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00:00Back in 1980, I graduated here at Cambridge University with dreams of becoming a great archaeologist.
00:11With 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.
00:26So 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?
00:41What?
00:41Crapula.
00:43I'll be joined by my friend and expert in the field, Raksha Dave.
00:47I'm so, so happy for you.
00:49Together, 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.
01:10Oh, my God.
01:11Hey, look at this.
01:12This week, we're in Berkshire, excavating the site of an early medieval monastery shrouded in mystery.
01:22Oh, gosh, I think Cookham has many secrets to be revealed.
01:26This is the moment we go, dum-dum-dum, where the legacy of a powerful queen is being unearthed.
01:32I fall in love.
01:34Oh, wow, yes.
01:35Queen Canithrith.
01:36She's quite the girl, isn't she?
01:37Oh, yes. She's got a great profile.
01:40Revealing how her people lived.
01:42We've got some really, really beautiful bone combs that came out earlier today.
01:46To see if it's still got lice on it.
01:48And the secrets they took to their graves.
01:54We're getting this image of these people coming to a monastery with quite visible difficulties.
01:59Yes.
02:00I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of doing paleopathology.
02:12Right, madam, we're taking you to today, then. Where would you like to go?
02:21Today, we're going to a place called Cookham.
02:24Oh, so, I know a little bit about Cookham.
02:27Wind in the willows, is that right?
02:28Yes, Kenneth Graham, he lived here.
02:31And I think it's in the Doomsday Book, so is that the kind of period that we're heading back to?
02:35Ah, we're going further back in time.
02:37Ooh-hoo-hoo.
02:38We're actually going to the 8th century.
02:40So, this used to be called the Dark Ages, but we've learnt better, haven't we?
02:45We have.
02:47Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the 5th to 11th centuries became known as the Dark Ages,
02:53a perceived time of decline in civilisation.
02:56But the more we dig, the more we learn.
03:00And here in Cookham, on the bank of the River Thames,
03:03clues are being unearthed that continue to challenge what we thought we knew about the past.
03:10This particular site is very early in Christianity.
03:15It's monastic.
03:16So, monks?
03:18Monks and nuns.
03:19Ooh, double monastic.
03:20Yes.
03:21Power and wealth.
03:23And ruled by a powerful queen.
03:26I mean, you've just taken all my boxes.
03:28As long as we can add in messing about in boats.
03:31Yes.
03:32I can't really emphasise enough how important this site could actually be.
03:41It could be of national significance.
03:44We don't know very much about early medieval history at all.
03:48And I think digging here might unlock that key.
03:51You are shining a light on the Dark Ages.
03:53I mean, that's rather pleasing, isn't it?
03:55It is.
03:55Right, left here.
04:02What do you mean, right, left here?
04:06I am not using you for navigation again.
04:13Oh, I'm excited already.
04:15Oh, look at all this action.
04:18How come I'm always driving?
04:19What's that about?
04:20Because I can't drive.
04:21Do you think the royals turned up like this?
04:26Yes.
04:27Some form of chariot, no doubt.
04:29Oh, that's how we should arrive, in a chariot.
04:32Oh, yeah, that would be great.
04:33I'm going to order one of those.
04:36There's always a moment, isn't there?
04:37There's a sort of a tremor.
04:38Welcome to the early medieval.
04:40Oh, my word.
04:42Now, please tell me that you bought your trowel today.
04:44Do you know what?
04:45You'd be so proud of me.
04:46I've got it right here.
04:48Having brought it, I'm just looking over there.
04:50I'm slightly worried that there's not enough shovels.
04:51I should have brought a shovel as well.
04:54So, you know you said that you love powerful women?
04:57Yes.
04:58Well, there is one in particular.
05:00She ruled over this monastery.
05:03This is Queen Cynithareth.
05:06Oh, isn't that beautiful?
05:07Now, she ruled all of this land here.
05:10She is the wife of King Offa.
05:14He rules Mercia, basically.
05:15So, we've arrived in Cookham, Berkshire.
05:20But in the 8th century, England was made up of seven kingdoms,
05:24each controlled by their own monarch.
05:27Mercia, ruled by Offa, was the mightiest of all.
05:31From East Anglia to the Welsh border,
05:34and from the River Humber to the River Thames,
05:37at King Offa's side, Queen Consort Cynithareth,
05:40one of the most significant women of the early medieval period.
05:48She's so powerful.
05:49Yeah.
05:50She's the only woman to be depicted on a coin
05:52in the whole of Western Europe at this time.
05:55Wow.
05:57Replica coin?
05:58It is.
05:59The real one is actually in the British Museum.
06:01Can I keep this?
06:03Go on then, lucky charm.
06:04I might buy you a coffee later, and I've got money.
06:07Not with that, though.
06:08Oh, OK.
06:11Oh!
06:12Oh, it's a bit like skiing down here.
06:13So, we're going to go and see the site director.
06:16OK.
06:18Gabor Thomas.
06:19Do you know everybody?
06:20Is that how it works?
06:21Yeah, I do, actually.
06:22OK.
06:22This remarkable monastic site, covering about an acre,
06:30is being excavated by the University of Reading,
06:33and the archaeology here is bringing Cookham's powerful past to life.
06:38Hello, Gabor.
06:39I'm Sandy.
06:40We're going carefully through all the holes.
06:43Nice to meet you.
06:43Nice to meet you.
06:45And what are we looking at?
06:46We are standing in the middle of a substantial Anglo-Saxon timber hall
06:51that we think was used as one of the main communal buildings within the monastery.
06:56Wow.
06:57You've got a big field.
06:58How do you decide where to start digging?
07:00It's a really strategic site, this one.
07:03River Thames is just out there.
07:05It's very close by.
07:06I mean, that's very important, isn't it, the River Thames?
07:09I think the fact that this is a riverine site,
07:11that's right at the heart of the narrative of the archaeology that we've got.
07:15We've got the parish church of Holy Trinity,
07:17so this is a sacred site, if you like.
07:19And then in 2008, a local group did some very small-scale work,
07:24opened a few test pits and found some Anglo-Saxon pottery.
07:27They got an Anglo-Saxon radiocarbon date off some animal bone.
07:31So those things together, that's the smoking gun for us.
07:34OK, I'm excited.
07:36On a scale of 1 to 10,
07:37for an archaeologist to find a site like this,
07:41it's pretty crazy, isn't it?
07:43You need to expand the scale.
07:45It's not up to a billion.
07:48OK, shall we raise a glass of mead to that later?
07:50I think we shall.
07:51I think we shall.
07:53Well, enough of this drinking talk.
07:54You'd better go and do some work.
07:56I've got my own trowel.
07:57That's amazing.
08:00The team think the original church of the monastic complex
08:03is probably underneath the current one.
08:06So, whilst we can't excavate that,
08:08we can explore the rest of the monastery site beside it.
08:13The dig has two trenches.
08:15Raksha will explore Trench 1,
08:17which is the communal and industrial area next to the Thames,
08:20and seems to be complete with exciting evidence of a mill.
08:27Meanwhile, I'm heading to Trench 2,
08:29which, for the sensitive amongst you,
08:31is the cemetery where a number of skeletons have been uncovered.
08:35You have been warned.
08:36Sophia, Amy, I'm Sandy.
08:41Hello, welcome.
08:42Thank you.
08:42I've come to...
08:43Well, I don't know if I can help, my darling,
08:44but I shall do my best.
08:49I'm joining the team as they carefully excavate
08:52the skeletal remains of a young adult,
08:54hoping to learn more about the people who were buried here.
09:00Just before we start, this is a very big moment for me.
09:03Raksha gave me this.
09:04I haven't used it yet.
09:05Is this my moment?
09:07I'm afraid we're not going to be using that today, I don't think.
09:10Oh, I love how you nodded.
09:11It's like it was going to be a yes, and then said no.
09:13It was a...
09:15You're being encouraging.
09:16It was being encouraging.
09:17Yes.
09:18Yes, so no.
09:18So we're going to be using things like these wooden tools.
09:21Oh, OK.
09:21I'm going to tell her that she bought me completely the wrong thing.
09:23OK.
09:24So we're going to get you on the torso of this individual.
09:28So can you see where these bones are just coming out?
09:30So this is the scapula.
09:32Yep.
09:32And I just want you to try and expose down a little bit in that bone.
09:37OK.
09:37So just gently.
09:39Absolutely, yes.
09:40Just do it gently.
09:42I'm so worried about making a mistake.
09:44I was once on a dig and a skull was revealed and the archaeologist shouted, bring me a wet
09:51cloth.
09:51And in that moment, and I watched it happen, the skull disappeared.
09:56It was just dust.
09:57Oh, wow.
09:57It was the most astonishing thing.
09:59It was like a magic trick.
10:00It was there, and then it was gone.
10:02And then it was gone.
10:03Thankfully, this individual is relatively well preserved.
10:06And with any of these burials that you found here, have you found any artifacts, burial artifacts?
10:10So we only had a single grave good, and it was an iron finger ring.
10:15It was on the finger of the individual.
10:17Right.
10:18And the way the head is positioned as well?
10:20Absolutely, yes.
10:22So this entire cemetery is east-west aligned with the heads at the west end facing east.
10:28But that is very indicative of a Christian burial.
10:32And is that true as we go right across, all the way across the cemetery?
10:35All the way across, yeah.
10:36And most of them are also shrouded just because of their position.
10:40So this individual, for example, their humerus, which is this bone here, is very, very tight
10:44in.
10:44Their clavicle is very, very vertical.
10:46And so they had some sort of restriction.
10:48Some kind of wrap around them.
10:50Exactly.
10:50Yeah.
10:55So I can see just from being down here, I can see there's other bodies over here.
11:01And then behind me looks less neat.
11:05Is that OK?
11:06Yes.
11:06That's probably not a technical term.
11:08This is what we call charnel.
11:10It's just a lot of human remains, a jumble of human remains.
11:13They didn't mark the places that they had buried previous skeletons.
11:18And what happened is another person needed to be buried and so they were dug into the same
11:24place.
11:25Right.
11:25So nobody could remember 300 years ago we put Frank there.
11:28Yes.
11:29Exactly.
11:30Yes.
11:31Exactly.
11:32Yes.
11:33Exactly.
11:34Exactly.
11:35Exactly.
11:36So what about all these boxes over here?
11:37All of the black boxes?
11:38All of the black boxes do have human remains underneath them, so including this one, for example, and
11:45it's all charnel.
11:46And then we also have this year, surprisingly, we've had a lot of juveniles come up, so we've
11:51had at least five juveniles in a sort of line that have appeared.
11:56What are you, babies?
11:58Younger than about five, yes.
12:00So.
12:01OK.
12:01I just need a minute.
12:02Wow.
12:03OK.
12:16Now it's very busy down this end, it's very intriguing.
12:25So this is a deep, artificially constructed channel that has wood lining in it that's
12:32preserved at the bottom for us.
12:34So this was used to divert water from the main river channel of the Thames and it's used
12:41to power a water mill.
12:44Oh, gosh, it's like a canal, isn't it?
12:46Yeah.
12:47This must be a very early water mill then.
12:50Yeah, I mean, this is going to be contemporary with our monastery, the high point of which
12:55is 8th century, so this is, yeah, very early.
12:58So they're actually being able to produce their own flower on site then and feed this
13:03whole community that it's supporting?
13:06That, plus they're probably producing a surplus, so there's a lot of infrastructure that we're
13:12finding here that's supporting the community and also helping it to generate wealth of
13:16its own.
13:17A monastery with a mill like this from the 8th century isn't just rare, it's the first
13:23of its kind to be uncovered here in Britain.
13:26And a remarkable example of early medieval engineering right here in Cookham.
13:31Over in Trench 2, new discoveries are emerging and I'm keen to share our progress with Raksha.
13:38Aha!
13:39How are you getting on?
13:42You obviously have quite a lot of burials here, don't you?
13:45We do, yes.
13:46We have 55 individuals that are articulated so far.
13:51Articulated means that they are in the grave in the position that they were originally buried
13:56in.
13:58And there are at least 30 more individuals from that based on the number of skulls.
14:04Is there any way of knowing that these people all died, I mean this is a juvenile, they
14:12died a peaceful death or they died of an illness, can we know those things?
14:15Not necessarily when they're in the ground, it's something that we do in post-excavation
14:20analysis.
14:21So you've just mentioned juveniles, that would suggest that we're not talking about nuns
14:25and monks in this cemetery, are we?
14:27No, we're not.
14:28This cemetery we believe is a lay cemetery, so it had normal individuals in it that were
14:34not potentially within a monastery.
14:37And because we've got a lot of instances of diseases and trauma coming up on the bones,
14:43it indicates that this was a potential hospital or even hospice.
14:46Wow!
14:47That's so exciting!
14:48So basically it's a 1200-year-old NHS, that's what we're talking about.
14:51That's right!
14:52I mean it's pretty amazing, isn't it?
14:54Wow!
14:55This is an extraordinary revelation.
15:00To have potentially uncovered an early medieval medical centre under Queen Connithris' watch
15:05is beyond exciting.
15:07But who was coming here for treatment, and why were many of them dying prematurely?
15:12My mind is racing.
15:15There's a special thing that you feel when you see those ones who didn't make it.
15:22I just, I hope there was comfort.
15:23I know every time you see it though, it's very sad, it's like a dagger to your heart.
15:28But, I'd like to think that they were cared for.
15:32Yeah.
15:33And their dying hours.
15:35I love the idea that people were drawn to it.
15:38It should be a place full of hope.
15:41Maybe it was.
15:42Maybe way more people came and didn't die than came and ended up in the cemetery.
15:46But do you think that we know everything or, I mean, it's an archaeological metaphor.
15:51Aren't we just scratching at the surface at the minute?
15:53Oh gosh, I think Cookham has many secrets to be revealed.
15:57This is the moment we go dum dum dum.
16:00Let's do it together, ready?
16:02Dum dum dum.
16:04Two mad old bags on a bench.
16:16In Cookham, a picturesque Thames side village, history is being uncovered.
16:34Oh, this is nice, it's definitely my weapon of choice, for sure.
16:43We've been transported back over 1200 years to early medieval Britain.
16:50And one of the most significant archaeological sites in recent times.
16:57I am obsessed with history, but I sometimes think the more I read, the less I know.
17:03And that's because it's really hard to find material, but this place is almost vibrating
17:08with it.
17:09There's industry here.
17:10And most likely, the Norman church behind me is the very site of Cookham Abbey, where
17:16Queen Canithrith ruled, and may well even be buried.
17:21Wouldn't it have been fantastic to meet her?
17:24She was powerful.
17:25She was busy.
17:26They said sometimes she was too busy to read her correspondence.
17:30We've all been there with an email.
17:32I think I love her.
17:41I can control my ardour no longer, so I've tracked down Gabor to find out more about the
17:46Queen Consort of Mercia, who once ruled over this monastic site.
17:51Gabor, I need your help.
17:54Terrible thing has happened.
17:56I've fallen in love.
17:57Look.
17:58Oh, wow.
17:59Yes.
18:00Queen Canithrith.
18:01Who would not love her?
18:02I mean, she's got a great profile.
18:03You need to know everything about her.
18:04What can you tell me?
18:05Well, there's an object here that I think potentially she could have worn.
18:10No, your big tease.
18:11Oh, yeah.
18:12Oh, yes.
18:13Yeah, yeah.
18:14Wow.
18:15That's a beautiful little beauty here is a silver pin.
18:18The reason why I think she potentially could have worn it, first of all, is the date of
18:22it.
18:23You can see it's got this pin shaft here, but then there's a beastie, a backward turning
18:27beastie forming the head of the pin.
18:29The style of that animal is bang on for late 8th century.
18:33Which is where we want to be.
18:34Where we want to be, but the style itself is very Mercian.
18:38So, in that sense, it fits in really well with Canithrith.
18:41And this was found here?
18:42This was found here, very close to our timber building that we're excavating this year.
18:47Wow.
18:48Just imagine her going, where have I put that thing?
18:50Just dropped it now.
18:51Yeah.
18:52Yeah.
18:53It may have been used to fasten a headdress.
18:55And it suggests status because it's silver and gilt.
18:58It's, yeah, it's aristocratic status.
19:00So, yeah, take all those things together and I think this is potentially an object worn
19:06by Canithrith herself.
19:07So, what do we know about her?
19:08What I understand is her husband, the king, dies, but yet she manages to retain some power.
19:13So, that's quite something, isn't it, for a woman of that period?
19:16Absolutely.
19:17So, Offa dies, this great king, there's a huge power vacuum.
19:21And her priority is really to secure the succession for her bloodline.
19:25Taking control of monasteries and this really important strategic and political frontier on the Thames
19:31is crucial to the political strategies of that period.
19:35So, a monastery, possibly a double monastery, I don't want to diss their faith in any way,
19:39but the Christianity element is useful for them, is it not, for keeping power?
19:42Absolutely.
19:43So, Christianity and the aristocracy, they share a very, very close relationship.
19:49It's this twinning of secular authority and faith, and Christian faith in particular,
19:54that really emerges powerfully in this period.
19:57So, it provides a powerful new ideology that supports the political ambitions of the ruling elite at the time.
20:05God has put me in charge, which is very useful.
20:08Yes.
20:09Now, we've got these objects.
20:10Do we also have written records which show the significance of the queen?
20:14We do.
20:15We have records from a church council that was held at the very end of the 8th century,
20:21that talks about, specifically mentions Cunithroth in relation to Cookham,
20:26and her taking control of it and other monasteries in the area as well.
20:31She's quite the girl, isn't she?
20:33Oh, yes.
20:34Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:35That's right.
20:36So, I love all this silver stuff.
20:37I think it's beautiful.
20:38I've just been over at the dig very slightly helping if I can.
20:42So, I get that it's a place of illness and things, but what I'm getting it as well
20:46is I'm getting a kind of a monochrome thing, I'm getting it's a bit dull
20:49and it doesn't help the day that it's raining, but presumably they did have colour in their lives
20:53and it isn't all black and white like we imagine.
20:55There's one particular class of artefact that really, I think, gets that colour across.
21:01really beautifully and it's vessel glass.
21:03Oh, okay.
21:04This is very much not monochrome.
21:08Oh, look at that.
21:09I mean, that's very complicated, isn't it?
21:11Yeah, that's a particular technique where they overlay enamel, coloured enamel onto the glass.
21:17And is it local to here or has it been made somewhere else?
21:19It's probably been made in a monastery.
21:22Not necessarily this one, but one of the ones likely that fringes the River Thames.
21:31Okay, that just looks like modern plastic.
21:33What is that?
21:34Well, granted, but this is the rarest glass from this period.
21:39Oh.
21:40This stuff is really special.
21:42So, if I just lay that in your hand.
21:45That is actually opaque red glass.
21:49But that's so thin, that must have been incredibly difficult to make.
21:52Yeah, this is, you know, the very par excellence of the glassman's craft.
21:56That is honestly a needle in a haystack to find that, right?
21:58You really have to look carefully to find that stuff.
22:02Okay, I'm going to go look.
22:04Thank you.
22:05It's stopped raining now.
22:06I'm going to start digging again.
22:07Thank you.
22:08I can't believe we're in love with the same woman that's so outrageous.
22:15Oh, look at these lovely snail shells.
22:21In the mill stream, Raksha has joined trench supervisors Josh and Lucy to dig deeper.
22:27It's exactly the place where domestic waste may have ended up all those years ago.
22:32I always find it, like, really exciting when you get down to these kind of lower deposit layers.
22:38You're actually getting down onto really good preservation, aren't you?
22:42Yeah.
22:43It's nice and flat and it's full of really organic material.
22:46We call it a primary deposit.
22:47It's all stuff that was thrown in while the leet was in use.
22:50The leet is the channel where the mill's wheel would have sat, powered by water from the Thames.
22:56So what have we got so far?
22:59We're starting to get some timber showing up and we're getting really well-preserved bone artefacts,
23:04which in less organic deposits wouldn't survive to anywhere near as good condition.
23:11I mean, look at that.
23:13That is proper chunky Saxon pottery.
23:17Yeah.
23:18I haven't seen Saxon pot like that for ages.
23:20To find Saxon pot in that preservation is really, really rare.
23:23They used an organic temper, which just does not survive in non-waterload conditions.
23:27We've got the rim of that vessel, so it's going to be really easy to identify what it was.
23:32I think that the pot's probably about that big, isn't it?
23:34Yeah.
23:35So what would that be used for? Cooking?
23:37Most likely some sort of cooking vessel, yeah.
23:39It's so useful for us because we're right next to where we're thinking the occupation zone of the monastery is.
23:44And to find these cooking vessels in the leet just really gives us evidence for that theory.
23:49It's amazing, isn't it, to think that all remnants of life here are found in the bottom of this channel.
23:56Yeah, yeah. We can find everything about them just by going through their rubbish, basically.
24:01I just love the fact that we're learning so much about the people that lived here.
24:06Yeah.
24:07They're on this site, they're eating their food and cooking it over there.
24:11Yeah.
24:12There's a mill.
24:13Yeah.
24:14These are really rare, aren't they?
24:15And this is the only one that they've found in a monastic setting at this date.
24:20Which is just incredible. To show that the connection between church and community and the church have their own mills is just amazing.
24:28It's a first.
24:29Yeah.
24:30I love it.
24:36Hello, people.
24:37Oh, hello.
24:38Here's words I've never said before. I'd like a leet update, please.
24:43I'm so excited.
24:45We're actually getting snapshots of everyday life on the monastic side.
24:50Wow.
24:51It does look like fun down there, though.
24:53Are you enjoying yourselves down there?
24:54Yes.
24:55That's a general nodding.
24:56Whoop-la.
24:57Oh.
24:58Goodness.
24:59That was heartfelt.
25:00Right, so, we have stepped up a gear. Come on.
25:06We have stepped up a gear because we're getting so many beautiful organic finds out of the bottom of that leet.
25:12Now, we've gone from dry sieving to wet sieving. So, we're just trying to blast through.
25:17That doesn't sound nice, can I just say?
25:19Why?
25:20I don't know. It's too moist for me, but okay.
25:23Well, we're blasting through all of that soil.
25:25Right.
25:26Because we're getting some beautiful, beautiful artefacts.
25:30Josh!
25:31Right, what have we got?
25:35So, we've got some really, really beautiful bone combs that came out.
25:39These came out early today.
25:41It's quite fragmented, but we do think it's an entire length of a comb.
25:44Oh, look how that fits together!
25:46Yeah, so it's come out in pieces, but we can already start puzzling together.
25:49Just see if it's still got lice on it.
25:51Ah!
25:52You could always imagine someone combing their hair and it breaking and just tossing it in the leet.
25:57And your mother going, I've got to fix that!
25:59What are you doing?
26:00That's fantastic.
26:01Oh, wait, wait!
26:02No, don't tell me.
26:03Don't tell me.
26:04Of course I'm going to be archaeological now.
26:06Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go, go.
26:07It's glass, red glass.
26:09It is, yeah.
26:10Look how tiny that is.
26:12It is tiny.
26:13Is this the kind of thing, Josh, that makes you jump up and down with excitement?
26:16Yeah, when we find it, it is, yeah.
26:17That must make the earth tremor.
26:19It does.
26:20I mean, we showed the professor this one and he almost levitated.
26:22It was so exciting.
26:23Yeah.
26:24Do you remember when you said about the Dark Ages?
26:28I did mention that.
26:29Right.
26:30Well, this is showing you that in the UK we are producing fine glass like the Romans did.
26:40Isn't it amazing the light a tiny shard of glass can shed on life from over a thousand years ago?
26:47Yes.
26:49After excavating with Sophia earlier, she has invited me to learn about the next stage of preparing the bones recovered from the cemetery for the lab.
26:59Tell me what we're doing.
27:00So we are going to be bone washing.
27:02Once you lift a skeleton, you have to clean it so that you can analyse it properly.
27:05So we have a toothbrush, a very soft toothbrush and a make-up brush for you.
27:09It's just water?
27:10It is just water, yes, plain water.
27:12And the idea is that you never dip the bone in the water.
27:15You just very carefully dip the brush in the water and then kind of brush the bone.
27:19And give it a sort of stroke?
27:20So, yes.
27:21Okay.
27:22Is it right to pick it up?
27:23Absolutely.
27:24Right.
27:25This is terrifying.
27:26Do you know what it is?
27:28Yes.
27:29So this is a radius and it looks like a left radius to me.
27:33And you may notice that it's not completely straight.
27:36Right.
27:37Which means?
27:38It means that at some point, so that was mud, don't worry.
27:41At some point.
27:42Terrible moment of panic.
27:44Okay.
27:45Yeah.
27:46At some point in this individual's life, they broke their radius and it has healed.
27:51And it healed.
27:52We have the break in here and as you can see, the bottom of the shaft and the top of the shaft
27:58look like they've done this.
28:00And it's called 0% apposition.
28:01So it means that the integrity of the shaft has been lost.
28:05However, it has fused.
28:07Kind of healed.
28:08Yes, it has.
28:09It's fused extremely well.
28:10So it happened a long time before death.
28:12But this individual would have been left with some sort of deformity.
28:15And pain.
28:16And pain, potentially.
28:17Yeah.
28:18But isn't it astonishing that you can look at a piece of bone and suddenly you can feel
28:22that human emotion or you can feel the agony of it.
28:25Yeah.
28:26What are the other things that you might be able to tell from skeletal remains?
28:30So we've got an example here.
28:33This is the cranium of a juvenile individual.
28:36And they were excavated last year.
28:38As they were washed, this sort of area here.
28:42It's like a sort of pockmark.
28:44Exactly, yes.
28:45So pitting.
28:46And we call it porosity.
28:47And it is on both sides of the cranium.
28:50It is called porotic hyperostosis.
28:53And it is potentially indicative of something like scurvy.
28:57Oh, wow.
28:58But that's remarkable, isn't it?
29:00Because then immediately you know something about the diet.
29:03Definitely.
29:04That's like being a doctor long after the fact, isn't it?
29:06Exactly, yes.
29:07Okay, so what I'm understanding is that the journey from discovering a person who is deceased
29:13to understanding why that might have happened is quite a long painstaking one.
29:16It certainly is.
29:17It's not one for guessing, really.
29:18No, no, not at all.
29:19We wait until they're in the lab, they're clean, we can really see what's going on on the bone
29:24so that we can try and find out about their life history.
29:28It's just a great detective story, isn't it?
29:30It is, yes.
29:38We are days into our archaeological adventure in Cookham on the bank of the Thames.
29:44And we really are living the dream.
29:47Right, you can only buy one house.
29:49I quite like this one.
29:50This one is nice.
29:51I don't think I'd have gone for that color.
29:53Have you gone for that color?
29:54No.
29:55You can paint it, though.
29:59What is that place?
30:00Look at that.
30:01I want to live there.
30:03That's very nice, isn't it?
30:05Fancy.
30:07Love doing property porn.
30:18Back on dry land, the dig team has uncovered the footprint
30:22of an entirely different kind of property.
30:28Welcome to the communal hall.
30:31Do you want a bar tape measure?
30:32Oh!
30:33You don't like that one.
30:34I've got this one.
30:35You read my mind.
30:37Yeah, what are we doing?
30:38What are we doing?
30:39Right.
30:40You've got these two timber posts on either side.
30:43I haven't understood.
30:44This is the side wall?
30:45This is the side wall.
30:46Right.
30:47So what we're going to do is I'm going to show you...
30:48Why is it so thick?
30:49Well, insulation.
30:50Oh, okay.
30:51All right.
30:52Right.
30:53So this is the place where you're going to be eating, drinking, carousing, carousing,
30:58you name it, we're going to do everything in here.
31:00So it's like one of those great big rooms that the Vikings had, isn't it?
31:03Exactly.
31:04For partying.
31:05Okay.
31:06Exactly.
31:07I'll hold one end.
31:08Right.
31:09You walk around.
31:10Oh, give me the other one as well, because I need you the other side too.
31:11Oh, how are we doing that then?
31:12Oh, let go.
31:13I don't want to fall in these holes.
31:18So I'd probably say that's the end.
31:22And how far is that?
31:23That's about 14 and a half metres.
31:27Okay.
31:28I'm the other end of the hole.
31:30I'm just coming.
31:32Taking your time, aren't you?
31:35Yeah, but I've got to carry all this mead.
31:38Got it.
31:40So you've got that one there.
31:43And I'm going to trundle along in this direction.
31:49Then...
31:50Wow!
31:51Oh, I'm starting to see it now.
31:54See, you can see it in a way that I couldn't.
31:56That's the other wall there.
31:58So this single-storey thatched hall would have been about 14 and a half metres by 7 metres,
32:04roughly the area of a full-size squash court.
32:07It's more evidence of the communal life once lived here.
32:12Archaeologically, these are very rare.
32:14Okay.
32:15I've excavated one in my lifetime.
32:17And is that because they're timber and they just fail?
32:20Yes.
32:21Ploughing gets rid of them.
32:23Things get built on top of them.
32:25And this one is very exciting because in the middle, we have the heart of the hall.
32:31Right here, this red patch, this is the hearth.
32:36Oh, so is there a chimney or what is there?
32:38There's no chimney.
32:39So it would have been very dark, very smelly, very smoky.
32:44Okay, so you're not selling it to me, really, as a fun place.
32:49And suddenly you get a sense of how many people there must have been here
32:51if you needed a hall this big for everybody to sit down and get together in.
32:55Well, exactly.
32:56You could probably get, what, about 20 people in here?
32:58But this is to kind of serve the people who are tending for the sick,
33:02the reason why people are coming here.
33:05If this was an early hospice housing the sick,
33:08they must have been ministered with prayer and potions.
33:11But what would those potions look like?
33:18I've been joined by Dr Christina Lee,
33:21Associate Professor in Viking Studies at Nottingham University,
33:24who has specialist knowledge of medieval medicines.
33:29I want you to imagine that you and I, we're a couple of nuns,
33:32we're going to save everybody, aren't we, with our medicines?
33:35Yes, and our prayers.
33:37Oh, okay, nice combination of the two things.
33:39Ooh, here we go, these are nettles.
33:42Wait a minute, I've got the gloves on.
33:44Are there modern applications for some of these old recipes?
33:47Yes, we have tried one of them.
33:50Are you going to show me?
33:51Look what's in the bag.
33:53Today it just gets better and better.
33:58The remedy we're recreating comes from this 10th century publication
34:01of Ball's Leech Book.
34:03But this concoction would have predated the medical text.
34:07You promised me a recipe that's going to work wonders.
34:09Okay, it also potentially works wonders.
34:12So, I've got a 10th century recipe.
34:15I've got some vinegar, wine...
34:18I mean, it's looking good so far.
34:20I have onion, I have garlic.
34:22Okay.
34:23I have leek.
34:24I also have an ox bladder.
34:28From an ox?
34:30From an ox.
34:31That's a sizeable item.
34:32We need the ox bile.
34:33I mean, this kind of stuff you've got at home.
34:35Bile, not so much, no.
34:37We don't have any idea really what the mix is.
34:40Well, we're told, you know, sort of that we need equal parts.
34:44That's all we're getting.
34:45So, we used a pestle and mortar, you need to pound this.
34:49A lot of these ingredients come from the kitchen.
34:52The overlap between cooking and healing isn't so far-fetched.
34:56Oh, I mean, ginger is good for nausea.
34:58We know that.
34:59We know that.
35:00Absolutely.
35:01That is looking really good.
35:02Thank you.
35:03I think we need to do the next step.
35:04Yeah, which is...
35:05And that would be the ox gall, you know, the bile.
35:07Here we go.
35:08Let me open it up with my trusty pen knife.
35:10Here we go.
35:11You're well prepared, you know.
35:12I'm very practical.
35:13I think I would have enjoyed having to make things myself.
35:15Yeah.
35:16It would have been fine.
35:17Right, I bet this is horrid.
35:18I mean, it's gross.
35:19Oh, okay.
35:20Here we go.
35:21Give it a little squeeze.
35:22Give it a little squeeze in here.
35:23Give it a little squeeze in here.
35:24I don't think that's one gallbladder.
35:28Surely that's the whole family has donated.
35:31Put some wine in.
35:34Put some wine in.
35:36Mmm, phenomenally cheap.
35:39Okay.
35:40That's not really a bouquet.
35:44You're mixing them?
35:45Mixing it up.
35:46Okay.
35:47The next step would be leave it for nine nights.
35:50We do need the time for the ingredients to activate each other.
35:55The text even gives suggested use.
35:58In Old English, of course.
36:00And it says, work air salvo with winner.
36:03When is a stye in the eye.
36:05Okay, yeah.
36:06These are Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium.
36:09And the drug-resistant form of Staphylococcus aureus causes MRSA.
36:13And...
36:14This could get rid of...
36:15Sorry to be overexcited, but this could get rid of MRSA.
36:18This could.
36:19Obviously you're going to ask if this is a medieval remedy.
36:23Don't try this at home.
36:25I am absolutely stunned that this is a scientifically proven treatment for MRSA.
36:32This is so exciting to me because practical archaeology is a thing, isn't it?
36:35Yeah.
36:36It's all very well being theoretical and this is how they lived and this is what it was like.
36:39There is a moment when you literally are getting your hands dirty to figure out how people lived and worked.
36:43Absolutely.
36:44Even with these remedies and assuming infants survive childhood, average life expectancy in this period would have been around 50 years old.
36:54If Cookham was an early medieval medical centre, I'm keen to find out the causes of some of the more premature deaths.
37:0118 miles from the dig site, I've come to the science lab at Reading University where I'm hoping to get the answers.
37:14Wouldn't it be incredible if you could go back in time and find out what's wrong with them?
37:19Obviously we can't do that.
37:20But the wonderful thing about archaeologists, they have a way of making patients speak from beyond the grave.
37:28Professor Mary Lewis specialises in paleopathology and the study of skeletal remains, which can help identify historic disease and injury.
37:40Mary, I'm Sandy.
37:41Hello.
37:42Nice to meet you.
37:43Nice to meet you.
37:44I've kitted myself as best I could.
37:45I hope it's all right.
37:46Now, oh look, this is from the actual dig, isn't it?
37:49Yeah, so this was one of the first skeletons that I went on site to see.
37:53And there's something really unusual going on with the ribs in that they should normally fall down this way, but they started in a fan position.
38:00And why do you think that might be?
38:01Has something fallen on top or...?
38:02So initially I thought maybe he'd been moved in the grave, but I went back and looked at hundreds of pictures of skeletons in graves
38:08and nobody had ribs that were going up in the wrong direction.
38:12So then I started wondering whether there was something sitting in his chest that meant that the ribs were kind of splayed out around it, been pushed out of alignment.
38:21He's 25 to 35 years old.
38:23As we washed him, we started noticing there were areas of grey bone here.
38:28Right.
38:29It's new bone formation that tells us that that area was inflamed.
38:33So the bone cells have reacted to some kind of inflammation, so it had been red and hot and swollen.
38:38And when we looked at the ribs, they also have this grey bone on top of them.
38:43So it's new bone formation.
38:44And it's only the ribs on this side of the body.
38:47Had we not seen the excavation photo though, I would have thought it's something like he's got a chest infection, bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis.
38:56But because we saw the position of the ribs, clearly something else was going on in this individual.
39:01Thinking about that kind of a mass, what could it have been?
39:05It could have been a kind of a hematoma full of blood, something like that, an aneurysm.
39:10Or given the age and sex of the individual, it could have been a cancer, a hard tissue cancer.
39:18Oh my goodness.
39:19In the science lab at Reading University, paleopathologist Professor Mary Lewis has dropped a bombshell.
39:36I started wondering whether there was something sitting in his chest that meant that the ribs had been pushed out of alignment.
39:42It turns out that this particular person from the dig site at Cookham
39:48could have died from lung cancer.
39:51There's quite a hard tissue cancer that's sitting on the lining of the lung.
39:55And the fact that his lungs are affected, I think, is evidenced also by the fact that we have this grey bone all over the skeleton.
40:03To me, it suggests that he's not getting enough oxygen going around his body because the lungs are malfunctioning.
40:09It's so astonishing that you can actually see evidence of those things now, even though it's 1,200 years later that the poor chap has passed away.
40:16Yeah.
40:17I thought this individual was very exciting until we started to analyse the other skeletons.
40:25So this is another male, slightly older than the previous male.
40:28We notice the sacrum, so this is in the base of your back.
40:32And there's this big area here. The edges are really smooth.
40:36And it suggests that there's actually something has been sitting in here.
40:41And if you turn it over, you can see there's another hole here.
40:44Suggests that whatever was sitting in there has come out of the back of the sacrum.
40:48Are we talking about another tumour?
40:49Yes. I think it's a very aggressive tumour because there's hardly any bone reaction, so the body hasn't had any time to react to this tumour.
40:56And the aggressive tumour that likes this area of the skeleton would have actually been much larger, a soft tissue tumour.
41:02So this person would have had a massive swelling on his buttocks.
41:06Oh, my goodness.
41:07If it's a tumour, I think it is.
41:08Yeah.
41:09And it would have come on very quickly and it would have been very painful.
41:12I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of doing paleopathology.
41:16To suddenly be faced with two individuals who have tumours that are very, you know, rare, made me start thinking something was going on at Cookham, that this isn't a normal population.
41:26Is it possible that we're talking about a hospice that's beginning to specialise in growths of this kind?
41:31So I think people are coming to Cookham because somebody there is actually dealing with swellings.
41:37And then we find a third individual.
41:40A woman, fairly young.
41:44Remember this grey stuff?
41:46Grey bone that I was talking about?
41:47Yeah.
41:48So it seems like there's something sitting in there and the bone is reacting around the margins of it.
41:53That's a tumour sitting inside the skull.
41:55When you look at this side, there's this depression on the skull.
41:59If it's a tumour, I think it is, again, this kind of meningioma, they would also have had a lump on their head.
42:04If you've got a swelling or something pushing on the bone, the bone will react by taking bone away to try and relieve the pressure.
42:10And so I think that's what this depression is.
42:12But you're getting this image of these people coming to a monastery with quite visible difficulties.
42:18Yes.
42:19I mean, big growth.
42:20So the question has to be, are they coming from the local area?
42:23Is there something in the water?
42:25Or has Cookham's fame spread far and wide and they're coming from all sorts of places?
42:30I don't think they can be possibly coming from a small area like Cookham.
42:34To sustain that amount of tumours, there must be something very unusual going on in that local area.
42:39And there's no evidence that that's the case.
42:41So I do think what's happening is people are coming from far and wide, maybe being brought along in the Thames,
42:46because the monastery's right along the Thames.
42:48Of course.
42:49You know, that's the nicest way to travel with someone who's in a great deal of pain on the water rather than on the road.
42:54So I think maybe the location of the monastery's got something to do with it as well.
42:57But it's so interesting that the word is spread, isn't it?
43:00Because you're not talking about a wildly literate society.
43:03You're talking about, has to be word of mouth for this to have happened.
43:06Yes.
43:07So it does feel like a hospice, doesn't it?
43:08Yes.
43:09It does feel like some kind of care facility for these particular cancers.
43:12There's something completely humbling about this kind of intimacy with death, especially when facing a disease that we're still trying to cure today.
43:27Maybe it brings home our own mortality, or maybe it's because the human stories we're uncovering are still entirely relatable.
43:34But it connects us to the past in a very visceral way.
43:45And whilst I was initially blinded by the royal status of the site, it's the stories of the everyday folk that will have a lasting impact on me.
43:55I'm really sorry that I've made you come and dig up these skeletons.
43:59Do you know what?
44:00It is such a privilege.
44:02When you are an amateur and you look at it, you just think, skeleton, right?
44:05And you're busy, you kind of get the bones out.
44:07But this poor young person is an individual, and I think that's what comes home to you.
44:12This is a person who's had a life, who maybe is in pain.
44:14That's the thing I've fully understood, is a lot of the people who came here were in terrible, terrible pain.
44:21I think the interesting thing is that you've actually learnt about the normal people who've come here.
44:26I mean, what did you find out?
44:27Well, there is just the most astonishing number of tumours here.
44:31So we are talking about a place that is famous at the time.
44:34People are coming from far and wide in order to seek probably the very last minute help that they can.
44:40It's amazing, isn't it, to think that this little place by the river is a place for spirituality, for power, but also is here to tend to the sick and the needy.
44:53Oh, I love that.
44:54It's like the foundations of how people would access medicine in the medieval period.
44:59Wow.
45:00But the other thing I want to thank you, because I honestly, the community of archaeologists, the volunteers, the students, the professionals, it's about the nicest group of people you could possibly hang out with.
45:15It's life-affirming whilst you're dealing with death. It's amazing.
45:22It's uncertain exactly when Queen Connithrith passed. The records are at best vague, but I'd like to think her presence here was a force for good.
45:30And, as for the Dark Ages, well, I for one can say I feel truly enlightened.
45:42Do you know, Cookham has had the most surprising effect on me. And I'm really serious, I think I might actually change my whole direction of life.
45:51Are you going to become an archaeologist? No, nun. Yeah. Or maybe a queen. Or maybe a queen nun. I can't decide it.
46:00Isn't that just mother superior? I like the word superior, that's good.
46:07Just tell my kids. I'm not your mother, I'm your mother superior.
46:21But you're really serious.
46:23Are you Buttercé vertice Star Tahiti tonya notch?
46:27I MEGAN
46:28Yeah.
46:30Is that just comms?
46:33Let is see I'm Maggie McMaster.
46:36She's amazing and very great.
46:37The world is soworldly wak as tall.
46:41A Venue of質 and CEG aplic получается Yo Penn State.
46:44Gracias por ver el video.
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