a surprise discovery that astounded the world.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20In the 19th century, archaeology had come of age
0:02:20 > 0:02:23with the first professors and professionals,
0:02:23 > 0:02:26opening up Egypt, the Middle East and the classical world.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29But there was still room for the gentleman amateur,
0:02:29 > 0:02:33and the most prolific of these was a country solicitor, Charles Dawson.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39Dawson had already found an astounding range of artefacts
0:02:39 > 0:02:44from the past, and had been dubbed the Wizard of Sussex.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48He had previously magicked up unknown examples
0:02:48 > 0:02:51of Roman pottery, statues and dinosaurs,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54and even an amazingly well-preserved ancient boat
0:02:54 > 0:02:58but in 1912 he topped the lot.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01Over several decades,
0:03:01 > 0:03:05the claims of archaeology had taken leaps forward,
0:03:05 > 0:03:09not only to discover the past but to explain it,
0:03:09 > 0:03:15the very roots of civilisation, empires and even humanity itself.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Now this knowledge was being used by modern empires,
0:03:22 > 0:03:26all of whom wanted to be acknowledged as the birthplace
0:03:26 > 0:03:31of human culture, so the stakes had never been higher.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37Opportunity for personal fame ran hand in hand with national pride,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41and Dawson was perfectly placed to take advantage.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50His discovery - ancient fragments of human skull and an ape-like jaw.
0:03:54 > 0:03:59X marks the spot of the discovery, and the inscription reads,
0:03:59 > 0:04:02"Here in the old river gravel, Mr Charles Dawson FSA,
0:04:02 > 0:04:05Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07found the fossil skull of Piltdown Man.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12In France they'd found traces of early man and in Germany,
0:04:12 > 0:04:17they'd found traces of even older Neanderthal man, and now here
0:04:17 > 0:04:21in Britain they had the earliest of all the so-called missing links.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32Dawson's discovery thrilled the Establishment.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35Britain, the greatest empire on earth,
0:04:35 > 0:04:38had evidence that it was also the cradle of mankind.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50This jawbone was found in 1912,
0:04:50 > 0:04:51and it was quite surprising
0:04:51 > 0:04:55because it was rather ape-like in its general shape,
0:04:55 > 0:04:59but the teeth had a flat wear, characteristic of human teeth.
0:04:59 > 0:05:01It was quite an assemblage of finds.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05They didn't fit together perfectly because they were broken,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08but nevertheless they were put together into reconstructions
0:05:08 > 0:05:12of a new kind of human which was known as Eoanthropus Dawsoni,
0:05:12 > 0:05:14the Dawn Man of Dawson,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18so named after Charles Dawson, who discovered most of the pieces.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21A big honour for Dawson, the country solicitor.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25Absolutely. For an amateur pre-historian, a great honour,
0:05:25 > 0:05:28but he had identified the site, he had found most of the pieces
0:05:28 > 0:05:31so he seemed to deserve that honour.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35The only trouble was that none of it was true.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39Every one of the finds had been forged.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44The ape and human bones were indeed ape and human bones
0:05:44 > 0:05:47that were modified, broken and artificially stained
0:05:47 > 0:05:50to match the colour of the other fossils,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54to match the colour of the gravels and apparently even painted
0:05:54 > 0:05:56with Van Dyke brown oil paint
0:05:56 > 0:05:59to make sure it's got that dark fossil colour.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04And in your view, was Dawson a fraudster or duped?
0:06:04 > 0:06:08I think Dawson has to be involved centrally in the whole thing
0:06:08 > 0:06:12because of course, you know, he's identified with all of the finds.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14You know it's a warning to us
0:06:14 > 0:06:18to be careful about our preconceived ideas, and letting them lead us on,
0:06:18 > 0:06:23and in a sense to beware that when something seems too good to be true,
0:06:23 > 0:06:24maybe it is too good to be true.
0:06:29 > 0:06:34Dawson was never found out. He lived on as the Wizard of Sussex
0:06:34 > 0:06:37and died, feted for his ground-breaking work.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47It wasn't until 1949 that the truth emerged,
0:06:47 > 0:06:52when new scientific tests revealed Piltdown Man to be a hoax.
0:06:54 > 0:06:59In the Natural History Museum, tests were carried out to estimate
0:06:59 > 0:07:03the nitrogen content of the Piltdown skull.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05Here is Mrs Jan Foster,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09measuring the amount of nitrogen in very tiny samples.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16Its chemical composition revealed Dawson's skull
0:07:16 > 0:07:19to be little more than 1,000 years old.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25So much for Eoanthropus Dawsoni,
0:07:25 > 0:07:28and its discoverer's posthumous reputation.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36For me, Piltdown Man is the perfect metaphor for the 20th century.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38You had the wonder of that initial discovery
0:07:38 > 0:07:43and then you have ideology, in this case nationalism,
0:07:43 > 0:07:45and then science working as the arbiter,
0:07:45 > 0:07:50the bestower of truth, or in this case with Piltdown Man, the fakery.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52But there's more to it than that
0:07:52 > 0:07:56because what Piltdown Man also shows is the fame and attention
0:07:56 > 0:07:58that came with something so personal
0:07:58 > 0:08:03and about how a face from the past connects us with our ancestors.
0:08:06 > 0:08:11The past held the promise of fame...and glory.
0:08:11 > 0:08:16And just a decade on from Piltdown Man, another face was found,
0:08:16 > 0:08:21and this time it was real, a discovery that would give
0:08:21 > 0:08:27archaeology its most iconic portrait from the ancient past.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29And I don't even need to say his name.
0:08:34 > 0:08:40In 1922, after a long campaign of fruitless digging in Egypt,
0:08:40 > 0:08:45archaeologist, Howard Carter, made the discovery of a lifetime.
0:08:46 > 0:08:51An untouched burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53the tomb of Tutankhamun.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59The discovery caused a sensation.
0:09:01 > 0:09:06Many of Carter's personal belongings from the expedition are held here in Oxford.
0:09:08 > 0:09:14This is Carter's diary from 1922, the year of his famous discovery,
0:09:14 > 0:09:17and the first thing that struck me when I saw it is how empty it is.
0:09:17 > 0:09:24His style is laconic, sparse, just a few neat sentences.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27But that all changes on that fateful day,
0:09:27 > 0:09:314th November, when of course he made
0:09:31 > 0:09:33his amazing discovery.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36And there's just one sentence scrawled,
0:09:36 > 0:09:39almost illegibly, across the page,
0:09:39 > 0:09:44and it says "First steps of tomb found."
0:09:44 > 0:09:48And the excitement of this rather correct man is almost...
0:09:48 > 0:09:52it's really palpable, just coming off the page at you.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57'What makes the diary so special is the way it documents a moment,
0:09:57 > 0:10:00'the biggest archaeological find of the 20th century.'
0:10:06 > 0:10:10Carter and the dig's funder, Lord Carnarvon,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13gave The Times newspaper exclusive rights
0:10:13 > 0:10:17to the archaeological scoop of the century.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23Immortalised in print, their legacy was assured.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34Carter was very much a 20th century archaeologist.
0:10:34 > 0:10:37He understood about the importance of the oxygen of publicity,
0:10:37 > 0:10:41the power of the sound bite, the power of the photo opportunity,
0:10:41 > 0:10:48and that really comes across when you look at this album of photographs from the excavation.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51And they're so mannered, they're so posed, so polished.
0:10:52 > 0:10:57And you get the same sense of something having been rehearsed
0:10:57 > 0:11:01when you look at Carter's second diary.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06So much fuller and so much more poetic.
0:11:06 > 0:11:12"It was some time before one could see the hot air escaping caused the candle to flicker.
0:11:12 > 0:11:17But as soon one's eyes became accustomed to the glimmer of light,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21the interior of the chamber gradually loomed before one.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26When Lord Carnarvon said to me "Can you see anything?",
0:11:27 > 0:11:31I replied to him, "Yes, it is wonderful".
0:11:33 > 0:11:39This is the most masterful piece of archaeological public relations ever.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51Carter hadn't found a pyramid, a statue or a monument,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55but a person...and not just anyone,
0:11:55 > 0:12:00but a boy king who had ruled Egypt nearly 3,000 years ago.
0:12:05 > 0:12:11Today Tutankhamun is still an archaeological rock star.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15And he turns up in some very unexpected places.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28In Dorchester, a small museum has carefully recreated
0:12:28 > 0:12:32Tutankhamun's tomb, just as Howard Carter found it.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43Even in replica, there's a real sense of wonder,
0:12:43 > 0:12:48a moment in time from the ancient past and the sheer human intimacy of it all.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54Obviously, it's pure theatre but it's rather wonderful theatre,
0:12:54 > 0:12:58a little piece of ancient Egypt in a Dorset market town.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09You still feel like you've stumbled upon buried treasure,
0:13:09 > 0:13:13and of course treasure's a great part of its allure.
0:13:13 > 0:13:18But this is also an intimate scene, with the dead Pharaoh being buried with all the accoutrements
0:13:18 > 0:13:24that he needs for the afterlife, furniture, weapons and jewellery.
0:13:24 > 0:13:29And this is a great part of his fascination because it transforms Tutankhamun
0:13:29 > 0:13:34from being a distant, historical figure to being a human being.
0:13:38 > 0:13:44The intimacy of the tomb didn't prompt questions of civilisation or empire,
0:13:44 > 0:13:48but the kind of life Tutankhamun once lived.
0:13:49 > 0:13:54Collections of classical statues and the discovery of ancient civilisations were fine.
0:13:54 > 0:14:01But this was about coming face-to-face with a real person, a king from an ancient past.
0:14:12 > 0:14:18Tutankhamun has been the most famous face in archaeology for nearly 100 years.
0:14:19 > 0:14:24It wasn't long after his discovery before new questions were being asked.
0:14:26 > 0:14:31Not of the lives of kings, but of our more common ancestors,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34the everyday folk of the ancient world.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43So much of archaeology, like history,
0:14:43 > 0:14:45had been directed towards warriors and leaders.
0:14:45 > 0:14:51But that was only a tiny part of the puzzle, just one small corner of a vast jigsaw.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54What about our past, our ancestors?
0:14:54 > 0:14:58From the 1920s onwards, a new generation of socialist archaeologists,
0:14:58 > 0:15:03weren't just interested in digging up kings and emperors, but finding out about
0:15:03 > 0:15:07ordinary lives, not in Egypt and the Mediterranean, but here in Britain.
0:15:12 > 0:15:19Following World War I, new Marxist sentiments were changing politics and society.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26That ideology was also shaping archaeology.
0:15:29 > 0:15:34The quest was on to find the ancient working man,
0:15:34 > 0:15:36but there was a problem.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40While kings and emperors built monuments and lavish tombs,
0:15:40 > 0:15:45evidence of the ancient farmers who once worked Britain's fields
0:15:45 > 0:15:46seemed to have disappeared.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53Sure, there were mysterious Neolithic remains,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57stone circles, passage tombs, even earthworks.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59But was it possible to see more?
0:15:59 > 0:16:02Was it possible to touch the invisible world of the land
0:16:02 > 0:16:06that had been tended generation after generation
0:16:06 > 0:16:07for thousands of years?
0:16:13 > 0:16:15In the 1920s, the answer was found
0:16:15 > 0:16:19not by digging down, but by climbing up.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25World War I had brought in a new era of aerial photography
0:16:25 > 0:16:31and in the 1920s, an archaeologist named Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford
0:16:31 > 0:16:35realised that from the air, you couldn't just see modern features
0:16:35 > 0:16:41but ancient ones too - undulations, scars, shadows of the past.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44Crawford wrote that he thought that aerial photography would be
0:16:44 > 0:16:48as important for archaeology as the telescope had been for astronomy.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05From the air, Britain's fields still bore traces
0:17:05 > 0:17:07of our ancient working ancestors.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18The homes and field boundaries of farmers
0:17:18 > 0:17:21who had laboured on the land over countless generations.
0:17:38 > 0:17:43Crawford's passion for uncovering the lives of ordinary men fitted well with his political views.
0:17:43 > 0:17:45He had strong Marxist sympathies.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49Crawford believed that at some point in the distant past,
0:17:49 > 0:17:52there had been a self-sufficient and classless society -
0:17:52 > 0:17:55until capitalism had come along and mucked it up.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58And he believed that in the faint traces that he found
0:17:58 > 0:17:59in the Wessex countryside,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02there were clues to that mysterious Utopia.
0:18:06 > 0:18:07But was it possible to know
0:18:07 > 0:18:12whether these farming communities really were classless, or not?
0:18:14 > 0:18:17Crawford's method of looking down from the air
0:18:17 > 0:18:21gave a tantalising glimpse of a lost world.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23But it would take an Australian archaeologist,
0:18:23 > 0:18:28Vere Gordon Childe, to take these ideas onto a completely new level.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40Childe came here to Edinburgh to teach archaeology in the 1920s.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44He was notable for his love of fast cars,
0:18:44 > 0:18:48pre-history and, especially, Marx.
0:18:48 > 0:18:50He was rarely seen without a red tie.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01And he was obsessed by an ancient settlement on Orkney
0:19:01 > 0:19:02called Skara Brae.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07Childe's first excavations in 1927
0:19:07 > 0:19:11uncovered what Crawford had only dreamed of -
0:19:11 > 0:19:15an almost perfectly preserved Neolithic community.
0:19:22 > 0:19:24And we're going to go down there.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26Most of his finds are now kept
0:19:26 > 0:19:30in the archives of the National Museums of Scotland.
0:19:30 > 0:19:36They reveal everyday lives - not of kings, but of ordinary farmers.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Here are some other objects from the many thousands
0:19:39 > 0:19:41that were found at the site.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44Where shall we start? OK. It's made of whalebone.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47What do you reckon?
0:19:47 > 0:19:51It's not some sort of sewing thing? No.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55- It's thought to be a clothes pin, so if you...- Ah!- Yeah?
0:19:55 > 0:19:58If you imagine people are wearing very fine hide clothes -
0:19:58 > 0:20:00they obviously didn't have buttons -
0:20:00 > 0:20:04and you would have a piece of cord, or thong, so that you would
0:20:04 > 0:20:08put it through there and then the other end, so that it didn't slip off
0:20:08 > 0:20:11and it's the great-great-great- granddaddy of the safety pin.
0:20:11 > 0:20:12HE LAUGHS
0:20:12 > 0:20:15But what they did was to make exquisite jewellery,
0:20:15 > 0:20:18and lots of it. Loads and loads.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20This was strung together in the museum,
0:20:20 > 0:20:24so we have no idea how long the necklaces were originally.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28But we know for sure that they were making the beads on site.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31One thing we don't know is whether jewellery like this
0:20:31 > 0:20:33was worn just by women or by men.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36And Childe thought it was women and there's a wonderful passage
0:20:36 > 0:20:40where he describes finding a whole string of beads.
0:20:40 > 0:20:42As if the woman, when she was fleeing
0:20:42 > 0:20:45from the sandstorm that engulfed the site,
0:20:45 > 0:20:48her necklace broke and it scattered beads as she scampered away.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Sometimes an object, they can feel quite impersonal.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55- I know that's heresy to say, but you know what I mean.- Yeah.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58But with this, you get a sense of... That somebody has worn this
0:20:58 > 0:21:01with a great deal of pride, because it will have taken
0:21:01 > 0:21:04a great deal of effort to actually gather the materials
0:21:04 > 0:21:06- and to make this.- Yeah.
0:21:06 > 0:21:12And I can imagine somebody walking around with this around their neck.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16But Skara Brae didn't just turn up incredible artefacts.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20For Childe and his excavators, the lay out represented
0:21:20 > 0:21:25a proto-communist community - evidence of a classless Utopia.
0:21:25 > 0:21:26Looking at the site as a whole,
0:21:26 > 0:21:32he made the point that there was no single dwelling structure
0:21:32 > 0:21:36that was significantly bigger than any others. So you can see here,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40I mean, they're roughly the same size and roughly the same design
0:21:40 > 0:21:42as dwelling houses.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46And if you look at his original version here,
0:21:46 > 0:21:48he's colour coded it and so...
0:21:48 > 0:21:52Very much this model of pastoralists where
0:21:52 > 0:21:56everybody shared everything and nobody was better than anyone else.
0:21:56 > 0:22:01So he wore his political views on his archaeological sleeve, didn't he?
0:22:01 > 0:22:02Very, very heavily, yes.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05What I love about this is that, of course, you know,
0:22:05 > 0:22:09- our Marxist - it's all in red. - It's all in red!
0:22:13 > 0:22:16Childe's views might have been as coloured by his ideology
0:22:16 > 0:22:21as his maps and his tie, but his work was a watershed in archaeology.
0:22:22 > 0:22:26This was the first time that anyone had really studied
0:22:26 > 0:22:30how ordinary people had actually lived together in the ancient past.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41Between the very Edwardian world of the country solicitor Dawson
0:22:41 > 0:22:45and his desperate need to give Britain the missing link -
0:22:45 > 0:22:47Piltdown Man - by any means necessary,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50to Childe in the 1920s and '30s,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53filling in another very different kind of missing link,
0:22:53 > 0:22:58with the pure and natural social world of Neolithic communism,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02it seems like the world had gone through a seismic shift.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06And, of course, it had with the outbreak of World War I in 1914
0:23:06 > 0:23:09and the Russian Revolution in 1917.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12However much we might have reservations
0:23:12 > 0:23:14about their motivations and methodologies,
0:23:14 > 0:23:19Childe and Crawford had moved archaeology into a new era.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24Unlike Tutankhamun, this world, despite its distance in time,
0:23:24 > 0:23:26seemed far more like our own,
0:23:26 > 0:23:29a little more about how we fitted into the picture.
0:23:38 > 0:23:43Highgate Cemetery in London is the last resting place of Karl Marx...
0:23:45 > 0:23:48..Childe's great political idol.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53His tomb is something of a mecca
0:23:53 > 0:23:56for left-leaning visitors from right across the world.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59And his ideas, as we know from the work of Crawford and Childe,
0:23:59 > 0:24:04would have a profound effect on archaeology in the 20th century.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10But Marx was by no means the only great thinker
0:24:10 > 0:24:14who was shaking up the world, and archaeology along with it.
0:24:15 > 0:24:20Almost at every level, some very big brains were re-evaluating the world
0:24:20 > 0:24:22and our relationship with it,
0:24:22 > 0:24:27not just in terms of the present and future, but also the past.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30Now, at that top level of thinkers you'd also put this man,
0:24:30 > 0:24:34Albert Einstein, who with a group of scientists was leading
0:24:34 > 0:24:38the technological revolution that would have such a massive impact
0:24:38 > 0:24:40on archaeology in the 20th century.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Einstein represents the scientific revolution
0:24:45 > 0:24:51that has given us powerful tools to analyse the things we find -
0:24:51 > 0:24:54carbon dating, chemical analysis
0:24:54 > 0:24:56and laser mapping, to name just a few.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01And I'd also place up there this man, Sigmund Freud.
0:25:01 > 0:25:06His theory of a universal set of emotions, loves, desires
0:25:06 > 0:25:09and fears amongst humankind
0:25:09 > 0:25:13would also have a major impact on archaeology,
0:25:13 > 0:25:16as we'd start to set out to try and work out
0:25:16 > 0:25:19what people from the past actually thought and felt.
0:25:19 > 0:25:25Freud represents our modern obsession with feelings and desires.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28The idea that archaeology could see beyond the remains
0:25:28 > 0:25:34of ancient worlds into the very minds of our ancestors themselves.
0:25:34 > 0:25:42So these three men, these three thinkers - Marx, Einstein and Freud -
0:25:42 > 0:25:47in many respects would set the agenda for archaeology in the 20th century.
0:25:47 > 0:25:52Ordinary man, science and the workings of the inner mind.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57But, if you want to understand archaeology in the 20th century,
0:25:57 > 0:26:01you also can't ignore this man, unfortunately -
0:26:01 > 0:26:02Adolf Hitler.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14We tend to think of archaeology as a form of discovery.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18But, for the Nazis, it was a powerful tool
0:26:18 > 0:26:22that could be used to promote a very particular ideology.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's right-hand man,
0:26:33 > 0:26:37saw an opportunity in archaeology, that the past could prove
0:26:37 > 0:26:40that the Germans were not only a superior race,
0:26:40 > 0:26:43but the oldest and greatest.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51Of course, to please his master, it had to be just the right past.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55Himmler didn't want to go out and discover anything which didn't fit.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57He wanted to prove the Nazi message
0:26:57 > 0:27:02and one place where he was very keen on digging was here, in Sweden.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07Scandinavian blond hair and blue eyes
0:27:07 > 0:27:11were the legacy of a pure Aryan people,
0:27:11 > 0:27:16who supposedly represented the very foundations of all civilisation
0:27:16 > 0:27:18and human culture.
0:27:21 > 0:27:23Now, this is as barmy as it was dangerous,
0:27:23 > 0:27:26but Himmler was sure that he could prove it.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29To do that, he enlisted the help of a German archaeologist,
0:27:29 > 0:27:31Herman Wirth.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35Wirth shared the same fascination with European pre-history
0:27:35 > 0:27:36as Childe and Crawford,
0:27:36 > 0:27:40but, politically, he was on a totally different page.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53In Scandinavia, Wirth went on the trail
0:27:53 > 0:27:55of the ancient pure-blooded master race
0:27:55 > 0:27:59that Himmler and Hitler desired.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03So you can see everywhere here is full of rock carvings.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05So what have we got here?
0:28:05 > 0:28:08Well, you see the rock carving
0:28:08 > 0:28:14and in the centre of the rock carving, there is a big figure
0:28:14 > 0:28:18with a spear, and he regarded him as a god.
0:28:23 > 0:28:28Today, we believe these carvings were made by Bronze Age people
0:28:28 > 0:28:30around 3,000 years ago.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34But back in the 1930s, Wirth took them as proof
0:28:34 > 0:28:39of a great and previously mythical maritime civilisation.
0:28:40 > 0:28:45In a bizarre piece of thinking, he decided that the Aryan race
0:28:45 > 0:28:48were descended from the people from Atlantis
0:28:48 > 0:28:53and what this meant was that Nazi Germany was the direct descendant
0:28:53 > 0:28:56of the most advanced civilisation that humankind had ever known.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00For the Nazis,
0:29:00 > 0:29:04pinning their glorious past to the people of Atlantis gave them
0:29:04 > 0:29:09the evolutionary edge that would secure a similarly glorious future.
0:29:12 > 0:29:16Thankfully, it was a future that collapsed
0:29:16 > 0:29:20just as quickly as Wirth's deluded theory.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29As a modern archaeologist, I'm completely horrified
0:29:29 > 0:29:32by the story of Himmler and Wirth.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35Not just because of their odious philosophy,
0:29:35 > 0:29:38but also because we're all a bit tainted by what they did.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42There are many archaeologists who have pet theories
0:29:42 > 0:29:47that they'd love to prove by digging up a piece of actual physical evidence.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50And then there's the spin. Well, we're all at it,
0:29:50 > 0:29:53because if you want to get a big research grant,
0:29:53 > 0:29:56you need a big story to go along with it.
0:29:56 > 0:29:59Spin and communication would be one of the greatest developments
0:29:59 > 0:30:04of archaeology in the late 20th century
0:30:04 > 0:30:08and they would go on to redefine our relationship with the past.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19The modern world became all about getting your message out there.
0:30:19 > 0:30:24In the years after the war, the speed of communication began to gather pace
0:30:24 > 0:30:28and there were now many new ways to get that message heard.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36In the second half of the 20th century,
0:30:36 > 0:30:38by far the loudest of all was television,
0:30:38 > 0:30:40the medium I'm using today.
0:30:40 > 0:30:45In post-war Britain, television took comedians and singers off the stage
0:30:45 > 0:30:48and put them on the screen, turning them into household names.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52And that's exactly what happened to an unlikely, bewhiskered academic
0:30:52 > 0:30:57named Sir Mortimer Wheeler - the first public face of archaeology.
0:30:59 > 0:31:01As it happens, in ten days' time
0:31:01 > 0:31:05I am going to show a slide in the city of Cheltenham
0:31:05 > 0:31:07as an illustration of Celtic art.
0:31:07 > 0:31:09Cheltenham has been warned!
0:31:09 > 0:31:13And the other thing is this. This is one of the two best examples
0:31:13 > 0:31:16that I know of illustrations of the way in which
0:31:16 > 0:31:18an emphatic moustache
0:31:18 > 0:31:21can redeem a somewhat intractable countenance.
0:31:21 > 0:31:22LAUGHTER
0:31:24 > 0:31:28Mortimer Wheeler was a ground-breaking archaeologist,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32noted for huge digs in Roman St Albans and Iron Age Dorset.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42Wheeler deserves his place in the annals of archaeology
0:31:42 > 0:31:44just for his excavation work alone.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47It was here, while digging the East Gate at Maiden Castle,
0:31:47 > 0:31:52that he helped develop a system that would become known as the Wheeler system.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55What he did was that he split the site into a grid
0:31:55 > 0:31:58of equidistant and equal-sized trenches
0:31:58 > 0:32:00with bolts running through them,
0:32:00 > 0:32:03and this allowed him not only to accurately plot
0:32:03 > 0:32:06where artefacts had been found, but at what depth,
0:32:06 > 0:32:10which helped create a much more comprehensive system of dating.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16But it's how Wheeler got people excited about archaeology
0:32:16 > 0:32:18that's his biggest legacy,
0:32:18 > 0:32:22turning him into one of the first TV celebrities.
0:32:23 > 0:32:29Wheeler's spin was a million miles away from the distorted viewpoint of the Nazis.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32He wanted to make the past relevant to the British public
0:32:32 > 0:32:35and to do that, he used plenty of modern analogies.
0:32:36 > 0:32:40Straight streets planned and paved to pattern,
0:32:40 > 0:32:43equipped even with a Roman version of our zebra crossings.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48And a standard of living so widespread
0:32:48 > 0:32:51that no doubt on the very eve of destruction,
0:32:51 > 0:32:55Pompeiians were saying to one another, "We've never had it so good."
0:32:57 > 0:33:00Mortimer Wheeler was always very clear
0:33:00 > 0:33:03that he wasn't digging up things, but people.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06In other words, us.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10In encouraging people to try and put themselves in the shoes of their ancestors,
0:33:10 > 0:33:13Wheeler had moved archaeology ever further away
0:33:13 > 0:33:16from just being the stories of kings and emperors.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19Childe's Marxism had made him think about archaeology
0:33:19 > 0:33:22in new, egalitarian, classless ways.
0:33:22 > 0:33:26But it was Mortimer Wheeler that brought archaeology to the masses.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40For all their fascination with the working lives of ordinary men,
0:33:40 > 0:33:44modern archaeologists still faced a problem.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49It was still the case that it was kings and princes
0:33:49 > 0:33:51who provided the faces of the past.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54Their idealised forms preserved
0:33:54 > 0:33:58on finely crafted death masks and grand statues.
0:33:58 > 0:34:02Archaeologists by this time were finding out more and more
0:34:02 > 0:34:05about the lives of ordinary people, from Neolithic farmers
0:34:05 > 0:34:09to Roman soldiers, but there was still no face.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16But that all changed here in Scandinavia in 1950.
0:34:18 > 0:34:20It was here at Tollund Fen in Denmark
0:34:20 > 0:34:23that two brothers digging for peat
0:34:23 > 0:34:26found something that made them stop dead in their tracks -
0:34:26 > 0:34:28the grisly remains of a body.
0:34:32 > 0:34:34The local police were baffled,
0:34:34 > 0:34:38until it was pointed out that the wet peat was a perfect preservative.
0:34:40 > 0:34:42If this was a murder scene,
0:34:42 > 0:34:44it was from too long ago to catch the killer.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52Today, the remains are preserved at Silkeborg Museum,
0:34:52 > 0:34:53close to Tollund Fen.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06This is Tollund Man,
0:35:06 > 0:35:10an Iron Age farmer who died over 2,000 years ago.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16Today, his body is displayed in replica,
0:35:16 > 0:35:19but his head is absolutely real.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26I've seen Tollund Man a lot in books and lectures
0:35:26 > 0:35:29but I don't think anything quite prepares you
0:35:29 > 0:35:32for seeing him - and can I say this? - in the flesh.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44It's such a lived-in face. Such a lived-in face.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47If this had been sculpted,
0:35:47 > 0:35:51you'd almost accuse it of being too lifelike.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54It's amazing.
0:35:54 > 0:35:59He really does look like he's asleep on a bed of peat.
0:35:59 > 0:36:01I feel incredibly moved looking at it.
0:36:01 > 0:36:03Yes, yes. He looks as if he could...
0:36:03 > 0:36:05At any moment, he could wake up
0:36:05 > 0:36:07and say, "Hey, where was I?"
0:36:09 > 0:36:12Obviously, I'm a Roman archaeologist more than anything else
0:36:12 > 0:36:15and when I'm thinking about the people who lived up in this area,
0:36:15 > 0:36:21in the time which I study, I think of big, great, hairy barbarians.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24I very much have the sort of Roman stereotype in my mind -
0:36:24 > 0:36:29that identikit picture of a northern barbarian.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31And he sort of blows that out of the water,
0:36:31 > 0:36:34because he is a rather skinny man
0:36:34 > 0:36:36and with stubble.
0:36:39 > 0:36:44Tollund Man brought us face to face with the common man for the first time.
0:36:46 > 0:36:52Not a king or a warrior, but someone who was recognisably one of us.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56The big question, though, was how he died.
0:36:57 > 0:37:03An autopsy showed that he was hanged by his neck in this rope.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07But the interesting thing is, of course, why was he hanged?
0:37:07 > 0:37:11And, in general, there are two theories.
0:37:11 > 0:37:15The one is that he was a criminal and he was punished
0:37:15 > 0:37:17for an offence that he'd made.
0:37:17 > 0:37:21The other one is that he was an offer for the gods.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23So I rather support the later one.
0:37:23 > 0:37:28Somebody cut him down before the rigor mortis.
0:37:28 > 0:37:30They closed his eyes, his mouth,
0:37:30 > 0:37:34laid him to rest, like in a sleeping position,
0:37:34 > 0:37:37and that shows a lot of care.
0:37:37 > 0:37:40Would you do that with a criminal that you would kill for his offence?
0:37:40 > 0:37:42I don't think so.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48Since his discovery 60 years ago, Tollund Man has been subjected
0:37:48 > 0:37:53to all manner of scientific tests, but there are still mysteries.
0:37:55 > 0:37:59One of the biggest questions still surrounds his death.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04Was he buried almost naked, as his remains suggest,
0:38:04 > 0:38:05part of a ritual sacrifice?
0:38:10 > 0:38:14I always thought it was very peculiar that he was buried
0:38:14 > 0:38:18with just a cap and a belt.
0:38:18 > 0:38:19Why?
0:38:19 > 0:38:22I mean, if he was offered to the gods,
0:38:22 > 0:38:24it might be some special ritual.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28But I would like, then, to rule out all possibilities
0:38:28 > 0:38:30of him having worn clothes.
0:38:31 > 0:38:35Today, the museum is planning to microscopically examine
0:38:35 > 0:38:40Tollund Man's torso for clues and I've been invited to watch.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45What we have here, that's basically a handheld microscope
0:38:45 > 0:38:48that goes directly into the computer.
0:38:48 > 0:38:52If you start here and then move up, then we can see.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58Oh yes, look here. This is, this is a hair.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01- Yeah, I can see it. That's amazing. - Yes, here right, OK?
0:39:03 > 0:39:06- And could you move it on up?- Up?
0:39:06 > 0:39:08Yeah.
0:39:08 > 0:39:12Yeah, there, let me see that. Could you move on?
0:39:13 > 0:39:16Oh, what's that? Look.
0:39:16 > 0:39:18- Stop, stop, stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - What is that?
0:39:18 > 0:39:20Make it sharp. Look.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24We need to have it sharp.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27Yes, yes, beautiful, beautiful. Look!
0:39:29 > 0:39:32This is... That's our smoking gun.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35- Can you see that?- Wow, that's a piece of fibre, isn't it?
0:39:35 > 0:39:38It is a piece of fibre, yes. Yes, yes.
0:39:38 > 0:39:40So this means that he was probably clothed
0:39:40 > 0:39:43when he was buried in the peat bog?
0:39:43 > 0:39:47This certainly indicates that he might have worn something.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50So this is very interesting news and you're the first to see it.
0:39:50 > 0:39:52Well, I am.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56That's incredibly exciting. So you might be helping to solve
0:39:56 > 0:39:58one of the big mysteries about Tollund Man.
0:39:58 > 0:39:59Oh, that would be great.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10Today, science is still advancing,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13forcing us to rethink old finds.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16This world of archaeology feels light years away
0:40:16 > 0:40:22from Howard Carter and Tutankhamun, although no less thrilling.
0:40:22 > 0:40:29Carter could only have dreamt of getting that kind of detailed archaeological analysis.
0:40:29 > 0:40:32In the old days, gentlemen amateurs would dig
0:40:32 > 0:40:34and then they would discover,
0:40:34 > 0:40:37but now that's just the start of the process.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40We can think up new questions and as we think these questions up,
0:40:40 > 0:40:44and new problems, we can go back to the same material time and again
0:40:44 > 0:40:47and devise new tests.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50Archaeology really is work in progress.
0:40:57 > 0:41:02In less than a century, archaeology had been through some extraordinary changes -
0:41:02 > 0:41:07from speculation to science, from kings to ordinary men.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27But the 20th century still had some surprises in store.
0:41:30 > 0:41:35Here in America, one archaeologist would come up with a radical theory
0:41:35 > 0:41:39that would once again reframe how we saw the past.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47It started with a very simple question -
0:41:47 > 0:41:49what about ancient women?
0:41:52 > 0:41:54In the 1970s, when I was a kid,
0:41:54 > 0:41:57archaeology was still very much a male-dominated world.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00There were female archaeologists, the most famous of which was
0:42:00 > 0:42:04Kathleen Kenyon, who had dug with Sir Mortimer Wheeler.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07But she was the only household name
0:42:07 > 0:42:10and she was very much a woman working in a man's world.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12Archaeology had been looked at
0:42:12 > 0:42:14through many, many different types of prisms -
0:42:14 > 0:42:17Socialism, Marxism, Freudism, and Nazism -
0:42:17 > 0:42:20but there was another very, very obvious one
0:42:20 > 0:42:24and it was staring us in the face everywhere.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35In the 1960s and '70s, America was at the forefront of a whole new revolution.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38Women's rights, women's studies, equality
0:42:38 > 0:42:43and emancipation all put the capital F in feminism.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46Women, come and join us!
0:42:46 > 0:42:49THEY CHANT: We want equality, we want equality!
0:42:50 > 0:42:53It was a movement that soon spread across the world.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56Women were proclaiming their place in society
0:42:56 > 0:43:02and that didn't just mean in the present, but also in the past.
0:43:04 > 0:43:08Crawford and Childe had taken archaeology from kings to the common man.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13Now it was a female archaeologist here in the States
0:43:13 > 0:43:17who was determined to shine a light on ancient women.
0:43:19 > 0:43:22Her name was Marija Gimbutas and she argued that
0:43:22 > 0:43:27women in ancient societies were the driving forces in these cultures.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30And this brought about a whole new line of intellectual thought.
0:43:32 > 0:43:37Her archive in California contains records of hundreds of artefacts
0:43:37 > 0:43:41unearthed from many digs in Europe.
0:43:43 > 0:43:49Gimbutas believed that an ancient civilisation she called Old Europe
0:43:49 > 0:43:54was once firmly centred not upon strong men, but wise women.
0:43:56 > 0:43:58At its heart was a recurring goddess figure.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03There's no doubting the emphasis on fertility
0:44:03 > 0:44:05and femininity in these figurines.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08This one is one of the bird-faced goddesses
0:44:08 > 0:44:10and you can see her pendulous breasts there.
0:44:12 > 0:44:13And here in this larger figurine,
0:44:13 > 0:44:19you can see the triangle of the pubis and the broad hips.
0:44:21 > 0:44:26Gimbutas didn't use scientific data to further her theories.
0:44:26 > 0:44:28Instead, what she wanted to do was get inside the heads
0:44:28 > 0:44:30of the people of Old Europe,
0:44:30 > 0:44:32find out what really made them tick.
0:44:32 > 0:44:36For her, the key piece of evidence were these goddess figurines,
0:44:36 > 0:44:39because she considered that, right across Old Europe,
0:44:39 > 0:44:44people worshipped divinities associated with fertility.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48And in their feminine, fertile forms, she saw evidence
0:44:48 > 0:44:53of a far more peaceful age when the sexes had been far more equal.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06Gimbutas was willing to take things one step further.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10She was willing to formulate theories, not just in terms
0:45:10 > 0:45:12of what archaeological evidence she did find,
0:45:12 > 0:45:14but also what she didn't find.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16On one of her digs in Old Europe,
0:45:16 > 0:45:19she claimed there was an absence of weapons of war
0:45:19 > 0:45:22and this she saw as a fundamental piece of evidence
0:45:22 > 0:45:26for a peaceful epoch led by women -
0:45:26 > 0:45:29that was until men had turned up with their weapons
0:45:29 > 0:45:31and mucked everything up.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39In a country shaken by the horrors of the Vietnam war,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42it was a message waiting to be heard
0:45:42 > 0:45:44by the liberal academics of the time.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58Half a century on,
0:45:58 > 0:46:02and many of Gimbutas's bold assertions have been found wanting.
0:46:04 > 0:46:09But her willingness to ask such big new questions still,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12for me, gives her a special place in history.
0:46:13 > 0:46:17One of the accusations which is placed against her is that she used ideology,
0:46:17 > 0:46:19particularly feminist ideology, as a weapon
0:46:19 > 0:46:25and didn't pay sufficient attention to the actual archaeological material.
0:46:25 > 0:46:28But I think that we need to laud Maria Gimbutas,
0:46:28 > 0:46:33because she delivered a much-needed kick up the backside to archaeology.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37An archaeology which had, for too long, ignored women,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40who, after all, made up 50% of the population,
0:46:40 > 0:46:42not only of the modern but of the ancient world, too.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47For that, I think we owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59If there's one thing the 20th century has taught us,
0:46:59 > 0:47:02it's that archaeology could never be entirely free
0:47:02 > 0:47:06of the modern social forces that influence our thinking.
0:47:09 > 0:47:16And while science promises objective truths, it all depends on what questions you ask
0:47:16 > 0:47:19and which answers you choose to listen to.
0:47:20 > 0:47:25Take one very new scientific technique that could revolutionise
0:47:25 > 0:47:29how we understand ancient societies - DNA.
0:47:32 > 0:47:34Excuse me. This is going to be a bit disgusting,
0:47:34 > 0:47:36because I'm now going to spit into this tube.
0:47:41 > 0:47:43DNA is the new big thing.
0:47:43 > 0:47:48Now, it's very controversial, but also very, very interesting.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51Because what I have here is my own personal genetic code.
0:47:51 > 0:47:56And not just that, also the genetic codes of my ancestors.
0:47:56 > 0:47:58Now, think about it.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01If we get the DNA of lots of different people,
0:48:01 > 0:48:03then we have a potentially big story of inheritance,
0:48:03 > 0:48:07of mass movements of people, of migration.
0:48:07 > 0:48:08Well, perhaps.
0:48:11 > 0:48:15Testing my own results, DNA expert Mark Thomas
0:48:15 > 0:48:19is aware that even science can be used to provide stories.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23So what sort of lines of ancestry can we pick up?
0:48:23 > 0:48:26You can usually say whether somebody has some African ancestry,
0:48:26 > 0:48:28or some East Asian ancestry,
0:48:28 > 0:48:31or some Native American ancestry, or something like that.
0:48:31 > 0:48:33Unfortunately, you don't have any of those things.
0:48:33 > 0:48:36You're just 100% boring European.
0:48:36 > 0:48:41Yours is very clearly found at high frequencies in Scandinavia.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43Do you think...? I mean, we live in a world
0:48:43 > 0:48:45where people are obsessed with themselves.
0:48:45 > 0:48:50When people ask the question, "Who am I," can these sort of tests...
0:48:50 > 0:48:54Can DNA answer the question they want answered?
0:48:54 > 0:48:57In terms of ancestry, you're from a lot of places.
0:48:57 > 0:48:59You have a lot of ancestors.
0:48:59 > 0:49:04The number of ancestors you have almost doubles every generation you go back in time.
0:49:04 > 0:49:08So that kind of individualised view of ancestry
0:49:08 > 0:49:15is kind of a perversion, really, of what our relationship to our ancestors is,
0:49:15 > 0:49:17because there are so many of them.
0:49:17 > 0:49:22One of the other interesting things about this is that we've seen this time and again,
0:49:22 > 0:49:26when we look at the way archaeology is used to science and technology,
0:49:26 > 0:49:31is that what we do is that, instead of giving us precise answers, all we've done is we've broadened it.
0:49:31 > 0:49:33Because what things like this do
0:49:33 > 0:49:38is they give us more and more information and raw data and more possibilities.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42And there is no one answer.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46Right. That's absolutely true.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50The problem is, if you present people with many, many histories,
0:49:50 > 0:49:54all of which are probably true, then there's always going to be
0:49:54 > 0:49:56the tendency to cherry pick.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58So I'd say, "Well, OK, I want that one,
0:49:58 > 0:50:00"I want the Viking war lord.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04"I want the sexy ancestor and that's primarily where I come from."
0:50:11 > 0:50:15Despite all those efforts to connect with the common people,
0:50:15 > 0:50:18it's only human nature to be aspirational.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22Who wouldn't prefer to have Tutankhamun as an ancestor
0:50:22 > 0:50:25than some anonymous Neolithic farmer?
0:50:39 > 0:50:41As science continues to advance,
0:50:41 > 0:50:47our understanding of the past will continue to increase in leaps and bounds,
0:50:47 > 0:50:50just as it has over the past 100 years.
0:50:51 > 0:50:56But there will always be mysteries, debates and stories.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05And as archaeologists, we need to balance what we know
0:51:05 > 0:51:09with what we believe, and also a little bit of what we imagine.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16Throughout this series, I've followed our human quest
0:51:16 > 0:51:22over the last 2,000 years to discover and understand our ancient past.
0:51:24 > 0:51:30It's also made me think about us and our own modern civilisations.
0:51:31 > 0:51:35It's made me wonder about what the archaeologists of the future
0:51:35 > 0:51:37will make of our world.
0:51:42 > 0:51:46Come on, we haven't got all day. Come on!
0:51:49 > 0:51:546am and I'm out with the LA Bureau of Sanitation -
0:51:54 > 0:52:00a very politically correct title for the local binmen.
0:52:00 > 0:52:02We take everything that they want to get rid of.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06The only thing we don't take in the black container will be dead animals.
0:52:09 > 0:52:16Over the last 100 years, mankind has begun to change the planet for ever,
0:52:16 > 0:52:20and it's all down to the materials we make and leave behind.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28For the first time, we're leaving an indelible stain on the ground.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34Right now, it seems that we're leaving a very new,
0:52:34 > 0:52:40very particular and very permanent geological layer on the Earth.
0:52:40 > 0:52:47And it's all about this stuff - the waste that we leave behind.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49Armando, come through.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53Once we pick up this side, we go to the landfill.
0:52:55 > 0:53:00All our civilisations of the past, from Mesolithic man to Mozart,
0:53:00 > 0:53:02have shared the same geological epoch
0:53:02 > 0:53:06that's lasted more than 10,000 years.
0:53:06 > 0:53:10But now, there's a new one, dubbed the Anthropocene.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19The amount of waste that we generate is huge.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23But it's not just the amount - it's also what it consists of.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27When in thousands of years' time archaeologists dig down to discover our world,
0:53:27 > 0:53:31they'll find traces of radioactive material, heavy metals
0:53:31 > 0:53:36used for cars and electronics, and plenty of robust plastics.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48I'm not trying to make some environmental plea here.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52I merely want to explain what the boundaries of archaeology are.
0:53:52 > 0:53:57Now, no-one would claim that all the rubbish that lies around me here
0:53:57 > 0:54:00represents what's most important to human beings,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03i.e. their thoughts and feelings.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06But what it does represent and what it does possess
0:54:06 > 0:54:09is a whole series of tiny clues to the way that we live.
0:54:11 > 0:54:15We call it waste but, in archaeological terms,
0:54:15 > 0:54:20this is a richer record than any previous age has left behind.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22But what will the future make of it all?
0:54:26 > 0:54:29How much will they get right about us from what they find?
0:54:29 > 0:54:34And how much will they make up stories to fill in the gaps?
0:54:34 > 0:54:36You can be sure of one thing -
0:54:36 > 0:54:39that however they interpret our world
0:54:39 > 0:54:41will be shaped by the religion,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44politics and social mores of their own time.
0:54:45 > 0:54:48But I bet it won't stop them looking,
0:54:48 > 0:54:51because one trait constant across time,
0:54:51 > 0:54:54is our human curiosity about the past.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01We might be grasping at fragments,
0:55:01 > 0:55:03but those fragments are our beginnings,
0:55:03 > 0:55:07the story of humankind, where we came from.
0:55:11 > 0:55:15It's been an extraordinary quest, over 2,000 years.
0:55:18 > 0:55:20From Empress Helena of Constantinople
0:55:20 > 0:55:22and her search for the relics of Christ.
0:55:24 > 0:55:26Through the Renaissance
0:55:26 > 0:55:28and the wonder of people like Pizzecoli,
0:55:28 > 0:55:32who first recognised the value of monuments from the past.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40In Britain, with the work of Henry VIII's librarian,
0:55:40 > 0:55:43John Leland, and his inventory of England.
0:55:48 > 0:55:49And William Camden.
0:55:51 > 0:55:52Oh, my word!
0:55:52 > 0:55:56'And the first recorded image of Stonehenge,
0:55:56 > 0:55:58'with some people even digging.'
0:55:59 > 0:56:03The realisation of the very depths of time in the 18th century
0:56:03 > 0:56:07by the first geologists - people like John Hutton.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10And the discoveries of John Frere,
0:56:10 > 0:56:14who began to open up the mysteries of pre-history.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19Then the great 19th-century discoveries
0:56:19 > 0:56:22and the scale of finds in Egypt.
0:56:24 > 0:56:27And the mysteries of civilisations that came before,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30in the Middle East, and far beyond.
0:56:32 > 0:56:36As intrepid archaeological explorers took on whole new continents.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44Wow! This place is absolutely stupendous.
0:56:45 > 0:56:49The application of scientific analysis to the ancient past
0:56:49 > 0:56:54by the wealthy German archaeologist Schliemann in Troy and Mycenae.
0:56:56 > 0:57:00And the rigorous methods of an even richer British counterpart,
0:57:00 > 0:57:03Augustus Pitt Rivers.
0:57:04 > 0:57:09Finally, the stunning discoveries of the 20th century -
0:57:09 > 0:57:10of Tutankhamun.
0:57:13 > 0:57:14And Tollund Man.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18And the secrets that lay in the ground itself...
0:57:20 > 0:57:25..from Dorset to Orkney
0:57:25 > 0:57:28and the science that revealed them.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34It's a journey that continues on in my own lifetime
0:57:34 > 0:57:38and it will keep going on into the future.
0:57:40 > 0:57:46For my money I can't think of a greater or nobler quest to pursue.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd