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For the last five years,
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archaeologists have been conducting the most far-reaching investigation
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of the Stonehenge site ever attempted.
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With state-of-the-art technology,
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they've investigated every monument
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both visible and invisible
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around the stone circle.
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It's an all-encompassing approach that could finally unlock
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the mystery of the enigmatic stones
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and the prehistoric culture that flourished around them.
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The ground-breaking work has already helped chart
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the first 6,000 years of the Stonehenge story.
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Now the focus has shifted to unlocking
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the secrets of the iconic monument itself.
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How was it designed?
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The Neolithic people had an architect,
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a surveyor and a builder.
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How did it look?
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Just imagine how amazing Stonehenge would have looked with all of these
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cut surfaces glistening white in the sun.
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And what was it used for?
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To be buried in that ditch at Stonehenge
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suggests we have a sacrificial victim.
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An unprecedented level of new research,
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the latest remote sensing equipment
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and fresh discoveries
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has produced a more detailed and revealing picture of Stonehenge
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and its people
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than ever before.
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For hundreds of years,
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experts and amateurs alike
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have tried to solve the enigma of Stonehenge.
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Some of its mysteries have been explained...
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..but the whole picture remained elusive.
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Now a group of specialists known as the Hidden Landscapes Project,
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led by Birmingham University and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute
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in Austria, have taken a purely scientific approach to solving
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how Stonehenge was built
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and what it was used for.
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If you were to focus on excavation, you would by necessity end up
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focusing on particular monuments and particular sites.
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By surveying nearly 10 square km,
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we can actually look at the entirety of that landscape.
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Using the data from their ground penetrating equipment...
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..the team have created a multi layered digital map
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of a 10 square km area around Stonehenge.
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If you walk around this landscape, you see some protected monuments
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covered by grass, but if you are going to put your magnetic eyes on,
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you see much more details
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and also the inner structure of this monument.
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The archaeologists have already thrown fresh light on the key events
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that led to the raising of the stones.
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Evidence of a 9,000-year-old settlement
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and a newly discovered natural phenomenon
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has suggested why of all the places in Britain,
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Stonehenge was built where it was.
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This is a place where memories and traditions start.
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Stonehenge isn't just a new build, it's in response to something.
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Traces of a communal tomb detected in a seemingly empty field
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have shown how the ritualistic use of the landscape
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began 1,000 years before the stone circle was raised.
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They covered the whole thing with a big mound
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forming this long barrow, a house for the dead people.
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And the discovery of a myriad of hidden temples and shrines
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has shown that Stonehenge is not alone and never has been.
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Rather than seeing Stonehenge standing uniquely in the plain,
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we now start to see that there are a series of similar monuments.
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It begins to give us an insight
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into how the wider landscape was used at the time
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that Stonehenge was developing into the monument you see today.
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With the first 6,000 years mapped out,
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the rest of the Stonehenge story is now ready to be told.
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To better understand the period leading up
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to the raising of the stone circle...
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..Dr Henry Chapman concentrated on one of the largest monuments
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surveyed by the Hidden Landscapes Project.
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Lying 3 km to the north-east is Durrington Walls.
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Its 500m wide circular ditch and bank
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make it the largest monument of its type in Britain.
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Durrington Walls is a huge, huge henge.
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It's dated from the middle of the third millennium.
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round about the early stages of Stonehenge.
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Giant monuments like Durrington Walls
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were the product of emerging hierarchies
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who wanted to demonstrate their authority in the region.
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Clearly some very, very powerful people around at that time
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who are able to control resources,
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control the labour force,
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to create some of the largest monuments we've ever seen.
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What Durrington I think is showing is that although
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it's just that one point which we understand,
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it's got ramifications for the whole of the Stonehenge landscape.
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It was this drive to build ever more spectacular monuments
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that pushed the builders towards the ultimate expression
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of prehistoric building prowess - Stonehenge.
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It's possible to imagine a level of competition between different groups
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in southern Britain,
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and this might be related to increasing political centralisation,
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order and control.
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It might be related to a greater sense of identity
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among the different groups that occupy the wider landscape.
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Now in that context, the construction of this extraordinary building
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of Stonehenge marks a kind of exponential increase
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in terms of the scale of the enterprise
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and from the point of view of competition,
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very difficult to compete with.
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The raising of Stonehenge's megaliths
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began around 4,600 years ago.
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Made of a dense sandstone known as sarsen,
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the biggest of the megaliths weighed almost 40 tonnes.
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No large deposits of sarsen have been found
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in the vicinity of Stonehenge,
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and it's wildly accepted that the enormous building blocks
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came from the Marlborough Downs, 48km to the north.
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This is a sarsen field on the Marlborough Downs.
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The stones just lie on the surface.
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They don't have to be quarried. They're here naturally.
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Experimental archaeologist Katy Whitaker
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believes the prehistoric architects' choice of building materials
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went beyond the merely practical.
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Just as now it's quite strange to come across these stones
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lying in the landscape, it must have been very odd
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in the late Neolithic to just discover them.
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Why are they there, where have they come from?
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This combination of their positions in the landscape,
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their texture, their surface, their strangeness,
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these are all qualities that may well have been significant to people
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in the past, and may have influenced their choices to take them
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all the way down to Stonehenge and use them in the monument itself.
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At the time Stonehenge was constructed,
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more than 500 square km of this landscape
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was littered with thousands of huge sarsen stones,
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from which around 80 of the biggest
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were selected for the construction of Stonehenge.
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Well, this is a much better example of the sort of stone
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that the builders needed for Stonehenge.
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The next question then is how to move it?
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From here on the Marlborough Downs, 30 miles down to Salisbury Plain.
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Despite numerous theories, the route taking by the huge sarsens
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to Stonehenge is still disputed.
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But when Professor Wolfgang Neubauer studied the data
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from the survey, he saw a new solution.
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How the big sarsen stones have been brought to Stonehenge
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has been a striking question all over the centuries.
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And one of the theories comes up with the idea that they brought
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the stones down on the River Avon, which is a rather small river.
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This theory then envisions the stones being dragged overland
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for the last couple of kilometres to their final resting place.
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Findings from the survey highlighted a problem with that idea.
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In the topographic data, we have a dry valley
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and this means there is a really massive depression
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which they would have had to cross with the heavy stones.
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So I think this theory is rather unlikely.
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Instead, Professor Neubauer has spotted what he believes
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to be a much more likely path, along which the stones were transported.
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Running from the stone circle to the River Avon
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are two parallel ditches that form the monument known as the Avenue.
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Within the section closest to Stonehenge,
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there are a number of striations in the ground formed by glacial action.
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The Hidden Landscapes scans revealed that these marks
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extend far beyond the Avenue.
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This scratchy pattern is rather obvious
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in the area of the stone circle,
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and gets even more striking close to the Cursus monument.
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They also appear on the other side where, the geological situation
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is completely different,
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then they go on in the direction of the Marlborough Downs.
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Professor Neubauer is convinced that such a distinctive feature
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in the landscape would've been the most logical course for the stones.
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It looks very obvious to me that they took the shortest way
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from the Marlborough area,
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where the sarsen stones actually appear sometimes on the surface,
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and brought them down on the direct way to Stonehenge.
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Even taking this direct route,
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it's estimated that it would have taken almost ten years
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to drag all the stones to their final resting place.
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Yet remarkable as the transportation of the stones is...
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..it's the precision of Stonehenge's design that sets it apart.
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Archaeological surveyor Tony Johnson
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has studied its unique layout for over a decade.
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The Neolithic people had, just as we have today with large buildings,
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an architect, a surveyor and a builder.
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Most people's idea of Stonehenge is that they just built it.
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Well, they didn't.
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You couldn't build something like Stonehenge without a plan.
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Assisted by land artist Rob Irving,
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Johnson set out to demonstrate
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how the geometrical blueprint of Stonehenge was plotted
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using elementary surveying tools.
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The surveyors laid out the positions of the stones precisely
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using ropes and pegs in a way that we hope to demonstrate today.
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An open expanse of sand provided enough space
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to sketch out the monument's floor plan.
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The beach acts as a convenient scratch pad
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where we can mark out lines that are easily visible
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to demonstrate the geometry of Stonehenge.
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The first step was to draw a circle with the same dimensions
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as Stonehenge's outer ring of megaliths.
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To match Stonehenge's orientation,
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a line was drawn bisecting the circle
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in the direction of the rising sun.
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Around this central axis, the symmetrical layout
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of the entire monument was plotted.
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Irving used elegant geometrical rules
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to map out the position of the stones.
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On the circle, we're going to mark a hexagon,
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each side of which is exactly the same length
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as the radius of the circle, and we're going to build out from there
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to mark those 30 points which relate to the stones at Stonehenge.
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In total, five hexagons were etched out,
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creating the coordinates of Stonehenge's 30 outer megaliths.
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So you get a better idea of where the centre of the stones were,
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what I'm doing is making a posthole-sized imprint
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of where the stones would sit in the geometry of the whole thing.
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From the position of key stones,
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the inner horseshoe of megaliths known as the trilithons
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was also calculated.
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The axis of the rising sun was used as the fixed line of reference.
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What we're doing now is setting out the positions of the trilithons
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that formed the horseshoe which were the centre of the geometric array.
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On this evidence, Johnson concluded that the monument was planned
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as a whole from the outset.
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The trilithons had to be erected first
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so it proves that the surveying method they used
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was done in one phase, one plan.
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Everything was marked out on the ground
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before the stones were brought in.
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The monument's innate symmetry
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has revealed that the architects of Stonehenge had a grasp of geometry
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two millennia before the Greeks defined the term "mathematics."
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4,600 years on, the remaining stones still stand
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as a powerful reminder of the skill and ambition
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of Stonehenge's creators.
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A great deal of work went into the sizing of the stones to make sure
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you had the right lintel lengths to bridge the gaps, for example.
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And above all, the attempt to create a perfectly horizontal top
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of the great sarsen lintels.
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The megaliths were not simply held in place by their own weight.
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They were interlocked using a series of elaborate precision joints.
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On top of each upright, protruding tenon joints were carved
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to fit into mortise sockets on the underside of the lintels.
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The lintels themselves were carved with a groove at one end
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and a tongue at the other.
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They, too, interlocked.
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It was a meticulous construction method designed to make permanent
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the monument's primary function, to mark the passage of the sun.
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The sophistication and precision with which Stonehenge was built
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around this solar axis is exceptional.
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It could be that Stonehenge is partly concerned
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with measuring and celebrating important points in the annual cycle.
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Midsummer, midwinter,
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changes in the year from winter to spring to summer and so forth.
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00:18:59,530 --> 00:19:03,770
The complexity of the architecture cannot be paralleled anywhere else.
254
00:19:06,250 --> 00:19:09,370
This does give Stonehenge an exceptional presence
255
00:19:09,370 --> 00:19:11,250
in the wider world at the time.
256
00:19:11,250 --> 00:19:13,330
There is nothing else quite like it.
257
00:19:22,570 --> 00:19:26,330
Today, only half of Stonehenge's outer circle has survived.
258
00:19:33,050 --> 00:19:38,090
With no clue as to what happened to the missing sarsens,
259
00:19:38,090 --> 00:19:41,970
it's believed by some that the monument was never finished.
260
00:19:44,290 --> 00:19:46,050
But in the summer of 2013,
261
00:19:46,050 --> 00:19:51,330
the rare phenomenon of a British heat wave revealed new evidence.
262
00:19:56,650 --> 00:20:00,130
In 2013, we had a very wet spring
263
00:20:00,130 --> 00:20:03,810
followed by a hot dry spell in June.
264
00:20:03,810 --> 00:20:07,170
And that put the grass here under great stress.
265
00:20:09,450 --> 00:20:11,930
Grass was fighting for moisture.
266
00:20:14,290 --> 00:20:17,170
When it does that, it begins to parch.
267
00:20:17,170 --> 00:20:21,450
And we got a series of parch marks that showed us the positions
268
00:20:21,450 --> 00:20:24,890
of some stones which we'd never seen before at Stonehenge.
269
00:20:29,010 --> 00:20:33,930
So, we had the position of stone 17 here...
270
00:20:37,570 --> 00:20:39,930
..stone 18 here...
271
00:20:41,930 --> 00:20:45,610
..stone 19 here
272
00:20:45,610 --> 00:20:49,130
and stone 20 here.
273
00:20:54,410 --> 00:20:59,290
The parchmarks represented some of the most compelling evidence to date
274
00:20:59,290 --> 00:21:02,210
that Stonehenge was actually completed.
275
00:21:04,930 --> 00:21:09,250
To grasp how the stone circle would've looked in its heyday,
276
00:21:09,250 --> 00:21:14,650
Katy Whitaker recreated the masonry techniques used by its builders.
277
00:21:20,050 --> 00:21:21,850
When you look at Stonehenge today,
278
00:21:21,850 --> 00:21:25,530
you can see that the sarsens are really quite dark greys and browns
279
00:21:25,530 --> 00:21:27,930
in colour, a bit like this piece of sarsen here,
280
00:21:27,930 --> 00:21:31,210
and that's because of the weathering they've undergone
281
00:21:31,210 --> 00:21:32,850
over thousands of years.
282
00:21:32,850 --> 00:21:37,810
Sarsen is so hard, the tools used would also have to have been made of sarsen.
283
00:21:39,770 --> 00:21:42,810
This hammer stone is made of the densest type of sarsen
284
00:21:42,810 --> 00:21:44,410
that you can collect.
285
00:21:44,410 --> 00:21:46,690
It's got a good shape, it's got a good edge here,
286
00:21:46,690 --> 00:21:49,250
which will help me pick away at the surface.
287
00:21:53,890 --> 00:21:57,530
Whitaker has replicated the techniques Neolithic stonemasons
288
00:21:57,530 --> 00:21:59,930
used to produce the finished sarsens.
289
00:22:02,770 --> 00:22:06,690
It's been calculated that to shape all the megaliths like this
290
00:22:06,690 --> 00:22:10,410
would have taken ten masons over a decade.
291
00:22:15,530 --> 00:22:19,330
One of the things that's really noticeable about this
292
00:22:19,330 --> 00:22:22,250
is just how little return you get for a lot of work.
293
00:22:22,250 --> 00:22:25,690
Underneath the dust that's been created, there's a really tiny area
294
00:22:25,690 --> 00:22:27,930
that's started to change,
295
00:22:27,930 --> 00:22:31,250
revealing the white colour of the clean stone underneath.
296
00:22:32,850 --> 00:22:35,690
So just imagine how amazing Stonehenge would have looked
297
00:22:35,690 --> 00:22:39,930
with all of these standing stones, their cut surfaces glistening
298
00:22:39,930 --> 00:22:43,690
white in the sun, as you approached up the slope towards the monument.
299
00:22:46,170 --> 00:22:50,810
Centuries of weathering have left Stonehenge's remaining megaliths
300
00:22:50,810 --> 00:22:53,130
dark and rough,
301
00:22:53,130 --> 00:22:54,970
but 4,600 years ago,
302
00:22:54,970 --> 00:22:58,570
with each stone freshly worked and set into place
303
00:22:58,570 --> 00:23:03,730
as its architects had planned, worshippers of the day
304
00:23:03,730 --> 00:23:07,050
would've seen Stonehenge in all of its intended glory.
305
00:23:14,250 --> 00:23:17,090
A stunning gleaming white monument.
306
00:23:23,610 --> 00:23:27,370
Its intricate construction a testament to the sophistication
307
00:23:27,370 --> 00:23:29,890
and commitment of the people who built it.
308
00:23:33,810 --> 00:23:37,410
Stonehenge truly was the crowning glory of its age.
309
00:23:45,050 --> 00:23:49,010
But the story didn't stop with the raising of the stone circle.
310
00:23:54,850 --> 00:23:58,090
Alongside the sarsens,
311
00:23:58,090 --> 00:24:02,090
Stonehenge contains other megaliths known as the bluestones.
312
00:24:06,890 --> 00:24:11,050
Although the bluestones are dwarfed by the giant standing sarsens,
313
00:24:11,050 --> 00:24:14,090
the effort needed to transport them to the site
314
00:24:14,090 --> 00:24:15,410
was still enormous.
315
00:24:17,490 --> 00:24:21,210
Analysis of the rock has proved many of them were quarried
316
00:24:21,210 --> 00:24:24,850
from the Preseli hills in Wales, over 200 km to the west.
317
00:24:31,730 --> 00:24:36,410
Skeletal remains found close to Stonehenge
318
00:24:36,410 --> 00:24:39,930
have provided a glimpse into the life of one family
319
00:24:39,930 --> 00:24:44,690
dating back to the period when the bluestones were raised.
320
00:24:48,930 --> 00:24:51,770
The remains we see here are those of an adult male
321
00:24:51,770 --> 00:24:54,050
probably in his late 30s or his 40s.
322
00:24:56,370 --> 00:25:00,010
Along with the man, the remains of six other people,
323
00:25:00,010 --> 00:25:02,610
including children, were found in the grave.
324
00:25:04,850 --> 00:25:07,010
Observed similarities in the skulls
325
00:25:07,010 --> 00:25:09,530
suggested they belonged to the same family.
326
00:25:09,530 --> 00:25:13,210
The individuals who came from here predominately date
327
00:25:13,210 --> 00:25:16,730
to the time at which the bluestones were erected at Stonehenge.
328
00:25:21,610 --> 00:25:25,570
We undertook strontium-oxygen isotope analysis
329
00:25:25,570 --> 00:25:28,970
on the teeth from three of the adults.
330
00:25:28,970 --> 00:25:32,170
And what we found was that they were not local to the area
331
00:25:32,170 --> 00:25:34,290
in which they were buried.
332
00:25:34,290 --> 00:25:41,130
They had originated from about 150 to 200 km west of Stonehenge.
333
00:25:43,250 --> 00:25:45,250
This would take them into Wales,
334
00:25:45,250 --> 00:25:49,010
which is also the area from which the bluestones come from.
335
00:26:00,650 --> 00:26:03,210
The coincidence of bluestones and people
336
00:26:03,210 --> 00:26:06,370
migrating from the same part of Britain to Stonehenge
337
00:26:06,370 --> 00:26:12,170
became more intriguing on closer inspection of the bones.
338
00:26:15,370 --> 00:26:18,770
Looking at this skeleton, you can see that there was a massive
339
00:26:18,770 --> 00:26:22,130
traumatic injury to the left thigh bone.
340
00:26:28,050 --> 00:26:32,210
The contours have undergone a major change.
341
00:26:32,210 --> 00:26:36,770
If I compare this with a complete femur here,
342
00:26:36,770 --> 00:26:41,050
you can see just how dramatic those changes are.
343
00:26:42,130 --> 00:26:44,090
This is a major trauma,
344
00:26:44,090 --> 00:26:46,490
this is a very heavy thick bone.
345
00:26:46,490 --> 00:26:50,450
It needs a pretty powerful force acting on it
346
00:26:50,450 --> 00:26:52,290
to break it the way it is.
347
00:26:55,050 --> 00:26:58,410
What causes this sort of thing in modern clinical cases
348
00:26:58,410 --> 00:27:01,690
is maybe a motorcyclist who is run into by a motor car.
349
00:27:05,290 --> 00:27:08,450
It's that kind of level of force.
350
00:27:08,450 --> 00:27:13,570
What you have is a major fracture mid-shaft which has ended up
351
00:27:13,570 --> 00:27:16,250
causing massive damage to that bone.
352
00:27:16,250 --> 00:27:19,290
This looks like it might have been a compound fracture
353
00:27:19,290 --> 00:27:21,570
that broke through the surface as well.
354
00:27:23,730 --> 00:27:28,290
But the amazing thing is it mended. And he lived.
355
00:27:41,530 --> 00:27:44,930
Further archaeological investigations of the bluestones
356
00:27:44,930 --> 00:27:47,690
have shown that after their initial placement,
357
00:27:47,690 --> 00:27:50,650
they were re-positioned a number of times.
358
00:27:54,410 --> 00:27:59,610
When Stonehenge was built around about 2600BC,
359
00:27:59,610 --> 00:28:01,690
that wasn't the end of the story in terms of
360
00:28:01,690 --> 00:28:04,170
the architectural development of the monument.
361
00:28:04,170 --> 00:28:07,210
In the following centuries, on several occasions
362
00:28:07,210 --> 00:28:10,770
the arrangement, particularly of the bluestones, was altered.
363
00:28:14,370 --> 00:28:17,010
It's likely that these re-organisations
364
00:28:17,010 --> 00:28:19,850
relate to changing ceremonial activities.
365
00:28:19,850 --> 00:28:23,250
If you need to re-organise your ceremonies or your rituals,
366
00:28:23,250 --> 00:28:25,410
you re-organise the stone settings.
367
00:28:25,410 --> 00:28:28,610
And I think that accounts for why the bluestones are being shifted
368
00:28:28,610 --> 00:28:32,330
and changed very significantly in the later life of the monument.
369
00:28:44,170 --> 00:28:46,730
To understand what motivated these changes,
370
00:28:46,730 --> 00:28:49,370
the Hidden Landscapes Project has examined
371
00:28:49,370 --> 00:28:51,050
every monument in the area.
372
00:29:02,890 --> 00:29:06,690
Seeing Stonehenge from above, it does reinforce that sense of
373
00:29:06,690 --> 00:29:10,210
the importance of looking at all the monuments together,
374
00:29:10,210 --> 00:29:13,250
looking at the whole landscape rather than just the site.
375
00:29:13,250 --> 00:29:16,690
Now that's exactly what we've been doing with the project,
376
00:29:16,690 --> 00:29:19,490
identifying the importance of the other monuments,
377
00:29:19,490 --> 00:29:23,530
which are going to add and enrich our understanding of this landscape.
378
00:29:24,570 --> 00:29:28,330
Situated just to the north, in clear sight of Stonehenge,
379
00:29:28,330 --> 00:29:31,610
a collection of tombs known as the Cursus barrow group
380
00:29:31,610 --> 00:29:35,250
were constructed after the completion of the stone circle.
381
00:29:35,250 --> 00:29:38,250
Their appearance marked the arrival of a culture
382
00:29:38,250 --> 00:29:41,850
that had a profound impact on the ritual use of the monument
383
00:29:41,850 --> 00:29:44,650
and its surrounding landscape.
384
00:29:44,650 --> 00:29:47,690
The Cursus barrow group is a beautiful arrangement
385
00:29:47,690 --> 00:29:50,450
of different styles of building, but in terms of
386
00:29:50,450 --> 00:29:54,210
the overall story of Stonehenge, these are quite a late addition.
387
00:29:55,530 --> 00:30:00,290
These things are coming in after Stonehenge has been completed.
388
00:30:00,290 --> 00:30:03,690
We are getting new styles of burial, new styles of material,
389
00:30:03,690 --> 00:30:05,650
pottery, grave goods.
390
00:30:05,650 --> 00:30:07,850
We're getting the Beaker phenomenon.
391
00:30:14,170 --> 00:30:17,850
Recovered artefacts from tombs like these
392
00:30:17,850 --> 00:30:22,210
have given this era its distinctive name.
393
00:30:25,570 --> 00:30:30,810
The reason we call this period of time in prehistory the Beaker period
394
00:30:30,810 --> 00:30:33,610
is because of these pottery vessels.
395
00:30:33,610 --> 00:30:35,210
They're bell shaped
396
00:30:35,210 --> 00:30:37,690
and they're normally made from local clay.
397
00:30:39,450 --> 00:30:44,690
They're found in graves and they're really finely crafted
398
00:30:44,690 --> 00:30:49,170
with these horizontal bands of incised decoration.
399
00:30:51,250 --> 00:30:54,930
The origin of these objects showed that Stonehenge was becoming
400
00:30:54,930 --> 00:30:58,970
the focal point for a new wave of continental influences.
401
00:31:00,690 --> 00:31:04,090
Men in particular are buried with weapons
402
00:31:04,090 --> 00:31:08,730
and this burial comes with the typical male artefacts.
403
00:31:08,730 --> 00:31:12,730
He's known as the Roundway Archer,
404
00:31:12,730 --> 00:31:18,610
because he was found with this really beautifully fashioned
405
00:31:18,610 --> 00:31:20,650
flint arrowhead.
406
00:31:23,330 --> 00:31:26,770
The shaft and the feathers would have rotted away,
407
00:31:26,770 --> 00:31:30,650
and so would the bow, the bow string and perhaps the quiver
408
00:31:30,650 --> 00:31:32,650
that would have held arrows.
409
00:31:33,690 --> 00:31:37,210
And alongside this arrow head
410
00:31:37,210 --> 00:31:41,690
is the other element of the archer's kit.
411
00:31:42,730 --> 00:31:44,410
Which is this.
412
00:31:44,410 --> 00:31:48,210
It's a wrist guard. It would have been attached with leather straps.
413
00:31:48,210 --> 00:31:52,570
And it was found on the archer's arm bone.
414
00:31:55,250 --> 00:32:00,290
The really exciting thing about this is that it's made of jadeite,
415
00:32:00,290 --> 00:32:02,650
and it's not from this country.
416
00:32:02,650 --> 00:32:04,930
This is probably from Spain.
417
00:32:06,970 --> 00:32:11,130
For it to be associated with this man in this burial
418
00:32:11,130 --> 00:32:15,930
indicates how widely he and his community were connected,
419
00:32:15,930 --> 00:32:17,770
and how important he was
420
00:32:17,770 --> 00:32:22,730
to be buried with artefacts that are this precious and this rare.
421
00:32:24,610 --> 00:32:29,050
From assemblages like this, we can see that people and ideas
422
00:32:29,050 --> 00:32:32,410
are coming into Britain from the continent.
423
00:32:32,410 --> 00:32:35,010
And we can see that in the decoration of the pottery,
424
00:32:35,010 --> 00:32:39,290
we can see that in how far away these materials are being brought,
425
00:32:39,290 --> 00:32:43,130
and they're being brought to the area around Stonehenge.
426
00:32:44,810 --> 00:32:47,290
This is a place of great significance
427
00:32:47,290 --> 00:32:49,770
and influential people are coming here.
428
00:32:55,170 --> 00:32:59,370
As well as celebrating its dead in complex burial groups,
429
00:32:59,370 --> 00:33:03,010
the Beaker Culture also stamped its identity on the region
430
00:33:03,010 --> 00:33:07,850
by constructing the 2.5km long processional route
431
00:33:07,850 --> 00:33:09,930
known as the Avenue.
432
00:33:13,210 --> 00:33:15,890
Like the re-arrangement of the bluestones,
433
00:33:15,890 --> 00:33:18,730
the Avenue's parallel ditches appear to have controlled
434
00:33:18,730 --> 00:33:21,010
the passage of worshippers around Stonehenge.
435
00:33:25,290 --> 00:33:28,650
When the Hidden Landscapes Project surveyed an area
436
00:33:28,650 --> 00:33:33,810
close to the Avenue, they detected traces of another structure
437
00:33:33,810 --> 00:33:37,290
built to influence the movement of people,
438
00:33:37,290 --> 00:33:40,650
a wooden barrier, nearly 2km long.
439
00:33:45,050 --> 00:33:48,050
One of the really weird things about the Stonehenge landscape,
440
00:33:48,050 --> 00:33:50,890
and one that not many people know about because it's not visible
441
00:33:50,890 --> 00:33:54,770
from the land surface is what is known as the palisade.
442
00:33:57,370 --> 00:33:59,410
It's effectively a long fence
443
00:33:59,410 --> 00:34:02,850
which runs from the western side of Stonehenge
444
00:34:02,850 --> 00:34:06,170
and curves round towards one of the gaps in the Cursus.
445
00:34:07,170 --> 00:34:09,970
Excavations of the southern end of this palisade
446
00:34:09,970 --> 00:34:13,250
have dated it later than the construction of Stonehenge...
447
00:34:16,490 --> 00:34:20,050
..and predicted that some of its posts were as much as 7m tall.
448
00:34:22,490 --> 00:34:25,770
The palisade bisected the entire landscape.
449
00:34:31,730 --> 00:34:34,010
If it was all built at the same time,
450
00:34:34,010 --> 00:34:37,010
then that's effectively a barrier to movement from the east and west,
451
00:34:37,010 --> 00:34:38,970
dividing this landscape.
452
00:34:38,970 --> 00:34:42,370
The palisade is one of these things which is incredibly significant
453
00:34:42,370 --> 00:34:44,890
to the landscape, but it's not widely understood.
454
00:34:52,690 --> 00:34:57,210
Along with the transformation of the land around Stonehenge,
455
00:34:57,210 --> 00:34:59,690
the Beaker period brought with it
456
00:34:59,690 --> 00:35:02,810
new ritualistic uses of the stone circle.
457
00:35:11,730 --> 00:35:15,650
Forensic investigations on a male skeleton
458
00:35:15,650 --> 00:35:18,330
have provided powerful evidence
459
00:35:18,330 --> 00:35:23,970
that three centuries after its construction,
460
00:35:23,970 --> 00:35:27,170
Stonehenge became a site of human sacrifice.
461
00:35:35,490 --> 00:35:38,570
This is a really nice looking skeleton.
462
00:35:38,570 --> 00:35:41,690
This is in very good condition.
463
00:35:41,690 --> 00:35:46,410
He was buried, very unusually, in a ditch at Stonehenge.
464
00:35:46,410 --> 00:35:50,050
This is a very highly ritualised site,
465
00:35:50,050 --> 00:35:52,450
so this is quite an unusual find.
466
00:35:57,730 --> 00:36:01,370
People often get the impression that in the distant past,
467
00:36:01,370 --> 00:36:03,930
life was nasty, brutish and short.
468
00:36:03,930 --> 00:36:08,850
We know that this man died when he was in his late 20s,
469
00:36:08,850 --> 00:36:13,090
but I wouldn't say that his life was nasty and brutish.
470
00:36:13,090 --> 00:36:18,730
You look at him, he was a robust, muscly man of about 5'10".
471
00:36:21,090 --> 00:36:24,650
Tiny nicks on the man's bones show the cause of death.
472
00:36:28,210 --> 00:36:31,610
He was shot repeatedly with flint arrows.
473
00:36:34,450 --> 00:36:36,930
The location of the skeleton's burial
474
00:36:36,930 --> 00:36:39,130
showed this was no ordinary death.
475
00:36:41,890 --> 00:36:46,490
To be buried in that ditch at Stonehenge with the injuries he has
476
00:36:46,490 --> 00:36:50,370
suggests we have a sacrificial victim.
477
00:37:10,810 --> 00:37:13,770
There are several injuries, all in the chest area,
478
00:37:13,770 --> 00:37:16,410
that show where those arrows went.
479
00:37:16,410 --> 00:37:19,290
And if we start off by looking at this bone here,
480
00:37:19,290 --> 00:37:22,010
the breast bone of the sternum,
481
00:37:22,010 --> 00:37:23,890
if I take this arrowhead,
482
00:37:23,890 --> 00:37:28,530
you can see the tip of the arrowhead where it's come into his body
483
00:37:28,530 --> 00:37:30,410
from the back and to the side,
484
00:37:30,410 --> 00:37:33,290
and has stuck into the back of his sternum.
485
00:37:40,130 --> 00:37:43,930
In addition, we have injuries in the right side of the ribs.
486
00:37:43,930 --> 00:37:47,410
You can see there are two little marks, one here,
487
00:37:47,410 --> 00:37:50,570
and although this is damaged, there is also another mark there.
488
00:37:50,570 --> 00:37:53,130
And these are where the arrowhead has passed
489
00:37:53,130 --> 00:37:57,170
through between the ribs and straight through into the body
490
00:37:57,170 --> 00:38:01,010
where it has stuck within the soft tissues.
491
00:38:06,770 --> 00:38:08,650
Similar too on the right-hand side.
492
00:38:08,650 --> 00:38:11,570
We have two of the ribs on the left-hand side,
493
00:38:11,570 --> 00:38:13,610
we're looking at the 10th and 11th,
494
00:38:13,610 --> 00:38:17,370
where again an arrow has gone between the two ribs
495
00:38:17,370 --> 00:38:20,330
and caught the top of one and the bottom of the other.
496
00:38:24,490 --> 00:38:26,570
And we know this is one of the three
497
00:38:26,570 --> 00:38:29,010
that would have killed this young man.
498
00:38:51,490 --> 00:38:54,850
No other killings of this kind have been found in Stonehenge.
499
00:38:56,970 --> 00:38:59,570
Why the man was sacrificed may never be known.
500
00:39:01,450 --> 00:39:04,930
But his burial, so close to the stone circle,
501
00:39:04,930 --> 00:39:07,210
suggests his death was ritualistic.
502
00:39:14,330 --> 00:39:17,890
While one grave showed evidence of bloody sacrifice...
503
00:39:19,730 --> 00:39:23,010
..other excavated Beaker graves in the Stonehenge landscape
504
00:39:23,010 --> 00:39:25,330
have also been remarkably well preserved.
505
00:39:30,930 --> 00:39:35,610
The artefacts they contain reflect the revolutionary technologies
506
00:39:35,610 --> 00:39:37,690
that arrived in Britain at the time.
507
00:39:40,810 --> 00:39:43,250
Burials from the Beaker period
508
00:39:43,250 --> 00:39:48,250
are the first time we see metal artefacts in Britain.
509
00:39:50,410 --> 00:39:52,450
This is a copper dagger.
510
00:39:55,810 --> 00:40:00,690
When it was new, it would have been absolutely bright and gleaming.
511
00:40:00,690 --> 00:40:04,210
This is not about cutting up your dinner
512
00:40:04,210 --> 00:40:07,210
or fighting with the neighbours.
513
00:40:07,210 --> 00:40:12,650
This is a ceremonial dagger and it's probably from central Europe.
514
00:40:14,410 --> 00:40:18,650
The people with the knowledge of the technology also arrive in Britain
515
00:40:18,650 --> 00:40:22,650
and they share that technology amongst the people here.
516
00:40:24,130 --> 00:40:26,170
And it changes their culture.
517
00:40:27,650 --> 00:40:30,250
This is the start of the age of metal.
518
00:40:36,650 --> 00:40:39,410
Soon after the introduction of copper,
519
00:40:39,410 --> 00:40:43,050
it appears that British smiths worked out the secret
520
00:40:43,050 --> 00:40:45,610
of making a superior metal, bronze.
521
00:40:45,610 --> 00:40:47,850
The arrival of metal in Britain
522
00:40:47,850 --> 00:40:49,970
happens quite late compared to Europe,
523
00:40:49,970 --> 00:40:54,330
but the discovery of tin in south-west England, Cornwall and Devon,
524
00:40:54,330 --> 00:40:58,290
brings on the true Bronze Age very quickly.
525
00:40:58,290 --> 00:41:02,130
In Britain, the abundance of copper and the far rarer tin
526
00:41:02,130 --> 00:41:07,130
saw local metal workers lead the way in prehistoric bronze production.
527
00:41:08,410 --> 00:41:12,970
By alloying the copper with a little bit of tin,
528
00:41:12,970 --> 00:41:15,610
I'm going to make a 6% tin bronze
529
00:41:15,610 --> 00:41:19,130
which is quite typical composition for the early Bronze Age.
530
00:41:23,970 --> 00:41:27,610
Bronze tools and weapons were far harder and more durable
531
00:41:27,610 --> 00:41:30,330
than anything made from copper or flint.
532
00:41:41,690 --> 00:41:44,010
It's good, it's gone in.
533
00:41:45,730 --> 00:41:47,410
So we should have a knife there.
534
00:41:48,810 --> 00:41:51,530
I'm going to lift the mould out, lay it on its side
535
00:41:51,530 --> 00:41:53,250
and then break it open.
536
00:41:58,610 --> 00:42:00,850
This is the moment of truth.
537
00:42:06,290 --> 00:42:10,010
So this is the end of the process of all our work.
538
00:42:10,010 --> 00:42:11,970
Just like the knives you find
539
00:42:11,970 --> 00:42:15,770
associated with burials in the area around Stonehenge.
540
00:42:15,770 --> 00:42:19,410
This is the proof of the big change with the advent of bronze.
541
00:42:26,370 --> 00:42:28,530
As Britain entered the Bronze Age,
542
00:42:28,530 --> 00:42:31,250
Stonehenge was already over 400 years old,
543
00:42:31,250 --> 00:42:35,050
an ancient monument in its own landscape.
544
00:42:37,370 --> 00:42:40,290
But as an explosion of tomb building shows,
545
00:42:40,290 --> 00:42:42,730
its reputation is greater than ever.
546
00:42:43,970 --> 00:42:47,130
There are hundreds of Bronze Age burial mounds
547
00:42:47,130 --> 00:42:49,250
in the area around Stonehenge.
548
00:42:51,210 --> 00:42:52,650
When first built,
549
00:42:52,650 --> 00:42:56,250
many of them would have been gleaming, white, shining mounds.
550
00:42:58,770 --> 00:43:02,770
These would have been seen across very large distances across the landscape
551
00:43:05,330 --> 00:43:08,010
Each of these circles shows the position
552
00:43:08,010 --> 00:43:09,850
of a Bronze Age burial tomb.
553
00:43:11,250 --> 00:43:12,810
The Hidden Landscapes Project
554
00:43:12,810 --> 00:43:15,730
has thrown new light on their complex interconnections.
555
00:43:18,490 --> 00:43:21,450
The geophysical survey work is allowing us to see
556
00:43:21,450 --> 00:43:25,730
for the first time how the obvious surviving monuments relate to others
557
00:43:25,730 --> 00:43:28,130
which we now can't see on the surface.
558
00:43:32,690 --> 00:43:36,130
Up till now, we've only seen little snippets of the landscape.
559
00:43:36,130 --> 00:43:39,290
This allows us to put it all together in one big picture.
560
00:43:41,530 --> 00:43:43,770
The position and alignment of the tombs
561
00:43:43,770 --> 00:43:46,570
revealed a clear strategy behind their placement.
562
00:43:48,170 --> 00:43:51,610
The biggest mounds are associated with an elite class
563
00:43:51,610 --> 00:43:53,730
within early Bronze Age society,
564
00:43:53,730 --> 00:43:57,450
who are using Stonehenge and the other monuments around
565
00:43:57,450 --> 00:44:00,690
as focal points, which they can refer to in relation to
566
00:44:00,690 --> 00:44:03,930
their own power and prestige in the early Bronze Age.
567
00:44:09,130 --> 00:44:11,210
Artefacts discovered in these graves
568
00:44:11,210 --> 00:44:14,810
show these generations of Stonehenge people were more connected
569
00:44:14,810 --> 00:44:16,930
than ever before with the wider world.
570
00:44:20,530 --> 00:44:23,690
So we have a Breton style of daggers, for example,
571
00:44:23,690 --> 00:44:26,770
turning up in British early Bronze Age graves.
572
00:44:26,770 --> 00:44:28,930
There are various other kinds of accoutrements -
573
00:44:28,930 --> 00:44:30,770
pins, certain kinds of wet stones,
574
00:44:30,770 --> 00:44:34,250
other kinds of objects which suggest continental connections.
575
00:44:35,970 --> 00:44:41,090
Two-way trade with the continental mainland had flourished
576
00:44:41,090 --> 00:44:43,730
with Stonehenge seemingly a vital hub.
577
00:44:46,210 --> 00:44:49,850
In Stonehenge, you do see an increase of the volume of material
578
00:44:49,850 --> 00:44:51,930
from far afield and abroad.
579
00:44:53,250 --> 00:44:57,090
We find amber from the Baltics, copper axes from Spain
580
00:44:57,090 --> 00:44:59,090
and gold from Ireland,
581
00:44:59,090 --> 00:45:02,410
whilst in Holland you would find Cornish tin.
582
00:45:04,170 --> 00:45:07,730
The Bronze Age saw a huge increase in international trade.
583
00:45:09,250 --> 00:45:11,930
To better understand the practical challenges
584
00:45:11,930 --> 00:45:15,690
that made this boom possible, Professor Van de Noort,
585
00:45:15,690 --> 00:45:18,690
along with shipwright Brian Cumby,
586
00:45:18,690 --> 00:45:23,250
set out to build the first full scale replica of a Bronze Age boat.
587
00:45:24,570 --> 00:45:26,850
The innovative plank-built sea craft
588
00:45:26,850 --> 00:45:29,450
developed in Northern Europe at this time.
589
00:45:29,450 --> 00:45:34,850
I've been building classic wooden boats for nigh on 40 years.
590
00:45:37,930 --> 00:45:39,770
When I was given this job,
591
00:45:39,770 --> 00:45:42,490
it was a complete new learning curve for me.
592
00:45:42,490 --> 00:45:45,210
I had to start to think like a Bronze Age man.
593
00:45:48,210 --> 00:45:51,890
They had to hand carve everything and fit it and look at it -
594
00:45:51,890 --> 00:45:54,410
that looks good, that looks bad.
595
00:45:54,410 --> 00:45:57,250
It's just a matter of building by eye all the time.
596
00:45:57,250 --> 00:46:00,650
The design was based on fragments of prehistoric boats
597
00:46:00,650 --> 00:46:02,450
discovered in Britain.
598
00:46:02,450 --> 00:46:04,290
The biggest challenge was how to build
599
00:46:04,290 --> 00:46:07,410
the craft's plank-constructed hull without nails or glue.
600
00:46:08,450 --> 00:46:11,890
We knew from the excavation that they used yew branches
601
00:46:11,890 --> 00:46:14,410
from the yew tree, withies.
602
00:46:14,410 --> 00:46:16,570
And this is used to tie this plank
603
00:46:16,570 --> 00:46:20,090
to this frame and hold the whole boat together,
604
00:46:20,090 --> 00:46:23,010
and we are amazed at how strong she is.
605
00:46:23,010 --> 00:46:26,410
We thought that would be one of the weak points of the boat,
606
00:46:26,410 --> 00:46:28,050
but we've been proven wrong.
607
00:46:33,170 --> 00:46:36,650
To test the viability of their sewn-plank hull,
608
00:46:36,650 --> 00:46:38,650
Van de Noort and a crew of 19
609
00:46:38,650 --> 00:46:42,050
took the replica on its maiden open water voyage.
610
00:46:47,370 --> 00:46:50,850
16 metres long and weighing over five tonnes,
611
00:46:50,850 --> 00:46:54,410
these boats were bigger and had more cargo capacity
612
00:46:54,410 --> 00:46:56,730
than any craft built before.
613
00:47:03,490 --> 00:47:05,570
Well, I'm just measuring it using GPS.
614
00:47:05,570 --> 00:47:08,410
2.5 knots at cruising speed,
615
00:47:08,410 --> 00:47:10,970
so 2.5 sea miles per hour.
616
00:47:10,970 --> 00:47:14,210
And when we push it harder, it goes just over 3.5 knots.
617
00:47:17,370 --> 00:47:19,450
Travelling at this rate,
618
00:47:19,450 --> 00:47:22,930
a Bronze Age boat could've crossed the Channel in less than a day.
619
00:47:26,690 --> 00:47:28,610
By mastering the use of planks
620
00:47:28,610 --> 00:47:32,050
instead of hollowed out tree trunks or animal hides,
621
00:47:32,050 --> 00:47:35,730
Bronze Age ship-builders had made a huge leap forward.
622
00:47:35,730 --> 00:47:39,130
She could probably take about seven tonnes of cargo,
623
00:47:39,130 --> 00:47:45,730
but I think they would carry livestock, people and tin ingots.
624
00:47:47,370 --> 00:47:51,570
Van de Noort's wider research on Bronze Age trade has identified
625
00:47:51,570 --> 00:47:53,850
prehistoric Britain's special role.
626
00:47:57,610 --> 00:48:01,410
How Britain fits in that picture of these Bronze Age networks
627
00:48:01,410 --> 00:48:02,970
is really access to tin,
628
00:48:02,970 --> 00:48:06,850
which is a rare metal, but you need it for making bronze objects.
629
00:48:06,850 --> 00:48:10,570
And I think that is the critical valuable that Britain
630
00:48:10,570 --> 00:48:12,770
adds into this European network.
631
00:48:15,730 --> 00:48:19,850
At the heart of Britain's commerce
632
00:48:19,850 --> 00:48:21,890
was Stonehenge.
633
00:48:24,450 --> 00:48:27,290
Lots of archaeologists have come up with this idea
634
00:48:27,290 --> 00:48:30,250
that Stonehenge has become a kind of central place,
635
00:48:30,250 --> 00:48:33,570
a place of power, and it may well have been that if you were
636
00:48:33,570 --> 00:48:36,530
in Germany, and you wanted gold and tin from Cornwall,
637
00:48:36,530 --> 00:48:38,810
that you had to go through the people
638
00:48:38,810 --> 00:48:42,250
who we have found buried near Stonehenge.
639
00:48:51,330 --> 00:48:56,250
The increasingly ostentatious placement of tombs around Stonehenge
640
00:48:56,250 --> 00:48:59,770
during the late Bronze Age, confirmed its status as the place
641
00:48:59,770 --> 00:49:03,210
for the upper echelons to flaunt their power and influence.
642
00:49:06,250 --> 00:49:09,770
The burial mounds built between about 2000-1700 BC
643
00:49:09,770 --> 00:49:13,890
appear to be in position not only for wider communities to see
644
00:49:13,890 --> 00:49:18,090
but perhaps more importantly for competitor groups to see
645
00:49:18,090 --> 00:49:20,690
from other vantage points.
646
00:49:20,690 --> 00:49:23,690
we might imagine a kind of political landscape here,
647
00:49:23,690 --> 00:49:27,450
where the elites are jockeying for prime position.
648
00:49:27,450 --> 00:49:31,930
Funeral events would have served as opportunities for expressing
649
00:49:31,930 --> 00:49:35,010
the power of the dead individuals, but also the power
650
00:49:35,010 --> 00:49:37,290
of the groups conducting the funerals.
651
00:49:38,970 --> 00:49:42,330
But they were not just expressing their power within the community.
652
00:49:46,930 --> 00:49:50,010
They were also celebrating their wealth,
653
00:49:50,010 --> 00:49:53,490
because excavated from some of these high status tombs has come
654
00:49:53,490 --> 00:49:55,410
a remarkable amount of gold.
655
00:49:57,290 --> 00:50:00,370
This absolutely exquisite artefact
656
00:50:00,370 --> 00:50:04,050
was discovered in the Bush Barrow in 1808.
657
00:50:05,450 --> 00:50:08,370
The Bush Barrow is about half a mile away from Stonehenge
658
00:50:08,370 --> 00:50:13,450
and on a direct alignment with the most sacred area of the monument.
659
00:50:13,450 --> 00:50:17,570
It's been dated to around 1950 BC.
660
00:50:19,210 --> 00:50:24,170
The piece itself is known as a lozenge. It's almost pure gold.
661
00:50:24,170 --> 00:50:29,050
And across the whole of it there are geometrical designs
662
00:50:29,050 --> 00:50:32,210
of parallel lines and diagonal zigzags.
663
00:50:32,210 --> 00:50:34,930
And it's perfectly executed.
664
00:50:36,730 --> 00:50:40,690
The level of workmanship and the amount of gold in this lozenge
665
00:50:40,690 --> 00:50:44,210
indicate that this person was incredibly high status.
666
00:50:44,210 --> 00:50:46,810
Perhaps a chief, perhaps a senior priest.
667
00:50:48,130 --> 00:50:53,130
And they think it would've sat in the centre of the man's chest.
668
00:50:53,130 --> 00:50:55,450
Perhaps holding together a garment
669
00:50:55,450 --> 00:50:58,690
or perhaps hung as a pendant of some description.
670
00:51:00,010 --> 00:51:04,290
But the most impressive item found in the Bush Barrow grave
671
00:51:04,290 --> 00:51:07,690
is actually in this tiny little dish.
672
00:51:10,010 --> 00:51:15,770
These are some of the estimated 140,000 tiny gold studs
673
00:51:15,770 --> 00:51:20,090
that were placed into the handle of a bronze dagger
674
00:51:20,090 --> 00:51:23,650
that was found in this Bush Barrow grave.
675
00:51:28,250 --> 00:51:30,970
At ultra-high levels of magnification,
676
00:51:30,970 --> 00:51:34,930
some of the intricately worked studs can still be seen embedded
677
00:51:34,930 --> 00:51:37,170
in fragments of wood from the handle.
678
00:51:45,330 --> 00:51:48,770
Artist Willard Wigan is uniquely qualified to understand
679
00:51:48,770 --> 00:51:52,490
what it took to achieve gold working on this microscopic scale.
680
00:51:58,490 --> 00:52:01,890
Wigan is the world's pre-eminent nano-sculptor,
681
00:52:01,890 --> 00:52:05,170
a niche market where smaller is better.
682
00:52:06,690 --> 00:52:08,890
I'm actually producing something
683
00:52:08,890 --> 00:52:12,810
that's smaller than a full stop in a newspaper.
684
00:52:14,730 --> 00:52:18,090
Wigan's completed works sit framed in the eye of a needle,
685
00:52:18,090 --> 00:52:20,890
or on the head of a pin.
686
00:52:20,890 --> 00:52:23,850
Because I'm working on this molecular scale,
687
00:52:23,850 --> 00:52:25,770
you have to hold your breath.
688
00:52:28,370 --> 00:52:32,050
I'm actually working between the pulse beat.
689
00:52:33,930 --> 00:52:38,850
The process to actually finish one can take anything up to two months.
690
00:52:38,850 --> 00:52:42,290
Things are going to go wrong, you're going to lose pieces,
691
00:52:42,290 --> 00:52:45,570
something will bend and then it will turn into a little catapult,
692
00:52:45,570 --> 00:52:50,130
and then what you've been working on for four weeks is gone.
693
00:52:54,530 --> 00:52:58,210
Based on his own skills, Willard has figured out the techniques
694
00:52:58,210 --> 00:53:00,570
the ancient gold workers must have used.
695
00:53:04,530 --> 00:53:08,370
I would say two fine pieces of gold twisted and rolled.
696
00:53:09,410 --> 00:53:13,890
If you look here, you can see where it's twisted and flattened off.
697
00:53:13,890 --> 00:53:16,410
I cannot see an adult doing that,
698
00:53:16,410 --> 00:53:21,010
because your eyesight starts to deteriorate, even at 21.
699
00:53:21,010 --> 00:53:25,330
It would have to be a child that's done that.
700
00:53:25,330 --> 00:53:28,050
Even when aided with modern technology,
701
00:53:28,050 --> 00:53:32,250
Willard grasped the difficulties of making a gold stud on this scale.
702
00:53:32,250 --> 00:53:37,890
They probably found a way of slicing the gold into very fine fragments
703
00:53:37,890 --> 00:53:41,610
by perhaps using a piece of flint,
704
00:53:41,610 --> 00:53:45,330
and then you'd get these shavings of gold would come off.
705
00:53:50,690 --> 00:53:55,810
Your movements would have to be very, very fine.
706
00:53:55,810 --> 00:53:59,650
Twisting one that way and one the opposite way.
707
00:54:04,450 --> 00:54:09,210
Once I've got to the stage of where I think it's going to snap, I stop.
708
00:54:09,210 --> 00:54:10,690
Cut them off at each end.
709
00:54:13,170 --> 00:54:18,210
And then squeeze at the end to give that pin head look at the top.
710
00:54:20,450 --> 00:54:24,530
Back then there was no technology, there were no microscopes, nothing.
711
00:54:24,530 --> 00:54:26,850
This is a phenomenal achievement.
712
00:54:32,330 --> 00:54:35,850
More prehistoric gold objects have been found in the regions
713
00:54:35,850 --> 00:54:39,330
surrounding Stonehenge than anywhere else in Britain.
714
00:54:45,530 --> 00:54:48,730
This golden age represented Stonehenge at the peak
715
00:54:48,730 --> 00:54:50,330
of its power and wealth.
716
00:54:51,690 --> 00:54:54,530
A discovery made by the Hidden Landscapes Project
717
00:54:54,530 --> 00:54:57,490
in a field to the east provided a glimpse of when
718
00:54:57,490 --> 00:55:00,450
the area's ritual importance began to decline.
719
00:55:02,690 --> 00:55:08,530
This is an amazing field, so just by driving over with my magnetometer,
720
00:55:08,530 --> 00:55:11,970
I did see on the screen a lot of pits and a lot of long ditches,
721
00:55:11,970 --> 00:55:16,330
and in between, a lot of smaller pits the size of postholes.
722
00:55:23,010 --> 00:55:25,610
From the shape and distribution of the features,
723
00:55:25,610 --> 00:55:28,850
Professor Neubauer recognised the telltale footprints
724
00:55:28,850 --> 00:55:30,850
of prehistoric buildings.
725
00:55:36,050 --> 00:55:39,010
When I first saw it, it was of course, "Wow!"
726
00:55:39,010 --> 00:55:42,170
Now we have a settlement, what we have been looking for all the time,
727
00:55:42,170 --> 00:55:45,570
so there were so many empty areas without any settlement traces
728
00:55:45,570 --> 00:55:49,570
that it really was a great thing to have it now in this large field.
729
00:55:58,050 --> 00:56:00,010
The evidence of everyday life
730
00:56:00,010 --> 00:56:03,210
encroaching into areas previously held sacred
731
00:56:03,210 --> 00:56:09,530
represented the beginning of the Stonehenge landscape's demise
732
00:56:09,530 --> 00:56:11,650
as a ceremonial site.
733
00:56:16,530 --> 00:56:17,810
By 1500 BCE,
734
00:56:17,810 --> 00:56:21,250
all monument building had stopped
735
00:56:21,250 --> 00:56:23,970
and the area was broken up into farmlands.
736
00:56:27,970 --> 00:56:30,530
Over 1,000 years old by then,
737
00:56:30,530 --> 00:56:34,770
the stone circle was, as it is today,
738
00:56:34,770 --> 00:56:38,090
an enigmatic reminder of a lost civilisation.
739
00:56:46,650 --> 00:56:51,930
21st-century technology underpinned by hard archaeological evidence
740
00:56:51,930 --> 00:56:55,250
has revolutionised the understanding of Stonehenge.
741
00:56:57,210 --> 00:57:01,130
As we start to see our results in relation to other people's results
742
00:57:01,130 --> 00:57:04,490
and so on, we've got as complete a picture as we can ever have
743
00:57:04,490 --> 00:57:05,970
of the entire landscape.
744
00:57:07,330 --> 00:57:09,810
We're reinventing Stonehenge for this generation.
745
00:57:13,650 --> 00:57:18,330
By peeling away the land, the archaeologists have rewritten
746
00:57:18,330 --> 00:57:21,170
the 10,000-year-old story of the sacred site.
747
00:57:24,570 --> 00:57:28,490
From its origins as a hunting ground
748
00:57:28,490 --> 00:57:30,970
to its rise as a ceremonial arena.
749
00:57:37,530 --> 00:57:41,450
Having this iconic landscape now really covered,
750
00:57:41,450 --> 00:57:45,530
we can now put the whole thing in a context
751
00:57:45,530 --> 00:57:48,130
in space but also in time.
752
00:57:50,050 --> 00:57:53,290
The vast array of data has provided new scientific insight
753
00:57:53,290 --> 00:57:57,210
into the pre-planning,
754
00:57:57,210 --> 00:58:00,730
construction
755
00:58:00,730 --> 00:58:03,210
and use of the stone circle...
756
00:58:06,450 --> 00:58:10,010
..forever dispelling the myth of its seclusion.
757
00:58:12,370 --> 00:58:16,250
Just as significantly, the discoveries have placed Stonehenge
758
00:58:16,250 --> 00:58:19,730
at the very heart of a fast evolving and dynamic culture.
759
00:58:23,930 --> 00:58:26,970
This is the story of Stonehenge.
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