All language subtitles for S38E05 - Secrets of Stonehenge

Every year, a million people descend on
Stonehenge.

They ask the age -old questions about
this mysterious monument.

Who built it? How was it built? And why?

To find out, archaeologists are studying
Stonehenge with new tools and new eyes.

By constructing Stonehenge, these people
were creating something which had never

been created before. It's a bit like
their own space program.

There's a new theory about the meaning
of Stonehenge.

It's about the nature of eternity, the
meaning of life and death.

That's a nice long piece of fibula. I
would think we're going to get at least

individuals in here.

An ancient world is coming back to life.

This is an extraordinary time for
Stonehenge. We're beginning to

in a way we've never been able to do
before.

The Secrets of Stonehenge, revealed
right now on NOVA.

Winter funding for NOVA is provided by
the following.

ExxonMobil, taking on the world's
toughest energy challenges.

And by David H. Koch.

And Discovering New Knowledge.

HHMI.

And by the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, and by contributions to

station from viewers like you. Thank
you.

It dates back to a time before Egypt
built its pyramids, to the Stone Age in

Britain.

Time has taken its toll, but this
monument remains a marvel of ancient

engineering.

A circular ditch and bank surround the
stones.

Upright stones tower over 20 feet.

and weigh up to 45 tons.

Horizontal slabs called lintels crown
huge pillars.

All these giants are made of sarsen, a
local sandstone harder than granite.

Yet they were carved and fitted like
woodwork.

Uprights were tapered and topped with
knobs.

These fit hollows on the bottoms of
lintels.

Curved lintels, joined by tongue and
groove, formed a nearly perfect circle.

And despite a slight slope, this ring of
lintels was level to within inches.

The sarsens dominate Stonehenge, but
nestled among them are smaller stones,

no less remarkable.

Geologists determined these are
bluestones.

transported here from Wales, at least
150 miles away.

Who built Stonehenge?

How was it built? And why?

For ages, we could only wonder.

Now, a new age is beginning.

An army of archaeologists deploys around
Stonehenge.

Hey, everybody.

Led by Mike Parker Pearson, the
Stonehenge Riverside Project is nearly

strong, with scientists, students, and
specialists in everything from astronomy

to field survey.

We're six years into this archaeological
project.

It's one of the biggest in the world, I
reckon.

So it's a really...

Big chance to find out some of the key
questions about Stonehenge. We're on a

mission. We're on a quest.

It's a quest to reconstruct the ancient
world that gave rise to Stonehenge and

resurrect the people who built it.

The strategy is to dig not just at
Stonehenge, but throughout the

landscape.

Stonehenge itself was extensively
excavated during the 20th century.

Those digs established that the monument
was built in stages.

Prehistoric people chose a rolling
stretch of Salisbury Plain.

At around 3000 BC, they dug a ditch, a
bank, and a ring of

56 pits into the underlying chalk of the
plain.

These pits probably held the bluestones,
brought all the way from Wales.

Then, some 500 years later, the colossal
sarsen stones were installed.

The bluestones were pulled from their
outer ring and rearranged among the

sarsens.

Several other stones completed the
monument.

And later, Parallel banks would define a
processional avenue that stretched all

the way from Stonehenge to the River
Avon.

20th century excavations also uncovered
the dead of Stonehenge.

In the 1920s, nearly 60 human burials
were excavated here.

many in that outer ring of 56 pits known
as the Aubrey holes.

But the discoveries were hardly
acknowledged, because these were

burials. These people had been cremated,
but they didn't have nice skulls with

gleaming teeth to display.

They had bundles of ash and bits of
broken, burnt bone.

The archaeologists weren't interested in
those as objects.

At that time, it was firmly believed...
that there was nothing you could learn

from looking at cremated bones.

Not a single museum in Britain wanted
the bones.

So in 1935, they were reburied in Aubrey
Hall No.

7. The idea that Stonehenge was actually
one of, if not the biggest cremation

cemetery in early prehistoric Europe,
just disappeared into the ground, into

Aubrey Hall 7, and was forgotten about.

The bones were left undisturbed.

Until today.

Mike Parker Pearson has come to retrieve
the dead of Stonehenge.

To him, they represent a treasure trove
of information.

With closer analysis of those remains,
even though they're burnt, we can work

out people's approximate ages.

We may be able to work out if they're
male or female. We may even be able to

find out more about their standard of
life.

So it's a really important opportunity
to learn about the Stonehenge people.

Records from 1935 state the bones were
placed in four burlap bags and buried

with a commemorative plaque.

It's the first time anybody has seen...

It's quite impressive, but it's what's
underneath it, lower down, that's what

we're most interested in.

And we're getting close.

Oh, look.

What's that?

Is it?

Suddenly, they spot a tiny piece of
bone.

Yep.

There's more.

It's all over the place.

The burlap bags that contained the bones
have rotted away.

I think we've just got to very carefully
loosen the soil bit by bit. Is it

uncomfortable?

Yeah, it is quite.

Yeah.

So we're just going to take it in turns
until as long as each of us can stand.

Until the blood rushes to your head and
you start to feel faint.

That's already happened.

There we go, here we go.

Oh, look what I found.

Most of these bones were dug up in the
years 1921, 1922,

1923, reburied 1935.

Yeah, but actually it doesn't tell us
anything we don't know, does it?

I know, but isn't it nice?

We've finally reached the bone layer.

I think we were all hoping.

that the two men who buried these bones
for posterity would actually put them in

decent containers but all we're really
looking at is very loose cremated bone

crikey a lot of bone we've lifted the
plaque and what we saw underneath was

quite a shock just a complete jumbled
mass of bone from who knows how many

people the plaque has stopped soil

falling down in amongst them. So as the
fat rotted, the bones were left

completely clean.

But it's going to be a serious jiggle
puzzle in the lab.

I was hoping it was going to be easy,
but this is the worst -case scenario.

Little remains of the people of
Stonehenge.

What do we know of their world?

Around 3000 BC, the age of the pharaohs
begins in Egypt.

The first cities are flourishing in the
Near East with writing and wheeled

vehicles. The use of metal is spreading
across Europe, but has yet to reach

Britain.

Here, the Stone Age is in its final
phase, the Neolithic.

The stone axe reigns supreme.

With this tool, people clear forests and
shape the timbers of their homes.

Their settlements are small and
scattered.

They keep livestock and move with their
herds.

They raise barley and wheat.

People tend to get the impression that
in the Neolithic, life was grim and

short. That's not necessarily the case
at all.

People generally seem to be probably
very well nourished. They would have had

access to quite good food resources.

They were obviously sophisticated and
they're probably having a fairly good

lifestyle.

Their stone tools and fine pottery have
survived the ages.

But objects crafted of wood, plant
fibers or leather have mostly vanished

Britain's climate and soil.

The fabric of their daily lives, their
customs and their beliefs, have long

eluded us.

But the remains of their dead are
providing new clues.

At Aubrey Hole No. 7, Jacqueline
McKinley joins the excavation effort.

An expert on ancient human remains, she
quickly spots individual features.

That's a nice long piece of fibula.

Brilliant. Probably second or third
molar.

That's the back of the skull, look. In
fact, that's a chap. That's a male. Very

good.

It's a very important collection. We're
in a very important place.

Although it looks like a mass, by
separating out the different skeletal

elements... We can work out how many
people there were in there and the age

those individuals.

Looking at the amount of material we've
got, I would think we're going to get at

least 50 individuals in here.

In all, 35 pounds of cremated bone are
eventually sent to the University

of Sheffield.

Graduate student Christy Cox is
resurrecting the dead of Stonehenge, bit

There's thousands and thousands of bone
pieces.

It's far more than we ever anticipated
when we originally started the

excavation.

This should join here.

That is just amazing.

So we're looking at this bit down the
side here, where the mandible goes up.

That would be the TMGA joint. Yeah.

And that suggests that we've got an
older individual.

The bones reveal that burial at
Stonehenge was reserved for a select

With a normal domestic cemetery, you'd
expect to find a range of ages and

individuals from both sex.

But most of the cremated bones are from
adults, and the majority of those adults

appear to be male.

And most in the 25 to 40 -year age
group.

We're seeing just a slight wear and tear
on the bones in this population.

So they were fairly healthy, they were
fairly robust male individuals.

If you've mostly got male cremations in
that, that's something odd. That means

that certain people are being selected
for burial here. What was special about

them?

I suspect they may well have been people
of important political stature.

Quite possibly the men in one or more
royal lineages

whose authority made Stonehenge possible
in the first place.

So what this could be indicating is
actually at the time Stonehenge was

we have an aristocratic, male -based
society.

Now that's something we would never have
known without these bones.

Perhaps one royal family marshalled the
manpower to create Stonehenge.

And across the British Isles, other
families or clans built their own stone

circles.

Nearly a thousand still stand today.

Neolithic people also raised timber
circles.

Today, all that remains are traces of
post holes.

But their size indicates some held tree
trunks 15 feet high, weighing several

tons.

Enormous pits were dug to hold these
timbers and standing stones.

And many circles were enclosed by a
circular ditch and bank, an earthwork

as a henge.

How did people with Stone Age technology
manage to build on such a vast scale?

Near Stonehenge, Parker Pearson's team
excavates a prehistoric ditch carved

the chalk of Salisbury Plain.

Suddenly, an ancient digging tool comes
to light.

Oh!

Oh, look at that.

It's a pick made from the antler of a
red deer.

Oh, yeah.

Antler picks were used as the means of
excavating these features, ditches and

pits, during the Neolithic.

You can imagine people using these picks
to lever out the great chunks of chalk,

prizing it out, and then putting it into
baskets and pulling it out of the

holes. an enormously labor -intensive
task.

When they got to the bottom and when
they finished, maybe it was broken and

just dropped it, or maybe they just
deliberately left it there, almost as an

offering.

But how did people move the giant
sarsens up to 45 tons of solid rock?

How did they raise lintels to the tops
of those gate -like structures called

trilithons?

To archaeologist Mike Pitts, the process
involved manpower and myth.

We're about 20 miles north of
Stonehenge, and this area is probably

the big stones, the sarsens of
Stonehenge, came from.

This landscape now looks very much as I
think it would have been in the

Neolithic.

We have the trees, we have the forests
growing.

expressing life. We have the stones in
thousands lying largely under the ground

like bodies.

These are places that could be
repositories of superstition, of myth

and danger.

To find a sarsen of the right size and
shape for Stonehenge may have been a

sacred quest.

for the most skilled stone masons.

Like a Michelangelo, they examine the
stone very carefully.

These are guys that are used to making
stone tools. They understand stone.

And I think a Stonehenge mason would
have looked at a stone like this as

something that he's used to making, like
a stone axe or an arrowhead, but

enlarged into a huge scale.

Masons may have roughly shaped the
sarsens at the quarry site using

stones.

But they left few clues to how they
moved and raised giant stones.

So researchers have experimented.

Stone Age Britain did not have the
wheel, but people may have pulled large

stones over rollers made of tree trunks.

Perhaps they laid timber tracks and
slathered them with grease.

A wooden sled with a keel would have
kept the stones centered over the

Raising a giant stone involved somehow
tipping it into a giant hole.

Lintels may have been pulled up ramps
and levered into place.

All these techniques are plausible.

There's just no evidence they were
actually used.

Now, there's a new theory.

Andrew Young became obsessed with carved
stone balls during graduate work at the

University of Exeter.

Some of these prehistoric objects are
elaborately engraved, but many are

unadorned.

Most have been found in northeast
Scotland, an area known for its stone

These artifacts defy explanation.

People had said they might be weapons or
for throwing or possibly pounding

vegetables, kinds of things that you
could do with a portable stone object.

Nothing that anybody had really said
about them satisfied my question, what

they for?

Young taught himself to carve replicas
and pondered one strange fact.

Many carved balls, engraved and plain,
have exactly the same diameter.

Large numbers that are identical in size
to the millimetre. And why would they

need to be identical in size?

And that just gave him that eureka
moment. Well, if you're going to use

a wheel, you need them to be the same
size.

Andrew Young had a vision of Stone Age
ball -bearing technology.

For his Ph .D. thesis, he's testing his
idea at a farm near Stonehenge.

So this one's high.

He's joined by a team of fellow students
and his graduate advisor, Bruce

Bradley, an authority on experimental
archaeology.

All right, let's move them back towards
each other.

Andy brought this theory to me. I was
astounded because it just made sense.

just so obvious. Why didn't somebody
think of this before?

With rails made of Douglas fir, they'll
build 80 feet of track.

It's not straight, though.

Each rail has a channel cut into it to
hold granite balls hand -finished to a

precise 75 millimeter diameter.

They'll also use wooden balls.

During the time of Stonehenge, people
were skilled at carving stone and wood

could have produced all these
components.

That's a lot better.

Instead of a giant stone, the team has
25 tons of gravel.

And Andrew Young has his concerns.

I'm really worried about the type of
wood we used.

They would probably have used oak.

In the Neolithic, we haven't been able
to use oak because of the cost.

The wood we've got is perhaps too soft.

They build a platform, a crib, to
straddle the rails and carry the weight.

The worst fear would be that we'd get
just a couple tons on there and we

couldn't push it anywhere.

There's a lot of unknowns right now, and
that's what experiments are all about.

They load 3 .3 tons, roughly the weight
of a bluestone at Stonehenge.

One, two, three, go.

Keep it going. Keep it going.

Oh, darn.

Almost immediately, they're stuck.

Man, what happened?

The weight is crushing the Douglas fir.

You know, this amount of weight seems to
have...

compressed it enough that our gap we're
losing our gap it's less than a

centimeter and that is not good as soon
as you've got that crib touching the

rail you just got friction you've
totally undermined everything we've done

the balls young's worst fear about the
soft wood has come true

but there's a quick fix to offset the
compression of the douglas fur

They place wooden inserts in the
grooves.

Eastern 23 mil.

The gap is back, at least for now.

They load up nearly six tons, roughly
the weight of two bluestones.

Can they do it?

Look at the division of labor all of a
sudden.

How'd that happen?

Hey, you girls, the call will be giddy
up. All right.

One, two, three, four.

It's moving.

Come on. Watch yourself.

Keep going, folks.

Keep at it. Let's get on those wooden
balls.

We're gaining speed.

Whoa.

Hey.

We've moved the bluestone.

And once it was going, we were going.

Yeah, we were having a hard time
stopping.

We're not as heavy as the sarsen at
Stonehenge, but I'm convinced that

it. We can move the sarsens, no problem.

The largest sarsen at Stonehenge weighs
some 45 tons.

How much can this rig handle?

The team has one more day to find out.

Moving the sarsens was just one
challenge for the builders of

They also had to carve these giants to
fit together.

How did they achieve such precision?

Just outside Stonehenge, Parker
Pearson's team noticed small pieces of

emerging from, of all things, molehills.

The little molehills allowed us to see
that there was sarsen under the ground

little chips were dug up by these little
furry creatures.

A small trench revealed an astonishing
carpet of stone fragments, debris from

the dressing of giant stones.

The stone dressing trench has produced
fantastic surprises.

This is where the stones were lying and
having their faces trimmed and bashed.

And we've been able to find in that tiny
trench 50 hammer stones.

This is a hammer stone. It actually fits
quite nicely in the hand, as it turns

out. And you can see all the pitting
around the outside where it's been

against something.

The Neolithic builder would literally
have...

stood alongside the stone to do the more
fine -scale work.

It's going to take ages just to get that
fine, fine shape.

Stonehenge is an expenditure of labor on
a grand scale.

You know, it's easy for us to forget
that these people were creating

which had never been created before.

It's a bit like their own space program.

Stonehenge is a masterpiece of Stone Age
technology.

But what did it mean to the people who
built it?

Was it simply the burial ground of a
royal family? Or was there more to the

monument?

An enduring theory about the meaning of
Stonehenge dates back to an observation

made by 18th century scholars.

They noticed that the entrance to
Stonehenge faces the rising sun.

on the longest day of the year, the
summer solstice.

By the 1960s, people had embraced the
monument as an observatory, used by

ancient astronomers to track the sun and
moon.

Some astronomers even claimed the
mystery of Stonehenge had been solved.

Let's get one thing clear. This wasn't
some sort of astronomical instrument.

Clive Ruggles has written the book on
ancient astronomy.

An archaeologist and astronomer, he ran
his own studies of Stonehenge.

Everyone thinks that it's some sort of
ancient observatory that incorporated

lots of alignment.

In fact, we archaeologists are only
confident in one alignment of this

and that was the main axis that you see
here.

This axis runs right through the center
of Stonehenge and down its avenue.

In this direction, it points at sunrise
on the summer solstice around June 21st.

On those few days around the longest day
of the year, just as the sun rises, you

would have seen a shaft of sunlight
coming right into this. It would have

very spectacular effect.

The thing is, if the axis is pointing at
midsummer sunrise this way, then it

also has another direction.

We come round the site.

You have to do a bit of imagining here.
We've got these big trilithons, one and

two, standing here. There was another
one standing here. We've only got one of

the uprights left.

Then, in fact, the axis in this
direction points at the sunset on the

day of the year, midwinter sunset.

So the sun will be coming down like this
and setting in this direction along the

axis.

This extraordinary alignment sheds light
on the beliefs and rituals of people in

the ancient world.

Stonehenge isn't the only place that has
an astronomical alignment built into

it. There are many ancient peoples all
over the world who have incorporated

alignments on the sun, the moon,
sometimes the stars.

And what it's probably telling us is
about the connections in people's minds

between the sun and the seasonal cycle.

and how, by having the right ceremonials
at the right time, they could keep in

harmony with the cosmos.

The alignment at Stonehenge suggests the
solstices were important times of year

for the people who built the monument.

Mike Parker Pearson has unearthed
evidence supporting that idea, though he

didn't set out to study Stonehenge.

I never thought I'd be doing any work
here in a million years, and I had many

other interesting things to do. So it
was a series of accidents that really

to our project getting up and running.

He had spent years in Madagascar,
studying traditional burial practices.

Here, people build stone monuments for
the dead.

They believe stone belongs to the realm
of the ancestors.

The realm of the living is built of
perishable materials, like wood.

In 1998, Parker Pearson happened to
visit Stonehenge with an archaeologist

Madagascar.

When my colleague Ramil San saw all of
this, on a cold February morning...

It was something of a bombshell because
what he was to say was to change

archaeologists' understanding of this
monument completely and to lead to a

new program of archaeological research.

I believe this is a meeting place to
connect with the ancestors.

I am utterly convinced the stones are
linked to the ancestors.

And that's the moment the light bulb
went on in my mind, and I thought stone

associated with the ancestors, the dead,
and constructions in timber should be

associated with the living.

And this made me think a little more
about what was happening in the

landscape.

He knew Stonehenge was full of cremated
remains, nearly 60 burials excavated in

the 20th century.

and perhaps 200 more in untouched areas
of the monument.

If Stonehenge marked the realm of the
dead, where was the realm of the living?

Less than two miles north of Stonehenge
sits the giant henge of Durrington

Walls.

In the 1960s, when a road was cut
through this henge, archaeologists

the postholes of a timber circle, nearly
identical in size to Stonehenge.

If Durrington Walls marked the realm of
the living and Stonehenge the realm of

the dead, perhaps the physical link
between the two was the River Avon.

We know from mythologies all around the
world that water, is a very important

part of that journey, from the world of
the living to the world of the dead.

It was a clever theory, with little to
back it up, until

excavations began at Durrington Walls.

My interest in Durrington Walls was to
find out two things.

There should be an avenue linking it to
the river.

just as there was Stonehenge's famous
avenue leading to the water.

Secondly, there should be evidence of
settlement, of something to do with the

living. The team did uncover an avenue,
some 30 feet wide, running straight

from Durrington Walls to the River Avon.

The dig also revealed ample evidence of
the living.

We've actually found the floor.

of a house now it's only four meters
that way by four meters this way it has

stake holes along its side so timber
facade covered with chalk plaster

it's the first time we have found the
floor layer for a neolithic house

anywhere in england we can actually walk
on the very surface that people walked

on four and a half thousand years ago

The floors of eight other houses came to
light.

They were built around 2500 BC, the same
time the Sarsons were

put up at Stonehenge.

Hundreds of other dwellings, probably
filled Durrington walls, clustered

the timber circle.

I think we could be looking at this
entire area covered in houses, perhaps

a central open area.

forming the largest village in Northern
Europe at that time.

But people didn't live here year -round.

They came for special occasions.

In between the houses, the team found
huge piles of pig and cattle bones.

We find a lot of them still joined
together, so they must have been thrown

while there was still soft tissue
holding them together.

What this is telling us... is that these
are people who are feasting.

A clue to the timing of these feasts
turned up in the astronomical alignment

of Durrington Walls.

On the morning of the winter solstice,
the timber circle pointed at the rising

sun.

And at the end of the day, Stonehenge
framed the setting sun.

Six months later, the direction was
reversed.

On the summer solstice, Stonehenge and
its avenue aligned with sunrise, and

the avenue at Durrington Walls aligned
with sunset.

The two monuments were linked on the
summer and winter solstices.

On these days, crowds may have traveled
along the river.

moving between the realm of the living
at Durrington Walls and the realm of the

dead at Stonehenge.

Some may have cast the ashes of their
dead into the sacred waters, a gesture

devotion.

Perhaps royal burials were held at
Stonehenge during these seasonal feasts.

It may just be the sense of an unending
cycle that is being reenacted by this

flow back and forward between the living
and the dead to enable society to keep

going.

Parker Pearson had discovered traces of
an ancient belief system etched into the

landscape around Stonehenge.

But one question still lingered about
the monument's location.

Why was Stonehenge built on such an
unremarkable patch of countryside, not

ridge or hilltop?

The answer may lie hidden beneath the
surface of the Stonehenge Avenue, the

great processional route leading to the
River Avon.

This feature was mapped by running a
small electric current through the soil

measuring its resistance.

The technique can detect structures
under the surface.

It picked up a series of mysterious
grooves running beneath the avenue for

than 200 yards.

Parker Pearson was convinced these
grooves were the remains of a man -made

structure. older than the avenue.

His team opened a shallow trench to
investigate.

It runs over there.

I was convinced we were going to find
evidence for gullies that contained

vertical timber posts, something like
that, and I was bitterly disappointed

because they were entirely natural.

Soil specialists determined that these
grooves were formed between two natural

ridges in the landscape.

During the last ice age, these ridges
funneled rainwater and snowmelt between

them.

Yearly freezing and thawing caused the
ground to crack into long, deep grooves.

What makes the grooves extraordinary is
that they are aligned with the

solstices. On the winter solstice, they
would have pointed directly at the spot

where the setting sun touches the
horizon.

Think about this coincidence in the
landscape, the fact that you've got

natural stripes in the landscape
actually aligning with the direction

midwinter sun goes down. Yes, to us it's
a coincidence of nature, but imagine

how that seemed to people whose mindset
was different.

It would have made it a very sacred and
powerful spot.

And that, for me, provides a very
plausible reason why Stonehenge was

constructed where it was.

Prehistoric people built Stonehenge just
beyond where the grooves end.

Later, they enhanced the natural ridges
with massive banks and extended the

avenue all the way to the River Avon, or
so it was assumed.

No one had ever excavated the riverbank
where the avenue ought to end.

just beyond a row of country estates.

So Parker Pearson brought his team.

When we came down here looking for the
end of the Stonehenge Avenue, and what

were expecting to find would have been
fairly straightforward, just two banks

and two ditches.

What we actually found was completely
different.

What we have here is a ditch that is
curving round in a semicircle, and

most likely...

It's actually formed a complete circle.

Maybe it's marking off a venerated
space.

Maybe there's even a standing stone that
once stood in this spot.

Maybe there are special things here that
the avenue is actually leading to by

the river.

It will take more digging to get to the
bottom of this mystery.

Will that go through there?

Not far from the Riverside Trench,
Andrew Young and his team continue to

his system for moving giant stones.

They tackle the equivalent of a sarsen
at Stonehenge.

These range from 7 to more than 40 tons.

One,

two, three.

The team starts with a load of 8 .3
tons.

They give it everything they've got.

No, not going.

We didn't even budge it. It's that
moment of inertia that you've got to

and obviously that was beyond ten
people.

Some theories claim hundreds of people
were involved in pulling giant stones.

Young is convinced Oxen did the heavy
work.

For now, he'll settle for a tractor.

A gauge will measure how much force it
takes to get this load moving.

There it goes.

Keep it going.

A little faster.

Woo! Yeah!

Yeah!

All right.

Let's have a look at that gauge.

It's just over 1 .2. 1 .2.

That's very good.

Young figures this would have been a
snap for about a dozen oxen.

So what's happened there?

The insert is obliterated.

The spacers are breaking down.

It's too soft.

But Young wants to try one last load.

What we could do is take off the top
two, build over crib and spread the

out more.

Redistribute it. I think that's the
plan. Yeah.

Pleased to meet you finally. Lovely to
see you. Just then, Stonehenge expert

Mike Pitts drops by.

I've been reading your work for years
and always been very impressed. Well,

thank you, Alan.

Thanks for bringing the rain. Appreciate
it. Pitts is briefed while the team

sets up a second crib.

I'm thinking as I look at this, okay,
supposing this did happen.

You've got to have a really smooth
track, almost like a road.

Absolutely. You need an engineered route
again almost, don't you? Basically,

yeah. It's pretty sophisticated.

Yeah. But I can't believe that in the
Neolithic, when they're moving these

stones, that the landscape is going to
be nice and clear and smooth like this,

but there's going to be all sorts of
things going on, like swamp and forest

stones getting in the way and the steep
slopes that you've got to get through.

But that's the case with any system.
That doesn't make it unique to this one.

Absolutely.

OK? Now the rig is ready for a final
run.

Nearly 13 tonnes.

Heavier than some sarsens at Stonehenge.

about a third the weight of the
monument's largest stones.

There it goes.

Keep it going.

Keep it going. Keep it going.

Uh -oh.

Stop.

What happened? It just sort of went
down, and I think it went down. I don't

where it went down.

The woods bent now. Yeah, but it worked.
I don't know about you, but I was

pleased with that. I think we're done
because we can't stay out here and get

everybody frozen.

The sky's clear for a few afterthoughts.

I'm not at all convinced. I think it's
too sophisticated.

We don't need that level of complexity.

to move Stonehenge. The more complex you
make it, the more likely it is to go

wrong.

I think a lot of times we think of
people that live in simple cultures as

define them don't have a science because
it's not written down or it's not

formulaic, but these people's technology
is their science.

I'm satisfied that my initial idea seems
to work on a big scale.

So I'm just happy it's all gone the way
it has because...

You don't know until you try.

For all we know, the builders of
Stonehenge used techniques no modern

has yet imagined.

If only we could excavate the Neolithic
mind.

Back at the riverside, Parker Pearson
and his team expand their trenches.

and expose more of that strange circular
structure.

It appears to be the ditch and eroded
bank of a henge.

Ben, we've got a huge triangular stone
hole in that one.

In its center, they make a spectacular
discovery.

A ring of large holes.

Recorded in a laser scan, their shape
and size point to one thing.

They probably held bluestones, just like
the ones now standing at Stonehenge.

This place was selected out as a special
spot to build a stone circle.

And to do that, with antler picks, they
had to dig a circle of holes.

And the hole in front of me, they've
created almost a nest of flint nodules

form a base to support the stone coming
in on top of it.

These stones would have formed almost a
mini stonehenge without the lintels,

very close together, standing some three
metres high in places.

The complete circle probably held 25
stones.

The team names it.

Blue Stonehenge.

So, when was it put up?

When was it taken down?

Where did the stones go?

And we're starting to get some answers
for those questions.

Found in the stone holes, a distinctive
type of arrowhead suggests Blue

Stonehenge may have been built around
3000 BC, at the same time Stonehenge was

first built.

as a ring of 56 blue stones.

The two monuments may have been linked
from the start.

It may well be that these were set up
together as two separate stone circles.

One right by the river, one up at the
special solstice place of Stonehenge

itself. So providing the two ends of a
ceremonial route for people to move back

and forwards.

But what happened to the bluestones by
the river?

Parker Pearson believes they were moved
to Stonehenge.

This probably happened around 2500 BC,
when the giant sarsas were installed

in the center of the monument.

But the bluestones still mattered.

They were pulled from the Aubrey holes
and the riverside and rearranged.

perhaps enshrined inside the sarsens.

To the people who built and rebuilt
Stonehenge, what did the blue stones

Why were dozens gathered from these
outcrops in Wales, at least 150 miles

Some of Britain's first farmers put down
roots in Wales 1 ,000 years before

Stonehenge was created.

Parker Pearson believes their
descendants brought the bluestones to

Plain.

When you actually move a stone, you're
planting your identity,

your very ancestry into the ground.
You're saying...

Yes, we used to come from over there,
but this is our place.

And these are the symbols that even our
ancestors occupy this space.

So what I think we're seeing is that
sense of transferring one's ancestors

ancestry in the form of stones.

And here we have this very expression of
belonging.

Around 2500 BC, Stonehenge became a
monument like no other,

a symbol of everything the Stone Age
could achieve.

But this is one of the last great
monuments to be built in southern

It's the end of an era, rather than the
flowering of a huge, powerful

civilization. It's something of a swan
song.

As Stonehenge reaches its peak,
something new is trickling into Britain.

Copper, gold, and later bronze.

For people who define their existence in
terms of stone and wood, metal

changes nearly everything.

With metal comes a focus on personal
wealth and status.

Now the dead are laid to rest with their
riches in individual burial mounds.

Hundreds appear in the landscape around
Stonehenge.

And the age of grand communal monuments
comes to an end.

A symbol of eternity, Stonehenge was
built to stand forever.

But in time, the great stone circle was
abandoned.

Its age was eclipsed by a new
technology, a new way of being.

And that is a story as old as the hills.

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you.