Stonehenge: The Missing Link The Flying Archaeologist


Stonehenge: The Missing Link

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Nothing in our landscape is here by accident.

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It's all part of the incredible story of how people have

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shaped our country over thousands of years.

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Every ridge, every bump, has a meaning.

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I'm Ben Robinson, and as an archaeologist it's my job to

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unpick the great story we've inherited.

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From my perspective, the best way to do that is up here in the air.

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I'm flying around Stonehenge, over one of the most intensively

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researched landscapes in the UK.

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Aerial archaeology is transforming our thinking about these iconic monuments.

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We're looking beyond the great hilltop monuments

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to the river below,

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and it is water that's led us to a very exciting prehistoric site.

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Is this proof that people occupied this landscape

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thousands of years before Stonehenge was built?

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We're flying over Stonehenge in Wiltshire. It's an iconic site,

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probably the best-known prehistoric site in Britain,

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probably in the world, actually.

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The aerial perspective is giving us a whole new

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view of the landscape in which it sits.

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It's not an isolated monument, it's not on its own - it's in a great

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prehistoric landscape, and I can see traces of that all around me.

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This is where archaeology from the air really began.

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In 1906, Second Lieutenant Philip Henry Sharpe took

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a photograph from a tethered balloon - this photograph.

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I'm in about the same position that he was in,

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and it's a real privilege to share the same airspace.

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His photographs caused a sensation in the archaeological world.

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People were amazed by what you could see from the air,

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but since those days,

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aerial archaeology has discovered more than

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even he could have dreamt of.

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Those early pictures revealed

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other ancient earthworks, exciting in itself,

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but since then, English Heritage has been building a library

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of photographs that show the landscape in ever-greater detail.

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We can now see how these individual monuments are linked.

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We're realising that there's a difference

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between our ancestors' use of the hilltops and the valleys.

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Many of the sites on the hillsides relate to burial.

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Aerial photography has recently revealed a previously unknown

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long barrow, more than 5,000 years old at Damerham, 20 miles south of Stonehenge.

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Different colours in the crops hinted that one patch of land

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was just a bit drier than the surrounding field.

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This site is an interesting case study in aerial archaeology

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because on one particular occasion there was a vague,

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more enigmatic crop mark.

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It didn't fit the usual pattern, but there was enough there to

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suggest that something interesting was going on in that field.

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You're standing on a massive mound.

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A mound that's 80 metres long over there,

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and it finishes just where the break of slope is down there.

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Helen Wickstead is co-director of the Damerham Archaeological Project,

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which aims to investigate this Neolithic burial mound.

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It was probably built over 5,000 years ago,

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about the time Stonehenge was first created.

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And we're still nowhere near the bottom of it.

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And imagine all the chalk in a huge ditch

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stretching 80 metres over there,

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another huge ditch 80 metres over there,

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piled up by people using antler picks and baskets, most probably.

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Cos we're in the middle of a whole landscape,

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an invisible landscape, a kind of hidden landscape of crop marks,

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only visible from the air now, and most of those are in that state

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because they've been ploughed and they've been flattened by the plough.

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It's very unusual today to be able to excavate a barrow that

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hasn't been plundered by treasure hunters in the past.

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I'm really looking forward to this.

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Neolithic long barrows are really, really rare,

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and it's even rarer to find one that hasn't been dug into by

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antiquarians, or has been totally plough-levelled.

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What we've got here is an opportunity to understand

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one of these monuments in a modern, scientific way.

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It's thrilling.

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The team of amateur

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and professional archaeologists only has funding for a few weeks.

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They hope to excavate this site and find new evidence of ancient lives.

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'The project's other director, Martin Barber,

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'told me how he first recognised this almost invisible monument.'

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So you could easily mistake this as just another little natural undulation in the landscape.

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You could, and obviously the way the mound has eroded over the years has made it

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sort of look more natural than artificial,

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but once you're standing in this sort of position you can get

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a real feel for the size of the mound simply by looking

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at the way the height of the crop changes, you know.

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The mound starts at the end here, and you can just see this rise

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effectively forming a horizon, seeing it particularly

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against the backdrop of the trees and continuing past the trench over to the far side.

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So we've got a mound that's actually 80 metres long,

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two metres high, um, completely artificial,

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built 6,000 years ago, that looks like a perfectly natural piece of hillside.

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The aerial photographs that I first saw didn't give a hint of it being a Neolithic long mound at all.

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There was this sort of almost sort of shapeless splodge which was

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actually caused by the fact that the soil conditions were so dry

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that the crop on top of the mound had died, rather than

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producing the normal colour variation or height variation you would see.

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It wasn't until I actually came here and drove down the track behind us

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and saw the profile for myself that I realised I was actually dealing

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with a very large mound that looked like a Neolithic long barrow,

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but large enough to make me wonder why nobody had spotted it before.

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Because it is very big.

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The enormous size of this mound suggests it must contain

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a burial chamber, constructed to enclose the dead.

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These mounds sometimes have, say, the bones of up to 50 individuals,

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not necessarily in the mound as complete skeletons.

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Sometimes in the mound there's bits of bone that have been kept

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and left there or that have been left out in various ways.

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So in the Neolithic we're talking at that time of very interesting

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location that obviously has the dead as a significant part of it.

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Alongside that, animal bone.

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We have things like head and hooves deposits,

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so probably hides,

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cos those are the bits of cows' skeleton that are left behind.

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We have other deposits of work flint and ceramics as well.

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And then, so that relatively small little area

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is in use for some time, and then this massive mound -

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far, far bigger than is necessary to close that building.

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Now why, why such a huge mound?

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And perhaps one reason why is that the process of building the mound is important.

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With only days left to go, little has been found,

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but then a skeleton appears.

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Unfortunately it's neither Neolithic nor human,

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just a mediaeval last sheep.

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But that's archaeology for you!

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Still, this Neolithic site is another piece of evidence to add

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to our understanding of why early people placed their monuments

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where they did.

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There's a magnificent white horse down there.

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it looks as though it could be prehistoric, but it's not.

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It was built in about 1812,

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and it's really just the whim of a local landowner that put it there.

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But there's some very interesting archaeological sites down there.

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This is an intriguing landscape.

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The horse is perched right on the edge of the downs,

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it's visible for miles around.

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But there are other features - I can see other,

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more subtle, but more interesting, features surrounding it.

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All these prehistoric sites occupy the same ridge-top position.

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When first constructed, the burial mounds, the barrows,

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would have been stark white chalk.

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They would have been highly visible, as visible as the white horse

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to the prehistoric people that lived on the low lands.

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Of course, the view from above is not one the ancients ever saw.

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They got their views from the hilltops.

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And that's the key to why they chose this dry,

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chalky escarpment as the burial crowd for their dead.

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I'm here on the edge of the downs.

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There's Salisbury plain over there. Knap Hill, with its Neolithic enclosure

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is just over there, and right in front of me, Adam's Grave,

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great Neolithic long barrow.

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This is a really dramatic place, a fantastic landscape.

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Very exposed, and that's the idea.

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These monuments were meant to be seen,

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and they offer great surveillance over the surrounding countryside.

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But it's not just up here on the high land where interesting

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things can be found, but also down there in the vale,

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where perhaps things were a little bit more hidden.

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In fact, we're beginning to realise that the valley and especially

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the river is every bit as important as the monuments on the hilltops.

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Down there is a hidden spring,

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and a local man has discovered something very interesting about it.

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-So you've got a map to show me.

-I have, yes. This is a 1900 edition.

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'David Carson's family has farmed the land here for generations.

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'He's found an old map that shows the spring,

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'and David thinks it might have been deliberately dug out

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'into the shape of a curious three-legged animal.'

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So you've already been up in the air, I think,

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and seen... There's Adam's Grave there.

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That's right, yes, saw that from the air, and also Knap Hill as well.

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-So this is on the ridge.

-That's right.

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And we've got over here the spring head which we're going to be

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looking at shortly, which has been cut into quite an interesting shape,

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um, with bits coming off, sticking out,

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another bit sticking out there, and then the tail, if you like,

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it's almost the shape of an animal leading off down to the south,

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which is the source of the River Avon.

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And it's not easily seen now

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because the trees have grown up all around it. Even from the air you wouldn't be able to see that clearly.

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It's a strong indication that the water source was really

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important to our early ancestors.

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This hidden spring is in fact

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the birthplace of the Wiltshire River Avon.

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-You can see the water's bubbling even now.

-Oh, yes!

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-Right in the centre there.

-There it comes.

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So we're just in one corner of the spring complex,

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and to our right and to our left, a lot more, so the whole thing

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-as you saw from the map, builds up into quite an interesting shape.

-Yes.

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-We're just in one arm of it, basically, aren't we?

-That's right, yeah.

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We're just in one arm or one leg, or one part of it - whatever you want to call it.

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But it's...you know, it's difficult to see in its entirety

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from any one spot because of all the trees that are here.

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Let's have a look.

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Ugh! Still going down.

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Still going down...it's stopped.

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I've stopped sinking, mercifully with only a few inches to go

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to the top of the wellies, but I'm actually standing on quite firm chalk.

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And every so often a little bubble comes up...from the ground,

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and it is mystical, it is magical, it's incredible.

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But the water's so pure, it's so clean, it's wonderful.

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And pure, clean water,

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would've been tremendously attractive to prehistoric people.

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You can see, as well as a practical purpose, that there could well

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be symbolism here as well.

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This is the very source of the Avon, and the very start of the river.

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And if I was to turn around, and walk in that direction,

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I'd end up on the south coast.

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I'm not going to do it, because this welly has a leak on it,

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and it's already going cold and wet,

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and it's a very long way in that direction!

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So what part might the river have played for our ancestors 5,000 or more years ago?

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The vale and the downs seem like two different worlds to me.

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And I'm sure that difference would have been even more marked to

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prehistoric people.

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The vale feels like it's a nurturing place, it's about life.

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The downs and plains - well, I think they can be quite unforgiving.

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I think they're more about death and commemoration.

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It's not too fanciful to imagine early man having

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a connection to the river as a mystical force.

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And so many of the new sites we're discovering,

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many of them from the air, are close to the River Avon.

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One of the most exciting is far, far larger than Stonehenge.

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I'm looking for traces of another large prehistoric site,

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a massive henge at Marden.

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It's basically a great, big enclosed area of bank and a ditch.

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It's massive. It's actually quite difficult to spot,

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but I think I've just seen it down there.

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Yes, there it is. There it is.

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I can see a curving line of houses, and there's some interesting

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earthworks in the field next door, that's got to be it.

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The excavation of Marden Henge in 2010 made world news.

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The dig unearthed one of the earliest buildings ever found in Britain.

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It was constructed at least 4,000 years ago.

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The archaeologists speculate that they found a very early

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version of a sauna, complete with a large fire hearth.

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With a big hearth like that, one wonders

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whether it's perhaps a sweat lodge, a purification ceremony,

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before they go into the henge and conduct their ceremonies.

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The concept of a sweat lodge or sauna could explain why

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a relatively small building would contain such a large hearth.

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It's far too big for cooking.

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The theory suggests a low wooden hut would've been covered over

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with animal skins to contain the heat.

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The excavation has ended,

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but Jim Leary is still working on interpreting life

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in the henge 4,000 years ago.

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This is a huge monument. I mean, it's difficult to understand

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-how you'd go about constructing this in the Neolithic.

-That's right.

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It almost beggars belief, doesn't it, the sheer size of this.

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You have to remember that this is 10 times the size of Stonehenge,

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and the ditches, although they appear shallow now, of course,

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that's 4,500 years of erosion into them,

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so you have to imagine them three, perhaps even four metres deep,

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and then that material you need to put on the bank,

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so the banks were much bigger, the ditches were much deeper,

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and that really makes it a very monumental site.

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What we do know is that these are ritual, or if you like,

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religious centres.

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Religious enclosures. Something that was going on here

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involved ritual or religion in some way.

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We then have the magnificent stone settings of Stonehenge,

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but we have something so much more vital.

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We have evidence for feasting, and buildings, and people living.

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Stonehenge is very much a monument where cremation burials were placed.

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It's about the dead. This is about living.

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This is the living, breathing people.

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These our ancestors, and they created this.

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This monument is the archaeologist's, er, dream.

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The investigation continues across Marden Henge.

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This is a geophysical survey which uses a powerful magnetometer to map

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traces of human activity beneath the soil.

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We're looking at relatively small areas,

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compared to the very huge areas that the aerial photography can

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cover, but we are looking at them in great detail, hopefully.

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And over this sort of geology we should be able to find something.

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And we keep our fingers crossed, we'll have some good results.

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Their computer instantly conjures up a ghostly impression

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of what lies underground.

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The most prominent feature of this plot is obviously the large white circle.

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You can see it in the middle here. Now that's a henge monument.

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This is the huge ditch. Circling henge.

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And that was spotted as a crop mark by our aerial photography

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colleagues, but what we think we've got that they hadn't

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spotted from the air

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is a circle of very subtle post pits within the henge.

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And then what was a surprise was,

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I don't know if you can see these white straight lines,

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they're almost certainly much later Roman ditches, perhaps

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enclosures marking out paddocks and that sort of field around a farm.

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We'd need to do more investigation to really confirm that.

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That's just speculation at the moment,

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but it's promising - very promising.

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The incredible array of finds included pig bones,

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very early pottery, flint tools and arrowheads,

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all indicating this site was an important central meeting

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place for Neolithic people, and therefore of huge significance.

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But I'm especially curious about its links to the river.

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What about the connection of this place with water?

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Well, there's an absolutely integral link between the henge monument

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and the River Avon. The monument itself is actually only D-shaped,

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it's not a complete enclosure, and in fact

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the whole of the southern side is formed by the River Avon -

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a great big meander in the River Avon.

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So there's an absolutely integral link with this river, and in

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fact there are a number of springs in the middle of the henge as well,

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so this is all about water.

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This is Hengistbury Head, where the Avon flows into the sea.

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Dave Field is the guru of the archaeology along the river.

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He's developed a theory that it held powerful magical symbolism,

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and that our prehistoric ancestors had a mystical relationship with it.

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Can you imagine people gaping at one of these bubbling springs

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wondering where the source of life comes from,

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and it must be very magical, very magical.

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-Well, it seems to come from the centre of the earth.

-It does, it does indeed.

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So these things must have been revered in some way.

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And I think that's probably why we often find

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accumulations of archaeological material around springs.

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There would have been some sacredness attached to the water,

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perhaps in the same way as we see sacred rivers around the world, the best-known one being the Ganges.

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But there are others, South America, all over the place.

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And it's very probable, I think, that our rivers were sacred in the

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same sort of way, and that people in different parts of the landscape,

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along the route of them, celebrated the river in different ways.

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You can perhaps imagine that the earlier part of the river

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reflects life's journey.

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It's youthful, it's young.

0:19:250:19:26

Then it grows into middle age, in our sense, around Downton and so on.

0:19:260:19:31

And then, down here at Christchurch, it's almost an old person, you know.

0:19:310:19:34

It's slow and sluggish, and as it passes into the sea,

0:19:340:19:38

it's a different world.

0:19:380:19:39

The sea is a different world. And this might be...

0:19:390:19:42

might reflect beliefs in society, your passage through life and so on.

0:19:420:19:47

So it's easy to see how the river will become a symbolic artefact.

0:19:470:19:52

And very, very important for life as well as death.

0:19:520:19:56

So if water is central to prehistoric life,

0:19:570:20:00

there'll be many more undiscovered sites down in the valleys,

0:20:000:20:04

which takes us back to the place where we started - Stonehenge,

0:20:040:20:08

but to a time long before it was built.

0:20:080:20:11

The site of an excavation in the valley, barely a mile away,

0:20:110:20:15

takes us to one of the most important recent discoveries.

0:20:150:20:18

We're over Stonehenge,

0:20:200:20:21

and I'm looking at the town of Amesbury off in the distance.

0:20:210:20:24

There's some parkland on its western fringe and some woodland.

0:20:240:20:28

There's a very interesting archaeological site in there,

0:20:280:20:30

but there's also some very interesting excavations going on,

0:20:300:20:34

and they may be extending the history of this landscape back

0:20:340:20:37

thousands of years before Stonehenge was built.

0:20:370:20:41

Thinking that water was important led archaeologist David Jacques to

0:20:410:20:45

look at an area near a site called Vespasian's Camp.

0:20:450:20:49

In 1999, a group of student friends

0:20:490:20:51

and myself started to survey this area of Amesbury.

0:20:510:20:55

The whole landscape is full of prehistoric monuments,

0:20:550:20:59

and it is sort of extraordinary in a way that this has been such

0:20:590:21:03

a blind spot for so long, archaeologically.

0:21:030:21:06

This is the aerial photographic picture

0:21:060:21:08

of a crop mark which really was the trigger for the whole project.

0:21:080:21:12

We're very close to the River Avon here.

0:21:120:21:15

Vespasian's Camp is just to the other side of it.

0:21:150:21:18

In fact, it actually comes all the way down to the river,

0:21:180:21:20

but if we have a look at this Ordnance Survey picture,

0:21:200:21:23

maybe get a better sense of things.

0:21:230:21:25

And you can see just how close Stonehenge is to it.

0:21:250:21:29

Works out to be about, um, just over a kilometre away.

0:21:290:21:32

In this landscape, you can see why archaeologists and antiquarians,

0:21:350:21:39

over the last 200 years, have basically homed in on the monuments.

0:21:390:21:42

There is so much to look at and explore.

0:21:420:21:44

I suppose, what my team did, which was a slightly sort of fresher

0:21:440:21:47

version of that, was look at natural places.

0:21:470:21:50

So where were there places in the landscape where you would

0:21:500:21:52

imagine animals might have gone to, to have a drink?

0:21:520:21:56

You know, my thinking was where you find wild animals,

0:21:560:21:59

you tend to find people, certainly hunter-gatherer groups,

0:21:590:22:02

coming pretty much afterwards.

0:22:020:22:04

What we found, essentially, is the nearest, secure watering hole

0:22:040:22:10

for animals and people - a type of all-year-round fresh water source.

0:22:100:22:14

It's the nearest one to this place. And I think it's pivotal.

0:22:140:22:18

The dig is hidden in a wood which has been in private hands for 400 years.

0:22:220:22:27

So it's totally protected from treasure hunters.

0:22:270:22:30

Vespasian's Camp was imaginatively named after a Roman emperor.

0:22:300:22:35

There's so much coming out of this strata.

0:22:350:22:37

But the finds are all suggesting there was regular human activity

0:22:380:22:41

here since the Mesolithic period,

0:22:410:22:44

several thousand years before the Roman occupation.

0:22:440:22:48

Open University students and local volunteers have been washing

0:22:480:22:51

and sorting the vast quantity of flint tools and wild

0:22:510:22:54

animal bones being unearthed.

0:22:540:22:57

Being in a spring at the bottom of the valley means that David's trenches soon fill up with water.

0:23:000:23:06

We've got about 12 centimetres packed full of Mesolithic tools,

0:23:060:23:11

work flints, um, over 300 animal bones.

0:23:110:23:15

But certainly, Ben, what is sort of pretty much from the waterline

0:23:150:23:19

down, from my point of view, I think we're all thinking it -

0:23:190:23:22

is sensational archaeology.

0:23:220:23:24

I think I can see just a little flake or something,

0:23:240:23:27

poking out of that section there.

0:23:270:23:29

Well, yes. You've got a little flake and, of course, you've got this nice...

0:23:290:23:32

something that's very typical of Mesolithic flint where they've

0:23:320:23:36

retained the cortex here, so you've actually got a natural grip,

0:23:360:23:40

-you know. You've actually got some real purchase on it.

-Perfect!

0:23:400:23:43

-They really do stand out amongst the natural stones, don't they?

-Yes.

0:23:430:23:47

I mean, people just say, "Oh, look. That's just any other old bit of stone."

0:23:470:23:50

-But once you know what you're looking for, they really stand out.

-No. Well, what a thrill for us!

0:23:500:23:55

You know, this is the first time in, let's say,

0:23:550:23:57

8,000 to 9,000 years that anybody's touched that, you know.

0:23:570:24:01

The last person, bar two, that held that

0:24:010:24:04

and put that in there was a Mesolithic person.

0:24:040:24:08

'Even while we're filming, a huge wild boar tusk is found.'

0:24:080:24:11

That's a really big one.

0:24:120:24:13

You look at the gradient on that, how big that tusk is going to be.

0:24:130:24:17

-Oh, excellent!

-And was that from the same layer?

0:24:170:24:20

71.

0:24:200:24:22

-It's the important 71 there.

-Right, right, right.

0:24:220:24:24

It's just what we've been talking about. It's basically just below this flint horizon,

0:24:240:24:29

where you've got this 12-14 centimetres' worth.

0:24:290:24:32

I mean, that is an incredible find!

0:24:320:24:34

I mean, doesn't it just underline, Ben,

0:24:340:24:37

the sensational quality of the archaeology here?

0:24:370:24:39

Yeah.

0:24:390:24:40

Wild boars were once common in Britain

0:24:410:24:44

and always a delicious source of food.

0:24:440:24:46

But Mesolithic hunters also regularly hunted and butchered the aurochs,

0:24:460:24:51

the original, gigantic wild cattle, almost twice the size of modern cows.

0:24:510:24:57

Alas, the poor aurochs were later driven to extinction.

0:24:570:25:01

-Are you visualising the beast that this belonged to?

-I am.

0:25:040:25:08

And since we knew that some of them were being cooked, you're then

0:25:080:25:11

thinking about how people would have cooked it,

0:25:110:25:13

what techniques they used, you know.

0:25:130:25:15

They didn't have pots at that time, so presumably, roasting, and...

0:25:150:25:19

-It does set your imagination going.

-These are huge animals, aren't they?

0:25:190:25:23

Massive and quite ferocious. How do you think they brought something like that down?

0:25:230:25:27

There must have been an awful lot of teamwork involved.

0:25:270:25:30

But it's hard for us to imagine, isn't it?

0:25:300:25:32

David is very excited because all the evidence

0:25:320:25:35

so far points to this place having been occupied by our ancestors

0:25:350:25:39

at least 3,000 years before Stonehenge was built.

0:25:390:25:44

Samples of the animal bones have been sent to the laboratory to be carbon dated.

0:25:440:25:48

If David is right, it will prove his theory of continuous

0:25:480:25:51

occupation at this site, long before Stonehenge was even thought of.

0:25:510:25:56

-I mean, this must have been a special place.

-That's right.

0:25:560:25:59

2,000 years of activity are coming back again and again and again.

0:25:590:26:03

Right. I mean, you know, it blows your brain.

0:26:030:26:05

You just think, well, that's sort of how long London's been settled for.

0:26:050:26:09

It's just on that scale, you know.

0:26:090:26:11

Most of the oldest cities in Great Britain, you know,

0:26:110:26:15

can't go back that far, and yet, here we are, in this little nook

0:26:150:26:18

at the bottom of a hill with a river running round it, and it probably had more people

0:26:180:26:22

coming to it in the Mesolithic than it's had people coming ever since.

0:26:220:26:26

This type of thing throws up far more questions than it answers,

0:26:260:26:30

but the very few answers that we've got are incredibly significant.

0:26:300:26:33

Some sort of seed or plant of some sort.

0:26:330:26:36

Then David gets the latest results from the carbon-dating laboratory.

0:26:360:26:40

Well, we all know that we've been really struggling to be able to fund...

0:26:400:26:45

to get the funds for carbon dates.

0:26:450:26:47

So we've had two so far that are Mesolithic,

0:26:470:26:49

so they're between 6,250 BC and 4,700 BC.

0:26:490:26:54

Um, I mean, those dates are brilliant,

0:26:540:26:57

but definitely it's a case of three being a lot more than two.

0:26:570:27:00

So I can now give you the results.

0:27:000:27:01

I've just come off the phone from the Glasgow lab.

0:27:010:27:04

And the date is 5,400 BC,

0:27:040:27:09

which is a fantastic date!

0:27:090:27:11

It's a fantastic date. It means that we've got...

0:27:110:27:14

You know, that we've got people here 6,250 BC, 8,000-plus years ago,

0:27:140:27:20

we've got people now living here 5,400 BC, so that's 7,500 years ago.

0:27:200:27:27

And we've still got people living here 4,700 BC,

0:27:270:27:32

so 6,000, nearly 7,000 years ago.

0:27:320:27:35

So people have been settling,

0:27:350:27:37

residing around that spring area for nearly 2,000 years.

0:27:370:27:41

It's just absolutely superb!

0:27:410:27:43

So thank you, everybody, so much. Thank you!

0:27:430:27:45

-Thank you! Thank you!

-Well done!

-Oh, thanks a lot, Richard. Thank you.

0:27:450:27:49

David has now proved what archaeologists have long suspected,

0:27:490:27:53

that people knew this place is special 8,000 years ago.

0:27:530:27:57

Today, the great prehistoric monuments still hold

0:28:050:28:08

their mysterious attraction,

0:28:080:28:10

and I think that to recognise the significance

0:28:100:28:13

of our ancient surroundings needs imagination as well as science.

0:28:130:28:17

We're getting a deeper understanding

0:28:190:28:20

of how our earliest ancestors lived

0:28:200:28:23

and of what they might have believed.

0:28:230:28:25

The history of human progress is written in our landscape.

0:28:250:28:30

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0:28:510:28:54

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