A Bronze Age Mistery | FULL EPISODE | Time Team

back in the Bronze Age about 1800 BC a group of people died here at levon in Fife we know that because of these eight tiny graves in the small cemetery but what we don't know is who these people were were they members of the same family or the same tribal group how did they die were they buried with any grave goods this ancient burial ground is of great archaeological importance but it's under threat from a building development over the next few months this entire field will be covered in houses so we've been given the rare opportunity to find out as much as we can about the people who lived and died here nearly 4,000 years ago and we've got just three days to excavate this entire cemetery before the archaeology is lost forever [Music] Time Team have in the past taken on some ambitious excavations but here we may have bitten off more than we can chew only three days to totally excavate each grave record and remove all of the archeology before the builders move in because the site has to be completely cleared it offers us a rare opportunity to archaeologically dismantle the graves to find out as much as we can about their structure and occupants but there's potentially a very big problem the soil here is very acidic which means that any skeletal remains and grave Goods could have been completely destroyed you started without us absolutely we've actually already evaluated this site so we've dug it before we've just actually cleaned up the site again so we can start the excavation proper now and where are the actual graves well you can see quite a few just coming up around us we've got a grave just here in front of us one immediately in front of this girl here and this large boulder you see in the middle probably caps quite an important period it's yet to be tested but it seems likely you weren't calling them grace what was the word you used kissed there kissed burials well done well it's a it's a kind of arrangement of stone slabs forming the edges of the burial and the burials the skeletons or the cremations as they might be are actually put inside how did you find this place originally well we had a suspicion that there might be some graves in the city of principally because of a chance discovery made back in 1944 so when this area actually came up for development we thought I had there's a good possibility that we're going to find more kiss here so let's have a loot so when we undertook an evaluation here about a month or so ago as soon as we stripped back the soil we find the first kissed and then another then another then another and then clearly we realize we were dealing with a cemetery this part of eastern scotland has got a huge amount of Bronze Age activity each of these dots representing artifacts and single burials and our site in leaven is possibly the largest Bronze Age cemetery ever found in Scotland from the previous evaluation we know of nine separate kists and fills already nabbed what looks like the best one this is the most complete one we've got this is the only one that still got enormous capstone it's really well sealed well we've got to literally reconstruct what they did and dismantle it in Reverse so the last stone that they put in is the first one that we take out this stone here for example you can see it's well and truly on top of the capstone so that one can come it looks very fragile it's it's not very good stone we must make absolutely sure there's no detail carvings or anything on the undersides of these but it's very very rotten you can see it's it's very very laminated look it's just see it's very very rotten stone but obviously did the purpose what do we deal with this well well obviously if there was any of it that got any signs of working on and we'd keep that but but this stuff is just bits just stones basically it's just this can all go none of the other kist seem to have lids so we can use different digging strategies for each to try and find out as much as we can about how they were constructed we'd like to do is to cut a slot on the far side and to try and take out this long stone here which will give us a view through the kiss and a sense of how the kissed has been filled in oxo so we're gonna get quite a nice view of this critical for hopefully at the very center of the cemetery leading Bronze Age expert Francis Pryor has already started digging around the mysterious Rock significant is it just a coincidence no I think this is the heart of the site I mean forget all those graves made with this large lump of rock is is the key to it all what do you think it might be well we'll know that when we've dug out the pit into which it was sunk which I've marked out with my trowel so let's have a look the pit goes all the way round the way around yeah that's it and then we pick it up here so you think the pit was dug first and then this was put into it so I wasn't here when the first burials were done well what I would like is that the pit is much earlier than the burials and that this was a sacred site for centuries before they started coming here with the burials that would be lovely because it would show but this particular bit of land had always been important so might this even be Stone Age wait quick yeah it could be yes why not and there might actually be a body under there oh that would be lovely wouldn't it it could be yeah it could be just depends how deep it goes and we don't know how far that rocks gonna go and what's this here well that is a spread of burning is a lot of burning on the site and what's fascinating about that is that the burning there is cut by the pit so what does that mean that means that the burning has got to be earlier than the pit I reckon there's something strange going on here maybe they were cleansing the site in some way you know maybe there were trees here and they had to be burned and sort of disposed of in the correct way there are lots of patches of this burn she won't volume gyah fears are conducting a magnetic susceptibility survey which should by measuring variations in magnetism in the ground prove whether these black areas are indeed burning to15 even though the nine kists were only discovered a month ago this field has turned up Bronze Age archaeology in the recent past when teacher dad discovered the first kissed in early 1944 when a plow nicked the top of one of the covering stones and you saw it yep I was brought down at the age of five so they're little the time to get a little a little bit ago but I was I'm rather hazy about what I saw I do remember seeing her one of the kists opened no it wasn't being opened it already been opened but there were four red sandstone inside state how long after your dad discovered it would actually excavate it it was found in January and the excavation happened in June so what happened to the site between the beginning of the year in July it was left open it's quite possible some of the artifacts and disappeared but when the excavation actually took eventually took place they found them black jet bead and some bones the bones were analyzed and found to belong to a 12 year old boy quite why he was buried with a necklace made of Yorkshire jet and obviously highly prized we'll never know we should be able to find whatever remains of his grave somewhere in our cemetery Alice is excavating two small kists to the east of the big stone could they also be the graves of children you're well underway and I think we need to pause and stop because this is not quite what we expected it looks to me a little bit as if we've got the natural subsoil already showing through here there's a definite change sandy I mean one possibility that occurs to me given how small the kist is is that it might actually be a cremation with the bone well burnt I think the sides were obviously a lot higher than what they are now I think this was actually probably passed aside it was lying flat yes off of the grave but I think it's probably part of that side this year I I think a good thing to do at this stage would be to have a general cleanup not just inside but actually around the edge as well and to bring up the caps into which the stones of the kist have been laid it's disappointing that these two kists turn out to be empty they're stone slabs probably trashed by centuries of plowing they could be cremations or perhaps they contain the remains of tiny babies the bones being completely destroyed by the acid soil you cannot get the impression that underneath all this there ought to be a big void you know what I mean you've got a lift yeah you just lift the cap set off and there is this kind of thing underneath this empty tube with it with with with a body or something like that oddity the reality is it's much more likely presumably just to be down on the reality is it's going to be thought up with dirt yeah yeah on the other side of the cemetery cats successfully excavated around one of the side slabs of her kissed it's time to see if the application of a little brute force can shift it yeah and you're gonna work the stone free from the other side yeah okay I'll go easily there you go oh it's going very nice and we've saved the section it's all there not me Joe with the side stone removed cattle be able to clean up the section to try and understand how the kissed filled up with earth covering whoever and whatever was buried inside so Francis this looks very promising yeah I'm excited about this it looks like sandstone that well I think that's what we've been waiting for afternoon here we've been wondering what this large still in the boat and I think you've just got the answer here I would be extremely surprised if that's not the site stones of a kissed coming up now there I think we've got the Greve underneath this that the girl thought might be here but certainly your work there in the last few minutes I think it's just sealed that one yeah yeah it does seem very flat at the bottom of that stone which again fits in with what you it does indeed as it's cracking in there it's also such a sizable cut you know it's a good two to three times the size of any of the other graves on this side so I'm assuming being the central focus as well this is the the most important parts possibly this will be the big cheese I think we'd have to conclude that if this early stage so the giant stone seems to be sitting on top of soil which is on top of a large red sandstone kissed you got it hey let me put mine in let me put mine in it's finally time to lift the lid off Phil's grave [Music] yeah it's wrong [Music] - better that's better that's better now all we got to do is try and slow this do it Harry they look like burning - yeah more dark soil but this time on the inside of the kissed could this be ritual cleansing of the cemetery as well do you want me out of the way no okay where you've got something that's hardly fired you get really high readings and that's giving average readings if not low suggests to me that she's not actually burning showing it that's just a some sort gonna crested Yahoo below the stone so if it's not burning what is it we're going to take samples for lab analysis it's the end of day one and I don't think I've ever seen so many of our archaeologists working on their own on a site they've each been allocated their own grave and they know they're really up against it for time now to see if they can work out over the next two days what's buried down there and also to see if they can understand what's underneath that mysterious stone right in the middle of the cemetery join us after the break beginning of day two at our amazing Bronze Age burial site here at Lieven in Scotland and the big news is that already this morning this beautiful rim of some kind of Bronze Age pot has been uncovered that's not all though behind us cat beavering away in a grave over there Alice is excavating this one down here in about an hour we're going to lift the stone right in the middle of the cemetery we have to find something intriguing under there we've got one two three more graves here the whole thing is riddled with potential Phil have you got anything at all in your grave yeah of course I have Tony I'm so chuffed I've actually just got our first bit of human bone up actually got down onto the skull where is it there it is just poking poking out of the section there oh it's not in very good condition but the main thing is I've actually got human remains in these graves until you find it you don't actually know whether the soil conditions would have destroyed all the bone completely now we know we've got bone in this one we could have bone in all the rest of them Margaret it's a very small grave is this a child not necessarily it could be a child of course but it could be an adult in a crouched position Phil needs to finish off before we can know how long till we know well I've recorded the section we want to sample it and then take the rest out and then I go down on top of the bury how long give us a shout when he goes nothing as Kerry cleans back around the pot in his kist he starts to uncover a skull and possibly some grave goods Phil do you want to come have a look at this I've got some Flint Flint plate oh I'll have a look at a plain oh this on the opposite side to the vessel here good god that is gorgeous I mean only is it gorgeous as a tool though he's a beautiful big long blade that's been retouched along the edge as a noise but the thing that really knocks me sideways is to quality the raw material I mean you don't get flint like that up here Douglas where's your nearest source of flint premiere well certainly we've got nothing of the quality of this kind of flip around here there's nothing like that in Scotland I mean this is possibly a Yorkshire Norfolk something like that but it certainly traveled a long way to get here I tell you what even in England it's rare to get raw material in that quality it is the most efficient tool you're likely to get and you can have it like just hold it like that or you could slaughter into a wooden handle or summat glue it in there it's the most gorgeous thing absolutely but look at the context we've got a particularly high status burial here we miss the food vessel with a package there with a flint knife an extraordinary rare find indeed I tell you what when I go you can put me down with one of these I'll be gone a few hundred meters to the north of our site there's more Bronze Age archaeology which could be evidence of some sort of settlement it's only the top of what it used to be really twice as high oh really really there's have been knocked down I think probably in about the 40s or so yes I mean an awful lot of effort went into putting us up I mean imagine it twice the size you know I mean that you're talking about possibly you know dozens maybe hundreds of people coming here to do that it's a major bit of communal work I think yeah and I think they they it was there for a purpose and I think the best the best purpose is that it's its territory you know we're on this side you're on that side we're probably very good friends you know the landscapes got to be parceled in the same field as the standing stone Peters found several small stone objects he'd like identified and I was wondering if that was possibly extremely old it is I think it's extremely old yeah it's it's the weights that holes being made as you can see you put your finger through it but it's been cut from both both sides drilled from both sides like an hourglass I think Matt's possibly a mace head or something like that certainly placed on that's fascinating and this thing is caught my eye if you actually look at it it's very very smooth there you'd like to feel that yeah it's amazing in there yeah yeah and I think that was used as a as a corn grinding stone the top stone of a corn he went backwards and forwards backwards and forwards leaning down on it and that's what smoothes that surface this to me looks to be a rather exciting find I you see this one's got the the hole in the top Peter as well this sort of cut it's cut in here but it's not been dressed in any way it's not smooth like the one you've got there Francis I think this is portable rock art prehistoric rock art so in the upland zones there there's many examples what call cup and ring arts I think small hollows cut into the surfaces of rocks and stones and in some cases you get them on on portable stones literally just one cup and that can then be deposited either with a burial or in a field boundary it's a kind of symbol that can be put in the ground I think that's rather than exercise you find fascinating you know there's one thing that intrigues me almost as much as the graves and that's these mysterious patches of black you know coming up all over the site are they burning John well they are burning they are burnt but they're not really what we're looking for what do you mean well we're looking for fired areas like pyres flyers that's it and there they give really strong magnetic responses responses like that so we've got one we haven't that's actually the the igneous rock in the middle of the site and it's the same effect but it's natural so does that mean that at some time there was some kind of sacrificial burning on that stone no it that's the built in magnetism when it was a molten rock it was really high temperatures and when it's sort of solidified then it's retained its magnetism and that's why it's a strong signal so it's perfectly natural so we had got any pars on this side no pars at all and when you actually look at where the kists are near to the kists you get these areas of yellow areas of burning they have one-off events though so would you speculate that what it means is that as each person was buried there was some sort of fire process associated with yes I mean it's possible there are cremations on the site and then we're not really seeing the bone it's possible there's funeral feasting which is represented by fires in their one offs it's possible there are burnt offerings associated with the burial process but they're all pretty small-scale fires that's that's what the ever done yeah what we do know is that there wasn't one kind of ritual place where bodies were burn well the one big uncertainty about the evidence that's coming from the Magus us it seems to me is this impression that we're getting that underlying all of the burials is this great big burnt event which doesn't seem to be showing up at all this is Francis's idea that you've got this sort of ritual cleansing by fire and we're certainly seeing our kists and our mounds going in on top of that right the way across the site but that's not showing up on this survey so that's pure speculation the bones in carries kissed a fragmentary but the skull gives Margaret all the information she needs we've got the skull of a very small child or a baby now that looks to me like an adult skull no what you've got is with young skulls because the sutures are unfused as soon as they everything decomposes they fall apart and the pressure of the soil just pushes them flat against the soil it's very very thin the sort of texture of the bone the configuration of the bone suggests it's somebody who's very young another child's grave the second on the site if you include the 1944 excavation the third or fourth if you include Alice's tiny kissed yesterday over in cats trench here is this another burial well what we've got here which is really interesting it's um cremated material coming at the fill but it is cremated bone and it's it's probably human but what's very very interesting about it is you've actually got marks on it you've got this series of horizontal cuts going across it initially I thought maybe there were the marks you get when bone fractures to information but they're not they're the wrong shape they're to even too uniform so something was done to that bone before cremation which is rather strange because if they've been defleshing then the bone wouldn't cremate because you'd never get the thing to a high enough temperature part of the cremation process relies on the body catching fire and then continuing to burn literally under its own steam so have you any idea what might have been oh no I mean they're obviously caused by some sort of processing but it just seems slightly odd that they are also cremated the idea of body processing could very well tie in with Neil's speculation about burial rituals which in addition to fires are feasting may now have to include deliberate defleshing half-past two day two we're well on the way to having excavated all our tiny little graves but now the moment that we've all been waiting for we're going to shift the big stone in the middle of the cemetery so everyone's gonna have to clear out the way Alice can you clear now Kat try that you get a plane come to that tourney it's gonna come higher okay that's it that's it okay right against the scraps on [Music] there we go okay what's up that bloody thing drops in the flexaway we know from yesterday but below the oddly-shaped capstone there's at least a foot of soil above the kissed the biggest priority is to remove the soil as quickly as possible so we can get an idea of the scale of the obviously huge red sandstone lid carries kissed has been recorded it's time to lift the grave duty well it's it's a yorkshire Mars food vessel and it's actually very very similar to one of the ones that was found in the evaluation so if I hold this beside it you can see it's the same shape the same twisted cord impressions and this is very exciting because one of our issues is to see whether we can identify the work of individual potters yet see if this is a twin pot were they made by the same person or other people buried at the same time post excavation analysis seems to indicate that the two pots were indeed made to the same design by the same Potter in 2100 BC as Kerry removes the remains of the child's skeleton a small find comes to light among the teeth wow this bead yeah it's really exciting I'm amazing I mean it certainly isn't one of these barrel shaped oval jet beads yeah and I wonder very much what it's made of I don't think we'll be able to tell until dana has had a look at it cleaned it up yeah a microscope and it certainly feels like stone to me but it's very interesting and it's nice that you found it in situ under yeah rather than yeah yeah bracelet bead or whatever so that's great so just buy me a few more will you place your order here this is an extraordinarily rich grave for a child with a flint knife bead and decorated pot so is not to miss these very small finds every bit of spoil from every kissed is being saved and odd things are turning up everywhere you can affect yourself is that a stone with a groove in it there is a stone with improve in it but it is incredibly polished workshop for making something in the incident room we've set up a small conservation lab where dana can get to work on the finds firstly to sample the contents of the pot from carries kissed if it contained food or drink lab analysis may be able to differentiate mead from beer or meat from vegetable matter she then starts on the supposed bead to find out how it was made I've cleaned it from each handed it is hollow so I guess it was a bead a great that's fantastic Wow but it looks as if it's quite uneven inside as if you yeah I don't see any evidence of drilling notes so I think it's them now it's natural isn't it's a natural freak that's been used as an amulet man that's great and that's that's similar to this other stone yeah so we've got this in two different kisaan unusual stones I mean one uses jewelry and this one that seems to be perhaps just carried around or yeah well I I think the the shine that you get on that I suspect it's been on somebody's body you know are in a much and it's it's a treasured amulet a good-luck charm I mean it's been suggested it's a fertility symbol yeah way big yeah well it's as good a theory as any I suppose back on site films ready to lift his skull but it requires careful rapping first what kind of things are you hoping are preserved well it would be really nice if there's some teeth then we can get an age done and possibly any evidence of disease or anything at the moment it doesn't even look as though we can determine sex it's in such poor condition which is why we need to hang on to every scrap of evidence that we've got and there's been no other bone that's come out of powerfulness not a scrap no this is this is all we've heard and I suppose if this race the sort of question and you know in the in carries gravely we've only got skull as well they've been assuming that the other bones have rotted away the possibility that they only burrows I think you have to sort of if this happens I think again then we have to actually wonder why the thing with Phil says it's in such a fallen condition it's more than plausible that everything else could have completely disc dissolved and and gone but the bone but that we do have in Kerry's grave isn't really good condition on the skull and yet there's absolutely nothing else and that's a little bit odd there's a number of mysteries coming out actually they really are quite weighty I tell you that due to the higher density of bones in the human skull they tend to survive the burial environment much better than any of the other 200 odd bones in the human skeleton but with no other bones to work with the skull is our only chance to find out the age and sex of the burial Dana Yorick is he is the skull from Phil's trench and it's in a such poor condition we've just lifted it in a block and it needs dismantling so that we have as much bone in one piece as possible if that's possible there we go no bone no teeth disappointingly there's so little of the bone left that there's no way of knowing whether this is the skull of an adult or child man or woman back on site a very rare sight GF is doing manual work with their mag survey complete they've been given the job of trying to find out if there's a perimeter ditch running around the edge of our Cemetery all day long while we've been working on these fascinating burials and excavating these beautiful parts and skulls and little bits of tooth we thought that maybe deep in the heart of this cemetery there would be something special something very important but we could never have guessed that it would be as significant and as beautiful as this this is either one of the biggest Bronze Age kists ever discovered in the country or else it's something far far older possibly even Stone Age and the answer to what it is lies down here somewhere if you're not doing anything after the break please join us beginning of day three we all got here early because we've got to finish the excavation of this Bronze Age cemetery by tonight we were all really excited about the possibility of lifting these red stones to see what might be underneath but everything's changed we've got these two parallel blue lines right the way through the site Francis has moved away from the stones fields come across here from the other end of the site what's going on Francis well we've realized at the last minute but that central grave as we thought it was isn't central we found a ring ditch goes around the outside that central grave is off-center so it can't be the main focus of the site but we thought the stones were at the center of the site where is the center the center is over there follow the blue strings yeah the center is about here so what we're doing we're putting a trench right through the center of the mind okay hopefully we'll find a central grave if there is one then we'll understand the site right now with circling around in a great mass of mound one small question we've got something like nine graves to excavate now put in this massive trench we've got to have this whole site excavated by the end of the day can we possibly do it well I think it's going to be a tall order I think it's gonna be a very a tall order Henry just changed our entire strategy because he thinks the center of the cemetery isn't where we thought it was and also because he says that he reckons there's a ditch all the way round it is right well we've seen the ditch on this site and I've surveyed that n along this edge a few ecstatics some extend name to a full circle a place to Center that circle somewhere round about here do you buy this is a model for a Bronze Age symmetry well I do because there are many examples of cemeteries like this which you've got an area surrounded by a ditch and interestingly if you look at the definition that Henry's put around this all the kiss that we've got are within that circle so I think to me that's a fairly good indicator we've actually got the limits of this of this cemetery around the big kissed there's a definite sense of anticipation everyone wants to see what lies beneath but when you're dealing with large stone blocks that could collapse at any time and destroyed the delicate remains below you just can't rush in the middle there he's not a separate stone yes it looks like a locking stone what do you mean by that well I mean it's it's it's sort of wedging the two stones together Kate and keeping the seal keeping and killing what's in here in the hole of this crack that we've got here between the two and stones was actually sealed together which is why I've got this problem of some stuff in danger of falling in yeah this one looks as if it's going to come away quite cleanly my worry is there might be something underneath it's going to drop away as we do it so I'm gonna clean it like carefully some bits of very modern-looking material in there so that's shining almost like item four and also class special this is a porous which is weird Kappa trapping stone on top so how can I have gotten this makes sense could it be modern or could it just be older this Court denies tantalizing doesn't you thank you thank you for that John rooty that is that's what's shining market so this plastic it's not it's an S so rodents have introduced that magical what we were seeing it's not here how on earth rodents could get into a stone lined tomb buried a metre below remains to be seen before we can lift the stone we've got loads to do the trench is extended so we can get the heavy lifting gear in and the weather's not helping bubble-wrap has been fed down the crack in the lid to protect against any possible rock fall and padding is wrapped around the stone before the lifting straps are attached it's more like heavy engineering than archeology the lifting of this huge stone is using up a lot of manpower and resources it's almost four o'clock and we've still got four kists to excavate a few meters away from our big kissed cat has at last found some archaeology and then otherwise empty grave is it the same as the other one no slightly different carries was very ornate and as is just very very plain also it's badly damaged along this side which is a shame do you reckon these would have been pots which was specifically thrown in order to be part of the funeral or what these just have been the ordinary pots from the kitchen that would have been put in with the very person it's a very good question and it's something that we can't really be sure about however my own feeling is it's likely that these pots had a function out with an actual burial tradition but then we're given over completely to use.you though we do see very similar styles in graves is there any particular form for the location of the pot within the grave well there is a tendency to have the pot located close to the head so usually that's accused but equally right in the middle of the Greve at one side is also quite the common fine but it's usually at the middle or at the head no head no hair this grave did contain a body but it's just probably as a result of the soil conditions that the bone is almost completely gone it looks like Francis's idea to open a trench across the cemetery is paying dividends fills already found what looks like a pile of bones all of a sudden cremated very matted Anya right yeah I'm human at last I'm sure yeah and of course I mean you know this may not be I don't know may not be a high-status burial it may not be associated with wonderful pots and beautiful objects but nonetheless it's still a human being absolutely somebody who doesn't weigh back with yeah absolutely it's not all good news at least four of the kists we've excavated have been completely empty or badly damaged a probable combination of acid soil and centuries are being trashed by plowing and last we're ready to lift the smaller of the two big stones we've done everything we can to ensure that nothing falls into the grave but we can't be absolutely sure we've only got a few hours left 50 clear you see what we've got there yeah let's um let's lift the the wood out and see what's there we'll check this way okay to move the attorney do watch that crack we'd have to be very very gentle because as we lift the bubble wrap off we want to make sure we don't dislodge anything that's Institute so yeah oh my god oh my goodness Margaret come have a look I've not seen any bone like this on this site so far and that's what you can serve well we've got the skull and it's it's lying on the top with the top of the head down the bottom of the skull and the maxilla the upper jaws will go on and most of the nose but a little bit of the nose still survives and the frontal region the eye sockets still survive so that's really really good so we might be able to determine a sex by that if we don't get anything else if we're lucky the jewel will have fallen off somewhere and be amongst this which will help us age as well but here we've got the upper leg bones and the lower leg bones which suggests the pelvis is over there these are the knees it's a crouched burial which is what you'd expect in this type of funerary environment a crouched burial just means that somebody who's buried on this side with their legs tucked up in front of them and arms probably tucked up as well there seem to be lots of little shiny bits in there what on earth could they be well we found the remnants of a look what looked like a rodents nest and I think you know mouse or something's gone in and taking plastic in with it so even though this has been sealed up for four thousand years more rodents have managed to get their ways right yeah so we're not the first living things to have seen inside this tomb after all but he's over the first year it's one dirham the bone survivals absolutely brilliant compared with what we've got elsewhere you know what do we do with it now well it's gonna have to be cleaned we've had a little bit of debris going we're gonna have to clean very very carefully indeed because not only have we got bone in situ we've also almost certainly got some grave goods in situ too so very very gentle sensitive cleaning oh you really think there's a good chance that we'll have grave goods here I'd be very surprised if there wasn't in a grave of this grandeur I think it's a man that's a little just feeling this it feels like like there are good brow ridges so I think it's probably a man before we can excavate the contents of the kissed there's the small matter of the other stone which is absolutely rotten and has to be removed by hand perfect a few meters from our pic kissed Alice has been quietly working on a small burial which seems to contain grave Goods and the best preserved skeletal remains we found so far got a nice lot of teeth Alice's are enough to give us a good age yes yep quite a few molars here it's not the six yet that's the first molar and there's a little bit of wear on a couple of the cusps there but that's the that's the third molar and the crane is complete so that sort of suggests early teens I think yeah well at least twelve and isn't it so that's good I mean can we tighten that up what's going on with the pelvis is that fuse yes or I'm really pleased about this because I thought the pole she's gonna be really fragmented you have this little bit of it here yeah which doesn't really tell us much at all but coming down onto the right part of the pelvis here we've got a lump of the pubis as well yeah and that's an that's pre-puberty then isn't it yeah somebody between sort of twelve and fourteen ish yep it is really really nice it's no good amazingly another child burial the makeup of this cemetery is very odd and very rare for the Bronze Age one adult male in a graveyard of children may be the position of the cemetery in the landscape hold some clues Stewart why mount the top of this tower well I think from here Francis you can get a very good idea of the the cemetery in relation to the landscape around it Jebus see over there you really do get a feeling for the shape of the landscape you do and you know they put this thing here for a reason that's right I think we can now start to appreciate why this cemetery is where it is I've been looking at where the other prehistoric sites are in the vicinity you can see these red dots or where there are kissed cemeteries you can see how they're all next to river valleys yeah here our cemetery here is next to this big Valley over here and that's that one there that's right yeah I think what we're looking should be looking at here is a community the settlement over here and the cemetery here next to this river valley on the edge of their territory as it were yeah much like leaving today and we can see from here you can see leave and we can see the churches in the background yeah this is almost the precursor of modern leaving in other words the chapel underneath that massive kiss over the last night he's probably not a sort of big chieftain or a king or something like that he's much more the equivalent of the local mayor yeah yeah there's definitely a male look at those brow ridges one of the slightly unnerving things about this is that it looks as though you've actually got blood vessels still on the inside of the skull but in fact they're they're reutlitz and of course they're really destructive because then they'll each mineral out of the bone and destroy yeah they're all over the outside as well can you see here very very tiny fine roots almost like hair on the outside of the bone that's all around Serbia definitely yeah what we've had here is you know that's nesting in the grave and probably in the skull itself and they the young rats and possibly the older ones are well that will have been sharpening their teeth on the bone did you've got some lovely examples of teeth marks all around here for it so important is it very common to see rats nesting in the way that they've been here well it's the sort of thing you imagine from some 19th century of gothic novels isn't it but I've actually never ever seen a burial that's being thrown into such complete disarray by the activity of rodents but there's bone being moved all over the place bits of skulls you know quite well dispersed from where the remains of were lying and the skull itself has been moved and turned over by these rats I've been playing football though they've been having a great time down there and as a consequence we haven't got much left of our chap she's a great great shame it's six o'clock and we're rapidly running out of time the ambitious trench across the center of the site has to be abandoned without finding a central burial we have to put all our manpower into excavating recording and lifting any remaining grave Goods and skeletal remains then the stone slabs have to be removed we've learnt a huge amount from excavating this cemetery and we've finally got the answer to a question that's been bothering us since day one are the black patches areas of burning the answers more geological than archaeological some of the patches are charcoal but the rest the stuff that Francis thought was ritual cleansing is in fact degraded bad quality coal outcrops common in this part of Scotland no wonder they didn't give GF is a single finally after all of the bones are removed it becomes apparent how and where the rats gained entry but one mystery remains why in a burial of dis grandeur and then no grave Goods perhaps our theories of what constitutes high status need to be revised maybe pottery imported Flint's and jet jewelry and weapons were everyday objects in the Scottish Bronze Age and it was natural organic things that were highly prized perhaps the occupant of our main burial was wrapped in furs and surrounded by leather and wooden objects which unfortunately haven't survived Douglas Spears and his team were later able to complete Francis's trench and in the process discovered a central kissed just where Frances said it would be it turned out to be the burial of the boy with the jet necklace first found in 1944 he was the first person buried here around 2100 BC shortly after that at least four other children were buried along with the middle aged man under the capstone quite what relationship he had to the children will never know and why he merited such an impressive grave marker has been lost by the passage of 4000 years [Music]

Channel: Time Team

Views: 194,963

Rating: 4.8821898 out of 5

Keywords: Team Team, Archaeology, History, Education, Educational, British TV, British History, Tony Robinson, Phil Harding, John Gater, Stewart Ainsworth, Mick Aston, archeological dig, Channel 4, Time Team Full Episodes, Full Episode, Beaker Culture, Mount Pleasant Phase, Inhumation, tumuli, cists, cairns, Wessex Culture, Deverel-Rimbury Culture

Id: 0Hk_erAZBSk

Length: 48min 40sec (2920 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020