All language subtitles for Operation Stonehenge What Lies Beneath 1of2

The megaliths of Stonehenge

are Britain's most investigated
ancient monument.

Yet, despite centuries of scrutiny,

excavations and theories...

..the big questions remain.

What were its origins?

How did it evolve over thousands
of years?

And which forces of nature and
humanity inspired its creators?

Now, a group of experts are
taking a hi tech approach

to unlocking Stonehenge's secrets.

A site like Stonehenge can only be
understood

by looking at the monuments
around it

and how that landscape's evolved.

For the first time, we're not just
seeing little islands of activity,

but we get to see the big picture.

The new data, supported by wider
archaeological evidence,

has thrown fresh light on 10,000
years of human progress.

It's quite an achievement

when you think that the people
excavating this

were using stone and bone tools.

Its ancient people were meticulous
planners...

This is really quite a big feature.
It's clearly man-made.

..profound believers...

They had very peculiar rituals.

De-fleshment, cutting off of heads.

..and fearless warriors.

When things come to a boiling point,

the violence that does break out
can be very brutal.

Just kill everything
in front of you.

In just five years, 21st century
archaeology has achieved

what conventional excavation would
have taken a lifetime to complete.

Revealing a picture of Stonehenge...

..and its people

as never before.

Recent times have seen intense
levels of activity around

the world's most famous prehistoric
site.

To solve the mysteries
of the monument,

the scientists have been using
a novel strategy.

Not just focusing
on the iconic stones,

they also investigated the wider
landscape in which they sit.

The thing with Stonehenge is
if you visit it,

you don't always get the sense of
the enormity of the landscape.

It's only when you get above
or you get away from it

that you can really get a sense of
how everything fits together

and really that's at the heart
of the whole project.

We're trying to look
at the wider picture.

To understand Stonehenge, we have to
look at the entire landscape,

both spatially, but also through
time.

The most ambitious of these
new studies

is the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes
Project.

Led by experts from
Birmingham University

and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute
in Austria.

As people walk over the Stonehenge
landscape,

they're aware of Stonehenge.

They may be aware of some of the
larger monuments

but they don't appreciate

that thousands of years of human
occupancy in this landscape

produces features that we simply do
not know about.

The project is using remote-sensing
technology to try and map that

to discover it and display it for
the first time.

With state-of-the-art remote-sensing
equipment,

the team have mapped
every structure,

both visible and invisible,

across 10 square kilometres of the
sacred site.

We can do a virtual dig of this
landscape

and see what is hidden beneath the
surface.

With machines like this,
we can come up with a picture

which has a resolution
of 10th of centimetres...

This is something absolutely new.

With all the scanned data collated,

the team have produced a
multi-layered digital map,

that showed how the landscape
developed over thousands of years.

In order to understand Stonehenge,

we have to look at the periods
up to that construction.

So, going back 1,000 years
or more beforehand.

And only by doing that

and understanding how the landscape
evolves

do we get a sense of why Stonehenge
is where it is.

The Hidden Landscapes Project's
unprecedented big picture

has revealed a remarkable world of
hidden monuments.

It was really quite exciting

when we looked at the data for the
first time.

The team who was looking at
that said,

"That looks like a henge,"

and that is important.

As they analysed their data
even further,

they found new information

about how the other monuments
interconnect with Stonehenge.

The architecture of Stonehenge
doesn't exist in isolation.

There's a form of connectivity
in the landscape here

that we'd not realised before.

The discoveries made by the
Hidden Landscapes Project

are backed by new finds from other
research projects.

Together they are telling the full
story of Stonehenge.

The first signs of human activity
in the Stonehenge area

date back 10,000 years to a period
known as the Mesolithic.

Around that time,

three large totem-like poles were
erected,

250m from where Stonehenge now
stands.

Their meaning and purpose
has baffled experts

since their discovery in 1966.

Recently, at a site only
2km to the south east,

archaeologists have unearthed
the first traces

of people living in the same period.

It's a find that may finally answer

why Stonehenge is located
where it is.

Here's a section through one of the
most interesting trenches

dug in modern history.

And in fact has all of modern
history in it.

We've got a soil profile here,

which captures the very modern.

This chalk layer is from the 1960s,

dumped from the road that goes
to Stonehenge.

Underneath that, we have a cobbled
platform surface,

which is post medieval.

We've got some soil build up here.

But it's this lower bit that's
really fascinating and interesting.

It's sealed by a cobbled surface
almost certainly put in by man

sometime in pre-history
and that's brilliant

because it's capped 14cm of intact
Mesolithic archaeology.

Full of Mesolithic flint work
and bone

and, as you can see,
there's a nice, small piece here.

Ah, yeah, that's a very nice piece.

I think it's a little blade.

The big question is, what is so
special about this place

that people are settling here,
living here for a long time?

The rich array of artefacts
excavated from this site

are striking clues as to what
compelled these ancient people

to camp here.

This is just a sample of the amazing
finds that we've got from this site.

We've got quite domestic-looking
tools.

This type of thing would probably
have been used

to pierce holes in animal skin.

We've also found much bigger tools.

This is an absolutely brilliant
tranchet axe.

These things are the Porsche
of the Mesolithic.

Really top-quality flint used
for making boats

and chopping down trees.

It's not just about stone and flint
tools, though.

We've got about 700 animal bones

and they're really big.

These are from aurochs.

These are three times the size of a
normal cow.

We have at least six aurochs in our
assemblage.

They must have been local.

They're so big it would have taken
a big effort

to transport them a long way.

So, these animals are probably
around Amesbury and Stonehenge.

Perhaps, the people, living all
around where we are now,

are seeing these animals move across
the landscape

and getting opportunities to hunt.

The existence of a large clearing

in otherwise dense forest

made this a natural and bountiful
hunting ground.

One of the reasons why it was
an open plain,

perhaps, it was because aurochs are
such veracious eaters.

They're like nature's vacuum
cleaners.

Any woodland or bush growth wouldn't
have stood much of a chance

if you had a large herd of animals
moving through a place like this.

As we move down in this landscape,
we begin to be part of a funnel.

It would be a brilliant place for
hunter-gatherers to hide

and observe the movement of these
huge animals.

Topographical scans have revealed

the contours of this ancient
landscape.

Features that Mesolithic
hunter-gatherers could exploit.

Where this side valley is steep,

it's very likely that the animals
would mass together

and then panic and then bolt.

A clever, intelligent
hunter-gatherer

would almost certainly have had a
strategy to position themselves

at points where they knew
these animals would come

through the landscape.

At that point, that is exactly the
best place to take one down.

So, we started to consider that
in this bowl-like landscape

where you have this arrangement of
small hillocks and side valleys,

you may well have got a brilliant
place to hunt.

For David Jacques, the site held
qualities that made it

more than just a rich hunting
ground.

We're in a really extraordinary
place here.

I mean, this is almost like a time
capsule.

There's very little landscape change
extraordinarily from the Mesolithic.

So, it's a special place.

The unexpected discovery of a rare
natural phenomenon

may also explain the beginnings of
Stonehenge's mystical reputation.

Well, something that's really
interesting about this site

is that it appears that it's not
all about the practical.

We've noticed a really strange
phenomenon with the flint.

We've got a chemical reaction
going on here.

The flint is turning brown

because there are traces of iron in
the spring water.

Now, that's typical in a lot of
places

on the edges of fresh water ponds
and lakes and rivers.

But there is something peculiar
happening here.

When a stone like this is pulled out
of the water

and it's kept out of the water
for about two to three hours,

something extraordinary happens.

It turns into a really bright,
almost sort of violent magenta pink.

The remarkable change is triggered

by rare algae in the spring water.

But Mesolithic hunter-gatherers
had no rational explanation

for this vivid change in the flint.

It would have been the most
extraordinary, magical thing

in the Mesolithic to see
a transformation like this.

They're living at a time where
the colour palette

is dominated by green and brown
and black and white.

Something as flamboyant as this

would have given this particular
area a real local signature.

Something that would have meant
'this place' to people.

This is the place where memories
and traditions start.

Stonehenge isn't just a new build.

It's in response to something.

The magical, pink flint
and an abundant supply of meat

may have inspired
the hunter-gatherers

to mark out the area with the
totem pole-like monuments.

An act that Jacques believes
may have been the start

of this landscape's mythical status.

There would be memories attached to
that, stories attached to that.

Almost certainly the people involved
are getting mythologised.

Does that mean down the line these
ideas are getting monumentalised

and later take shape in structures

like the one we can see behind us
at Stonehenge?

The evidence from the Mesolithic
encampment

combined with the mysterious posts

establishes a compelling starting
point for the Stonehenge story.

Then, around 8,200 years ago,

climate change had a dramatic impact

on the destiny of the Stonehenge
landscape.

As the Last Ice Age thawed,

rising melt waters engulfed the
territory known as Dogger Land.

And Britain became an island.

Cut off from continental influence,

life in Mesolithic Britain
changed little.

For the next 2,000 years,

no new monuments appeared
in the Stonehenge area.

A clue to the resumption
of monument building

was found in a field 2km
to the east of Stonehenge.

These enigmatic lines
are the faint traces

of an ancient building.

Surveyed by the Hidden Landscapes
Project's high resolution scanners,

their true significance was
revealed.

We try now set out the points
of the monument

that we actually detected
in our magnetic data.

OK. That's that one. Yep.

Professor Wolfgang Neubauer and
Eamon Baldwin staked out the find.

So, that's the east side of the
facade. Yeah, let's see.

One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine...

The structure was far more advanced
than anything

that had previously been built
in the region.

Based on similar discoveries
in continental Europe,

Professor Neubauer identified it
as a communal burial tomb,

known as a long barrow.

It's 33 metres. That's the normal
length of a continental long barrow.

These are really huge buildings

and that we actually get this in
this landscape, it's just amazing.

The data showed the monument's
original layout

consisted of wooden pillars and
timber walls.

The presence of long barrows
marks a major shift

in the cultural life
of this ancient world.

Around 9,000 years ago, mainland
Europe underwent a social

and technological revolution -

the Neolithic era.

Characterised by farming
and permanent settlements,

the new culture and its ideas
slowly expanded west,

before they finally crossed
into Britain about 4000 BCE.

Along with the development
of agriculture,

the Neolithic age heralded
the emergence

of long barrow burial tombs.

Like the one exposed by the
Hidden Landscapes Project.

Well, now we've pegged out
the whole thing.

This monument starts to make sense.

You see this full court
with a palisade wall.

And this was the place where
they prepared the dead for burial.

Bones from excavated long barrows
tell of the new funeral practices

the Neolithic arrivals
brought with them.

They had very peculiar rituals
for burials.

They had de-fleshment.

They had cutting off of heads.

Heads were actually treated
completely different

than the other parts of the body.

There was preparing of the bones
to be put into this large tomb,

which was a tomb for the whole
community.

The remains of up to 50 people -
men, women and children -

were laid to rest
in these mass graves

before they were finally sealed.

In the end, the whole building was
covered with a huge amount of earth

dug out from big pits
to build this long barrow

as a house for the dead people.

With other nearby long barrows
added to the map,

this is how the area looked
6,000 years ago.

The arrival of the Neolithic
culture from Europe

reaffirmed the landscape's
sacred status.

Stonehenge is a unique landscape.

It encapsulates how early societies
related to the landscape.

Their belief systems pervaded
everyday life.

How ritual and religion
was so important to them.

We see it in Stonehenge in
a rather extreme manner,

but nonetheless,
it demonstrates to us

just how important the position
earlier communities had

with the landscape around them.

As well as the long barrows,
another typical Neolithic structure,

known as a causewayed enclosure,

appeared for the first time in the
Stonehenge area 5,600 years ago.

Four and a half kilometres
to the north west,

faint scars on the grassland hint
at its original shape.

This is Robin Hood's Ball.

You can see it beautifully
from this side.

This is one of the earlier Neolithic
monuments built in this landscape.

It consists of rings of circular
ditches with gaps in them.

These gaps are the causeways, hence
the name causewayed enclosure.

Structures like Robin Hood's Ball
brought with them

the Neolithic concept
of dividing up the land.

These monuments represent
the first types of enclosure

we're finding in prehistory.

It's the first time people
are actually enclosing

a particular space
for a particular purpose.

In the evolution of Stonehenge,
causewayed camps

and their demarcation of territory
heralded a period of conflict

between competing groups.

On some of these sites,
when they've been excavated,

they start to give an indication
of warfare,

people killing each other,

potentially some sort of tension
in society.

Evidence suggested that with
the onset of conflict,

all major developments in the
Stonehenge landscape

stopped for 300 years.

In total, over 70 structures

similar to Robin Hood's Ball

were built across Britain.

Their distribution has led some
to suggest

they form a border between different
groups across the country.

At one of these sites,
Crickley Hill,

past excavations have discovered

what may be Britain's first
major battle.

Crickley Hill gives us a completely
new picture of the scale

of violence in prehistoric Britain.

It's really the first time
that we see evidence for warfare

between separate communities
or even groups of communities

on a completely different scale
to what went on previously.

There's a sense that this was
a planned event.

Possibly the preparations went on
for months beforehand

and this was a very committed
action.

The defenders included men,
women and children.

The attackers, however,
were probably mostly adult male.

THEY SHOUT

Studies of tribal warfare
give some idea

why the neighbouring clans
fought each other.

There may be a series of perceived
injustices that build up,

over generations sometimes.

And when things come
to a boiling point,

the violence that does break out

can take the form of trying

to actually exterminate
a neighbouring community.

You would then be able to take over
their resources,

to take over their land, their
cattle, perhaps even their women.

400 flint arrowheads found
at Crickley Hill

revealed how the conflict
played out.

From the distribution of arrowheads,

it does look like the attackers

successfully overwhelmed
the defence.

Once you are inside, you're in much
closer proximity to people

and fighting at that point
would have become hand-to-hand.

Crickley Hill is just one of a
number of violent clashes

in southern Britain.

It was a period of instability

that seems to have brought monument
building in theses areas

to a standstill.

Excavated skulls from the period

provide an insight into the savagery
of the fighting.

We have these individual examples
of people that had died violently.

The original point of impact on this
individual was from the side,

perhaps even slightly behind,
coming in from this direction.

This was a very sharp, strong blow.

This is a rounded fracture arc.

There's no question that an injury
of this severity

penetrating the cranium, driving the
bone fragments into the brain

would be instantly lethal.

Research shows no-one was spared
from the bloodshed.

This is an adult female skull.

In Neolithic societies,
it seems possible to think

that women were not always
just innocent bystanders.

They may have actually been involved
in the conflict

and indeed fighting themselves.

You don't know who is armed.

There are no uniforms to know
who's a combatant

and who's a non-combatant.

In this case, we have adhering bone
that's slightly depressed

and that indicates to me that there
was a degree of elasticity

in the bone that is typical of the
bone being still fresh.

In other words, that was a lethal
injury.

5,500 years ago...

..causewayed camps like Crickley
Hill and Robin Hood's Ball

were abandoned.

Their decline signalled the end
of large-scale hostilities

in ancient Britain.

In the relative peace that followed,

monument construction in
the Stonehenge landscape

began once more...

..with the digging
of huge oval ditches,

the largest of which
is the Greater Cursus.

The largest monument
in this landscape

is undoubtedly the Greater Cursus.

Interpreting the Cursus
has been very, very difficult.

It's only when you start finding
more detail about the architecture

that you start to get a better
understanding

of what is essentially a very,
very big, long, bank and ditch.

Over two and half kilometres long,

the Cursus represented a new scale
of ambition for ancient engineering.

It required a huge area
to be cleared

before 20,000 tonnes of chalk were
excavated to form its immense ditch.

To meet these new ambitions,

the builders needed tools on a
previously unheard of scale,

in particular, flint axes.

There's certainly an increase in the
amount of effort

people are willing to put
into constructing monuments.

270km away, in Norfolk,

evidence of a prehistoric mining
operation,

shows the extraordinary efforts
the Neolithic people made

to meet the demand for high-grade,
flint tools.

Well, here we are, at Grime's Graves
in Norfolk, and we're standing

in the middle of an extremely
pockmarked, cratered landscape

There are around about 450
of these distinctive hollows.

Each one of these represents a
Neolithic flint mine.

The quality of flint found
in the area

made it a highly-prized commodity

and linked it directly to
Stonehenge.

When you go to Stonehenge,
a number of the barrows

and monuments around there have the
Grime's Graves flint in with them.

And we're finding complete
artefacts

finished to a very high quality
and then they're being buried

in significant places, possibly
as a ritual offering to the gods.

It's estimated around 18,000 tonnes
of flint

were removed from Grime's Graves.

Enough to make millions of axes.

You can get a real sense
of the mining endeavour

when you look across this whole
field.

But to get an idea of the
engineering achievement,

you need to go down into one of the
shafts.

Now, this particular one has been
excavated out in the 19th century,

so we've got an opportunity
to go down there

and to experience the same kind of
environment

that the Neolithic miners had.

So here we are at the bottom of one
of the shafts.

It's a lot darker than it would have
been in the Neolithic

because at the moment there
is a modern, concrete cover

just to protect the archaeology.

Originally, that would have been
open to the sky,

so the sun would have been coming in

and the walls all around us,
the white chalk,

would have been reflecting that
light, bouncing off the walls

and then extending out into all the
excavation spaces beyond.

Each one of the 450 shafts that you
can see on the surface

would have been like this.

This particular one descending
12.5 meters down

through the solid chalk.

Quite an achievement when you think
that the people excavating this

were using stone and bone tools.

This would have taken months
to excavate out down.

Once the miners reached the
floorstone flint...

..they dug horizontal galleries

following the rich seams.

The galleries are extremely
restricted in size.

So I think we are probably seeing
some of the younger,

slighter elements of society,

who had engaged in the actual
extraction process.

This is one of the larger gallery
spaces down here in the mines.

A lot of them are far more
restricted than this.

Because the preservation
is so incredible,

we've still got a whole series
of their antler picks.

The tools that they were using down
here to chip away at the chalk.

Now, using the end sometimes
to batter away blocks.

And also to lever the flint up.

The high-grade flint found
at these depths

motivated the prehistoric miners.

This is some of the floor stone
flint they're looking for

and you can see it's jet black
colour.

It fractures beautifully
and it's still razor sharp.

Russell also believes

the mines served an important
ritualistic role.

Moving towards adulthood,
you need a rite of passage.

You need to be doing something
that's actually quite extreme.

And coming down here into the mine,
crawling into the galleries,

into the unknown, into the
mysterious, digging out the flint

and bringing it back up
onto the surface

could move you from childhood
to adult

especially if there is an audience
up there waiting for you

to emerge with your flint in hand.

Excavated human bones
from another Neolithic flint mine

highlighted the dangers
miners faced.

When they looked at the skeletons

that were found down in the lower
levels of the mine,

one was actually covered by rubble,

almost like the material just
behind me here.

The body was lying stretched out
in the gallery

as if going towards the flint.

When they looked at the bones,

they realised that it was
the skeleton of a young woman.

I think it was easily plausible
that this young woman was a miner

and that she did come to an
unfortunate, untimely end...

..down in the galleries when
the roof collapsed on her.

Her colleagues, perhaps feeling that
she'd been claimed by the earth,

didn't go back and recover her.

The astonishing size of the mining
complex at Grime's Graves,

reveals a people capable of planning
and executing large-scale projects.

Attributes that were harnessed in
the Stonehenge landscape

to create the vast Greater Cursus
monument.

But while the function of
the mines is proven,

the role of the Cursus
remains a mystery.

We still don't know why such a huge
amount of effort

was put into constructing such a big
monument as the Cursus.

At the heart of the Stonehenge
question -

you know, what is Stonehenge? -
is the Cursus

and if we can't understand how
that fits together,

we can't understand the landscape.

To solve the puzzle of the Cursus,

the Hidden Landscapes Project
focused their survey

on every centimetre of the enormous
monument.

After weeks of analysis,

the team detected a series of
previously unknown breaks

in the perimeter.

When we surveyed the Cursus,
there were a number of features

which were quite surprising for us.

The first was that there were a
number of small entrances

into the enclosure itself.

It wasn't a single cohesive unit.
There were gaps through it.

So it wasn't simply enclosed. There
were ways of going in and out of it.

The discovery of entrance
and exit points

supported the theory that the Cursus
was a processional route.

But the gaps were only the first
clues the survey team uncovered.

The data also revealed
two previously unknown pits

inside the Cursus.

I'm standing at the centre of the
pit in the west end of the Cursus.

This is really quite a big feature.

It's about 5 meters across and

1 to 1.5 meters deep, at least.

It has a pair at the other end
of the Cursus.

These are clearly man-made,
they're not natural features -

their depth, the way they're cut,
their position within the Cursus.

These are clearly significant
archaeological structures.

When the positions of the pits
were computer-modelled

against the movement of the sun,

their true importance became clear.

The calculations showed
that on midsummer's day

the eastern pit's alignment
with the sunrise

and the western pit's
alignment with sunset

intersect at the location of where
Stonehenge would be built

some 400 years later.

Accurate solar alignment
on this scale provided proof

of a daylong ceremony held to
celebrate the passage of the sun

at the summer solstice.

The linkage of these pits
with the Curses,

which is sometimes regarded
as a processional route

to mark the passage of the sun,

actually links the Curses itself
with the position of Stonehenge

because that's the point

which we presume observations
were taking place.

So, at the point that the Curses
was built,

Stonehenge is acquiring significance
as well.

The revelations about the Cursus

suggested that the site of
Stonehenge had a ritual significance

at least four centuries earlier
than originally thought.

It's possible that the pits
predate Stonehenge

and they relate to the phase
of activity

before Stonehenge was built
associated with the Cursus.

This creates a very new and exciting
aspect to the Stonehenge landscape,

which we've not recognised
previously.

The precision and scale of the
Greater Cursus design

indicates a technically advanced
and knowledgeable people.

But the sophistication of Neolithic
culture

wasn't only expressed in its
monument building.

I've got three skulls
on the table here,

all of which come from graves
in the vicinity of Stonehenge.

But the other thing
they have in common,

as well as where they come from,

is that they have all had surgery
to the skull.

The idea of having surgical
intervention so far back in time

sounds incredibly sophisticated
and, in many ways, it is.

The reason for undertaking surgery
of this type

was if somebody had a blunt weapon
trauma to the skull,

they can see there's been some kind
of damage to the skull,

bits of bone sticking into the brain

and they've got to be excised

otherwise it's going to kill
that individual.

The technique, known as trepanning,

followed similar methods to those
used by modern surgery.

But without the luxury of scalpels
and anaesthetics.

Probably, the worst bit was
actually having the skin flap cut...

..to expose the skull itself.

As in modern surgery, you would cut
the flap of the scalp

and you would fold it back.

The forensic analysis revealed

an unexpectedly advanced grasp
of human anatomy.

So, as you are cutting through
the outer plate,

you can feel it because it's hard.

Slightly less hard when you get
to the middle part,

then you know when you're
at the inner plate,

so you know where you have got
to be careful

because you do not want to start
to hit the brain.

So, you've got control over this.

You would be cutting in from a wider
outside circumference.

And you would cut carefully and
would bevel in as you cut round,

and then you would change direction

and you would cut from
the other side.

And when you get to where
you want to be,

you cut out and lift out very
carefully

the bits of bone you don't want
in there.

Despite the crude nature of
the surgical instruments,

signs of healing around the holes

showed how adept these early
surgeons were

at performing delicate operations.

They knew how to do it.
They know it worked.

And they were very successful at
this because they nearly all heal.

Evidence of surgery,

industrial-scale flint mining

and a new understanding
of the Cursus has revealed a people

capable of complex reasoning
and planning,

who expressed their
ceremonial beliefs

in precise, solar-aligned monuments.

This spiritual ambition and mastery
of nature

would be fundamental to the creation
of Stonehenge.

This is clearly the best view

you can ever have of Stonehenge -
from above.

You can see the other parts of the
monument,

things like the ditch,
which runs round it,

which is from about 3000 BC.

It's kind of the beginning of what
becomes Stonehenge.

Radiocarbon dating indicates

that around 400 years
after the ditch was dug,

the stone circle was raised.

But while experts have a good
idea of the order

in which Stonehenge was built,

the monument's seclusion has never
been fully explained.

The usual sense has been

that Stonehenge sits in splendid
isolation

within this broader landscape.

It's given rise to the idea that a
sacred landscape developed

around Stonehenge
during the Neolithic

within which very few other
activities took place.

The work we've been doing

approaches this landscape in a
radically different way.

The intention is to see it as a
seamless survey.

Not just what is on top of the
surface,

but what is below the surface.

In doing this, we're able to put
Stonehenge in its landscape context

in a much richer,
much more detailed way.

The challenge of discovering
lost monuments

in the vacant space around the stone
circle

was one of the Hidden Landscapes
Project's core objectives.

Sector after sector was scanned,

but nothing was detected.

Finally, less than 1km to the
north west...

..the archaeologists picked up
signals of something unexpected.

I am standing on a small mound about
900m away from Stonehenge,

it is called Amesbury 50.

It's been known for quite
a long time.

It's one of several hundred mounds

in the immediate vicinity
of Stonehenge.

But the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes
Project has been able

to use new technologies in a way
that gives us new insights

into this mound and the structures
that lie beneath it.

The high-resolution equipment
detected far more detail

hidden beneath the mound.

It was really quite exciting

when we looked at the data
for the first time.

First of all, you just saw
the ditches around the mound,

but it was only after a minute that
we started to realise

that inside the ditches, there were
a whole series of large pits

or post holes and they were
completely unexpected.

The moment we saw them,
the team who was looking at it said,

"That looks like a henge,"

and that is important.

Henge monuments like the one
located by the survey

consist of a ditch and bank.

What made the discovery of this
henge so exciting was its location.

We were particularly interested
in this site

because it's actually a very short
distance from Stonehenge.

At the time that we were doing
this work, there was a presumption

that the area around Stonehenge was
reserved for Stonehenge itself

and that there may well have been
little activity around it.

For the first time, there was proof
that other monuments existed

within the immediate sacred area
of Stonehenge.

The scanning continued

and more structures began to appear.

As we started expanding the survey,
your eye becomes more tuned

into the slightly weird things.

You start exploring the monuments
you can see

trying to find something
a bit unusual.

And quite frequently, you find it.

As even more data flowed into
the Hidden Landscapes Project,

the number of identified monuments
increased dramatically.

As we began to survey

much larger areas of the landscape
around Stonehenge,

we began to see a number of other
similar late Neolithic monuments,

which where hitherto unknown.

This monument, Amesbury 41, just to
the north-east of Stonehenge,

long thought to have been a simple
early Bronze age burial monument,

we can now see is something
completely different.

It is an elongated enclosure
with slightly angular sides,

with an entrance pointing due west.

In the same frame, we can see
another small monument.

A little mini shrine,
a small hengiform monument

very close to Stonehenge.

To the north-east,

these horseshoe-shaped
arrangements of pits,

within which we must assume
people gathered together

to undertake rituals and ceremonies.

In a separate study,

archaeologists from English Heritage
re-examined old survey data

taken just 200 metres
from the stone circle.

They, too, saw what appeared to be
another henge monument.

All together, we found about 20 new
late Neolithic ceremonial monuments

within the wider landscape
around Stonehenge.

The discovery of so many shrines
in areas once thought deserted

showed beyond all doubt
that Stonehenge was not alone

and never had been.

Rather than seeing Stonehenge as
standing uniquely in the plain,

we now start to see that there are
a series of similar monuments.

They may have acted as shrines, the
equivalent of a modern rural chapel

where families, groups would come to
visit at certain times.

It begins to give us an insight

into how the wider landscape
was used at the time

that Stonehenge was developing into
the monument you see today.

Like many of the ceremonial shrines

located by the Hidden Landscapes
Project...

..Stonehenge also began its life
as a ditch and bank.

To be transformed into the iconic
monument we know today

required the addition of giant,
standing stones.

The tradition of building stone
monuments in pre-historic Europe

dates back about 7,000 years.

In the centuries that followed,

megaliths appeared across
the continent,

following the spread
of Neolithic culture.

One of the most impressive displays
of ancient standing stones

can be seen near the French town
of Carnac...

..where 10,000 menhirs,

most of which predate Stonehenge
by many centuries,

stretch over 6km.

FRENCH TRANSLATION: The average
weight of stones here

is between two and four tonnes.

Bigger blocks like this one
can reach 20 tonnes.

Archaeologist Serge Cassen
has investigated

the significance of megaliths
to prehistoric peoples.

FRENCH TRANSLATION: You can
commemorate an ancestor's tomb

with a standing stone.

You can also use them to show a
person's change of status

and that person's ability to
mobilise a large labour force

to raise the stones.

And the stones could be used to
safeguard a person's future.

For example, the stone is used
to offer protection

over a field of crops.

These three functions of standing
stones can co-exist

on an enormous site like Carnac.

And it's this symbolic use
of standing stones

that characterises the Neolithic
age - 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

When the Neolithic age
reached Britain,

over 1,000 stone monuments
were built

from the Orkneys to Cornwall.

In the Stonehenge region,

one of the earliest examples of the
ceremonial use of stone

is the West Kennet burial chamber.

We see a whole host of changes
accompanying the shift

from hunter-gatherers
in the Mesolithic

to farmers in the Neolithic.

And that involved communal building
projects

like Stonehenge, ultimately.

But before that,
projects like West Kennet.

The stones had to be brought
from some distance,

they're very large stones.

And so, these were important
communal burial places

that brought the community together.

The monumental nature
of these stones

symbolized a new level of collective
endeavour and cultural ambition.

An ambition that would develop

into the ultimate expression of
prehistoric building prowess -

Stonehenge.

The discoveries of
the Hidden Landscapes Project

in conjunction with other
archaeological evidence

have allowed the first 6,000 years
of the Stonehenge story

to be told with more accuracy
than ever before.

They've charted the area's evolution
from its origins

as a mystical hunting ground...

..into a sacred site
of unprecedented scale.

Revealed is a fast-developing
civilisation

driven to exploit the region's
natural and spiritual wealth

with increasing sophistication.

Now, the next chapter of the
Stonehenge story can be told -

the ideas, ambition
and technological prowess

that created Stonehenge itself.

A monument unique
in the ancient world.

Next time, 21st century archaeology
would unlock the intricate puzzle

of the stone circle's
construction...

You couldn't build something
like Stonehenge without a plan.

..lay bare its bloody rituals...

To be buried in that ditch
at Stonehenge

suggests we have a sacrificial
victim.

..show where its people lived...

When I first saw it,
it was of course,

"Wow! Now, we have a settlement."

What we have been looking for
all the time.

..display the extraordinary
craftsmanship

of Stonehenge's golden age.

And reveal the stunning truth
of how the monument appeared

at its zenith.