All language subtitles for A.History.Of.Ancient.Britain.S02E02

This is the story of how Britain came to
be, of how our land and its people were

forged over thousands of years of
ancient history.

This Britain is a strange and alien
world, a world that contains the hidden

story of our distant prehistoric path.

After more than a thousand years, the
international world of the Bronze Age

collapsed. A hoard like this is a
snapshot of the time when bronze was no

working as the glue of society.

A new Britain began to emerge.

A whole new era.

The Iron Age.

There's nothing different about it from
the tools we use today.

And yet it's two and a half thousand
years old.

A Britain of powerful regional
identities where land and grain had

bronze as a source of prestige.

Now the journey continues with the next
chapter in our epic story.

He was laid in his grave and soon
thereafter three spears were thrust in

This would have been a moment of huge
drama.

A time of Iron Age warriors and Celtic
glory.

A tipping point in our history when
tribal leaders began to believe they

more than chieftains.

They were kings.

I'm going back two and a half thousand
years, to 500 BC.

This is Britain right in the heart of
the Iron Age, a time of huge

transformation for our land and its
people.

Ever since the end of the Bronze Age, a
few hundred years earlier, a new Britain

had begun to emerge, and it was a more
insular Britain with strong regional

identities.

This was a world of tall broch towers in
the north and communal hill

forts in the south.

Both responsive to the importance of
controlling the land.

What was common across Britain was that
trade was focused locally and wealth was

no longer centred around bronze as it
had been.

It was now centred around grain.

Britain was entering a new era in which
the people who controlled land would

gain wealth and power, the like of which
had never been seen before.

At the top of this hill are the remains
of an Iron Age hill fort that holds

evidence of the beginning of this new
age.

This isn't just any old hill fort.

This is Dainbury.

This is a completely different beast. A
mega hill fort.

And it's one of the first of its type.

Farmers here were cultivating ever
greater tracts of land, harvesting more

more grain.

This wasn't subsistence farming.

This was about creating a surplus to
trade.

But there was a problem with all of
that, and you can see it over there,

the horizon.

That bump into the sky there is another
hill fort, Woolbury Hill Fort, and it's

not the only one.

On a clear day from up here, you can see
another three hill forts, and they were

all equally prosperous, and crucially,
they were all beginning to want more and

more land.

For the first time in our history,
Britain, or parts of it, were actually

starting to fill up.

After all those millennia of hunting and
then the early farming, the physical

size of our island was actually
beginning to tell.

And where the territories of those
hillfort communities were starting to

against one another, there was one
consequence, and one consequence only,

that was friction.

What's happening is that the land is
being used more and more and more.

It's good land, it's rich land, it
encourages the population to grow.

But you can only grow to a certain
extent.

And the population will continue to grow
beyond the holding capacity of the

land. And when you get to that point,
you get tension.

And how does the instability, the
pressure, manifest itself?

Normally, in terms of aggression and
warfare, resources are rare.

You fight for resources.

You can have long, long periods of
peace, I think, and then perhaps in a

confrontation some young man would be
hurt, everyone would be angry, and it

would escalate into outright, really
violent warfare.

Barry Cunliffe first studied Danbury
over 40 years ago.

These are iron spearheads. Now look at
that one.

That's a mean thing.

A long shank.

Very sharp point.

That's been done with the intention to
kill. Everything about it is violent.

Absolutely redolent of violence.

And this is all coming from in here?
Everything here is from within Danbury.

We've also got evidence from the human
bones themselves.

This is the real hard evidence.

Here we are. We've got the skull.

You can see the eye socket there.

And you see that hole there? And that's
got the same section.

It's exactly the same section as that
spear.

He would have cocked a spear directly
through the top of his head there.

But the fascinating thing about this guy
is he also had a pretty hefty bash on

the head, which has caved a bit of the
skull in. And that's not been enough to

kill? No, because if you turn inside,
you see the damage that it's done

but it's all healed over. So he must
have had a headache and brain damage,

was still fit enough, presumably, to go
into battle some years later to

end up with that spear in his head. So
he went into battle already knowing...

for it was like to face these weapons.

He probably had been into battle many
times, this guy.

Indeed, had many of them. See, we've got
many more skulls here.

Goodness, there's no end of it up here.
No, no, no.

Again, just close to where we're
standing was a very large pit into which

thrown body parts, cleaning up after a
battle, presumably.

Large number of body parts, and some of
these skulls came from there.

So people are dying in significant
numbers that they're not even being

burial. They're just being cleared away.
Cleared away. You can see here a whole

series of slivers taken off his skull
there with glancing blows.

Someone coming in. Yeah. He wouldn't
have needed a haircut after that.

But the coup de grace was that. The
great sword slash. I shouldn't have

that.

That's not healed over. That was the end
of him.

Oh. And altogether, this shows what an
incredibly violent life people lived.

What a world they inhabited with the
threat of this hanging over them. Yes,

I think they would have been aware of it
the whole time. You can imagine here in

Danebury, these young guys coming back
from battle with all their scars and

living in the community with noses cut
off, ears cut off, horrendous injuries.

They must have been aware every moment
of their day of just how violent life

was.

What's unfolding now is something quite
new.

The time of the peaceful local farming
collective is over.

By 400 BC, in southern Britain at least,
the area is descending into bloody

conflict. And what's interesting about
that conflict is the kind of personality

that it encourages.

And the need to fight and defend became
more important.

So the status of those who could do the
fighting and defending increased.

You can't know these things for certain,
but it's tempting to imagine that in

peaceful times, these communities were
controlled by councils of elders or the

heads of important families, but not
anymore.

Now, now that the fighting had started,
was the time of heroes, champions, men

who could wield swords.

These were the type who could expand
territories, defend territories, bring

upstarts to heal.

Britain was entering a period we call
the Middle Iron Age, a time when local

power bases fought it out for power and
prestige, and where a man's status had

to be earned in battle.

But out of bloody conflict, something
was about to emerge that was sublime.

This is one of the finest, most
astonishing pieces of early art ever

Britain. It's from 350 years BC and it's
called the Battersea Shield.

It's too small to have been used in
warfare.

It's completely wrong for combat. It's
too elaborate.

This is ceremonial, owned by a warlord
and perhaps carried at the head of a

victory parade.

This is an object that demonstrates
technical perfection and also artistic

genius.

This is the beginning of something
utterly new in our history, a sudden

blossoming of art and design.

The great continental rivers were trade
routes to the classical world to the

south.

As northern tribes controlling the
routes developed a taste for luxury

they also began to invent a new
decorative style.

This was the birth of Celtic art and
around 350 BC when it came to Britain

local craftsmen took it to completely
new heights.

It's said that the innovation and
sophistication of British Celtic art is

single greatest contribution by these
islands to the world of art ever.

And the proof of that statement is here
in my hands.

This is the magnificent Kirkburn sword.

And it was excavated from a grave in
East Yorkshire.

Unlike earlier swords, This is a
composite item.

It required the meticulous design and
fabrication of 70 separate pieces

which were then assembled.

There's iron here in the blade, there's
bronze on the scabbard, there's horn.

It's also been a working sword.

Unlike the shield, this actually saw
battle.

And we know that because analysis of the
metal indicates that it was repaired on

at least one occasion, possibly more.

These red enamel additions are said to
represent

freshly spilled blood.

But it's the delicate nature of the
perfection of this art

that's new in Britain.

And what's most fascinating of all is
that it's embodied, not in jewelry,

but in the objects that could be
afforded by that class of people that

things like this.

Warriors. The most powerful warriors.

But finely decorated swords were not the
only symbol of elite power, as the

skeleton of a horse buried at Danebury
Hill Fort reveals.

The lifetime activities of the horse
will leave different markers in the

skeleton, and we're looking for clues as
to what that animal was used for during

its life.

Throughout much of prehistory, horses
were uncommon in Britain, even on farms.

And forensic studies of this one found
something unprecedented.

If you look here at the front of the
tooth, there's a small white parallel

-sided band of enamel.

This is evidence that the horse was
bitted.

And if you look on this vertebra,
there's a fracture running through the

epiphysis of the vertebra.

And this is evidence that this horse was
ridden.

And this is the first time we have
evidence for riding in prehistoric

These bones reveal the very beginning of
the ridden horse, a symbol of power.

Use of horses would have revolutionised
warfare. It would have changed raiding.

People could raid at further distances
and faster.

You could attack a neighbouring
settlement, take control of their

A man on a horseback would have major
advantages over a man on foot.

By 300 BC, Britain was becoming the land
that resonates in ancient myth and folk

memory.

A land of warrior heroes, wielding power
from horseback, armed with glinting,

decorated Celtic swords.

Incredibly, the remains of a warrior
from this time still survive.

The very man who once owned and wielded
the finest Iron Age sword ever found in

Britain.

The Kirkburn Warrior.

When he died, he was aged somewhere
between 20 and 35 years.

Powerfully built.

He would have thought in the prime of
his life.

And there's nothing on the skeleton to
indicate why he died.

There's no great catastrophic injury, no
caved -in skull, no massive sore wounds

to the long bone.

It is still possible, though, that he
died in battle.

If he suffered a wound that severed a
major artery or punctured a vital organ,

he could have bled to death, and there'd
be no sign on the skeleton to reveal

that as the cause of death.

The circumstances of his burial are
fascinating.

He was laid in his grave and soon
thereafter three spears were thrust in,

possibly penetrating the dead body.

Now this would have been a moment of
huge drama for those witnessing the

funerary ritual.

Here was a man whose martial prowess was
being marked out.

very blatantly then the grave was
completely backfilled leaving the shafts

sticking out of the ground bristling out
of the mound so they would have been

visible from some distance they would
have marked out that grave as that of a

warrior and it could have become a place
of homage so that warriors who remember

them from life could have grown old and
grey regaling their children and

grandchildren with stories about this
man remembering what a great and

warrior now lay buried in that special
grave.

The world of the Kirkburn Warrior is the
beginning of a new era in the history

of our land and its people.

This is the time of Celtic Britain.

A world of magic.

Mystery and spiritual destiny.

And clues to the birth of this new age
can be found in the northeast of

I've come to Yorkshire because 20 or so
miles away in that direction is where

the Kirkburn warrior was buried around
300 years BC along with his splendid

sword. And what's more, He wasn't the
only one.

In the Iron Age, formal burial was rare.

In most cases, when people died, their
bodies were simply laid out and the

gradually picked clean by animals and
birds.

If you were lucky, you might have got a
cremation.

But up here...

In the chalk uplands of East Yorkshire,
something a bit different was going on.

Melanie Giles has been studying the Iron
Age of East Yorkshire for more than a

decade.

So what exactly is in this field?

This is an Iron Age cemetery, and what
you're looking at is small barrows. Each

one of those is somebody's grave.

So all these bumps of different sizes
and heights contain a person?

Indeed, yes.

Right. Is this the only cemetery of its
kind?

No, there are many more like it across
East and into North Yorkshire. And when

you say East and North Yorkshire, is
that the limit of cemeteries like these?

Yes, they're really unique in Britain,
but there are cemeteries like this in

modern -day France, in the Marne
-Moselle region.

So what is going on then if this is...

If this is a French cemetery, what's it
doing here?

Well, I don't know that it's a French
cemetery.

There's lots of different ideas about
this, lots of different debates.

Some people thought it was a massive
invasion, a kind of a war band coming

across. But in fact, most of these
people look as if they're local. They're

and brought up here.

So we might be looking at just a small
group of...

important or powerful people coming
across from the continent.

And some of the grave goods we find in
those barrows reinforce that sense that

there are contacts with the continent.

The Celtic culture that came to
represent an entire era might have had

genesis right here, in the continentally
connected warrior elites of East

Yorkshire.

So a warrior of the status of the
Kirkburn warrior, someone of that...

style and demeanor. Absolutely, and he
was buried just about 10 miles from

Okay, so he's part of this fashion?

Yes, and figures like that who maybe
were skilled at fighting or had achieved

something in their life, or maybe even
through the manner of their death, were

treated to special kinds of burials.

But the Yorkshire burials have revealed
something else that was remarkable about

this new culture.

Because here, it seems, it was not only
great warriors who were revered.

Our picture of ancient Britain will
always be incomplete, because often the

evidence we find is of important men.

The artefacts are often symbols of
martial prowess.

What's remarkable, here in Yorkshire, is
that around 300 BC, we start to find

evidence of something that's been
missing from the story so far, and that

important women.

This is the skeleton of a woman who died
at least in her late 40s, possibly even

older than that.

But for all that she was an older,
mature woman, her teeth are in

good shape, which suggests she had
access to a good, even privileged diet.

But much more revealing and fascinating
than her mere bone.

are the circumstances in which she was
buried.

This woman was buried lying on, inside a
chariot.

And around her were also placed all the
furniture for horse

driving.

Quite hard to describe these. I suppose
they're the equivalent of hubcaps.

Decoration that would have gone around
the knobbly bit that sticks out from the

wheel.

These are parts of the bit that the
horse would have in its mouth through

the reins pass, which give the driver
control over the horse's head.

But also in this woman's grave are items
altogether more mysterious, even

magical.

This metal cylinder, beautifully
decorated with

Celtic artwork.

Now, it's completely sealed. You can't
get into it. You can't open it.

If it ever did contain anything, it must
have been organic and very small so

that with the passage of millennia that
has decayed and disappeared.

Maybe it was some beans or seeds so that
it could be used as a ceremonial

rattle.

Perhaps even more powerful is this.

It's been called a mirror.

I suspect because in terms of its shape,
that's exactly what it looks like. But

for me, the word mirror downgrades this
object, makes it seem trivial and to

do with vanity.

This, in its heyday, would have been
highly polished iron, but even at its

the reflection that it offered would
always have been blurred.

It's now suggested that items such as
these were used

Not to reflect back our world, but to
open a portal into a world beyond

the world of the ancestors.

That by owning this and having access to
it, you are able to communicate

directly with the dead.

So, with these items here, it's easy to
understand that

whoever this woman was,

Once upon a time, she really mattered.

She was a woman of substance.

She was revered, she was wise, and in
her community, she was someone of

real power.

By 200 BC, Celtic culture had spread
right across our land.

And power.

was increasingly becoming concentrated
in the hands of fewer, bigger, regional

leaders.

The chieftains of the emerging Celtic
tribes of Britain.

The big question, though, is just who
were these Celts?

Here in Britain, especially along the so
-called Celtic fringe of Cornwall,

Wales and Scotland,

Celticness is an emotive subject.

There are people who believe that it
connects them to their sense of their

history, that it underpins their sense
of self and of inheritance.

There are even those who believe in an
entirely separate Celtic race.

And how do I feel about that?

Well, as a Scot, I feel a sense of
belonging to my country. I feel in a

that my...

homeland belongs to me. But whether or
not that's the same as a sense of a

separate ethnic identity, I'd need help
to answer that one.

I'm sending a sample of my DNA for
analysis in an attempt to try and find

where my Scottish ancestors came from.

And in particular, to find out whether
they were living in Britain during the

height of the Celtic Iron Age.

Using statistical genetic dating
methods, Peter Forster believes he can

the detailed prehistory of living
individuals.

I know it's very complicated science
that's involved, but can you tell me in

simple terms, you know, who I am and
where I come from?

I'll give it a try.

So what we've done in a nutshell is to
take a look at two stretches of DNA, of

your DNA, which allow us to separately
trace your mother's line back into deep

prehistory and your father's line back
into deep prehistory.

Okay. So to start with, we've looked at
your mother's DNA, where her female

ancestry traces back to.

In theory, you could have matches from
all over the world, but let's take a

what they are in fact.

Right. Oh, big red spot on Scotland.

Yeah. Let me zoom in a bit.

And it's the Western Isles of Scotland.

Yes.

We've got no recent historical
connection to the islands.

Well, it's not only Western Isles.

Some more matches in mainland Scotland.

But in simple terms, everything about my
mum is pointing in the direction of

Scotland and having been in Scotland for
a long, long time.

That's right, because as you can see,
it's all over Scotland. It's not just

particular island or location.

So that argues for a presence of your
mother's line in Scotland way back into

prehistory, thousands of years ago.

And so what about my dad, then?

Yes.

Your father's line was a bit of a
surprise.

So let's see.

That's the result for the father's line.

Right. Your particular paternal lineage
is more common.

In southern Europe and eastern Europe?
There's nothing from my dad's DNA in

Britain at all.

Well, more than that, in fact, there's
nothing in Scandinavia and northern

Europe. So it's a southern and eastern
European profile. So the individuals or

individual in my father's line only came
to Britain in DNA terms

relatively recently?

Yes, that's correct.

If I tell him.

What did I tell my Scottish dad?

He's not from Scotland.

Experts have tried again and again to
identify a Celtic bloodline.

But the most they can really agree on is
that, just as in my case, ancestry is

complicated.

Many people today believe that Celtic is
no more than a collective term.

to describe a whole host of peoples who
lived in Europe around 2 ,000 years ago

and shared common cultural values.

It's possible, it's even likely, that
there never was a separate ethnic Celtic

identity. There's certainly no absolute
evidence for a separate Celtic race,

however disappointing some people might
find that fact.

But what we do have, and what we do have
evidence for, is a common Celtic

heritage.

The Celts appreciated similar art and
design, and they held shared values of

status and hierarchy.

And linguists also believe they shared a
common language, a language weak

in decipher, even after 2 ,000 years.

Paul, how much do we know about what the
Iron Age would have sounded like in

terms of the spoken word?

Well, we know something about it in the
sense that the descendant languages from

this period in Britain do survive in the
form of Welsh and Cornish and Breton,

and slightly more distantly with Irish
and Scots Gaelic, so that if we were to

take a particular word, we would know
that the...

Ancient British word for a boar would be
turcos, because we have Welsh, Purch,

and so on.

And to take another example, magloth
would be the word for a prince or a

on the basis of Welsh mile and Irish
mile.

And these forms one can reconstruct to
produce those forms.

If you were to take a modern -day
English speaker...

and plunk them down in an Iron Age
marketplace, what would be most striking

about the voices around them?

I think the most striking thing,
probably, was they wouldn't understand a

of it, because this is a language group
that is unrelated, or only differently

related, to English.

And so, you know, you'd be in the market
and you'd say, sell

me a boar.

And there's nothing there.

apart perhaps from the me, which an
English speaker would understand.

If a traveller was to go from the south
-west of England to the north -east of

Scotland, would they hear the language
changing as though with dialects?

Yes, almost certainly.

I mean, that's probably definitely the
case by virtue of the fact that these

languages that develop into different
languages. So Welsh as separate from

Cornish and so on and so forth. So there
probably was that kind of variation.

But the kind of variation where from
mile on mile, neighbor to neighbor, they

perfectly well would understand each
other. But if you move them from all the

way from the southwest all the way to
the northeast.

they would probably struggle, I would
have thought.

Can you construct a sentence for me so
that I can get a sense of the rhythm and

the cadence of that ancient British
language?

Well, OK.

Think of a lord, the prince, like you,
for example, coming into the

feasting hall and people would rise and
would say to you... I certainly hope so.

which would mean basically something
like, I honour you, long -haired lord.

Did you just call me a hippie in Celtic?

Possibly.

I'm used to seeing and handling
artefacts, things made of metal, stone,

It's quite a strange feeling to get the
sound of the Iron Age as well.

It almost sounds crass to say it, but it
brings that time back to

life.

If you take the language, if you had a
Gaelic speaker from the Western Isles or

a Welsh speaker, well, they perhaps
couldn't have a conversation with an

Age warrior.

There's every possibility that they
could make themselves understood.

And so the world of the past and the
modern world would collide at that

The past is very close if you approach
it in the right way.

Less than 200 years after the Kirkburn
Warrior, the tribes of Britain might

still have been rivaled, but they were
also bound by a common Celtic culture.

In the southern highlands of Scotland,
using experimental archaeology, it's

possible to get close to the reality of
life at the time of the Celtic Iron Age.

Look at that.

It's a modern reconstruction of a
building called a crannog, which is a

house built on a platform that sits
above the waters of the Loch.

This would have been the home, 2 ,000
years ago, of a local chieftain.

A building like that is about status and
prestige.

It's visible from miles around.

You're essentially saying to people,
here I am, and if you think you can take

this from me, do your best.

In this world of Celtic tribes, leaders
needed to be more than powerful

warriors. They needed diplomatic skills
and political now too.

And artefacts found here in Loch Tay
bear testament to how Iron Age politics

were conducted.

This is a small circular wooden plate
recovered from the

loch.

In Iron Age Britain, status wasn't just
about items of jewellery and

personal adornment.

It was about your ability to draw people
to you.

Men, fighting men who were loyal to you,
who would do your bidding.

And a key way of getting to them was, as
they say, through their stomachs,

the way to a man's heart.

And so you have to picture...

A chieftain, perhaps the chieftain of
the area, gathering men to him.

And they would be fed by him to show
that he was a big man.

So the story here, from this little
wooden plate, is that feasting was a key

part of power -broking in late Iron Age
Britain.

is an expert in feasting.

And many of the same wild plants that
would have been eaten 2 ,000 years ago

still grow around the area today.

They didn't have access to the kind of
vegetables that we have today, nothing

like onions and potatoes and our kind of
staples.

So foraging would have been a very, very
important source of food for them.

Lots of edible greens here.

Things like chickweed and sorrel, which
is a lemony taste.

Let's see what you think.

It's got a very definite flavour.

This is sorrel.

And I'm going to put that in the stew.

Just to give it a kick.

Yeah, there's a real acidy, citrusy,
that's a strong flavour.

The scale and variety of food offered by
a chieftain would have been a mark of

his status, and by extension, his power.

We have a fantastic amount of organic
material that we've uncovered and

discovered underwater here in Lochte at
one of the Cranog sites. More than 160

different types of edible plants.

So this is a mere representative sample.

Just a handful, literally, of some of
those.

Let me just try that one. Wild mushroom.

and barley.

Oh, that is delicious.

The barley is very strong there.

It's kind of an echo of Scotch broth.

Yeah, I think it would be.

Over the hearth, a masterpiece of
decorative wrought ironwork would have

supported a bit roast and proclaimed the
standing of its owner.

This is an example or a representation
of a fire dog.

And the fire dog would have been a high
-status, really classy piece of art.

And you can see the curve of the back of
the head.

It's maybe a horse or a bull with the
horns sticking out, or even maybe a wild

boar. But obviously something important,
something symbolic.

And if you look at the craftsmanship,
these are meant to represent wealth and

power. So it's another symbol of status.

It's food for show, isn't it? Food is a
performance.

Absolutely.

They definitely weren't hiding.

A feast was a hugely important social
exercise.

It was almost a ritual in its own right.
Everyone attending the event would have

understood the etiquette.

They would have been able to read every
nuance, every sign, every gesture.

The leader had to be a skilled
politician to pull it off, to read

correctly and make accurate assessments
of his followers or his would -be

followers.

Who would be served first?

Who would get the choicest cuts of meat?

Who would be left with the cold
shoulder?

And because it was happening publicly,
it was open to dispute.

Because after all, It's a room full of
fiery, hot -blooded Celts.

And if one of them felt he was being
slighted when he should have been being

praised, then if he felt strong enough,
he would have the opportunity to make

his feelings clear.

But by the end of the night, everyone
would have understood where they were,

they related to one another, who was top
dog and who was at the bottom.

Over just a few hundred years, the
structure of power had reshaped Iron Age

Britain, from an age of elite local
warriors to increasingly powerful Celtic

chieftains.

By around 100 BC, power had become
concentrated in the hands of a narrow

elite, people who controlled such an
extent of trade and territory that they

became something new, the first of the
mega -rich.

And some of the evidence for that can be
seen back here at the British Museum.

This is a late Iron Age gold torque.

An elaborate, lavish piece of jewellery
worn around the neck.

It's absolutely breathtaking.

The weight of gold, just the luster of
it. It's been compared in terms of its

significance as being right up there
with the British crown jewels.

And you can surely see why.

It's been made by twisting individual
strands of gold to create these

corkscrewing spirals.

And then the ends have been fitted into
these round terminals.

The goldsmith, the artist, has really
gone to town on adding decoration

to give it texture and depth.

It dates to around 75 year BC and it's
quite different in

form from the earlier military art like
the Battersea Shield, the Kirkburn

Sword.

This is the advent of something.

Quite new in Britain.

This is extreme wealth, extreme showing
off.

And what you have here in the owner of
this

is a man who is seeing himself and
perhaps more importantly being

seen by his followers as nothing less
than a king.

Some of the tribal territories of
Britain were now ruled by men so

even began to issue their own coins.

Look at these.

These are some of the earliest coins
ever found in England.

And the Celtic coin makers are making
coins in their own image, if you like.

They're using Celtic art rather than...

straightforward representations of
heads.

They're going for something abstract.

Just like today, coins have always been
representations of the state,

often the head of state.

And the same thing is happening here.

This talk, which dates from the same
period as these three gold coins, is

obviously a symbol of authority.

But this is where you start to get the
authority of the state becoming

that's transferable.

Coins are in circulation. They're
distributed.

This is about society being permeated by
the portable, transferable symbols

of the state and of the king.

But if there were people at the top,
with almost unimaginable wealth, there

also people at the bottom.

And evidence for that can be found at
the National Museum of Wales.

As well as gold, every important Celtic
leader wanted prestige goods from

mainland Europe.

Olive oil, wine, exotic tableware, all
the accoutrements of civilisation.

To pay for it, they exported wool.

animal hide, hunting dogs. But there was
also a darker price to be paid for all

that luxury.

In European markets, one commodity above
all else was in great demand.

Tall, strong, British manpower.

Look at this.

It's an iron...

Slave chain.

It's over 2 ,000 years old.

Now, this, obviously, is the part made
to go round the slave's neck.

It would fit tightly. It might even make
it hard to breathe.

Just half a metre, a foot and a half,
say, of iron chain.

separates each slave in the line as they
shuffle along to wherever they're

going.

It's fantastically heavy and so well
preserved you get a real sense of what

would have felt like to be burdened with
this and to feel the way that these

would have chafed at the neck.

For every king or queen in the Iron Age
There would have to have been countless,

countless leaves.

Gold jewellery, works of art.

They give a glimpse of life for people
at the top end of society.

But it's items like this that brings you
face to face with what Iron Age reality

must have been like for those thousands
and thousands of people who inhabited

the bottom of society.

Just a few hundred years earlier, many
people in Britain had lived in

egalitarian farming communities.

But now, in the late Celtic Iron Age,
all that had changed.

By 75 BC, Britain was a land of hard
social divides.

Kings at the top, slaves at the bottom.

The rest of us, presumably the vast
majority, somewhere in between.

But there was another class of people.

They were the spiritual leaders, the
wise men of Celtic society.

The Druids.

Miranda Green is an Iron Age
archaeologist and Druid specialist.

Within the whole mix of society, you've
got kings and aristocrats, you've got

ordinary people, you've got slaves at
the bottom. Where are the Druids in that

picture? Right up at the top. I would
think probably more important than the

kings or the tribal leaders.

We know that the kings listened to their
advice.

They were like the Old Testament
prophets.

And one of the things that make them
important is that they overarch society

that you might have kings of tribes, but
the Druids would connect with each

other. through huge areas of Europe. So
they acted like a kind of Celtic glue.

So really crucial to the working of
society.

Crucial, and they even intervened in
case of warfare. They could actually

into the middle of a battlefield and
stop the war.

Right. So they were that important.

OK. Even though they didn't actually
fight themselves.

So they were...

Absolutely to be taken seriously.

They were, and indeed to go against a
druid would be almost to be as bad as

being dead because you would be exiled,
nobody would speak to you and you were

then beyond society because of the word
of a druid.

Little evidence remains of these
powerful priests of Celtic society

legends of oaks, mistletoe.

and golden sickles.

But discoveries of unusual and
mysterious spoons are thought to be

the indispensable art of divination.

What is this collection of weirdness?

Well, we have got here a pair of replica
spoons, and they're called divination

spoons. That means divination means
telling the future, and they were used

druids in the Iron Age. One of the
spoons has got a hole drilled into it.

The other spoon is divided in its inner
surface into four quadrants. All right.

And I think they were used together,
placed like that, and then something

or dripped through the hole, and then
the spoons would be opened to see where

the quartered surface it would fall.

OK. If you want your ancestors to speak
to you about perhaps where you should go

next, where your herds should go, to do
that you would use their bones.

I'd rather you than me.

So we can see that the powder that I
blew through this hole has not landed,

you might think, exactly opposite the
hole, but down in this left -hand corner

here.

So we could actually try a little liquid
now, couldn't we? This is where you

come in.

I'm guessing that's not ketchup.

No, it's not, and it's not tomato juice.

It's blood.

OK.

You've got actually quite a nice
patterning there. Yeah.

But it is like telling the tea leaves.
You're getting this definite shape.

So you would come to the druids, or the
druids would be consulted by someone in

a position of power and would ask
specific questions.

Yes. Why are the flocks afflicted with
this disease?

That's right. Should we go to war with
the neighbours?

That's right.

And it would be in the gift of the druid
to interpret this any way he wanted. Of

course. So if the druid wants to go to
war...

The Druid can make that happen?
Absolutely.

And the Druids would know perfectly well
both the questions and the answers that

they were after. So I think what you've
got here is a means of manipulating the

future and manipulating power.

The Druids were men so powerful that
even the Celtic kings danced to their

But despite their huge influence, Apart
from divination spoons, definite

evidence of druids has never been found.

But there is one possibility.

This is the skull of a man who died.

around 200 years BC, aged between 30 and
35 years old.

He was buried in an Iron Age cemetery in
Deal in Kent.

He has been known as the Deal warrior
because with him in his grave there was

sword. But there's something more
interesting and more mysterious about

this character.

When the skeleton was being excavated
back in the 80s, the people working on

noticed that while he was definitely
male, the bones were slight, slender.

In fact, somebody said of him that the
bones were of a slightly feminine

So something definitely un -warrior
-like.

So what's going on? What else do we
know? Well, he was buried wearing... the

elaborate, enigmatic headgear.

It wasn't padded or lined in leather.

It was worn directly on the head.

And we know that because traces of this
individual's hair were found trapped in

the rim.

For that reason, and because it's so
slight, it's highly unlikely that it was

ever worn as a military helmet to give
protection to a man's head.

in combat the only other artifacts like
it are the

headgear worn by religious leaders in
roman britain 200 years

later so was he something like that the
fascinating

possibility and it's only a possibility
is that this individual

in life

was of that most mysterious cast of
people.

A druid who walked this land 200 years
before the birth of

Christ. And if so, what events did he
witness?

And what power did he wield?

By the time of the Celtic kings, the age
of the hill forts was coming to an end.

Even the greatest of them, the mega hill
forts like Danbury, were in decline.

Trade with mainland Europe had brought
wealth and power, at least to the few.

But those contacts were bringing Britain
to the brink of another new age.

Look at this.

It's a fragment of a storage vessel.

It was found 40 odd miles from here on
the coast and it was made maybe 75

years BC.

This vessel didn't contain local
produce.

Rather it held something from many
hundreds of miles away to the south on

mainland Europe.

This contained wine.

possibly from the vineyards of Rome
itself.

Now, this speaks of a remarkable
transformation.

From a land 400, maybe 300 years BC,
with tribal

chieftains fighting over booty, to a
land of proto -kingdoms whose leaders

acquired a taste for and had access to.

the finest luxuries that the classical
world could offer.

It was the height of the Celtic Iron Age
with all its feasting and druids and

the full glory of Celtic art.

But this represents something much more
powerful as well because by now the

Roman Empire was fully on the move, had
already placed the shadow of its hand

over Gaul.

Soon, the leaders here would be tasting
more than Roman wine.

They'd be tasting Roman swords as well.

And that would mark the beginning of a
whole new era in our history.

Next time, my journey continues.

The lesson there is don't stand still if
a man on a horse is coming at you with

a sword.

As I encounter a whole new age of
invasion.

These beaches were lined with thousands
of British warriors.

And out there, two legions of Roman
infantry.

And at their head, Julius Caesar, Roman
general and budding emperor.

A time of bloody conflict.

These men were executed.

Their heads were cut off their bodies
and their heads were stuck on spike.

This was what would happen to you if you
got in the way of Rome.

A moment in our history that would
change the faith of Britain forever.

If you want to follow in the footsteps
of our ancestors, then go to the website

bbc .co .uk slash history to find out
how to connect with ancient Britain in

your area.