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In January last year, | 0:00:32 | 0:00:34 | |
deep inside the limestone rocks of the Yorkshire Dales, | 0:00:34 | 0:00:37 | |
cave divers, Andrew Goddard and Phil Murphy, | 0:00:37 | 0:00:40 | |
were exploring the narrow and boulder-choked passages | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
of a little-known underground river. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
When they surfaced in an uncharted chamber, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
they thought they were the first to set foot in these caves. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
But they were soon to discover otherwise. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
As the divers progressed deeper into the cave, | 0:01:05 | 0:01:08 | |
wherever they looked, there were bones. But how old were they? | 0:01:08 | 0:01:12 | |
Even more remarkable, a set of bare human footprints | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
in the soft clay floor of the cave. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
By pure chance, | 0:01:23 | 0:01:24 | |
the divers had stumbled upon an ancient burial site | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
and one of the most important cave finds this century. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
Those bones turned out to be 3,500 years old. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:43 | |
It's an amazing find, | 0:01:43 | 0:01:44 | |
and means that the cave's probably a burial site | 0:01:44 | 0:01:46 | |
belonging to our Bronze Age ancestors. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
So, this morning, I'm on my way to meet the team | 0:01:49 | 0:01:51 | |
who are going to explore the site. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
-That was quite a drive! Hello. -Hi, Phil Murphy. Pleased to meet you. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:02 | |
Hi, Julian, Andrew Goddard. Pleased to meet you. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
So you're the two that found the cave? | 0:02:04 | 0:02:06 | |
-That's right. -Do you reckon we're going to find a way in? -No problem! | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
As an archaeologist, I've always been fascinated | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
by how much you can tell about our past from a few scattered remains. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
In this programme and the coming series, | 0:02:20 | 0:02:22 | |
I shall be joining in excavations of burials across the British Isles, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
and finding out more about our ancestors. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
I'll be talking to specialists, | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
trying to discover who these people were, | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
and when and how they died. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:36 | |
Excellente. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:37 | |
At the end of each programme, | 0:02:37 | 0:02:39 | |
with the help of experts in facial reconstruction, | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
we'll come face-to-face with one of our ancestors. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
Back in the Yorkshire Dales, the team was heading into the hills. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:56 | |
Their first task is to find an alternative way into the cave | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
that doesn't involve dangerous water-filled tunnels. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:03 | |
Heading the team is one of Britain's leading cave archaeologists - | 0:03:07 | 0:03:10 | |
Andrew Chamberlain from Sheffield University. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
Our prehistoric ancestors couldn't have potholed into the cave, | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
so there must have been another entrance. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
Could one of these depressions on the hillside be the way in? | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
There are several of these in the neighbourhood. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
We don't want to dig the wrong one. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
This is why we're using the radio location device, | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
to try and find exactly where we are. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:33 | |
Andy and Phil have volunteered to dive back into the cave | 0:03:39 | 0:03:42 | |
with a small radio transmitter. | 0:03:42 | 0:03:44 | |
We hope this will guide us to a suitable spot on the hillside | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
where we can find a way into the cave. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:49 | |
On the surface, Bob's location device | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
can pinpoint the exact location of the divers, | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
even if they're deep underground. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
The divers have to work their way | 0:04:07 | 0:04:08 | |
through 120 metres of narrow, water-filled passages | 0:04:08 | 0:04:12 | |
before they re-emerge into air. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
From here, they climb up a steep, rocky slope up into the burial cave. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
TRANSMITTER BEEPS | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
That's right, then it dips off... | 0:04:22 | 0:04:24 | |
BEEPING CONTINUES | 0:04:24 | 0:04:26 | |
..and it comes back. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:28 | |
So, that's the spot? | 0:04:28 | 0:04:30 | |
That's the spot - they're directly below that, yes. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
Andy and Phil are now deep in the cave. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
They think they've found the original entrance, | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
but it's now completely choked with huge boulders. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
OK, Bob. What do you want us to do next? | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
You can move three metres south. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:51 | |
Bob wants the divers to move | 0:04:53 | 0:04:54 | |
towards one of the depressions in the hillside. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:57 | |
It looks quite shallow. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:05 | |
HE-L-L-OO! | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
-They can hear us! -They can...?! What, they can hear us? | 0:05:11 | 0:05:15 | |
-Hello-o! -Can you hear him? -Yes, I can hear him. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:19 | |
Hello? | 0:05:19 | 0:05:20 | |
Sounds like I can hear Julian up there. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
Not very loud, but I can definitely hear him. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:24 | |
Can you hear me? | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
THEY HOWL | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
What's going on, Julian? | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
Um, well, the cave's called the Wolves' Den, isn't it? | 0:05:33 | 0:05:37 | |
They're howling like wolves down there! | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
So I think that means they've found the place! | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
OK, lads. That's it. You can come out. We'll see you on the surface. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:47 | |
This was amazing luck. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
Andy and Phil had found a shaft that led almost up to the surface. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
So all we have to do now is clear the rocks blocking the entrance. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
For that job, Andrew and his team needed some heavy equipment. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
There are lots of caves in the area, | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
some of which contained human burials, | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
but many were excavated over a century ago | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
and very little survives today. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:30 | |
That's why this cave, inaccessible until now, could be so special. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:35 | |
GENERATOR WHIRRS | 0:06:35 | 0:06:39 | |
Now we've got the generator rigged up, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
we can see how far this hole really does go. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
JULIAN LAUGHS Can you tell us that, Julian? | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
Um... | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
It's a bit deeper than we thought! | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
The floor of the cave is about nine metres down - | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
that's nearly 30 feet from where we're standing at the moment. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
And I reckon... Hang on, put that tape there again. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:08 | |
There's only about two or three feet of clay and rock | 0:07:08 | 0:07:13 | |
-that we're standing on! -Yes. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
There's not much to go and a long way to the bottom of the cave! | 0:07:16 | 0:07:19 | |
But it's incredible. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:21 | |
While the team carried on digging, | 0:07:25 | 0:07:27 | |
I went off to find where Bronze Age people in this area lived. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:31 | |
I found some clues in the next valley, | 0:07:31 | 0:07:34 | |
where tumbled stone walls marked the remains of a prehistoric settlement. | 0:07:34 | 0:07:39 | |
This may not look much, but it's the remains of a prehistoric hut. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
I'm sitting on what remains of the back wall, | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
level floor in front of me, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:47 | |
and there is the entrance, pointing out to the valley bottom. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:52 | |
It was probably a small farmstead, with pens for sheep and cattle. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:58 | |
Perhaps home to two or three families. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:00 | |
And in this wonderfully sheltered spot, | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
they would have been able to have grown their crops of wheat and barley. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:07 | |
Back at the site, they'd got a grip | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
on the last rock blocking the entrance. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:15 | |
But it was vital this boulder didn't crash onto the cave floor, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:19 | |
destroying any remains that lay below. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:21 | |
-More tension! -More tension! | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
-Steady. -Steady. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
MOTOR REVS | 0:08:29 | 0:08:31 | |
THEY CHEER AND APPLAUD | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
After three intense days of digging and heaving great rocks around, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
the entrance was finally clear. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
Oh! | 0:08:43 | 0:08:44 | |
Very snug! | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
Lower me away! | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
Right. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:03 | |
As an archaeologist, I've spent a fair bit of my working life | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
digging in holes in the ground. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
But this will be the first time I've gone underground | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
in search of ancient remains. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
I felt an enormous sense of anticipation and excitement | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
as I climbed down the flimsy wire ladder. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
Andrew had gone ahead, and helped me to land on a platform | 0:09:23 | 0:09:27 | |
the team had built at the top of the steep rocky slope. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:30 | |
-Now, don't step backwards. -No. Good God, that's the...? | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
It's scree. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:54 | |
This is the scree running down to the flooded passage, | 0:09:54 | 0:09:59 | |
which is where the cavers initially came up into this cave. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
I see what they mean about it being steep! | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
And I can see bones on the... | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
'When we turned away from the slope the divers had clambered up, | 0:10:09 | 0:10:12 | |
'we saw human bones laid out in front of us.' | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
Everywhere you look, there's more bone! | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
I mean, there's some under here. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:20 | |
'They looked so fresh and remarkably well-preserved.' | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
Is this how they were left 3,500 years ago? | 0:10:23 | 0:10:27 | |
I think so, yes. Yes. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:28 | |
I've never... | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
In all the years I've been an archaeologist, | 0:10:30 | 0:10:34 | |
I never believed that I could come and see something like this! | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
I'm sort of genuinely quite speechless! | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
-Underneath the platform, there's one... -Crikey, yes. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
..right under here. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:49 | |
-Are these all human? -These are all human. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
-OK, so what's that bone, Andrew? -That's a humerus. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
Right. So there's a humerus there. That's another arm bone. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
That's a radius. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:00 | |
-Then that's a tibia. -Yep. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
-What about that one under there? -Another tibia. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:06 | |
So these are long bones from both the arm and the leg... | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
-that are all stacked up in a neat little pile. -That's right. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:14 | |
If you look at this bone here, we have another human humerus - | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
it's missing its head. You can see the epiphysis is missing. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
It's the end of the bone. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:24 | |
It's not fused, the person died before the age at which that fuses, | 0:11:24 | 0:11:29 | |
which is in the late teenage years. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
So we can be sure this is a separate individual from this one here. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:37 | |
-So there's the remains of more than one person buried in here. -Right. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:41 | |
Hang on, that must be human. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
That's right. It's very recognisable as a human jaw. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:49 | |
Two left premolars and the first molar is very worn, | 0:11:49 | 0:11:55 | |
which is typical of the jaws of the early population. | 0:11:55 | 0:12:00 | |
The team are mapping the entire cave. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
In a small space near the boulder slope | 0:12:03 | 0:12:05 | |
are parts of three individuals - | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
a woman, a man and a child aged about 15. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
The floor of the cave has partly collapsed, | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
taking some of their bones tumbling down the slope | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
towards the underground river. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:17 | |
The wolf bones litter every part of the cave floor. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
Animal-bone specialist Roz Cord was very excited by the evidence | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
that wolves had been using the cave as a den. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
It's quite remarkable. There's a few passages there, | 0:12:28 | 0:12:31 | |
and they have wolves in them. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
-Not live ones. -No, not live ones! We have canid bones. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:38 | |
And it looks like it's typical denning activity. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
What do you mean? | 0:12:42 | 0:12:43 | |
Denning activity is when they go into a cave, a hole underground | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
where they can have their cubs without being disturbed. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
There's adult wolves down there and there's juvenile wolves down there. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
You can see the remains of their dinners scattered all about. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
-What were they eating? -They were eating roe deer. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
-Somebody said there's a whole deer carcass down there. -There is. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:03 | |
Indeed, there is a deer carcass down there. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
It's a small deer, and it's mixed up with some other bones. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
-Is that wolves' dinner as well? -Yes. It's a wolf's dinner as well. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
The adults are bringing in animals | 0:13:11 | 0:13:13 | |
for the juveniles and themselves to eat. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:16 | |
You can see, along the passages, as the small cubs have taken bones | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
and they've dragged them along the passages. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
All the bones are piled up in the corners | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
where the wolves have been walking through, trampling through. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
-How amazing. -It's quite fascinating. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:31 | |
Even more extraordinary are the human footprints in the midst of the wolf bones. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:37 | |
They're impressed in the soft mud of the cave floor. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
But some are sealed below layers of limestone, | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
which have taken thousands of years to form - | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
so we know they're prehistoric. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:47 | |
In fact, they're only ancient human footprints | 0:13:47 | 0:13:49 | |
ever found in a cave in the British Isles. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:51 | |
I still find it difficult to grasp | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
that somebody could have come in here, thousands of years ago, | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
and left a footprint in the mud | 0:13:57 | 0:14:01 | |
that we can still see all this time afterwards! | 0:14:01 | 0:14:05 | |
It's extraordinary. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
It brings you so close to the person, doesn't it, | 0:14:08 | 0:14:13 | |
to see that there, especially as it's so small! | 0:14:13 | 0:14:18 | |
I'll get a close-up of the good one. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
Bill Sellars arrived to examine the footprints. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
If you do it at the same height, we can collage the whole track together, | 0:14:26 | 0:14:31 | |
which would be really nice. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:33 | |
We've got a track with several sets of prints. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
We've got three really clear ones | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
and we've got some others that are obscured by the flow-stem covering. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:48 | |
What we're trying to do is get a photograph of the whole track | 0:14:48 | 0:14:54 | |
so that we can recreate how whoever it was walked. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:58 | |
On the last day of the excavation, | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
Phil volunteers to go down the boulder slope. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
He wants to find the human bones he spotted | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
when he first came into the cave. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:10 | |
But it's a hazardous operation. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:12 | |
This is going to involve a lot of rock falling down I think. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:15 | |
-STONES RATTLE -Oops! There goes some. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:21 | |
ROCKS CLATTER DOWN | 0:15:21 | 0:15:26 | |
As far as possible, Andrew wants to leave the cave as it was found. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:31 | |
The only bones he feels should be removed | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
are those that have fallen down the steep boulder slope. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:36 | |
They simply wouldn't survive the next rock fall. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
-OK, just hold me there. -Well done! -Well done! | 0:15:45 | 0:15:49 | |
Have a look. They're dead delicate. I wonder if they're the juvenile. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
I'll send it up to the surface. We'll have a look at it there. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:58 | |
Be very gentle when you're pulling it up. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
By the time we'd all climbed out of the cave, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
everyone was desperate to see what Phil had found. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:16 | |
It's very fragile, the bone. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:18 | |
From that boulder slope, | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
he'd recovered part of an incredibly delicate skull. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
It's not a very prominent brow ridge, but we need to know how old it is. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:27 | |
After a day that was spent mainly underground down the cave, | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
it's a real relief to be out in the sunshine | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
and also to have retrieved this very fragile fragment | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
of one of the people buried in the cave. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:42 | |
I can't believe Phil was able to relocate it down that boulder slope | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
and bring it out. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:47 | |
CHEERING | 0:16:53 | 0:16:55 | |
Well done! Well done! | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
As we plugged the cave entrance, | 0:16:57 | 0:16:59 | |
all hints of our efforts were camouflaged - | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
the burial chamber once again sealed, | 0:17:01 | 0:17:04 | |
as it was when boulders blocked its original entrance | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
thousands of years ago. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
How much can we find out about a person from a few skull fragments? | 0:17:08 | 0:17:13 | |
I went to see Richard Neeve at Manchester University - | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
one of Britain's top specialists in facial reconstruction. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
I have one of these boxes at home which I keep an electric drill in. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
Is there anything down there?! | 0:17:31 | 0:17:33 | |
JULIAN LAUGHS | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
Ah! | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
Oh, look at that! | 0:17:37 | 0:17:39 | |
Isn't that nice? | 0:17:40 | 0:17:43 | |
Female? Female. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:45 | |
'From its shape and proportions, | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
'Richard immediately identified the skull as female.' | 0:17:47 | 0:17:49 | |
Your reaction's not as bad as I thought it'd be. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
It depends what you want me to do with it. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
I mean, if you want be to actually do anything with it, | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
then my reaction might be very different! | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
THEY BOTH LAUGH | 0:17:59 | 0:18:01 | |
Now, what are you asking me about all this for? | 0:18:01 | 0:18:04 | |
I sense some foreboding here. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
'Was Richard able to rebuild her face?' | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
The foreboding I have is that if you ask a face to be built from that, | 0:18:11 | 0:18:15 | |
you can use that as the basis | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
upon which you can base a face, | 0:18:19 | 0:18:24 | |
but areas of it are inevitably going to be very subjective. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:28 | |
The loss of the lower jaw is one of the more important things | 0:18:28 | 0:18:33 | |
when it comes to recreating a face which can be recognised. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:37 | |
That IS an important feature and without that, | 0:18:37 | 0:18:43 | |
you don't get the overall vertical proportions of the face as such. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:49 | |
The first stage is to rebuild the skull | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
using casts of the original fragments, | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
a copy of a suitable jaw and clay. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
A plaster cast is then made of the whole thing | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
and this forms the foundation for the reconstruction. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:04 | |
But before Richard can get on with the next stage, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:06 | |
he needs to know how old the woman was when she died. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
I hate going to the dentist, | 0:19:11 | 0:19:13 | |
but at least it's the lady from the cave | 0:19:13 | 0:19:15 | |
who's got the appointment, not me! | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
'Cardiff Dental Hospital's forensic orthodontist, David Whitaker, | 0:19:18 | 0:19:22 | |
'has developed a unique way of ageing individuals | 0:19:22 | 0:19:25 | |
'using a thin slice of tooth.' | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
Well... | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
Let's look at the maxilla - the upper jaw | 0:19:30 | 0:19:34 | |
of this incredibly delicate piece of bone. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:37 | |
And we're going to take this tooth out | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
to see if we can do an ageing on it. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
From my point of view, it's a slightly hairy problem. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:49 | |
This very ancient material is SO fragile | 0:19:49 | 0:19:53 | |
that it can suddenly shatter. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
It's not like taking teeth... Ah! ..out of living people. | 0:19:56 | 0:20:02 | |
Well, it looks excellent. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
It's in amazingly good condition | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
considering the age of a tooth like that. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:10 | |
Before the tooth can be cut, it's set into a block of resin. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:15 | |
Then it's mounted on what looks like a tiny bacon slicer. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
What we're expecting to see under the microscope | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
is something like this tooth that we've dealt with before. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
What we're going to be looking for is this change here. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:35 | |
And from the age of about the mid-20s onwards, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:40 | |
this transparent change starts here | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
and spreads along the root of the tooth. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
It produces this glass-like transparent appearance | 0:20:47 | 0:20:52 | |
compared with the living healthy tooth. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:57 | |
We have this scale to actually measure how far that change has gone. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:02 | |
When the cutting was finished, | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
our slice was one tenth of a millimetre thick. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
I'll look under the microscope. It looks pretty good. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
It really is in super condition. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
The enamel over the top of the tooth is beautiful. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
By measuring how far the crystalline area has progressed along the tooth, | 0:21:22 | 0:21:26 | |
David can calculate the age of our Bronze Age ancestor. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
On the bottom, we've got the number of millimetres | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
that this process has progressed up the tooth. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
So we'll just take this across from the regression line to the age line. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:44 | |
There we are. It comes out at...48. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
48! | 0:21:50 | 0:21:52 | |
That's not a bad age for the Bronze Age. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
I'm comfortable with that. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
If that were a forensic tooth, I'd be very happy about that age, | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
give or take six years either way. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:06 | |
Now we know her age, Richard can calculate the correct depths for facial muscles and soft tissue. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:13 | |
Richard's reconstructions are based on a sound understanding of anatomy | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
and the way the human face ages. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
Some people... | 0:22:20 | 0:22:22 | |
..say, "Why bother about the anatomy? | 0:22:24 | 0:22:26 | |
"Why bother about this laborious process of building it up?" | 0:22:26 | 0:22:33 | |
And the answer really to that is that... | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
without it, one can't demonstrate | 0:22:39 | 0:22:44 | |
how you've arrived at what you've arrived at. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
You can't demonstrate that it isn't just imagination. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:54 | |
What we are doing now | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
is, I suppose, a bit like wallpapering or plastering. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:07 | |
We're putting the final coat on | 0:23:07 | 0:23:11 | |
which you see underneath. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
One of the things when you're doing a young person | 0:23:16 | 0:23:21 | |
is to get the surface very smooth. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
Now, on this one, it doesn't matter | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
because the skin surface, the skin texture | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
is less than perfect. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
It's lost that peachy bloom which you associate with young skin. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:38 | |
While Richard continued to work on the woman's head, | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
I went to see Bill in his lab at Edinburgh University | 0:23:44 | 0:23:47 | |
to see what we could learn from the footprints. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
First, he showed me how he can reconstruct the way people walk. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:54 | |
This is a reconstruction of a human walking. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:59 | |
It's a computer generation | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
based on the actual physical properties of the leg bones. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:07 | |
You can make it walk through the footprints you've got. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:12 | |
So, can you do this with the footprints from the cave? | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
-I HOPE to be able to do this with those. -That sounds ominous. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:19 | |
It's not! It's just that the data we got from the cave is different. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
Let me show you. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:24 | |
This is a photograph of the footprints. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:31 | |
I can't see much except one of the cavers' welly boots! | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
The footprints are actually here and here. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
But if I outline, they're clearer. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:39 | |
Oh, yes, I can see the toes there! | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
They're lovely - you can see individual toes | 0:24:46 | 0:24:48 | |
and a an impression of the ball of the foot. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
And you can see a mark from the heel, well-preserved. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:53 | |
-Can you do anything with the gait from these? -I was hoping to. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:57 | |
We initially thought it was a trail of footprints, | 0:24:57 | 0:25:01 | |
but you can see on is pointing this way | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
and the other one's pointing in different directions. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:07 | |
The other thing I did was, if you actually move them around | 0:25:07 | 0:25:10 | |
so that you can measure them... | 0:25:10 | 0:25:12 | |
-Oh, they're different sizes. -Different sizes. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:16 | |
-Is that the real size? -Yes, they're life-sized. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:20 | |
-But they're not adult ones, are they? -No. Not at all. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:23 | |
This one's children's size 11 and this is children's size eight. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
What age does that make them? | 0:25:27 | 0:25:29 | |
Approximately, this is probably an eight-year-old and a five-year-old. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:34 | |
There were two children in the cave. What were they doing? Running? | 0:25:34 | 0:25:38 | |
If you look at this picture again, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
you can see very clear imprints of the heels. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:46 | |
So these are flat footprints. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
You only get them from walking or standing. They were walking slowly. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:54 | |
We think that children this age | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
are likely to have been herding sheep up on the hills. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:02 | |
Maybe they wandered into the cave | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
because it was raining or just wanted to look around. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
It's an incredible thought. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:10 | |
They were probably told not to! | 0:26:10 | 0:26:12 | |
Yes, absolutely! | 0:26:12 | 0:26:13 | |
-So some things don't change. -Nothing changes. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
It's amazing to have a record of what these people were doing. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
It's a direct record of their behaviour, | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
rather than just an artefact. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
In his studio, Richard was putting the final touches | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
to the woman from the Wolf Den. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:41 | |
-Are you going to show me then? -I'm going to show you, yes. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
Here you are. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:48 | |
I think it's fantastic to see this face! | 0:26:53 | 0:26:55 | |
I'm amazed you managed to do so much | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
with those tiny little fragments of bone. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
When I saw them come out the cave, I wondered if we'd see a face. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:05 | |
It's not a face that I could have invented. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:09 | |
It's not one I could have made up out of my head. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
It's one that's grown of its own accord. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
I think those people that knew her could recognise her from this. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:23 | |
So I'm reasonably happy with it, yes. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
We'd finally met our Bronze Age ancestor, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
and this is the landscape she knew as home. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:37 | |
When she died, she was taken on a final journey, | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
from the place where she lived, | 0:27:40 | 0:27:42 | |
across hills and rivers, to a very special place, | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
perhaps one she knew during her life. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
Bearing offerings for the next life, | 0:27:48 | 0:27:50 | |
her grieving relatives laid her to rest deep in the cave. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
Perhaps it wasn't nature that sealed the entrance. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
Maybe their last task was to place the boulders that ensured her rest, | 0:27:58 | 0:28:02 | |
safe from wolves that roamed the hills. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:27 | 0:28:30 |