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I'm exploring one of the most
mysterious and misunderstood
periods in British history.

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For 200 years after the Romans left
our islands in 410 AD,

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our country was plunged into what
became known as the Dark Ages.

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The turmoil transformed the nation,

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but we know almost nothing about it.

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The legends tell of a lawless land,
warring tribes and a legendary
leader -

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King Arthur.

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But how much truth is there in the
stories?

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And what was Dark Age Britain really
like?

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Now, new discoveries promise to
transform our understanding of the
Dark Ages.

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That is Tintagel,

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an island sticking out on this wild
remote Atlantic coast of Cornwall.

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Archaeologists are now finding
evidence that up on the top of
Tintagel,

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there was not just a settlement
during the Dark Ages, but a seat of
power.

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I'm going to discover what we really
know about Dark Age Britain.

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I've got exclusive access to the
Tintagel excavations, combined with

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the latest scientific analysis,

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including pioneering landscape
archaeology...

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It's just absolutely phenomenal.

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We've got continuous occupation all
along this strip, which is immense.

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..genetics...

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It was one of those total wow
moments that was really exciting.

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...and even a spin-off from
particle physics...

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And that, of course, is
the power of archaeology.

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..revealing just how pivotal the
fifth and sixth centuries were

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in creating the Britain that we know
today.

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We're not looking at an abandoned
landscape of desperate poverty.

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It's not necessarily the truth.

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It's about as far removed from
history as you can get.

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Modern archaeology is finally
writing the true history of King
Arthur's Britain.

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This is what we think we know.

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In 410 AD, Britain suffered a
cataclysm.

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After nearly 400 years of Roman
rule, the aristocracy,

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troops and bureaucrats simply upped
and left.

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Dies tenebrosa sicut nox.

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It's a brilliant, evocative way

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of saying,
"Welcome to the Dark Ages".

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Without Roman money, the economy
collapsed.

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The roads and towns of Roman
civilisation were abandoned.

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That's a massively dramatic change
in the British landscape.

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Politically, economically -
everything.

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Native Britons who had lived to
serve the Empire for four centuries

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now had to fend for themselves.

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There is a real sense that there is
no one state authority

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controlling everything.

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And that's about it.

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The period is called the Dark Ages
because, after the Romans left,

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recorded history stopped.

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Records of who lived in Britain are
blank.

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For the period 400-600, that's 200
years,

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that's eight, ten generations,

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we know the names of...

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You can kind of count them on two
hands.

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And the written records we do have
are badly damaged and hard to read.

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For the whole of the period 400 to
600, in the British Isles we have

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two or three people whose writing we
have fragments of.

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According to the fragments, within a
decade, Germanic invaders -

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the Angles, Saxons and Jutes -

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swept into our islands
from Northern Europe,

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destroying everything in their path.

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When the Romans go,
it is just chaos.

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There's plagues, there's civil war -

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the Saxons are just slaughtering
everybody.

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So it's real blood
and thunder stuff.

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SCREAMING

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CLASHING METAL

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In those early writings, a British
hero, the great King Arthur,

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emerges to unify his people and
repel the invaders.

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But the challenge for historians is
how to know if there's any truth to

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the written evidence.

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The written histories are patchy
and unreliable. Instead,

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it's archaeology which is uncovering
the hidden secrets in our

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landscape and revealing the story of
Britain in the Dark Ages.

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On the dramatic Cornish island of
Tintagel,

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a new excavation looks like it
will provide important answers -

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perhaps even a breakthrough.

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This rocky outcrop also happens to
be the very place where King Arthur

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is supposed to have been conceived.

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Over the centuries, the stories of
King Arthur's Britain

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have filled the gap in our Dark Ages
history.

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But no physical evidence
for him has ever been found.

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Now, discoveries being made here
might finally help to separate

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hard facts from the fragments of
fiction

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to reveal the truth about Dark Age
Britain.

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Win Scutt is the curator of this
iconic site.

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So, Win, introduce me to Tintagel
from the air, then.

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What are we looking at?
It's fantastic.

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You can already see one of the
rectangular buildings dates to the
fifth,

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sixth century. So this is the period
you're specifically interested in
here? Absolutely,yes.

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There are at least 100 stone
buildings.

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They've left simple rectangular
footprints.

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Is that more? Some more over there,
absolutely.

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They must have had to have occupied
the whole island.

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So it's a settlement of hundreds of
people. Yeah.

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These simple buildings were first
excavated in the 1930s but, last
summer,

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the archaeologists were surprised to
uncover what looks like a much
grander complex.

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We're excavating behind these cliffs
on... These are the southern cliffs,

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and there we are. It's coming
into view.

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Oh, there are the trenches. There
are the trenches.

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Fantastic. Fantastic, yes.
And they're at work.

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We can spy on them. That's
brilliant. It's really exciting.

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What a stunning location,

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perched here high above the crashing
Atlantic waves, buffeted by the
wind.

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And this is where the archaeologists
are at work on the southern slopes
of Tintagel,

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so they can look at those
buildings in detail,

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try to understand why they were
built here,

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how they were built - and,
crucially, what they were used for.

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The archaeologists will dig for five
weeks,

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gathering the evidence to make a
detailed reconstruction of life

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on this site.

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We're going to build a virtual 3D
model of this citadel back in the

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fifth century. We're going to bring
Tintagel out of the Dark Ages,
back to life.

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Jackie Nowakowski is the excavation
director.

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Once we started taking off the turf,

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the stone walls started to appear
quite quickly.

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So it's been buried over 1,400
years ago,

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and now we're uncovering it for the
first time.

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So are these buildings different
from the ones that have been found
elsewhere?

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Absolutely. On the island, they're
completely different in terms of
build, character,

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and the amount of sheer investment
that's gone into their build.

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And they're substantial, well-built
walls, aren't they?

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Yeah, they're extraordinary.
They're over a metre wide,

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and you can see that they're made
of large blocks of slate.

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Yeah. Very blocky material, and
you've got them laid horizontally,

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forming a really nice coursed wall.

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These buildings were built to
impress, I think.

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Right, yeah. And they're part of
this larger complex of other
buildings

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that go off in that direction,
and in that direction,

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so you can see we've got our work
cut out.

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The buildings occupy a natural
terrace with a stunning vista,

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and the layout and style of
construction strongly suggest

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that the inhabitants were not
ordinary people.

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They do look like they're high
status.

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This isn't people eking out an
existence up here on top of
Tintagel.

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This is people living well.

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This is people living very well,
I think.

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It's all got the feel of an
extraordinary large, densely
populated

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settlement which is maybe the place
where the most powerful person who's

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living in this area was resident at
the time.

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This eroded piece of rock known
as Arthur's chair gives me a
fantastic view

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of these excavations, showing
that there was a large,

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high-status settlement here.

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This was a seat of power back in the
Dark Ages.

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Someone important lived here.

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But it's a huge leap to say that
this person was King Arthur.

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There's no actual proof
that he lived at Tintagel.

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But he's become synonymous with the
site because of one important
legend.

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According to the story, in the fifth
century AD,

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Tintagel was the castle of the Duke
of Cornwall, Gorlois, and his wife,
Igraine.

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But Igraine had another admirer -

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a local warlord named
Uther Pendragon.

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And such was Uther's desire for
Igraine that he enlisted the help of

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Merlin to gain access to Tintagel
and to Igraine's bedchamber.

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The result of that night of
deception was a child,

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and the child's name was Arthur.

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I've come to the British Library
in London

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to examine the written sources
we have for the period,

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including the first-ever reference
to a king called Arthur.

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Julian Harrison is the Curator of
Medieval Manuscripts.

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Here we have one of the earliest
copies

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of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History
of the Kings of Britain.

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That's amazing.

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There's something quite powerful
about the kind of physicality of
these books.

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Oh, they're beautiful, aren't they?

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I just love the fact that every
element of this page is handmade.

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Yeah. That's lovely.

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Absolutely gorgeous, isn't it?

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It's a copy of a 12th-century
bestseller.

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The writing on the tough animal skin
parchment is still crystal clear.

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The script is so beautiful,
it's so regular.

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That's fantastic.

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900 years ago,

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the Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth
set out to write a comprehensive

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history of Britain, including
the reign of a King Arthur,

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600 years before his own time.

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Here we are. Here's the page I want
to show you.

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It's on the top line there.

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That looks like "deci" to me.

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It says "day", and then there's a
new word. "Tintagel".

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Tintagel. Exactly.

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Is this the first association of
Tintagel as a place with Arthur?

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It is indeed.

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I can recognise the odd word here.

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My kind of schoolgirl Latin.

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I can see "concepts".

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And then "eadum nocte".
"Eadum nocte".

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So this is the...it tells you that
on this night, on that night,

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the celebrated King Arthur,
Arturum, was conceived there.

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That moment as those words appear on
the page,

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that's the beginning of King Arthur
as we know him.

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According to Geoffrey, then,

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Tintagel is where the legend
of King Arthur begins.

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This is the reason so many people
believe he comes from Cornwall.

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Geoffrey tells us that Arthur is
conceived when his father,

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Uther Pendragon, seduces Igraine,
the wife of Gorlois,
Duke of Cornwall.

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Full of sex and violence,

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Geoffrey's account plays out like a
Hollywood action movie.

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It's full of excitement,
it's full of horror,

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it's full of lots of things
that an audience would love.

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Every great story needs a villain,
and Geoffrey has the perfect bad
guys.

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The Romans leave a power vacuum,

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and Britain faces a grave threat
from a new wave of invaders.

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Anglo-Saxons swarm in from across
the North Sea...

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..ready to kill everything in their
path.

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CLAMOURING AND SHOUTING

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But Arthur comes out of the west,

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unites the Britons and leads the
resistance.

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The result is a country divided.

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Embattled Britons in the west,
the new Anglo-Saxon overlords
in the east.

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This is King Arthur's Britain.

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You get this sort of frontier line.

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This is some kind of demilitarised
zone between these two constantly
warring factions.

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It is us against them.

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00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:01,120
It is Britons against
the Anglo-Saxons.

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00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:04,960
The Britons are the ones who are
defending everything that is right
and good.

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The Anglo-Saxons are the forces of
evil that need to be destroyed.

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Britons and Saxons are killing one
another, and that's Arthur's world.

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That is where he existed.

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Here it talks about his sword,
"gladio optimo".

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The best sword. And that was called
Caliburno.

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Caliburno. Is that Excalibur?

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00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,760
This is Excalibur. Yes! But in the
original, it was called Caliburn.

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Arthur's sword is a weapon of mass
destruction.

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It tells you that with Caliburn
alone,

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Arthur killed some 470 men
single-handedly.

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He went berserk, essentially.

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00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:57,800
470 victims in a single rush.

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I mean, that is... It's too
extraordinary to believe, obviously.

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00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:02,080
I mean, he's being portrayed here
as...

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He's superhero, essentially.
Yeah, yeah.

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00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:08,200
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Arthur isn't
the Arthur that we know and love
today.

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00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:10,920
There is no sword in the stone,
there's no round table,

233
00:16:10,920 --> 00:16:12,400
there's no Holy Grail.

234
00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:15,480
I mean, all that really gets added
to the Arthur story later

235
00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:19,280
in the sort of 14th, 15th centuries
to make Arthur a more likeable
person.

236
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:24,440
Geoffrey was the first to make that
connection between Arthur and

237
00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:29,080
Tintagel, but the story of the
Anglo-Saxon invasion goes back even

238
00:16:29,080 --> 00:16:33,320
further. The earliest account was by
a monk called Gildas,

239
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:35,320
and a few fragments are still
legible.

240
00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:38,400
He's writing in the sixth century,

241
00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:40,680
and he isn't writing so much a work
of history,

242
00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:45,680
it's more a polemical text
criticising the Britons and blaming
their evil ways,

243
00:16:46,160 --> 00:16:51,200
their bad ways of living with...
That's why they were conquered by
the Saxons.

244
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:53,840
So the Saxons are a punishment
from God?

245
00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:56,040
Precisely. That's how Gildas
portrayed it.

246
00:17:00,920 --> 00:17:04,800
Although Gildas makes no mention of
anyone called Arthur,

247
00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:08,360
he does talk about Britons versus
Saxons.

248
00:17:08,360 --> 00:17:10,520
But it's all very political,

249
00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:14,360
and we just don't know how accurate
these written historical sources
are.

250
00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:17,560
It's not necessarily the truth.

251
00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:19,560
It's not necessarily the objective
history,

252
00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:23,880
and it didn't have the sort of
academic approach that we would now.

253
00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:28,160
I had hoped to find something
dependable,

254
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:31,000
especially in those earlier sources.

255
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:35,080
But it turns out there are problems
with all of these accounts.

256
00:17:35,080 --> 00:17:37,920
They are ALL just so subjective.

257
00:17:38,920 --> 00:17:42,200
But I think that there is a better,

258
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:47,080
more objective way of getting to the
truth of the Dark Ages -

259
00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:49,080
and that is archaeology.

260
00:17:52,120 --> 00:17:56,800
So I'm going to use archaeology to
test these early historical sources.

261
00:17:58,280 --> 00:18:02,680
Geoffrey of Monmouth describes a
frontier between King Arthur's
Britons

262
00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:04,840
and the invading Anglo-Saxon armies.

263
00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:09,600
If great wars were fought,

264
00:18:09,600 --> 00:18:13,840
then surely we should find some
archaeological evidence of them

265
00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:17,320
along this line that runs from the
south-west up to East Yorkshire.

266
00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:24,480
Archaeologist Dominic Powlesland has
been flying,

267
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:29,600
digging and mapping
a vast area around the
East Yorkshire end of the line

268
00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:33,960
near the village of West Heslerton
for the last 40 years.

269
00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:39,840
Clear prop.

270
00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:46,560
OK, ready, Dominic? Yeah, I'm ready.

271
00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:47,880
Hold on tight, here we go.

272
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:50,640
North Romeo, Romeo rolling.

273
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:57,880
Does his work provide any evidence
of an invasion?

274
00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:05,200
These fields underneath us are
entirely filled with archaeology.

275
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:07,080
There is archaeology
in every single one.

276
00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:13,760
Dominic saw, in a big landscape, you
needed big technological solutions.

277
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:16,640
You needed geophysics,
you needed air photography,

278
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:18,440
you needed a totally different
approach.

279
00:19:20,520 --> 00:19:25,160
Dominic's vision was to use modern
technology to map the Anglo-Saxon

280
00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,800
landscape over 70 square kilometres.

281
00:19:30,640 --> 00:19:32,680
It took 40 years.

282
00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:34,440
But with an army of volunteers,

283
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:39,160
Dominic was able to reveal the
ancient secrets hidden in this
landscape.

284
00:19:43,360 --> 00:19:46,480
His own little private air force
handled reconnaissance.

285
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:52,560
Geophysicists surveyed
and scanned the fields

286
00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:55,200
while ground troops dug into the
detail.

287
00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:00,680
We've surveyed all these fields.

288
00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:05,040
The surveyors have walked the
equivalent from Land's End to John
O'Groats.

289
00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:12,480
Over the years, West Heslerton
became the training ground for an
army of archaeologists.

290
00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:14,920
They're on every corner.

291
00:20:18,360 --> 00:20:20,640
Many people started their
archaeological careers there.

292
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:23,400
I started my archaeological career
there.

293
00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:27,240
I first came to West Heslerton in
1978.

294
00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:30,360
Everybody quite enjoyed it, I think,
all these weird hippy students

295
00:20:30,360 --> 00:20:32,200
suddenly descending on the village

296
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:34,400
and camping in a field next to the
sand quarry.

297
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:38,280
The dig changed my life completely.

298
00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:42,960
I met my wife here
and moved into the village.

299
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:45,200
My children were both born here in
Yorkshire.

300
00:20:46,160 --> 00:20:49,120
I came here 27 years ago.

301
00:20:49,120 --> 00:20:50,840
I think I was about 15.

302
00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:54,360
I came here for three days and ended
up staying six weeks.

303
00:20:54,360 --> 00:20:56,360
Ended up falling in love with
archaeology,

304
00:20:56,360 --> 00:20:59,000
and now I'm a professor of
archaeology at York.

305
00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:04,640
Dominic's idea of mapping an entire
landscape through time,

306
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:09,640
the idea that you would individually
3D-locate every single artefact...

307
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,400
..it's almost madness,
but it's brilliant madness!

308
00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:24,120
Key to the process was geophysical
survey using techniques

309
00:21:24,120 --> 00:21:29,200
like ground-penetrating radar to
map traces of buried structures.

310
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:31,720
So every single spot here
is a feature?

311
00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:34,400
Yeah, so all those dots are
individual features.

312
00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:39,440
You can zoom into this area here,
click on that - we get all the
finds, information.

313
00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:41,920
Oh, wow. That's the plan.

314
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:44,080
This is the distribution of finds
within it.

315
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:45,280
Oh, it just goes on and on.

316
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,080
So you've got thousands of finds
coming out of every single one of

317
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:50,200
these features, and hundreds of
these features.

318
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:52,640
I mean, that's a phenomenal amount
of data.

319
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:54,440
Yeah. About a million finds
altogether.

320
00:21:56,160 --> 00:22:00,200
Dominic has been across this
landscape with a fine-tooth comb.

321
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:03,120
What he's found is extraordinary.

322
00:22:03,120 --> 00:22:05,920
But even more amazing is what he
hasn't found.

323
00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:13,160
There are no graves of defeated
warriors.

324
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,840
No signs of a battle or conquest.

325
00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:24,840
In the idyllic rural landscape in
the Vale of Pickering,

326
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:27,760
life just seemed to carry on without
a break.

327
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:31,080
I have never seen any evidence of an
invasion.

328
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:37,320
Dominic's findings seem to be at
odds with the traditional view

329
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:41,200
that the Britons were routed by an
Anglo-Saxon invasion force.

330
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:45,440
Once you start killing people in
large numbers,

331
00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:48,080
they leave themselves lying around.
You can't avoid them.

332
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:51,960
So we don't see lots of Anglo-Saxons
with massive injuries.

333
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:55,200
When you look at their bones,
you find a very,

334
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:58,440
very low incidence of weapon
injuries, sword cuts.

335
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:04,920
This is a society that is playing
with the idea of a military world,

336
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:11,200
but doesn't actually seem to be
engaging with physical conflict to a
huge degree.

337
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,800
It's such a departure from the
written history which gives us

338
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:21,800
this idea of an epic battle between
native Britons and invading Saxons,

339
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:27,000
and the results from West Heslerton
are echoed elsewhere.

340
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,960
Here's a very, very good piece of
science -

341
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:35,600
of all the dead bodies dug up that
may belong to the period 400-600,

342
00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:40,000
and we have thousands of them - men
and women, children, old people,

343
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:45,000
young people - of all those
thousands of bodies,

344
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:49,960
if you ask the number of those
bodies that have sharp-edge weapon

345
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:53,480
injuries, it's less than 2%.

346
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,720
Where do battles fit into that?

347
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,960
First of all, we don't know how many
people were involved.

348
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:01,600
Are there 30 blokes and their mates

349
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:04,440
against 30 other blokes
and their mates?

350
00:24:09,120 --> 00:24:13,640
So some local argy-bargy,
but the archaeology brings into

351
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:17,040
question any idea of a countrywide
conflict.

352
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,520
The data comes together in what
Dominic calls the wallpaper...

353
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:29,480
..and it shows exactly what people
were doing here in West Heslerton

354
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:31,000
during the Anglo-Saxon period.

355
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:33,760
It's just phenomenal,

356
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,520
because all of that work comes
together to give you a picture of a

357
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,800
landscape which is
so densely settled.

358
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:44,600
Yeah. Whoever lived here in
the fifth and sixth centuries,

359
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,360
they weren't rampaging warriors.

360
00:24:47,360 --> 00:24:49,000
They were farmers.

361
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,760
We've got settlements here, there's
one here, there's one here.

362
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:55,640
Then, of course, there's this large
one at West Heslerton.

363
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,480
We've identified 14, probably now 15
settlements.

364
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:04,360
And a completely new style of
building appears in the landscape.

365
00:25:04,360 --> 00:25:07,080
They're very different to
the buildings at Tintagel -

366
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:09,360
not made of stone.

367
00:25:09,360 --> 00:25:14,360
These grubenhause, or grub huts,
were thatched wooden buildings,

368
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:19,800
and they're a style of construction
that's seen right across northern
Europe at this time.

369
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,040
So these blobs here
were the grubenhause.

370
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,680
All of these little blobs?

371
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:27,680
You see big houses there, big houses
here, lots of these grubenhause.

372
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:31,280
You also see this hamlet here,
a hamlet there.

373
00:25:32,360 --> 00:25:34,320
A load of buildings there.

374
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,480
A load here. You see, it's all
joined up. There's stuff everywhere.

375
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:50,200
We know that in the Anglo-Saxon
period, this was densely settled.

376
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:54,080
Dominic tells me there were 60 to 70
buildings just here,

377
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:56,920
another 270 over there,

378
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:00,840
14 settlements within 11km
of where I'm standing.

379
00:26:04,120 --> 00:26:06,120
Stand by to land.

380
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:12,640
I think that might
be Alice down there.

381
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,920
Dominic's research suggests a very
different story to the violent

382
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:21,000
Anglo-Saxon conquest described in
the histories.

383
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,120
Oh, a bit of a bumpy landing there.

384
00:26:23,120 --> 00:26:25,040
That's OK. Are you all right?
Yeah, I'm fine.

385
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:42,600
So we've got this version of events
from the histories,

386
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:47,600
but it just doesn't match up with
what we find on and in the ground.

387
00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:52,720
In the east, then,

388
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:57,280
there's not much evidence of an
invasion and any conflict,

389
00:26:57,280 --> 00:26:58,560
but what about the west?

390
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:05,600
Jackie Nowakowski and the team
are now four weeks into
their five-week dig.

391
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,400
In this remote corner of south-west
England,

392
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:15,000
the team are also unearthing a
peaceful lifestyle,

393
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,040
but one that's far more extravagant
than in the east.

394
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:22,320
Ah, that's a good piece.

395
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:25,160
Oh, nice.

396
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:30,040
That is a nice, high-quality piece
of tableware, I'd guess.

397
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:32,880
The rim on the bottom, that sat on
the table - beautiful.

398
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:38,760
We've been finding a lot of the fine
tablewares,

399
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:42,800
and even some of the dinner plates
and the storage vessels containing

400
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,880
the wine and olive oil are being
broken and just discarded around
here.

401
00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:00,760
Whoever they were, the people who
lived here were rich.

402
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:05,760
This is the largest quantity of
high-quality pottery found at any

403
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:07,400
Dark Age site.

404
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:09,080
That is really beautiful.

405
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,320
This was certainly not a backwater.

406
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:22,840
The culture here is clearly
different from that in the
Anglo-Saxon east.

407
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:28,920
This new excavation is really adding
to what we already know about

408
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:34,000
Tintagel, and it's showing us that
there was indeed a huge settlement

409
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:35,840
here, a high-status settlement,

410
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:40,000
and it's something that seems to be
very different from what's happening

411
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,920
right across the rest of Britain at
this time.

412
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:51,280
It seems to be the case that those
settlements and burials that we

413
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:55,000
associate with
Germanic culture occur

414
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,840
primarily to the south-east
of that line,

415
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,920
but there are always pockets and
patchworks within that zone,

416
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:05,880
and that west of that stays
largely British-speaking.

417
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:17,480
Archaeologically, fifth-century
Britain looks like a divided
country,

418
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:23,360
but if the Anglo-Saxons didn't
arrive en masse and kill the locals
in the east, what did happen?

419
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:26,600
Why did the culture change?

420
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:34,880
Surprisingly, new evidence is
emerging from research being
conducted here.

421
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:40,040
This is Diamond Light Source in
Oxfordshire,

422
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,680
the UK national facility for
synchrotron radiation.

423
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:53,240
This looks like a very strange place
to be doing archaeology, and it is.

424
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,960
Beneath me, and shielded from me by
two metres of concrete,

425
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:02,600
a beam of electrons is travelling
at almost the speed of light,

426
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:07,160
and as they spin around here,
they're throwing off X-rays,

427
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:12,200
and I'm particularly interested in
the beam of X-rays that exits here
at beamline 18.

428
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,600
This is where physics
and archaeology collide.

429
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,320
Here, scientists are penetrating
deep into the structure of
archaeological

430
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:29,320
finds using X-rays focused to a
sixth of the width of a human hair.

431
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:36,880
The evidence under scrutiny is grave
goods from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery

432
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,920
first excavated in 1926,

433
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:44,920
in the village of Oakington in
Cambridgeshire on the east side of
the Dark Age divide.

434
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,720
Over 100 skeletons were discovered
under a primary school playground,

435
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,800
including one woman's grave,
which had been disturbed,

436
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,840
but miraculously not entirely
destroyed, by a modern power cable.

437
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,520
Duncan Sayer has been leading
the most recent investigation.

438
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:12,400
These are all the photographs from
the excavations.

439
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:17,320
His team found what looked like
distinctive Anglo-Saxon objects in
many of the graves.

440
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,400
So we've got an adult in the
middle... Yeah. ..with two brooches
on her shoulder...

441
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,840
Yeah. ..and a load of amber beads.

442
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,160
And next to it is an adolescent.
Yeah. And we have a child.
Yes, a small child.

443
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:32,960
A small child, yeah, yeah. Makes you
wonder what happened that they ended
up in the same grave.

444
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:34,280
Well, it does, doesn't it?

445
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:37,120
And we've got round brooches,
and we've got long brooches,

446
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,320
we've got cruciform brooches -
we've got all the works, really.

447
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,720
All what you'd expect from an
Anglo-Saxon cemetery -
no surprises there?

448
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:45,960
No surprises, absolutely
typical in every way.

449
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,640
But archaeological evidence,
just like written history,

450
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,280
is open to misinterpretation.

451
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,800
Duncan was reluctant to jump to an
obvious conclusion.

452
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:04,360
One of the problems that archaeology
does have is when we find people

453
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:08,640
buried, we have tended to associate
the artefacts with them.

454
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:13,600
We read those things as a sort of
biography of that person.

455
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:18,520
Even your typical Anglo-Saxon
brooch, the cruciform brooch,

456
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,440
you can't just take an item of
material culture

457
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,760
and assume that
you know what it means.

458
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,600
Duncan decided to analyse the
brooches using the synchrotron.

459
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:41,760
The high-energy X-ray beam is
focused on a tiny but unusual
feature

460
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,480
that he's spotted on the classic
Anglo-Saxon cross.

461
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,600
So, do the blue areas and green
areas represent different elements?

462
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:01,720
Exactly. The green bits highlight
iron, and the blue bits highlight
lead.

463
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,200
The lead tells us that this is
glass.

464
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:11,280
And this is a very particular type
of glass working.

465
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,280
It's not typically Anglo-Saxon.

466
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:19,200
It's British. What you're doing is
you're taking out

467
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:24,480
the glass, grinding it up and
grinding into it the scrapings from
the inside of a crucible,

468
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:29,240
and then you bake it into the holes,
into the object, and it makes
enamel.

469
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,640
Enamel, like this,
was a local technique,

470
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:38,080
not something normally found in
continental Angle and Saxon culture.

471
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:42,560
So this is fascinating, because it
means that this is not an import

472
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,160
from the continent -
it's an imported idea,

473
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:49,360
it's an imported style, but it's
a locally made object. Exactly.

474
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:56,040
So the archaeology is telling us
that what looks typically
Anglo-Saxon

475
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,040
is actually much less
straightforward.

476
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:04,080
It means we can't just assume that
these skeletons belong to
Anglo-Saxon incomers.

477
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,160
Something more complicated
is going on.

478
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,680
Duncan wanted to understand where
the skeletons came from,

479
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:20,520
so he turned to another modern
technology - ancient DNA analysis.

480
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:30,880
Skeleton 82 turned out to be a close
match with Dutch and Danish genomes.

481
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:36,800
Her DNA fits the traditional idea of
what an Anglo-Saxon should be.

482
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:43,360
But skeleton one is genetically
closer to earlier Iron Age Britons.

483
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:48,080
Skeleton 96 is an even bigger
surprise,

484
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:52,480
with mixed Northern European
and native British ancestry.

485
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:58,760
The cemetery at Oakington shows that
there were some incomers then,

486
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,760
but they didn't suddenly replace
the Britons in the east -

487
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:03,720
they mixed with them over time.

488
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,600
This is not a period when people
would have known that they were

489
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:11,040
members of a particular
nation state.

490
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:12,560
Nation states didn't exist.

491
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,040
People didn't have passports -

492
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,280
they weren't citizens of one country
or another.

493
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:23,840
People would probably not have
thought of themselves as Britons or

494
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,280
Anglo-Saxons. They would probably
have thought of themselves in a much

495
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,800
more local way than that.

496
00:35:32,240 --> 00:35:36,960
Jeffrey's account of Arthur
defending the ancient Britons

497
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,400
against an invading army
needs a rewrite.

498
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:44,440
The archaeology is telling us that
there wasn't a sudden huge influx of

499
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:47,480
Anglo-Saxons resulting in mass
conflict.

500
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:51,560
Instead, there was always contact
and migration.

501
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:54,680
So not invasion,
but settling and farming.

502
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:58,640
There are people coming across the
North Sea,

503
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,320
but they're not entirely replacing
the group that are here.

504
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:04,360
They're bringing new styles,
new ideas,

505
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:06,280
new ways of talking, new religions,

506
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:08,920
which are adding to the mix that's
already here.

507
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:16,120
It's not a full-scale, you know,
replacement of one culture by
another.

508
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,520
People are trading, intermarrying,
even swapping fashions.

509
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:26,880
We're seeing Britons adopting
Saxon-style brooches,

510
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,480
we're seeing Saxons adopting
Roman-style brooches.

511
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:36,320
These things wouldn't have been
these very clear-cut identities
that we ascribe to today.

512
00:36:37,720 --> 00:36:40,600
It would have been much, much
more complex than that.

513
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,200
Eastern Britain is trading
with the Germanic world,
with the Saxon world,

514
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:47,000
with Scandinavia.
That's where their fashions,

515
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:48,840
that's where their trade
is being connected to.

516
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:56,880
In a time of great change, new
settlers were perhaps welcomed,

517
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:01,640
People live in settlements -

518
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:04,560
whether you want to call them
villages or hamlets or farms -

519
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,720
going about their business,

520
00:37:06,720 --> 00:37:10,400
collecting eggs from their chickens,
telling their children off,

521
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:14,720
trying to keep the pigs away from
the fields, and look after their
cattle,

522
00:37:14,720 --> 00:37:16,480
doing the things that people do,

523
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:18,280
finding appropriate marriages
for their children.

524
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:27,560
This is a radically different view
of life after the Romans left
Britain

525
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:29,680
from that painted by the historical
sources.

526
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:33,920
Far from being conquered
or driven out,

527
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,800
the native Britons in the eastern
half of the country seem to have

528
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,840
absorbed the northern
European incomers,

529
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:45,920
as they'd been doing for centuries,
integrating over time.

530
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,240
I suppose if you think of a sense
like - take America, as an example,

531
00:37:49,240 --> 00:37:52,000
you've got African-Americans,
Italian-Americans,

532
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:55,160
people are adding things to the
various pot that is America.

533
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:57,560
That's what's happening in Britain
in the fifth and sixth centuries.

534
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:06,680
And evidence of that melting pot can
still be detected in Britain today

535
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:09,400
in our modern DNA.

536
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:15,520
Researchers at the University of
Oxford collected DNA samples from

537
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:20,040
thousands of people across Britain
whose families had a long-standing

538
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:21,640
connection to their local area.

539
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,520
We tried to focus on individuals,

540
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,560
all of whose grandparents were born
in the same area, so in that sense,

541
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,200
their DNA had been there at least
for two generations,

542
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:33,280
and probably quite a long time
before that.

543
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:39,720
Peter's team mapped regional
variations in our 21st-century

544
00:38:39,720 --> 00:38:43,160
genomes in greater detail
than ever before.

545
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:44,640
So what do we see on this map, then?

546
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,760
What do the different colours
and different shapes represent?

547
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:52,720
So each circle or square or triangle
represents one of the 2,000

548
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:54,640
individuals we sampled,

549
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:59,400
and then the combination of colour
and shape represent a genetic group.

550
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,280
What you see is there's one group in
Cornwall,

551
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,320
there's another group in Devon,

552
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,240
there's a large group across much
of central and southern England,

553
00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:09,440
groups in South Wales, North Wales,

554
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:11,040
and so on as we look through the
country.

555
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,480
And what I find utterly
extraordinary about it is

556
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,080
that you've got all of these
different-coloured clusters,

557
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:17,920
which do seem to be quite localised,

558
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:22,480
and I would just have expected the
whole thing to be much more
homogenous.

559
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,400
It was one of those total wow
moments that we don't have too often

560
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:27,280
in our career, but it was really
exciting.

561
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:32,320
So why is there this great mass,
this great swathe across England,

562
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,520
of these red squares?
What does that represent?

563
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,040
I think the main thing it represents
is homogeneity.

564
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:42,280
That's fascinating, so we're looking
at a well-mixed area of Britain,

565
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:44,800
compared with not-so-well mixed,
historically?

566
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:48,440
Yes, these are areas that have
stayed relatively isolated,

567
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:50,680
and here, there's been rather more
movement.

568
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:55,720
Peter even has an explanation for
why this area has such well-mixed
DNA.

569
00:39:56,200 --> 00:40:00,000
So when the Romans were here,
they were largely concentrated
in this area of England,

570
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,520
and one of the things they did was
to improve transportation -

571
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:04,400
Roman roads and so on.

572
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:06,720
So we think what probably happened
is that the Romans put down the

573
00:40:06,720 --> 00:40:11,200
infrastructure, which meant that
in the 1,500 or 1,600
or 1,700 years since,

574
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:15,600
there's been rather more
movement of people in this area,
which homogenises the differences.

575
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:20,320
So these groups have remained
relatively intact and coherent,

576
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:24,440
whereas here, there's been so much
movement that it's mixed all those
genes up?

577
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:26,640
That's absolutely right.

578
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:31,680
But has Peter identified any genetic
evidence of the arrival of newcomers

579
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,480
in this big red area in the east of
the country?

580
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:40,800
Do you think this pattern of red
squares is explained by a massive

581
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:45,360
Anglo-Saxon invasion replacing
everything that was there before?

582
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:47,120
That's absolutely not the case.

583
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:50,560
What's interesting is that if you
take a typical person in central
and southern England,

584
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:52,200
that accounts for about 10%
of their DNA,

585
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,000
so we do see evidence of
the Anglo-Saxon migration -

586
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:56,600
I think clear evidence of that -

587
00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:00,280
but it certainly wasn't the case
that they replaced existing
populations.

588
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,720
They contributed to the DNA of
modern English people,

589
00:41:02,720 --> 00:41:05,400
but in a minority of the DNA that's
there now.

590
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,280
The genetic picture complements
the archaeology.

591
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,920
We're not looking at an Anglo-Saxon
invasion and takeover,

592
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:17,440
but ongoing migration.

593
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:20,520
They're coming in and mingling.

594
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:22,200
Correct, they're mingling,

595
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,600
and they probably didn't mingle
immediately. They probably came
in and had their own communities,

596
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:28,600
and then, over hundreds of years,
intermingled, and that DNA got
spread.

597
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,840
So we've got a clearer picture of
life in the east of Britain

598
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,680
during the Dark Ages, but what about
the west?

599
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,400
Why does Tintagel seem so special,

600
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,800
and why is King Arthur so strongly
connected with the place?

601
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,520
This is Fort Cumberland.

602
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:57,160
Built in the 18th century
to protect Portsmouth Docks,

603
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:00,440
it's now the home of Historic
England's archaeology labs.

604
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:07,960
Many of the finds from Tintagel
will end up here to be analysed.

605
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:14,840
As with all archaeology, the
excavation itself is
really just the start,

606
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:21,360
and it's the post-excavation
analysis when we really start to get
some answers.

607
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:23,720
There's a huge wealth of finds.

608
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:29,240
Here, we've got the pottery,
the glass, the animal bones,

609
00:42:29,240 --> 00:42:34,280
the plant remains, and all the
specialists who can unlock their
secrets.

610
00:42:39,240 --> 00:42:42,440
The fort is a scientific production
line,

611
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,800
turning the spoils of excavation
into information.

612
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,200
From the new excavations
at Tintagel,

613
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:55,880
over 500 litres of soil will be
filtered through flotation tanks.

614
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:02,800
And now, perhaps we have a chance of
filtering out the Arthur legend

615
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,000
from the archaeological facts.

616
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,960
Pottery specialist Maria Duggan
is one of the experts who's been

617
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:16,480
looking at clues hidden in the most
basic of items - pots and plates.

618
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:22,440
So this is our really characteristic
fineware form for that late fifth

619
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,480
century, early sixth century,
and we've got about

620
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:28,560
14 vessels of the same form,
all slightly different.

621
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,440
So that's a bowl, is it?
Yeah, it's a big dish,

622
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:33,240
so it's actually quite big.
It's probably about 30 centimetres.

623
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:39,360
The distinctive shape tells Maria
that this bowl is far from local.

624
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,120
So that's coming from Turkey?
Sort of western Turkey, yeah.

625
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:45,840
Yeah. It's come a long way.

626
00:43:48,720 --> 00:43:52,560
This fragment of pot is connecting
Tintagel to what would then have

627
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:55,200
been the Eastern Roman or Byzantine
Empire.

628
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,880
And there are many hundreds more
pieces to examine.

629
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:03,120
The vast majority of the finds
are amphorae,

630
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,520
so they're storage vessels for
transport of wine or olive oil,

631
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:07,680
things like that. Yeah.

632
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:11,480
Also, other fineware, so we've got
some North African material,

633
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,720
and also from South West France,
so from the Bordeaux region.

634
00:44:14,720 --> 00:44:18,200
Right. So it's coming in from all
over the place? Yep.

635
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,600
When you find a blooming great sherd
of Roman amphora -

636
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:27,680
and not just one sherd of amphora,
but buckets of the stuff -

637
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:32,960
that tells you that there is trade
and diplomacy and interaction,

638
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,240
and people are moving across the
European landscape and seascape.

639
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:43,360
The picture emerging shows that
Tintagel was well connected with

640
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:47,400
communities all over
the Mediterranean,
and along the Atlantic coasts.

641
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:56,880
It's a dangerous coastline,
but when it wasn't too stormy,

642
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:00,800
seagoing vessels could have come
into this bay,

643
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,280
bringing goods from the Eastern
Mediterranean, from North Africa,

644
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:08,640
from France and Spain, here to
Tintagel in the fifth and sixth

645
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,360
centuries, and going on beyond that.

646
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:20,920
The Tintagel that is being unearthed
was clearly an international port of
call.

647
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,600
So what would it have looked like in
its heyday?

648
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,680
Co-director of the site
James Gossip

649
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,520
has been making a detailed
survey of the dig.

650
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:40,000
OK, can we have a spot height on the
hearth, Martin?

651
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:47,080
Combining these measurements with
thousands of photographs creates a

652
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,040
perfect record of the new site.

653
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,240
So this is... This is
towards the sea, isn't it?

654
00:45:56,240 --> 00:45:59,360
Yep, you can really see how

655
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,200
the buildings are part of a planned
design, with shared spaces.

656
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:08,040
The complex is laid out over
upper and lower terraces.

657
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,920
The other building has a
ten-metre-long room,

658
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:14,720
with a five-metre annexe.

659
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:21,680
There's a smaller building next
door, and a large open courtyard...

660
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:25,920
..all connected by a central
trackway.

661
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:32,000
This new data is used to create the
first 3D model

662
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,440
of the whole Tintagel site.

663
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,520
The complex may not look that
opulent to our eyes,

664
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:42,600
but it's among the most substantial
set of buildings

665
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:46,240
that's been found so far in
post-Roman south-west Britain.

666
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,760
But people weren't just sailing to
Tintagel to sell exotic goods.

667
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,840
Tintagel must have had
something worth buying.

668
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,880
For the people who were coming
up the Atlantic seaboard,

669
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:05,960
they would see Tintagel
in the distance -

670
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:09,800
that is the place they are aiming
for, that is their destination.

671
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,200
It's an important harbour that will

672
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:14,920
give them the resources
that they want.

673
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:20,560
Whoever controlled Tintagel
had access to a rare commodity,

674
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:22,240
in high demand across Europe.

675
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:29,120
This feels like a rural idyll,
a quiet country lane,

676
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,960
winding its way through beautiful,
ancient woods.

677
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:37,600
But, in fact, just over this bank
and hedge lies the secret

678
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:41,680
to Cornwall's wealth and power
in the Dark Ages.

679
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:55,680
This was a major production centre,
just 15 miles from Tintagel.

680
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:00,960
Exploited by the Romans,

681
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:04,040
it was still in business at the
beginning of the 20th century.

682
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,600
The secret to Cornwall's
success was tin.

683
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:27,040
What looks like a natural gorge
was actually once the massive

684
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:32,040
Mulberry Hill mine, 120 feet deep,
130 feet wide, and 900 feet long.

685
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:42,840
Cornwall's unique geology meant that
it was one of only three sources of

686
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:44,400
tin in Western Europe.

687
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,920
It's one of the reasons the Romans
came to Britain in the first place.

688
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,400
Whoever's been mining that stuff for
hundreds of years is going to get

689
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,680
rich, because the Mediterranean
needs those resources -

690
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:00,280
they will come to you to get them.

691
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:07,840
The Roman Empire needed
tin to make bronze...

692
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,800
..and even after the Romans left
Britain,

693
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,200
Europe still needed Cornish tin.

694
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:20,240
Whoever controls Tintagel is the
head of a large financial empire,

695
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:23,440
and Tintagel is one of the big
political players.

696
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:25,920
We mustn't think of them as being
on the margins of anything -

697
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:28,720
they are at the centre of a very
sort of dominant,

698
00:49:28,720 --> 00:49:30,440
successful political world.

699
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:37,520
Trade in the west doesn't collapse
after the Romans leave.

700
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:41,280
The connections to the continent
remain strong,

701
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:46,200
but there's another astonishing side
to life at Dark Ages Tintagel.

702
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:51,320
The evidence emerges on the very
last day of the dig.

703
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:57,560
Jackie Nowakowski's team make the
most exciting discovery of all.

704
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:03,960
It's a stone used to make a
windowsill in building 94,

705
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:10,680
There's at least three lines.
See there, an "a" with a hat on.

706
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:18,240
I think it's OK, actually.

707
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:24,760
I'll wrap it up as this.

708
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:27,240
It's very heavy, yeah.

709
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:39,000
This is an incredibly rare
and precious piece of evidence.

710
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:43,880
So this is it? This is it.

711
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:50,600
It's really clear. Yeah.

712
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:51,800
That's amazing.

713
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:58,320
The letters are scratched with a
sharp tool -

714
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,120
roughly, as if for practice.

715
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,320
It's not in its original position.

716
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:06,800
Probably only ever a trial piece,
anyway.

717
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:10,240
Just somebody practising
their inscription. Yeah.

718
00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:13,160
So, presumably, once this was
created as a trial piece,

719
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,160
it wasn't that important any more,

720
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:17,960
and was incorporated into this wall
where we found it.

721
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:22,880
James deciphers the text.

722
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:25,320
There's a distinct flavour of Latin.

723
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:32,040
So the top line is here, possibly
"Tito", which could refer to Titus.

724
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:34,080
So that's a Roman name.

725
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:37,280
That's a Roman name. Yeah, popular
in the Roman and post-Roman world.

726
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:39,920
What does this say here?

727
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:43,200
We think this is perhaps "Budic".

728
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:45,040
B-U-D-I-C.

729
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:49,960
There's a word that's common in
Welsh, Breton and Cornish contexts.

730
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:54,360
So this isn't Latin?
That is not Latin, no.

731
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:58,640
That's Bretonic, or, you know, it's
the Cornish word form, basically.

732
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:05,200
It's something like, "From Titus to
Viridius, the son of Budic Tudor."

733
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:09,000
It looks like the inscription
for a monument.

734
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:13,080
This is a lovely A.
That's a really nice style.

735
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,360
This is the style of lettering that
they're using in manuscript at the

736
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:22,400
time. It might even have been
designed to be a deliberate
biblical connotation.

737
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:26,680
While it might look like a stylistic
flourish,

738
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:31,240
the design of the A suggests that
the writer may have been Christian.

739
00:52:31,240 --> 00:52:33,400
And this coming out
of the Dark Ages,

740
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:38,280
when we used to think people were
living in hovels, scratching around,
illiterate.

741
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:42,920
Yeah, but actually created by a
literate Christian elite at
Tintagel.

742
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:44,560
I wonder who did it. I want to know.

743
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:47,480
Perhaps Titus.

744
00:52:52,720 --> 00:52:55,920
That stone is just incredible,

745
00:52:55,920 --> 00:53:00,720
and it has this almost mythical
origin story of its own.

746
00:53:00,720 --> 00:53:04,560
They only discovered it on the last
day of excavating,

747
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:08,720
and it so nearly could have been
left in the ground.

748
00:53:08,720 --> 00:53:13,760
And what we've got on it,
even though it's fragmentary,
is Latin words,

749
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:19,080
British words, people who are
literate, in the Dark Ages.

750
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:26,200
This new archaeology has revealed so
much about Tintagel and the people

751
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:27,320
who lived here.

752
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:33,880
And this evidence may also help
to explain another mystery -

753
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:37,040
a connection to Geoffrey of
Monmouth's King Arthur.

754
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:44,080
Geoffrey of Monmouth chose Tintagel
for a reason, and I suspect that was

755
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:47,920
because even by his time, it was
remembered as a site of critical

756
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:51,160
importance. This is where an
important individual lived -

757
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:53,000
a powerful individual lived.

758
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:56,360
So I think that's a reflection
of the importance of that site.

759
00:53:56,360 --> 00:54:00,720
Its political dominance in the fifth
and sixth centuries AD is what

760
00:54:00,720 --> 00:54:02,560
Geoffrey of Monmouth is tying into.

761
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:04,160
And that, in a way,

762
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,600
is what we're talking about
when we're discussing Arthur.

763
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:11,280
He is the literary creation based
on that kind of primary evidence.

764
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,360
Geoffrey's Arthur was a myth -

765
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:19,600
a construct created from fragments
of a half-remembered past.

766
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:25,680
Basically, I think we have to say
that Geoffrey of Monmouth is making
it up.

767
00:54:25,720 --> 00:54:29,600
You can think about it as being
essentially the creation

768
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,600
of origin myths
for the English people.

769
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:35,240
He doesn't exist.

770
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,720
He's a literary invention,

771
00:54:39,720 --> 00:54:44,640
a romantic hero who embodies the
ideal of kingship and not a real

772
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:47,240
historical figure.

773
00:54:47,240 --> 00:54:51,480
But I think I've found something
much more interesting -

774
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:54,200
and that's what archaeology is
showing us -

775
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:57,760
the real Britain of the fifth
and sixth centuries.

776
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,880
Whether or not he was real,
I think, is irrelevant.

777
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:05,240
It's the period itself that is
essential.

778
00:55:05,240 --> 00:55:07,320
That's what draws archaeologists
and historians to it.

779
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:12,840
It's so important for understanding
what made Britain and what makes us

780
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:13,840
what we are today.

781
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:21,360
The biggest revolution in Dark Age
archaeology has been this
recognition

782
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,840
that Britain is fully connected to
the continent all the way through.

783
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:28,720
One of the things that we've always
struggled with in thinking about the

784
00:55:28,720 --> 00:55:33,760
past is this concept that we're
divided by water rather than united
by it.

785
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:39,640
The archaeology forces us
to change perspective.

786
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:43,360
The maritime connections are
absolutely crucial here.

787
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:48,400
Tintagel is connected down to France
and Spain and up to Wales,

788
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:50,240
Scotland and Ireland.

789
00:55:50,240 --> 00:55:54,040
It's right at the centre of this
Atlantic trading network.

790
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:05,160
But in the east of the country, the
connections are to Northern Europe.

791
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:10,720
All the archaeological evidence
points to a divided Britain.

792
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:16,000
Not fighting on a frontier,

793
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:20,680
but with distinct cultures in the
west and the east that reflect their

794
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:22,280
connections across the seas.

795
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:26,720
It's an economic divide
between two halves of Britain,

796
00:56:26,720 --> 00:56:28,440
two distinct trade outlooks.

797
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,040
It's not a picture of conflict.

798
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:41,160
The two halves of Britain are
looking in different directions -

799
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:44,080
going outwards rather than clashing
in the middle.

800
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:51,280
I think if you look at the sea
instead of the land,

801
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:54,040
and the rivers instead of the land,

802
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:58,280
I think you have a much better
chance of understanding where people
are coming from.

803
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,000
At Tintagel, the excavations are
complete.

804
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:22,040
I came here to understand what
really happened in Dark Ages
Britain,

805
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:26,680
and somewhere amongst the
archaeology and genetics,
history and myth,

806
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:28,360
a new truth is emerging.

807
00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:33,960
We can't treat archaeology
as being completely factual,

808
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:37,440
neither can we treat history as
being completely fantastical.

809
00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:41,120
There are elements in there that all
feed into one another and will help

810
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:42,600
us to understand the past,

811
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:45,400
and you've got to try and master all
these things to really get a clear

812
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:48,440
understanding of what's going on,

813
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:50,440
especially something like
the fifth or sixth century.

814
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:55,960
But the myth of King
Arthur lives on.

815
00:57:55,960 --> 00:57:59,680
Arthur is a fairy story who might
have been a real person.

816
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:07,400
It's a myth.
But it's such a wonderful myth.

817
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:15,040
It's still something that resonates
today, because we all sort of need

818
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:18,720
an heroic character to defend
what we think is right and good,

819
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:20,640
and it's Arthur who
sort of fills that void.