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Digging for Britain - Season 13 - Episode 01: Scottish Massacre and 70s Skate Park
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00:06This land we call home has a rich and varied history stretching back thousands of years.
00:15But hidden below the surface are some amazing treasures just waiting to be found.
00:22Oh my gosh, that's insane. That's really cool.
00:25So each year across the country, archaeologists dig underground and dive underwater.
00:35Searching for fresh discoveries.
00:38The most amazing thing in British archaeology.
00:41Uncovering traces of ancient lives.
00:44Somebody's played in joy, I'm sure.
00:46And finding fascinating objects.
00:49Such exquisite detail.
00:53This year I'll be meeting the archaeologists and looking at some of their most incredible finds.
00:59I mean that is stunning.
01:02While Dr Tori Herridge is travelling the length of the country to some spectacular locations.
01:09Where I'll be dropping in on some of this year's most fascinating digs.
01:15Oh my gosh, can you see that?
01:17It's just brilliant.
01:19Oh my goodness.
01:21Every dig provides a new piece in the puzzle of Britain's forgotten past.
01:27This is the epic and unfolding story of our islands.
01:34Welcome to Digging for Britain.
01:47This week on Digging for Britain.
01:50One of the largest Roman cremation cemeteries ever found gives up its secrets.
01:55It is the best site I've ever worked on.
01:57I mean the quality of the archaeology is absolutely stunning.
01:59With some of the most delicate finds we've ever seen on Digging for Britain.
02:04No way!
02:05How have they survived?
02:07In Bradford, archaeologists find traces of a Somali community who once took part in an Edwardian exhibition.
02:14It's really voyeuristic.
02:16Revealing a key moment in the city's history.
02:19The first ever Muslim burial.
02:21It's incredibly significant.
02:22And in the centre of Glasgow, Torrey meets a group of volunteers who have swapped skateboards for shovels.
02:32It's amazing how quickly people forget.
02:34Archaeology can bring those memories back.
02:44But first, we're heading to the highlands of Scotland, 65 miles north of Glasgow.
02:51Where Torrey is in the famous valley of Glencoe.
03:03Today, Glencoe feels wild and remote.
03:08Home to some of the most breathtaking scenery the UK has to offer.
03:14But this idyllic landscape was the stage for one of the most infamous, dark and bloody events in British history.
03:23At the very end of the 17th century.
03:31In the winter of 1692, government soldiers of the newly crowned William and Mary were ordered to execute every member
03:39of the Macdonald clan.
03:42Despite belatedly pledging their allegiance to the new king, the clan had been branded traitors.
03:48To be made an example of.
03:51The atrocity became known as the Glencoe Massacre.
03:58Now a combined team from the University of Glasgow and the National Trust for Scotland is looking for the most
04:04notorious site of the massacre.
04:07The home of the local leader, Macdonald of Acnacon.
04:13Eddie Stewart is leading the dig.
04:16Eddie, if I was standing here in January 1692.
04:20Yeah.
04:21How many houses would I have seen?
04:22It's likely there was around about eight houses, but these would have been home to kind of a full extended
04:27family.
04:28You know, grandparents, parents, children.
04:30And we reckon, certainly as of the middle of the 18th century, there's probably around about 120 people living there.
04:41Hiking through the valley at Glencoe today, you'd be forgiven for thinking this landscape had always been a wild and
04:48windswept grassy hillside.
04:51But hidden beneath the long grass, almost invisible to the naked eye, are traces of where people once lived in
04:59houses made from turf.
05:06This is it then, a turf house?
05:08Yes.
05:08Yeah, so we have this house here built out of essentially sods of turf, so cut from around about the
05:12landscape.
05:13The kind of curve of the turf wall running around the front and then back down here.
05:16So how can you tell? What is it that lets you see that this is a turf house and not
05:21just part of the soil?
05:23It's quite a challenge, to be fair, but over the process of it being kind of a turf house, it's
05:27accumulating material,
05:28and so the colour and composition and compaction sort of start to change a little bit.
05:31And so we can see these kind of dark mottled patches, which are kind of roughly rectangular,
05:34which are probably the tops of turfs that have been into this kind of bank that remains.
05:41The team is unearthing a surprising range of small finds here, which come from all across Europe.
05:49Clues for who once lived in this turf house.
05:53This is beautiful. What's this one? It looks like a sort of a party ring decoration.
05:57Yeah, so this is a piece of comb-decorated slipware, and it's probably from Staffordshire.
06:01But it's got this really, really rich decoration. It's part of a kind of sizeable plate with a nice kind
06:05of curve in the edge there.
06:06It's beautiful. So this is fancy stuff?
06:08This is fancy stuff. This is the kind of prized dining ware probably of the occupants of this house.
06:12Yeah, it's very fine.
06:13And we've been getting lots and lots of chunks of this coming out, particularly from around the house and a
06:17clay ditch at the back of it.
06:19But we've also got some really nice imported ware. So this is a nice piece of sort of Northern German
06:22pottery here.
06:23Oh, that's nice.
06:24And you can see it's quite kind of rough on the outside, but there's a beautiful golden glaze in the
06:28interior.
06:28I can imagine that catching candlelight, couldn't you?
06:30Yeah, exactly. These are really, really impressive and kind of flashy pieces.
06:34So it really does paint a picture of the occupants who know what the fashion is at the fancy dining
06:39tables of houses in Scotland and England, France, Germany, etc.
06:42They know what it is to be a member of that kind of European elite at that time.
06:46And they're keen to show that off. It's all about kind of projecting a status, showing that you are someone
06:51who can afford these things.
06:52You might live in a kind of vaguely humble dwelling in the hills, as the kind of architecture suggests.
06:56But actually, this is quite the investment in dining ware to have brought together.
07:00And so that's probably relating to someone of a kind of taxman's class.
07:04Yeah.
07:08A taxman was a type of landowner in the Highlands, tack being an old Scottish term for the lease held
07:14on land.
07:16And Eddie believes these rich finds point to this very house belonging to the taxman of Glencoe and leader of
07:24this Highland community, MacDonald of Acnecon.
07:30In a home much like this modern day reconstruction, MacDonald accommodated the government soldiers alongside his own family.
07:43Now, that was nothing unusual.
07:45It was a way of collecting unpaid taxes, forcing people to pay for the food and board of soldiers.
07:51But after living side by side peacefully for two weeks, things turned to violence.
08:00In the pitch darkness in the early hours of the morning, shots rang out up and down the valley.
08:06The soldiers had turned on their hosts.
08:08But this was no battle or even an assassination.
08:12Orders had come through to completely extirpate, get rid of the McDonald's in Glencoe.
08:18They had been ordered to kill everybody, every man, woman and child under the age of 70, to cut off
08:24the clan root and branch.
08:26And they were told to take no prisoners.
08:3638 members of the McDonald clan were killed that night.
08:40But, as the story goes, the taxman, MacDonald of Acnecon, supposedly escaped the firing squad by tearing off his cloak,
08:48throwing it at the rifleman and running into the hills.
08:52So, this is a taxman's house. Yes.
08:54So, the most important person living in this area, that day, the wee hours of the morning, all hell broke
09:02loose, right?
09:03Yeah. Early in the morning, the door is booted in and a volley of shots ring through the doorway.
09:08And we have this really nice piece of impacted musket shot here from just within the walls of the house.
09:13Oh, my gosh. Whoa. That was embedded in the walls?
09:17So, that was embedded within the wall material, yes.
09:19It's incredible that that's just there, preserved.
09:22And we know MacDonald of Acnecon is one of the survivors of this, so he's injured.
09:26He's taken outside of his house and leant against the back wall.
09:28It's like firing squad, effectively. Essentially, yeah.
09:31Yeah, and in that kind of final moment, he whips off his plaid, his thick sort of tartan cloak, which
09:36would have been held at the shoulder by a plaid pin.
09:38He throws it over his would-be assailant's, and then he makes his way off into the hills, into safety
09:43beyond.
09:44And just outside, we're excavating, we found this bent plaid pin.
09:47No way. So, you're suggesting?
09:50It's hard to say for certain, but it certainly makes for a strong story there.
09:56For me, this is a community that is having musket balls fired at it, and it's not just men around
10:02a fire.
10:03There would probably be women and kids in there, and we know that was part of what was going on.
10:07Yes. They were there to be exterminated.
10:09Yes, yes. So, this is coming from the very highest levels of government in Scotland.
10:20Those who survived the initial gunfire escaped into the mountains.
10:25Where, in the depths of the Highland winter, many died of exposure.
10:32Eventually, a few did return to the valley.
10:36These structures, which were set on fire during the massacre, they seem to have been left abandoned.
10:42And so, we see houses built adjacent to the houses that were destroyed as part of the massacre.
10:45So, what is it like to live right next to a house that's been destroyed and where traumatic events have
10:50occurred?
10:50Where, presumably, the people living in those houses had also lived through those events?
10:54Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
10:54Particularly, yeah.
10:55Yeah. Yeah.
10:56But there was no fresh start.
10:58The team have uncovered evidence that the small community here continued to live under government surveillance.
11:06This clay pipe bowl represents later mid-18th century occupation of this landscape.
11:11This is a style of clay pipe that's being produced particularly for government troops.
11:16It has this stamped armorial on the front, which is the coat of arms of the king.
11:20It's been produced in London.
11:21So, someone travelling from down there who's received this as part of their tobacco ration is potentially being billeted in
11:26the Highlands yet again.
11:27And what is it like, you know, for the community here to experience that?
11:31Can you imagine?
11:32We could remember that massacre.
11:33And you remember what happens when troops get billeted in your village.
11:37Yeah, yeah.
11:37And you have another one on your doorstep.
11:39Especially, you know...
11:39Smoking a pipe, looking towards the house where your relatives were massacred.
11:43Yeah, yeah.
11:44So, there is, you know, this surely was quite an active kind of trauma in the landscape.
11:50Eventually, the Highlands were cleared.
11:52And this valley was turned into grazing land for more profitable sheep farms.
12:04This epic landscape is famous in the history books for the Glencoe massacre.
12:09And there's good evidence of that happening right here.
12:14Archaeology isn't only helping us understand the long history of this place, but also the events of just one fateful
12:24night.
12:25Well done.
12:49shocked and
12:53is
12:54senior
12:55what
12:55Dr.
12:58Every year, archaeologists unearth objects that ancient Britons crafted and constructed.
13:07But among the most illuminating finds are what remains of the people themselves.
13:13A single grave can reveal so much about an individual,
13:18who they were from a biological perspective, looking at the bones,
13:21but also a lot about the culture that was all around them,
13:24from the grave goods in that burial as well.
13:28But in fact, we get real insights into the past when we can look at whole communities,
13:34and that's exactly what archaeologists were able to do at this next site,
13:39where there were over 200 graves.
13:46For our next dig, we're heading just outside of Penrith, 40 miles south of Carlisle.
13:55Here, a team from Oxford Cotswolds Archaeology has been called in to excavate,
14:01ahead of a new construction project to improve the A66.
14:07And they've unearthed an exquisitely preserved cemetery,
14:12which dates back to the Roman period.
14:19The team are excavating hundreds of graves here.
14:23On three?
14:24On three?
14:25Yeah.
14:25One, two, three.
14:28Both inhumation burials and cremations are tightly packed together.
14:33I've got another one!
14:34In one of the largest Roman cemeteries ever found in the north-west of Britain.
14:41Look, there's a room.
14:43There's your...
14:43Oh!
14:46Go on as well.
14:47Oh, careful!
14:48Oh, that might be an urn.
14:50Oh, yay!
14:51Look at that!
14:52It's the room off a glass vessel.
14:54Fully entitled.
14:55That is very exciting.
14:56She's beautiful.
15:02Oh, my God!
15:03Look at that!
15:04That's amazing!
15:06Fully intact!
15:07That is pristine.
15:10That is a new here in peace.
15:11That is a new here in peace.
15:14This genuinely is the best site I've ever worked on.
15:17I mean, the quality of the archaeology is absolutely stunning.
15:20Lauren McIntyre is a specialist in burial archaeology,
15:23and she's amazed by what the team is finding here.
15:29The incredible preservation means they're gaining an extremely detailed insight
15:34into the way that people were burying their dead.
15:38This first feature is pretty typical of the cremation burials that we're finding here.
15:43This is a black burnished wet urn, and then it's got all this cobble packing around it.
15:48This is the sort of part that a lot of the cremated ashes are actually placed in.
15:53You may be able to see there's a little cross-hashing pattern on it
15:56there, somebody's taking quite a lot of time to dig this hole and put the pot in
16:00and make sure that it's all packed in nice and safe.
16:02It's obviously worked, because 2,000 years later here it still is all stood up.
16:08The archaeologists are carefully lifting every cremation, but each one poses its own unique challenges.
16:16These two pots could be grave goods that have maybe had food or drink or something like that in.
16:22Go, go, go!
16:24Right, and then...
16:26They're using plastic wrap to make sure the pots won't dry out and become brittle once lifted.
16:32It's probably going to be at least another few months before this bowl sees the light of day again.
16:38But the way that it's been wrapped means that it should be in pretty much the same condition when we
16:44open it up.
16:45I always feel it's a bit like you're kind of putting them to bed for the night.
16:48Tucking them in.
16:49Yeah.
16:53There are hundreds of these burials across the site,
16:57but while Roman cemeteries are often quite diverse,
17:00the team are finding that these graves are even more varied than usual.
17:05They contain many different quantities and styles of pottery.
17:09Each burial is unique.
17:12The variation that we're seeing is a reflection of the amount of personal choice
17:16that people would have had in how they wanted their grave to be.
17:19Even just thinking about Roman religion, they're pick and mix in a way.
17:23People pick and choose what deities they want to worship.
17:25So I suppose their funerary cultures are the same as well.
17:28You pick and choose what you want in your grave and what you want to take with you.
17:33Many of the burials contain grave goods.
17:36They're finding all sorts of small personal objects.
17:42This farm has a lovely golden little pin, so it's very exciting.
17:47It is definitely Cupid.
17:50A little bit of Roman ring, I think.
17:52Oh, wow.
17:53That's cool.
17:54What we think is maybe a strap-end or a belt buckle.
17:58Oh, wow.
18:00A little copper duck.
18:02Maybe part of a Roman brooch is a lovely little character.
18:07I've got something really, really cool.
18:09Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
18:11No way!
18:12Hang on.
18:13Is he made out of stone?
18:14I think it's...
18:15Oh, look at that!
18:17It's very light, so I think it's ceramic, maybe.
18:21Oh, my gosh!
18:23That's insane!
18:24That's really cool!
18:31With so many fascinating grave goods appearing on site,
18:35Lauren and Roman pottery specialist Edward Biddulph
18:38have come to share their discoveries in the Digging for Britain tent.
18:42Hello, Alay.
18:43Hi.
18:44You've got a lovely selection here.
18:46So tell me about these objects, then.
18:48These are a little bit of a mixture.
18:49Yeah.
18:50So, for example, this little amulet.
18:52Oh, that's interesting.
18:53Yes.
18:54So that looks unmistakably phallic, doesn't it?
18:59Yes, it does, it does.
19:00What's that about?
19:01Is that meant to bring luck?
19:02I mean, who knows?
19:03Fertility amulet, maybe?
19:05Yeah, yeah.
19:06Oh, a tiny little bronze Roman penis.
19:08There we go.
19:09Who that belonged to?
19:11Where is this from?
19:12This is from the cemetery.
19:13Yes.
19:13So this was an ordinary cooking pot.
19:15Right.
19:15And it...
19:17And you can actually see that it was a cooking pot
19:20because it still has burnt residues on the surface.
19:22And then they reused it.
19:23It's been reused because I needed something
19:27to put the cremated bone in.
19:29Yeah.
19:29After it's been burnt on the pyre
19:30and buried it into the grave.
19:32And do you get much of that pottery in this area?
19:35Yes.
19:35I suppose the fancy stuff,
19:36some of this samine ware,
19:38nice imported samine ware
19:39from Rome and France, from Gaul,
19:41would have been quite scarce
19:42in the smaller farmsteads.
19:44Yeah.
19:45But in the nearby forts,
19:47it's really quite common.
19:48Yeah.
19:49So you think that's been used as a funerary vessel as well?
19:51It was definitely used as a funerary vessel
19:52because I excavated a whole raft of cremated bone out of it.
19:55Yeah.
19:56This one has got a hunting scene on it.
19:58So you can see that there's actually little men on horses.
20:00Yeah.
20:00And there's like a bear
20:01and there's, I don't know if this is like a wolf or something
20:04and there's like dogs and things.
20:05Yeah.
20:06As well.
20:07It's lovely, isn't it?
20:08It's beautiful.
20:10It's beautiful.
20:10Is that a brooch?
20:11Yeah, we've got two brooches.
20:12So again, these are out of graves.
20:14So it suggests that people were probably clothed
20:17when they were put on the pyre.
20:18You know, they've got nice decorative objects with them.
20:20And again, we've got a few little gold objects as well.
20:23We've got a little gold brooch here.
20:25And again, it looks as though it's probably melted.
20:27Yes.
20:28So again, it's probably been on the pyre.
20:30It's lovely though.
20:31You've still got the pin on the back of it there.
20:32If you look carefully, it's got a tiny little stone inside it
20:35that's kind of sunk down into the fitting.
20:36So that would have been gathered up.
20:38So you're placing the body on the pyre,
20:40fully clothed, as you say,
20:42and with all the usual jewellery and other objects associated with it.
20:46They're kind of precious objects.
20:47Yeah.
20:48And then after the burning of the pyre is finished
20:51and it's cooled down,
20:53people are then collecting all of that up carefully.
20:56And we've also got these glass objects as well.
20:58These are absolutely beautiful.
21:01I mean, how have they survived?
21:03It's a very good question.
21:06It defies belief that this has survived.
21:09It's not even got a chip on it.
21:11All those years.
21:11Oh, look at that.
21:15So that could be, what, 1,800 years old?
21:17Yeah.
21:18Yeah.
21:19That is beautiful.
21:21What might that have been used for, do you think?
21:23Well, what do you think has that proper perfume?
21:24I think it would have had, yes, ointments and perfumes,
21:27something nice and fragrant.
21:29Perhaps a little bit was poured into the grave as a sort of offering.
21:32So this is from a grave?
21:33Yes, it is, yeah.
21:34But it clearly hasn't been on the pyre
21:35because it would have shattered, wouldn't it?
21:37Yeah.
21:38We've got more glass and this beautiful little figurine.
21:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:44What's this made of?
21:45This is a pipeclay figurine.
21:47We think it's probably either an infant or a child
21:49holding a little ceramic vessel.
21:52So we're not looking at the representation of a deity here,
21:55a god or a goddess.
21:56It's an ordinary person.
21:58It looks like it.
21:59So these pipeclay figurines,
22:01the most common design that you do get is Venus.
22:04And there's quite a lot of those knocking around in Rome and Britain.
22:08But this particular design with the child
22:09is extremely rare in this country.
22:12There's maybe three other examples of this design in the UK.
22:17And this looks to be the most complete one.
22:20Where they come up, they seem to be associated with funerary contexts.
22:23And you can also see that this one's been burnt.
22:25Fortunately, it's not broken, but you can see all this black marking.
22:28And it looks like it probably has been on the pyre.
22:30Even maybe it was on the edge of the pyre or something.
22:32Wow, isn't that incredible that that didn't break?
22:34It is incredible.
22:35Yeah, yeah.
22:36It's interesting, isn't it?
22:37This tells you something about that ongoing ritual.
22:40You've had the cremation and the ritual continues at the graveside
22:44and you're putting more objects into that grave.
22:46Yeah, yeah.
22:46And I'd say a lot of the graves, we don't really have a set style.
22:52There seems to be an awful lot of personal choice about it.
22:54And every single grave has been slightly different.
22:57Well, it's wonderful.
22:58And I look forward to hearing more when you've got further with the analysis
23:01and, you know, some more from the cremations as well.
23:04Thank you very much.
23:09Up and down, we're going, going nowhere fast.
23:16Time is awfully slowly, then suddenly it's up.
23:42The north-west of Britain is liberally scattered with monuments that have stood for centuries.
23:49From prehistoric stone circles like Kalanish on the Isle of Lewes
23:54to medieval fortresses like Broome Castle in Penrith.
24:01But archaeology can also reveal traces of more ephemeral events.
24:09Our next dig takes us to West Yorkshire and the city of Bradford.
24:20In the heart of the city sits the historic Lister Park,
24:24which hosted one of the largest and most ambitious civic exhibitions
24:30of the early 20th century.
24:35The Bradford exhibition of 1904 featured displays of cutting-edge industry,
24:43art, craft and visions of future technologies.
24:50But one attraction offered a very different experience – the so-called Somali village.
25:00European businessmen recruited 57 men, women and children from Somalia
25:06to live, perform and demonstrate their way of life
25:09in a purpose-built walled compound for six months.
25:16Displaying people from colonised countries was a popular form of entertainment.
25:24Now, for the first time, a team from the University of Bradford
25:28is hoping to find evidence of what daily life was really like here in the Somali camp.
25:36It's a temporary event and it's a challenge to find the archaeology.
25:42Chris Gaffney and Ben Jennings are leading the dig.
25:46So this is a sketch map which was given out in 1904 to visitors to orientate themselves within the
25:54exhibition itself. There are lots of different things identified – the railway, we've got the
26:00slide into the lake, we've got the bridge in the pagoda style and then up into this area, the Somali
26:09village.
26:10And we've put our trench somewhere along here and hopefully we've gone over the front boundary of the Somali village.
26:24The team has focused on a small area, but they're already finding plenty of evidence.
26:30So we've got a lot of ceramics coming out, lots of intact deposits.
26:34In the far side we've got glass bottles coming out intact, along with some metalwork.
26:39Moving across we have what appears to be some remains from the interior of the Somali village.
26:45We're finding distinct evidence of burning, which you can see on the ground in front of me,
26:51the dark band patch cutting into the clay surface. That's producing some slag from metalworkings,
26:57which we know they were doing inside the Somali village. And we've got some tar or pitch remains.
27:02We can really tell when we're finding this in the excavation because you can smell it,
27:06it's really got a fresh tar smell to it as soon as you come down onto the trowel.
27:11We know they're doing metalwork and we've found the remains of that, so we're definitely in the right spot.
27:17A small army of volunteers are painstakingly cleaning and categorising every object as it emerges.
27:26This bottle is really helpful. It's HP Source and in 1903 they drop Garton from the name.
27:35So this bottle dates to 1903 at the latest and could easily be used at the exhibition in 1904.
27:43We've got quite a few animal bones here. For example, this is a jawbone of a sheep. There's no reason
27:52why
27:52these sorts of remains should just turn up in this park. We do know that the Somalis killed and cooked
28:00and ate a sheep every single day. That was for the community. So therefore this really looks like
28:07it's linked to the Somali village.
28:12We've got this beautiful little bead here. We're not really certain if it's Somali, just got it out the
28:18ground earlier. But it's really ritzy. It's really beautifully decorated and it shows really just the
28:26context of the vibrancy of in and around the Somali village at that time. It really is a very beautiful
28:34piece.
28:38While the archaeologists are unearthing this physical evidence, Professor Yasmin Khan is visiting the
28:46West Yorkshire archives to find out what written history has to say.
28:51The Somali village was more than just a sideshow curiosity. I want to get a better understanding
28:56of what it was like to live there.
29:00I've come to meet Professor Fozia Bora, trustee of a Somali-led project to piece together
29:06the lives of the villagers who once called Lister Park home.
29:18Fozia, there's an amazing array of things here. Newspaper cuttings, postcards, photographs.
29:25Yes, it's been quite a journey to find these, source them and get them together.
29:30So these look like programmes. There's an official souvenir and a catalogue.
29:35A catalogue of all the exhibits in the Great Exhibition. So if we take a look on page 49.
29:42Somali village, there we are. And we can see the troop consists of male and female natives,
29:49including adults and children. Native customs, pastimes, occupations and ceremonies are shown
29:54and among the demonstrations, wrestling and spear throwing are especially entertaining.
29:59So the public would walk through the village and observe what was happening. So this is a good
30:04example of the Somalis doing a display of a war dance and you see children and adults watching them
30:13do that. Yeah, it's really voyeuristic, isn't it? But very little privacy. Very little privacy.
30:18And there's women there too who don't necessarily want to be on a show the whole time. Right, right.
30:24And we have a good illustration of this in a glass lantern slide taken by a photographer at the time
30:29in 1904. So here we see a group of Somalis and then there's what looks like a woman's figure here,
30:38but she's decided to cover her face with her shawl. I think what that tells us is she doesn't really
30:43particularly want to be photographed in that moment. So you can see glimpses of resistance or
30:48non-corporation happening in the images. Right. There is just something innately really uncomfortable
30:54about this. Each of the Somali villagers signed up to join the exhibition as a type of employment.
31:03But they weren't paid well. About £1,000 in today's money for six months. And it ended up costing them
31:10a lot more. A fire broke out in August. They lost two huts full of extremely valuable possessions,
31:17artifacts, which in today's money would be worth thousands of pounds. And they picket the city hall,
31:23which is for compensation for the goods that they'd lost in the fire. Yes.
31:26So they're standing up for themselves. So on the one hand, they're robbed of agency by being in this
31:33form of employment. It's exploitative. It's asymmetric. On the other hand, within the setup,
31:38they do what they can to stand up for themselves. They're not passive. And it's generating a whole
31:44load of media interest as well. Right. There were articles in the local press on a rolling basis
31:49describing events that happened in the village. So here we have an account of domestic upheaval amongst
31:54the Somali. The fickle Fatima. The young husband became so excited that he developed a sort of
32:00hysteria. He yelled and screeched and waved his arms frantically. So there's a sort of domestic
32:05happening between this couple. Yes. And every detail of it is being reported in the newspaper.
32:11Yes. I think this speaks of this really complex balancing act between their agency and their ability
32:16to say no. You're absolutely right. What is the nature of that employment? It's a good question.
32:20They have entered into this form of employment. But we do know that they were not forced and it did
32:27become a way of life for a number of Somalis who went on to go on to more of these
32:31trips.
32:32Mm-hmm. So this source really caught my eye because it says Mohammedan burial in Bradford,
32:38so Muslim burial in Bradford. Yesterday the remains of Haleema Abdi, a Somali woman who died in the early
32:46hours of yesterday at the Bradford exhibition. A doctor was called and he diagnosed her with
32:51tuberculosis. She had a husband and a young child, but she was kept by herself and treated with
32:58traditional medicine. She was never taken off-site and that was in keeping with Somali's wishes.
33:04It adds a whole different light to this exhibition to think of somebody dying there and being sick,
33:11presumably while visitors are still coming through to see the village. Yes.
33:14From an early hour yesterday until the removal of the body at 6.30pm, the village was the scene of
33:21mourning and for part of the day was closed to visitors. So they still opened on the same day
33:27that she died. Yes. Part of the commercial nature of this exhibition that the show must go on.
33:35There's lots of details here all about the funeral and the spectacle of it, drawing the gaze of
33:41shopkeepers and pedestrians alike. Despite the desire to keep the funeral as private as possible,
33:46a congregation of a couple of hundred people had assembled in the vicinity of the grave. The mullah
33:52again took up the burial service and the mourners joined in the amen. I'm sort of left wondering if
33:57that included the local people and the onlookers. Yes. On the one hand, they wouldn't have understood
34:03the Arabic of the prayers. On the other hand, as Christians, they would have taken the cue from the
34:08Somalis to say amen when the Somalis would be saying ameen, which is their equivalent of that same word.
34:15So it's a moment of togetherness. A similar funeral had not hitherto taken place in Bradford.
34:22So that's a hugely significant moment for this city. That's the first ever missing burial.
34:27It's incredibly significant. Absolutely.
34:47This is Halimo's grave. And as you can see, it was only put here in 2004. For over a hundred
34:55years,
34:55this spot was unmarked and unremembered. And that's why these excavations at places like
35:02Lister Park are so important because they really enable us to remember these hidden stories.
35:13Have your children, your flock of birds, your branch among the world.
35:33And as those years go by, they'll look upon you kindly like a friend.
36:06Next, we revisit one of my favourite sites from digging for Britain in recent years.
36:15I was in Carlisle in 2023, documenting the discovery of an incredible monumental bath house
36:23with beautiful stone heads and carved gemstones.
36:28And since then, the team have been hard at work finding even more evidence of the people that use the
36:34bath house,
36:35but also discovering how that building changed function over time.
36:44We're returning to Carlisle, just seven miles south of the modern border with Scotland.
36:53Here, archaeologists have been investigating a huge site, which dates back...
37:00..to the Roman period.
37:03In 2023, I joined the team from Wardle Armstrong Archaeology,
37:08as they made a surprise discovery.
37:10An enormous bath house brimming with Roman finds.
37:17Piece of plaster. That would be Roman.
37:21Lovely piece of Roman glass, and you can just see the colour. It's a really lovely sky blue.
37:29We just found what we thought was a large boulder, but on the other side, there's a sculptured face.
37:34OK, one, two, three...
37:37Oh, wow, wow!
37:38Oh, my gosh!
37:40Something really special is going on here, so everyone's wildly excited.
37:46Brilliant.
37:49The sheer scale of the site and the wealth of finds suggests this place was quite important.
37:58Well, this is where it gets really exciting. When we have this imp tile here, this is a direct commission
38:04to the imperial court.
38:07So, I, M...
38:08P, Imperator.
38:10And which emperor, do we know?
38:12Septimius Severus. I would put money on it.
38:14We know it was up in the north of England, so for a short while, the north of England would
38:18have been the centre of the Roman Empire.
38:22This year, the team are back.
38:24They want to know how long the bathhouse was used for, and what else was here at the time.
38:33Archaeologist Frank Jerko is leading the dig.
38:37This season, one of the important aims was to look at activity to the south of the building, and this
38:43is what you can see here.
38:44So, we've just gone over the road, and now we're walking towards this building that I'm comfortable now in calling
38:52a temple.
38:55The discovery of this temple suggests the enormous bathhouse was actually part of an even larger complex.
39:03It's a rectangular building using these huge post pads. I've never seen them four or five high.
39:10These would have been to support wooden uprights the size of telegraph poles.
39:15But just because it's wood doesn't mean it wasn't grand.
39:19As always on this site, there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.
39:23Because we've got wall plaster from this building, which hints that the building was plastered.
39:30So, it's a wooden constructed building that could have looked like a stone building.
39:36Frank's daughter, archaeologist Anna Dzeko, is recording every fragment of wall plaster from the temple and the imperial bathhouse.
39:48When you do archaeology and you're on sites, it's all kind of browns and greys.
39:52So, it's lovely to get a glimpse of the colour, because the Romans, like, they didn't live in black and
39:56white and grey.
39:57They lived in a beautiful, colourful, painted world.
40:01So, this piece here, there's this beautiful red stripe, then we've got a dark blue one.
40:06You can see how the blue actually overlaps where the red goes.
40:10We've counted on this piece, it's actually been repainted around five, six times.
40:14It gives us a really good insight into what kind of quality the building was.
40:19So, this one you can see a lovely dark blue and turquoise stripe, with then a white stripe.
40:24But then even underneath that, you can see little red fragments coming through.
40:27And then you can see just at the top, there's a thin sort of darker blue line.
40:31So, that's another layer of plaster.
40:32So, it's something I haven't seen before.
40:35And it's a proper kind of look through the Romans' eyes to what they would have seen at that time.
40:42This evidence of renovation and redecoration shows the building was in use for a long time.
40:49But Frank believes that some key finds suggest it wasn't always a bathhouse.
40:56These are military-led seals.
40:58The closest thing we have today would be, for special occasions, you might have a wax seal on a document
41:04with your family crest or something.
41:06It's the same principle.
41:08These would have had a bit of string closing a military document.
41:12So, when they open the document, you cut the string and you throw these away.
41:16And there's a lot you can read from them.
41:18It tells you who sent them, shows their name will be on one side, and on the other side, it
41:23would be the regiment.
41:24So, they don't look much, but there's this huge amount of information that gleaned from me is telling us that
41:29the use of the building has changed from somewhere where the well-to-do of Carlisle would go to relax
41:34and meet up to more of a military administrative building,
41:38where they may be fixing things, military documents are coming in, and this is reflected in these little-led seals.
41:56Anna and fellow archaeologist Nick Henderson have brought some of their most intriguing finds to the tent.
42:06Nick and Anna, so you've got more finds from Carlisle that have come up since I visited?
42:11We do, with lots.
42:13What's this copper alloy object? That's really weird. What on earth is it?
42:17So, it's a tiny, um, votive altar.
42:20Is it?
42:21So, it's got enamelling on each side.
42:23Yeah.
42:24And basically, it would have been in a set of three.
42:25They would have stacked up on top of each other.
42:27So, you see how it's got little dents there and there.
42:31Oh, yeah.
42:31So, that's where the second one would have stood on top of it.
42:34And what was it for? How would it have been used?
42:36Some sort of ritualistic prayer or something.
42:39I can see three different colours. You've got what now looks like this turquoise colour,
42:44and then you've got blues and reds as well.
42:46I mean, that is stunning, isn't it?
42:48What a beautiful, beautiful object.
42:50And then you've got more enamelled objects.
42:53Yeah, so we've got two brooches. This one's a milfewy brooch.
42:56Wow.
42:57That one came out the ground looking like that.
42:59They thought it was just like a plastic bottle cap that had found its way in.
43:02Yeah, the colours are so amazing.
43:04And then that one's a little stud.
43:07Oh, that's absolutely gorgeous.
43:08So you've got these tiny little flowers made in glass.
43:11And then they've chopped it through and then assembled it into a brooch.
43:16And whereabouts were these found on the site?
43:18They were both found within this new temple-like area.
43:22OK.
43:22Do you think they're objects which have been dropped by accident,
43:25or could they be votive offerings?
43:26They could be votive offerings.
43:28Yeah.
43:28They weren't too far away from this,
43:30which then adds this sort of idea of maybe these votive offerings
43:32that have been kind of left in the area.
43:34Yeah.
43:36But as well as these potentially deliberately placed objects,
43:40the team also found plenty that were accidentally lost.
43:46Precious items that washed down into the drains under the bathhouse.
43:52I remember these from when I visited the site, Anna.
43:55And in the sediment were these entaliers.
43:57So you've got some more here.
43:59So, yeah, we've got a massive collection.
44:01So who's that?
44:01So that's Cupid, and it's kneeling down to Psyche as a butterfly.
44:06Isn't that lovely?
44:08So these would have been in rings?
44:09In their insignet rings.
44:11Yeah.
44:11So they'd be used as a sort of personal stamp.
44:13Yeah.
44:14And over here we've got...
44:16Who have we got here?
44:16So that's Myzalter.
44:18So that would have been a big man's ring,
44:20probably someone in the military.
44:22Yeah.
44:23We've got Victory, which from the size of it,
44:25it's also probably from a man's ring as well.
44:27Yeah.
44:29And then a beautiful amethyst intaglio of Venus,
44:33which that's the earliest intaglio we've got to the second century.
44:36Oh, it's amazing.
44:37Which is really cool.
44:38So we're saying that actually they're in use for a long period of time.
44:42Well, do you think it's staying as a bathhouse throughout?
44:44I think its sort of main occupation as a bathhouse was sort of 20 years,
44:47and then it starts to progress onto something different.
44:50We know later on it becomes more, like, administrative.
44:53Right.
44:53We've got huge amounts of coins coming in,
44:55so it definitely changes to some sort of different use later on.
44:58That's interesting, isn't it?
45:01And, last but not least...
45:03Yeah, so this...
45:03Tell me about this, Nick. I mean, that's just beautiful.
45:06It's a Fortuna head.
45:07When we were watching the digger on the first day of sight,
45:10this popped out and just missed the bucket of the digger.
45:13Yeah. Can I pick it up?
45:14Yeah, yeah. Yeah, please.
45:16What is the stone?
45:17So it's sandstone, so it's local sandstone,
45:19so it was probably quarried not that far away from Carlisle.
45:22There's a connection with Severus and Fortuna.
45:25Severus thought he was quite a lucky guy,
45:26which he kind of was, to be honest.
45:27Yeah, by the time you become emperor.
45:29Yeah, by emperor.
45:30So she's got these sort of fantastic drop earrings as well.
45:33She's fantastic.
45:34It is. We're really lucky to get,
45:35because of how much the site was quarried,
45:37they've taken, like, even the cobbles
45:39from underneath the building's foundations.
45:41So we're really lucky when we get the tiny bits of sculpture and things.
45:44Lucky's the right word, because it's Fortuna.
45:46Yeah.
45:46What a successful year's digging.
46:15There are plenty of traces of the ancient past
46:19in the north-west of Britain, going back hundreds or even thousands of years.
46:27But anything that gets buried underground has the chance to become archaeology,
46:32as our next dig reveals.
46:36Tories off to Kelvin Grove Park in Glasgow's West End.
46:46Among the playing fields and woodland is a modern skate park.
46:52Here, skaters carve the ramps and bowls with daring tricks.
46:57But many are unaware that the nearby trees conceal a part of skating history.
47:05Dating back nearly half a century to the 1970s.
47:16Nestled in Kelvin Grove Park lies one of Scotland's most unexpected archaeological sites,
47:22a concrete skate park hidden in plain sight.
47:27The original skate park, known as the Kelvin Wheelies,
47:31was one of the first ever skateboarding facilities built in the UK.
47:37This state-of-the-art park opened in May 1978,
47:42complete with bowls, slalom run and half pipes.
47:45It was incredibly popular with young skaters, but eventually the park was closed down and buried due to safety concerns.
47:55But there's no record of that happening, and nobody who was there at the time can remember exactly when.
48:03As styles of skating changed over time, so did the design of skate parks.
48:09So now, a team of local skaters and the University of Glasgow are using archaeology to try to rediscover
48:17this founding piece of skating history.
48:21Archaeologist Kenny Brophy is leading the dig.
48:27Kenny! Oh, Kenny, I have not seen one of those for a while.
48:30No, those have not been on archaeology sites for a long time.
48:33I'll hold it while it develops, shall I?
48:34In keeping with the age of the site we're digging.
48:36That's just it, isn't it? This is not an ordinary archaeological site, is it?
48:39No, it's not quite as old as your typical site.
48:42It dates back to 1977.
48:45So it's within living memory within the last 50 years,
48:48so I guess it's what we might call a kind of contemporary archaeology.
48:51So what then are you hoping to find out by taking this archaeological approach to a modern feature?
48:58Yeah, so what we're really hoping to find here is evidence of when and how it was backfilled.
49:02Is there anything in there that might date exactly when that happened?
49:06And can we tell the story of what was happening here when this place was being decommissioned?
49:10The team use the exact same process and techniques here that they use on ancient sites.
49:16They analyse the layers of soil and rubble inside the slalom.
49:21Oh, look at this.
49:23It's just a classic archaeological section, as good as anything that I've seen in my 25 years of excavating.
49:29Yeah, you're going from top to bottom, you've got the modern topsoil.
49:32Yes.
49:33And then you've got this layer of what looks like clay.
49:35Yes, yeah.
49:35And then I can see bits and bobs.
49:38Yes, and even the smallest bit of evidence could help us say exactly when this was backfilled,
49:42because there's actually no record of when this happened.
49:45Everyone's saying, was it 82, 83, 84? No-one remembers.
49:49It's amazing how quickly people forget. Archaeology can bring those memories back.
49:57Unlike most other archaeological sites, the team here is able to draw from members of the community
50:03who actually remember the skate park, like local skate shop owner Jamie Blair.
50:12Jamie, you were there on day one. Yeah.
50:14Paint me a picture of what it was like to skate here for the first time.
50:18Super excited. People from all over, and then people were bombing down hills and tearing through here
50:24with the marshals with their whistles and their tracksuits, black and red tracksuits,
50:29telling them where they could go and where they couldn't go.
50:31So, you've got all these pictures here? Yeah. Where do we start?
50:34Oh, look. That's somewhere here.
50:36So, we are sitting on the... This is where we are?
50:37..you know, we are right here. And then there's your marshal.
50:41I think there's another photograph. This is, again, this is early days. But there you go.
50:46Is this you? Yeah, stick my tongue out.
50:49How old are you here? Probably 13 and a half. Maybe 14, actually. Probably 14.
50:54Is that what you remember? What is your, like, yeah, your key memories?
50:58Erm, your friends. Just the team member, you know, your team mates. And I remember that.
51:03I remember the laughs you have. You're just kids. You're having fun. You're just skateboarding.
51:07We're crazy for skateboarding.
51:10As the team dig out the concrete slopes, a new generation of skating volunteers
51:15get to see the original skate park for the first time.
51:22Did you know that there was an old park here in the trees?
51:26I'd known it since I was younger. It was almost here in, like, fairy tales. Because I've never
51:31seen anything like this, you know. I can't compare it to anything else that I've skated before.
51:38Nothing like this is built these days. Like, skateboarding has changed completely. So back
51:41when this was made, there wasn't even an ollie, which is the basic sort of mechanism for getting
51:45off of the ground. So just the whole way that people would ride boards was just not the same at
51:50all.
51:50Yeah. And so that meant the parks were different, yeah? Yeah, exactly.
51:53Is it important to you to sort of understand this side of skateboarding, the historical side of it?
51:59Yeah, I mean, this is where it all came from. And it looks a lot more fun, to be honest.
52:04As well as glimpsing the hidden shape of the park, the team are unearthing evidence of youth
52:09culture from before many of them were born. Archaeologist Kieran Manship has lined up some of
52:17the most unusual finds we've ever seen on Digging for Britain. What have you been finding, then?
52:26So just in front of us, we have these quite distinct white lines. We think they're
52:31contemporary to the skate park. It's not easily interpretable graffiti, is it?
52:35No. It doesn't look like someone's tag.
52:37No. It isn't an image.
52:39No. It's just two parallel white lines.
52:43Yeah, yeah. That could puzzle you if it was 30,000 years old.
52:47Are you equally puzzled even though it's only 50 years old?
52:49Yeah, I think we're puzzled at the moment, bearing in mind that there's a story of
52:52certain points of the bowl being marked because that's where you maybe try a trick or that's
52:58maybe what you were to aim for to avoid falling off and hurting yourself or something. So I wonder
53:02if it's maybe just a quick mark that's been put down.
53:05I do like that, but I also like how it's so mysterious. Even though it's only 50 years old,
53:10the mysteries are there. Yeah. So in terms of dating some of the material,
53:15we've actually been quite lucky in that we've been able to find sweetie wrappers that have
53:19best before dates on them. Yes.
53:21And so here we have a six pack of penguins. Oh my gosh.
53:26Yep. So you can see the wee penguin. Yeah, look at that.
53:28And on the rear side, there we go.
53:31Best before. 14th of March, 83.
53:35Yep. And also a lovely Twix wrapper and probably even in better condition than the penguin
53:40was also found right at the bottom of the rubble.
53:44It's got a date on this too. This is the 21st of May, 83. 83 is coming up, big numbers
53:49here.
53:49Yes, exactly. So this is like your stopped watch.
53:52Yeah. This is telling you when that happened.
53:54Yes, it is. So we know that the site had been backfilled by, you know, May of 1983.
53:58That's amazing.
54:00Yeah. We've also found, I think it's a kind of hologram. It's Dennis Law, the Scottish footballer.
54:07And I think he's wearing a Man United shirt. Oh, yeah.
54:10So I think we put that, put it towards the early seventies.
54:12This is a really youthful story. Yeah.
54:15The assemblage here is, it feels like, you know, a youthful assemblage, you know,
54:18with the chocolate bars, your football hero, you know, the archaeology is right.
54:22It's captured what this place was about.
54:24Yeah, exactly that. And, you know, it's different, but the processes are still the same with archaeology.
54:29And I think that's what, you know, you can apply that to any type of human past.
54:33It doesn't matter if it's the 1970s.
54:35Yeah. No, I love it. It's absolutely brilliant, isn't it?
54:37Yeah.
54:44You've got all these memories, but what does the dig mean to you?
54:47It's just really interesting. I mean, it was a great shame that this park got filled in.
54:52It broke a lot of skateboarders' hearts, but it's just good to kind of roll back and see it.
54:56And it was fun trying to find, oh, I remember that bit. There should be a bit there.
55:01I'm digging and you hear this clunk and break away and you can see the old lip and stuff.
55:05The other reaction was, jeez, am I that old? They're literally digging up the bones of my childhood.
55:10But, yeah, skateboarding's alive and well, so it's all good.
55:16Towards the end of the final day of the dig, the volunteers can't help themselves.
55:23Skateboards ride the concrete of the original Kelvin Grove skate park for the first time in more than four decades.
55:52Tori, I think this is the most recent archaeology that we have ever had on digging for Britain.
55:59Yes, it's, say, what, 40-odd years old.
56:01A horrifying thought because it basically made me realise that I am now archaeology.
56:06Yeah, the archaeology of the recent past.
56:08Yes. It's a whole... I say it's a whole different thing. It's not.
56:11It's exactly the same. The process is the same.
56:13And that's really interesting.
56:15It's interesting to think about archaeology through time,
56:18that we can approach the prehistoric era and archaeology is the only way
56:23we have of reconstructing those people's lives.
56:26Then, as soon as we're into the Roman era, we've got history alongside the archaeology.
56:31And in this period, you've got history alongside archaeology, alongside living memory.
56:38Yes, exactly. Yeah.
56:39And you could then ask the question, really, like, what's the point?
56:42And I think the point, really, there is that even with living memory, it's not good enough.
56:46No-one could find out the answer to a very fundamental question, which was,
56:50when was this skate park covered up?
56:53Really?
56:54Yes. We think we have all the answers in our historical record.
56:56Yeah.
56:57But someone, somewhere, decided that that piece of information wasn't worth keeping.
57:00There's some really important questions here, I think, for us today.
57:03Yes.
57:03About which parts of the past we value.
57:07Exactly. I mean, the graffiti that was uncovered of two enigmatic white lines.
57:12If that had turned up in a cave in prehistory, oh, my goodness, imagine what would be said.
57:15It actually was probably a point where someone put their hands as they were doing a trick, right?
57:20You know, you say that all those things become quite an interesting way of reminding ourselves
57:23that human life has a lot of ritual and reverence and things that are within it,
57:27but also can be playful, mundane, silly, you know, all of these things.
57:32Because that's as much, if not more, important to the daily life of the average person than the great monuments
57:38that we revere.
57:40Yeah. Still today, history is too much about kings and queens, and archaeology forces us to look at ordinary people,
57:49to look at all of us.
57:50Yeah.
57:57Next time on Digging for Britain, archaeologists discover a once-in-a-lifetime find.
58:05The most amazing thing I've ever seen in British archaeology.
58:10A team investigates an Iron Age site with links to the continent.
58:15The Romans haven't conquered, but their culture has.
58:19And we go behind the scenes at one of the largest digs ever to take place in Britain.
58:26I have never seen anything like this. I mean, I've got goosebumps.
58:29Phenomenal!
58:29To come and search for you, who search and look in for us, Galalad.
58:37I dig for those whose stories live in very parts of the future, one.
58:46And dig for us, as we have done to lay the dead out in the sun, to lay us dead
58:56out in the sun.
58:59Let us search for them, andå ¡ Cindy, to be sure there is coming.
58:59Nice to meet you, have been working on this happening, and I die.
58:59A spot that looks like King Proustoon.
58:59I met old DJ and today...
58:59And when you ask King Proustoo, we??
59:00Some talk places.
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