Of how our land and its people

00:00:06,760 --> 00:00:10,560

This is the story of how

Britain came to be.

00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:16,480

Of how our land and its people

were forged over thousands

of years of ancient history.

00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:27,240

This Britain is a strange

and alien world.

00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:32,960

A world that contains

the hidden story of our

distant prehistoric past.

00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:40,760

'From the enigmatic secrets

of our greatest monuments...'

00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:47,280

It's fantastic after 14,000 years

to get a glimpse of the way at least

one individual was thinking.

00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:52,720

'..to the magical worlds

inhabited by the first people

to make this land their home.

00:00:55,280 --> 00:01:01,800

'Today, modern science

and new archaeology

are solving ancient mysteries,

00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:07,400

'and revealing the seismic shifts

that created whole new ages.'

00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:09,920

That is magic.

00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:15,440

The first chapter

in our epic story -

00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:20,960

a battle for survival

in a hostile and icy world.

00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:25,920

This is the oldest complete human

skeleton ever found in Britain.

00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:31,840

A world in which our land

was being shaped by nature's

most powerful forces

00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:34,480

into the Britain we know today.

00:01:42,320 --> 00:01:44,120

WIND HOWLS

00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:56,160

In every corner of Britain there

are relics of a long-lost past.

00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:02,000

The rich heritage of a remote

and distant history.

00:02:03,440 --> 00:02:06,160

It's a history that goes

right back to the Romans...

00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:11,280

..the very first people who

wrote down the names and places,

00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:16,520

the dates and events

of life in Britain 2,000 years ago.

00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:25,840

But the world I'm about to enter

will take us back even further back,

into a far more distant past.

00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:28,640

ENGINE STARTS

00:02:31,880 --> 00:02:34,680

In south Wales, a team

of archaeologists is searching

00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:38,080

for traces of ancient people

who once lived here.

00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:47,840

What they're looking for

are footprints,

00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:51,200

from 8,000 years ago.

00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:56,640

This is a world that only survives

in the remains of people

and objects...

00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:02,360

..fragments preserved by chance

for thousands of years.

00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:09,520

And these precious relics

give us glimpses of the people

who once lived here.

00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:14,400

A people who survived,

often against extraordinary odds.

00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:20,160

When I studied to become

an archaeologist,

00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:25,400

it was the sheer challenge

of understanding this ancient world

that attracted me,

00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,040

and the legacy that its

people left behind.

00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:32,360

I've come to the coast

of south Wales

00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:39,320

to try to see some of the most

intimate and poignant remains

in the whole of Britain.

00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:46,440

Out there, beneath the waves,

are a few of the most fragile

and fleeting traces imaginable

00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:50,720

of a group of hunters

who came here 8,000 years ago.

00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:55,440

The added challenge out here,

00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:58,800

as well as the tides,

00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:03,520

you've also got to deal with

the fact that this fantastic

evidence is usually concealed

00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:07,400

under feet of mud,

as these banks shift about.

00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:15,720

So we've got a footprint there.

00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:20,840

You can just see the big toe,

the heel emerging from the mud.

00:04:20,840 --> 00:04:25,480

With the side of the foot,

the heel prominently marked,

00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:29,000

the arch of the foot, then the big

toe and the rest of the toes.

00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,160

So rather than being a depression,

00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:33,000

the way they've been preserved

00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:35,840

is gradually filling the print

with materials,

00:04:35,840 --> 00:04:40,040

so they appear almost as a mould

of the original footprint? Yes.

00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:45,080

That's one of the best things

I've ever seen.

00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:47,360

I knew about them,

but until you see them

00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:50,520

it just doesn't seem...possible.

00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:53,800

What have we got here, then?

00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:57,480

'The prints reveal men,

women and children,

00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:02,200

'an entire group

of nomadic hunter-gatherers.'

00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:08,080

That's not a fossil of that person

that day, that is the very day.

00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:12,760

What's interesting here is that these

are very obviously part of a trail.

00:05:12,760 --> 00:05:17,560

There's another print there,

rather poorly preserved.

00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:21,440

That's the right foot

of the same person.

00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:27,360

'These were people who relied

utterly on the natural resources

00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:31,520

'of wild plants, and the animals

that lived alongside them.'

00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:34,320

If you were offered the chance

to live this life...

00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:36,360

would you fancy it?

Is it an easy life?

00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:41,560

They were subject to the natural

hazards of the environment,

the bad seasons, the harsh winter,

00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:44,960

the year when the fish

simply didn't turn up,

00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:46,760

so there would have been times

00:05:46,760 --> 00:05:51,120

when these communities were under

extreme pressure and difficulty.

00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:52,680

8,000 years ago, right there.

00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:03,880

When you delve into the distant

past, you soon realise

00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:08,160

that what you're discovering again

and again are stories of survival.

00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:12,080

Sometimes of evidence, like those

faint footprints in the mud.

00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:17,280

Other times it's the stories

of people defying the odds

in a hostile world,

00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:20,600

a world in which your very existence

as a hunter-gatherer

00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:26,240

depends completely on your

understanding of and your connection

to the natural environment.

00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:35,320

300 generations separate us from the

people who made those footprints,

00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:39,800

most of whom lived

in a time before history,

00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:43,120

the time I want to discover.

00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:49,360

But human presence in Britain

goes back much, much further still.

00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:55,240

Within the storerooms

of London's Natural History Museum

00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:59,440

are the remains of someone who lived

a staggeringly long time ago.

00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:06,720

So long ago that this human has even

been classed as a different species.

00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:17,280

It's a real privilege to see these

and to be so close to them.

00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:24,000

I can feel my hands starting

to shake just with being

in their vicinity.

00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:29,560

These are the oldest

human remains ever found in Britain.

00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:35,080

It's two pieces of the same shinbone

and two teeth.

00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:40,560

They were dug up at a place

called Boxgrove in Sussex.

00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:45,720

The two teeth have got

tiny scratches on them,

00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:50,080

and it's thought they were caused

by the way this person ate meat.

00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:52,640

The meat would be gripped

in the teeth,

00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:56,000

and the other bit

slashed away at with a tool.

00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:00,600

There's enough of the shinbone

00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:07,840

to let us estimate that

the individual stood about

1.8m tall, weighing 14 stone.

00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:11,040

It's always been known

as Boxgrove Man,

00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:15,200

but from this there is no way

of determining the sex,

00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:17,640

so it could be Boxgrove woman.

00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:21,920

So, 14 stone

and looking like a boxer.

00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:24,400

She'd have been quite a showstopper.

00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:26,880

Heaven knows what her

boyfriend was like.

00:08:27,840 --> 00:08:31,120

But perhaps most amazingly of all,

00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:35,920

Boxgrove Man lived

half a million years ago.

00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:39,000

Think of that. Half a million years.

00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:54,880

'Chris Stringer is a world expert

on our ancient human ancestry.'

00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:59,200

So what follows Boxgrove

in the human story?

00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:03,120

Well, about 100,000 years later

at Swanscombe in Kent

00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:07,440

we've got these human bones,

the back part of a skull,

00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:11,880

beautifully preserved, but it has

one interesting feature here,

00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:14,960

that depression is something

we find in all Neanderthals.

00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:21,160

So we think Swanscombe could

be a very early member

of the Neanderthal line of evolution.

00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:24,360

So there were Neanderthals

in Britain 400,000 years ago?

00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:28,440

That's right. Very early ones,

and then for the next 300,000

or 400,000 years,

00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:33,120

whenever we find people in Britain,

they are part of this evolving

Neanderthal lineage.

00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:38,280

And it was tools like this

that they were making? Absolutely.

00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:43,720

This is a hand axe, one of tens

of thousands that have been found

in the gravels at Swanscombe,

00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:49,240

so these people were making these

tools, and probably using them

to butcher animal carcasses.

00:09:49,240 --> 00:09:55,440

It's amazing, while on the one hand,

you're talking about a different

species of human, different from us,

00:09:55,440 --> 00:10:00,000

yet the tools they made and used

fit so naturally into the hand.

00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:05,000

There's a real link to the humanity

of these people, even if they are

a different species from us.

00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:12,120

At what point, then, do we get

modern human beings like you and I?

00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:16,920

Well, much later on. Modern humans

had been evolving in Africa

00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:20,600

while the Neanderthals were evolving

in Europe and coming to Britain.

00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:25,840

About 50,000 or 60,000 years ago,

those modern humans started

to come out of Africa,

00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:30,040

and 40,000 years ago

they were in France,

00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:33,240

and here's one of the stone tools

they were making there.

00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:37,040

OK. So that's been made by hands

the same as ours? Absolutely.

00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:41,440

Imagine living in a world

where there are different species

of people,

00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:44,480

never mind different races

or nationalities.

00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:47,080

There were several human species

on Earth,

00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:50,840

we were just one of those experiments

going on on how to be human.

00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:00,560

Between the distant age of our

strange pre-human ancestors

00:11:00,560 --> 00:11:04,360

and the nomadic hunters who left

behind their preserved footprints,

00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:08,240

the very first modern humans

came to Britain.

00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:15,440

The earliest of all was found here,

00:11:15,440 --> 00:11:17,640

on the Gower peninsula

in west Wales,

00:11:17,640 --> 00:11:20,920

a discovery made over 200 years ago.

00:11:24,640 --> 00:11:27,200

In 1823,

an ambitious young scientist,

00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:30,680

the Reverend William Buckland,

came here on a mission.

00:11:30,680 --> 00:11:34,280

He was in search of relics

of the biblical flood.

00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:40,200

He'd heard that, bizarrely,

elephant bones had been found

00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:44,160

in one of the caves that

pepper this wild coastline.

00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:50,040

The thing is, the cave was towards

the bottom of a near-vertical cliff,

00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:54,320

but Buckland couldn't wait,

and it seems from what we know,

00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:59,080

that on 18th January 1823

he went right over the edge

of this cliff on a rope,

00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:02,080

armed only with a pick

and a stout pair of boots.

00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:04,760

And now I'm going to follow

in his footsteps.

00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:25,080

Buckland didn't know it at the time,

but he was about to discover more

than some ancient animal bones.

00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:28,160

This was going to be the

discovery of his life.

00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:37,040

Entering the cave would have been

fantastically exciting for Buckland.

00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:40,400

As soon as he crossed the threshold

he'd have fired up his lamp.

00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:43,240

And then,

the good scientist that he was,

00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:47,040

he'd have begun to make

a careful assessment

of everything he could see,

00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:50,720

the whole scene, and all of that

he recorded in meticulous detail.

00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:57,600

This is a book called Reliquiae

Diluvianae, "Relics Of The Flood",

00:12:57,600 --> 00:13:02,760

and this volume is one of just

a couple of copies of the first

edition still in existence.

00:13:04,280 --> 00:13:10,600

It contains within it

a depiction of the scene exactly

as Buckland saw it and then drew it.

00:13:14,280 --> 00:13:19,160

Buckland has very helpfully drawn

the whole scene - there's the cave

itself from the outside,

00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:23,560

there's the cliff wall,

and the man coming down on a rope

on the outside.

00:13:23,560 --> 00:13:29,160

But more interestingly, he's made

what is effectively an excavation

plan of the floor of the cave.

00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:35,880

Here are the elephant bones

and tusks that drew him

to this cave in the first place.

00:13:35,880 --> 00:13:39,840

More intriguingly, he's also drawn

a full-size human skeleton,

00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:44,840

and it's that human skeleton

that's secured this cave

its place in our history.

00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:56,320

It was Buckland himself

who discovered it,

00:13:56,320 --> 00:14:01,280

uncovering it from beneath

about six inches of earth,

right here where I'm crouched down.

00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:07,240

What on earth was going on here?

And more importantly,

who on earth was it?

00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:14,480

As it happened, Buckland originally

thought he'd found the remains

of a local prostitute

00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:16,640

who had worked here

during Roman times,

00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:22,720

and that when she'd eventually died

she'd been buried in there,

far away from civilised society.

00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:25,040

The Red Lady of Paviland.

00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:29,200

But Buckland was wrong,

00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:34,600

because he'd actually stumbled upon

human remains from a far more

distant past.

00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:44,000

Today the Red Lady

is kept at the Oxford University

Museum Of Natural History.

00:14:46,880 --> 00:14:54,560

Although there's no skull, much of

the skeleton has survived, enough

for scientists to reveal its story.

00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:56,840

Within a few decades

of Buckland's death,

00:14:56,840 --> 00:14:58,760

people re-examined the skeleton.

00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:03,440

They looked at the shape of the

pelvis, the shape of the long bones,

00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:06,560

the shape of the articulation

surfaces.

00:15:06,560 --> 00:15:12,200

Any anatomy student today

would recognise this as a skeleton

not of a young woman but a young man.

00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:21,280

Forensic analysis also revealed

that the so-called Red Lady

died young, in his late 20s.

00:15:21,280 --> 00:15:27,520

But most importantly,

his bones could also reveal

just how long ago he lived.

00:15:27,520 --> 00:15:33,240

All the plants and animals on Earth

build themselves predominantly

out of carbon.

00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:37,800

A tiny proportion of that carbon

is radioactive carbon, or carbon-14.

00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:43,120

When an animal dies,

the amount of carbon-14 begins

slowly to decline and degrade away.

00:15:44,640 --> 00:15:50,600

This process, called carbon dating,

used a tiny amount of bone

from the Red Lady.

00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:58,400

Carbon atoms from the bone

gave scientists a date

for when he was alive -

00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:03,600

an astonishing 33,000 years ago.

00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:12,600

These are the remains of

the very first modern human

known to have inhabited our land.

00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:24,200

33,000 years ago when the Red

Lady was alive, Britain was very

different to the one we know today.

00:16:27,880 --> 00:16:30,360

Not an island, but a peninsula.

00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:36,360

This was an age called

the Palaeolithic, the old Stone Age,

00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:39,640

in which a few tens of thousands

of nomadic hunters

00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:41,840

shared the whole of ancient Europe.

00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:53,560

You have to imagine small bands of

hunters roaming through a landscape

00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:56,800

much colder than today,

an open tundra.

00:16:56,800 --> 00:17:00,760

These were people whose survival

depended utterly on following

00:17:00,760 --> 00:17:06,600

the migrating herds of reindeer,

wild horse, and of course, mammoth.

00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:14,560

It's the mammoth bones

that Buckland discovered,

00:17:14,560 --> 00:17:20,360

the ones he thought were elephant,

that provide clues to the possible

life and death of the Red Lady.

00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:30,200

These are the mammoth bones

that sparked Buckland's visit

to Paviland Cave in the first place.

00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:35,520

And for 200 years

00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:38,600

they'd seemed unaccounted for,

possibly lost.

00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:45,320

We've rediscovered them,

00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:50,080

and are now able to bring them back

together with the Red Lady

for the very first time.

00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:55,960

Their existence means

that this sketch made by Buckland,

00:17:55,960 --> 00:18:02,760

which has the human remains

and the mammoth skull and tusks side

by side, isn't based on fantasy.

00:18:02,760 --> 00:18:05,120

The rediscovery

of the mammoth remains

00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:11,120

means that we might be able

to see who the Red Lady was,

even how he died.

00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,520

Perhaps we should imagine

a hunting party,

00:18:19,520 --> 00:18:23,240

out on the vast plain

below Paviland Cave.

00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:28,560

They bring a mammoth to bay,

but before they can dispatch it,

it kills one of their number.

00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:32,320

So they take the body,

a young man, up to the cave.

00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:35,560

Inside, they dig a grave,

and they lay him there.

00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:39,200

This is a funeral ritual.

00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:42,640

They also inter some of the remains

of the mammoth that killed him.

00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:48,320

After all, this doesn't just

do honour to their companion,

but also to the beast.

00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:52,920

Now the two spirits are united

in a shared death.

00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:59,320

It's an extraordinarily

intimate human moment

00:18:59,320 --> 00:19:01,800

from 33,000 years ago.

00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,320

Here, on the furthest outreach

of Europe,

00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:13,120

the Red Laddie's companions

said goodbye to him

for the last time and left.

00:19:17,760 --> 00:19:22,640

But the story of the Red Lady

represents more than the burial

of an intrepid mammoth hunter.

00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:29,040

Because the entire world

he lived in,

00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:34,480

a way of life that had endured

for thousands upon thousands

of years, was coming to an end.

00:19:37,360 --> 00:19:40,440

The cause was climate change,

00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:42,160

on a massive scale.

00:19:47,720 --> 00:19:50,240

Welcome to the world

of Ice Age Britain.

00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:51,800

WIND HOWLS

00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:54,000

30,000 years ago,

00:19:54,000 --> 00:20:00,920

the land we call Britain,

along with the rest of the planet,

was cold, and getting colder.

00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:07,120

Forget the chill of today's

British winters.

00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:11,240

This was cold

on a completely different scale,

00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:14,680

the frozen grip of the last Ice Age.

00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:19,600

For any nomadic hunter

who ventured this far north,

00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:24,520

life would have been unbelievably

tough, and ultimately impossible.

00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:30,880

Eventually the glaciers, advancing

southwards all the while, turned

Britain into a frozen wilderness.

00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:44,800

The Ice Age reached its peak

18,000 years ago,

00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:49,800

all but wiping out the

entire population of western Europe.

00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:58,040

Just a few groups of people

survived in pockets of refuge

far to the south.

00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:09,960

For thousands of years,

almost the whole of our land

was utterly barren and desolate,

00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:14,120

deserted not just by people,

but by all large animals.

00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:17,000

It was so cold, not even

the mammoths could cope with it.

00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:20,520

But then,

from around 14,000 years ago,

00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:23,240

there was a period

of relative respite.

00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,200

And here,

"relative" is an important word.

00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,880

The conditions were still

unbelievably harsh,

00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:34,920

but the ice had lifted just enough

to allow a few bands of hardy

hunters to return to Britain.

00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:44,560

These people left behind

an exquisite object near to what's

now the city of Sheffield.

00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:53,840

Inside this box, the oldest art

ever found in Britain.

00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:02,640

Made 13,000 years ago,

it's tiny, and unique.

00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,640

Its creator - an Ice Age hunter.

00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:23,280

It's a fragment of horse bone

with an engraving of a horse

etched into it,

00:22:23,280 --> 00:22:26,840

but it's infinitely more than that,

00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:31,160

because what you've got

a snapshot of here

00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:34,920

is a whole sequence of thoughts.

00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:38,200

Someone selected the bone,

00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:41,640

the surface of the bone

has been prepared

00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:45,280

in the same way an artist

would prepare a canvas,

00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:48,960

and it's been done

with fantastic skill.

00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,000

The hairs of the mane

look like hackles

00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,000

that are raised in fear

or excitement.

00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:58,040

Although it's on this

slither of bone,

00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:01,240

the legs are suggested,

and they're galloping legs.

00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,000

Everything about it is alive.

00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:07,280

The horse couldn't be more

active and more vibrant.

00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:10,360

It's miraculous.

00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:19,800

The horse's head was found here,

in a valley of caves near Sheffield.

00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:31,280

And recent excavations have revealed

that it wasn't the only treasure

left behind by the Ice Age hunters.

00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:39,800

'In 2003, archaeologist

Paul Bahn found the only cave art

ever discovered in Britain.'

00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,280

It was this panel where we

found our major discovery.

00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:49,800

Figures on ceilings

are very hard to understand

00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,920

because you don't know from

which direction to look at them.

00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:57,200

this is actually an engraved

and bas-relief ibis, a water bird.

00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:01,400

You can see the great

beak sweeping around,

there's a mouth, there's the eye.

00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,240

They've engraved the top

of the head, here's the neck,

00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:09,880

and then this beautiful oval body,

which is probably natural, but they

have outlined it a little bit.

00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,600

It's amazing that you hear sculptors

in the modern age

00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:18,000

talk about seeing the block

and feeling that something

wants to be released from it,

00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,000

and that's obviously

a very old idea,

00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:23,560

that someone was in here and looked

at natural features and thought,

00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:25,680

"an ibis wants to come

out of that rock."

00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:30,080

I think so. One of the most

characteristic features of cave art

all over western Europe

00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:34,680

is constant use of natural shapes

in the rock, and clearly

that's what's been done here.

00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:45,680

'Meticulous searching revealed

traces of more engravings,

00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:50,920

'all of them created within

just a few generations,

when the Ice Age briefly lifted.

00:24:54,120 --> 00:24:57,920

'They depict animals important

to the people who came here.

00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:02,400

'Some of them are not even

meant to be seen.'

00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,400

You can see the old floor level here.

00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:08,480

There's not much space between that

and the ceiling, they're crawling

at this point,

00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,400

and with their little

flickering lamps held in their hands,

00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,560

it's very difficult for them

to get this far into the caves.

00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:21,000

'13,000 years ago

someone was driven to venture

into the darkest depths of this cave,

00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,640

'simply to make a drawing.'

00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:28,200

I think they're a series

of long-necked birds,

00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:33,880

but the important thing about this

panel is that it's so difficult

to reach, and it's in total darkness.

00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,640

Yeah, what is the point of art

if no-one sees it?

00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:41,480

Well, there's an important percentage

of cave art all over western Europe

00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,600

which is deliberately placed

in these very hard-to-reach spots.

00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:49,200

They're making them for something

else, something non-human to see,

00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,840

maybe a god, a spirit,

an ancestor, the forces of nature.

00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:58,920

I suppose they may not have seen

themselves as being quite as

separate and different from animals

00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:04,320

as we do, they may have seen these

and themselves as all creatures

that roamed the same habitat.

00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:08,240

I think they were very much

people of their environment,

of everything around them,

00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:12,520

and I'm sure they felt

the animals were their kin,

their brothers, their sisters.

00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:19,480

It's fantastic after 14,000 years

to get a glimpse of the way

at least one individual was thinking,

00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:24,200

that took the initiative to crawl

down here with a lamp and make that,

00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:30,160

and then left for it never

to be seen again. That's a moment

in some individual's life.

00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:43,280

Just a few hundred years after the

Creswell cave art, the ice was back,

and with a vengeance.

00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:49,560

Britain once again became an

empty, desolate, frozen land.

00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,640

The last wave of glacial conditions

came around 13,000 years ago,

00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,200

a time geologists call

the Younger Dryas,

00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,040

or more tellingly, the Big Freeze.

00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,280

It's hard to imagine just how

hostile this climate became.

00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:21,440

In Scotland 13,000 years ago, the

ground was buried under a blanket

of ice up to a kilometre thick.

00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:31,640

Glaciers scoured the landscape,

shaping the very mountains

and the lochs we see today.

00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:45,040

'For Ice Age expert Jim Hansom,

it's a landscape that tells a story

of colossal environmental power.'

00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:57,680

So if we were standing here

at the very end of the Ice Age, what

would we have been looking out at?

00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:03,600

11,000 years ago the glacier

terminus, the edge of the glacier,

would be at our feet.

00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:05,280

The lake wouldn't be here,

00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:09,800

and we would be looking at

a gradient of ice disappearing

off into the north.

00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,280

As the glacier melted back,

00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:16,520

then water was impounded

into this hollow,

00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,560

and that's what

the Lake of Menteith is.

00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,480

So everything we can see here

has been touched by the ice?

00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,440

Oh, absolutely, ice is a major

moulder of the landscape.

00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,920

That's one of the reasons why

this is a classic place to see

the elemental effect of ice

00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,000

and what it can do to the landscape.

00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:39,880

'Britain was being sculpted

on a geological scale.'

00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,240

Behind us is the glacier basin

that's now occupied by the lake,

00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,600

and the glacier's bulldozed

a whole series of mounds,

00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:53,520

little hills that mark out

the edge of the glacier.

00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:54,920

We call them moraines.

00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,720

So there's so much force

that it's rippling the landscape

in front of it.

00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:04,680

Exactly right, exactly right. A bit

like standing on a loose carpet, and

the carpet rucks up in front of you.

00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,920

That's exactly the process,

so substantial force.

00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,640

So all around the leading edge

of the glacier, then,

00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:14,560

there would be these dumps

of material that have become

hillocks and humps?

00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:20,200

That's correct. So there

would have been a nose of ice here

which has gone,

00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:24,400

and it's left all the bulldozed

material that was on its nose.

00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,200

That's correct. That's correct.

00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,480

'The effect of the ice

was astounding.

00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:35,680

'But when it finally melted

around 11,000 years ago,

00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:40,120

'the power of ice

was replaced by the power of water.'

00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,920

This is just extraordinary.

You could be dropped down here

00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:50,720

and you would have no way of

knowing what part of the world

you were in. It's so other-worldly.

00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,800

It's like Jurassic Park.

It's tremendous.

00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:01,320

Now...did this river cut this gorge?

00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:05,120

No, the river's far too small for the

gorge. We call it a misfit stream.

00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:11,400

So when it comes to...

In terms of the last Ice Age,

what has happened to create this?

00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,960

Well, during the last the last

Ice Age, as the glaciers retreat,

00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,200

the melt water's got to go somewhere.

Right. That's a lot of ice.

00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,480

That's half a kilometre of ice,

very close.

00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,000

It can't go to the south because

there's rising hills,

the Campsie Fells.

00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:28,200

It can't go to the west,

so it comes in this direction,

straight through this gorge.

00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:30,320

That gives it great erosive power,

00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,600

so the sheer elemental force of water

coming down through here

would've been tremendous.

00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,600

It's like a Karcher high pressure

hose, but on a massive scale.

00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:40,280

It is, eroding the valley.

00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:47,480

It's hard to think of a more graphic

illustration of the raw power

of just rushing water.

00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:52,400

Sheer power, sheer power.

We couldn't have been standing here

at this time 10,000 years ago.

00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:02,600

The final retreat of the ice

ended the age of the Palaeolithic.

00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,920

The remote world of the Red Lady

and the mammoths he hunted.

00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:12,080

The icy world of the cave artists

of Creswell Crags.

00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:19,480

Ever since the ice peaked

18,000 years ago, a new Britain

had gradually begun to appear.

00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:23,760

Now, as the ice melted,

00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:28,960

the coast and the Western Isles of

Scotland were taking on the form

we recognise today.

00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:37,680

In the east, the Norwegian trench

had begun to open into what would

one day become the North Sea.

00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:44,480

But despite the rising sea levels,

10,000 years ago in the south,

00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,560

Britain remained firmly attached

to the continental mainland.

00:31:55,320 --> 00:32:00,160

Gradual warming allowed the first

intrepid hunters to return to a new

00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:07,040

and very different land, where

frozen tundra was giving way to the

first forests of birch and alder.

00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:15,320

They brought a new culture,

new ways of surviving

00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,560

and a whole new era in our history.

00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:24,920

This new warmer world with its

different animals and plants

00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,880

presented the people who came here

with a whole new set of challenges.

00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:37,120

So much so that archaeologists

were moved to give this period

its own name, the Mesolithic.

00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,000

The Middle Stone Age.

00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:47,120

It was to this period

that I was particularly drawn

when I was a student of archaeology.

00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:51,400

And it was to the islands off

the coast of Scotland that I came

00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:54,280

as I was learning

the skills of excavation.

00:32:55,800 --> 00:33:00,000

Now, more than 20 years later,

new finds in the Hebrides

00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:06,000

are giving us a unique insight

into how people survived

in this newly-emerging land.

00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:22,680

You've got very finely worked

flint blades here.

00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,680

Look at those beautiful long blades

and you can see,

00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,400

it's been very delicately chipped

around the edge.

00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,600

And that had been used as barb

or a point,

00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:35,960

or maybe a little blade of a knife,

some points maybe as drill bits.

00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:40,160

It's the classic Mesolithic artefact.

00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,720

These tiny little items

actually classify...

00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:47,280

Unfortunately so, unfortunately so,

yeah, yes, indeed.

00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:52,000

Steve Mithen's excavations

have uncovered

00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:57,280

an entire Mesolithic fishing camp

from 9,000 years ago.

00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,200

When we sieve the deposits very

finely, we find fish bones...

00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,160

How are they catching the fish?

00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:10,480

We do have one artefact that we found

here which is a tip of an antler

harpoon or a little fish spear.

00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:14,440

Now, it's made from the tine

of a Red Deer antler.

00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:17,080

We've only got the final tip of it.

00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:21,520

We can see that has been worked and

smoothed down, so it's a rather

precious artefact.

00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:27,960

The ice melted.

00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,600

Bands of intrepid hunters

returned to the land.

00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:36,400

From that day to this, our land

has been continuously occupied.

00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,400

They were still hunters,

they were still nomadic,

00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,360

but they were more settled

within the landscape.

00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,600

A person might be born,

live and die in the same area.

00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,640

That's a different relationship

to a place.

00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:56,720

Compared to the Palaeolithic, in the

Mesolithic, the Middle Stone Age,

what we're beginning to see

00:34:56,720 --> 00:35:02,520

is not just a continuity of people

that leads all the way to us today,

00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:07,800

it's also about the first people

who you could say were born

and bred British.

00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:19,120

Remarkably, the remains of one

of these people have survived.

00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:26,320

One of a population of perhaps

just 1,000 or so who occupied

Britain around 9,000 years ago.

00:35:29,720 --> 00:35:33,760

And I've come back to London's

Natural History Museum to meet him.

00:35:40,240 --> 00:35:43,880

This is the skull of Cheddar Man.

00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:49,720

His is the oldest complete human

skeleton ever found in Britain.

00:35:49,720 --> 00:35:55,920

The rest of his bones are collected

here in these white boxes.

00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,160

He lived over 9,000 years ago,

00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:05,200

which means that either he or his

immediate ancestors were among

00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:11,000

those very first re-colonisers of

the British Isles after

the last Ice Age.

00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,000

I look at this skull

00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:19,200

and I can even begin to imagine

his face, what he looked like...

00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,440

..and it's a strange feeling.

00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:27,600

Unlike the Red Lady

or the Cresswell artists,

00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:31,160

this man didn't live

in an icy world.

00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:35,360

By the time he was alive,

the open tundra

00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:39,240

was giving way to forests

of birch and alder.

00:36:39,240 --> 00:36:44,960

So instead of hunting mammoth

and reindeer in the snow,

00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,280

he hunted Red Deer in the wild wood.

00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,320

You can tell from the condition

of his teeth

00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,680

that he grew up enjoying

a good diet,

00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:03,640

but despite that, still in his 20s,

this man died.

00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:05,280

Look at this...

00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:10,160

This ugly, ragged crater

on his skull,

00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,760

just to the right of his nose,

00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:15,480

that's the result of bone infection.

00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,000

The infection may have followed

an injury,

00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:24,160

or it may have been disease that

started perhaps in his sinuses

and spread.

00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,880

But in any case it would've been

debilitating,

00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,520

it may have caused fever, it may

ultimately have caused his death.

00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,680

So, despite the fact there was

plenty of meat around,

00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:39,680

there was no guarantee

of a long, healthy life.

00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,280

Little remains of the people

of the Mesolithic.

00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:53,240

They lived lightly on the land,

close to nature

00:37:53,240 --> 00:37:57,080

and discoveries like those on

the island of Coll are rare.

00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:02,000

But there are other ways

to discover what their lives

must have been like.

00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:08,800

We're going to need a quantity of

these skins, fresh off the animal.

00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,440

Smelly, but warm.

00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,480

John Lord

is a professional flint knapper,

00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:22,520

who's been experimenting with

ancient technology for over

35 years.

00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:28,080

He's agreed to give me a direct

taste of Mesolithic life.

00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:29,480

Neil's going to be up against it.

00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,320

He's going to start to think

about the Mesolithic people

00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:38,240

when he starts to work on this stuff

and make a harpoon point and needles

and things out of the antler.

00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:39,840

It really is laborious work.

00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:47,080

The idea is to spend 24 hours

depending on ancient technology.

00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:52,880

This can be used to make scrapers,

knife blades, arrow points.

00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,280

It really is a little

Swiss army flint.

00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:06,680

John is going to help me camp

right by the spot once occupied

by Coll's Mesolithic fish-trappers.

00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:13,520

Look at that.

It's like watching a borrower

arrive from the sea in a button.

00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:25,240

Shelters were light and portable,

a frame of branches, tied with rope

made from tree bark.

00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:31,920

Over the top - fresh, raw deerskin.

00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,280

I'm thinking they must have smelt

fairly ripe. Yeah, they smell.

00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:40,440

If you want some time on your own,

work on a skin that's a bit ripe.

Nobody will come near you for weeks.

00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,200

Oh, I'm getting a definite whiff

of it now.

00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,920

Are you? Definite scent

of a butcher's shop...

00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,040

..which is what I expect to

smell like in the morning.

00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:55,520

Fire was vital

for warmth and cooking...

00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,400

Oh, it's going red.

00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:00,560

There you go, there you go...

00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,360

..but also crucial

for tool-production.

00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:08,320

Oh, yes, it's coming away.

00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:14,920

This deer antler

will become a harpoon,

00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:22,120

made in exactly the same way as

Steve Mithen's 9,000-year-old

fragment, found on this very spot.

00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:27,120

Gosh, the hours

and hours of someone's time.

It is, it's just time.

00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,480

Дата добавления: 2015-09-29