sometimes if you want to shed a little
light on things you have to go groping around in the dark and let's face it
when it comes to our prehistoric sites the truth is we're in the dark about
most of them a little light can reveal some remarkable clues but what it can
never do on the other hand is show us the bigger picture imagine that our modern architecture
could stand the test of time and that in five thousand years all that was left
were the shells of our buildings there'd be nothing to tell
the difference
between an office block and a hospital or a church hall in a jazz club or even
a warehouse in an aircraft hangar and that's the problem with so many of our
ancient sites they look similar in appearance but were they similar in
function across the length and breadth of the British Isles we have a
breathtaking richness of archaeological heritage some mysterious and alien some
less so this film is about that heritage and it's only by being here standing
with these ancient stones tha
t we can begin to get a sense of that bigger
picture begin to understand what these extraordinary places are all about I'm not an academic and I don't claim to
be an expert but I have been exploring primitive cultures and prehistoric sites
for many years now the plus side of that is that whilst embracing current
archeological knowledge and theories it does also give me the freedom to offer
some contentious ideas from time to time without getting the sack the downside of
that of course is that so
metimes I might be talking rubbish who knows the purpose
of this film is not to give a history lesson about our Neolithic and Bronze
Age ancestors but to explore and experience what they left behind and as
we travel across the British Isles maybe we can shed some light on these
mysterious places and the people who built them so follow me you believe it or not this wall is about
five thousand years old but look what it's a part of this is the balla wall barrow at Lands
End right down at the south
western tip of mainland Britain and its structure is
unique in the whole of the British Isles but its purpose well that's something
else there are burials here and the burial
site is very rarely just a burial site and what's more excavations have
uncovered Bronze Age artifacts here as well which means that this site could
have been in continuous use for 2,000 years and I wish I could tell you what
it had been used for over all that time the complexity of this site is
fascinating some burials fac
e outwards to the sea or the rising and Setting Sun
others are internal in what would originally have been a dark and enclosed
space the intersection was probably built a long time before the outer ring
and like so many ancient sites it's not unusual to have differences of opinion
about when they were built and what they were actually used for archeologists
have a difficult task teasing the information from the earth and without
thorough excavations over a wider area sometimes the conclusions ha
ve to be
based on very small strands of evidence we know there are Bronze Age burials
here but does that necessarily mean it's a Bronze Age building we'll come back to
the subject of dating later to begin with it's clear to see that contrary to
the way our ancestors are so often portrayed this kind of structure could
not have been conceived by people who were savages or indeed primitive on its own this site is a mystery but it
does hold clues and that's something we'll see time and time again of
the
sites will be visiting as we travel across the British Isles we'll pick up
more clues along the way and hopefully gain a greater insight into the lives of
our distant ancestors if I was to visit all the sites there are you probably
still be watching this film in a year's time this end of the country is probably
the richest in its wealth of prehistoric sites within just a few minutes of where
I am now besides any number of standing stones and cans
there's the merry maidens stone circle trigg
er seal stone circle Denine Maiden
stone circle bears buzz goin on stone circle there's pending Val fo gue Karn
unifo goo Chun quite Lanyon quite there's loads of them
we'll get glimpses of as many as we can but as well as some of the better known
sites we're going to travel to places that you may never have had the
opportunity to visit and quite a few you probably never knew existed you know those clues I mentioned this
isn't one of them and to further confound you this is not a stone circle ev
ery region has its idiosyncrasies and
that's what fascinates me all across Britain you find stone circles standing
stones cans dolmens barrows henges perhaps these other structures can shed
some light on the oddities such as this one this little monument is called men
and tall and myth has it that passing through this hole can cure your ills
it's even said to aid women's fertility people believe all sorts of things but
in reality and you'll hear it said a lot on this journey we just don't have a
clue what it was for what we do know is that even a modest
arrangement such as men and tall leaving aside the size of some of the sights
were yet to visit would have taken considerable time and effort to create
and that scale of time and effort could only be afforded by sizable communities
that's communities of people with a unity of thought often hidden away in intimate secluded
settings the traces of our ancestors can still be found frozen in time it would
be easy to walk straight past these
archetypal Bronze Age maize carvings but
even such small remnants give us tantalizing glimpses into both the
mundane and more mystical aspects of their lives it's partly because we tend to look out
for big impressive monoliths that many important signs of our ancestors day to
day lives sometimes pass unnoticed here at router on bodman more the
remains of a Bronze Age village is almost lost in the landscape but a closer look reveals the true scale
of the site which was probably home to large numb
ers of people out on open moors are often the remains
of what could have been huge ceremonial sites like the three circle complex of
the hurlers long since absorbed into religious folklore as men turned to
stone for dancing on the sabbath many smaller sites like the gleaming white
quartz circle further south at dulo can be easily missed tucked away behind hedges and farm walls
people pass them by unknowingly leaving them to be appreciated only by the local
inhabitants Dartmoor is one of my favor
ite places in
the whole of England and I've been exploring here for over 20 years 365 square miles of rolling Moors with a
huge variety of prehistoric structures it's so unspoiled in archaeological
terms that it gives us a much clearer idea of what the whole country used to
be like miles of moorland covered in stone circles cans and kists settlements
barrows standing stones and these stone roads are a bit of a mystery and
Dartmoor has the greatest concentration anywhere there's over 60 of them d
otted
across the moor and of such variety they must have had lots of different
functions here I'm Mary Vale right in the middle of Dartmoor and this site has
a bit of everything there's settlements all around there's
Hut circles over there there's a big stone circle with a huge standing stone
over there there's cans dotted all around and these
stone rows right in the middle of it all and you want to see what's in the middle
of this row it's only small but this little funereal box called a kist d
oes
imply that this was a processionary pathway so what do we have here a temple
in the centre of a big community in many cases the roads lead to cans or stone
circles but of all the rows across the moor none of them point in the same
direction some people have theorized that they may
have had astronomical alignments but frankly a line will always point at
something and there's so much inconsistency that the idea doesn't hold
water it seems much more likely that the rows didn't relate to anythin
g outside
the community but there's something else to bear in mind these barren landscapes
are entirely the work of our farming ancestors about 12,000 years ago
the whole moor was covered in forest it was about this time that
hunter-gatherers began felling trees to make the first clearings the reason was
simple enough if you can encourage animals to graze in the clearings that
you've made then hunting is a much much easier job
so people would stay around their hunting grounds settlements would
d
evelop until about four thousand years ago domestic farming had become a way of
life so did these rows lead people across open more or through dense
forests upon this high ground you get a real
sense of the past spreading out across the landscape are all the signs of a
fully rounded community here we're on the southwest side of the
mall on Tom gutter tour way over there in the distance is higher heart or tall
and you might just be able to make out down there the drizzle Coombs stone rows
these w
onderful evocative names are sometimes the lingering legacy the long
forgotten history for instance over there behind higher heart or tour
there's a valley called evil comb and I really wish I could tell you stories of
black magic and ritual sacrifice but actually the name comes from the valleys
tin mining past and an evil was just a short-handled pick that the miners used
to use to extract ore from the rocks so sorry to disappoint on that one but
still good for frightening the kids though let's
go and have a look at those
rows you remember that little kissed we saw
in the middle of the road Maryvale this is a perfect Bronze Age example it's
about 4,000 years old and basically it's a stone box and it would have held the
remains of an individual or even a family sometimes with a cover stone and
then the whole thing would have been covered with a mound of Earth called Kem this is yellow made just north of gasset
or that you can probably see out there behind me is where we were earlier an
d
this place is incredibly unusual it's a quadruple stone circle
it's strange there's no alignments amongst the stones to suggest astronomy
and there's no central kissed to suggest an elaborate burial just these enigmatic
rings there are theories it's supposed to have been a cam here but nobody knows
what came first how it developed or what it was actually used for and I think it
looks like a target it's village hunting practice near a
spear to the middle winds that's what it is ten miles to the
east is another
oddity that leaves you wondering this is the gray weathers double stone circle
they're probably early Bronze Age about four thousand years old and when they
were excavated in 1898 both circles were found to be strewn with ashes
no one knows whether it was from cremations or domestic burning or how
old the circles were before the burning took place they're aligned north-south
the southern circle being slightly bigger and it's been suggested that they
were a place for the gatherin
g of the clans but I think that's silly
you wouldn't create a neutral territory and have one side bigger than the other
we can only guess what they were for it's crazy you go from falling over
stones around every bend to really having to hunt them out it seems strange
that moving east through England you find less and less sight but actually it
says a lot about our ancestors through the ages when communities are successful
settlements continue to develop people only move to new pastures when the
land
stops providing and in the West Country that's exactly what happened even today
there's very little building because the land just isn't hospitable fortunately
for us though it means that our ancestors hard work is still there to
see when you look at the development of societies in other countries it's clear
from places like the great pyramids or the Acropolis that the cities have
continued to develop without enormous cultural movement most other cities in
the world have grown through eith
er knocking down or building over the
ancient structures in places where those ancient monuments are still there to be
seen they've lost their original meaning but somehow they've kept a level of
importance for the people of course that could just be a question of wonder you
have to ask would the Great Pyramid still be there if they'd only been 30
feet tall sometimes like nine stones in dorset our
ancient monuments stand neglected by the roadside virtually unnoticed by passing
motorists and unvi
sited by all but the enthusiast the passing centuries have left many
ancient sites with a mysterious anonymity we respect them but we don't
understand them and their social importance has long since disappeared we
protect them and ignore them in equal measure Nolton henge is a perfect example this
Bronze Age site is part of an enormous settlement that sprawls across the
surrounding countryside it's hard to see a lot of it now but this raised mound
originally rose an astonishing 17 feet out of th
e ditch around it the careful
placing of this Norman Church would have been a very powerful way of putting an
end to any earlier non-christian goings-on now it's crumbling ruins sits
like a weary trespasser on unguarded land this is the chestnuts in Addington Kent
and I wish I have one of these in my garden it's the remains of a Neolithic
Long Barrow that was used well into the Bronze Age and there are other sites
like this in the southeast not far from here the remains of another Long Barrow
ca
lled cold room looks out across the open hills and Moors which haven't
changed much for thousands of years but in and around towns that have been
changing constantly for hundreds of years
the land has been progressively divided into smaller and smaller plots so
structures were pulled down as their relevance in society faded no longer
showing the way so much is simply in the way thankfully not here though it's easy to see how history covers its
tracks especially in cities the constant redevelopme
nt can leave few signs of
buildings from decades ago let alone hundreds or thousands of years so you may well wonder what on earth
we're doing in the middle of London and what they could possibly be to see here
I think you'd be right absolutely nothing now almost nothing
there is something here unnoticed by passers-by an all trace of its
importance long forgotten in here is the London stone truth is we don't know its
origin but we do know that it's been here for a long time and it's actually
par
t of a much bigger stone was broken here in the 18th century we also know
that it's been moved back and forth across the road in the last few hundred
years but a few possible clues remain in folklore there are stories that say that
it was once part of a stone circle on this site others say that it was the
pillar or the top of a pillar in Brutus's palace it's also reputedly the
stone to which all measurements were made to London so if you see a mild
stone this is London 27 miles it's too heater y
ou know there are thousands upon
thousands of prehistoric sites around Britain and if you just count stone
circles nothing else just stone circles there's nearly a thousand of them it's
incredible that out of all those sites most people only seem to know this one now obviously I'm not being dismissive
of Stonehenge itself just the fact that when visitors come to marvel at the
imposing monoliths they miss the scale and significance of the entire complex
there are literally hundreds of prehistoric
sites spreading for miles in
all directions earthworks long barrows avenues of stones burial sites and the
massive cursors they all showed that this was a huge thriving community
woodhenge a couple of miles northeast is the remains of a complex timber
structure probably an enclosed circular building which sat on its own raised
mound long since flattened by plowing West Kennet Long Barrow to the north at
three hundred and fifty feet long is the largest chamber tomb in England and
Wales and a lit
tle further north again is Silbury Hill the biggest man-made
mound in Europe it's estimated that to build this giant
would have taken five hundred men working everyday for ten years the term
henge originally came from Stonehenge in Old English it refers to the hanging
stones or lintels but it came to mean something quite different and ironically
Stonehenge itself is not strictly speaking a henge henges have a ditch
inside the raised bank but at Stonehenge the ditch lies on the outside which
impl
ies that they had quite different functions the true henge of this vast
Wiltshire complex is Avebury every is over 20 miles north of Stonehenge
a short day's walk for our ancestors and it is without doubt the grandest
ceremonial site in Britain today its splendor is really only visible from the
air but when it was built it must have been a breathtaking sight when a pree
was excavated in the early part of the 20th century the surrounding ditch was
found to have been sheer sided and 30 feet deep o
n the outside of the ditch
was a wide teres running at the foot of the bank
which towered 20 feet above the central earth work our ancestors excavated a
hundred and fifty thousand tons of choc rubble to create the ditch an immense
undertaking for something clearly of immense importance and it wasn't the
only one in the region 50 miles to the west in Somerset stands the deceptive
stone circle of Staunton drew it looks pretty boring doesn't it an enormous
stone circle with a small router one at ea
ch end but it's bland appearance on
the landscape gives no clue as to its original scale and importance this
circle is over a hundred metres across now in diameter that makes it second
only to the vastness of Avebury some years ago the ancient monuments
laboratory of English heritage carried out a magnetometer survey across the
whole site and what they discovered is breathtaking
inside the circle when nine concentric rings of wooden posts each post a metre
apart and each post a metre or more acr
oss and you don't use a post a metre
or more across unless you need it to be tall and on top of that the whole site
was surrounded by a ditch and a raised bank he may have been wood but this would
have been every bit as impressive as the stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury but perhaps there is a reason for the
posts not to have been so tall the design of a henge
implies that the banks were for spectators the inner terrace at Avebury
adds weight to this idea suggesting a level walkway for fin
ding your place
before climbing the bank exactly as we still do at arena's today there would be
no sense in having posts so tall that they obscured the spectators view and
they need only be the height of a man for the audience to see the whole
spectacle from there raised position on the massive Bank so why create an
artificial forest where spectators could see but participants could not for me
the most likely answer is blood sports and shopping as that may sound to many
it's important to remembe
r that this was a time when most of Britain was covered
in forest and the most skilled hunter would probably have been held in high
esteem possibly even beyond his own community the deep ditch would stop
animals escaping into the crowd while the forest of posts would create an
enclosed but nevertheless real hunting ground and then again this amount of
huge posts could easily have supported a floor exactly the same design concept is
at the great colosseum of Rome but preceding it by thousands of
years we
can only wonder with the extraordinary variety of sites in the region many of
them of such immense size I think this whole area of Wiltjer through Somerset
must have been the capital of prehistoric Britain
and there's another important aspect of these chalk glands
that's that where there's chalk is Flint the very basis of prehistoric currency
imagine a land where the slag heaps you create your building rubble is full of
money with the raw materials for X making under their feet the peop
le of
Wiltshire would have had enormous wealth there was a huge cultural shift in the
Bronze Age the increase in farming and settlement building meant that for the
first time people had to defend their territory and so the warrior culture was
born and with it the use of horses though in the offing tonight horse was
excavated in the early 1980s both it and the hill fought alongside were both
dated to the Late Bronze Age now you only need to look at the Spanish
conquistadors decimation of South Am
erica to see what a few warriors on
horseback can do these really were rich and powerful people as communities grew
inevitably rituals became progressively more elaborate and burial grounds like
pretty 9 Burroughs illustrate the huge significance they held for the community
even today the very word barrow still holds a ghostly place in folklore like
any graveyards there's a sense of walking amongst the dead over time the whole relationship between
the living and the dead became more structured g
iving rise to sophisticated
temples in a variety of building styles this part of England is characterized by
the seven Cotswolds style of tomb and some of them are wonderfully preserved
some like stony littleton have burial chambers which are accessed from within
a low central passageway excavations seem to suggest that the chambers in
this style of tomb was specific to age and gender of the dead children buried
in the first chamber on the left sweeping clockwise with adult males in
the end cham
ber with the old being buried in the chamber closest to the
entrance on the right waylynn smithy is a much grander
construction with huge stones forming the imposing forecourt it was developed over a long period of
time the mound we still see today was actually built over an earlier mortuary
house made of timber others like Bella snap in the Cotswolds
have external burials along the sidewalls but with the same meticulous
attention to design and location they certainly picked beautiful places
to
lay their loved ones to rest did you know Lakes rousing Jerusalem
might never have been written if it weren't for these the wrong white stones
in Oxfordshire may come as a surprise to know that much of Blake's
art and writing was inspired by the ideas of an 18th century clergyman and
friend of Isaac Newton Williams - Klee was secretary to the Society of
Antiquaries when he visited this place and apparently he had a life-changing
experience his visit brought him to believe that the sites were rel
igious
and ritual centres built in ancient times by the Druids
Stokley meticulously catalogued described and illustrated so many of our
ancient monuments bringing them firmly to public attention and it's fair to say
that their mystical importance and place in our hearts is entirely due to him his
passion led him to adopt a grandiose title of archdruid kinder knacks
ultimately inspiring the eccentric artist and poet William Blake to write
his famous hymn Jerusalem is actually about rekindling
dru
id culture in Britain this place is a wonderful concoction of historical
confusion as names and dates all over the place there's tales of Witchcraft
and kingly fighting and no sense to be made of any of it it is a complicated
site on the other side of the road from the circle there's a big outlier
called the king stone and on the other side of the field over there is a very
full-on looking Dolman called the Whispering Knights the name roll rights
originates from Viking times when it was called c
rawler Landreth which meant the
land with special rights belonging to Aurora and apart from being a landowner
we don't really know anything about him then it was thought to refer to a Norman
called Roland who fought a battle here except that the battle near here
happened in 916 ad and Roland died in seven seven eight then perhaps the most tenacious myth of
all there's the story of Danish king Rallo you see the land on which the
stone stand was actually owned by a witch and one day while passing
through
Rallo and his trusty Knights found themselves confronted by the crone she
said to King Rallo seven long strides shalt thou take if long Contin thou
constancy King of England that shall be stick stock Stone said Rallo as King of
England I shall be known and he took his seven strides but the view was hidden by
the slight rise of the ground the witch screeched with laughter as long Compton
thou canst not see King of England thou shalt not be rise up stick and stand
still stone for King of E
ngland thou shalt be none thou and thy men horse
stones shall be and I myself an Eldon tree which all sounds very mean and
self-destructive to me ironically if Rollins legs had been a bit longer then
his strides may well have shown him the village of long Compton in the valley
below instead he and his men turned to stone and remain as we see them today
although people do say that some nights they out root themselves and go down to
drink in the stream in the valley below so what do we know aside
from the tales
of witchcraft which persist to this day it's generally accepted that the stones
were erected about five thousand years ago and excavations here have uncovered
Bronze Age burials cremations a couple of flint tools and an urn but perhaps
most significant of all is its location sitting on the Cotswolds Ridgeway the
role rights were probably for thousands of years a really important place on
what could be the oldest trade route in the country
trading in Flint trolls pottery livestock
textile is probably very well
established and this was probably a major link between southern England and
the whole of the rest of Britain our standing stones belong to an age
long before British territories were established and there's something very
evocative about crossing a national border that didn't exist in those
ancient times Whalen's appears to have far fewer
megalithic remains than some other parts of britain but that may be simply
because they're harder to reach and many of them in in
accessible places are
forgotten and unnamed but those that have had an enduring place in people's
imagination are much to the richness of Welsh folklore the Ponte please rocking
stone has been a meeting place for as long as we know and it has strong
connections with the Welsh bardic tradition interestingly though the stone
circle around it was constructed by bards in 18-49 and that made me wonder
very occasionally we still build stone circles in a kind of homage to our
distant ancestors but with
no real knowledge of their original purpose how
do we know that half of the British circles aren't Bronze Age Follies built
in homage to their Neolithic ancestors with no knowledge of their intent tink
ins wood is another example of a seven Cotswolds tomb and this enormous
Neolithic Monument is home to the largest capstone in Britain 30 feet long
and weighing around 50 tons folklore says that if you fall asleep here you
will wake as a bard or go mad although with some of the birds I've met I'm
not
sure it isn't the same thing out in the wilder countryside the open
Moreland's echo the barren landscapes of Dartmoor and everything seems to
disappear into the vast openness of it all above the river tour if it weren't for
the massive standing stone called may more you could easily miss the circle of
caring gone but however unimpressive the circle may be its position looking down
through the valleys is spectacular this is gorse vow in Pembrokeshire and
it's typical of Welsh stone circles yo
u know they're all made of small stones
which is really strange because you see that Ridge up there behind me well
that's the pre-cell is right now I can tell you from the wonders of GPS
technology that Stonehenge is a hundred and thirty-five miles from here you know
the blue stones at Stonehenge they came from up there I think it may be another
good example of the possible remnants of old oral traditions that Merlin appears
in Welsh folklore and is the reputed builder of Stonehenge long before
his
emergence as a wizard in romantic Arthurian legend these faint strands
could connect to an age far older than we imagined dolmens punctuate the
landscape in this part of Wales although here they're usually called chrome licks
and are all that remain of much bigger structures not far from the Priscilla's
the tiny letter trip earth stands lonely on a hilltop and its small size makes it
difficult to imagine what it may have looked like but a few miles to the south
pantry fan is so huge that it
takes a tall man to reach its enormous capstone
and these stones were covered by a long mound of earth and stones which
stretched about a hundred feet down the hill behind it further north in a village called as
boutique convent not far from Aberystwyth is an incongruous site
illustrating the struggle between ancient belief and Christianity the once
powerful stone circle has been absorbed into the walls of the church graveyard
very much like the church sitting on top of Knowlton henge in Dorset
the early
church clearly recognized the greater impact of using the site for something
new rather than destroying it in contrast the unspoiled circle of
multi HF sits majestically on a hill looking out across the landscape just as
it has for millennia and sites like this highlight an aspect of these monuments
which is often overlooked they look similar but this is a circle of stones
forming an almost unbroken enclosure clearly different from a stone circle
where the stones are widely spaced and
each has a deliberate placing hi in the hills overlooking Conway Bay
sits a site called the druid circle all through Wales links with the Druids
seems to grow stronger and here it's not without reason although little is known about them we
do know that in Celtic tradition the Truitt's were already long-established
by 200 BC to the rest of society these revered teachers clearly held a special
status than from the later accounts of Julius Caesar referring to the Druids in
Gaul we find that they we
re exempt from all normal taxes and obligations interestingly when it came to electing a
successor for the position of supreme druid if it couldn't be resolved by vote
it was decided by armed force so much for peaceful mistletoe pickers the Roman
invasion of Britain was ruthless and as they forged their way north the opposing
Brits along with the Druids were forced to retreat ahead of them through Wales
and it was ad 60 that everything came to a head Rome had to overcome the
Troublesome druids i
f it was going to achieve total control of Britain it was
here on the Isle of Anglesey that the Druids made their last stand against the
might of the Roman Empire and contemporary accounts tell of a people
far removed from the peaceful white robe mystics imagined by stutely the final
battle started here at the Menai Strait the Roman army arrived at the riverbank
over there and looked across to a terrifying sight Tacitus described the
enemy as a dense array of armed warriors he said women in blac
k with disheveled
hair were dashing between the ranks like Furies and waving brands druids with
their arms in the air yelling curses at the Roman army he says that the soldiers
were paralyzed with fear but nonetheless the Romans 1 and the Druids mythical
status today is the legacy of that once powerful force and who knows what body
of knowledge died with them one needs to remember that despite our
perception of the druidic links with stone circles and ancient monuments
these sites were built lon
g long before we hear anything about the existence of
Druids for example on anglesey is the
profoundly mystical but claudia de garis about 5,000 years old a circular
structure which leaves no doubt that it was a significant setting for ritual
practices there are what appear to be burial chambers to the sides although
only one was found to contain human remains stones positioned within the
tomb bear strange carvings and strangest of all archeologists have found that in
the central area a fire had
burned for a long time into the middle of which had
been poured us to a stew containing eel grass whiting rabbit mouse shrew snake
frog and toad now easy as it is for us to associate such a recipe with a
Shakespearean witch's brew actually there is another interesting possibility
these people seem to be fascinated by creatures that live in the margins of
the natural world creatures that live underground where man would only place
the dead or in water where man couldn't exist at all or only comi
ng out at night
when the veils between the living and the dead seemed to be lifted in the mind
of Neolithic man could these creatures have seemed to pass between the worlds
of the living and the dead however we interpret this remarkable find
discovering these organic remains has given us a unique glimpse into the
ritual lives of our ancestors soup this is bring Keith levy and it really
is one of the most significant sites in Britain its history is long and very
complex and there's been a lot of
debate over its construction about five
thousand years ago it was a henge complete with ditch and Bank and to
emphasize its importance the central area was crowned by a circle of big
stones then about a thousand years later it was turned into a huge chambered can
far bigger than is visible today the ditch was filled and Earth from the bank
was used to provide material for the earth mound and to make the tomb the
circle stones were moved and reused or broken and buried in a total destruction
of w
hat had been before another example of a total change of
usage a place being taken over completely and changed from an open
place for the living into an enclosed place for the dead in a way it's like
the stone circle of his boutique in vain' being absorbed into the walls of a
later Christian graveyard and it's possibly our best example of the
underlying complexity at any site that was used for thousands of years gotta be
honest with you I came here yesterday and I thought the one I got to Angles
ey
I'll tell you about the Druids and show you a couple of sites and go but I found
something here that I really can't understand how it's been missed before
it's genuinely the most exciting thing I've ever discovered and yesterday it
left me stunned for hours can I have a look at this this is the burial chamber and here
stands an impressive pillar of stone it doesn't touch the ceiling so it's not
structural it's important in its own right now archeological texts and
writings about this site hav
e described this as a monolith and as a carefully
dressed pillar of stone meaning it was cut to be this shape but you can't cut
these textures so what could be cylindrical and this rough texture it's
a fossil tree trunk look you can see where the bark has split revealing the
wood grain underneath all around you can see traces of that now don't switch off
when I say what I'm gonna say next some of these cut marks can only have been
made when it was wood not when it was stoned look here the bark h
as dragged
stone would have split or shattered and down here two distinct marks blows where
the wood has pulped and you can't make these marks in stone unless it's
something like a mud stone but in that case you won't get these textures now
you'll have to think I'm crazy or you'll be as stunned as I was yesterday because
as far as I was concerned the latest fossil wood comes from the Miocene
period which is about 20 million years ago I sat on the floor stunned and
confused and then rang a friend
of mine who knows about these things and
apparently the latest research from Japan has proved that petrification so
it's turning into stone can occur much faster than we thought and it
is conceivable that a piece of wood this size could petrify in under a century
but that's in extreme conditions now even if we give it a few thousand years
we still have a wonderful story we could have a tree trunk that has been worked
by man it falls into a bog with a high acid content and a high silica content
and over that period of time it turns to stone now when it was found again it
must have seemed like a thing of absolute magic to Neolithic man would
symbolize life and stone symbolize death so here was a being of life and
afterlife living and dead whether it was found by the builders of Ben Cassidy or
whether it was brought here from elsewhere
already a highly prized item we may never know I'm just amazed that nobody
has written about this before and I hope that specialists get here to date it a
nd
soon because if it is 20 million years old
I don't know what I'll do Island this really is the land of fairy
tales any turn in the road might reveal a slight so beautiful that your heart
skips a beat it's hard to know where to start until you see castle rudder e-even as
stone circles go this looks a bit of a mess but underneath its tired appearance
lies a site as complex as stent and drew or bringeth levy known as a circle henge
the stones are surrounded by a raised bank and excavations showe
d it to have
been built using soil from a ditch lying 24 feet outside the circle and if that
wasn't impressive enough the excavations also revealed that the whole thing was
surrounded by another Bank which was supported by a wall of wooden posts but
even with all of that it isn't what excited me about this site until I came
here I didn't know when or where I was going to talk about a particular
obsession of mine drill holes drill holes are a fairly common feature around
megalithic monuments and
it's always intrigued me that no one really
discusses them one of the things that makes them so enigmatic is that in the
main they all appear to be worked with the same size of tool they've been
dismissed by some as being worked in the last few hundred years by stonemasons
attempting to split and clear stones from the land now obviously some of them
could be exactly that but drilled stones litter the landscape across Devon and
Cornwall with many of them still in positions which bear no relation
to
possible clearing and even though these are a typical examples here at castle
rudder II there's evidence that I have good reason to be excited by this
apparently minor detail firstly this stone close to the white quartz entrance
stones is drilled to create an elegant curved edge the other half of it lies
outside the circle but clearly is nothing to do with clearing and secondly
but most significantly this stone lying to one side of the circle has five
carefully worked slots for who knows what
purpose the thing is that I know an
identical stone lying in a similar position in another circle
back on Dartmoor in southwest England at a place called fern worthy it would be
extraordinary if these stones were not cut and positioned for the same purpose
so we may have another piece of evidence for a shared ritual or practice that we
know nothing about Ireland has such a variety of megalithic
monuments some of them extraordinary for their audacity like Browns Hill Dolman
near Carlo in the sou
theast its immense capstone is the biggest in
Europe and is estimated to weigh between a hundred and 150 tonnes others like lab Akali near for muy are
extraordinary in their design this looks more like a prehistoric dying that to me
it's not surprising that Ireland is so steeped in fairy lore when you see sites
like the beautifully elegant circle of odd grooms it's tall slender stones it's
really hard not to imagine it filled with equally tall and slender robed
figures and utterly magical sites
that because
of their settings chosen so carefully by their builders seem to exist in another
world altogether like aura standing timelessly on the banks of a lake facing
a waterfall which cascades down from the hills on the far shore have a look at this
here's a map of a tiny area in the south and I'm not even going to bother to open
it all out okay standing stone standing stone Boulder burial stone circle
megalithic tomb stone circle megalithic tomb Boulder burial cross inscribed
stone Boulder
burial standing stones Standing Stone stone circle stone circle
Boulder burial Boulder burial megalithic tomb megalithic tombs standing stone a map of a tiny area in the North cans
cans cans megalithic two megalithic two megalithic two megalithic tomb making us
into him pick anywhere megalithic tombs standing stone standing stone megalithic
two megalithic two megalithic two megalithic tomb standing stones stone
circle stone row megalithic tomb they are everywhere over the whole of Ireland
there
are 1,500 megalithic sites that's the big stone stuff I don't want to keep
tossing the list at you but if we do count the cans and the bearers and all
that stuff as well there are an incredible 5,000 recorded archaeological
sites in County Sligo alone now the point is that here as we saw on Dartmoor
for example there's been comparatively little building so the traces of our
ancestors are still clear to see now even allowing for the variations in
population density if there are 5000 sites in Cou
nty Sligo alone how many
cells a must there have been across the whole of Britain and Ireland having seen
from the maps just how many sites cover the Irish landscape picking any road in
the southwest seems to lead to something worth visiting here the circle of sh
rome bahrain with its tall portal stones sits isolated off the road
almost oppressed by the ominous rock face behind it it's amazing how the
atmosphere of a place is so influenced by its position in total contrast - Rome
Bahrain the por
tal dolmen of Palmer Brown in County Galway stands proudly
under open skies which seemed to link it far more to the heavens than the earth earlier I mentioned that there are 5,000
recorded archaeological sites in County Sligo well out of all those places in
Sligo there's been one area which stands out from all the rest this is Karrimor Ireland's largest
megalithic cemetery it's amongst the oldest and largest megalithic cemeteries
in Europe and the dates here are staggering
earliest remains have
been dated back to around nine thousand six hundred years
ago and the earliest megalithic tombs here - about seven thousand years ago so
to put that in perspective that's a very very long time before any of the great
pyramid building in Egypt you see that lump up there behind me that's not an
array it's the sacred mountain that dominates the surrounding lowlands and
you see that bump on the very top that's what we're going next not an array is
not alone amongst the surrounding mountains in havin
g a huge can at its
summit but this colossal monument is called Maeve's can and there really was
an Iron Age Queen Maeve who could be buried here even though the can itself predates
Maeve by a couple of thousand years tombs were commonly reused for long
periods so it is possible Irish mythology tells of people that
came from over the sea a noble figures like the kings of Tara the kings of to
uttered their Danann and here Queen Maeve you know whoever does lie here
they must have been held in the
very highest esteem to be buried at such a
site we'd probably mostly agree that man is
an animal trying to solve the problems of living comfortably with his
environment and you probably hear people say quite often that man no longer lives
in harmony with his environment but actually that's a mistake man lives in
total harmony with his environment he just happens to have created a
completely artificial one over which he has far greater control the accurate
thing to say would be that urbanized man
no longer lives in harmony with nature
now this is essentially how we lost our connection with our ancestors the
stories and myths passed down for thousands of years cease to have meaning
for a people so far removed from nature now in Britain the combination of Roman
invasion and centuries of religious dogma destroyed or absorbed sometimes
confused that earlier heritage as is so clear to see at places like Nolton henge
for example or as Betty convene adopter into the present and it ceases to ha
ve
the past that you so wish to hide it only takes a few centuries of being told
how and what to think and believe for almost all traces of a word-of-mouth
tradition to disappear so cultural heritage had to start all over again the
problem now is that our artificial environment maintains that separation
from our ancestors and the speed of change through our technological
advances means that few figures in history hold their meaning who were the
mythical kings of Terra the kings of - Arthur didn'
t own and
Queen Maeve we cling to the heroic tales of King Arthur of Robin Hood because
they remind us of the values that we hold dear
love honor bravery nobility but historical figures don't fit so easily
into an ever-evolving culture there's really only one way to find modern day
heroes who will fit into a culture undergoing constant change
we create celebrities it's interesting that as you move north
through Ireland the site seemed to become grander and more sophisticated
still in County Slig
o the court can of creevy keel is one of the finest
examples of this type of structure the open area has a puzzling circular
construction with its own passage entrance perhaps a kind of pulpit where
the priest could make a grand entrance when the congregation was settled in the
wider area of the court beyond this lies what would have been the covered tomb
itself still guarded by imposing portal stones big more near Londonderry seems more
like a showpiece of Bronze Age architectural design the ci
rcles here
are laid out in pairs each pair having its own can and approaching stone rows the overall sense of establishment
refinement of old rituals is almost tangible especially at the most famous
group of Ireland's prehistoric monuments now south and Newgrange in the Boyne
Valley sadly death is little more than a ruin
long since ravaged by quarrying but now the Newgrange hold a level of artistry
which leaves you speechless these Neolithic masterpieces show a
level of sophistication which is i
mpossible to take in on a single visit
both Newgrange and now the colossal monuments in themselves each surrounded
by numerous chambered tombs each also has its own crowning feature Newgrange is meticulously built in a
line so that it's gently rising passageway coincides with the angle of
the sun's rays when they shine through the opening above the entrance at the
winter solstice the sunlight reaches up the passageway to illuminate the central
chamber Nath is notable for an entirely
different re
ason the whole site is adorned with decorated stones in fact
Natha loan accounts for over a quarter of all the known megalithic art in
Europe I couldn't leave Ireland without saying
something else about Newgrange from up here it does look spectacular but
actually it's both a marvel and a monstrosity inside its original it's an
awesome display of Neolithic sophistication creating that internal
space that's only illuminated by the Sun at winter solstice has to have been done
with a fantastic under
standing of astronomy it really is worth a visit but
outside it's a lie Neolithic man would never have built that monster that
gleaming white quartz facade conceals a concrete wall the only way that that
design would stay standing and all around above the curb stones there are
concrete Flint's that support the weight of the mound even the entrance it's
designed to take huge numbers of visitors the court would never have
looked like that it's a 1970s piece of nonsense
come and marvel at the insid
e but ignore the outside it's just not true halfway between Ireland and England
lying peacefully in the middle of the Irish Sea is perhaps the best-kept
secret of the British Isles aside from being a beautiful island the
isle of man is steeped in history and folklore to this day it remains
politically independent and is home to the oldest unbroken Parliament in the
world the ten world was a meeting place for the clans and has had many reputed
sites around the island throughout history even today
it maintains its
ancient political rituals at 10 Wald Hill looking every bit a prehistoric
mound in the town of sand John's this deeply held respect for heritage
means that ancient sites often add to the sense of place accepted and
protected in intimate proximity to modern houses it's also home to some
unique prehistoric sites which clearly show a shared culture with the British
Isles but are individual in their design and layout on open Moreland's
overlooking the sea across the hillsides and i
n secluded woods
the signs of ancient sites remain if you saw a hot circle marked on a map
you probably wouldn't bother to even come and have a look
but without coming to explore where on earth would you find a site like this it's marked as just a hot circle which
implies that it's just the footings of a building where somebody lived but if
it's true that this is how our ancestors built their houses then why aren't there
thousands of them all over the landscapes
you have to wonder is it possible
that it was where maybe a holy man lived on
the outskirts of a village or maybe just somebody really antisocial who didn't
want to have anything to do with anybody else over on the southwest tip of the
island is an extraordinary site called molehill it's hard to imagine how this
would have looked in its day but the circle of cans laid out in pairs with
numerous entrances hints and elaborate rituals under an open sky and with clear
views to the Setting Sun many of the islands monuments are
posit
ioned looking out to sea and sometimes the most unimposing sight can
turn out to be quite special of all the sites in the world that visited this is
one of my personal favorites it's listed as just a can but it's an excellent
example of why we shouldn't take things for granted and you can see on closer
inspection why it can't just be a burial site look at this this place is unique
it's a white quartz box these walls and ceiling are huge blocks of white quartz
and the thing is that they're not at
the center of the km which is where a
traditional burial would be there at the back this place is intimate it's really
intimate it is more than just a burial chamber another feature of this mound
can also be seen across Britain and that's the small ditch and raised Bank
running around its perimeter to me it seems likely that they shared the same
function as the banks at the great hinges the perfect height for seating to
watch a priest minister to his flock or whatever ritual was taking place on
the
mound this is cash telling art one of the most
important sites on the whole of the Isle of Man it's about four thousand years
old and it's a great example of how our perceptions can become distorted and the
impressions that we get can be a bit misleading we can be forgiven for
thinking that you find somewhere like this in the landscape in an isolated
place and it would have been maybe a small community living somewhere but
when you think about it the manpower necessary to create the site of
this
size must have been immense when we're just left with the bare bones
of a building it can sometimes be very hard to imagine what it must have looked
like when it was fully intact big in there this is something you don't see every
day we're used to sites being isolated because the needs of communities change
and they move to new ground but you find a place like this and you can see that
people have been living on this very spot for 5,000 years or more lack see
isn't a big town even today it
s population is still only around 2,000
inhabitants but nevertheless its status as a successful settlement is clear and
this site is huge it's probably one of the biggest of its kind in the whole of
the British Isles the other half of it is way behind the house on the other
side of the road over there this whole site is called king orry's grave in
Lexie and if it was one site when it was built with this central row of burial
chambers running right through to the other side it's even bigger than
at
cachtice Lonard that we were looking at before so it must have been for a big
community and it must have been a very important site perhaps the important
point to note from the Isle of Man is that even on a small island we can see
evidence of communities which were big enough and stable enough either to have
daily sustenance sufficiently under control that they had the time to build
such sites all that the community was big enough for some people to be
dedicated to the task of building coming
down the timeline of history
inevitably there are crossovers between archaeology and geology but it is
important not to blur the edges archeology tells us about how our
ancestors lived what they did what they left behind but geology tells us about
the land on which they lived in archaeological terms what we broadly
call the Stone Age began way back two and a half million years ago in the
Paleolithic and astonishingly with this simple tool use it was well over a
million years before men realized
that it was a good idea to hit stones with
stones the development was really slow we have to come way way down closer to
the present day to the Neolithic period which started incredibly only eight
thousand years ago when our building work began that lasted until the
beginning of the Bronze Age only four and a half thousand years ago now all
this sits within a geological period called the Holocene which started 10,000
years ago so all the work that we know of or the ancient sites all the
megalit
hic tomb building that all happened in this small time frame in the
Holocene period now here in the Holocene beds at Formby point north of Liverpool
something truly wonderful is happening the see here has washed away thousands
of years of sand uncovering a 6,000 year old beach baked so hard by the Sun over
a long dry period that when the tide next brought sands over to cover it it
just rested gently on top protecting every mark that had been made by people
this isn't rock this is just baked hard
ancients and so the sea is gradually
washing it away these won't be here for long they have found children's
footprints and animals footprints here too so the man who left these prints
could have been out hunting with his children it's wonderful to think that he
could have stood on this spot watching his children play or watching the Sun go
down are below in the Peak District is
another fabulous henge it may be smaller in size than the enormous hinges of
Avebury and Stanton drew but is nonethel
ess impressive for it the inner
mount stone circle is long fallen either through centuries of high winds or
perhaps religious destruction but in use all those thousands of years ago it must
have been a wonderful sight Stenton more in derbyshire is home to an
enormous Bronze Age cemetery and its focal point of the nine ladies stone
circle stands on what would have been open high ground the early morning mist
seemed to give it an even greater mystery but nine stones so often we see
nine stones nea
r clithero in Lancashire Bleasdale
circle is another mysterious site but very important for us in our journey you
may have wondered why I'm not travelling much into the east of the country and
Bleasdale is a good illustration of the reason this small arrangement of
concrete cylinders marks the post holes that have been found here and this is
all that can be seen of a much bigger and complicated site which spread into
the surrounding field the geology of Britain has created an almost Rock less
sw
ay that crossed much of eastern England
this meant that here our ancestors had no choice but to use wood to build all
their important sites which have long since rotted away leaving no visible
trace above ground imagine what the flat lowlands of England might have looked
like covered in wooden versions of stone circles
how many wood hinges and stent and Druze might there have been waiting to be
rediscovered the early church often use standing
stones to put the fear of God into the hearts of the
lowly people of the parish
all over the country you find sites which still bear the names they were
given to frighten the would-be sinner their merry maidens the nine maidens the
hurlers the nine ladies of stent and more all turned to stone for doing
something ungodly on a Sunday you know really bad things like dancing or
playing a happy tune and here even more scary the devil apparently threw this
stone in an attempt to destroy the church amidst but aside from early
superstitions what do we hav
e here this is the rub stone monolith it's the
tallest standing stone in Britain nearly 26 feet tall and if you apply the rule
of thumb for big monoliths that there's a quarter again in the ground
this stone is between 32 and 35 feet long and they brought it from Katyn over
ten miles away now obviously you don't go to that
amount of effort without a reason and here around Rustin may well have been as
important to our Bronze Age ancestors as the mighty Stonehenge and Avebury only
traces remain bu
t almost invisible in the landscape are the remains of the
most enigmatic of prehistoric monuments the cursus imagine a henge a circular
area surrounded by a ditch with a raised Bank on the outside and then imagine
that idea as a straight line that's the basic structure of a cursus and they
were clearly of immense importance there are a number to be found across Britain
varying from the shortest example in Northampton two hundred yards long
through the Stonehenge cursus which is nearly two miles
long to the awesome
Dorset cursus which stretches for six miles it's 300 feet wide and the
builders shifted an incredible six and a half million cubic feet of chalk in its
construction and I wonder if the processionary pathway of the tin world
on the Isle of Man is a living example of the same structure every July the
fifth on tin wool day the world's oldest Parliament walks between the raised
banks in a procession to the step mound at the end here new laws are proclaimed
and the people gather
to seek justice and air their grievances around redstone
there were at least four curses monuments and it may not be coincidental
that this site lies pretty close to halfway up mainland Britain a national
meeting place perhaps theories about the purpose of these huge
structures vary greatly but I favor the slightly controversial idea that they're
the precursors to the Athletics track the feature of the raised bank would
certainly have given clear views to spectators and the fact there are often
burials adjacent to them does nothing to negate the theory even
today we still play cricket and hold sports days on the field by the church
we're often so wrapped up in the spiritual side of our ancestors we
forget that our fundamental to all species especially humans is competition
after all the Greek Olympics and the Roman arenas didn't spring from nowhere
evidence absolutely none I just wish they'd uncover some chalk lines running
the full length of well there's a common misconception about o
ur
Neolithic and Bronze Age ancestors that they always lived around their
settlement and never really went very far from home but you remember way back
at the rollright stones in Oxfordshire I mentioned a trade route across Britain
and believe it or not some of the best evidence we have for the scale of that
trade is up there on the top of Langdale pike in Cumbria this is local stone it is found in a few
other places not far from here most of them a lot easier to get to and you have
to wonder wh
y our ancestors chose this remote an inaccessible spot as a centre
for their axe making industry the thing is that this stone produced axe heads of
such quality that they were highly prized and desired items how do we know
because axes from this very spot have been found as far afield as Ireland
Scotland southern England and more than anywhere else
way over in the East in Lincolnshire some have even been found completely
unused in burials and religious sites the significance of Lincolnshire is t
hat
it's a place with a little local stone the people in the East would have needed
to buy these and what price a beautiful axe a pig a cow a pottery urn so did people bring their items here to
exchange them or with the axes carried all over Britain by traders the truth is
we don't actually know how the trading took place the important thing is that
it did in the region all around the Langdale
ex-factory there are suggestions of a level of wealth similar to the Flint
lands of Wiltshire the small
druid circle of Alveston also known as the
Druids temple on Berkeley common to the south of Londo looks unassuming but is
all that remains of a circle which must have been quite beautiful there used to
be an outer circle now all but invisible but the circles once stood on a stone
pavement and the inner area was cobbled with a bluish stone that wasn't local it
seems that this carefully designed construction with its open views across
Morecombe Bay was more elegant than cheap in sharp contrast cl
oser to the
axe Factory things were far less subtle enormous show sites were built in an
overt display of wealth and power sunken Kirk to the southwest originally
contains sixty stones in its impressive circle and excavations found that the
ground had been completely leveled in preparation for its construction and to the north one of my favorite
circles in the whole of Britain Castle rig near Kazik in the Lake District
stands in a breathtaking setting whilst it may just as easily have been
an ax
e market the abiding impression here is of a vast Cathedral where the
mountains themselves are a part of the grand design moving away from the lakes to the
northeast near Penrith stands another giant among stone circles in fact long
Meghan her daughter's is the sixth largest in the whole of Britain with an
incredible seventy stone still standing it's possible that long Meg the tall
outlier was standing before the circle was built alongside but it's hard to
know for sure there's a lot of debate a
bout inscribed stones but I do have to
wonder if they're not Maps there are three rings here that's a big one here
that you probably can't see in this light but we have this big circle here
huge circle there used to be a circle over there and there still is another
circle over there so we have these three circles that maybe illustrate that if
you look at places like now for example in Ireland where some of the engravings
are really intricate but again show shapes that can relate to some of the
s
tructures that we see in the landscape I've spent a certain amount of time with
the Kogi Indians who live in the jungles of northern Colombia and they are the
descendants of and effectively remain to this day and Neolithic culture now the
entrance to one of their cities in the jungles they have a huge stone that
could be a thousand fifteen hundred years old
covered with engravings now they call it the map stone and it shows the layout of
the city as it spreads into the jungle and I think when yo
u look at these rings
knowing what we know now about Stanton drew about the postholes and these
concentric rings of posts and that more and more post holes are being found at
different sites I do have to wonder are these rings and
showing that there were concentric rings within this site as well our first sight across the border into
Scotland is coincidentally the seventh largest circle in Britain the 12
apostles used to be 18 or so but sadly today only five remain however unexcited
this circle
looks today it must have held huge amounts of people
but moving further into Scotland the variety of sites have echoes of others
far away across Britain down in the southwest of Scotland Ken Holi is an
impressive chambered can which is reminiscent of places like Whelan smithy
and cash still in art a little further north the circle of Glen quicken with
its huge central monolith seems to share its design with Baz Conan in Cornwall
and then up near Kilmartin in Argyll the wealth of engraved stones
with cup and
ring markings share a number of characteristics with others we saw at
long Meg in Cumbria and now in Ireland I don't know see Sun rises over there
and each of these channels faces more or less in that direction I've got a Sun
compass here if I put that down now see each of these does line up with a
sunrise at varying times of year now it might be total nonsense but but on the
other hand it might not ironically there is one that is slightly
off the scale but do you throw the idea awa
y because of one or did they have a
reason for making it different we will never know it's very easy to
underestimate the meticulous and painstaking job done by archeologists
and people often misinterpret what they're actually saying about their
findings for example a place is called a burial site because there are signs of
ritual burial that an individual was held in high esteem or affection but on
that basis would we call this a burial site the thing is that archaeologists
are saying we'll cal
l this a burial site because that's what we know anything
else may be possible but it's conjecture and then there's a very real problem
with dating many Neolithic and Bronze Age tombs were constantly reused over
huge periods of time now you can date the remains that you find but does that
necessarily date the site let's say that in five thousand years time our
descendants are excavating Westminster Abbey well Edward the Confessor was
buried there in 1066 and we still bury royalty and eminent fig
ures there today
our descendants need only excavate the newer remains to date the Abbey wrongly
by a thousand years and how about interpretation let's say
the same archaeologists start excavating our churches and pulling out tiny scraps
of information they find that all Christian churches are aligned east-west
a clear reference to the sun's movement in the sky then they find that there was
a big celebration called Christmas which was always held around the winter
solstice and another called East
er that was always held close to the spring
equinox then from jumbled texts they find that
the ritual day was on a Sunday and that Jesus was always referred to as the Son
of God on what basis would they not think that
Jesus was a Sun God and then we're confronted by a place like this I'm in
the area around Kilmartin in Argyll and rarely is there more scope
for confusion this whole area was in use for thousands of years with clear signs
of development and reuse over all that time and some of the
details are
virtually impossible to interpret with any degree of certainty for instance
with these cup and ring markings made on a flat lying stone my clothes at kin
barn and a kinnor brick and then erected here to stand as this imposing megalith
long after the original significance of the markings have been forgotten and
then here the great X not a mile up the road has precise alignments with
features on the horizon which strongly implied that its function was a lunar
observatory and then over
there is a linear cemetery a number of cans in a
line stretching nearly two miles across the countryside with a standing stone at
the end it's a a real gift for the ley line hunter searching for networking
lines of energy across the landscape I have to say that whilst I don't in any
way dismiss the many energetic experiences people have at
ancient monuments the more I see of these sites the more I'm faced by their
practicality and function and to me there is nothing mysterious about line
of sigh
t if you can see one sight from any other you can orientate yourself and
know which way to travel and then still within the same complex
we find the bewildering site of temple wood archeologists would never have
found this circle if they hadn't been excavating the larger one over there
because it was completely hidden by the PT soils that cover the valley floor now
we know that there was a timber structure here first the post holes are
marked by these concrete cylinders and their positions do im
ply an astronomical
function then they started to build a stone circle here stones are long gone
now but before it was completed they built
the larger circle over there and they never came back to finish this one he imagined its nose and somebody builds
a snowman in the time-honored way of a lovely carrot for his nose and two lumps
of coal for his eyes and then the warmer weather comes and the Snowman melts then
one day you're walking across the field and you come across the two lumps of
coal an
d the carrot but you have no knowledge of the tradition of making
snowmen what would be your interpretation a messy cold man with a
careless donkey but then we're still say a sheep came along first and ate the
carrot and you were excavating the lumps of coal thousands of years later that's
the problem with our distant past fragmented pieces from different jigsaw
puzzles and we just don't know what goes with what
it's exciting people are often horrified when they see
a road going straight through
the middle of an ancient site but actually what
we're looking at is thousands of years of unbroken human inhabitation it's
where the footpath became the donkey track which became the lane which became
the road it's where it's always been and it's where it belongs welcome to the land of the RSC and
though I don't mean as some regional open-air production of Macbeth by the
Royal Shakespeare Company RS c stands for recumbent stone circle it's a
remarkably unimaginative name coined by early archaeo
logists for these
extraordinary stone circles which have a massive horizontal stone seemingly Lane
as an altar in fact some of them weigh up to 50 tons and were dragged for miles
across the countryside and uphill to be placed exactly in position fantastic
they're extraordinary for more than one reason firstly here in the Grampians was
the highest concentration of stone circles anywhere there were over a
hundred and fifty of them and a huge amount of those were these technically
brilliant recumbe
nts secondly and far more importantly the recumbent stone
circles are almost unique to this part of Britain why was this arrangement of
stones not used elsewhere why is the auto stone always placed to lie
precisely on the horizontal why was that level of accuracy so important that
smaller stones would be used to wedge them exactly into the required position
this is coffee Muir wood how long it's been award is anyone's guess but
certainly when the circle was erected the horizon would have been cl
ear to see
and the answer to all those questions is that they were focused on the moon's
passage through the heavens in a way not possible further south they were
precisely aligned to mirror the landscape we're up here at this high
latitude at certain points in its cycle the moon skims the horizon as it dances
its way across the sky we have absolutely no idea what the
rituals may have been all their significance to the community but the
other examples of recumbents in this part of Scotland all e
mphasize this
intent genius now these are different stone circles
usually appear to be stone circles but these occasionally we see kists in the
middle but normally the burials associated with stone circles tend to be
on the outside these are clava cairns so named because the best preserved
examples of them are here in the district of klava
and all a very few remain to be seen today up here around the Moray Firth
there were loads of them here the cans were massive structures much taller
domed bui
ldings than we see today the middle one is what is known as a ring
can the outer two are passage tombs aligned like Newgrange in Ireland so
that the winter solstice Sun streams through the passage to illuminate the
central chamber and these strange radial causeways which may have astronomical
alignments but no one knows for sure not far away the fine example of chorim oni
still has its passageway intact giving a much clearer idea of how they would have
looked what makes them so difficult to inte
rpret is that they were used and
adapted over thousands of years the cams themselves are between three and four
thousand years old but perhaps strangely the surrounding stone circles were
erected much later around the time that stone circles generally were falling
into disuse and we can only wonder what our ancestors here were thinking in the same way that many of the
deconsecrated churches across Britain have become things like community
centers and apartments the builders intentions are confus
ing if and I have
to wonder how future archaeologists might decipher our present-day recycling
of old buildings so one of the stone circles just a fancy refurbishment to
the temple or did they relate to some worship built around structures where
the alignments had already been made we'll probably never know I've been waiting to come here for years
and actually being here is more breathtaking than I ever imagined no photograph can capture the sheer
majesty of the place it's a work of Neolithic wo
nder greater even in the
astronomical brilliance of the recumbent stone circles Kalen ish is the greatest
prehistoric observatory of them all situated on the Hebridean island of
Lewis I think it's utterly implausible that it was built by the Islanders
themselves simply for local use indeed one of the enduring legends of kallen
ish is that it was built by black men who came from over the sea there is a
burial can here but it was added long after the stones were erected and
lacking the stone altar
of the recumbents the implication is that this
was a place of science rather than religion the full lunar cycle of 18.61
years is marks and predicted by these monoliths but here the wider horizon is
the stage just once in each cycle the moon seems to come down from the sky to
touch the earth disappearing behind the hills only to reappear in a final
display gleaming between the central stones as it passes we've only scratched the surface of its
alignments here the intricacy is so complete the im
pression is one of a
finely tuned clock marking the slow but predictable movement of the heavens
throughout the sight notches and angles are cut into the stones refining the
accuracy and marking certain celestial events the focus at Kalen ish of marking
the full lunar cycle brings another point to mind which is relevant to many
sites throughout the British Isles the closest you can get to marking 18.61 in
stones is 19 the number of stones in many sites especially in Cornwall and
the closest you
can get to marking half that number is 9 are the many circles of
nine stones a slightly less accurate version of the same phenomenon and do
the wider spaces between stones which we so often interpret as entrances actually
mark a deliberate offset to adjust the inaccuracy of the circle to me the
insistence on describing the builders of these extraordinary sites as animal skin
wearing farmers is like saying that Britain's motorway system was built by
shoppers up here almost at the end of my journe
y
it brings to mind that I began working on this project about eight years ago
I've driven about 8,000 miles across the British Isles and I have no idea how far
I've walked wouldn't surprise me if it was about 800 fate must be on my side
because without any deliberate planning and through constantly shifting weather
dependent schedules I've arrived here five hours before a lunar eclipse I said
right at the beginning of the film that it's only by being here standing with
these ancient stones that
we can truly begin to get a sense of what they were
all about I've found of all the miles and the monuments that our forebears
were so far removed from the insular communities of our imagination and
arriving here accidentally to be on the light of a full lunar eclipse it really
does make me appreciate the mystical qualities that seem to have been so
important to our ancestors back on the mainland traveling through
the very north of Scotland we find a region where there are few signs of our
ance
stors presence but every now and again a site like the enormous gray cans
of campster will remind us that the communities were sizable the last leg of
our journey makes that point all the more evident even the harsh environment
of Orkney didn't prevent the construction of some of the most
impressive monuments of all the great mound of maize how is much smaller than
the enormous Maeve's can in ireland but inside the beauty of the skilled
workmanship sits in total contrast to the plain exterior ea
ch wall of the
passageway is made of a single piece of stone 30 feet in length and again the
beautifully corbelled central chamber is illuminated by the Sun at winter
solstice it's a huge undertaking which like so many of the sites we've seen
doesn't fit with a small community of simple farming folk right across
organist a Liz maintained the enormous ring of brodgar happens to be the third
largest stone circle in Britain after Avebury and Staunton drew such a vast
site for a small community of f
armers I don't think so
a little distance away the improbably tall wedge cut standing stones of
Stenness are even more impressive even though most of them have gone
unlike brodgar the ditch and Bank have also disappeared throughout the whole of my journey
across the British Isles I've been used to seeing monumental science places that
were in some way important to communities or how they treated the dead
we have very few signs of how people actually lived because the abundance of
forest made woo
d and easily available source material so very little evidence
of daily life remains what makes me so special is that unlike most of the rest
of the British Isles it was never forested so timber would
have been a valuable scarcity that was reserved for making things like tools
and boats in 1850 a storm battered the dunes here at skara brae and uncovered a
Neolithic village there's a strong sense of community here
the houses are close together and linked by communal passageways but they remain
di
screet and private and rarely do we get such an intimate view of our
ancestors their homes remain almost as intact as the day they were built
complete with beds which would probably have held mattresses of Bracken a
central half even a dresser I have to wonder if the wooden houses across the
rest of Britain wouldn't have had the same type of furniture I wish I could express just how magical
it is like putting my feet in a Neolithic ancestors footprints at Formby
point I wonder how many people st
ood on this exact spot putting away their
personal belongings well how many people sat here around the fire talking and
laughing over dinner and how many people rested a hand here stepping into bed
since shivers up my spine but even though I could end my journey here I
still have one more thing to show you I'm on the island of South Ronald say
about 40 miles from skara brae in 1958 at the same time that my mother was
waddling around pregnant with me Ronald Simonson was walking his land
here when
he stumbled upon an exposed section of stone wall beneath his feet
he had discovered quite by accident a chambered tomb dating from the Neolithic
period which turned out to have been in continuous use for about eight hundred
years well into the early Bronze Age when it was excavated it was found to
contain not only human bones but those of seagulls as well an extraordinary
discovery of an unknown cult who seemed to revere these magnificent birds to the
extent that they included them in their bu
rials but exciting as that is it's not
why we're here when excavations were complete the tomb
had given up a wealth of grave goods a short distance away from the tomb close
to Ronald Simonson's home is an intimate and informative museum now run by his
daughters Kathleen and Frida amongst the relics and treasures from
the tomb housed here are human and animal remains numerous tools polished
axe heads some jewelry and this a button of polished albertite more
finely made than any in your mother's b
utton box how many times might this
have been touched in the simplest of daily routines how is it actually worn
or used and how many times did someone struggle to get a thread through so fine
a hole my journey has taken me from tantalizing signs of life - intimate
signs of lives ways of life so familiar that they can't fail to bring our
ancestors alive in our minds across the whole of the British Isles we've seen
evidence of shared knowledge community interaction between people across huge
dista
nces the next time you find yourself wondering how did we lose track
of those people where did they go remind yourself
they didn't go anywhere we're still here hello Michael Bart here thank you for
watching this prehistory guy's show there's loads more to watch and you can
get to some of it on this playlist here if you'd like to receive updates about
when we publish new content hit the subscribe button and you can unlock even
more content by becoming a patreon supporter hit this button here to f
ind
out more about that see you soon
Comments
I loved every single minute of this! There was no filter of time. You didn't repeat information four times as if I was not paying attention. You showed sites I've never seen in other documentaries. You don't pretend you know every ritual being done at each site like many documentaries do. I just loved all of it. Thank you so very much for doing it and putting it here where I can see the entire thing.
The History Channel could learn a thing or six about how to make a Documentary from you guys. This is a stunning work. Beautifully filmed and edited; no intrusive music, no yelling announcer, no repeating the same thing over and over again. Bravo! Thank you for your efforts and the amazing information you have imparted.
I live in the northeastern part of New York State in the US but have been fascinated by stone circles and other structures for as long as I can remember. MANY trips to Scotland and Cornwall have filled me with such wonderful memories and I recognized many of them in this movie. However never have I found a documentary that comes as close to capturing the FEELING you get when you actually visit these places as this video has done. You said it in Callanish and I quite agree, no photograph can truly capture it…but there are moments in this magnificent production where you come close! Kudos! And I have to laugh when you made comments about future archaeologists trying to understand our structures long after we are gone. I laugh because I actually have made a stone circle, with astronomical alignments built into the design here in my back yard with some very large stones that were re-cycled from a Colonial era homestead that was abandoned a century ago and moved by myself thanks to a rather large tractor with excellent hydraulics! I often thought how confusing it is going to be for future archaeologists if they ever discover the thing in another few centuries! Who knows if C-14 will still work in a far future? Thank you for making this beautiful and mesmerizing video. Will enjoy visiting more of these sites next time I get across the pond. I do hope you get to the Ness of Brodgar to see the remains of the community there. I cannot help but feel there is a connection between that place, as a place of learning and other far more distant locations that encoded their knowledge in stone, such as Gobekle Tepe. I know they were not contemporary cultures, but there is a resonance of mystery that to me, ties them together. Thank you again for this lovely production! ❤
No one discussing these sites in other documentaries ive seen has even hinted at just how many of these there are. This is truly complete and presented with childlike wonder and admiration. I wish mainstream stuff would learn to do it like this.
Finally. A documentary that's not bombarding the listener with overzealous music, is presented by someone with actual interest in the topic (instead of that irritating "news reader" up and down inflection), and is incredibly informative! I wish there were more documentaries like yours out there 😊
I’m a seventy four year old man. Watching the presentation of this video I could feel the stirring of the sense of wonder I had as a child. Fascinating to see the foot prints made by those who lived and died thousands of years past, the house on the Orkneys where folks had lived their lives and how similar there lives were to ours, heat to cook and warm them selves, a place to sleep, somewhere to stow your things. Makes me wonder what their hopes and dreams were, did they love and win or love and lose?.
I'm 37, and I've been watching documentaries for all my life. This is the best one yet. The dedication and passion for the subject is great. The personal approach, yet scholarly quality is even greater. Thanks.
This is how a documentary should be made. Ten out of ten!👏👏👏
Breathtaking in scope and content - an absolute tour de force and one of the finest prehistoric documentaries that I've seen in my 50 years walking the lands of my ancestors. Thank you!
The sensitivity shown when first walking through the homes of Skara Brae made me cry. The whole documentary was filled with respect. Thank you.
This is the first time a documentary has made me seriously want to move to Britain. I had no idea that the stone circles and henges were so widespread as well as absolutely beautiful. I've watched this at least a dozen times and I can honestly say that every time I do I come away with a greater sense of wonder. Simply put, this is without a doubt the most concise and comprehensive film on this topic I have ever seen. Kudos to you guys for an excellent presentation. And many thanks for your efforts and sharing this.
As an American, to be looking upon the works of my ancient ancestors is a transcendent experience...
This truly is one of the best, if not the best documentary made about the prehistoric stone circles. Full of information and stone circles I had never seen before. To think this was made by non-professionals, it puts all of the other documentaries made by professional TV companies and fronted by professional archeologists/historians to shame. It just shows what can be done if you truly want to share the passion and knowledge of a subject. The amount of views shows that this type of in depth documentary (which the BBC used to do years ago before they decided that nobody needed to learn anything anymore and should be spoon fed snippets of information because that is all we are capable of absorbing) can still be popular.
one of the best most honest documentary's I have watched in years
I first saw your program in 2009. My family and I traveled to the UK and Scotland and visited some of the sites in the program. Your work genuinely inspired me. I put your lessons in my little treasure chest and have found them invaluable to piecing together my own puzzles of the past. Many of the methods I have found particularly useful working in the higher-educational system. In 1809 Edward Davies published "The Mysteries and Rites of the British Druids" which is less about the traditional robed Druids of lore, and more about how druids, bards, and others were masters of languages. Their system of instruction was developed from techniques perfected in prehistory. This work contains tantalizing clues to how our ancient forefathers progressed from ancient stone circles to language ripe with symbolism and allegory. Thank you for your work. It has really made an impact on my hobbies and understanding of this wonderful Earth. You can almost trace a path from these stones to ancient languages, myths, legends and stories;, the development of original schools of education; alchemy, which led to what we know as modern science; and our understanding of the universe. Truly the circles are of such significance but one cannot put them into proper context without studying much of prehistory. Your work is invaluable and I return to it year after year. Well done and I am happy to be your Patron!
Came for the stone circles, stayed for the button. Gorgeous documentary that does not dabble in nonsense, treats its viewers with respect, and takes us on a beautifully filmed journey across the deep time evident in your fabled land.
This is amazing! Who knew that an entire video devoted to stones would be so utterly fascinating! The pace is perfect and I love the truthfulness of "we don't know" that is brought out in this video. There is no pretending to be all knowing like so many other videos about ancient artifacts or people. That's quite refreshing. Thank you also for including a map with place names and tracing the route of where you guys went. That's so helpful when it comes to jotting areas down for those of us who would like to travel to these places or find out more about them :) Great job Prehistory Guys!
I am addicted to documentaries. I watch them all the time, mainly about history, but about many other subjects too. This is the BEST documentary I've ever watched. Absolutely riveting. Beautifully filmed, enthusiastically presented and thoughtfully put together. There's nothing I can say that can make justice to this breathtaking documentary masterpiece. Thank you for efforts and great artistry. It has been (and it shall be, for I intend to watch it many times more) a wonderful experience. I shall recommend it to everyone I know.
I have read numerous books on this topic over many years, and I learned more by watching this program than in all of them. My wife and I have watched this at least 5 times and will always return to it. We wish it were a series. Thank you for putting your passion into it.
Not sure how many times I have watched this, but again today I have a lump in my throat at the very fine ending. It's a touching conclusion and the whole project is so insightful. Thanks again!