Secrets of the Stone Age (2/2) | DW Documentary

[Music] the human race has been building stone structures for ages what are the origins of these structures what were they used for [Music] and how did people move them into place [Music] about ten thousand years ago humans became sedentary they started growing crops and raising livestock [Music] Neolithic people were no different from ourselves they appreciated the finer things in life the aesthetics the legacy of the Neolithic Age endures to this day the Neolithic people were the first to become heavily dependent on material goods just as we are today language guides the harvest hide our knowledge of this period is based on archaeological discoveries stone structures are a key to understanding early civilizations much of the archaeological evidence has been buried for example our ancestors concealed their large stone tombs today these sites resemble Hills such landmarks were meant to last an eternity the oldest evidence of sedentary cultures has been found in what is now Jordan Syria Palestine northern Iraq and southern Anatolia 9,000 years ago this region was probably more humid and densely forested than it is now archaeologists discovered several prehistoric settlements near the ruins of the ancient city of Petra in southwestern Jordan via is about ten kilometres west of wadi musa or the valley of moses it was an extremely important find now for the first time archeologists Miriam Benz and her colleagues are trying to reach the excavation site during the winter the site is located on a plateau 1,200 metres above sea level to reach the plateau the team has to hike through a gorge sometimes the gorge is blocked by rain water or snow but today the weather is fine Benz is a member of the Research Association X oriented which is affiliated with the Free University of Berlin this site was discovered more than 20 years ago by the german archaeologist hans-georg gable who is also the director of the excavation project and the chairman of x oriented [Music] so far the team have carried out excavation work at six different sites in the area and have taken samples from several others the entire site covers 1.5 hectares the evidence recovered so far indicates that crops were grown here [Music] my woman deal idea one of the big questions for us is why would people want to settle up here possibly to protect themselves gorgeous can be closed off very easily it's also possible that the surrounding area had become overpopulated so these people moved to the plateau as visitors it was a farming society and people also raised cattle sheep and goats good sear on seats they developed specialized methods of farming and breeding livestock there was a social hierarchy but we've not yet been able to determine the presence of a differentiation in social status is not as now [Music] the houses are all about the same size and that indicates that this was an egalitarian society it also appears that they were built close together there was no room for pathways between them the rooms of the houses were very small [Applause] people seem to have spent a lot of time on the roofs [Applause] [Music] the small chambers were used to store food and house livestock see ya this site was very carefully planned for example we determined that all three of these passageways are the same height of the artists small axis and the masonry is quite neatly layered in places so it's likely that specialists did it in the early days of the settlement as fear to inland our attire visor understood on the other hand they knew nothing about using support beams to shore up the walls so they kept the walls from falling down by building the structures that you see here constable yet to only live and so hardening their worst punishment posit see one since the bhaiyaa settlers built with stone part of their history can be reconstructed but these structures tell us nothing about the people who lived here their thoughts and beliefs tombs are better suited for this archaeologists have already discovered Neolithic graves here and in summer 2016 the team made a discovery that revealed much about the way that this community buried its dead this Haniyeh Andy's maja we found a room that had three different graves it was a collective site where adults and children were buried together there was also a superb example of an individual site which contained a rich assortment of burial items we also found a grave in which two children aged three to five years old and a baby were buried too started warden genetic analysis might help determine the relationships among the deceased but it's not yet clear whether the bone material will provide enough DNA archaeologists spend a lot of time analyzing the data that they've compiled their primary goal is to document the original state of the site as accurately as possible the excavation work at the booyah site indicates that it was an autonomous settlement that had no recognizable social hierarchy if so that was a remarkable achievement was if Washington just imagine a settlement of more than a thousand people that lasted for more than 500 years in a small area surrounded by deep gorges they lived in a very confined space and they did so without major conflicts that's an enormous social accomplishment for people who had only recently become sedentary SS aft wooden it's not yet clear why the settlement was later abandoned there's no evidence of communal violence it's possible that the residents depleted the local forests and grazing land or perhaps the area was hit by a major drought there are many possible explanations [Music] scientists have proven the existence of one major climate phenomenon that changed living conditions throughout the Mediterranean region Zechs thousands found in approximately 60 200 BC an ice dam in North America collapsed and that caused two huge lakes to pour their contents into the Atlantic Ocean this major inflow of water interrupted the Gulf Stream for more than a century that in turn produced cooler temperatures in the Mediterranean region perhaps one or two degrees Celsius and there was a big drop in precipitation these phenomena posed a real threat to early Neolithic peoples to unload on director patrolled August over perhaps that's why people abandon the bhaiyaa settlement even today Jordan suffers from water shortages and in summer temperatures often rise above 40 degrees centigrade [Music] a climate change incident that took place about 8,000 years ago has left its mark throughout Europe the Middle East and North Africa [Music] since the end of the last great Ice Age sea levels have been rising continuously just four thousand five hundred years ago the water level on Frances Brittany Peninsula with several metres lower than it is today over time the sea moved about 500 meters further inland French archaeologist Serge Costin believes that many Stone Age relics have been covered up by the sea lavender the rise in the sea level certainly depends on fluctuations in climate including the ice age and post ice age phases sea levels have been rising in this part of Brittany for more than 60,000 years but in the last thousand years of hunter-gatherer societies it rose especially rapidly LaMotta say 'aha peda over just one generation entire fishing and food gathering grounds simply disappeared Ikeda spaces set for multi between 4,500 and 3,000 BC an advanced megalithic culture developed along the coast of Brittany there are three large stone structures near the village of local mariachi the air Gua passage grave the air Gua men here in a tomb called the table demo song no human remains or burial objects have been found at the Marshall site but there are a number of impressive rock engravings several symbols were carved into the ceiling there are three separate groups of symbols there's an axe with a handle you can see the polished blade and its edge you can also see the pointed handle peg the end of the handle is curved in the shape of a snail above that a crooked stick or crook and finally a drawing of an animal like you'd find on the island of gavrinis cover yourself over again governess lies in the Gulf of Morbihan so the local residents must have had boats that could transport huge rocks no poo Holly Eva demo the setter source to get from here to the island and it really was an island at that time you had to have a boat but not just a raft or a dugout doors and so poly pomona she'll say hi marina vacacion I think they needed a proper water craft that had planks tied tightly together the gavrinis capstone weighed more than 20 tons so you can imagine that the boat had to be pretty large and dwop I say that you know she only met two [Music] the megalithic tomb site on gavrinis once contained a stone structure that was even taller than the grande men here of locmaria que [Music] the column was later torn down but some of the stone was later reused a tribute to the symbolic importance that this structure once held [Music] [Music] all set to go softer the competition the men here of aircraft is certainly the greatest example of this kind of monumental stone structure thus it explore several hundred years after it was erected the men here fell over and broke into four pieces no one seems to know exactly how or why this happened the men here had towered eighteen meters over the countryside at the time it was the tallest upright stone structure of its kind that's a linen and C is the gansan these monumental structures played an important role in the collective memory of society and they continued to do so even 50 generations after they were built but later generations probably associated these structures with something entirely different laughs organ gain ever to inform you ticket must come to under estimate for boom we can only speculate on the thought processes of Neolithic peoples how did they imagine the world that they lived in the engravings on these huge stone that the man a lewd sight also near look Myakka may provide some insight at first glance they may seem unrecognizable but a closer inspection shows that each has a story to tell see here's one boat heedless and another the parallel vertical lines represent the crew rashiku Keith CCD keepers images of boats waves and whales is it possible that these Neolithic people had developed certain aspects of maritime culture [Music] he says here's an image of a whale the body including a square fin is clearly visible in Libya she I reckon is limited one over there and up here you can see the spout which is depicted as a divergent of Odyssey citrusy Coveney a commercial [Music] we can't say for sure whether the local residents thought that whales were dangerous wild animals or were merely a symbol of marine life in the Gulf of Morbihan [Music] ancient peoples often painted or carved images of animals did they do so out of respect and admiration or simply because they enjoyed doing it [Music] some of this artwork including paintings engravings and relief decorations is beautifully done the farmers and herders who moved west from Asia Minor did not do so directly it was an irregular process that took place over several thousand years design these Neolithic immigrants first encountered local European hunter-gatherers about 7,500 years ago at the latest the original inhabitants had been in Europe for 40,000 years they probably seen archaic human species such as Neanderthals and had experienced various periods of glacial activity physicians feel avid isn't what the hunter-gatherers were there first and they were genetically distinct from the immigrant population their last common ancestors probably date back thirty thousand years ourselves Indian didn't listen to mines I'm for fun that's certainly enough time to develop their own culture language and even physical appearance the differences between these two groups were quite obvious John's friend who knew Austin Europe's original inhabitants were hunters [Music] the new immigrants have been farmers for several generations [Music] hunters and gatherers left behind little archaeological evidence [Music] later they probably migrated to less fertile regions perhaps near newly populated areas along the coasts of northern Europe they found rich fishing grounds and decided to settle there [Music] here in the cony model region on the west coast of Ireland archeologists are researching this key transitional phase this is the only model of this type a 30 mile stretch of coast here so this is clearly a very significant place it has survived in the landscape it's likely to be much bigger in the past so underneath the shell the shell is pointing to a seasonal occupation site as part of a season a round of living on the shore here we have other shell middens on the shoreline here but they're inches or centimeters deep this is a monument admittin if you like unlike any other one along the shoreline here so it's it's it's a particular site and has probably a circular sacred dimension to it that hopefully we get to explore in time as the site has been rolled and now by by the elements it looks like a park e ologists have uncovered a number of small treasures here it's a kitchen midden which is a site that was built are the result of cooking here between six and maybe 8,000 years ago created by early farmers here are the proceeding population of hunter-gatherers living on the shore of Galway Bay or so we're right along Atlantic coasts the Iron Islands out behind us in this very bold red granite landscape very infertile ground so fish resources and shellfish resources hugely important so some of the earliest sites in Europe and their least investigated archaeological sites in Europe are shelled mounds from the very north of Denmark but over the last 200 years to be an investigations carried out on shell mounds but this is a classic example of one here for years experts disagreed on the origins of these accumulations of shells some thought that they'd been washed ashore over time by ocean waves but now the majority opinion is that they were created by humans as we suspect it is a mess letting our transition site between the mez later hunter-gather war this really marked question European archaeology did hunter-gatherers build the Neolithic did they adopt a Neolithic already displace by early farming groups coming from the concent assassin candidio second from one of the great unanswered questions about the neolithic period is whether the farming peoples emigrates to this region or whether the hunter-gatherers turned to farming and became sedentary it's difficult to say for sure but in many cases we can assume that it was both out of this evidence to support each of these theories by this is Kindle for sale Barcia by the scriptures billion [Music] between 3800 and 2800 BC Neolithic peoples in Northern Europe built a number of massive stone structures [Music] German archaeologist haha Mahler speculates on why they did that because North Dutch lunch during the Ice Age glaciers deposited huge boulders throughout northern Germany and large parts of North Central Europe this didn't bother the hunter-gathering peoples but as soon as they became sedentary and began to cultivate large fields the boulders became a big problem he died it won't give my student let Seaton after him big league [Music] [Applause] by this time people had learned how to move heavy objects like boulders this was a major development [Music] okay now let's attract soon a food vid Neolithic peoples discovered the concept of traction and approximately 4000 BC this is just about the time that the first megaliths were built people could use teams of oxen to pull the boulders out of the fields and they used these boulders to build cult sites or tombs or men years these large single structures so they found practical uses for these boulders and they cleared their fields as well they used the same teams of oxen to plow those fields and became incredibly productive much more so than southern european peoples who hadn't discovered that kind of plowing yet [Music] pharming at this time was hard work particularly for those who used simple tools to till the soil and since people were living more closely together in small spaces they ran an increased risk of contracting disease still the population of farmers grew more quickly than that of the hunter-gatherers and there was a big increase in construction in Scotland the first stone circles were built burial grounds began to appear in northern Germany and huge stone columns were erected in Brittany for example the men here Deshawn DeLong the structure is 9.5 meters tall and the component parts were hauled from a site that was at least four kilometers away [Music] the men gear.com play is 8 metres tall and weighs about 160 tons it leans slightly to one side because it was built on soft ground this structure and two others near it were said to guard the entrance to hell there are more than 3000 men years in the area around Karnak why did the local residents build these structures [Music] Serg cousin has been trying to answer that question for years seed bassoon solo genome reported to the local residents placed their trust in those who are able to ensure their survival so they were willing to work to put up ritual structures to one of them not a faucet I can physically see examples of this just about everywhere to one extent or another exist on paper - Soph Casey presume exacerbates as we presume when they seek [Music] this is the barn in a burial mound in northern Brittany it's one of the oldest structures of its kind and was often expanded over the course of 1,000 years the mound contains eleven dolmens or single chamber tombs the structures consist of at least two vertical megaliths and a horizontal capstone it's often difficult to spot them from a distance they are either part of a large stone complex or they've been covered over with soil draft animals can haul large objects only on a flat surface sometimes Neolithic peoples built ramps to make this possible [Music] large stone slabs like these can weigh up to 130 tons it took huge teams of workers to move these objects even just a few centimeters you can imagine the amount of work that was required to place a huge capstone on top of the vertical pillars these projects required an enormous amount of planning and organization so why did people build these structures Gilbert assisted-living they wanted to create something that was truly monumental grave most of these thrusters were built at grave sites it wasn't enough to simply bury the deceased people wanted to put up some sort of memorial later generations had no idea that it was a burial site but the structure did last for centuries traveling from this virtually for the evocati born [Music] the first Neolithic farming peoples continued to migrate across Europe some even made their way to northern Scotland probably by sea [Music] the nests of brodgar is a major archaeological site in the Orkney Islands the nests in the area around it were designated a World Heritage Site in 1999 these just aren't buildings these are pieces of architecture beautifully constructed and it's not just an alternate sensational this site was special for over a thousand years this is what the nest might have looked like stone buildings covered with peat as far as we know these were not residential structures excavation director Nick cart and his team can only work here for two months a year because of the bad weather the rest of the time the site is covered by protective sheeting [Music] the archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of beautifully decorated relics [Music] well done [Music] each item could shed some light on what life was like here at this point archaeologists are still filling in the blanks what were these decorated stone slabs used for there are indications that some of them were painted a large amount of animal bones have been found this indicates that the local residents organized feasts here experts believe that the nests of brodgar was abandoned and partially dismantled by about 2200 BC archaeologists have found no evidence of Bronze Age culture here [Music] color seems to be a very important part of the everyday life of Neolithic people and in some ways been lucky at the nest that some of the preservation in particular areas that site has been very good and so we have managed to pick up evidence for color not just on the ceramics but also actually in the walls of the buildings NIC card and his team have found evidence of painted walls the use of decorative paint or dye has also been confirmed at neolithic sites on the mediterranean island of malta the first large temples were built here around 4500 BC and all were colorfully decorated the color red is the color of blood so as we are assuming there was an element of animal sacrifice and the collection of blood or the use of blood in some form then one could be led to believe that the red represented the color of blood which represents life or represents death of the the sacrifice of an animal so there may be this link between color and ritual [Music] these beautiful relief artworks were carved in sandstone and indicate that animals were important to the local residents both game animals and pets [Music] why did Neolithic artisans choose these particular subjects there are a number of theories out there including the the worship of nature the worship of fertility the idea of a mother goddess comes from the discovery of a number of statues which they believed to represent a fertile woman and the idea coming from one's mother have a mother have a mother but the original mother is Mother Earth these images indicate that women in Neolithic society enjoyed a special status de foul is nice looking women represented not only fertility but also strength and political power this image would change later of course but it was stable for at least a few millennia in Neolithic times it was an age where gender equality was the norm and men didn't dominate women a man before borniche delineators [Music] Neolithic peoples also developed an interest in acquiring personal property during the Neolithic period people began to define themselves by the material goods they put a lot of time and effort into this process and for the first time they began to attach economic value to these goods and that value became the basis for trade on Burton MIT isn't bad for hundreds the neolithic settlement of Baja in southwestern Jordan is guarded by a narrow Gorge of red sandstone the local residents used that Sam stone to make distinctive semicircular handicrafts - so first time people would carve out a disc shape and then they create these items out of the material that was left over they'd sand down each end until they were quite thin and so furnish aguila ring diversion these items were probably too delicate for people to wear they're very fragile and slag deserving priests naturalist behind if wouldn't is a thing it does have we it's possible that these rings were used like money to be thriving under would offer in exchange for food or raw materials for example kinetic to an iron guitarist at perhaps the bias settlers chose this site because of the color of the rocks red colored artifacts have been found at other sites and this indicates that boo-yah may have served as a model Neolithic peoples war ornamented objects made of teeth animal horns and plant fibers they also used Flint jadeite and obsidian [Music] the use of axe heads made of jade was popular at the time the trade in jade items was widespread and they maintained their beauty even today she seemed ship their exquisite lustrous stores of value they were used for up to 1500 years and constantly reshaped one of our colleagues Pierre Patrick on determined that all this jade came from mont a visa in the Western Elms it was extracted there and then traded over an area of up to 1500 kilometers pouched Oda 400 some jade axe heads were also discovered on the southern coast of brittany near karnak people who were gathering mussels came across four accents that had ended up in what was in neolithic times alluvial soil these axe heads were probably actual work tools at one time but they were later reshaped and assigned various other functions the local residents smooth then cleaned the blades to make them as sharp as possible sometimes they broke the axe heads into two parts good-o peace disunion ahead of salt de la la in the summer of 2016 French archaeologist Pierre petrica found a deposit of jadeite in the Aegean region the material may have been mined there up to 9,000 years ago Petra Khan's discovery provided new historical insights [Music] but trading was not limited at this time to Jade obsidian or sandstone rings the shelves of spiny oysters were also used fear Austrian archaeologists Marco procedure uses a reproduction of an ancient tool to make jewelry out of these shells the shells are found all the way from the Black Sea to the coasts of Central Europe Neolithic people fashioned them independence bracelets and belt buckles and they were popular as gifts the Neolithic period covered several thousand years that's not very long in the timeline of history but our ancient ancestors had the same spiritual and emotional needs that we do today this period saw fundamental changes in everyday life and the ways that people lived and worked together they began to bury their dead and to honor them afterward they built houses they raised crops and livestock [Music] they organized themselves into construction brigades and erected huge stone structures and some of these have survived to this very day [Music] visit series authority who'll ensure the transition to civilization in Europe began with the arrival of the migrants from the east in short migration produced civilization think syriza to the indigenous hunter-gathering peoples either merged into these new societies or adopted sedentary farming culture on their own there was no turning back as well procedure that was absolutely a major step forward in Sicily this Neolithic sedentary culture provided the basis for the development of later more advanced civilizations it also created a number of challenges but people dealt with them successfully to understand the present we must also understand the past rapid population growth consumerism and the rise of mega cities are phenomena whose origins lie in the Neolithic period where sedentary life began [Music] you [Music]

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 5,033,971

Rating: 4.5070806 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, Stone Age, Neolithic, human history, monolith culture, megaliths, archaeology, ancient history, history, DW

Id: XSGRd5Ve1zI

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 12 2018