Sandi Toksvig's Hidden Wonders Season 1 Episode 1

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Transcript

00:00Back in 1980, I graduated here at Cambridge University with dreams of becoming a great archaeologist.

00:10With a degree in archaeology and anthropology in hand, my career path seemed set.

00:17Some of you may realise I got a little sidetracked, but I have never lost my passion for the secrets and treasures which lie buried beneath our feet.

00:27So now, some years later, I'm dusting off my trowel and embarking on an epic archaeological adventure across Britain.

00:38Do you know what the Latin for hangover is? What? Crapula.

00:43I'll be joined by my friend and expert in the field, Raksha Dave.

00:48I'm so, so happy for you.

00:50Together, we'll work alongside the teams of experts and volunteers at some of the nation's most fascinating dig sites.

00:57Raksha, look at this! It's like the moon!

01:00Welcome to the Iron Age.

01:01Oh, I've got a shiver. I've got a proper shiver.

01:04On a mission to reveal hidden wonders that could rewrite our history.

01:09Oh, look! Oh, my God!

01:11Hey! Look at this!

01:13This week, we're in Dorset, excavating a mysterious Iron Age cemetery.

01:20Oh, look! Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!

01:22It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

01:23It really is. I'm going to cry. That's it.

01:26Where the story of an extraordinary group of powerful women, many of them related, is coming to light.

01:34Oh, my God!

01:39How did they live? How did they love?

01:42And what dark secrets still lie buried with them?

01:47Oh, my God!

01:58See all these fabulous fields and you can't believe that maybe below them there's all kinds of glimpses of history.

02:05It's fabulous. I'm so happy.

02:07But I just wondered, you know, where are you taking me? Where are we going?

02:10I'm really excited because I'm taking you to this amazing site.

02:14Last year, they excavated over 30 skeletons.

02:18Oh, wow, that's a lot of people.

02:19Yeah.

02:20They learnt so much about the women in the Iron Age,

02:24and it's full of powerful women who just own the land.

02:29You just knew how to lure me back in, didn't you?

02:32This is the one.

02:35We're just 15 miles west of Bournemouth,

02:38but heading almost 2,000 years back in time

02:41in search of a unique female-centric tribe called the Juratrigas,

02:46who inhabited this region in the Iron Age

02:48when a rich patchwork of tribes covered Britain.

02:52But first, we need to actually get there.

02:57Oh, I'm sorry.

03:01I mean, it's a little bit off the beaten track.

03:04Why are you not driving?

03:05I can't drive.

03:07What?

03:07I've never learnt.

03:09But do you know what?

03:09I quite like it.

03:10You drive me around.

03:12It's great.

03:12Got my little hat on your chauffeur.

03:18Honestly, I feel really excited.

03:19It's like you find the new zest for life

03:21when you get to look back at the past.

03:24Actually, look at this.

03:25It's like the moon.

03:26Welcome to the Iron Age.

03:28And what are we looking at here?

03:31What are we looking at?

03:31People's homes?

03:32No, you're actually stood on top of an Iron Age cemetery.

03:36Oh, I've got a shiver.

03:37I get to pop a shiver.

03:38This is very exciting.

03:40For the next three days, we're joining the team from the University of Bournemouth

03:44as they excavate over 3,000 square metres of farmland where the Duratresians once lived and buried their dead.

03:51With women often ignored in history and with few written records of the tribe,

04:00this team's excavations and analysis of the skeletal remains are not only providing a vital insight into life here,

04:07they're revealing a tribe in which women may have held real power.

04:12Something unique in our understanding of Iron Age Britain.

04:18This is all chalk bedrock.

04:20It's very good for preserving bones.

04:22Hello, Miles.

04:23Hi, Miles.

04:23How are you doing?

04:24Hello.

04:24Sandy.

04:25Good to meet you.

04:25Nice to meet you.

04:27I'm so excited.

04:29So, tell me what I'm standing on.

04:30It's like a couple of thousand years old?

04:32Yeah, essentially we're looking at an Iron Age site that's just over 2,000 years old.

04:36And are you learning new stuff?

04:38Absolutely, yeah.

04:39And every dig contributes new material to our understanding,

04:42but this site in particular is bringing up a whole new wealth of data.

04:45I'm genuinely excited about this site because it's rewriting women and children back into the archaeological record.

04:52Okay, I need to help.

04:54Where shall I go?

04:55I think, Raksha, if you can head over into that top corner over there,

04:58Lewis and Connor are excavating a burial with a pot.

05:02Sandy, Megan and Ruby have got an area they've just started to expose over there,

05:05which I think could be quite interesting.

05:08I'm off.

05:09Megan, Ruby, where are you?

05:12Student Ruby and supervisor Megan have just started digging an oval feature.

05:21Right, I'm ready to learn.

05:23I'm here.

05:23That's your beck and call.

05:26And what do you think might be here?

05:27We might have a possible local Jewish problem burial here.

05:31Oh, I suddenly have a completely different attitude to the whole thing.

05:33Okay.

05:34It's like a dead person here.

05:35Absolutely.

05:39So, normally, our orientation for Duratritian graves will be head towards the northeast and then facing north.

05:47So, we'd expect the skull to be up here if this is a grave.

05:52So, no compasses in that time, because the clever Vikings hadn't turned up yet.

05:56How would they know which way north?

05:58Just using the stars and the sun?

06:00Yeah, yeah.

06:03So, how long would it take to dig this out, do you think?

06:06The aim is to do it as quickly but as delicately as possible, because ultimately, if this is a person, they deserve that respect.

06:13I love those words.

06:15I love that you said that.

06:16Thank you very much.

06:16It's so great.

06:17I also love your hair.

06:18I think I'm going to go home with red hair.

06:21It's simply extraordinary to think that this site was once home to a thriving farming community settled here in a banjo enclosure, so-called because of its distinctive shape.

06:35At some point, we know the tribe moved to nearby land, reusing this area to bury their dead.

06:41And the discovery of jewellery, pottery and coins here allude to a distinct and sophisticated group of people.

06:50This remarkable large-scale Iron Age burial ground now offers us a privileged insight into Durotrejan life.

07:01Oh, Myles, we are very excited.

07:04Excellent.

07:05Look here.

07:06So, you've got a classic, well, hopefully a classic Durotrejan burial.

07:08So, what do we know about the Durotrejans?

07:10We know a lot that they are very culturally distinct with their pottery.

07:15Their house styles are quite different.

07:16Their coinage is different.

07:17But the key thing is that they bury their dead in quite large numbers.

07:21The Durotrejans seem to like cemeteries and graves, though, you know, we've got the physical evidence.

07:26And for us, that's a godsend because the history of people is written in their bones.

07:31So, we're actually getting for the first time a sense of what people are like, what they ate, what their disease is.

07:36They were affected by what injuries they sustained in life.

07:38All this kind of data is just coming from this one particular part of the country.

07:41What are you thinking that you will find?

07:43What have you predicted that you're going to find?

07:45Well, the great thing about the Durotrejan burials is that they are pretty much unpredictable.

07:50But they do have things that sustain them on the journey to the afterlife.

07:54We don't know much about their religion, but we often find a joint of pork, sometimes a joint of beef.

08:02We sometimes have a drinking vessel, a cup by them.

08:04Alcohol?

08:05Yeah, oh yeah, very much.

08:07We found wine cups in some of them.

08:09So, there's a sense of, you know, you've got your pork, you've got your wine, and off you go.

08:14It's not bad for the afterlife, is it?

08:16But it's that great sense of, you know, that there is another stage in their journey.

08:21Death is not the end, that they're going somewhere else.

08:26Across the cemetery, Raksha is helping the excavation of a pot that could contain food intended for that post-death voyage.

08:33That's black burnishware.

08:36It's a shame that it's not complete, but it's in pretty good nick, I would say.

08:43The pot is in a grave directly beside buried remains, and helping to examine the skeleton is osteoarchaeologist Dr. Martin Smith.

08:53I mean, first of all, anyone looking at this can probably recognise fairly quickly that these are human bones

08:59from the shape of the lower jaw, the mandible that we can see there.

09:03Well, I know, somebody would like to see this.

09:04Sandy!

09:05Eh?

09:06You're going to miss out on the action!

09:08Oh!

09:11Oh, babe!

09:13Look at that!

09:14I know.

09:15And has it been buried with...

09:17I don't know what the word is to use, reverence.

09:19Has it been treated kindly?

09:21Yeah, I think that's probably a really nice way to put it, actually,

09:24because they've been laid in the ground in a very respectful manner.

09:29They're probably not burying them with a pot for its own sake.

09:32It's what's in the pot.

09:33You know, there's food in there.

09:35Food is love.

09:37Do the knees look bent up?

09:39Does it look like almost in the foetal position, or have I made that up?

09:43No, that's absolutely right.

09:44We can see that both knees are very, very tightly bent.

09:48The question there is, how do you get a body into a position that's as tight as that?

09:52We think what they're doing is they're wrapping their dead.

09:54We think they're burying them in shrouds or some sort of wrappings,

09:58which is helping to keep them in this very tight position.

10:01I mean, it's amazing, because it's almost womb-like, isn't it?

10:03It's almost...

10:04It is.

10:05The team have found dozens of these foetal position burials here.

10:09They're distinctly geratregion, and often suggest reverence and love.

10:15So how old is this skeleton there, Martin?

10:17Well, in terms of this person's age at death,

10:19if we look at the lower jaw there, we can see this person's teeth.

10:23But these are better than mine, darling.

10:24How... Why is that... How... I mean, how is that possible?

10:27Just because these people, they haven't got access to sugars,

10:30they haven't got access to very finely ground flours,

10:32finely ground carbohydrates,

10:34and so, you know, I'm always struck by how lovely prehistoric people's teeth are.

10:39But also, if we look at the back of the jaw,

10:41they haven't got their third molar yet.

10:43This person is probably 16, 17.

10:46But I love that this 17-year-old matted.

10:48It mattered to somebody.

10:50But what about 17, though?

10:52Is that very typical for some to have died at that age?

10:56On the one hand, yes, but most of the adults that we're finding,

11:00they've lived to somewhere between 35 and 50.

11:04We've had a small number of people of a really advanced age,

11:08so we had an older adult female.

11:10She actually had lived long enough to get quite severe osteoporosis.

11:14Oh, wow.

11:15This is someone who had qualified for a bus pass and a heating allowance in our society.

11:19I mean, I love her already.

11:20I never even met her, I love her.

11:22We carefully bag the bones and teeth because, as Raksha explains over a cuppa,

11:29thanks to modern science, they can reveal astonishing information.

11:34We now have this raft of scientific techniques to kind of push the story even further.

11:40And that's what they've been doing here.

11:43The most amazing thing about this site is that the women had power.

11:48And how do you know that from bones?

11:50I love that.

11:51So they actually took 55 skeletons and DNA tested them

11:55and found that the women that were buried here were related to each other.

12:01OK, so they're local.

12:02However, the men weren't.

12:05The men are imported.

12:06Tourists!

12:07They are.

12:08Most of the grave goods are found with women that are of high status.

12:13So here, the women are rocking it.

12:16They have the power.

12:17The men, they are being brought in.

12:20I love this.

12:20Like a delivery.

12:21Yes.

12:22Yes.

12:22Like a prehistoric deliveroo.

12:24Communities and families centred around powerful women.

12:31It's been happening for centuries, of course.

12:33But proving it happened in Iron Age Britain,

12:36well, this is a revelatory discovery.

12:39Now, where's my trowel?

12:42So what do you think?

12:43Would you like to come back as a volunteer next year with us?

12:46Do you know, it has been a fantasy of mine forever.

12:48I loved, loved, loved studying it.

12:50In fact, when I finished my degree, I went to see my tutor and I said I'd like to stay on and do my PhD.

12:55And she said, Sandy, have a glass of sherry, sit down and stick to acting.

13:00And, you know, I followed her advice, but I sometimes wonder if I was at a crossroads in that moment

13:06and I shouldn't have done something else.

13:07Well, it's never too late, clearly.

13:14Is it all right sometimes just to use your hands?

13:15It's sometimes the safest, to be honest, if we think there's going to be bone.

13:21How do you know if it's bone?

13:23Oh, what have you got there?

13:24I don't know.

13:26What, is that bone?

13:27It's got this line going down it here.

13:29What does that look like, a suture of a cranium?

13:32Potentially, yeah.

13:33Oh, the skull?

13:35Yeah.

13:35OK.

13:36That is where we'd expect it to be, on something like this.

13:39Wow, that's up there on breathtaking moments of your life.

13:45That's, um...

13:46So now, if we're going to touch bone, we'll put gloves on?

13:50I'm literally shaking.

13:51Oh, my God.

13:52I just need to lie down for me.

13:54Are you OK?

13:54OK.

13:54The weirdest feeling about finding somebody so long deceased is that I'm pretty sure I've never felt quite so alive.

14:08So that's an extraordinary dichotomy, those two things.

14:13It's incredible.

14:14Thank you, guys.

14:16It's great.

14:24This is nice.

14:33The peaceful, quiet.

14:35I've got a complaint, though.

14:37Oh, why?

14:38I like the set-up, right?

14:39But these mugs you chose, they don't fit in the cup holder.

14:42What is the point of that?

14:43Well...

14:44You put your trowel in, you put your trowel in.

14:46Yes, it's a trowel holder, right?

14:48A trowel holder.

14:50Trowel's a funny word.

14:52It is.

14:53Trowel.

14:53I like mattock.

14:55What's your favourite archaeology word?

14:57Flange.

14:58Flange?

14:59Yeah.

15:00You know, on a jug.

15:02Yeah.

15:02That's a lovely flange.

15:04You've got a nice flange on you.

15:05Exactly.

15:06That's lovely.

15:07I like that.

15:07So, coming back into the archaeological field, has that ignited your passion?

15:12I was going to say, first of all, it's your fault, right?

15:14We met in London, perfectly nice place for a drink, and now look at the state of me.

15:20I love it.

15:22I think my flange is a tiny bit chafed.

15:24But it's amazing.

15:32I mean, you feel exhausted at the end of the day.

15:34But elated, right?

15:35Elated and thrilled, and a head full of images of the past, and a weird energy for life, even

15:45though you've been surrounded by Beth.

15:48It's incredible.

15:50And the exciting thing is there's still so much more to be discovered in this ancient

15:55cemetery of the Iron Age Juratriga's tribe we're investigating in Dorset.

15:59So, as I check on Megan and Ruby's progress in the grave, where I discovered a skull, Raksha's

16:07using her professional prowess to help extract the pot buried beside the skeleton of a youngster.

16:12What we're doing is we're trying to stabilise the pot before we lift it.

16:17Well, oh, that's neat.

16:20Do you know what it's like delivering a baby?

16:24Right.

16:25This pot is a wonderful example of a grave good, an item buried with the dead.

16:31But before Raksha can examine its condition, she first needs to empty it.

16:38I don't know if I should comment, but I think your lunch looks a little dry.

16:45Well, it might be lunch, actually.

16:47Oh, OK.

16:47On the insides of this.

16:50Do you want to do the final inside scoops of this?

16:53Remind me of the context of finding it.

16:56So, this was with a child, and the pot was by the side of its head.

17:03So, the pot can be significant of the individual, could be also offerings for that person to

17:10take to the afterlife with them.

17:14So, they're with provisions.

17:17So, there's all of these things that have been thought about for the child.

17:21You can't bear to think of it, can you?

17:23I mean, it's a lovely thought, though, isn't it?

17:25It's a lot of love and care being put into that one thing.

17:30Which really does make examining this pot all the more nerve-wracking.

17:34Very careful.

17:36There you go.

17:37Really?

17:38Yeah.

17:38Don't trust me.

17:39Yeah.

17:39You're the first person to hold it like that, since somebody did 2,000 years ago.

17:46Wow.

17:47That is a responsibility.

17:50It's touching to think a mother may have used this to send food for her child into the afterlife.

17:56The pot itself is known as black burnished ware, something of a tribal speciality.

18:02In fact, so skilled were the Juratregians in its production, they traded it across Britain.

18:08And, after the Roman invasion in 43 AD, it spread across the empire.

18:14So, I've travelled to one of their main trading ports.

18:17London?

18:18Portsmouth?

18:19No.

18:19Hengardsbury Head, just east of modern-day Bournemouth.

18:25This is a double dike, which sounds like a fun light-out for some, but in the Iron Age, it was an incredibly impressive fortification.

18:33It would have been a third as high again, with a huge palisade of wooden spikes, built to protect a settlement of hundreds of houses all the way to the sea.

18:45Hard to imagine now, but this was the largest international trading port of Iron Age Britain.

18:55It was the focal point between life in Britain and life on the continent, and in would come the Roman ships with olive oil and fish sauce and wine, and in return, the settlement sent out its very special pottery, black burnished ware.

19:11Now, there's not so much of it made today, but we're going to have a go, and for that, we're going to need a very small dike indeed.

19:20Hayden!

19:21Hi, Sandy, hi.

19:22A pump for me lesson.

19:24Dr Hayden Scott Pratt is an experimental archaeologist.

19:28He's going to show me how the Juratregians made their beautiful pottery.

19:32Today, we're going to have a go at making black burnished ware.

19:34Now, it's actually really difficult to make. I've only succeeded at making it once.

19:38How long have you been trying?

19:39Quite a long time.

19:40Okay, right.

19:41Today's the day.

19:42Today's the day, right. So, start by just depressing your thumb into the middle.

19:45Yeah.

19:45And gently pinching outside, so it's called a pinch pot.

19:48That feels nice.

19:49It's lovely, isn't it?

19:50It's such a pleasure to do. I don't know why I've never done this.

19:53Now, what I want you to do is to use your thumb and just smooth that across, so we don't want any bulges in the pot, because when you come to fire, it needs to be an even thickness.

20:00Right, what will happen if there are bulges?

20:02It'll probably explode.

20:04I know, the stakes are really high. This is a very, very gentle part at the beginning. You know, we make these pots, they're lovely, and then we put them and expose them to extreme heat.

20:11Do you hear it? Can you hear it?

20:12Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's like a muffled gunshot. It's really quite loud.

20:15The thing we'd ultimately want to make is black burnished wear. So, I've understood all three of those words, but not in a row.

20:22Yes.

20:22What is it exactly?

20:24So, burnishing is where you get a small pebble, like this one, a smooth pebble, and you rub it across the surface of the pot, and it smooths all the bits of sand, bits of silica, into the same direction.

20:34It gives it a lovely, lustrous, shiny colour to it. The black bit comes from when we fire it in the kiln.

20:38To create the distinctive black look, the kiln will be starved of oxygen during firing. But before we fire anything, my creation needs to dry for days.

20:50Fortunately, in the spirit of television, Hayden had made some earlier.

20:54Here is your wacky stick.

20:56I mean, you're so technical.

20:58Good, firm whack.

21:01Oh, it's quite... Wow, OK.

21:04Turns out, making pots is more violent than I'd expected.

21:07A few more over this side.

21:10Yeah, that's it.

21:11It's not nothing.

21:12No, that's it.

21:14Now, I should be able to lift that off now.

21:16Ready?

21:16Yeah.

21:17Oh, this is quite scary.

21:24Oh, that's a good sound.

21:25Yeah, I heard something.

21:26You hear that?

21:27Oh, look!

21:28I spoil you.

21:32Oh.

21:33That is a high-fired black burnish wear wine vessel.

21:36And it's the second time ever that we've managed to do that.

21:40Oh, well done.

21:40I'm so glad I was here.

21:41No, even better.

21:43We also have...

21:45Oh, wow.

21:48A flagon for you to pour it out of.

21:49Oh.

21:50May I take this to show my friend Raksha?

21:52You can take both of these, so you can pour it out of an actual reconstructed flagon into

21:56a reconstructed cup.

21:58Now, just need some wine.

22:00While I've been auditioning for the Great Pottery Throwdown...

22:03Meg and Ruby have been busy excavating the skeleton that we discovered.

22:10Wow!

22:11You guys did not hang around!

22:14The wonderful thing is she...

22:15I mean, I say she.

22:16I was going to say she looks so peaceful, but she?

22:17Is it she?

22:19We think we're going with she.

22:21There are some markers on the skeleton that kind of indicate potential masculinity and

22:26femininity.

22:27The eyebrow ridge, the nuchal crest right at the back, and the mandible seem quite gracile,

22:33quite feminine.

22:34Gracile is a wonderful word, isn't it?

22:36Yes.

22:36I love that.

22:36That's what we try to say, gracile or robust, rather than male and female.

22:39Okay.

22:40I'm going to get down on the front, I think.

22:42Okay.

22:43So, yeah, we've got these hands coming up here, these arms.

22:45Oh, my goodness.

22:47And it makes us think that we've got a position just like sleeping.

22:51So, maybe a little bit like this, which is really lovely.

22:56Start in here.

22:57Yeah.

22:58Just brushing.

22:58Absolutely.

22:59And follow those bones.

23:01We need to find where they go.

23:03Exactly right.

23:05It's definitely bone.

23:06It's got that spongy look to it, hasn't it?

23:08That one looks kind of interesting, actually.

23:12Well, look there.

23:13Is there something darker?

23:14Oh, I can see it from here.

23:16Yeah, we've got, looks like a pin of some sort.

23:18Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

23:19Very thin bit of copper alloy.

23:22Wow.

23:23Shall I brush some of the loose?

23:24That would be very helpful, thank you.

23:27There we go.

23:28It's kind of underneath there now.

23:30Oh, look, look, look, look, look.

23:31It's looking like a fibula brooch.

23:34Something special is beginning to emerge from the soil.

23:37Even the professionals can't wait to share the news.

23:40Miles, do you want to come over and have a look at this?

23:43What have you got?

23:44It's so pretty.

23:46Right.

23:47What do you think?

23:48See, that's a really nice brooch, isn't it?

23:50Hang on, why is everybody coming to this?

23:51Come on, you have to lie down.

23:53You have to lie down.

23:54You have to have reverence.

23:55Assume the position.

23:58Here they have a brush, look at that.

24:00Whoa.

24:02The interesting thing, as a personal effect, something that they've worn in life, that's

24:05something that's been attached to them in death and it's still closed.

24:07The last person to close that was the mourner who placed it on this individual and put them

24:11into the ground.

24:12It's been closed for 2,000 years.

24:14It's so right.

24:15I'm so happy for you.

24:17I'm so, so happy for you.

24:20Your first dig as well.

24:21Oh, it's incredible.

24:23Honestly, it's been one of the most exciting days of my life.

24:26I feel really tearful.

24:27I'm having to learn archaeological patience.

24:31Each item is measured and its position carefully recorded.

24:35It's so considered, all of it.

24:36It shows just so much love.

24:40Yeah, and we still do it now, don't we?

24:42Just buried in different positions, that's all.

24:45But we still do the same practices.

24:48It's a right, proper send-off.

24:49Yeah, it is a right, proper send-off.

24:53The paperwork complete.

24:54Now we can finally start extracting the brooch.

24:57OK.

25:01Oh.

25:02Oh.

25:03Oh.

25:04Oh.

25:05Oh.

25:06Oh.

25:07Oh.

25:08Oh.

25:09Oh.

25:10Oh.

25:11Oh.

25:12Oh.

25:13Oh.

25:14Oh.

25:15Oh.

25:16Oh.

25:17Oh.

25:18Can you see that?

25:19Yes.

25:19Oh, my God.

25:20Oh, my God.

25:20Like the patina is still on the top of it.

25:23That is remarkable.

25:25I mean, a remarkable tribute to the woman who's lying there.

25:27Clearly has been loved by somebody and a remarkable tribute to the craftsperson who

25:33made this in the first place.

25:34Oh, I'm going to cry.

25:35That's so bad.

25:36We've all been there.

25:37Have you?

25:38Oh, I don't feel so bad in that.

25:40Look at that.

25:41Thank you, team.

25:43Honestly, I will never forget this.

25:44It was fantastic and I will never forget you.

25:46With so much love shown in these burials, it's tempting to think we aren't so different

26:02from the Durotregians.

26:03Oh.

26:04But archaeology is full of surprises.

26:07Gosh.

26:09Just 30 metres away from the grave I've been working on, Supervisor Lorraine has alerted

26:15us to a gruesome discovery at the bottom of a vast pit.

26:19Oh, it's deep.

26:20It certainly is.

26:21Oh, wow.

26:22It certainly is.

26:23Oh, wow.

26:24That's a long way down, Rekha.

26:26Tell me what we're looking at.

26:28I've got somebody who's face down in the middle of this almost vertical shaft.

26:35Yeah.

26:36In a very ungainly position because actually there are legs and arms everywhere.

26:42What do you think is going on?

26:44They've got their arms underneath them and they've got one leg sticking right up.

26:51So they've, I'd say, been pushed in.

26:54Horrible.

26:55An observation I can make even from this distance is if we look at the person's right

27:00arm bone at the top, if we look at the top of the bone, we can see that that ball, it hasn't

27:06finished fusing yet, it hasn't joined on.

27:09This is a 16 or 17-year-old.

27:11Oh.

27:16Below these peaceful Dorset fields, our investigation into an Iron Age cemetery used by the Durotregas

27:24tribe has just unearthed a disturbing discovery.

27:29The remains of a teenager at the bottom of a two and a half metre man-made pit.

27:34They weren't treated very nicely and also their legs and arms are in very strange positions.

27:41There is an inkling that they might be tied behind.

27:46So it's a violent death.

27:48So this is the thing is that this has very purposefully been made.

27:54You don't dig through bedrock and look at these sides, they're almost vertical.

27:58It would have been very hard to open this up.

28:01The stuff around it is midden material, so it's literally chucking somebody in rubbish.

28:05This is very, very grim to see.

28:08These don't look like the nearest and dearest sending their dead relative onto a happy afterlife.

28:15Two extremes, right?

28:16Yeah.

28:17So you've got one part where they're burying that child with care.

28:22This one...

28:23Chucked in?

28:24Chucked in.

28:25Like rubbish.

28:26The comparison to the loved and considered burial I discovered earlier in our dig is stark.

28:33But it transpires this is not the first pit death the team have uncovered here.

28:38So, while I head to the university laboratory to find out more, Raksha continues the investigation with Miles.

28:46So I think the thing about these pits, the really large ones, is they're not for storage.

28:51They've been cut specifically for an event like this.

28:53And the idea at the time seems to be to have a death, an execution, but done in as public a way as possible.

29:00So people can observe it.

29:01They can actually see them being put to death and then thrown in.

29:04That person's been sacrificed.

29:05That means the crops won't fail next year.

29:07I'm wondering if the people at the bottom of these are not local.

29:11Would my assumption be correct?

29:13I suppose if they're going to have an act of human sacrifice, they're not going to do it to one of their own.

29:19It might be someone who spent a lot of their life being enslaved or being a captive, being not from this area.

29:25And there are some things we can probably say and reconstruct about it.

29:28So if you go around the side of the pit, Raksha, to about there, you're probably standing in the position now where 2,000 years ago this individual was put to death in a very public way and then thrown in.

29:43I literally have got goosebumps all the way up my arms.

29:47I'm like shivering.

29:48There are things like this that make us realise they're not like us.

29:52They do things different.

29:53Their perception of the world is very, very different.

29:55And they do commit acts like this, which to us is completely abhorrent.

30:00It's just brutal.

30:02I've travelled to the University of Bournemouth for further scientific analysis of another Duratregian victim.

30:10This skeleton was also found in a pit and may hold clues to our teenager's fate.

30:17This is an adult woman aged something like 28 to 30 when she died.

30:22She will have died sometime between the end of the second century BC and sometime during the first century BC.

30:28I'm astonished by how specific you've been able to be about lots of things.

30:31Can you tell me, do we know if she is local?

30:35We've got DNA results for this individual.

30:38She is not related to anyone else at the site that we have the DNA for.

30:44So, she's not part of this community.

30:46So, genetically, she's an outsider.

30:49We can see if we look at the bones of her arms, these are points of muscle attachment.

30:54And these tell us that she's had a physically hard life.

30:57And we can see this time and again throughout her skeleton.

31:00These are signs of really advanced osteoarthritis of the spine.

31:06She has the spine of someone who's spent 40 years digging up the roads.

31:12He's got multiple ruptures in her discs throughout her spine.

31:15Still pain. We're talking about pain.

31:17Very painful.

31:18She's carried really heavy loads over and over again over a long period.

31:23If we look at this bone in her upper spine...

31:26So, where are we talking about? Kind of here?

31:28It's just under the base of the skull.

31:30If we look here, you can see what looks like a crack in the bone.

31:34But we've looked at this under high magnification.

31:37It's not a crack. It's a slice. It's a cut into the bone.

31:41So, somebody's either cut her throat or certainly they've cut her neck.

31:46How does this compare to what's being found at the moment?

31:49We found another instance last year of an individual face down at the bottom of a pit.

31:55And then, of course, we found our example this year.

31:59And so, this really is intriguing.

32:02There is a saying that one's an incidence, two's a coincidence, three's a pattern.

32:06Right. So, the women are in charge, probably.

32:09They seem to be being buried with nice things, but they're not very nice to outsiders.

32:13Is that a sort of picture?

32:15That is certainly how it looks, which raises questions about what was the status of these people we're finding in pits.

32:24They seem to be people who've had to work very hard and are exposed to violence and maybe from elsewhere.

32:31So, when you put all these circumstances together, it fits the interpretation of these being enslaved individuals.

32:41Sadly, this same picture of violence is becoming increasingly evident back at the dig site,

32:47where Megan and Raksha have been continuing to excavate the teenage skeleton.

32:52We've possibly identified some trauma to one of the arms to maybe indicate some kind of struggle before they went into the pit.

33:00It's a radial fracture, isn't it?

33:03Mm-hm.

33:04So, they've either suffered that as they've been pushed in or they're...

33:09It's a blocking blow to stop them from being, like, hit in the face or something.

33:13Mm-hm.

33:14Are we still going on the hypothesis that this person is, like, late teens?

33:20Yeah, we think that they are around 15 to 16 years old.

33:24I mean, like, 15, 16, that actually breaks my heart because I have a son who's 16 years old

33:32and I actually can't bear thinking that he would be at the bottom of this pit.

33:36I just... It's too much for me.

33:39I really think Sandy should see this. She'd be absolutely fascinated.

33:45But I think also I just want to get this person out of here and give them back their story

33:50and almost for us to give them back their life after they've had such a gruesome death.

33:59I have to say I'm finding it hard to square these sacrifices with the love shown to tribe members.

34:05It slightly blows your mind being here. I have got a million questions.

34:14You could be here forever and maybe never fully understand the complexity of the society that we're digging into.

34:20The sight. I am very conflicted about it. I love them.

34:29Mm-hm.

34:30But at the same time, I'm scared by them because of all of the violence.

34:35I mean, if you're not from round here, then, you know...

34:39Just look at that vertical shaft.

34:41So tell me, tell me exactly. Analyse that shaft for me. Come on.

34:44So it's kind of like, you know, makes me think of torture, horrible things happening to that person

34:50and then just being chucked in there.

34:53They're not an adult. They are a teenager.

34:57And that pit is just open to see that grisly display.

35:01I get the conflicted thing. I really do.

35:03Because there's something so beautiful and peaceful about, you know, one of the women being buried.

35:08It's exquisite and it suggests love.

35:10And then, if you're not with us, you're 100% against us and we're going to get you.

35:16The remains of the teenager have now been fully exposed.

35:20And, as perhaps happened around 2,000 years ago, a crowd gathers to witness the event.

35:29Oh, the pit of doom.

35:34Doesn't the atmosphere change in here when you get down here?

35:37It does, yeah. It is completely different.

35:39I feel like it's fine, sort of fine looking down, even though you feel sad,

35:44but it feels claustrophobic. It feels frightening, actually, to be honest.

35:48What's the next step?

35:51Well, I think we're a little bit concerned, aren't we?

35:54Unfortunately, we're at a point where we've made every conceivable record

35:59and we are now at a stage where we have to lift the skeleton

36:02and we have to carefully and systematically dismantle it

36:07and we will start with the skull.

36:09It could come apart as you put your hands on it. Yeah.

36:12It may well do.

36:13This body has been out in the open. It's been weathered.

36:17There's been lots and lots of weight on top of it from all of the layers.

36:23It could be crushed.

36:24So we might not be able to extract the whole skull whole.

36:28OK.

36:29But we're going to try our very best.

36:31We're going to try, yeah.

36:32So what we can do to hopefully mitigate the risk of it collapsing entirely

36:37is to carefully bandage around the skull.

36:44In theory, it should now lift out.

36:48It looks very crushed though, doesn't it, the whole body?

36:51Yeah.

36:52Yeah.

36:53It's not in very good nick at all.

36:55You can see it kind of like quite brittle and fragmentary and, yeah,

37:00it's not in good shape at all.

37:02We need to designate a skull lifter.

37:05Rakshar, I think.

37:07Oh.

37:08You can do this, Rakshar.

37:09OK.

37:10My hands are too big for this.

37:11Can you...

37:12Yep.

37:13Can you tell me...

37:14It's very, very tight in here, isn't it?

37:16If we're lucky, we'll get a glimpse of the face as it comes out of the ground

37:19and before it goes into the box.

37:21OK, so I've got a good grip on that now.

37:26And...

37:29I think if you get the chin, Rakshar...

37:34Oh.

37:35Oh, it's happening.

37:36It's happening.

37:37Oh, my God.

37:39Oh, my God.

37:50Our dig has reached a crucial moment.

37:54Around two millennia ago, a teenager met a violent end

38:00and was thrown into this deep pit.

38:03Doesn't the atmosphere change in here when you get down here?

38:06It feels frightening, actually, to be honest.

38:08After days of painstaking excavation,

38:11we're finally ready to carefully extract the fragile remains.

38:15In theory, it should now lift out.

38:20Could come apart as you put your hands on it.

38:22Yeah.

38:23It may well do.

38:24But if we're lucky, we'll get a glimpse of the face

38:26as it comes out of the ground and before it goes into the box.

38:31You can do this, Rakshar.

38:33OK, so I've got a good grip on that now.

38:37And I think if you get the chin, Rakshar...

38:44Oh, it's happening. It's happening.

38:46It's happening.

38:52The face.

38:53Hopefully the first time in...

38:55Oh, my God.

38:56...two millennia.

38:58Oh.

38:59And then...

39:00Quick, Sandy, here's the box.

39:01...we're going to place it carefully in the box.

39:11OK. I've got to get my hands out now.

39:13Oh, that's this. I've done it.

39:20Sorry.

39:23That was amazing.

39:24Can you take them off?

39:25OK.

39:26Have you got it?

39:27I've got the weight, yeah.

39:28The poor thing.

39:29I'm sorry.

39:30I don't know why that one's upset me more than anything we've seen.

39:42You were so lovely and kind to us.

39:45We forget we do this quite often as professional archaeologists, but it's...

39:51It's always special and emotional.

39:56Try and get as much out as we can today and his journey will continue.

40:02Yeah.

40:03I thought you were beautiful, John.

40:04Thank you for that.

40:05Oh, thank you.

40:06It was a good team effort.

40:09Oh, is that weird?

40:10No.

40:11Like I could see the child.

40:13Oh, my God, I feel really upset though.

40:17That I wasn't expecting it.

40:18Yeah.

40:19I'm really sorry.

40:20Don't apologize.

40:22Oh, I'm so proud of you.

40:25Oh, my God.

40:31There's no question that I now wonder at that crossroads in my life

40:34whether I should have decided that actually I wanted to be an archaeologist

40:37because there is nothing I like better than diving back into the past

40:41and really researching something.

40:44But on a human level, the thing I feel is I'm now a grandmother.

40:47I have four grandchildren and I feel the grief.

40:50This is a cemetery.

40:52I feel the generations when we come across a child who's been buried here.

40:57That hurts me.

40:59And that's an astonishing thing to be still feeling the pain 2,000 years later.

41:05By removing the teenager from that grisly pit,

41:08I take consolation from the idea that once the remains are analyzed and studied,

41:13they'll be laid back to rest in the earth here.

41:17Their humanity restored.

41:21And although perhaps 2,000 years have passed,

41:25we're able to tell the story of real people who had lives filled with emotion.

41:29I've learned such a lot about how the Duratregians lived and died.

41:43But what happened to this mysterious tribe?

41:46An answer may lie in the middle of the cemetery,

41:49where the team have discovered a grave that was laid after the traditional Duratregian burials.

41:56This one looks different to all the others.

41:59Yes.

42:00This one looks like a square, like almost like there was a coffin because there's a square thing.

42:06Oh, very good.

42:07Yes?

42:08Yes?

42:09Miles is not saying a word.

42:10Absolutely.

42:11No, it's more familiar to recognise that as a grave.

42:15Yeah.

42:16Because it's very much the modern convention of digging deep, digging a rectangular cut.

42:19And you're right, it is basically the coffin has decayed.

42:23But we know that the coffin was there because we're getting these coffin nails.

42:28Oh, wow.

42:29That's vicious.

42:30I mean, you have to think about the lid though, right?

42:33It must have been really chunky to have a nail that big.

42:37That's very kind of, you're not coming out, isn't it?

42:40Yes.

42:41I mean, it is a very, very solid construction, but of course it doesn't survive in the chalk at all.

42:45But can I just say how robust this individual is?

42:50Because it must have been quite strong, right?

42:53And tall.

42:54This is not a Duratregian then?

42:56No, no.

42:57So the actual style of the burial, the nature of it, we can say confidently this is a Roman or a Romano-Britain.

43:04This is somebody who's dying around about sort of 200 to 300 AD.

43:08That's when Christianity is becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire.

43:14We know the Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD.

43:18Many of the native tribes adapted to the newcomers, blending cultures to become Romano-British.

43:25Miles suspects this possible descendant of the Roman invaders offers clues as to what eventually became of the Duratregus tribe.

43:34One of our big questions is what happens to the Duratregus.

43:38Their cultural traditions, their burial styles, we can see carry on for some time after the Romans invade.

43:43The Romans just like exploiting landscape and making money.

43:46But they don't seem to have changed much in the way of life for people up here.

43:50The Duratregians are burying their dead in crouched burials.

43:53They're still living in the same way for about 200 years after the invasion.

43:56So we're seeing the Iron Age slowly morph into the Roman period.

44:02It's absolutely fascinating.

44:03But something major happens about 300 AD, about the time that this chap is being buried here.

44:08This whole landscape becomes depopulated.

44:11There's more Roman buildings being created.

44:14There's more sense of this becoming Roman.

44:17And I guess our theory is a bit like the Highland Clearances in that wealthy landowners are coming in.

44:22They're taking over the land.

44:23They're dispossessing the locals.

44:25And that's really the significant time of change, about almost three centuries after the Romans arrive.

44:31That's when the Duratregians finally come to an end.

44:34So we may never know exactly what happened to the tribe, but I like to think the future archaeological work of Miles and the team will finally put the pieces of this puzzle together.

44:46Which leaves me one last task before the dig closes for the season.

44:51To toast the lives of the Duratregers and all buried here.

44:55So Sandy, I want to introduce you to the archaeologist tradition.

45:00Yeah.

45:01You are now fully fledged, right?

45:04Yeah.

45:05This is the dirty drink.

45:07Oh, I love it.

45:08In black burnished ware.

45:11Yeah.

45:12That I pulled out of the furnace myself.

45:15Let's do it.

45:16In the finest wines.

45:19I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, it was £6.95.

45:22But, you know.

45:24I don't know what the Celtic people would have said, but mud in your eye.

45:29Bottoms up.

45:30Mmm.

45:31Wow.

45:32That's...

45:33I mean, that's...

45:34Whoa!

45:35That is...

45:36Oh!

45:37Save me from shit wine!

45:39But do you know what?

45:40I've had a great time.

45:41I've had a wonderful time.

45:42And can I just say, to all the people whose lives we have uncovered and revealed back to the sun, here's to you.

45:53Cheers, ladies.

45:54Bottoms up.

45:55Don't keep drinking it.

45:56Strip out your pancreas.

45:57Yeah.

45:58Cheers.

45:59Cheers, ladies.

46:00Bottoms up.

46:01Yeah.

46:02Yeah.

46:03Don't keep drinking it, strip out your pancreas.

46:33www.fema.org

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