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00:02For thousands of years Stonehenge has been a mystery. Who built it? What was it for?
00:12Now archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson has a revolutionary new theory.
00:24Stonehenge was just half of a vast religious complex.
00:31He believed Stonehenge was built to house the spirits of the dead.
00:38That it was linked to another mysterious sacred monument.
00:46And a prehistoric city lost for 4,500 years.
00:55Now a team of the world's leading archaeologists search for the evidence.
01:05After five millennia, they may be close to unlocking the hidden story buried in these ancient stones.
01:37Salisbury Plain in southern England.
01:412500 BC.
01:43At the same time as the pyramids in Egypt are under construction.
01:48Workers here complete the outer circle of Stonehenge.
01:56They haul huge rocks, some weighing up to 45 tons, across rough terrain.
02:10They work each granite-like stone into shape.
02:16Then pull them upright to form the great stone circle.
02:19Then pull them upright to form the great stone circle.
02:24Thousands of people work on this massive project.
02:34When they complete this phase, an inner horseshoe of five great arches will be enclosed by a ring of 30
02:41stone uprights
02:43and topped by a circle of perfectly horizontal stones called dentals.
02:52But while we know this was an incredible feat of engineering, who these people were and why they built Stonehenge
03:00has remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the ancient world.
03:09In fact, it's only in the last 15 years that scientists have known how old Stonehenge is.
03:17Using radiocarbon analysis, they have dated the stone circle to 4500 years ago.
03:25This means Stonehenge was built long before the Romans, King Arthur or the Druids.
03:32It dates to a time before writing and the invention of the wheel, the Stone Age.
03:40And still no one has yet convincingly solved the mystery of what it was built for.
03:50Okay, that's what, no deeper than that. Just that little lump.
03:57Up, up, up.
03:58In a farmer's field a couple of kilometers from Stonehenge,
04:02archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson and his team may have finally found the answer.
04:09We start by uncovering the trenches, take the polythene off, get the stones out, move them to one side.
04:17And then we'll all get out there. Thank you.
04:20He's leading one of the biggest archaeological investigations of modern times.
04:25A seven-year project aimed at unlocking, once and for all, the mysteries surrounding Stonehenge.
04:34Along with archaeologists, he's assembled an army of surveyors, geophysicists, and 270 volunteers.
04:46But they do not dig at Stonehenge.
04:50Instead, they excavate the surrounding countryside.
04:55It's here that Parker Pearson believes they'll find evidence to support a revolutionary new theory.
05:10I think Stonehenge is such an iconic monument that most people don't realize that there's a landscape out there that
05:16is absolutely packed with prehistoric monuments.
05:20And I think the really big jump has been to say, hang on a moment.
05:26It's not just a stone circle and that's all there is to it.
05:30It's actually part of something much bigger.
05:33And realizing that the building project for Stonehenge was just one element of a greater design.
05:45Stonehenge sits center stage of a much bigger ceremonial landscape.
05:51The Grand Avenue connects the stone circle to the River Avon.
05:57While standing stones, burial mounds, and circular earthworks called hinges fill the surrounding area.
06:07Now archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson believes Stonehenge was only half of a vast religious complex.
06:15The other half was a mysterious circle built of wood just a few kilometers away.
06:26At certain times in the year, Parker Pearson believes, thousands traveled to the area to take part in rituals marking
06:34the cycle of life and death.
06:45In great processions they walked down the wide avenues to the River Avon that runs between these two monuments.
06:55On this journey, they took their dead to join the ancestors at Stonehenge.
07:01And in return, received from the ancestors the gift of life and fertility.
07:12This is the theory.
07:15Now Parker Pearson must find the evidence.
07:20If this theory works, then there should be some kind of settlement close to Stonehenge.
07:28And there should be an avenue linking it to the river just as there's an avenue from Stonehenge to the
07:35river.
07:37So, are we going to find that there was actually a city there?
07:42Are we going to find that there's nothing there at all?
07:45Or are we going to find something completely different?
07:48It's very important that we investigate.
07:52If he's right, Parker Pearson's theory will transform our understanding of this prehistoric world.
08:05One of these sites that was part of this sacred landscape lies just north of Stonehenge.
08:13Known today as the Cursus, this is the largest of the monuments surrounding the Stone Circle.
08:21An earthwork enclosure stretching over two and a half kilometers.
08:26It was once thought to be a racetrack for Roman chariots.
08:29But Parker Pearson believes it holds clues to the meaning of Stonehenge.
08:44Today, excavations along the side of the Cursus uncover deep ditches.
08:49And now the team finds evidence that begins to unlock its secrets.
08:55At the very bottom of this great deep ditch, down here beneath this chalk rubble,
09:00we found an antler, part of an antler pick,
09:04which is one of the tools that was used to excavate this ditch back in Neolithic times.
09:10And that's the first time that we've got proper dating evidence right on the base of this ditch,
09:15which is going to tell us precisely when this ditch was dug.
09:24The radiocarbon dating of the antler pick reveals the Cursus was built 500 years before Stonehenge.
09:33Evidence that this land had been sacred for centuries.
09:37But it seems the Cursus played a special role at the time of Stonehenge.
09:44Previous excavations have uncovered burial sites south of the Cursus where the Stone Circle stands.
09:51But none to the north.
09:58To Parker Pearson, this suggests the Cursus became a dividing line, marking off the land surrounding Stonehenge as sacred.
10:12Parker Pearson's belief that this is a sanctuary for the spirits of the dead challenges the long-held Stonehenge as
10:20a temple to the ancient gods of the sun.
10:24It also raises a fascinating possibility.
10:28You could see this as a city for the dead, a domain of the dead, a place that was set
10:34aside for them within this dramatic landscape.
10:37And I thought, well, if that's the case, then there's got to be a domain for the living.
10:46If Stonehenge is reserved for the spirits of the dead, Parker Pearson must now find evidence of the living.
10:59No sign of a Stone Age settlement has ever been found in the sacred landscape surrounding Stonehenge.
11:08But archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson's investigations lead him to a site two and a half kilometers away from the Stone
11:15Circle.
11:21Across the Cursus, the boundary Parker Pearson believes defines as sacred zone, lies another monument at a place called Durrington
11:30Walls.
11:32Here, a vast circular earthwork known as a hinge dominates the landscape, 20 times the size of Stonehenge.
11:40It was surrounded by a ditch and a bank five and a half meters deep and over nine meters wide.
11:50The outline is still visible today, stretching two and a half kilometers around the perimeter.
11:57In previous excavations, archaeologists have dug inside the hinge but found no sign of a settlement.
12:06Parker Pearson decides to look outside.
12:13This has all got to come out.
12:15Okay.
12:16My fellow archaeologists, when I explained that we wanted to dig outside the hinge, thought this was rather silly.
12:24Everyone's always concentrated on the interior of hinges, so for us digging outside, it was breaking all the rules.
12:31And I think they thought it was laughable, actually.
12:44The following year, under the chalky topsoil, they find the faint outline of a house.
12:532005, our luck changed.
12:55We not only found that we were excavating houses, but they were extremely well-preserved houses.
13:04So well-preserved that there's nothing that comes close to them anywhere in England.
13:12Now Parker Pearson is discovering the true scale of the settlement.
13:19We knew this was a big village, and I was thinking maybe a few hundred houses.
13:24But what we found out this year is that it was really big.
13:28We are looking at well over a thousand houses.
13:32Excavations around the hinge reveal houses once covered all these fields.
13:37Parker Pearson has found the lost city of the builders of Stonehenge.
13:54This is the largest Stone Age settlement found in Northern Europe.
14:08From the density of houses he's discovered, Parker Pearson calculates the population ran into the thousands.
14:20Tribes gather from across England for the great communal project of the age to build Stonehenge.
14:39What we're looking at here is the foundations and the floor of a Neolithic house.
14:46Four and a half thousand years old.
14:48Here's the doorway. You can see some of the holes that held the stakes.
14:52And these would have supported a wall.
14:55And as I walk into the house, you can see how this bit's really quite worn from people coming up
15:02into it.
15:03And then here we are within the central part.
15:06We have these little kneeling holes here.
15:11The fact that they have survived to all that time is just stupendous.
15:16We've never seen anything like that before.
15:18And somebody must have spent an awful lot of their time in front of the hearth tending it and cooking
15:24the food.
15:25And you can actually see where the soot from the hearth has actually stained the plaster.
15:30Look at these dark areas here.
15:33Now the great thing about this house is we've actually got an idea of where the occupants actually slept.
15:38So that either side of us, we have zones off the plaster floor where there would have been box beds.
15:48Prehistoric sites usually yield few remains.
15:52Here, the team finds thousands.
16:01But the greatest revelation comes from what they are not finding.
16:06The ancient people who came here were farmers.
16:10Yet there are no signs of farming activity.
16:14This tells Parker Pearson there is something unusual about this settlement.
16:20I think what we're seeing is a community that are bringing all their stock with them, coming here for short
16:26parts of the year.
16:28This isn't a full-time, permanent settlement.
16:36For just a few weeks in the year, thousands gather here from across southern Britain.
16:43They are drawn by one of the most remarkable features of Stonehenge itself.
17:17If we'd been here at the midsummer solstice, what would have happened?
17:24Now, we don't have a time machine,
17:27but I think there are ways that we can really get a glimmer of an understanding.
17:33And what I would imagine is that at dawn, people gathered at Stonehenge,
17:39and that begins a really important day.
17:54It is Parker Pearson's belief that these farmers gather here to thank their ancestors
18:00for bringing life back to the land and making it fertile once more.
18:14Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire,
18:27fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire,
18:27fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire,
18:27fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire,
18:27fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire,
18:30fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire
18:39waiting for. On this day, Stonehenge aligns to the rising sun. The sun's rays pass between
18:56the standing stones placed on its perimeter and directly through a vast central arch now
19:03known as the Great Trilathon. But Parker Pearson believes this sunrise ritual was just the start
19:16of the Midsummer celebrations. And this leads to his greatest revelation yet.
19:31Over three kilometers away from Stonehenge at Durrington Walls, Mike Parker Pearson investigates
19:39a curious find that has long puzzled archaeologists.
19:50In 1967, while they were building a new road, bulldozers unearthed huge holes dug into the
19:58Durrington bedrock. They are the post holes of another ceremonial circle. But this one is built
20:05out of wood. For years, it's been presumed that the wooden circle predates Stonehenge,
20:13a trial run in wood before building it in stone. But in 2005, Parker Pearson's team finds another
20:25antler pick, the tool used to dig the holes. Carbon dating of the antler reveals the wooden
20:31circle was built at exactly the same time as Stonehenge. But that isn't all.
20:39Until last year, we weren't actually able to see its entire plan. And it surprised us. It
20:48actually looks far more like Stonehenge in wood than we'd ever appreciated it. And the fact
20:54that our radiocarbon dates show that both are built in that very same century indicates that
20:59this has to be part of a grand vision.
21:05With over 160 massive posts, the inner rings of this wooden circle are almost identical in
21:13shape and size to those of Stonehenge. And one feature in particular reveals that they share
21:21another extraordinary similarity. With the sun now crossing the sky, he believes the worshippers
21:30leave Stonehenge and slowly make their way to Durrington Walls along the banks of the River Avon.
21:38And what they're bringing with them is the fertility that the ancestors pass on to them. And the day
21:48is spent working their way upstream. And by the end of that day, as the sun is setting, they reach
21:57Durrington.
22:01From here, they move toward an astounding near replica of Stonehenge, built out of wood.
22:11The use of stone and wood is no accident. And it gives Parker Pearson a fundamental insight into
22:18the religious beliefs of these ancient people. So why might it have been important for them to have had
22:25one in wood, one in stone? And I think it has to do with the materials and what they meant
22:31to people's
22:31lives. Because of course, wood is something that doesn't last forever, just as our own lives won't
22:39last forever. But stone, that's going to be there for eternity. And it set me thinking as to, well,
22:49was one monument for the dead and one for the living. One in stone, one in wood.
23:00They are about to witness a remarkable feature of this wooden monument,
23:04and further evidence that the solstice celebrations continue here.
23:11Like Stonehenge, this circle also aligns to the sun, now setting in the west.
23:26At the stone circle, these ancient people paid their respects to the dead.
23:31But at this wooden circle, they celebrate life.
23:41They thank their ancestors for the gift of fertility for their crops,
23:46their animals, and for themselves.
23:52I think what we would see at this Midsummer event
23:55is the rite of passage that we today call marriage.
24:12The Hustle Zoo
24:19Excavations continue to produce a vivid picture of day-to-day life at Durrington Walls.
24:24yeah we're just still slightly too high but the thousands who traveled here had
24:30not come just for the celebrations now when we look at the concentration of
24:35population that we have in this one valley there's one major task that they
24:41had to perform and that is the building of Stonehenge the construction of the
24:46great sarsen circle and the trilithons within it in 2500 BC Stonehenge is still
24:58under construction even while it is being used for rituals this is one of the
25:06largest building projects in the prehistoric world no one knows how long it
25:17took the great stones are sarsen a dense rock as hard as granite each weighs up
25:24to 45 tons lifting them involves sophisticated engineering but the
25:31construction work is only half the story
25:36when we build big monuments today the stone that's collected it's just a
25:41commodity it's just a bit of useful rock that we buy off somebody and someone
25:47brings it along and puts it up I think we're looking at something completely
25:51different at this time because the rocks are imbued with meaning and maybe even
25:58with soul and spirit in the 1920s early excavations uncovered cremated human
26:06bones they were buried in 56 holes around the stone circle and in the ditch of
26:13the hinge since then archaeologists have unearthed an estimated 240 human remains
26:22Stonehenge is full of burials it's our biggest cremation cemetery from that
26:28time there's nowhere else in Britain with more cremation burials
26:34Parker Pearson believes these ancient Britons take the ashes of their dead to
26:39Stonehenge so that their spirits can join the ancestors
26:47here at the large prehistoric settlement close to Stonehenge Mike Parker Pearson
26:57uncovers a fragment of pottery that has not seen the light of day for 4,500 years
27:13it's a form of pottery known as groovedware unique to the British Isles this simple geometric design
27:24is found widely across the country evidence of an established and uniform culture
27:31it's an island-wide identity wherever you were you would have felt at home they
27:39were very much British at that time and all this was to change
27:49visitors are arriving in Britain
28:00and they bring with them a new culture and a new technology that will transform the world
28:21of Stonehenge
28:22in 2002 archaeologists discover one of these visitors in a dramatic excavation at Amesbury
28:30five kilometers from Stonehenge what they find in this ancient grave astounds them
28:38I don't think you ever get two opportunities like something like this in your life
28:41really very exciting very exciting indeed
28:45it is a remarkable discovery the richest burial ever found in Britain from the period
28:51he was an archer
28:54arrowheads and a wrist guard lead to the man being dubbed the Amesbury archer
29:00the distinctive pottery found in his grave gives a clue as to where he comes from
29:07it's known as beaker and it's found widely across mainland Europe at this time
29:14archaeologists call these immigrants beaker people
29:19here
29:20but it's the small objects they bring with them that are about to change the world of Stonehenge
29:26forever
29:27in his grave
29:28the archaeologists have discovered three small copper daggers
29:33among the earliest metal objects ever to be seen in Stone Age Britain
29:47Parker Pearson and his team continue to build up a vivid new picture of the summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge
29:55discovering evidence of massive feasting
30:02and now forensic work on pig bones reveals that a second great gathering took place here in the winter
30:10the pig teeth helped to give us a really good idea of exactly when people were here
30:16because it's been possible to age these teeth and to work out from their jaws when these animals were being
30:24killed
30:24and most of them survive to just nine months
30:28and that's a really good time to eat your pig because you've had the spring and the summer and the
30:33autumn to fuck
30:34it's midwinter it's just the time to let rip kill all those animals and eat as much as you possibly
30:41can
30:46with the Durrington settlement full
30:48two and a half kilometers away work resumes at Stonehenge
31:05Stonehenge is the only stone circle in the world where the stones are shaped and jointed
31:13it's grueling work
31:15the sarsen is one of the toughest rocks on the planet
31:18one of the really extraordinary things about Stonehenge is not only are they carved and smoothed
31:24but they've carved into them what we see to be carpentry joints
31:29the upright megaliths have on the top of each one
31:33a tenon that slots into a hole on the underside of the sarsens
31:38the lintels have tongue and grooves that slot together at the ends
31:44this gives the whole structure an enormous strength
31:47but it imposes on the masons and the people who made it a huge amount of work
31:56not only are these people expert stone workers
31:59they are also exceptional engineers
32:06they prepare to pull the stone into a pit to hold it upright
32:13the sarsens vary greatly in length
32:15so the depth must be dug with great accuracy to keep the top line of the lintels exactly level
32:22well
32:31rapes running over wooden a frames increase leverage
32:53They haul the stone up an earth ramp toward a native tree trunks.
33:05Move!
33:07Move!
33:25Now they can pull the stone vertical.
33:53Each of these stones brings these ancient Britons closer to fulfilling their ambition
33:58of building a city for the ancestors.
34:05These people have returned, not just to continue work on Stonehenge, but to prepare for the
34:12midwinter solstice.
34:16The land is getting less and less green.
34:19The sun itself appears to be dying, and we need to wait for that crucial moment when
34:26everything is restarted.
34:28That is at the midwinter solstice.
34:38While the summer solstice was about life and fertility, they've returned for the winter
34:45solstice to bring their year full circle with the ceremony for the dead.
35:01On the shortest day of the year, thousands assemble before dawn at the wooden circle inside the
35:08Durrington settlement.
35:18Like Stonehenge, the circle's posts are precisely positioned to frame the rising sun.
35:34Parker Pearson believes the wooden circle is the start of a journey for the dead that leads
35:39them back to Stonehenge.
35:43He believes that at midwinter solstice, ancient Britons traveled from the wooden circle at
35:49Durrington walls along the River Avon, then up a wide avenue to Stonehenge.
36:06But no link has ever been found between the wooden circle and the Avon.
36:11Parker Pearson must find this if he is to prove his theory.
36:16We knew what we were looking for, and the question was, was it actually there?
36:21Because if it wasn't, that was the end of the theory.
36:29In 2004, the team excavate long trenches across where they expect to uncover the lost avenue.
36:39After weeks of digging, they find nothing.
36:43It looks like they've got it wrong.
36:48I'd really given up on the thought that there was an avenue, but I thought, just in case,
36:53let's actually extend a little bit further uphill in that central area of the base of the valley.
36:59And that was the crucial moment, because as the mechanical excavator was taking away the topsoil,
37:08we suddenly saw this wonderful surface, this totally extraordinary avenue.
37:18The avenue measures a staggering 30 meters across,
37:24on a 15-meter-wide highway made of flints at its center.
37:32Wider than the modern road that cuts across it,
37:35the avenue runs down from the wooden circle
37:39and leads directly to the River Avon at the bottom of the hill.
37:54At the mid-winter solstice, Parker Pearson believes people from across southern Britain
38:00bring the cremated remains of their dead here to the Durrington settlement.
38:06Then they carry them down the avenue toward the river.
38:10But they're not taking them to be buried at Stonehenge.
38:17Only 240 remains have been found here.
38:23Recent radiocarbon dating on these finds shows that they were buried over a period of five centuries.
38:30That averages to only one person every two years.
38:35It's the first evidence to show that there may have been a ruling dynasty interred here.
38:41And it also shows that the ashes of ordinary people must have been deposited somewhere else.
38:54Parker Pearson believes the River Avon was the starting point of a journey.
39:01A journey that sends the spirits of the dead to join their ancestors at Stonehenge.
39:09Now he has new evidence to back that claim.
39:17High on the ridge overlooking the river,
39:19the team has unearthed a series of mysterious holes in the ground.
39:26They're vast, much too big to be the post holes of a house.
39:34One possible explanation is that they held platforms for the dead.
39:42We know that in addition to people being cremated at death,
39:46that in some cases bodies were actually exposed.
39:51And we may have structures that actually supported platforms on which bodies were set out
39:58in order to decay, in order to be exposed,
40:02basically turning fleshed bodies into collections of dry bone.
40:07The holes are strong evidence for Parker Pearson
40:10that the river played a central role in their rituals of death.
40:15The most exciting thing I think of this season has been the giant timber buildings
40:19up on top of the ridge.
40:21And those are really quite extraordinary.
40:23They would have been built of monstrously big timbers.
40:25But the fact that there they are along that ridge line,
40:29overlooking this part of the river,
40:31that really shows to us once and for all
40:34that it's this bit of the river that's so important for them.
40:44Wow, wow, wow, wow.
41:01Leaving Durrington Walls,
41:03the procession now walks down river four kilometers
41:07to the Grand Avenue leading up to Stonehenge.
41:23At the midwinter solstice,
41:25the upright pillars of the great trilithon
41:28will perfectly frame the setting sun.
41:53Now they ask the ancestors
41:55to accept the spirits of those
41:57who have died in the past year.
42:17Now, we do have similar ideas
42:19in the sense that death isn't the end,
42:22but it's the beginning, that the soul will live on.
42:24And I think what we're seeing here
42:27is just another version of that overall principle,
42:31which is right at the heart of human religious belief.
42:39But the midwinter festival is not only about death.
42:43It is also a celebration.
42:48From this day forward,
42:50the sun will grow stronger and the days longer
42:53until these people return to Stonehenge
42:56for the next midsummer solstice.
43:03But while Stonehenge stands out
43:06as the greatest achievement
43:07of this Stone Age civilization,
43:10it also marks the end of an era.
43:15By 2500 B.C.,
43:18metal is arriving in Britain.
43:21This new technology and the people who bring it
43:24will transform this society
43:26and in time bring this Stone Age civilization
43:30to an end.
43:35Up until this time,
43:37this was a world of monuments,
43:39great public works,
43:41where you've really got to gather people
43:43from all over the place
43:44to spend years of labor,
43:47and that stops.
43:48We don't see any of this large cooperation ever again.
43:52So it's the end of an era.
43:54It's a world which has really become transformed.
43:58The old certainties have gone,
44:00and metal has made them think about new ways
44:02of life into death and beyond.
44:09This is a sophisticated society
44:12who are capable of quite extraordinary achievements,
44:16and very fortunately,
44:18they made their mark.
44:20They left something very special.
44:23I doubt they realized
44:25that it would actually create
44:27such a great mystery
44:28for the world to come.
44:34We drop eight men in Arctic hell
44:37and follow their struggle
44:38to make it out alive.
44:39Are you ready for brand new
44:41Ultimate Survival Alaska
44:42starting Monday at 9?
44:43We'll be right back to 9.
44:48We'll be right back to 9.
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