Digging for Britain

Britain has an epic history

but within it there's a wealth

of untold secrets still to uncover.

It's a really key find, find of the week.

So every year,

hundreds of archeologists set out

hunting for clues to solve the mystery

of who we are and where we've come from.

Just found this amazing pendant.

Over the past year their discoveries

have been more exciting than ever.

This series will explore the best of them.

I've just found a coin.

Oh, marvelous.

Brought to you from the field

in a very special way.

Each excavation has been filmed for us

as it happened by the archeologists themselves.

It looks absolutely fantastic.

Somebody had a bad day

when he never brought these back.

Their dig diaries mean that we can be there

for every crucial moment of discovery.

- Oh wow. - Whoa.

- And we have a winner. - I know, I think

- it's stunning. - Incredible.

Our archeologists will be joining us here

in our special lab to take a closer look

at their finds and to figure out what they really mean.

This is so exciting.

Welcome to Digging for Britain.

This time, we're exploring dramatic

discoveries form the west of Britain.

We'll reveal how the invaders

and outsiders of the past have shaped our world

and give tantalizing insights

into the spiritual beliefs of our ancestors.

We'll explore evidence of foreign pilgrims

and strange rituals around Stonehenge.

It's an immediate link

to the people that lived here.

A lost British city

rediscovered after 700 years.

At least 100 buildings going up in flames all at once.

And the warrior invaders we now know

were more than just legend.

These discoveries are rewriting our history

to find out how archaeologist Matt Williams and I

have been given special access to Salisbury Museum.

Its unique collection spans nearly

half a million years of life on this island.

So these are all Anglo Saxon grave goods.

This is absolutely beautiful.

This is the women's jewel.

And we're going behind the scenes

to the back rooms ordinary visitors don't get to see.

That is enormous, that is a shin bone or a tibia.

Less than 10 miles from Salisbury Museum is Stonehenge.

4,000 years ago the spiritual beacon

of Britain and Europe, today an enduring mystery

that leaves us asking who came

to this vast monument

and what did they do here?

The answers may lie buried in the hills

and valleys that surround Stonehenge.

Archeologists have been interested

in the landscape around Stonehenge

for some 300 years but now new technology

has revealed hidden details

in the landscape that haven't been seen before.

We've discovered Stonehenge didn't stand alone.

It was one of a network of sacred monuments

along the River Avon in Wiltshire,

many of which have lain hidden for thousands of years.

Since they've been identified,

archeologists have wondered what clues they might conceal.

At the end of the day though,

the only way to understand how

all these monuments link together

is to excavate them and that's

what a team from the University of Redding is doing.

They're digging just 10 miles from

Stonehenge at Marden Henge.

A henge is a circular bank of earth

which we can still make out at Marden.

Archeologist Jim Leary is digging here,

hunting for clues to explain the rituals

our ancestors practiced in this landscape 4,000 years ago.

12 days into the dig, his team strikes it lucky.

They found the outline of a building

right inside the henge.

Okay, rolling.

Okay well this is a very very exciting moment

because we have just uncovered our neolithic building.

You can see the edges of the chalk floor,

very clearly on this side and this side.

Some features showing up in the ground

that have yet to be excavated,

so what goodies await us underneath

this section here?

The team's next job is to look for

evidence of what kind of building it was

and on day 16 they make an intriguing

discovery just outside its walls.

Here we have the remains of an external fire.

This was a big bonfire

and it was all emanating from one place

and it's created this huge spread of charcoal

and ash and burnt stone.

The presence

of burnt stone is puzzling.

They're pieces of Sarsen stone,

a type of local rock, and clearly scorched

but it's not clear why anyone would put rocks on a fire.

Then, inside the building they find a second hearth.

So one of the really key elements of the building,

is the huge hearth right in the middle.

This is where there was significant

amount of burning, so much so

that it's discolored the chalk

into an orangey hue.

But interestingly there's no charcoal at all.

I don't believe this is an open flame fire.

Wood burning fires

produce charcoal, but there's no trace

of any in this inner hearth.

So if it wasn't a fire,

what was the source of the heat

that discolored the ground inside the building?

So we have a little bit of a conundrum

but I think the key is the burnt Sarsen stone

that we're getting in the charcoal spread

outside the building.

Jim has an extraordinary

theory that these mysterious twin hearthes

reveal a ritual, practiced by our ancestors

in the Stonehenge landscape.

Can I have that?

I think what's happening are people

are heating up the Sarsen stones

in the external fire and that's the fire

we know is this open flame bonfire

and I think they're picking up the hot stones,

probably with two pieces of wood

and then they're carrying them

into the building and they're putting

them in the central half

and piling up these hot rocks

and then I think people are using

the ledge around the edge to sit down,

close the door, pour water on these hot rocks

and create a sauna and I think

this building is being used a sweat lodge.

It's an intriguing idea and Jim has brought his finds

into our lap so we can explore it further.

It's a really interesting site, Jim.

And it's quite a persuasive hypothesis

I think you've come up with.

Well I think so, I mean it might

not be the answer but it's the best

solution that we can think of at the moment.

And we've got some of the Sarsen stones here.

These are the burnt stones are they?

Yeah so we're finding burnt stone

within the external bonfire,

the outside fire and here we have some of those

fragments that have been clearly heated up.

They've changed to a sort of pinkish hue,

fire cracked and broken.

So you've got the hearth outside

where you're finding these burnt stones,

the burnt area inside, burnt stones

don't make a sauna.

What else have you found?

So the building itself is very well made.

The surface is well prepared,

there's a nice ledge around it

which just seems appropriate, the internal

fire place, the internal hearth

it's huge, it's utterly dominant

and I just cannot envisage other things

going on inside this building.

You wouldn't have room to live

so we need to focus on that hearth

but that's our clue, that's our way in

to understanding the building.

Jim, a prehistoric sweat lodge,

I mean is there any precedence for that kind of thing?

It's not a crazy idea and of course if you look

in the ethnographic record,

it's replete with examples of sweat lodges.

It's a fantastic way of

purifying the body, of cleansing the self.

And although we'll never really know

how it was used if indeed it was a sweat lodge,

it's very tempting to ascribe some

kind of ritual ceremony or purpose to it

when it's in this landscape so close to Stonehenge.

That's right, we're in the landscape

surrounded by temples, Stonehenge is a temple,