- 10 minutes ago
A Dutch gunship, a Cornish Roman fort and a Neolithic monument. and Henry VIII's financial forgery revealed.
爱丽丝·罗伯茨（Alice Roberts）揭示了一艘被英国人击沉的荷兰船只、一座位于康沃尔的罗马堡垒以及一处拥有5000年历史的新石器时代遗迹。
爱丽丝·罗伯茨（Alice Roberts）揭示了一艘被英国人击沉的荷兰船只、一座位于康沃尔的罗马堡垒以及一处拥有5000年历史的新石器时代遗迹。
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TVTranscript
00:09Everywhere you look, the rich history of the United Kingdom is there to be seen.
00:15But hidden beneath our feet, there's still a wealth of archaeological treasure just waiting to be found.
00:22That's why each year, all across the country, our archaeologists dig, dive and explore their way down.
00:32Oh, my God. Some of the best stuff you'll ever going to see. Oh, wow.
00:39Searching for fresh discoveries.
00:42Hyperghost.
00:44Revealing the imprint of ancient civilisations.
00:48He's been there for five and a half thousand years.
00:49And unearthing fascinating objects.
00:52Fantastic decoration.
00:54And he must get more to your errands.
00:55Wow, look at that.
00:57Every dig adds new pieces to the ever-growing archaeological jigsaw that is the epic story of our islands.
01:08This year, I visit digs in some extraordinary locations and solve mysteries using cutting-edge tools.
01:17Oh, this is wonderful.
01:20I'm joined by a trio of expert investigators.
01:24So you can see how that gives you a really unique signature.
01:28That's right. Excellent.
01:30So they were using food as a type of bribery.
01:32Who dig deeper to answer the questions raised by the finds.
01:36That's how he got away with it.
01:37Exactly.
01:39Finally, the archaeologists bring their best discoveries into our tent.
01:43Yeah, it's a cracking find.
01:45Yeah, it's a cracking find.
01:45For up-close analysis.
01:47So it's a completely unique impression.
01:48That's wonderful.
01:51Welcome to Digging for Britain.
02:10This time, with so many brilliant digs to explore, we're headed back to the south of Britain.
02:17In Wiltshire, we dig down into a mysterious chamber that may hold ancient secrets.
02:24It's weird.
02:25What is it?
02:26I mean, that's the big question.
02:28Off the Sussex coast, we hunt down the identity of a sunken ship that sparked a war with the Dutch.
02:34We've got cannons.
02:35We've got big cannons.
02:36And in Cornwall, a huge newly discovered army camp redraws the map of the Roman invasion.
02:44What they've done is really quite impressive to go, we're Rome, this is it.
02:52But our first dig leads us to a fascinating period of British history known as the Anarchy.
03:07Following the conquest of 1066, many of England's new Norman rulers built castles for protection from their new subjects and
03:17each other.
03:18Some of these structures remain impressive today.
03:22But if you look hard, you can also find the smaller homes that they lived in when travelling or hunting.
03:31Our investigation is taking place in what was once a medieval hunting park in South Gloucestershire, near a small village
03:39called Lower Hazel.
03:46Here, hidden in the woods, are the ruins of some very old buildings.
03:51I've heard that they could provide rare evidence of a skirmish or siege during a medieval civil war.
04:00The site's owner, John, got the dig up and running when he had a hunch that something special lay here
04:06beneath his trees.
04:08So, John, how did this all start?
04:11You bought this woodland.
04:12How did you imagine that there might be some archaeology here?
04:15Well, it all started with looking at an old map, which said site of chapel.
04:19But this, obviously, it was far too big to be a chapel.
04:23In 2011, John invited a local archaeology group along,
04:27who've slowly but surely uncovered the ruins we see today.
04:31If it's a dry Wednesday, they'll probably find us here.
04:35This year, the volunteers are joined by a team from the University of Bristol.
04:42And the project's led by our very own Digging for Britain medieval expert, Stuart Pryor.
04:49Stuart, it's great to be visiting you to talk about one of your sites,
04:53because I know this is a site that you've been absolutely itching to come and dig.
04:59Why is it so fascinating? What's the big mystery that you want to get to the bottom of?
05:03So, this is one of the sites where it goes right through what's known as the Anarchy Period.
05:08So, it's a 12th century site.
05:11The Anarchy was a long, chaotic civil war that followed the death of King Henry I in 1135.
05:19His daughter, Matilda, was in line to succeed him as Queen,
05:23but her cousin Stephen had other ideas.
05:27Empress Matilda and King Stephen are fighting over the English throne.
05:32And we know that in this period, there's 19 years of hell, literally,
05:36because you've got a continual battle going backwards and forwards across this country.
05:40And this is a perfect site for, you know, one of those attacks from King Stephen's men.
05:46So, prove it to me. Prove to me that we're looking at a site
05:49that was something that could have been important during this Anarchy Period.
05:53Well, to start with, we'll go with the coins, right? So, you've got Henry I, OK?
05:59We've got a King Stephen coin, OK?
06:02And Henry II at the end there, half penny.
06:05So, that's pre-Anarchy, post-Anarchy and Stephen himself.
06:09Right in the middle of the Anarchy. Right in the middle, absolutely, yeah.
06:12Great.
06:12We've got Norman Spur.
06:15Prick Spur. So, just to prick the source of the side to make him go faster.
06:19So, there are definitely Normans here with horses.
06:22Yeah.
06:24Then, you've got things like the butt of the spear, yeah?
06:27So, basically...
06:28Now, it could be used for hunting, but it can also be used for warfare.
06:31The top and the bottom.
06:32The top and the bottom of the spear, yeah.
06:33And then we've got some arrowheads.
06:35Yeah.
06:36So, this is a fairly early one, about the 11th century.
06:38And then, you know, this goes into the sort of 13th century.
06:41So, you've got objects which are suggesting to you that this was a hunting lodge.
06:47It's a high-status Norman hunting lodge essentially.
06:54Enough evidence has been gathered at the dig to recreate, in a model,
06:58how this lodge might have looked in the early 12th century,
07:01just before the Anarchy.
07:05But the big question is, what happened to the lodge?
07:09Did it fall into ruin through neglect?
07:12Was it demolished?
07:13Or was it attacked?
07:17Stuart and his colleague Costas have found evidence that might help provide an answer.
07:23This looks like a wall which has, you know, I mean, it's a horizontal wall, isn't it?
07:27It's a wall that's stood up and then it's just fallen down like that.
07:29I can see the courses in it.
07:32I don't know if this is a question you can even answer.
07:34Does this look like a building which has gradually fallen down?
07:40Or do you think this is more of an abrupt event?
07:43Because the courses are still in place, it looks like an abrupt event.
07:46So, for us, it's another evidence that this building has been brutally disrupted
07:52during the Anarchy period.
07:54Brilliant.
07:55So, you've got some in situ from the exact period you're interested in.
08:00While this collapsed wall hints at intentional demolition,
08:04it doesn't tell us how or why this happened.
08:07Was the building simply abandoned and falling into ruin?
08:10Or was it destroyed during a siege?
08:13Do you think that it was attacked during the Anarchy?
08:18Yes, I do, I do.
08:19And I'll tell you why.
08:20Because over the last few years,
08:23the volunteers have found two pieces of evidence that really convinced me.
08:28They are these two impressive stone balls that I've got in my hand here.
08:34I'm convinced that these are trebuchet balls that were launched through the roof of the structure
08:41in the 12th century in that attack.
08:44And whereabouts on the site were these found?
08:46Actually, in the Norman Hunter Lodge itself.
08:47So, over there?
08:48Yeah, over there.
08:49And basically, they were lobbed through the roof and sat there since the 12th century,
08:54waiting to be discovered by our archaeologists.
08:56They've even got impact damage on them and they've actually hit the building.
09:00So, you're convinced that those are weapons?
09:03Well, either that or a fancy paperweight from the 11th century or 12th century.
09:10After this period of destruction,
09:12the archaeologists can see that rebuilding was happening.
09:15People were still here.
09:17One of the students has some dateable evidence.
09:21We've actually found, in this area, we found some pottery.
09:26It's ham green, with a ham green glaze.
09:29So, this is from about 1250 maybe onwards from there.
09:38Other sherds of ham green pottery found here have been expertly reassembled
09:42to show what a splendid jug this must have been.
09:46And we found other pottery that dates to around the 11th century below that.
09:50So, it's all kind of matching up with that kind of idea of 11th, 12th century dates then?
09:56Right.
09:56Yeah.
09:57Right around the dates we're looking for.
09:58Yeah.
09:59Right around the anarchy if it's 12th century.
10:03No pottery later than the 13th century has been found,
10:07which tells us there was probably no further occupation here.
10:11And so, this ruin became a time capsule of those two medieval centuries.
10:18This is such an intriguing site.
10:21It is totally one of those sites that you arrive at and it all looks very clear.
10:25It all looks as though it's nicely laid out on the surface, very obvious.
10:29And then I started to talk to Stuart and Costas and look more carefully and it's much more complicated.
10:35But there's still so much more to learn here and I think the team will be digging here for years
10:40to come.
10:48We dig for the gods that leave no bones
10:53For the ships in the sun can see
10:57Need a vessel along to the sky of stones
11:01With my men, the road and the merchant's key
11:09The English Channel has seen a huge amount of action over the centuries.
11:14Not only does it divide us from France, our historical sparring partner,
11:19but it also formed a crucial trade and access route for dozens of northern European countries,
11:27amongst them what is now the Netherlands.
11:29And in fact, for almost half a century, we were fighting the Dutch Navy on a regular basis,
11:37in these narrow waters.
11:44The struggle to control trade routes and overseas colonies
11:48was behind three 17th century naval conflicts that became known as the Anglo-Dutch Wars.
11:57Our next dig is located on the seabed of the English Channel,
12:01a few miles south of Eastbourne at the site of an extraordinary shipwreck.
12:06Alex, yes. Terry, yes. Peter, yes.
12:09OK, we are all present and correct.
12:13In 2019, a team led by Mark Beatty Edwards of the Nautical Archaeology Society
12:19started diving on a recently discovered wreck
12:22that is potentially one of the most important ships sunk during battles with the Dutch.
12:35The first thing we've got to try and work out is what is it?
12:39You know, to prove something's importance or significance in our history,
12:42we need to put a name on that,
12:44and that identity is only going to come out from the evidence that's on the seabed.
12:49The first hint of the wreck emerged from scans of the seabed.
12:54The team investigated and soon confirmed suspicions
12:57that this was a previously unrecorded and very substantial post-medieval shipwreck.
13:06Since then, they've created this 3D model of the wreck.
13:12Today, the team hope to record and recover evidence
13:15that may finally solve the mystery of the ship's identity.
13:21The site extends about 30 metres long by about 10 metres wide.
13:26It's definitely a wooden ship, and we've got cannons.
13:29We've got big cannons.
13:30So far, we've counted 31 cannons,
13:34which is either a very heavily armed merchant ship or it's a warship.
13:40I've got 40 bar.
13:43Depending on the tide, the wreck is around 30 metres deep,
13:46so the team must limit dive time
13:49or risk the potentially fatal decompression sickness known as the bends.
13:54So, 32 metres to the bottom.
13:57We'll get them to tell you what their plan is going to be.
14:0040 minutes should be on the surface, 60 minutes should be on the surface.
14:04OK, Dave!
14:12Ready!
14:29The visibility today is exceptional.
14:33there's enough light to see and film the wreck
14:42among the team who discovered the ship is graham irwin though for him this clear water makes no
14:50difference i've had no useful sight for roughly 15 years so i use my hands as my eyes
15:02for the rest of my diving i do it by guesswork
15:09feeling the cannon it is nice to touch a piece of history that you know has been sunk for several
15:15hundred years layers of silt and sand have protected the wreck from the wave action that can cause
15:27erosion bronze guns are in fabulous condition you can read at least two of them
15:34one is embossed with a name this cornelis was a master gunsmith in rotterdam it's a strong hint
15:43that this is a dutch warship and on a second cannon as well as a surprised resident
15:50there's another clue a date stamp so we know that gun was made in 1670 so our shipwreck
15:59cannot be any earlier than 1670
16:07confusingly this ship was also carrying a heavy cargo of massive stone blocks too big to be recovered
16:18more portable are pieces of ceramics and smaller stacks of dressed stone
16:27the team are also recovering personal artifacts
16:32every find that's made is potentially important but every now and then you're able to recover objects
16:37that were probably owned and used by individuals that we can get a little bit closer to trying to understand
16:44what their life was like on this ship
16:49maximum dive time has been reached the teams slowly resurface
16:56yeah every dive's a good dive when you come back isn't it beautiful
17:01and get a good look at the objects they've recovered oh it's bigger than i remember a figure the water
17:07wow okay the decorative bowl could be part of the ship's first aid kit
17:13it looks like a medicine kind of set yeah amazing beautiful it's possible we've managed to find the
17:19spot where the stores of the surgeon were they've also retrieved larger bowls from what they believe was
17:27once once the galley these are nice sarah so these these are eating bowls um if you're on board a
17:36ship all your food is going to just push
17:37wash off the side of your plate so even a little dip like this means all your food can go
17:42in here
17:46a ship of this size would have had a crew of around 50
17:52and there's been sobering evidence that at least some of them went down with the ship
17:58we have found um small single pieces of human remains so we'd have to be aware that this is
18:05a last resting place for for these sailors and treat them with dignity and treat them with care
18:14today's finds and discoveries go back to the labs where it's hoped that the identity of this mystery ship
18:21will become clearer
18:31the results are in so mark has dived into the digging for britain tent with a shipment of finds
18:38and the latest news on this intriguing wreck mark what an exciting sight to have discovered and we've
18:46got some finds here obviously but take me through that scan that photogrammetry yes this is a virtual
18:51tour we can take you on and the first thing you'll notice right in the middle of the site are
18:56these big
18:57stone blocks yeah and the biggest ones are 3.75 meters oh they're huge so where these now lie
19:05on the seabed is probably where they were in the ship so probably the middle you can see the other
19:10heavy objects like like the cannon have moved around yes so are we looking at a dutch warship
19:16then it's confusing isn't it we've got all this merchant stuff but as well as the stone we've got
19:22also this pile of stuff tiles yeah yeah very good tiles that are either for a floor or maybe for
19:30a wall
19:31these are two that we've recovered and there are hundreds of them and where does it come from it
19:37comes from italy this is what's called carrera marble the famous marble quarry indeed all these renaissance
19:43sculptures michelangelo's favorite yeah but why is this on a warship we think that it's likely
19:51that what we've got here is a warship that is carrying cargo at the same time but we've got a
19:58few other objects here that will perhaps shed some light and give us some clues as well this is italian
20:04tin glazed majolica so this is nicely decorated it is it's a i can see a pair of legs here
20:10legs yeah yeah
20:11we have a stack of plates probably about 10 plates as if they were in a box or a crate
20:18what about these
20:19objects the bigger bowl with the little ornate handles ridges on the side is a bleeding bowl
20:27used by the surgeon yeah barber surgeon on board for bloodletting so having surgeons uh implements
20:35utensils is probably indicative of military we've got the military guns but we've got this commercial
20:41cargo so we're looking for a dutch warship that was coming back from italy loaded up with cargo
20:48yeah we think we've narrowed it down to one engagement one battle that took place at sea
20:53in 1672 and we think we know the ship itself because only one ship sank the one ship is the
21:01klein hollandia
21:03which means little holland and this is it and this yeah this is it this is as drawn by van
21:08de veld
21:09the elder so we can actually visualize what it looked like and we know that over 100 dutch sailors
21:15died when it sank and up to 26 english sailors died i think this is utterly extraordinary that you've got
21:21this wreck and then you've managed to narrow it down to one ship and it's one ship that you've actually
21:26got a picture of as well but that really is set against the context of it the conflict which which
21:32leads to that ship being wrecked and also the human tragedy that it represents the klein hollandia was
21:40sunk in an encounter between a squadron of english warships and a dutch convoy details of the engagement
21:47were relayed by naval officers and an account quickly published in a pamphlet our historical
21:55investigator onyeka nubia is taking a close look at the text so i'm always rather concerned
22:04when you see an account that claims to be a true and perfect account but i'm interested to see what
22:10it says and i'm interested what it tells us about this moment in history it has a date in it
22:17which
22:18says the 13th of march uh 1672 sir robert holmes he's in charge of the english fleet um with a
22:25squadron
22:26of five ships cruising about the isle of wight met with the dutch smyrna fleet consisting of about 50
22:34sail so the key thing here is that these events are happening in peace time two weeks before
22:41the third anglo-dutch war began and therefore it is a remarkable account
22:50so the author says shot to make them strike and lower their top sails upon which refusal our ships shot
23:00ball this is cannonballs through and through them upon which they lowered their top sails
23:06but yet refused to strike upon which the fight began and in fact he goes on the dutch throwing overboard
23:16a great many of their heaviest goods to lighten them 20 of their merchant men and it continues
23:21that the dutch are actually trying to get away from the english they don't want to fight they're not
23:28at war with england at this moment it speaks about the five ships taken are loaded chiefly with several
23:35sorts of rich silks and other turkish commodities this was an attempt to gain control
23:43not only of the goods on these ships but the trade that was related to those goods
23:51it says the loss of the dutch i think fleet was very considerable
23:56not only as to the loss of men but of goods thrown overboard there was at least 50 bales of
24:03silk taken up by our vessels who went off from this port the next day and it is thought that
24:10they could
24:10not lose less than a thousand men in this engagement so it's talking about the loss of life
24:19as if as if it was a footnote that it's something to be written in the margins and that the
24:26more
24:26important thing are the bales of silk this account explains exactly why that shipwreck is so important
24:36and it helps us to understand that it could have been the catalyst that led to war
24:56despite stiff competition few other counties in the south
25:00can match dorset's rolling hills for vivid evidence of our history
25:09but our next dig takes place at a feature that was until fairly recently completely hidden
25:16in dorchester dorchester dorchester is famous for being the birthplace of one of england's
25:30finest romantic novelists thomas hardy and he came back here and created this house max gate
25:37and there's an archaeological dig happening in the gardens
25:45hardy could afford to build his dream home thanks to hit novels such as far from the madding crowd
25:51and tess of the d'urbervilles but he had little idea the land he'd bought
25:57sat right on top of the major archaeology now being uncovered
26:03it's all looked after by the national trust and martin papworth is leading the dig in the paddock at the
26:10back martin what are you expecting to find here in the in the gardens of max gate well i'm hoping
26:18to
26:18find a whole series of pits forming an arc right around this field and the garden next door why do
26:26you
26:26think it's here because back in the 1980s there was a road scheme just over here and the road went
26:33right through a semi-circle of this enclosure and if you joined all the dots up it should come right
26:40through this place here in this garden what is it so around stonehenge there is an earthwork
26:46that bank and ditch is middle neolithic it's the same date as this right so it's about 3000 bc
26:58henges like stonehenge are not actually defined by their upstanding stones but by the circular
27:06earthworks the banks and ditches that surround them
27:12at hardy's house there are no obvious banks it may not be a henge
27:18but there could be pits and ditches completing what looks like it should be a circular enclosure
27:28i can see the house on that plan and i can see the 50 meters scale that's enormous yeah it's
27:32100
27:33meters across there so you might find traces of it while i'm here yes let's hope so yeah thomas
27:39hardy would have been delighted wouldn't he yeah 21st century archaeologists were interested in what
27:44he'd discovered and were extending the investigation hardy was a keen amateur archaeologist and had been
27:52keeping a close eye out for anything unusual uncovered while his new house was being built
27:59during groundworks a huge sarsen stone was discovered and hardy had it installed in pride of place
28:08harriet still is an expert on how hardy's passion for archaeology influenced his writing
28:16so harriet this was discovered in in the garden of the house yes so this was dug up from the
28:22lawn
28:22behind us when they were putting in pipework in 1890 and hardy called it his druid stone so he set
28:29it
28:29up on end as a garden feature and he's inspired by archaeology in his writing yes and when they were
28:36digging the foundations for the building they found romano british skeletons in little um kind of egg
28:42shaped burial pits and he wrote that up saying about how they were almost like little chicks kind of
28:48curled up in their shells what an amazing description i know
28:54hardy's enthusiasm for archaeology drew him to one unmissable but no less mysterious feature right in the
29:01center of dorchester morbury rings until the start of the 20th century this enormous circular earthwork
29:11was believed to have been first built by the romans
29:16this is an iconic monument for for dorchester and of course it features in thomas hardy's reimagining of
29:24dorchester in the mayor of casterbridge casterbridge is dorchester isn't it yeah it's a place where
29:29henchard who has auctioned his wife 20 years earlier yeah agrees to meet her here because
29:34no one can see them yeah and i think that's what people like still is it's got this really kind
29:38of
29:38intimate enclosed feel to it but of course when hardy was writing about it he thought it was
29:43an amphitheater from the roman period yeah and it's only in 1908 when he funds this excavation
29:50that they learn a bit more about the site what do they find in that 1908 excavation they're just
29:56expecting it to confirm that it is a roman amphitheater and that in itself would have been
29:59exciting enough but they say as usual revelations have been made of an unexpected kind there was a
30:05moment when the blood of us onlookers ran cold and we shivered a shiver that was not occasioned by our
30:11wet feet and dripping clothes up were thrown from one corner prehistoric implements chipped flints horns
30:18and other remains and a voice announced that the earthworks were of the paleolithic or neolithic age
30:23and not roman at all oh my goodness he has this kind of crisis at that moment thinking i've
30:28portrayed it as this roman coliseum in my big book that has gone out everywhere yeah um luckily they
30:34found further evidence to support that it was a roman amphitheater later but it's a it's a henge
30:40monument to begin with then and then it's later reused by the romans and transformed into an amphitheater
30:46i think it's a lovely place isn't it wonderful fantastic
30:52hardy's imagination was fired by mournbury rings but it could be that something almost as impressive
31:00was hidden much closer to home as signs of martin's hoped for neolithic enclosure start to emerge in the
31:08paddock i'm particularly intrigued by this patch of earth here which i think is not just earth on top
31:15is it that looks like a feature that's been dug down into the chalk it is well spotted definitely
31:20it's really when you get the dark patches that's what you want isn't it yeah and that's a nice big
31:25one it's looking up i think i might have to grab a massac and get involved oh yeah that'd be
31:30good
31:32then martin directs me over to the front of the house where a very small trench is showing more signs
31:39of neolithic activity right outside hardy's front door
31:47so martin what do you think we've got here well i think we've struck what we were looking for
31:53most unexpectedly in such a small trench it's only a meter square but you can see in the way circle
32:00has been described around here there's max gay there's the porch which is just over there and we're
32:06just here and if if we've calculated everything to millimeter perfection as we hope to then a trench
32:12there should strike it so is there any evidence that the chalk has been dug out here on the circular
32:20trajectory martin's mapped out there's definitely something here martin because this is all the chalk
32:27bedrock yes and i've just jumped in to help rob and carol while i couldn't resist and this is
32:33this is phil the kind of period we're looking for that's an ideal filling yeah yeah not much coming
32:38out though there's no well there is a struck flint which is always a good sign definitely not just a
32:43not just a natural thing doesn't look like much does it but it's got the core and then you
32:47there you've got a striking platform so someone won't like like that so yeah definitely a struck flint
32:52made by somebody a long time ago so it proves that this this ditch is circular that it's not just
33:00this side here it does go all the way around and it shows that thomas hardy built his house on
33:06what was potentially a sacred space that went back thousands of years just within the sacred space
33:16he had no idea though did he no he didn't know he'd be very happy wouldn't he i think yeah
33:39think so by the mid-first century the roman empire stretched from syria to spain and from egypt to
33:47britain everywhere they ruled they built and it's their fortifications that often remain most impressive
34:00the romans loved a wall and emperor hadrian's coast to coast creation left the definite impression that
34:07they had reached their limits in the north but what about the far south west the roman signature there
34:14is much less visible than it is across the rest of the south but a recent excavation has revealed hard
34:22evidence that cornwall did not escape the full force of the invasion just years after their arrival almost
34:31all of southern britain had been conquered by the armies of rome until now the most westerly evidence of
34:40the invading roman legions has been in devon but our next dig takes us further west to the cornish village
34:48of roach
34:51here a team preparing for the construction of a new road could be about to redraw the map of the
34:58roman
34:58military advance you have got a dark splodge there sean taylor from the cornwall archaeological unit
35:04is leading the investigation we undertook a geophysical survey of the chosen route which did throw up a
35:12few surprises including a very large enclosure with rounded corners those curved corners are a clue that
35:21this could be a roman fort or camp it was a fairly big surprise we don't often get the chance
35:29to dig
35:29anything roman and cornwall so uh yeah i was very excited about it the dig began in winter 2022
35:39as you can see conditions aren't ideal
35:47but nothing could dampen the excitement of finding formidable defenses built by roman soldiers
35:56we have started on the roman ditch awesome to look at nice and military you can see the ankle
36:02breaking nicely at the bottom just needs a bit of cleaning up we're still working in progress
36:08the ankle breaker is the characteristic feature of a roman defensive ditch it's a square cut slot
36:16designed to catch and twist the feet of enemy soldiers or horses this is only literally the bottom what foot
36:26that's left of it it could have well been up here and then you'd have another great bank at the
36:31top of it
36:32so it's so what they've done is really quite impressive to go we're here we're rome this is it
36:54a few fragments of ceramic have also been found i've noticed there's a small piece of pot just gonna
37:06free it now gently but a lack of other signs of habitation suggests the camp was occupied
37:13for no more than a couple of weeks and sean thinks he knows why
37:18i believe this camp to be part of the initial invasion force in the early 50s a.d
37:23under vespasian the future emperor
37:27the dig continues for five more months as the team searches for more evidence of the romans in roach
37:40armed with the latest news and some fines from the site sean has marched into the digging tent to
37:47bring me up to date thank you for bringing in all these fines sean but i'm really interested in this
37:54because this looks like brand new information so yeah the information just in hot off the press
37:59the original geophysical survey showed one one side of this uh camp or fort uh typical roman
38:05rounded corners but since then we've extended the survey into these fields over this side and
38:10we've now got a return to the camp over here yeah and you can see it's bigger than we originally
38:15thought so it's huge looking at the scale there the long side of it must be 500 meters just under
38:22500
38:22meters so this could have accommodated a lot of people a lot of people yes up to 10 000 people
38:27i
38:27would say so are we looking at something which could have been a legionary camp a full legion with
38:32all the followers i think yeah it's exciting because this is the first time that we're seeing
38:37evidence of an entire legion moving this far west in cornwall almost no fines came out of the large
38:46camp but sean has brought a selection from a smaller fortlet that was also discovered at the site
38:57we've actually got our one piece of amphora oh presumably the amphora is that's that's goods
39:02coming in in big storage vessels that's right yeah olive oil wine that kind of sauce yeah yeah
39:08and what about that is that a quern stone so this is part of a rotary quern obviously its presence
39:13indicates that they were grinding cereals into flour yeah yeah so uh presumably here for a little longer
39:18than they were in the camp yeah and is what's that is that another this is yes well i thought
39:23it was a
39:23curve when i first uh when i first saw it but no it's uh much more interesting than that it's
39:26a
39:27fragment of a mold to create a pewter dish really yeah so originally it would have been a circular
39:33yeah a sheet of pewter had been laid on it and we've been cold hammered into the mold so this
39:38really
39:39takes us to the heart of surely why the romans are in cornwall to start with well obviously a big
39:44component of pewter is tin um and i think you know the the location of this fortlet as with the
39:49camp
39:49it's right above the largest source of stream tin in the in western europe and presumably the romans
39:55knew that yeah absolutely presumably they're purchasing the tin um you know maybe the locals
40:01are very happy about that i think it's really interesting to see additional evidence of the romans in
40:06cornwall there's always been a myth that's emerged of cornwall being completely separate and the
40:12romans not really reaching cornwall at all but recent years are showing that that's not true at all
40:17absolutely i mean it just shows that it wasn't exceptional down here
40:25the grass is long in the valley my love and there will go to life
40:47the farmland of the south is a patchwork of fields a pattern that has evolved over time
40:55the low terraces along the rivers of southern britain have provided fertile flat fields for
41:01keeping livestock and growing crops for generations
41:07a huge challenge for any farmer growing cereals is how to store the grain now today we keep grain
41:15hermetically sealed in steel silos back in the iron age they had a different solution underground storage
41:22pits once those stores were open and emptied the pits could be reused for different purposes
41:30and that means that they are valuable time capsules for archaeologists especially when you've got
41:37hundreds of them in just one place our next dig is at an extraordinary concentration of prehistoric
41:45storage pits in the small village of stanton harcourt in oxfordshire activity on the site dates back to
41:52the neolithic but it was in the iron age that people really left their mark
42:00in 2021 archaeologists preparing a site for a new housing development here started to uncover deep
42:08cylindrical storage pits one after another after another
42:14james williams from thames valley archaeological services is supervising what has become a massive
42:20investigation do you have any cut marks on it these pits i haven't counted but we have over a
42:29thousand just in a line and they're going directly under those houses so you have about 170 meters of this
42:34pit alignment and it's still going on both sides
42:38these pits date back to the first century bce a time when the thames valley was being heavily
42:45exploited for growing cereal crops like emma and spelt but the well-drained sand and gravel
42:53also proved ideal for storing the grain thanks to some prehistoric ingenuity so we're in one of the
43:01the iron age grain storage pits that we've excavated it would have filled up with grain and then at the
43:06top they would have put some turf over to make it airtight and the grain that touches the sides of
43:11the
43:11pit starts to germinate and then after all the air is used up because it's sealed up with the turf
43:17it
43:17turns into an anaerobic environment and it stops the germination process and then when they take the turf
43:22off they've got all this grain stored at nice below ground temperatures for them to eat
43:29grain could be stored like this for several years but the pits weren't fail safe sometimes an animal
43:36would burrow in letting air enter causing the grain to go moldy when that happened the pit had to be
43:44emptied and sterilized by fire before it could be reused i've just had this lovely piece of
43:51charcoal come out but you can see when you smudge it it gives you this lovely black residue and you
43:58can see the grain of the wood when you look closely on charcoal we often get with these they're storage
44:04pits so we get a layer of burning and then a layer of seeds underneath um so i'm taking this
44:09down and
44:10hopefully we might find some in-situ seeds underneath this charcoal layer each pit could be repeatedly
44:18used for grain storage with additional pits being dug when needed but sometimes these deep holes would be
44:24repurposed including becoming ready-made graves here we had a child burial um this was just in here the
44:34natural kind of came out to the top and it was like kind of like put onto a shelf um
44:39probably like no
44:40older than three years old i think we've had about six burials so far within these pits
44:49but graves are proving to be the exception and most of these pits seem to have had a more domestic
44:57function as rubbish bins these pits seem to be producing just a whole range of fines i mean you've
45:03got these lovely bits of pottery you can see the cross section over there where it's been broken
45:08um that looks that looks uh early iron age and you've got animal bones i wouldn't be surprised if
45:14a lot of these bones have cut marks on them it's been someone's dinner during the next four months of
45:20the
45:20dig more and more evidence of iron age life comes to light it all means that jamie has collected an
45:30astonishing array of finds to assess and learn from and he's brought the best of them along to the
45:36digging for britain tent jamie it's such an incredible sight i mean it's so busy isn't it when
45:41you look at that aerial image but then what you've got going through the middle of it is that great
45:46swathe of storage pits over a thousand storage pits and you've got this wonderful slice uh through
45:52the iron age with all of these different finds so you've got some textile shears oh those are amazing
45:58that would have joined in with uses like almost like scissors could be for for wool could be for
46:02fabric we're not too sure yeah and then what about this this long piece of iron the golf club it's
46:10really interesting this because we first thought it was like something like sword it was poking out the
46:14top and then we thought maybe a currency bar but if you look at it our best bet is that
46:18it's some
46:18sort of a scythe so this is quite blunt here and wide yes and then and then this side yeah
46:27that is
46:27it's like a blade edge that's thin isn't it yeah yeah well you know having thought it was a sword
46:32to
46:33begin with i think it's potentially even more interesting as a scythe because how often do we see
46:37big sides exactly i've never encountered an iron age uh scythe they're quite rare and then what else then
46:42we've got some um nice pottery yeah this is a pot we put back together this was from one of
46:46the
46:46storage pits it's a very lovely actually so you've got basin to the rim and it's got some holes in
46:50it
46:51it does it does it has four holes we'll assume if you want here and then you have one at
46:55the bottom
46:56as the fifth hole yeah some kind of drainage isn't it but you know what was in it that was
47:00then
47:01draining away exactly yeah um what about these objects here these are really intriguing is that an
47:07ammonite it is an ammonite you can hold it if you want it's actually got a hole uh drilled out
47:11the
47:11middle yeah some sort of pendant maybe i love that because we we still pick up ammonites today and make
47:17them into jewelry and see them as kind of interesting natural objects and you've got the same thing
47:22happening in prehistory yes you know it's lovely isn't it and then there was a pit which cut the top
47:29of
47:29this one which ended up having the half a human skull which i think is particularly interesting
47:33i think it's potentially been modified it's some of these edges seem quite smoothed we have to
47:39consider the possibility that this could have been uh deliberately created as an object in this way
47:45i think these pits are so fascinating because you know at times clearly they're just rubbish pits
47:51yeah and then other times they're not they're much more so it's definitely one of those types
47:55i'm gonna remember the best of my life thousands of years before the iron age our ancestors were
48:16already transforming the landscape clearing forests to grow crops and building monuments of earth and
48:23stone here on the chalk lands of southern england they built towering earthworks like silbury hill
48:30and vast stone circles like stonehenge and avebury
48:38our next dig sits amongst these ancient sites in the wiltshire village of east kennet
48:53recently a brand new discovery was made in this field in amongst this extraordinary epic landscape and the
49:02archaeologists have opened trenches up and they are getting ready to lift the lid as it were on this
49:08mystery and that's why i'm here to see it happen
49:17it all began in 2020 when a void suddenly appeared in this wheat field
49:26the landowner called in the professionals and a few weeks ago josh pollard brought his team from
49:32southampton university to investigate
49:38the students have since cleared the topsoil away to reveal several large stones around this mysterious
49:46deep hole which they're just about to start excavating
49:53okay so here we have our pits with the sarsen stones
49:59it's weird what is it i mean that's the big question so uh what we have is a void that
50:05opened up
50:06in the ground and you can see there are a number of big sarsen boulders and we've realized that at
50:12least
50:12three of these and possibly all four were originally set upright and this is the base of it that's the
50:19base yeah in the same way that this is the the base of that stone which would have sat in
50:24that pit
50:25any idea at this point about the age of it or the function um we've not seen anything like this
50:31so so
50:31we're going into the unknown a little bit but we do know from this landscape that there are a number
50:37of
50:38quite big graves which have been recorded since the 19th century which are often associated with
50:43beaker burials and which have sarsen linings and sometimes sarsen capstones the early bronze age
50:51so early bronze age is a is a distinct possibility yeah we've just got to try and find a body
50:56in the
50:56bottom well to go down any further you're going to have to get get these out of the way we
51:00are yes
51:01yes they're quite heavy i hope it hasn't crushed whatever's underneath it
51:09scattered over the north wessex downs are hundreds of prehistoric monuments some of them burial sites
51:17from neolithic long barrows where many people were buried together to bronze age round barrows and
51:24stone-lined kissed burials
51:32this group of sarsens could be the remains of a burial chamber but to find out we're going to need
51:40some mechanical muscle
51:45it's fine that's okay yep it's all right
51:48oh hang on ah in order to understand this structure
51:55we have to move these stones out of the way and they weigh if not a ton hundreds of kilograms
52:02and so at this point you know it's not trowels it's heavy plump that's doing the lifting
52:16oh my goodness it looked like it was gonna it looked like that strap was going to come off then
52:22brilliant that's one stone out we've got two legs before we can
52:27start to take this pit down find out what's at the bottom of it and it could be it could
52:33be a burial
52:39the telehandler has been arranged by james the owner of the site
52:46james this is an extraordinary thing to have turned up on your land how did you discover it
52:51so i assumed it was a badger set um you know we have lots of badges around here and
52:56immediately you could tell that that is no badger set it was this perfect circular sort of sinkhole
53:04and when you looked into it you could see the edges of the sarsen stone and you sort of felt
53:09something you definitely felt you were looking back in history well also i mean you're in this
53:15landscape which is completely peppered with prehistoric remains
53:19so we're standing actually in the world heritage site that was extended in 2006 to encompass these
53:25kennet long barra and almost everywhere you look in the landscape you can see evidence of the people
53:31of who have been here before oh hang on there we go there we go there's a lot of discussion
53:39around
53:40where to put the straps and just imagine the people who put these stones in place having a very similar
53:46conversation imagine just doing it with your own bare hands yeah it's a feat of engineering isn't it
53:56the team have now had a few hours to excavate down into the void to prepare to lift the remaining
54:03sarsens but is josh any the wiser to be honest i'm still quite puzzled by it so i think at
54:11the start of
54:11the day there's still a bit of a sense that you know perhaps it could turn into a kist into
54:15a kind
54:16of burial monument yeah i kind of feel less confident about that now right um largely because
54:21we're at a a kist i think we just expect the the stones perhaps to be arranged in a a
54:27box-like format
54:28yeah is there any analogy for this any comparison for this there isn't really no no but i mean we
54:34do
54:34know from some very early records that there might be a whole range of different kinds of construction
54:40using sarsen stones yeah that existed in this landscape um many of which of course have
54:45disappeared through sort of clearance and cultivation so lots of questions still yes i i hope the truth's
54:51down there yeah yeah i left josh and his team to remove the remaining sarsens and hopefully uncover the
54:59secrets of this intriguing chamber two weeks of challenging archaeology later and josh is at the
55:13digging for britain tent with the latest news josh how much deeper did you dig and what did you find
55:22okay so we dug down another two meters at that stage we realized that rather than having
55:28a nice beaker or early bronze age kissed or burial chamber actually what we had was a natural feature
55:35a sinkhole so it's geological rather than archaeological it's a mixture of geology and archaeology
55:42although it's a natural feature it's still a natural feature that people modified by having a
55:47ledge dug around the outside of it and then the big sarsens that we could see in the top
55:53uh had originally been placed almost like a kind of a sarsen wall or fence a barrier do you think
55:59yes
55:59it's a barrier of some kind so it could be a barrier just designed to stop children or animals falling
56:04in or it's a barrier presumably created to emphasize the feature oh so yeah to create a kind of monument
56:11exactly and we've got a sense of when that happens because we found two quite remarkable finds which had
56:18gone in next the stones when the stones had been placed yeah so on one side uh we found this
56:24very
56:24nice little late roman coin of the emperor gratian so when was he reigning 60s 370s thereabouts that's
56:36lovely i mean it's so it's not particularly worn is it no you can see the details of his headdress
56:41really
56:41nicely and that was found um in one of the sockets of one of the sarsens that have been set
56:47up right
56:47on one side of the pit oh so that absolutely tells you that that sarsen stain has gone in
56:52yes after this date yes exactly yeah that's right yes good dating evidence and then on the other side
56:59of the pit we've got this rather lovely spindle whirl which has been made out of kimmeridge shale
57:04yeah that is nice beautifully formed nicely symmetrical and is that is that probably roman
57:11as well it's gonna be roman yeah yeah so this is quite intriguing because of course by the time we
57:18get to the romans we've we've got roman mythology we know that they looked at openings in the ground
57:23they looked at caves and and saw them as openings to the underworld yes they're depositing coins into the
57:29chambers of monuments like the west connect long barrow which again you could see as being another
57:33opening up into an underworld well i think i've now recovered from my disappointment at this not
57:39being a bronze age kiss and i'm now intrigued by this being a response in roman times to that that
57:48wider quite mystical landscape that's what makes archaeology such a kind of vibrant and sometimes
57:55quite unpredictable subject yeah yes this is good archaeology yes yes
58:04next time on digging for britain it's just amazing i return to the site of a beautiful trojan war
58:11mosaic discovery in rutland where now a huge villa complex is being uncovered uh you've got to come
58:17down here and have a look at this each of these layers is another phase of occupation isn't it
58:22we visit a tudor fort that henry the eighth built on the rubble of once magnificent monasteries
58:28this is the central part of a spiral staircase yes and are the stunning barbed spear tips found on an
58:35ancient lake bed evidence of prehistoric ritual they are killing animals processing them in some way
58:42and intentionally and intentionally deposited in this water
58:46come and search for we who search and look in for us gather land
58:54i dig for those whose stories live in very past futures one and dig for us as we have done
59:07to lay
59:08the dead out in the sun to lay us dead out in the sun