The Unique Bronze Age Mines Found In Wales | Extreme Archaeology | Absolute History

[Music] all over britain there are archaeological sites that are too dangerous to access or excavate they could contain unique and valuable evidence of our past which if not investigated will be lost forever exa is a team of highly skilled archaeologists katie hearst in charge of excavation alice roberts doctor and expert in human bones meg waters geophysicist and digital imaging specialist all experts in their chosen fields who are determined to get into these inhospitable places to forensically assess survey and extract the evidence the expedition leader will be me mark davis volcanologist climber caver and diver this is archaeology on the very edge this week we are headed deep underground and back through time to the very beginning of the bronze age [Music] this is paris mountain on the island of anglesey just off the north wales coastline 200 years ago this was the biggest copper mine in the world below this lunar landscape lie two mines with 20 kilometers of old tunnels between them paris mine is easily accessible thanks to the hard work of the paris underground group but mona mine has been off limits until now because of flooding recent archaeological discoveries have revealed the unexpected the people were mine in this mountain four thousand years ago back in the bronze age [Music] [Applause] over two hundred years ago miners were hacking their way through solid rock here at paris mine in search of these wonderful copper veins now you can imagine they're surprised when they found out that someone had been here before then the exa team will investigate new areas of the mines for the first time to answer the question what was the scale and sophistication of mine in here four thousand years ago oh this beautiful piece of wood here the tunnels are potentially lethal and the threat of collapse is never far away well i thought this was solid rock [Music] now beam the beam that's moving move to your left to your left we will penetrate the furthest reaches of the mine to gather crucial evidence to tell the story of the first industrial revolution of britain dave jenkins of the paris underground and early mines research groups has spent years working on the archaeology of the mine so if i fetch the team down here what can we do for you your goals i think it's some conception of the three-dimensional nature of this mind there is near to this another place called the grand stoke which we haven't been able to get into easily that's a new area it's a difficult access climbing and uh crawling to get through to it can we not go from the from the surface down to the ground oh no i think it's about five million cubic meters of spoil on the surface left by the later miners that's just buried everything so the chances are hitting it from above a virtually nil there are two mines here paris mine which we're in and a neighboring mine and they're linked just by one passage at depth which was flooded until recently and suddenly for safety reasons it's been drained out we can now get down there if we can get down and then make our way up 300 feet we might be able to get to this new bronze age site it's it's unknown territory maybe we'll hit it but it's a quest for the future [Music] meg will do a laser survey of the known bronze age area and put together the first 3d model of the paris mountain mine system katie and alice will head down to the grand stoke chamber to excavate there for the first time katie will be in charge of archaeology and alice will take care of any artifacts that are discovered i'll tell you what my family spent years getting under the mountains i headed down to the 120 foot level to check out the timbers their condition is so bad that the team will have to be kept to a minimum for safety reasons there you go it looks like i'm going to have to stay up top it just gets progressively worse the further it's getting more enjoyable meg and katie spend some time underground to get a feel for the unique archaeology of an ancient mine this is all bronzo to fill here and then it'd be really nice to get see if we can find the other side okay and then we can measure how wide the bronze age began 4 000 years ago essential to the production of bronze was copper ore and paris mountain was a major source the bronze age miners dug shafts from the surface following the copper veins into the mountain after the mines were abandoned they filled up with debris [Music] later modern miners sank shafts and tunnels through the mountain slicing through the bronze age mines and make sure your harness is adjusted so it goes on over all your kit yeah mike is in charge of getting katie and alice to the excavation site safely i'm going to stay up on top there's a lot of coordinating to go on and frankly the the less people that's down the mind the the better really are you ready i'm ready [Music] i want to go with them and i would love to go with them but yeah gotta swallow it if that tunnel actually collapsed and we had quite a lot of people in there that that would just be a nightmare so i'll stay up top this is only the third time i've been caving first time was down a very small cave in derbyshire the next time was down a slightly larger one and about 30 foot underground um but today it's on a different league i'm looking forward to going down actually because the archaeology should be really good i mean it's it's nobody's ever looked at it before so this is a really good opportunity to get some good information out of it [Music] the team are heading to the grand stope a large chamber 120 feet underground where they hope to find evidence of bronze age mining sparkly walls it's really it's really beautiful [Music] the most amazing thing has just been the wonderful greens and blues of the copper pigments in the ceiling that's fantastic the mine may look beautiful but it's truly extreme it's one of the most acidic environments in the british isles highly corrosive pools of acid are scattered throughout the mine the 19th century miners found that metal tools and pipes instantly corroded their solution was to use wood instead of metal like these wooden pipes that have survived 200 years pickled in an acidic copper solution [Music] there we go it's good it's just so lightweight oh yeah meg's mapping project is getting underway at the site where the first bronze age mine was found this chamber was dug out in the 19th century in the wall the miners found evidence of what looked like an ancient tunnel filled with debris the cross section contained wood dating back nearly four thousand years the first target is this back wall here with the cyrex we're actually scanning with lasers and we have historic maps and we have maps that have been made of the cave system in the last about 20 years or so new technology can actually bring everything together [Applause] i've actually never been in a cave before or in mines or anything like that and i have actually never really wanted to so i've been i was a little concerned this morning about what it would be like but it's actually it's really nice it's it's more open than i thought it would be the access to the stove is feet underground neither katie nor alice has ever been this deep before this has taken him ages to make these passages dave wagstaff of the paris underground group knows the mines like the back of his hand he's a key member of the team just on your right hand side you'll see the timber stated these are 19th century ones that's right these are holding up the stacks of dead rock as the miners called it it's waste rock they wouldn't take that rock to the surface it was totally devoid of mineral so they packed that at the side of the passages perfectly safely in their days but the timber has been the support for it you know that's now deteriorating after 150 years or so well what's going to happen when when they dry out properly all these dead walls these dead packs that the miners have placed here will collapse in and possibly block the passage then we want to get in here again so it's really it's really vital that you come and have a look at all these areas before they start collapsing in yep industrial mining began at paris mountain in 1768. [Music] the mines controlled world copper prices into the early 1800s an output exceeded 5 000 tons of pure copper per year but life at the mine was tough the tunnels were dug out using gunpowder and sledgehammer serious injury and death were common [Music] mining stopped around 1885 and most of the tunnels became flooded and inaccessible we're going to go through a very dangerous area now right you have to keep your heads and your packs extremely low almost flat out crawling right the timbers are very rotten and unstable but you're convinced that we're safe down here today that's right [Laughter] see the rubble above the timber that's katie's legs disappearing down the crawl hole [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you can't really see how it's all staying up to be honest okay to keep well down now lower and lower real good crouch down [Music] [Music] just so you know okay that was just like a chocolate cake yeah it's like a sponge you can put your finger in the rice but is that going to be safe holding up all of that rock above making it very easy okay there's a wall on your right-hand side ah these the size of these boulders don't have to worry me katie and alice are almost at the grand stoke chamber where they'll be digging for evidence of bronze age mining you can see the timbers on your left-hand side oh my goodness that's why we have to be very very careful if these timbers actually collapse i mean how much um time have we got to get out i'm asking you as a concerned party it depends which way it goes it's not going to go anywhere it's not no as long as we don't touch it we'll be fine the exa team are searching for bronze age archaeology of paris mountain [Music] 120 feet underground dave wagstaff has led katie and alice to the grand stoke chamber we're almost there this is it this is the lead up to the ground stove itself the team have to climb this pile of loose rocks to reach the ceiling of the chamber this is a 19th century chamber filled with huge mountains of waste rubble or spoil when the chamber was dug out using explosives and sledgehammers a strange debris-filled passage was found in the ceiling could this be a bronze age mine so let me get this straight we're going up and digging above this so it starts to fall through we cut out our rainy exits so very careful thinking very careful no vibrations no hammering it's a bit like that game when you're you're pulling out straws and trying not yeah what is that getting called with the marbles on top the plunge plunk so let's get the harnesses on and away we go [Music] the first aid kit some water a little pick there we go now i'll do that but that's what's holding up okay i won't stuck on that passageway so don't step on it mike and trevor have rigged the rope to make sure as little weight as possible is put on the rubble so can't step down here it's really hard work once you get past this really soft crumbly stuff you can start using your hand on the left side as well i think the rope's got really um mud yeah if you step your right foot over and then over the top of the rope okay okay so let's take a little bit more care with that rock in front of you now step right to your left sit round to my left there's nowhere to put my feet [Music] let's go up let's go [Music] in the ceiling of the 19th century chamber there appears to be an older partially filled tunnel [Music] take off the slime before i see the archaeology that is disgusting i've never seen anything like that really disgusting it's like some kind of alien growth oh it's really slimy so what's that roof up above you what's that it's spoiled from above it's come down and compacted this is the 20th 19th century stuff this is solid okay can you find this okay obviously already been dug out okay so i i think we should um you need to get in there we can clean that up and then if we can get some carbon 14 dates from the very bottom of it then that will help us date when it was actually dug in the bronze age this is upside down archaeology this is absolutely cute are we pretty sure that digging upwards isn't going to release i think the best thing to do is um just clean up the base of this section because we haven't got very much time right how much time have we got you um right because of the wet and cold conditions the team can't spend more than four hours underground at one stretch they still have to make the journey back and the last place you want to get hypothermia is 120 feet underground while katie and alice get stuck in at the stop i wanted to find out how acidic the water in the mine really is [Music] here we go so that's 2.02 ph that's not far off battery accident is it in terms of the guy who's fallen into it they'd have some skin irritation yeah if you ingested any the 3d map of the mine is coming together you see this line coming straight through here yep right there that in fact is the bottom of the bell pit coming straight through meg is piecing together her cyrax images while david is entering his old maps into the system [Music] now what we can do is we can bring in the route that we've just digitized into the gis right and see what that's that's tremendous yeah this way you can just choose the opening around ten things choose the optimum orientation yeah reduce together they will form a 3d model of the mine system at paris mountain that will help us plot a route through to the second mine mona back at the stove katie's through the slime and has just found a hammer stone an ancient miner's tool that's the hammerstone i think though hey right oh that's beautiful piece of wood here excellent oh yeah oh that's wonderful i'm just cleaning up the section so that we can see how all the sediments have formed and there's some beautiful bits of wood sticking out as well so i'm going to try and clean those back and get samples because then we can get calm date out of here right sometimes these wood these pieces would have markings on them as well and if it's part of a tool it would be absolutely fantastic the early bronze age saw the population of britain reach a quarter of a million people a ruling class emerged as settlements expanded and a new breed of specialists learned to extract metal from the earth to produce bronze jewelry tools and weapons this was the first industrial revolution in the history of britain okay you've got an hour and ten minutes katie before we've got to start making our way out of here around 10 minutes god can have my work cut out that's what we've got i'm afraid safety safety yeah that's great yeah it's unusual to find a piece that size oh shoot what was that so that was something from the ceiling yeah [Music] [Music] you have one hour girls before you have to get your asses here [Music] katie's gotta draw the section on her laptop before they leave technology we're still we're still with the civilization so crossing down alice 67 across from six down 52 [Music] [Music] it's gonna be really difficult to get out i don't know if i'm gonna be [Music] yes i've got cling film at the ready [Music] this spoil feels like it's going okay casey can you not get the hammerstein mike i'm going to clear out the way yeah just in case you need to get out quickly [Music] [Music] fantastic okay yep [Music] we got in got out in an hour and a half two hours the actual archaeology party we'll close the door on it for another night meg survey and dave jenkins old maps have finally been brought together the 3d model of the mine system is complete we can now plot a route through to the possible third bronze age site in mona mine which is marked on a mine surveyor's map from 1764 and it will help us find the best way to get the team out if it all goes wrong we've had to think seriously about this trip you know a couple of times we thought about calling it off because we just don't know the condition of all the shafts and all the passageways yeah and there's a suspicion that it's a lot worse than what we've been experiencing on the stop the thing that i have to ask really is is it really worth risking yourselves to go in well i think it's just an absolutely fantastic opportunity i mean if you think about it these timbers really aren't going to last that much longer are they that's right a lot of airflow around them now once you get that air mix together then the wood starts to dry out rapidly i mean if we find some bronze age archaeology be absolutely fantastic yeah all right it's fine for me let's get an early shower great exa is at paris mountain in anglesey off the north coast of wales our quest to find out the scale of bronze age mine in here is well underway our 3d map of the mine system is in place and we've retrieved what could be bronze age artifacts from the grand stoke chamber the third and most difficult task to find a new bronze age site in mona mine is about to begin [Music] it's the morning of the big push and it's quite interesting normally every morning so far the group has been quite jovial buoyant you know a lot of banter and mickey taking amongst themselves but this morning they deadly choir just a little bit of chatter and i think that's because they're quite nervous and it's understandable when you think about it what they have to do is they're gonna not only get down into the mine and squeeze their way along the passages it's more like climbing an inverted mountain they've got to go deep down into the mountain itself and then climb back up the other side to moan the mine so we'll just see what how they feeling what they're going to do all right how's everyone feeling there good yeah i have to say i'm getting more and more nervous the closer we get to going down really yeah definitely but it's really going to be worth it i mean you got the guys that's there anyway i mean they're going to look after you katie but i mean if if if you do get nervous then then just say i want to go back and they fetch you back dave wagstaff and mining engineer mark noble will be with the team on the trip and if there is any kind of minor problem then we're going to sort out between us okay [Music] the team are taking extra provisions and warm clothing for an eight hour round trip problem is we you know even though we've got like the absolute best people that you possibly want to take down in mine with you um we don't have any control over the beams going going to be really hard work and it's going to be very uncomfortable but if we can just extract that one piece of archaeological information that i mean that's going to be wonderful [Music] david this is the this is the wood that we took out of the section i presume you took it up for carmen 14 dayton alice and we didn't actually know what it was we were hoping that it might be some something like the handle of a tool oh yes you know but i didn't drive it then it can go for identification right and then a portion can go for c14 analysis in terms of our objectives we've two done one to go our first one which was the three-dimensional scanning of the side racks of the chambers we've done that second one is to get evidence of mining in the grand stoke and fingers crossed is going to be bronze age i hope so because you put enough work into it and the third one is to get into moan or mine there's a further site well hopefully we'll be able to take that off as well the team have descended 270 feet down into the recently drained level that connects paris mine and monamine the vertical descent runs without a hitch oh my god these are disgusting curtains of snot what is it is it a plant no it's a polysaccharide it's a waste product made by bacteria oh it's disgusting like wobbles it's proper slime oh oh i don't want to get it one way all right you're right yeah you're sure first aid kit but only 20 minutes into the journey along the tunnels to moan a mine our cameraman clive has a fall [Music] clive is shaken but luckily not seriously injured and carries on [Music] later trevor gets an eye full of gritty acidic water that's it [Music] until march 2003 these tunnels were underwater and unreachable they were drained because the highly acidic water posed a threat to the surrounding countryside it's not going too well we've had a uh we've had a couple of little runnings on the way down so we're running almost half an hour behind time and obviously we've got a really really tight schedule also i think we're beginning to realize just how much kit we've got you know it's just so cumbersome taking through these tunnels [Music] as a volcanologist i couldn't resist getting a closer look at the geology of paris mountain now the history doesn't just start at bronze age mining the history of this site started 450 million years ago and that's when the landscape began to form itself and the remarkable thing is that it used to be an ocean floor so we're looking at eight kilometers down underneath the water itself with great big towering volcanoes that poked out a little bit like krakatoa and what happens is that it's so hot down there that supercharged really hot water percolated its way through the earth's crust leaching out bits of copper and then when it got to the sea floor it deposited the copper out in what we call copper sulphides it's remarkable the fact that an ocean floor has now been transformed into paris mountain quite a history [Music] starting to go low now just gets up to where it hurts okay the team have arrived at the point where they enter mona mine no one has been up there in over 100 years and this is as far as the paris underground group have ever been that takes is 25 feet up to a platform there and beyond that it's virgin territory so i hope if we're going to find something good up there yeah we're 55 minutes over a lot of time to get down to here so the sooner we can get a move on and get up this ladder and into the stuff we want to be into better it was 1885 when the last miner left this place and no one's been up there since [Music] you step onto the platform at the top there when you get to the top i'm at the top you know what we've just come through is like a warm-up for the you know the real task ahead we're gonna have to go really slow and really careful through the next couple of you know 100 meters or so bronze age we are here on paris mountain finding evidence of bronze age mining now a survey is coming together but right now 300 feet below me katie and the rest of the team are facing one of the biggest challenges they've ever had the team have reached the entrance to moana mine 300 feet underground no one has been in these tunnels for over 100 years but for safety reasons the number of people going into this dangerous and unknown mine must be kept to a strict minimum this is as far as our camera crew can go from here on all footage will be shot and tiny cameras attached to their helmets oh my god that's really bad yeah god it doesn't look safe at all are you happy to go up there dave yeah i say yeah the team come to a 19th century ladder left by the miners it looks quite narrow in the middle so we're going to really make yourself small yeah i'm not sure how long this is going to last it's just kind of sheering off isn't it since these tunnels were drained the timbers are no longer preserved it's a matter of time before they dry out completely and disintegrate oh don't do too much um quite nervous i have to say it's more collapse here yeah let's not think about that i hate to say guys but it's looking really bad ahead is it it's full of water as well dave no it's not too deep but terrible okay well let's just take it really careful okay just stay low if we can get through here that would mean that we should be into a little bit better territory should be more solid yeah but i don't like this one but you know it is one big risk how big a risk can't pin the man to that piece of string i'm happy to go for it are you happy yeah remember kaplan [Music] all right what's your path on the left my god [Music] this is actually quite terrifying yeah i've been in some really bad caves in my time but this seriously takes the biscuit [Music] i feel like i don't want to breathe too hard it's really claustrophobic isn't it [Music] we don't want to go that way and if we look in there we certainly don't want to go that way [Music] it's a little road there's a run missing at the bottom this is right this section isn't it the team have made it through the worst of the tunnels and are back up to 120 feet below the surface but they now have to climb a huge loose spoil heap to make it to the base of henry's shaft the only possible route up to the bronze age area to show that this part of paris mountain was mined in the bronze age would be a major discovery gotta say it dave your sense of direction is incredible if it gets us there that is if it doesn't it's a load of old rubbish where's this well hopefully today's navigation is spot on it should be henry's this is henry we hope oh fantastic okay phone's coming up on the end of that line it's fine communication through hundreds of feet of solid rock would be impossible without the hay foam i think they're going to start getting really worried up top now based on a design used in the trenches of the first world war it has long antennae that are laid into the mud within the mine these emit low frequency radio waves that travel up to one kilometer through solid rocks i'm sitting with dave jenkins on this impenetrable spoil heap roughly 50 feet above the team hello can you hear me yes this is bass the team we read new loud and clear how is everyone over contact guys we've got contest excellent what an incredible device we're fine mark thanks very much uh we're just sat down here by henry shaft now we've established contact with you mike is going to do a recce henry shaft out now that they have set up the hay phone the team need to assess the state of henry's shaft the shaft is the only route to the area where the new bronze age site might be don't touch anything that side oh my god these timbers have let's look at this thing here oh my god see how the weights come onto that yeah the next one and the next one oh really so all this wall has moved you don't think i could put a couple of bolts in here mark don't do it it's a shame because it's so close isn't it i mean how far away do you think the bronze age stuff was supposed to be actually can't be far but uh i just don't think it's worth the risk would you not really that is that bad it's only a couple of foot up ten foot i could be up there in three moves oh god it just seems such a shame we've come all this way and we can't get any further no not the way this stuff's moved well everything is smashed in after that thing above your head mike hmm i really think we're sticking a neck out going up there right right fair enough this is kaplank isn't it there ever was a death cup this is it yeah i'd really prefer it if we called it a day [Music] we're sitting above them they started off oh hang on i think they're coming through there we go this is base to team we're reading him loud and clear how is everyone over we've followed the plan that dave has put together but unfortunately it looks far too dangerous to proceed [Applause] dave can you just confirm that is too dangerous to proceed over that's affirmative mark over okay dave dave jenks here die one die two as it were it must be something of the order of probably about 50 feet below us very frustrating well done to get that far it's quite an achievement under those conditions over yeah i mean it's a bit of a disappointment to us dave but uh we've tried to go up everywhere we can and get as high as we possibly can to get to bronze age okay base out for now we'll see you on the surface all the best it's not worth risking our lives it's pretty rare for me to not want to climb something and i took a look up in there and no chance and i'm an enthusiast yeah and mark is too and you know it's the thumbs down so dave you're telling me that they're 50 feet below us and it's all they need to do was get probably 30 feet just today yeah that's true that's great you know it's fantastic what they've done to get through to that point i'm devastated but are you sure no no no you shouldn't be they've they've done a tremendous new route and we're well on our way and it won't be long before we get right through to that you you just wait and see and it'll have been their hard work that's got us to that point now we've confirmed we're actually at that point yeah and everything fits perfectly except we're not getting to ba that's the bronze age so so let's get the hell out of here there's five very very experienced cavers down there and for them to turn around and say look it's too dangerous we can't go any further speaks volumes for me so we've gone further than anyone else it's an expedition on a mighty expedition at that to get right the way into mona mine we didn't reach our objective unfortunately but hey we can't win them all the excavation at the stop has given us some fantastic results while none of the wood fragments turned out to be part of a tool they did give us enough material for carbon dating and a tantalizing glimpse into the story of bronze age mining at paris mountain well we got a date back on it three and a half thousand years ago so we're looking at around about 1500 bc that is bronze age isn't it that is bronze age and it's also a really early date it's only 400 years after they first started excavating copper and britain so it's a really good day that's terrific you know we can take a macro view of the site as well because when i went in we did all that scanning of a section of the bell pit itself and in that section we can see all these layers of sedimentation and what some of those layers suggest is that there were periods when no one was there and we're not sure we see the sedimentation so we don't know if it's flooding or if people you know kind of moved around in a management of the site itself well there's all sorts of little clues that we're picking up about the management of this so i mean if you just have a quick look at this piece of wood that we picked up you can see there's a tear mark down there which is an indication that they were coppicing the woodland this is excavation on a massive scale we don't know where they were living but you can imagine that they were trading the copper from here all across europe so it wasn't just a couple of guys digging some copper out of the ground no i mean that's what blew my mind the sheer industrial scale of the whole operation itself in terms of our objectives though we met almost all of them apart from the moan of mine one but anyone in their right mind would have pulled back from the moana mine it was incredibly dangerous so i think it's just up to dave jenkins and the paris underground group now to just push the boundaries of exploration just a little bit further and try and get into mona [Applause] all right kd how are you feeling absolutely you look worn out you like it are you yeah you look more known good partner yeah really good [Music] it's nice to get everyone out safe really at the end of the day just to be in there and to be that far in i mean we don't know how long those passageways are going to hold up so you know we're probably pretty privileged to have been able to go in so far you know and see all the all that new stuff yeah quite quite incredible really my hands are rotting i have no idea what this is i think it's some kind of reaction to the metal or the acid in the water but it's not just the stain it's actually in my skin so the entire time you're just on adrenaline overdrive you know [Music] team was so good you know katie was so cool and you could see that she was totally scared but i think she trusted us to make the right judgment i'm back i'm alive thank god the whole place is absolutely amazing but it's not long for this world i think it'll be in pieces next time i reckon months literally that's it it's just gonna go yeah and i hope that no one's down there we really do you

Channel: Absolute History

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Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history

Id: 91KZw0MHcv0

Length: 48min 25sec (2905 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 05 2020