0:00:03 > 0:00:07Nothing in our landscape is here by accident.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09It's all part of the incredible story
0:00:09 > 0:00:13of how people have shaped our country over thousands of years.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17Every ridge, every bump has a meaning.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21I'm Ben Robinson
0:00:21 > 0:00:22and it's my job as an archaeologist
0:00:22 > 0:00:25to try and unpick this great story.
0:00:25 > 0:00:26And, from my point of view,
0:00:26 > 0:00:29the best place to do that is up here.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Aerial photography is revealing a different view of the past.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42I'm flying along Hadrian's Wall.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46The view from above is blowing apart the idea
0:00:46 > 0:00:49that this was just a barren, military landscape.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51Who really lived here?
0:00:51 > 0:00:54And did the Romans conquer this land earlier than we thought?
0:00:54 > 0:00:56What we'll discover here
0:00:56 > 0:00:59is not just changing our understanding of the Roman frontier,
0:00:59 > 0:01:01but it's rewriting history.
0:01:20 > 0:01:24Roman rule once stretched from Syria to Spain,
0:01:24 > 0:01:26North Africa to Britain.
0:01:27 > 0:01:29THIS was the edge of the Empire.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34The Romans had established a frontier,
0:01:34 > 0:01:36then, they built a wall across Britain
0:01:36 > 0:01:38on the orders of one man.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45In the year 122 AD, the Emperor Hadrian
0:01:45 > 0:01:47ordered the construction of this mighty wall.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51It was intended to mark the end of the Roman world,
0:01:51 > 0:01:54to separate the civilised south from the barbarian north.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00And there it stood,
0:02:00 > 0:02:02an impermeable military barrier,
0:02:02 > 0:02:06jealously guarded by troops until the end of Roman rule.
0:02:06 > 0:02:07End of story?
0:02:07 > 0:02:09Not quite.
0:02:09 > 0:02:10A new picture is emerging
0:02:10 > 0:02:14and it's not about what we can see down here,
0:02:14 > 0:02:16but what we can see from up there.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24'Hadrian's Wall was originally up to 15 feet high.'
0:02:24 > 0:02:28It ran across a narrow part of Britain for more than 70 miles,
0:02:28 > 0:02:32from what's now Tyneside, across Northumberland and into Cumbria.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34Near the Wall was this -
0:02:34 > 0:02:37an extra line of defence we now call the Vallum.
0:02:39 > 0:02:41The Vallum is a big ditch
0:02:41 > 0:02:44with two big banks on either side of it.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46It's like the Roman equivalent of barbed wire.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48You can still see the earthworks,
0:02:48 > 0:02:52the lumps and bumps tearing through the landscape, even today.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57At first glance, this is just a military landscape.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01A mile away from the wall,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03the Romans built a fort for soldiers on the frontier,
0:03:03 > 0:03:05a site called Vindolanda,
0:03:05 > 0:03:09which archaeologists have always thought dates back to around 85 AD.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14But in the 1960s, aerial photography first revealed
0:03:14 > 0:03:17that the site was much more than just a military base.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20As you can clearly see on this photograph,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23the fort itself was very, very prominent,
0:03:23 > 0:03:24BUT thanks to aerial photography,
0:03:24 > 0:03:26we can then see there's a heck of a lot going on
0:03:26 > 0:03:28outside the walls of the fort.
0:03:28 > 0:03:29That's really interesting.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32- Here's the stuff that's readily apparent and that we can see.- Yeah.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35But what about all this slightly more vague material?
0:03:35 > 0:03:37Oh, yeah, I mean, it looks sort of vague on the ground,
0:03:37 > 0:03:39but on the aerial photograph, it looks, "Wow!",
0:03:39 > 0:03:42this is, it's really jumping out of the ground.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45The earthworks actually hinted at a huge vicus,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48a civilian town next to the fort.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51This has since been well excavated.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54But on this photo, there's something else
0:03:54 > 0:03:57which has intrigued archaeologists for all this time.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01You see the corner of something appearing in the field,
0:04:01 > 0:04:03it's a monumental sort of corner
0:04:03 > 0:04:06which couldn't happen in a natural sort of way.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08So you think, "Right, somebody's done that."
0:04:08 > 0:04:11And then, the question is - who and why?
0:04:12 > 0:04:14Andrew Birley believes this is a fort.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17One that will change the history of the Roman frontier as we know it.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20And now, his team is finally digging.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22What have you got there?
0:04:22 > 0:04:24I just got a little piece of copper alloy, that we've found,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27so it's probably a piece of scale mail armour.
0:04:27 > 0:04:28Definitely soldiers, then.
0:04:28 > 0:04:30Yes, absolutely. It would appear so.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33This is like the day it was buried, isn't it? It's incredible.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36I think it's safe to say that they were repairing their armour.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38You can imagine hundreds of these little scales,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40they must have broken off occasionally
0:04:40 > 0:04:42and they'd take one and just get rid of it.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45- Fix your armour.- Yeah, make it look nice, cos there's nothing else to do.
0:04:45 > 0:04:46Right, there's no TV to watch.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49'Emphatic evidence that this is indeed a fort,
0:04:49 > 0:04:51'but why is this one special?'
0:04:51 > 0:04:53We think that it's very likely
0:04:53 > 0:04:55there was actually an earlier Roman fort on this site.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58So that's what we're looking for here.
0:04:58 > 0:04:59As we started excavating the ditches,
0:04:59 > 0:05:01we were getting more and more evidence to suggest
0:05:01 > 0:05:04that this actually could predate anything on this part of the site
0:05:04 > 0:05:06that we've previously known about.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Pottery they've found suggests the fort was built in the '70s AD,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13ten years before anything else around here.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16If so, it suggests the Roman army
0:05:16 > 0:05:18set up their military frontier across Britain
0:05:18 > 0:05:21much earlier than the history books tell us.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24This stuff just doesn't survive
0:05:24 > 0:05:27- on 99% of archaeological sites, does it?- Absolutely.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30It's very rare that we get this. You can actually still smell the leather.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32It's very thin, it's probably goatskin,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35- so we imagine that this was a bit of a tent.- Goatskin, tents, good grief!
0:05:35 > 0:05:38And they had to patch them every once in a while cos, of course,
0:05:38 > 0:05:40- up here, it's important that your tent is waterproof.- Yes!
0:05:40 > 0:05:42So they were repairing them constantly
0:05:42 > 0:05:45and you can see the actual points where they've stitched through it.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47It has a meaning. It's about someone's life in the past.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50Absolutely. Every little artefact that we find, it does,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54it links right to a person, at least one who actually handled it and did things with it.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58But it may take years for the team to find that smoking gun,
0:05:58 > 0:06:01the crucial evidence of the timber fort gates.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05The tree rings on the wood would pin down the construction date.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08It could prove that the Romans established their frontier
0:06:08 > 0:06:12before we realised and 50 years before Hadrian built his wall.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16This excavation is just one small part of a much bigger investigation
0:06:16 > 0:06:19'of the whole area around Hadrian's Wall.'
0:06:22 > 0:06:24Crucially, our view from the air
0:06:24 > 0:06:26is putting individual sites in their context.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30'Although archaeologists have been taking aerial photographs
0:06:30 > 0:06:33'of Hadrian's Wall for 70 years or more,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36'it's only now that Dave MacLeod and his team at English Heritage
0:06:36 > 0:06:38'have finally pieced all that evidence together.'
0:06:38 > 0:06:41Obviously, the focus tends to be, you know, this -
0:06:41 > 0:06:42the Wall and the forts,
0:06:42 > 0:06:44that's what people come to see.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48But we know this landscape has monuments in it
0:06:48 > 0:06:49of all types and all periods.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53Here's Hadrian's Wall.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56English Heritage has painstakingly plotted every archaeological feature
0:06:56 > 0:06:58on an ordnance survey map.
0:06:58 > 0:06:59Bit by bit,
0:06:59 > 0:07:00from one side of the country
0:07:00 > 0:07:02to the other.
0:07:04 > 0:07:05By seeing how everything fits together,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08for the first time, we're getting the full historical picture
0:07:08 > 0:07:10of this whole area.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14It's very much a broad-brush approach, obviously,
0:07:14 > 0:07:19because what we can't do is go into great depth on any particular site.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24'Some of the sites have been more closely studied
0:07:24 > 0:07:26'and these are revealing the story of people
0:07:26 > 0:07:28'who lived and worked around the wall.'
0:07:28 > 0:07:31Oh, that's wonderful. Oh, look at the light!
0:07:31 > 0:07:32The light is just perfect now.
0:07:32 > 0:07:34It's fantastic!
0:07:34 > 0:07:36'Roman camps are really prominent.
0:07:36 > 0:07:37'They're a very distinctive shape -
0:07:37 > 0:07:41'rectangles with rounded corners, like playing cards.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43'These were inhabited by Roman soldiers
0:07:43 > 0:07:45'for just a few days or weeks.
0:07:45 > 0:07:47'Yet, you can still see them from the air.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49'There's even the corner of one
0:07:49 > 0:07:52'under the runway at Carlisle airport.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55'I love these camps, because they really add to the human story here.
0:07:55 > 0:07:57'These aren't about the commanders
0:07:57 > 0:07:59'who lived in the comfort of the permanent fort,
0:07:59 > 0:08:02'they're more about the lowly soldiers in tents
0:08:02 > 0:08:05'being battered by the harsh weather.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08'Whitemoss Farm, at the west end of the wall,
0:08:08 > 0:08:09'is particularly interesting.'
0:08:09 > 0:08:13If you think about something like Glastonbury or T In The Park,
0:08:13 > 0:08:14one of the music festivals,
0:08:14 > 0:08:16muddy fields full of tents.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19Well, that's essentially what you've got with these camps.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22The camps show up as crop marks.
0:08:22 > 0:08:24Wherever Roman soldiers had dug ditches,
0:08:24 > 0:08:26the crops grow differently now.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28And even today, in very dry summers,
0:08:28 > 0:08:30you can still see the imprints
0:08:30 > 0:08:32of these ditches.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35This was a site that the soldiers returned to again and again.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39There's three, four, potentially as many as five camps here
0:08:39 > 0:08:42that would have been occupied at different times.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45But the one that we're potentially looking at in this field here
0:08:45 > 0:08:47has got a whole succession of pits inside it.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50They just look like blobs on the air photographs,
0:08:50 > 0:08:53but what they would have been is probably the rubbish pits.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56'Rebecca has analysed the number and size of the rubbish pits
0:08:56 > 0:08:58'from the crop marks.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00'By doing that, this field really comes to life.'
0:09:04 > 0:09:07Because we can see this level of detail on this camp here,
0:09:07 > 0:09:11I think that we're potentially looking at up to 1,500 men.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16And there are clues that there could have been ovens here.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19Below the round ovens, where the soldiers cooked and baked bread,
0:09:19 > 0:09:21fire pits would have been dug,
0:09:21 > 0:09:24and these can show as crop marks too.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27When ovens on similar sites have been excavated,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30they give us a fascinating insight into life in the camp.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33You've got massively different styles in the ovens
0:09:33 > 0:09:37and that may well suggest different cooking styles.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39Potentially, different ethnic identities,
0:09:39 > 0:09:41because the Roman army was made up of soldiers
0:09:41 > 0:09:43from right across the Empire,
0:09:43 > 0:09:47from North Africa to Syria, to Romania, to Spain.
0:09:50 > 0:09:52A few marks in a farmer's field
0:09:52 > 0:09:56provide a window into a truly multicultural community
0:09:56 > 0:09:59and it's here, at the very edge of Roman civilisation.
0:10:01 > 0:10:03Think about the sights, the smells,
0:10:03 > 0:10:05the food that you could get along Hadrian's Wall.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07You've got Syrian archers, Spanish cavalry.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09If you went out for a night on Hadrian's Wall,
0:10:09 > 0:10:11you could have one heck of a good time.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14And some pretty exotic stuff to eat on your way as well.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20Isn't it amazing that something as fragile as a rubbish pit
0:10:20 > 0:10:24or an oven just used temporarily can survive all this time
0:10:24 > 0:10:27and come beaming out at us from the air?
0:10:27 > 0:10:31It'd show that that level of evidence still surviving is exceptionally rare
0:10:31 > 0:10:34and what makes this site so fascinating.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39But we can't be exactly sure what the soldiers were doing here.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42Were they on manoeuvres? Was it a training camp?
0:10:44 > 0:10:46There's another camp where we've now got proof
0:10:46 > 0:10:48of what the soldiers were doing.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52And it's been found using an aerial tool called LIDAR -
0:10:52 > 0:10:54Light Detection And Ranging.
0:10:54 > 0:10:56Millions of light beams are shot from the air
0:10:56 > 0:10:58onto the ground and bounced back.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02We can then build a very accurate digital model of the landscape,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06which can even reveal what lies under trees and woods.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09The computer allows us to change the angle of light
0:11:09 > 0:11:13and this makes features that were invisible stand out.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15Look at this section of Hadrian's Wall,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17right at the bottom.
0:11:17 > 0:11:19There's just the hint of a Roman camp.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22This lay undiscovered until 2010,
0:11:22 > 0:11:24when, from hundreds of miles away,
0:11:24 > 0:11:26archaeologist Bryn Gethin had a speculative look
0:11:26 > 0:11:29at some of the LIDAR images on the internet.
0:11:29 > 0:11:31The first bits I looked at
0:11:31 > 0:11:34just happen to be here, where we're walking up to now
0:11:34 > 0:11:37and I was very sure I could see a Roman camp on it.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40We're right by Hadrian's Wall, right on the Vallum, yet no-one has seen this site before.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43- That's right.- And you've never been here before?
0:11:43 > 0:11:45No, I've never been to this particular spot before,
0:11:45 > 0:11:48cos it's, although the Vallum is very impressive,
0:11:48 > 0:11:49it's a rough, tusky old field.
0:11:49 > 0:11:51If I was walking on the Hadrian's Wall path,
0:11:51 > 0:11:53I'd have walked right past it and never seen it.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55It's 56.8...
0:11:55 > 0:11:58'This site seems unremarkable at ground level.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00'But, actually, further investigation has revealed
0:12:00 > 0:12:03'that the camp was next to a Roman quarry.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07'Humphrey Welfare and his brother Adam have measured the site
0:12:07 > 0:12:10'and they're just finishing off a detailed archaeological survey.'
0:12:10 > 0:12:15We can begin to tell the story without having to excavate anything.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17This camp, without the LIDAR and air photograph,
0:12:17 > 0:12:19we simply would not have seen.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21It's quite a reasonable size,
0:12:21 > 0:12:26it's enough for a cohort of Roman soldiers, about 500 to 600 men.
0:12:26 > 0:12:28So what were the soldiers in this camp here to do?
0:12:28 > 0:12:34First of all, to quarry and select the stone to build the wall.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36You found the place where the wall builders actually lived.
0:12:36 > 0:12:38How do you feel about that?
0:12:38 > 0:12:39Oh, I'm really pleased.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43I'm very pleased that Humphrey and Adam have managed to interpret
0:12:43 > 0:12:44what, in many ways,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47seems like another Roman camp on Hadrian's Wall.
0:12:48 > 0:12:50It makes sense.
0:12:50 > 0:12:52It's right next to the wall,
0:12:52 > 0:12:55and once the soldiers had dug a big hole to get the stone,
0:12:55 > 0:12:58the quarry became part of the defensive ditch known as the Vallum.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02How important is this camp to our understanding
0:13:02 > 0:13:05of how this frontier was built?
0:13:05 > 0:13:07It gives us another little insight,
0:13:07 > 0:13:13a little window into what happened during the construction of the wall.
0:13:13 > 0:13:15And that's how archaeology builds up,
0:13:15 > 0:13:18piece by piece, building confidence
0:13:18 > 0:13:21that we can reconstruct the past,
0:13:21 > 0:13:22despite the passage of time.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28People tend to think that the wall was this big grand design,
0:13:28 > 0:13:32this masterpiece that was executed all in one go.
0:13:32 > 0:13:33And sites like this show us
0:13:33 > 0:13:36that, actually, the engineers, the troops,
0:13:36 > 0:13:39had to adapt to local circumstances
0:13:39 > 0:13:41and they didn't always get it right.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43Just occasionally, you can see evidence
0:13:43 > 0:13:46that the quarrymen seem to have got it wrong.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49Here we are in one of the Roman quarries
0:13:49 > 0:13:52and a huge boulder which has been left.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54All around here,
0:13:54 > 0:13:58there are hundreds of impact marks from chisels.
0:13:58 > 0:14:00They've been trying to split this rock
0:14:00 > 0:14:02and clearly, someone's come along and said,
0:14:02 > 0:14:04"Oh, for goodness' sake, forget it!
0:14:04 > 0:14:07"That's not sandstone, that's a much harder rock."
0:14:07 > 0:14:09And so, they've given up.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13So this is a little monument to human failure
0:14:13 > 0:14:16and a lot of bad language, I'm sure.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28Lots of people visit this area
0:14:28 > 0:14:30and they look at the spectacular archaeology.
0:14:30 > 0:14:32But as they're walking along,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35they're missing all these other parts of the landscape,
0:14:35 > 0:14:37this fuller story.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44All these fragments of crop marks,
0:14:44 > 0:14:48all these sites, actually add up to people and their endeavours
0:14:48 > 0:14:50and the way that they worked the land.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54It wasn't just soldiers,
0:14:54 > 0:14:57the view from above is shining new light
0:14:57 > 0:15:00on just how many people lived on this frontier.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02Early aerial photos started to change our ideas
0:15:02 > 0:15:05about Roman forts like Vindolanda.
0:15:07 > 0:15:08Aerial photography will tell us,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11"You know what? I think you've got something out there."
0:15:11 > 0:15:12And really, it's aerial photography
0:15:12 > 0:15:15that first told us that, you know,
0:15:15 > 0:15:20we need to really broaden our view of the site, of the fort,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22we need to move outside of the fort itself.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28And outside, excavation of the vicus, the civilian town,
0:15:28 > 0:15:31is revealing ever more about the communities
0:15:31 > 0:15:33and families who lived here.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36There are families of soldiers here and we see them in the documents.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38They're commemorated in burials,
0:15:38 > 0:15:40we find them on the discharge documents from the soldiers.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43These families were a part of the community.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45Excavations at Vindolanda
0:15:45 > 0:15:47have produced hundreds of writing tablets,
0:15:47 > 0:15:49many of them are letters
0:15:49 > 0:15:52with fascinating details about everyday life.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55"If you love me, Brother, I ask that you send me some hunting nests..."
0:15:55 > 0:15:58"For the day of the celebration of my birthday,
0:15:58 > 0:16:00"I give you a warm invitation..."
0:16:00 > 0:16:02"..of socks from Sattua, two pairs of sandals
0:16:02 > 0:16:04"and two pairs of underpants."
0:16:05 > 0:16:10The most famous tablet is a friendly memo between two soldiers' wives.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12One invited the other to a birthday party
0:16:12 > 0:16:15and then, puts her own little scroll at the bottom that says, you know,
0:16:15 > 0:16:17"Sister, dearest, I'd love you to be there.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19"The day wouldn't be the same without you." And all this.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22What it's really suggesting to me, together with a few other ones,
0:16:22 > 0:16:25is that people were living a normal life up here.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34It paints a picture of a secure landscape,
0:16:34 > 0:16:36a frontier buzzing with life.
0:16:40 > 0:16:42Aerial photography in recent years has shown
0:16:42 > 0:16:44that the civil settlements outside the fort
0:16:44 > 0:16:46are much bigger than we thought they were.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49If you think about each fort along Hadrian's Wall
0:16:49 > 0:16:51holding about 500 people and then, having a vicus outside
0:16:51 > 0:16:53where you've got
0:16:53 > 0:16:54up to 2,000 people probably,
0:16:54 > 0:16:56strung right away along the country,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58you've suddenly got a lot of people.
0:17:05 > 0:17:10'The civilian towns were also places of great economic potential.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12'Roman soldiers had money to burn.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15'They needed services, shops, taverns.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18'It reminds me of the way a modern army town,
0:17:18 > 0:17:21'like Catterick Garrison, in North Yorkshire, works today.'
0:17:23 > 0:17:25Just like at Vindolanda,
0:17:25 > 0:17:29there's a civilian community here outside the military base.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33Here, there's places to gamble, places to drink,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36there's places where you can buy food that isn't army food,
0:17:36 > 0:17:38where you can buy clothes that aren't army clothes.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41Economically, the presence of the army here
0:17:41 > 0:17:44is very, very important to this place.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48And, equally, the army appreciates having somewhere like this close by.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54So the presence of the Roman soldiers created a market economy,
0:17:54 > 0:17:58though the army still had control over the civilian towns.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02But what was beyond that military zone around Hadrian's Wall?
0:18:02 > 0:18:04There's an idea that it was a wilderness,
0:18:04 > 0:18:07populated by just a few scattered native tribes.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11'This is where the aerial mapping programme is changing our thinking.'
0:18:11 > 0:18:13Beautiful! Look at that!
0:18:13 > 0:18:14HE CHUCKLES
0:18:14 > 0:18:16Isn't that wonderful?
0:18:16 > 0:18:19'For many years, the only remains of native sites
0:18:19 > 0:18:21'that the archaeologists could really see
0:18:21 > 0:18:23'were hillforts like this.'
0:18:24 > 0:18:28What they suggest is insecurity, warfare.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32What we thought we saw was a very militaristic landscape,
0:18:32 > 0:18:34very sparsely populated
0:18:34 > 0:18:37and all we saw was what survived at the surface.
0:18:37 > 0:18:42Then, suddenly, when we started to fly, a whole new world emerged.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45We started to see, instead of these very few hillforts,
0:18:45 > 0:18:49huge numbers, tens of thousands of isolated farms,
0:18:49 > 0:18:50completely undefended.
0:18:50 > 0:18:55You cannot have a landscape like that in an insecure world,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58because your family's on the line, lives are at stake.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00You can only have a landscape like that
0:19:00 > 0:19:04when people are so used to peace that they take it for granted.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08And that utterly changes the story of how we see the Romans.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10It suggests that the Romans
0:19:10 > 0:19:14weren't just an aggressive occupying military force.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17Over time, they had to forge working relationships
0:19:17 > 0:19:18with the native population.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21A wonderful sight, brilliant!
0:19:21 > 0:19:22This native settlement,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25at a place called Milking Gap, in Northumberland,
0:19:25 > 0:19:27is an intriguing example.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30It's a little Iron Age farmstead.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33And pretty much in the middle, we've got the house,
0:19:33 > 0:19:35which is a straightforward roundhouse.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38It's thrilling to be in a prehistoric house, isn't it?
0:19:38 > 0:19:40I wish we still had the roof.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42You can just sort of imagine it,
0:19:42 > 0:19:44you can picture it all coming together.
0:19:46 > 0:19:48This is not a Roman structure
0:19:48 > 0:19:49and they're doing things
0:19:49 > 0:19:53that you'd expect a prehistoric population to be doing in this area.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55They're farming, they have a house.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57This probably typifies
0:19:57 > 0:20:00how people lived in this landscape.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03To the west, on the Solway Plain,
0:20:03 > 0:20:06crop marks show Iron Age farms everywhere.
0:20:07 > 0:20:08In other areas,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11earthworks of larger settlements are still visible.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14Putting all the aerial photo evidence on the same map,
0:20:14 > 0:20:16is now showing that, in many areas,
0:20:16 > 0:20:18there were farms and settlements
0:20:18 > 0:20:19every few hundred metres.
0:20:21 > 0:20:23The aerial photography is showing us
0:20:23 > 0:20:26that this landscape was settled and farmed
0:20:26 > 0:20:29hundreds of years before the Romans got here,
0:20:29 > 0:20:31it was already a managed landscape.
0:20:32 > 0:20:36And contrary to what you might imagine, when the Romans came,
0:20:36 > 0:20:40they didn't destroy everything in their path to build the wall.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45I think there's a danger of thinking of a frontier or a military zone
0:20:45 > 0:20:47as a sort of sterilised zone,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50scorched earth, if you like, around it.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53But, actually, it's probably not possible to sustain life
0:20:53 > 0:20:56in that kind of area.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59Is it possible that Rome actually encouraged people to live here?
0:21:00 > 0:21:04That's the really interesting part about this site.
0:21:04 > 0:21:10We are slap bang in the middle of that militarised zone
0:21:10 > 0:21:13of the frontier, between wall and vallum.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17So the Roman army seemed to have allowed this farm at Milking Gap
0:21:17 > 0:21:20to stay in the military no-man's-land at least for a time.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22Why?
0:21:22 > 0:21:24Some local farmers no doubt provided food to the soldiers,
0:21:24 > 0:21:28but the natives didn't just help with the necessities of life,
0:21:28 > 0:21:31they also provided some luxuries too.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34When sites, including Milking Gap, have been excavated,
0:21:34 > 0:21:38surprisingly, we've found jewellery made by natives
0:21:38 > 0:21:40but using Roman glass.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43Similar bracelets to this have been found at Milking Gap.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46This cobalt blue is particularly popular.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50The local population are using Roman material
0:21:50 > 0:21:52to make something which is purely their own
0:21:52 > 0:21:55and they see glass bottles not as something useful as containers,
0:21:55 > 0:21:59but as a useful recycling material for making a glass bracelet.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02Certainly, several of these have been found in Roman forts,
0:22:02 > 0:22:05where they look as if they have been sold to the Roman soldiers
0:22:05 > 0:22:08as probably gifts to give to their friends.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12Their economic thinking must have altered over a few generations
0:22:12 > 0:22:16to the point where they see the real possibilities
0:22:16 > 0:22:20of producing things to sell to the Roman garrisons,
0:22:20 > 0:22:24because the guys in these forts, they need their comforts.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27It's perhaps the greatest recent discovery from the air.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30All these native settlements south of the wall
0:22:30 > 0:22:33show just how well populated the military frontier was
0:22:33 > 0:22:37before, during and after the Romans arrived.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41Many natives would have had to learn to live with their conquerors.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44But what about life just outside the Empire,
0:22:44 > 0:22:45on the other side of the wall?
0:22:45 > 0:22:50There's a perception that what was going on north of the wall
0:22:50 > 0:22:53was the edge of the known world,
0:22:53 > 0:22:56barbarian territory, barren, of no interest to Rome.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01'Our view from the air is revealing something quite astonishing
0:23:01 > 0:23:02'about this theory as well.'
0:23:02 > 0:23:06Yeah, if you could whip it round in a turn now.
0:23:06 > 0:23:08Let's have a look.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10There's definitely a little enclosure there.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13'I'm flying just north of the wall,
0:23:13 > 0:23:16'and I can see native settlements and Roman camps,
0:23:16 > 0:23:17'all sorts going on.'
0:23:19 > 0:23:22Living to the north of the wall - no different from the south,
0:23:22 > 0:23:25as far as we can tell. The same sorts of sites occur in that landscape
0:23:25 > 0:23:26as they do down there.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29You just have to mentally remove this.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33Take this all away and you have a continuity of landscape,
0:23:33 > 0:23:37a continuity of settlement and tradition. Life goes on.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43This photo shows a key Roman installation north of the wall.
0:23:43 > 0:23:45It's the site of an aqueduct,
0:23:45 > 0:23:49built to provide a water supply to one of the forts to the south.
0:23:49 > 0:23:50But, at this point,
0:23:50 > 0:23:53the photograph shows us that it meets a native settlement.
0:23:53 > 0:23:55Instead of avoiding it,
0:23:55 > 0:23:57it runs into the ditch,
0:23:57 > 0:23:59around the circuit of the ditch
0:23:59 > 0:24:00and out the other side.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04That's really interesting, what was going on here?
0:24:04 > 0:24:09It shows a comfort in their own security and power, in a sense,
0:24:09 > 0:24:13and that they're happy for something as important as a water resource
0:24:13 > 0:24:16to be placed north of the frontier.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20Now, you don't put your water supply into enemy hands.
0:24:20 > 0:24:22Clearly, they were very confident
0:24:22 > 0:24:25that this was an area that was theirs,
0:24:25 > 0:24:27even though it was beyond the wall.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30Small clues like this question a preconception
0:24:30 > 0:24:33that Hadrian's Wall was this impenetrable divide
0:24:33 > 0:24:36between the Roman Empire and Caledonia,
0:24:36 > 0:24:38the barbarian land beyond.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48Aerial archaeology is showing
0:24:48 > 0:24:50that there was not just Roman military activity
0:24:50 > 0:24:53on the north side of the wall, as well as on the south,
0:24:53 > 0:24:55but there was movement.
0:24:55 > 0:24:57I'm at Port of Tyne,
0:24:57 > 0:25:01which is right on the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04And just like this border, Hadrian's Wall was not there
0:25:04 > 0:25:07to totally stop access and to stop movement,
0:25:07 > 0:25:10but to control people and trade.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14Hadrian's Wall was not a solid barrier.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16Every Roman mile there was a fortified gateway,
0:25:16 > 0:25:19which today we call a mile castle.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22The mile castles were the main crossing routes.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25There's a black shale which comes from Midlothian,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28which is being found in carved jewellery
0:25:28 > 0:25:30in South Shields, York and further south.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33Now, Midlothian at the time is way beyond the frontier,
0:25:33 > 0:25:35this is very much in barbarian territory,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38but luxury material was being transferred through,
0:25:38 > 0:25:40so it's obviously coming through the wall.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49If the frontier didn't change life immediately
0:25:49 > 0:25:53for those north of the wall, it certainly did over time.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56After all, the Romans ruled for nearly 400 years.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01Hadrian's Wall came to effect social change
0:26:01 > 0:26:05between those inside the Roman Empire and those outside.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09North of the wall, they are abandoning the native settlements
0:26:09 > 0:26:11in the mid to late second century.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13We don't know where they're going.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16South of the wall, they go on occupying the native settlements
0:26:16 > 0:26:19and they start to build little bathhouses and rectangular buildings
0:26:19 > 0:26:22and they start to have a completely different lifestyle.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25So the wall is forming some sort of barrier,
0:26:25 > 0:26:28but it's a cultural barrier rather than a defensive barrier.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40We are seeing the frontier through new eyes.
0:26:40 > 0:26:42It wasn't just a wilderness outpost
0:26:42 > 0:26:46populated only by patrolling Roman soldiers.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49It was a multicultural place with diverse communities,
0:26:49 > 0:26:51south and north of the wall.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56We've found where the soldiers who built the wall camped.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01And aerial photography is even leading to discoveries
0:27:01 > 0:27:04that suggest the Romans could have established the frontier
0:27:04 > 0:27:06earlier than we thought,
0:27:06 > 0:27:09up to 50 years before the wall finally went up.
0:27:12 > 0:27:17We are on the cusp of answering some more big questions.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21When was this part of Britain pacified? When was it conquered?
0:27:21 > 0:27:24When was it taken into the fold of the Roman Empire?
0:27:25 > 0:27:28From huge numbers of native farms
0:27:28 > 0:27:31to Roman camps and then large towns,
0:27:31 > 0:27:33there's a fuller story here
0:27:33 > 0:27:35and it's about so much more
0:27:35 > 0:27:38than a military barrier on the edge of Empire.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44'Unless you're half a mile up in the sky looking down,
0:27:44 > 0:27:48'very often you don't really see how all these things connect together.'
0:27:48 > 0:27:52Hadrian's Wall isn't just this thin line, it is a whole landscape
0:27:52 > 0:27:56that facilitated the Roman rule in this area for almost 400 years
0:27:56 > 0:27:58and that's an incredibly impressive achievement.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05What the aerial photography is showing us
0:28:05 > 0:28:08is that this is a landscape that's about far more
0:28:08 > 0:28:10than just Hadrian's grand design.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14It's about the efforts of ordinary people, ordinary soldiers,
0:28:14 > 0:28:16the native population.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20The traces of what they did are visible to us today
0:28:20 > 0:28:21after all this time,
0:28:21 > 0:28:24and their efforts are written in the landscape.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27To me, that makes this place even more special.
0:28:53 > 0:28:57Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd