The Sacred Neolithic Henge Buried In Someone's Backyard | Time Team | Odyssey

this channel is part of the history hit Network stick around to find out more [Music] this is the Tiny Village of wadden in Dorset it's a beautiful place to live in protected from the elements by this High Ridge up here and on a clear day overlooking what must be one of the most spectacular views in the whole country but how long have people been living here the owners of these two Bungalows have found lots of pottery in their back garden and they've discovered lots of lumps and bumps in the fields around them this is the two Bungalows here naturally they're wondering what it's all about and who was living here hundreds if not thousands of years ago time team have got just three days to come up with some answers [Music] thank you [Music] how are you doing Mick well we got a very interesting situation here because David here lives in this Bungalow here and he's the one that wrote To Us wrote to time team and he shares this garden with Grace who lives in this Bungalow here and in front of it there's this septic tank which is this mound and when this has been Doug you watched it and the workmen were pulling Pottery out all the time weren't they they dug away right the either side and lots of Earth came out basically we found a lot of pottery in it basically the spoil heat was pushed over there and all the pottery really came out of the mound there covered with Nettles so just up on absolutely here oh yeah I can see the manhole cover that's right yeah and there's a pipe running down here the other stuff came out that's right in this direction down in this sort of Direction yeah so we've got this big collection of pottery the problem we have Tony is we don't know whether all this Pottery is coming with soil that's been dumped on the side here in which case it belongs somewhere else and doesn't tell us very much or whether it actually relates to buildings and structures or workshops or anything like actually in the ground area so we're going to have to well first of all do some geophysics and and see if there's any structures but uh we're actually going to put a trench in here and and see what we get where's the pottery that David found it's up in the Bungalow come and have a look this is a fantastic collection show me the pipe yes no problem David's neighbor Grace is waiting for a hip operation so we're planning to bring the archeology to her whenever we can oh Grace I bought Tony to see the pottery well all this came from your back Garden yes and this is just a tiny proportion of it as well Dave just saved a sample mass is more has been thrown out it's strange it's not all from one period but it doesn't run completely through steady either there's masses of this medieval stuff for 12 13 1400 A.D and there's a sort of Gap of about 600 years then there's a bit of late Roman stuff to 300 A.D then there's another 700 year Gap then we've got masses of this early Iron Age stuff which is in fantastic condition huge bits over here really Fresh Breaks they haven't gone very far have they they haven't it's unusual to get early Iron Age shots in this sort of condition unless they're fight found in a large feature like a pit or unless they've been fairly swiftly covered up after the settlement was abandoned so does that mean you think it's more likely that the people who were using this stuff came from around here rather than it comes from elsewhere and was just dumped in for build deposit I think it's very likely that that you're actually on or nearer an early Iron Age settlement here because if you look at the condition of these shards they're unabraded the surface is good the size is large and there's fresh fracture we tend to rely on this a lot you know freshly broken stuff on the site where they live in abraded stuff like these kicking about in the playoffs or for Generations probably now this you said is early Iron Age what do you mean by early Iron Age um I would put this group um between 700 and 500 BC so we've got a bit of a mystery already we've got loads of this medieval stuff loads of stuff around 500 BC and only little Islands in between so I don't know what was happening in your garden Grace I hope we can find out what do you hope that we might find um I don't know to be honest I don't know but I know there's something interesting very interesting what just because you feel it yes gut feeling well let's hope Grace is right at the moment we're waiting for Jeffers to survey the garden before we start digging until then we're going to use the time to double check the spoil Heap created when the septic tank was put in history hit is like Netflix just for history fans with exclusive history documentaries covering some of the most famous people and events in history just for you our extensive catalog of documentaries covers everything from the rise of Hannibal Barker to the illustrious Treasures of King Tut so sign up today for broadcast quality documentaries uncovering the mysteries of the ancient world we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and odyssey fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code Odyssey at checkout but I ain't very keen on this uh this spoiled tip archeology but but he has left the summit in addition to wanting to find out what's under their Garden David and Grace have noticed lots of lumps and bumps in the field next door I want to know if these could be further Clues to who was living here in the past this is a job for our landscape surveyor Stuart Ainsworth who already thanks to some photos taken by a local photographer has noticed several features which may be worth further investigation that area there is where the septic tank is in the back of Grace and David's Garden if you look over here alongside the road can you see these rectangular structures that's very clear there's another one in there they look as if they might be medieval or post medieval buildings to me and there's all sorts of other stuff little boundaries coming off I'm just wondering whether we might have a small Hamlet something like that struggling out along the road but on on the other side of the road you can sit can you see these Terraces yeah and so on over here and this all this plowing there's a lot going on yeah because here you've got this what appears to be an earlier field system overlane by origin Furrow this looks very much like a prehistoric field system wonderful position south facing slope and you then you come down to the break of slope or you've got the classic location for Iron Age and Roman settlement in fact it's the optimum location for settlement of most periods Mick to Victor over you found yourself a nice spot there Victor what are you doing grandson view here except it's bitterly cold as a gay uploading what I'm doing basically is just a quick sketch of the two Bungalows and having a bit of a fantasy of what would happen in the garden if we had an Iron Age round house or alternately we've had one of these medieval Stone houses one of the long houses with attached roof so I'm working on those two at the moment Victor in fact has been fairly restrained with his sketch because in a landscape like this the potential is enormous it could contain evidence of an entire early Iron Age settlement and a medieval village one built on top of the other at the moment all we know is that geothers have detected several features in the area of the septic tank but nothing that's an obvious structure so what do we do I mean it seems to me that the the prime reason for doing this particular hole is to check out the stuff that you found David in this area trying to get some context to it so we need to be near the pipe and near the septic tank so perhaps we need to be in that sort of area so where's that Mick well that's there's a septic tank under that bound there the pipes going across down there so our Target without the geophysics will be around here wouldn't it right and on the base of the geophysics I'd prefer to come this way a bit and go that way a bit okay well if you've got a wall that when a feature that way we can presumably lay something out to take all of those so at last time to start taking up the turf and the debut of a new machine designed to speed up the process is this is this the new labor-saving device this is the turf this in theory should make it easier to replace the turf after the Dig you guys have you seen my Cupid in the field next door digging begins in a more conventional way as we position our second trench over the earthwork which could be the remains of a medieval house if David and Grace's Pottery finds in the garden or anything to go by over the next few days we should be uncovering bits of both the Iron Age and medieval story of wadden with this in mind we've invited Jim newbolt a specialist in making medieval Pottery to work with us oh hello I'll give you a hand with anything yeah so we could do with you taking your boots off we need this mixing up here with your feet take my boots off that's it using methods and Technology appropriate to each period Jim's going to try to make replica Iron Age and medieval pots based on the pottery shirts we dig up in our trenches today the task is to build the Kilns we're using local clay and by adding water it becomes easier to work with the clay is then mixed with hay and rolled into balls that are used to make the walls of the medieval kill ER right so these are this is the Kiln wall from medieval kill that's right yes how high is it going to go it's going to be around this height in rather like a beehive right so you've got quite a lot to do that's right you're also going to do an Iron Age firing as well that's right the Iron Age firing is going to be in this Firebox here we have the two fireboxes for the medieval Kiln so far to the Iron Age bonfire in the pit will help fire the medieval that's right so that will enable us to do Pottery well any period we find off the side that's right yes but what have we found in the garden so far well we think we've found what Geoff is detected John I think we got your anomaly uh yes but it's running along the hill it looks like a drain it is a drain the pipe's no longer in use so we're going to take it up and dig deeper today Warden is made up of just five houses one of them's a large manor house and it's in the barn next to this building where Robin Bush our historian will be working Robin's task will be to troll through a collection of original documents all relating to the manner and our site how are you going to pull this stuff together over the next three days what I'm looking for is is evidence of references to the landscape to old common fields old Open Fields the way in which this uh this estate was worked was managed I mean its very name goes back at least a thousand years wadden means road hill so presumably either it grew wild or they actually cultivated it on this hill the road with which supposedly the ancient britons used to slap on themselves you know for battle so it could be actually a much older name than a thousand years absolutely gosh bonus come on a bit hasn't it wow yeah it's absolutely amazing you've obviously got a wall well we've got three walls we've got the end of a building what we're dealing with is the death of this building it's collapsed mainly inwards although with a little bit slumping onto the outside so we were right it was a ruined building causing the lumps and bumps and so far the footage that the building was abandoned around 1700 A.D so does this sort of stuff suggest that people living here are quite wealthy or is it very much your kind of farm laborer stuff no I think there was there's some suggestion that they were relatively well to do and they had more than just one slipware vessel that they clearly liked to have some decorative vessels on their table we've got any medieval Pottery here at all we've I've just found one actually and it's a tiny base thumbed there so that would be 13th 14th century and that's the only bit of medieval we've found so we've discovered a building and tomorrow we want to find out when it was built and also if there's any trace of even earlier buildings underneath this would help us to answer David and Grace's question about how long people have been living here Grace however at the moment seems happy enough having a quiet chat with Phil what's up is that Portland out there is it that's poor all right Portland Bill yes well you can understand what people want to live here though can't you yeah you're just lucky enough to be the person yeah and it goes like ever on at the Kiln site our Potter is quite happily breaking up replica pots these will help to spread the heat across the floor of the medieval Kiln when it's fired tomorrow but now we've reached the end of day one everyone I'm sure has enjoyed the weather but how are we doing with the archeology so you're pretty happy with what's going on around here yeah I think we put some trenches in through the rubble there and get down to the early levels of that building but what about in this guy Garden I mean I know David and grace are really excited but quite frankly the best that you can say about this is that it's an enigmatic hole what do you mean enigmatic hole look this trench is stuff full of archeology look the only bits that are natural are those yellow bits all the dark bits other than that are features we've got to dig them out find out how old they are and what's in them so there could be Iron Age down there there definitely there could be I mean I think we should put another trench in the other side of the septic tank where we know all that material came out when the septic tank was dug so it seems to make sense as we've got one trench this side which was another one over there and that'll double our chances of getting an iron age structure okay so end of day one this is not a really up about it yeah yeah although quite frankly we haven't found anything like the amount of Iron Age stuff I thought we'd find mind and the thing I remember most about today is those enormous pieces of Iron Age Pottery the size of digestive biscuits that Grace has got surely that must imply there's an RNA settlement around here somewhere tomorrow let's hope we find it because believe me I'm going to be pushing this lot really hard tomorrow shovels Spades travels in there thank you it's the beginning of day two and Mick and I have come up onto the ridge to try and get a bit more of the whole picture it's fantastic view isn't it fantastic bit of landscaping it and you can really see how close the sea is to our side yeah yeah we've got chisel Beach over there Abbotsford over there should we uh if we go down a bit we're out of the wind and we can see the sights from the top do you reckon there's a real chance that we'll be able to find out what was happening in all those different historical periods in David and Grace's Back Garden yeah I think so but I hope so I mean that trench down there in their backyard we're only just coming onto the archeology I think we have a very good chance of giving the Iron Age picture from that now do you notice how the winds dropped yeah I mean it's very sheltered down where they're living down there I mean from the north winds certainly it must have been a Haven compared with back there yeah but there's also an emerging medieval story of course we've we've got the house over there the end of the story The Post medieval period but there's a whole series of platforms and buildings which includes their Garden I mean they've got all this medieval pottery from the garden it's fairly clear that there was a house somewhere in that vicinity as well in the garden as Grace can see we're now opening up another trench on the other side of the septic tank we're looking to see if there are any building remains under here which might explain why David and Grace have found so much Iron Age and medieval pottery meanwhile in our original trench Phil's digging the darker soil features he discovered yesterday we need to establish what they are so that we can then investigate deeper down she caught me what have you thought then I've been saying you've been having big thoughts been trying to work out really what the context what happened what's happening in Grace and David's Garden by examining everything round about and you can see can you see up here there's big Terraces here Tony yeah there's no reason why these aren't Iron Age field Terraces reused in the medieval period we know we've got a medieval house over there which we're digging at the moment that's on top of these Terraces so the implication is in the garden that we may have that depth Asylum some of those Terraces to get to potentially before we get to Iron Age we possibly have to dig that much would we are you saying that we would have to dig down to here from there it depends where we're dealing because we're digging on the downslope side that's where all the material moves down to if you're digging on the uphill side then that's nearer the original lineage these things form by plowing you see yeah if you and what what tends to happen is the soil gets dragged from the uphill side so you're not very deep onto bedrock at that end but it builds up into a great bank at the bottom so our bottom trench could be very deep but our top trench might be quite shallow stewards also noticed two trackways that are showing up as Earthworks on the side of the ridge they can be seen very clearly on one of the photos this trackway he thinks is Medieval but the higher one is earlier and this is clear to Stuart because this medieval field boundary goes over it this prehistoric track which could be Iron Age leads to another earthwork which Stuart's interested in so we've actually got an ironh trackway which leads to Fields over here comes down here and eventually leads off over here and this is that curved enclosure that I was badgering you about yeah yeah that isn't earthwork don't understand what it is but this trackway heads towards it well we've got a trench in there now trying to see because geophysics didn't come up didn't come with anything at all but it's such a clear earthwork that I want to keep running with that one so we've opened up another trench on the far side of the field we know that the features early because it's got medieval plowing over it but does it have any connection with the Iron Age Pottery finds in the garden we'll have to wait and see Melissa Jenny and I were just looking through this stuff that's come out of this top trench we started and I really hope and hoped we'd get lots and lots of our nose Pottery out of this yeah from the other septic tank obviously I'm not getting much butter at all but is there any Iron Age stuff yes there is in this tray this one is particularly nice it's a it's a well-known type it's a bowl with a nice red finished traces of the red finish here right so is this a good one do you think to get Jim to try and reproduce and that's what we wanted to get him to do was try and do vessels that came out of the trench yeah I think it would be a a perfect one currently our Potters making a reproduction based on the one bit of medieval Pottery we found in our trench in the field yesterday what actually Powers it that's just inertia you're not this is just a momentum of the wheel itself I sent it around with my hand but it means I've got both feet on the ground it keeps you steady that's right but you have to keep re-spinning it that's right but at each stage they said I need to put my hand in the water as well so you've got the base now you're presume you're going to lift it up that's right Jim and his helpers need to make lots of medieval Pottery to fill up the kiln but just now we've got a much harder challenge for him to make a replica based on a bit of Iron Age Pottery something he's never tried to do before after yes it's roughly this one like this published drawing and it would be about this size right so that's and that that sort of that's where you've drawn so the challenge is on can we make a replica Iron Age pot to match the shirt we found in Grace's Garden has volunteered to get the experiment started the big difference between this and medieval Pottery is that this is made without a wheel this is a long process this will be a real experiment to match the shape the fabric and the color of the pot and as no one knows how it was made for sure our attempt will be based on Theory potting experience and guesswork we're not exactly sure what these bowls were used for they were probably multifunctional but again probably not for cooking oh really they may well upheld liquids they may have even been for drinking from and probably just generally as table wears but I think the um the fact that we very rarely find carbonized residue means that they weren't used for cooking on the whole meanwhile just outside Grace's window in our new trench the deeper we dig the better it seems to get it smells that handmade Iron Age stuff isn't it yeah the bottom of the big jar yeah it's a base brilliant it's quite fragile isn't it in fact it's beginning to look like we may have more than Pottery here I'd like to think it was was maybe a back end of a wall cut into the Terrace I mean that edge there does look as though it's cut away and uh who knows I mean maybe just maybe David went and plonked his his uh septic tanks slap bang on top of a building [Music] there's also some good news from the field next door because our test trench across the circular earthwork has also found some archeology curious about why GFS didn't detect anything here this is the curve feature which was showing up on the air photograph which is visible as an earthwork and we're just putting a trench just across that section of it there of the bank the geophysics is not saying there's nothing here we're just saying we can't see anything different to the Earthworks right no additional information really Now isn't it you've heard on the wire that you've got something I too right we have we've actually got our house by the looks of it look you see this Rubble that is the wall of an Iron Age roundhouse Beyond it is the outside of the building and where I'm standing is the actual inside of the building these are these stones they are part of a makeup of a really big substantial war in here where I'm standing much much smaller bits all flat the the medieval Pottery has just totally disappeared we're getting big pieces of Iron Age Pottery Peters actually dug one of these you know so you know you know what you're looking at presumably is that what yours look like when you first it feels right you can see the rubble and you've also got some of this going just tipping off and slipping down into the interior of the Hut the other thing you've got here is a space at the back of the Hut before you have a change in the slope to the next Terrace up there and on this flat piece of ground which technically is called the berm you've got a slight Hollow which could represent a drip Gully of the thatch of the Hut so in other words you can actually almost estimate the thickness of your thatch as the water runs down and goes into this little Hollow there from the curve of the wall we should be able to work out how big the Hut was but where would the door have been we've got enough excavated prehistoric houses now to know that they tend to face South Southeast it optimizes the amount of light you get from sunrise and may have some religious significance if you look from here look would have been a cracking view look straight out to sea down there towards Portland that's Portland Bill isn't it yeah yeah well this is great Iron Age houses are rarely on their own so there could be lots more to find here the next job though is to Mark out the position of this Hut and work out where the doorway should be and then leave a gap of about a meter and a half we then plan to open up another trench across the doorway start again that's Southeast where the door would be believe it of all the places one of the fines turned up is it it's not is it they're right in the middle of the house although we've only found a bit of The Roundhouse so far I can't wait to tell David and Grace Grace this is Victor who's uh who's our artist hello David Grace now before we started digging on day one Victor Drew this and it was what he imagined we would like to find in your back Garden which is this Iron Age heart beautiful and the good news is we've found an Iron Age hat just where which is in that trench so you were right all that business about uh got feeling yeah gut feeling yeah with a bit of luck we should be able to show David and Grace not only around house but also the kind of pottery used there and believe is or not Jim reckons that this iron ocher Clay is what the Iron Age Potters must have used to achieve the red finish on their Pottery you think you can actually achieve this color from that yes there's a lot of iron in this body in this clay so it should at least get something semblance of that this is really a trial room so we'll see how it works Iron Ridge Clay is fairly easy to find and Jim's sure that there must have been some close by it's the firing process that affects the change in color but was this really how it was done in the Iron Age hopefully we'll find out it must seem that we've forgotten about our dig uncovering what we hope is a medieval building in the field next door the truth is what we're trying to do is allow Barney and his diggers time to reveal more of the building Robin also is on the lookout for documentary references that might help but in the trench the latest news is that we've discovered a courtyard with a flagstone floor and Barney now wants permission to dig beneath it I think I think you have to do that because I mean we really want to know what date that area was first occupied don't we it goes the medieval settlement or not I got very excited about all the Iron Age finds but I haven't really had much of a chance to look at the medieval what have we got more we've got lots of 30th and 14th century course utilitarian Wares that they might have used here but what's most interesting is the fact that we've got lots of dishes rather than the jars that we would normally expect to find and that would suggest that perhaps it was associated with dairying one of the more interesting things is that around here that they were making systems in the 15th century what do you mean by System assistant it's a large jar with a bunghole at the bottom rather like a present day cider barrel and it has a little spigot at the bottom but just above the base and you could draw off more of your cider or your ale but this particular feature of this site that we've got several of them and we hope to get the Potter to replicate what does that tell you about your four Bears I mean pretty drunken buns yes Jim is making a replica of the 600 year old system he also has another system with him which we'll be able to use tonight but it's not completely ready it still needs to be pitched to be made watertight this was done using melted beeswax or pine resin this is where the pitching comes in as I'm pouring it out oh I see so the pitching is the turning it round it felt like a ship pitching being pitched pitching out of the item we're also attempting to make pottery as it might have been made two thousand years earlier in the Iron Age currently we're trying to recreate the smooth finish to the pot in our new trench to find the doorway of the Iron Age Hut the signs are already looking good it's a different sort of pottery but it's of the right date it goes with the rest of it all right so it's early I know that's right it's early Iron Age of about 600 BC so as you say tomorrow perhaps at this time we might actually be able to invite you through the doorway of your very own Road very nice wouldn't it you're a lucky devil you know I'm going to give my left leg to have an Iron Age roundhouse in my back Garden would you yeah I would you want to move in well why not I mean it's been a great day and tomorrow should be even better as we hope to reveal the floor of the roundhouse and find out what's under the mystery earthwork in the field next door to celebrate a successful day we've invited David and Grace to join us for a drink well we've been very busy we've made a huge number of pots as you can see both Iron Age and medieval it's actually been really really useful because it's given us the chance to do a lot of experiments to try and find out how they were making the pottery that we're finding the trenches what sort of thing well one really interesting thing that has come up is that the Iron Age Pottery we're finding we reckon was made by women how do you work that out because some of it is decorated with thumb or fingerprint imprints and we tried with Jim and his finger and Thumpers even his little fingers far too big to have made those imprints so we reckon it must have been someone with very small fingers either a woman or even a child what are you really proud of well I'll tell you what we did which was really fun we actually did some pitching waterproofing one of these um assistant oh I know about this yes this is that one we saw this afternoon with this little bunghole that's right again it's all based on what we've been getting out of the trenches um but have a taste and see if you can work out what what we actually use the waterproof it with just taste aside doesn't it almost oh that was really good actually it was actually fine resin I think that's excellent The Taste doesn't come through that's right absolutely not at all I think I'll try again but the day's not over for everyone because the firing process will go on all through the night it's really exciting to actually got this all lit at last and we're looking forward to it all day and now the firing's well underway and that's the medieval pots in the mud kill that's right in the big mounded up thing there and then the Iron Age pots are just sitting in the bonfire it's called a clamp Kiln but it's just a bonfire and a pit basically but that bonfire is firing the medieval Kiln as well what about these medieval ones can we see them you'll be able to see those from the other side if you look in the other side come on have a look because we've got we're going to have two fires firing this kill them we haven't lit this one yet so you can actually get ratland here and you get right down you can just see the bottom of that lowest pot one of my big pots oh yeah yeah yeah well it's uh 9 40. it really is the end of day two for corindra and I we're going to slope off back to the hotel but Jim's got to stay here till the wee small hours of the morning haven't you looking after his pots join us after the break and let's hope that they really do look the business when they come out tomorrow morning for the grand Kiln opening no not Jim no no hope it doesn't rain day three it's the last day of our dig here in wadden and we're hoping it's going to go well because this is a special day for Grace hello Grace hello a little bird has told us that it's a bit of a special day for you today so from everybody on the towing team very many happy returns of the day cracker Dawn that was really late yeah how did it all go um very well very well we had a few bangs and crashes but uh I think it's been a success bangs and crashes from in here and out here well I can see that that doesn't bode too well does it it has been a success so we've got things to do what we wanted them really has Karen's has seen this year no not yet corenza is checking our progress with the Iron Age roundhouse oh wow this is where you've extended this trench that's right yeah oh right yeah let's show you that's that same curve again going round presumably so it will join these two trenches up and then we'll be able to see exactly where it goes and that's right quite how the less clear stuff we're getting that trench fit well the dog leg our way around this bush by the time we join the map we shall end up with a hell of an arc on this round out so we've lots to do today we want to find the doorway and floor of the Roundhouse we'll continue to search for earlier evidence under the building in the field next door and we've got another trench to sort out which I haven't even seen yet wow look at this clay coming out oh what that might be good bloody get out it's blustery up here jolly good oh the trenches good God some of the foundations for a hotel or something why did you dig so deep following with Phil what this following those sticky places cut down down there that's all Phil that's not just natural no no what it is is an enormous ditch huge with a bank on this side hang on a minute hang on the ditch is going that way yeah yeah what led is here was this Photograph and this curved enclosure we've been talking about from from day one and we wonder whether it was going to be a settlement of some kind yeah the geophysics showed that it clearly isn't settlement now you've got this yeah well we kept pursuing it because there was clearly an earthwork here we had to keep going with it yeah and what we've ended up with is this huge ditch on the inside the big curved earthwork I only know one thing that has a big ditch on the inside and the bank on the outside and I don't really believe what I'm hearing yeah what is it we think I mean the dimensions and everything are right for it being a henge which is a lake yeah that's right that's a mega mega mega mega if it's a hinge that doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be big bits of stone lying around no no because a lot of them had Timber settings inside or in indeed no obvious features inside it's difficult to see the soil changes which indicate that we found addition bank because the trench has partly collapsed but the crucial Next Step will be to find some dating evidence and am I right into saying that hinge building was about the same time as the early pyramids yeah we're talking about 2 500 BC in round figures so we've actually moved the habitation of this area like another thousand years yeah that that's what it looks like I think we need to do a lot more work today to try and clarify it so we're not going to get excited yeah we are oh yeah but they're excited and I think David and Grace will be too tell me go on CE what do you think hey a hinge a hinge yeah can you explain to them what one is wow I'm gobsmacked we all are totally gobsmacked I knew it it's nice to hear Phil ippines absolutely and there's only something like that that'll do it [Laughter] so it could be a hinge a place where people were worshiping as far back as four thousand years ago but we have to find some dating evidence to prove it dating material isn't a problem in the garden though where we're continuing to find evidence of the people living here in the early Iron Age a mere two and a half thousand years ago but it's a complicated business sorting out layers of rubble and it's beginning to look like we might have more than one roundhouse here the goal is still the same to find the doorway and most importantly the floor where we could discover items left behind by the people who lived there but now over at the Kiln the pots have cooled down and we can see how we've done trying to replicate some of the Iron Age Pottery they all seem to be broken at the moment Jim is that because in order to do the experimental firing and the time you had available we put them in a bit when they're a bit wet that's right normally we've got at least two weeks before the drying process we had a day a day with not quite long enough that's in one piece isn't it just about it says he does a lot of broken but the important goal was to match the fabric and color right now this was the one we were trying to get that red burnished now this is only fired on one side really but we've forced this through and that's red that's beautiful and the bearishing is sure have you got that one there it's looking very similar and I'll see what else we have right that is the rim section yes that's exactly the bit weird so that's where it's been down in the clamp Kiln itself where it's had very little oxygen at all so it's a reducing atmosphere that's right that's foreign out at the henge site as we now call it we're extending the trench and Phil's decided to oversee the job himself as people didn't live on sites like this fines are usually few and far between but we're relying on Phil to spot any dating evidence should it turn up meanwhile it's time for a final report on the other set of lumps and bumps we've been uncovering in this field now I hear that what we've got is a post-medieval cottage is that right that's right it went out of use in around 1700 but what we can tell you now is that it was built sometime after say 1500 because uh it's uh sitting on top of this great late medieval Courtyard ah so all this here this is evidence of an earlier Stone building which stood here in the 1400s but we've also found occupation evidence telling us that people were living on this Terrace in the 1200s views relating Victor's drawn the building we know most about the last one built around 1500 A.D yeah you've got the square Courtyard here the cottage on one side and even the Slate roofs so it's exactly what the archeology has been telling us we know about the track the drawing does help to bring it to life but if I'm honest I don't really understand how it actually relates to what we found in the trench I asked Mick to show me well you can see the wall there coming across look and then where that red blob is the corner yeah and that wall comes back across here look yeah and then turns again here and goes back and you can see the way the grass is draped up over it which is why we have the earthwork clue to start with so what's this Rubble here well all the stone that you can see both in there and this this of course is inside the building yeah and this is outside all of this is the rubble that's collapsed from the wall so you've got like a great Mound debris if we had the time and could take all this away we'd have these War standing being proud on the original garden and Courtyard surface and is that little Sun Dodge trench does that go down to the floor yeah now what we've done there is that is the floor inside the building yeah with all the debris on the top how big would the original Cottage have been well we got the end here and I've actually put a couple of buckets to the green bucket and the red buckets which are more or less the other two corners so it's sort of end onto the slope like that when the gable roof would have gone that way originally so it was quite big wasn't it oh yeah yeah and they always look smaller in the ground than they are when they're they're fully standing if you start taking out what's more we can get an idea of what some of the pottery finds from that trench would have looked like oh [Music] is this one of them no no that's one of the pots we've put in as a baffler so throw that down behind you as well so what does Buffalo mean baffler this is to diffuse the Flames really all right so I need to be impressed by this now we're getting down to the pots here yeah is this one yeah this was made in the year 1346. it could have been couldn't it oh could you catch the other one all right blown out on the base there pitch that and that will be sealed place that over there and that's the little picture oh excellent so now not only can we show David and Grace what some of the pottery looked like when complete but for the first time we can give them new information about wadden as it was in medieval times Robin can report that the documentary evidence suggests that wadden has never been much bigger than it is today uh in 1288 we've got um that the manor house obviously a customary tenant called Jeffrey heyron three free tenants and one Qatar Someone who lived in a cottage so what does that make that's four five five plus whoever's in the manor house the geophys survey of the Terrace found evidence of what we think are more medieval buildings and Stewart has an idea that there was another one just in front of Grace's house Grace's Cottage in Davis Cottage and fossilized in this wall pattern this rectangular shape I'm sure is the remnants of another post-medieval Cottage like the one we're Excavating over in the field Victor has used all the new information to conjure up a picture of medieval wadden as it might have looked around 1200 A.D meanwhile on the far side of the field Phil reckons he might have found some dating evidence for the henge piece of Pop where's the camera look there's the imprint of it yeah but is it 4 000 years old is it a bit of Neolithic Pottery luckily for us we've got an expert visiting the site today who can tell us you've got red on the inside then very dark gray and then oh what seems to be coming up as sort of buffish red on the outside that's absolutely typical of pottery of late Neolithic and early Bronze Age hey having said that this is a very fine piece of pottery and although it's plain we were hoping that maybe in washing it we might have been able to see a bit of a bit of decoration but on a closer inspection this bit of pot turns out to be medieval in date and nothing to do with the henge just another bit of debris accumulating in the ditch as the years rolled by evidence though of activity in the medieval period when we know the hinge was damaged by plowing today the subtle lumps and bumps of the hinge can still be detected as our GPS survey of the field shows act has done this drawing yeah of a hinge Monument is this anything like you think this Monument would have been I think so I mean it shows the external Bank the inner ditch what we haven't got any evidence for yet uh these rings of pits or any stone settings in the center but the general form of the bank and ditch I think is pretty close to what this would have looked like the clear evidence of a big ditch on the inside of a huge bank is a combination that's only found on henge monuments which is why we're still confident about our Discovery and as hinges only occur in the Neolithic and early bronze ages it must mean that wooden hinge was built sometime between 2500 and a thousand BC so what started with Pottery finds in one Garden has resulted in a whole landscape being revealed a landscape which tells the story of the continual occupation of wadden for over four thousand years and now as we reach the end of the dig the news from the garden is that we finally come down onto the floor of the roundhouse and just a moment ago this bone all was discovered there and that's just come off the floor has it yeah just right off the floor well that's that's exactly what we were looking for really it's beautiful there's something really satisfying isn't it and I mean that that sort of polish that polished tip I mean you can't make a thing like that can you you can only get that polish by using it yeah so we can imagine someone sitting here maybe punching holes in leather to sew up some clothing in the middle of their house and that's a really domestic activity inside our age house it shows they lost needles too David and Grace we've just about got to the end of our three days with you so now it's time to try and pull all the evidence together that we found in your back Garden Phil well we now know that the pottery that came out of your septic tank came from at least two Iron Age round houses now the one most obvious one the wall trench is just in front of where Tony is there are two big Stones these ones here that's it exactly there yeah now if you walk away from you Tony this way that's right keep going yeah the wall would have run right the way around there keep going Tony yeah stop yep the two big Stones immediately on your left these two one side of the entrance door so where's the other side underneath the blue helmet here that's right so in fact the entrance way is where you predicted it would be looking straight straight out to Portland Bill and then down there by the Digger we've got a boundary ditch it was stuff full of Iron Age Pottery but a boundary ditch belonging to the house an Iron Age guy I come into my home that's right if you step this way yeah on the floor immediately in front of you yeah your wife would have dropped this it's a beautiful beautiful bone all you found that down there just immediately in front of you on the floor wow there you are That's all folks absolutely good so from now on whenever Grace looks out of her window she'll be able to imagine several Iron Age round houses in her garden we can help her imagination by taking her back to the Iron Age and with more computer Graphics we can actually create an impression of what one of these houses might have looked like inside so here I am again Iron Age man walking across the floor of my Hut to the place where we found the bone all this is where I would have slept I think in a position to watch the sun rise through the door of the Hut wondering no doubt what the day had in store for me in 600 BC [Music]

Channel: Odyssey - Ancient History Documentaries

Views: 185,537

Keywords: ancient history, classical history, ancient civilisations, classical antiquity, history documentary, classical documentary, Iron Age, Time Team, tony robinson, tony robinson documentary, tony robinson history of britain, tony robinson worst jobs in history, tony robinsons romans, iron age history, iron age documentary, iron age britain, archeological dig

Id: 6WL74R6KJ_g

Length: 50min 14sec (3014 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2023