All language subtitles for Secrets Unlocked Series 1 Part 21 Stonehenge Mystery 1080p

(orchestral music)

Mastrelli: Stonehenge, a marvel
of prehistoric architecture,

An imposing edifice
that has dominated

Britain's salisbury plain
for more than 4,000 years.

For centuries archeologists
have been piecing together

Its history, but the
reason for its location

On this remote chalk
plateau, remains an enigma.

Why did this isolated
spot become the focus

For an entire 80,000
square mile island?

Why did it spark one of the
biggest building programs

Of the ancient world?

Now, after 15 years
of investigation

A team of experts believes
it has found the answer.

For centuries, the mysteries

Of the past have
kept their secrets,

But there are clues.

Cast in gold, etched in
stone, written in blood.

We can unlock them.

(upbeat music)

Stonehenge.

It's the world's most
famous stone age monument

With standing stones
tipping the scales

At 25 tons apiece,
about the weight

Of a fully-loaded garbage truck.

Other stones at the site,

The smaller two to
four ton bluestones,

Are relative lightweights,
but, this just in,

Their precise source
has now been identified

And it's two quarries 160
miles from stonehenge.

And this.

This nicely-polished piece
of stone comes straight

From one of those quarries.

In the mountains of preseli
in north-west wales.

(light music)

More than 1.3 million
visitors are drawn

To stonehenge every year.

It captivates everyone,
from tourists to presidents.

Obama: How cool is this?

Mastrelli: Even after 4500 years

This immense structure
remains breathtaking.

Pryor: Stonehenge is
still a magical place

Even though we don't
really understand

The exact ideas behind it.

It still exerts this
extraordinary attraction.

You can see it as
you approach it

And you get a feeling of awe.

And you just want to walk
towards those stones,

You want to be
within those stones.

Mastrelli: What stands
today on salisbury plain,

A windswept outpost
of south west britain,

Is the remnants of a giant
circle of standing stones,

Some are as heavy as 30
tons, dragged some 25 miles

And winched into
place 4,500 years ago.

Within the circle
are smaller stones,

The older blue stones, a series
of more than 50 monoliths,

Each weighing over a ton,

Carried more than
150 miles from wales.

Through hundreds of
years of investigation

Archeologists have managed
to trace the development

Of this colossal endeavor
from a simple stone circle

Made of just the blue stones

To the complex structure
completed 400 years later.

Each element of the monument
seems deliberately positioned,

Carefully tuned to one
event: The mid-winter sunset.

Pryor: The mid-winter
solstice is crucial

Because it tells
you there's hope.

The days are going
to get longer.

The crops will grow.

Mastrelli: Directly in
front of stonehenge

Is a broad ancient avenue,

Originally cut into
the chalky landscape.

This neolithic road is believed

To have served a ritual purpose.

A pilgrim's walkway
leading ancient britons

Towards the monument
on the evening

Of the shortest day of the
year, the winter solstice.

Pearson: This may have been
a huge procession.

Groups of maybe hundreds
or even thousands

Of people moving along
here on mid-winter's day

To see that extraordinary
moment of the sun dying

For the last time,
going below the horizon,

Framed by their
fantastic monument.

Mastrelli: But what really
intrigued archeologists

Is the monument's
baffling location.

A lonely few acres
of windy moorland

In a landscape of over
80,000 square miles.

Pryor: For centuries people
have been asking,

How did they build it?

And what we're more interested
in today is the far bigger,

More difficult question, and
that is, why did they build it?

What motivated them to
take that enormous amount

Of effort and why do it here?

Mastrelli: For stone age man,

This windswept corner
of salisbury plain,

Was britain's most important
site for pilgrimage.

But the mid-winter sunset
could be celebrated anywhere.

So, why build a monument here?

(orchestral music)

For archeologist,
mike parker pearson,

This question has
become an obsession.

And, to answer it, he has
delved further back in time.

To a moment before the giant
stones had even been erected.

Remarkably, his main lead comes

From a 100-year old excavation

Of some 56 neolithic-era
pits that encircle the site.

Back in 1919, the only
scientific conclusion

That archeologists could draw

Was that each pit contained
cremated human remains.

So, in the absence of
superior forensic methods,

The excavators chose
to rebury their finds

Under a single lead plaque.

Now, a century later, mike
parker pearson has permission

To exhume those bones again.

Armed with incredible advances
in scientific analysis,

He hopes the remains
will hold the key

To stonehenge's very existence.

Pearson: You can imagine, my
heart was in my mouth

As we got down to that
layer and then, disaster!

Mastrelli: The bones buried
beneath a lead plaque

Turned out to be an
archeological nightmare!

Pearson: They'd all been
completely scrambled.

The whole deposit was
clearly completely mixed up.

Mastrelli: Parker pearson
and his team were faced

With perhaps the greatest
archeological jigsaw puzzle

Of all time!

Pearson: We've only had about
half a million fragments

Of human bone,
many of them burnt

And twisted and
shattered out of shape,

But the information
we knew was in there.

Mastrelli: The formidable
task of making sense

Of this ancient mess would fall

To osteoarcheologist,
christie willis.

Willis: When I saw the enormous
amount of human remains

That came in from stonehenge

What was going through
my mind was just

How incredibly difficult
this task was going to be.

Mastrelli: It would
take almost a decade

Of painstaking work to
decipher the 500,000 fragments.

But now a picture is
beginning to emerge.

The evidence suggests that
long before it became a place

For the living to celebrate,

The stonehenge landscape
was devoted to the dead.

Mastrelli: The 4,500 year
history of stonehenge

Is being reshaped

Thanks to the exhumation
of half a million fragments

Of ancient human bones.

That's a seriously big number

And it could do with
a little perspective.

This jigsaw puzzle has
five thousand pieces.

And, terrifyingly, comes with
a easy-to-decipher picture

That lets you know what it
should look like when it's done.

Now, imagine it's your job to
complete 100 of these puzzles.

But, this time,

There's no picture on the box.

It took ancient bone expert
christie willis almost 10 years

To complete her bone puzzle,
but it was worth the wait.

The picture that has emerged
from those 500,000 pieces

Has transformed our
understanding of stonehenge.

The size of this burial
ground is unprecedented

In stone age archeology.

But its age has left
archeologist astonished.

The earliest bones were
buried around 3,000 bc!

That's 500 years
before stonehenge,

As we know it today,
was even erected.

Willis: These results, not
only did they rewrite

What we knew about
stonehenge, but they rewrote

What we knew about
neolithic britain,

Because stonehenge is
now one of the earliest

And largest cremation cemeteries
from neolithic britain.

Mastrelli: Could these burials

Be the very reason
stonehenge exists?

Was this vast cemetery
the motivation

For the construction
of the monument?

To find out, archeologists
need to understand

The nature of the burial ground,

Who was buried here and why?

Neolithic burials
often show the scars

Of stone age existence.

A life spent under
the constant threat

Of violence and disease.

Pearson: Prehistoric britain,
particularly the neolithic,

Could be a fairly
dangerous place.

Going on the evidence from
earlier in the neolithic

Where we've got arrow
heads stuck in bone,

Where we've got
skulls smashed in,

You might expect something like

That amongst the
cremated remains.

Mastrelli: But there
was something special

About these bones.

Willis: Given this many cremated
remains I would have expected

To see at least one
form of evidence

That there was some kind
of a violent conflict.

Evidence of arrowheads
and of spears coming pass

Through the body,
hitting the bones,

Deflecting off the bones.

There is just no evidence
of any kind of violence

On these bones.

Mastrelli: The bones
showed no sign

Of trauma related to violence

And neither did the
burials show evidence

Of disease like a
plague or epidemic.

Willis: We don't have a
lot of children.

We don't have a lot
of older individuals

And these would be the people
that would normally go first

In an epidemic because they are

The weakest members
of the society.

On the whole, these were
very physical people,

Used to labor, they're
also incredibly healthy.

Mastrelli: The
stonehenge burials

Were remarkably free
of the ordinary damage

Found on stone age skeletons.

And there was something else
that set these burials apart.

Willis: Looking at the examples
of bones we have here,

The majority of bones
are actually quite big.

But we also have
incredibly small bones.

Even the most minute bone
was picked up for burial.

So, this tells us
something about

How they honored their dead.

Mastrelli: Each burnt
fragment of bone buried

At stonehenge had been
meticulously collected

And treated with the
greatest of care.

It suggests that what linked
to the burials was the status

And respect these people
commanded in life.

(mysterious music)

The recovery of
chemical information

From burnt bone used
to be impossible.

But forensic archeologist,
dr. Christophe snoeck,

Is spearheading an attempt to
extract crucial information

That may be trapped in
these scorched skeletons.

He's searching the bones
for a strontium signal,

A chemical that enters
the body through food

And whose variations
reflect the geology

Wherever a person lived.

It would mean he
could identify exactly

Where in britain
the bone was formed.

Snoeck's pioneering work
proves, far from destroying it,

That high temperature burning
may have actually preserve

This precious data
within the fragments.

Snoeck: When bone is
buried in the soil

A lot of chemical elements

From the soil can go in the
bone and others can come out.

But when cremated
the structure changes

And actually all
the signal is locked

Into the cremated bone
for thousands of years.

Mastrelli: For the first
time snoeck has managed

To unlock a strontium signal
from an ancient cremated bone.

The results of the
analysis are shocking.

One third of the people
buried at stonehenge

Were not from the local
area, or anywhere near.

Instead, they had
spent their lives

More than 100 miles away,

Albeit in a part of britain
with deep ties to stonehenge.

Snoeck: We've analyzed 25
cremated individuals

From stonehenge

And what we've seen
from the results

Is actually a large
proportion does not originate

From the stonehenge area but
somewhere else in britain,

And the chemical signature
that we have measured

On these individuals, actually,

For some of them, it
matches west wales.

Mastrelli: These remains belong
to the people who came

From the same part of
britain as the first stones

To arrive at stonehenge,
the blue stones.

Mike parker pearson is
convinced it's no coincidence.

He has been examining
one of the pits situated

Around the edge of the circle

Where the cremated remains
were originally buried.

It's called aubrey hole 7.

He thinks its contents
reveal a connection

Between the bones
and the blue stones.

Pearson: In the bottom
of aubrey hole 7,

The chalk had been
crushed to powder.

It'd had a very heavy
weight on top of it

And the dimensions of these
holes are exactly the same

As those today that hold the
blue stones at stonehenge.

Mastrelli: Parker
pearson believes

That before they were moved

To their current
position in the center,

The welsh blue stones stood

In the aubrey holes where the
cremated remains were buried.

If he's right, he
may have confirmed

The original purpose
of stonehenge.

Pearson: The blue stones,
they're almost like tombstones,

Marking the place where
human remains would be put.

So, they are absolutely
fundamentally associated

With the dead.

Mastrelli: But why here?

Why was this place
deemed so sacred

That people would
carry their dead

To these standing stones
from hundreds of miles away?

(light music)

Mastrelli: Mike parker pearson
believes that the landscape

Of salisbury plain
was uniquely suited

To the faith and rituals
of stone age brits.

Looking at the site from above,

A pair of parallel
lines is visible,

Forming an avenue running

Straight towards the
stone circle.

This neolithic road
was constructed

At the same time as stonehenge
and it lines up perfectly

With the sun on the
shortest day of the year.

Pearson: If you are walking
along the avenue,

You will be looking directly

At where the mid-winter sun set.

Mastrelli: As the
worshipers entered

The final stretch of the avenue,

Their path would take them
toward their final goal.

A vast monument to
an ancient cemetery.

Its stones framing the
blazing mid-winter sun

As it set on the
year's shortest day.

It's clear that the
celebration was timed

To coincide with
mid-winter's day.

Each element was constructed
to line up with the sun's path.

But parker pearson now
believes there was something

That made this landscape sacred

Before a single
stone was erected.

Before a single body was buried.

An excavation in the
1950's found a series

Of deep grooves running
in a straight line

Within the stonehenge avenue.

And, just like the avenue,
they ran in a line pointing

Towards the setting
mid-winter sun.

Could these grooves be an even
earlier phase of building?

Pearson: The fact that these
gullies were running

On a solstice axis led us to
assume that they were man made.

So we came and excavated
and, to our surprise,

We found that our straight lines

In the ground were
not man made at all.

They were natural, they were
formed in an ancient ice age.

Mastrelli: The geology confirms
that the grooves weren't part

Of the original avenue
built 4500 years ago.

They were much older.

Their alignment to the mid
-winter sunset was coincidental,

A geological accident, but to
the people of the stone age,

These scars in the landscape
would have seemed like a sign.

And these gullies may be
the ultimate explanation

For stonehenge's existence.

Pryor: I think when people first
saw those natural cracks

On the surface, they'd
have been in no doubt

That it was indeed a
supernatural phenomenon.

I'm in absolutely no doubt
that that was the reason

Why stonehenge was eventually
located where it was.

Mastrelli: The true
history of stonehenge

Is now beginning to take shape.

First, the cremated remains

Of revered ancestors
were brought here

To a landscape made sacred
by its natural alignment

To the mid-winter sunset.

They were buried in
the aubrey holes,

Just inside a circular mount

And their resting places
marked with blue stones.

By 2500 bc people from all over
the country were converging

On the site to help
erect the great stones

And build the monument that
still stands 4,500 years later.

Stonehenge had become britain's
most prominent sanctuary

Of the dead.

It was the physical and
spiritual heart of an island,

United by a ritual fascination
with the mid-winter sun.

Pryor: People shared a
common world view.

A common explanation for
the rising of the sun,

For setting of the sun, the
destination of the souls

Of the dead and the
meaning of good and evil.

The purpose was to draw people

From different communities
across the country.

It was all about
uniting communities.

Stonehenge was
constructed and was used

By people right across britain.

We say in the roman times
all roads led to rome.

I think we can say
in neolithic time,

All trackways led to stonehenge.

Mastrelli: Finally, here's one
last discovery to chew on.

Those archeologists who just
identified the exact quarries

That the bluestones came from,

They think they've
found evidence

Of a stone age dress rehearsal.

A temporary monument made
from the same bluestones

That would eventually
go to stonehenge.