I retired as a history teacher 25 years ago. At the time I didn't have to stick to a National Curriculum, and as I was living and working near Avebury and Stonehenge, Tan Hill and Old Sarum I based a lot of my lessons on what I and my pupils could see. However, by the time I retired, history had become a lot more economical and political! I agree with Francis Pryor, that more should be taught about Britain BC. I found a flint arrowhead when I was four, and was hooked.
Having read and enjoyed Rosemary Suttcliffe in my teens, this documentary and Pryor's viewpoint is very meaningful to me, anglicised Sri Lankan that I am. Thanks for uploading. Encore!
NOTE: I am not an expert (However, I am a sociologist. But my historical comments here are gross generalizations.) This is a very hopeful and refreshing look at early British culture. Until now we have identified "civilization" by a group's ability to organize into a rigid social hierarchy, and maintain control by building an economy based on violent exploitation and theft. Rome accomplished all of these things. It was brutal, ignorant, appallingly superstitious and incapable of any significant signs of empathy. Rome remains the prototype and classic reference for the most primitive totalitarian fascist rule. The idea that an early example of an egalitarian, cooperative and relatively anarchic society could succeed, remains very difficult for consensus historians to accept. This is a wonderful series and wonderful episode. Thanks for posting it. Although I'm late in commenting, I have viewed it several times over the years and it always captures my imagination.
@Theseustoo Astyages...Possibly, but they are informed assumptions. If you are a student of history like myself(I would assume you are) you see these sorts of things play out, time and time again, across the ages.
They should make this part of the national curriculum. My stepson was taught at primary school that we were savages before the Romans and they brought us everything important.
Your national curriculum is basically correct. Do not change it! At the time of Caesar your ancestors either painted their faces blue or else were living in some forest in Denmark and Northern Germany.
@@leoxiv1942 While we're taught the sacredness of the Native Americans existence prior to European migration to the USA, we're also taught that the indigenous peoples of Britain and Europe were largely without worth. I find this unacceptable.
He says the Romans killed off the Druids......... more accurately said that Rome committed Genocide. It is ghastly. Brilliant series and am truly grateful for the opportunity to see this. thank you.
The word "Druid" is a Roman word which the Romans claimed was derived from Celtic sources. Irish and British sources use different words which probably have common roots. The word "Druid" is so grossly over simplified in how so many people perceive it. It would be inaccurate to call it a genocide since there was no Druid ethnicity per se. Druids, in an over simplified explanation, were class of people who could best be described as the educated and ruling class of the ancient Celtic peoples. They were found everywhere Celts were found a far back as 500 B.C. and probably much further back than that. They consisted of teachers, judges, clergy, healers and so on. The Romans knew that to conquer the Celts, they needed to cut off the head as it were. A genocide would have meant killing off every member of an ethnic group and clearly that didn't happen. My cousin is descended exclusively from immigrants from England yet his DNA report shows about 1/3 Celtic blood. Obviously it was not a genocide or at least not a successful one. I'm defining genocide as the annihilation of a specific ethnicity. While they obviously killed Celts who were not Druids, they were specifically targeting Druids due to their important position not over their ethnicity. They were paving the way for their own administrators to come in and take over. This is why so much of Druid knowledge was lost. Druids were believed to keep all their knowledge in their heads not written down. So by eliminating the entire educated class, the Romans eliminated virtually all knowledge of the past hence documentaries like this and all the speculative books on the topic.
@@nunyabiznez6381 Please, what are the Irish and British words which are different? The sources I can find refer to Celtic words that are clearly related to 'druid'.
@@nunyabiznez6381 One doesn't have to kill ALL members of a group to commit genocide, and they don't have to be of an ethnicity, just of a group which is identified as having some commonality among themselves as a group.( It could be a religious group.) Genocide is the killing or eradicating in some way enough members of a group, AS A GROUP, such that the group is no longer viable (able to survive). So in that sense, the killing of the Druids was genocide of the Druids (see Genocide Convention...www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crimeofgenocide.aspx
My ancestral memory is tingling, SERIOUSLY. I am getting the connections, slowly building an understanding through some sort of gnoetic instinct. Eerie.
I think, that as the modern native american still gives offerings to the earth they live on in return for bounties received, so did our forebears honour and placate their land and celebrate their ancestors. To still be following the opinion of a roman who lived 2000 years ago is quite mad.
This is brilliant, brilliant stuff. An organisation I'm affiliated with, the Troubadours of Albion, has always taken this line of history; even though we call ourselves Kelts, for simplicity's sake, we were in fact here long before the supposed 1200BC threshold conventional history has us arriving. Why isn't this history being taught in schools? Why do we have to suffer the conventionally convenient fictions forced upon us? Why can't we as a nation be proud of our achievements?
Prior to the advent of DNA testing it was largely believed by some factions that the Celts killed off any indigenous people in the British Isles when they arrived. Another theory was that there simply were no other people prior the Celts arrival and that the British Isles were devoid of human habitation before that. We know today that obviously someone lived in the British Isles for many thousands of years most likely going back to the moment the last ice age receded. DNA testing shows that no people survive with genes of anyone prior to the Celts. It is unlikely that NOBODY prior to the Celtic invasions survived since Celtic peoples often enslaved those they conquered. so I don't personally believe that there was an invasion as such but simply wave after wave of Celtic peoples have been arriving in the British Isles since the ice age. I don't believe there were anyone else. Granted there were most likely a very large number of different Celtic tribes, as different from each other as Irish and Welsh and Scottish etc are from each other today. I believe there is an unbroken cultural and genetic chain in the British Isles going back to the ice age. Obviously there is archaeological evidence of humans since then. I don't remember the name of the book but some thirty years ago I read a book about pre Roman Britain and the author insisted there was a race of people who lived in Britain and he credited them with building Stonehenge and other pre Roman stone structures. He insisted they were wiped out by the Celts who he did not write about favorably. As I said, it is unlikely that any ethnic group is ever completely eradicated in an invasion/occupation/conquering. Someone always survivors and passes their genetic material along to future generations. The nazis attempted to annihilate the Jews but failed. They didn't even really make a thorough attempt. Several of Hitler's generals were known to have Jewish grandparents, something others were executed for. Even Hitler had a Jewish physician. Had the nazis one and achieved what they attempted in eradicating the Jewish people as a whole, they were never going to be 100% successful because many would have survived anyways as members of the NSDAP. My point being that no matter how thorough a genocide is attempted, there are ALWAYS a few survivors and they always leave their genes behind to be passed on to the next generation. In Britain, there is no such pre Celtic tribe so, the only conclusion is that the people who lived in Britain since the ice age always were Celts.
12:15 Great! Best introduction to Orkney's Skara Brae I've seen. Showing us that rock formation was worth a 10,000 words. Having the perfect resource on hand and learning how best to use it, that's the story of Orkney and human ingenuity. Well done Francis Pryor! Thanks FYI. another interesting perspective: Prehistoric Orkney (A History of Ancient Britain) - Ness of Brodgar (Skara Brae) Prehistoric Orkney (A History of Ancient Britain) - Ness of Brodgar (Skara Brae)
A circle is easy to draw. And design around. put a mark in the center and use a length of anything to trace. Laying the length at the mark in the center on one end. And tracing another mark at the other side of the length. In addition, the ease of roof construction would be enhanced. Quite simple. Look at the teepee and the Mongolian yurt. Imagine if there was a timber roof on top of Stonehenge. The wood would have decayed into dust by now. And at Stonehenge, I think, am remembering the discovery of graves, recently.
Yes, a couple of videos here on UA-cam about Stonehenge and the source of the blue stones describe many burials as well as middens, with food scraps and broken goods that indicate thousands of people came there over many, many years from all over, even what is now northern Scotland, and stayed for some time. There is another near-by henge with similar middens and burial spots.
Artificial islands are called CRANNÓGs( kran- owg) here in Ireland. We were thought about our ancient past in primary school. Not sure if they still teach this, I'm sure it's not "inclusive".
I think he misunderstandings or misleads on the Boudica revolt, the romans reacted as quickly as possible once it started. Also he leaves out embarrassing little detaills like 80,000 people being murdered by her forces when Londonium was sacked, or the horrible attrocities carried out.
Francis kind of contradicts himself at the end descriptions of rome occupation as a brutal supression, in his Britain Ad doc he uses roman bath as an example of romans treading lighly and respecting the local beliefs and customs of the Brits, well which is it?
I just got spooked...Ill be watching Orphan 55 , today...which is a Doctor Who Episode...One of the Charactors has green hair...Possibly in deff to the Oak .
... Francis makes it quite clear that the pre-Roman Isles were as sophisticated as the Romans that invaded, just weaker militarily. ... 400 years of occupation may have stopped the round house architecture but not the native ingenuity that built stonehenge
Yes we had writing, the Coelbren alphabet, that is a false claim. No work is done digging up our buried cities that would reveal our history. We know where they are. Google global megaliths. plenty of barrows globally too, Google that. The bloke is lying basically. He's a history hider and that's his job.
Really interesting stuff, thanks for posting. Think we are in danger sometimes of posting our own ideas on the past. Some of the pyramids in Egypt are said to pre-date Egyptian culture and appear to have connection to other ancient sites in ways we don't fully understand so these would also probably pre-date Stonehenge and Woodhenge...
One of the pitfalls of anthropology is the lack of evidence. So like the fallible humans we are, we are tempted to fill in the blanks with our imagination. We see a tiny isolated fragment of evidence and then we build a complex story around it which may have a grain of truth to it but rarely is more than gross speculation. Anthropologists pick up where historians leave off and have the more difficult task of attempting to find the truth from scant evidence. We humans hate being in the dark about any topic we are interested in. So we will grasp desperately at anything presented and often will swallow every word as though gospel truth. This is where critical thinking comes into play. We need to understand that presenters of these documentaries are usually attempting to fill in the blanks with their imagination and their opinions and are no more right nor wrong than the next one that comes along and most likely they are all largely wrong. A claim that a location must be sacred is just an assumption based on scant evidence. We assume Druids were the only religion but for all we know it was a late comer and a previous different religion existed for thousands of years before. Through scientific dating we can see that some of the ancient structures in Europe are over ten thousands of years old yet we really can't go back much more than about 2500-3500 years ago in most of Europe and the nearby surrounding areas. And in many places, we have almost no written history that is more than a thousand years old. What little that is written down in early historical records was commissioned by kings to decorate their egos. Or written by religious "scholars" to promote their religion. Almost nothing in the way of history was written from a neutral point of view that is more than a couple of hundred years old and even much of that could be challenged by someone. The only way to get a clear picture of history is by reading two or more different points of view on the same topic then finding actual evidence to back it up and even then you are unlikely to get better than half the picture.
I was on a field trip to Cape Cod 40 years ago and my history teacher took us to where the Mayflower passengers first landed. I found an old coin later identified as a Roman coin nearby and I showed it to my history teacher. When we identified the coin as authentic Roman he then declared that it proves that the ancient Romans visited Cape Cod 1800 years ago. To which I replied "Or it means somebody obtained it from Europe and accidentally dropped it while visiting Cape Cod and I was the lucky one to find it. My history teacher liked his theory better. So on another field trip I dropped my Roman coin in front of the whole class right in the middle of a historic cemetery in Boston and declared "Oh look, I found proof that Ancient Romans visited Boston to pay homage to the founding fathers!" My history teacher was not amused but I got an A in that class anyways.
your right about one thing, they hate not knowing the answers and are to proud to say i havnt a clue, so they guess, and make it sound, like, they know what their talking about
I think in fairness the ancient British history is still so mysterious and without written records its very hard to work out what was happening. Avebury for instance is still not really understood.
I find the "reason" for circular housing as interesting as our penchant for square houses. I wonder if the mailbox out front is religious? Or the water faucet?
If you think about this from a structural point of view....its much harder to make a strong sturdy circular structure than it is to make square ones. There are no corners for support bearing in a circular structure, so they would have to have had a reason for building everything that way, when it is much easier to build in the traditional square or rectangular fashion. Being that our beliefs play a huge part of every aspect of our lives, especially in ancient times, its a good theory that it was some sort of religious or superstitious belief that made them build literally every house and monument in a giant circle.
I don't understand why comments are turned off for part one.. These video's by Francis Pryor are of deep interest. What I've found outside of his investigations is much confusion. I want to ask one question. Were The Druids Celtic ? ( My personal belief is they were not initially. )
Let me skip almost 2000 years of history between the Romans and today to draw conclusions about how things might have been as woke as I am. Archaeology and history are just words too, obviously with this guy.
As Francis well knows, Britain had been invaded and vied for by numerous groups of people between the time of the Druids and today. You've had the Romans, various Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Britons, Welsh, and eventually Normans, all seeking out their own claim within England alone. It's gotta be tough to prove that current British folks today are "direct descendants" of whoever built structures such as Stonehenge.
I wish producers would one day understand that viewers are not interested in watching people speak... but seen what they're supposed to be shown... and hardly ever get to see... we can listen to a guy talking while watching the site !
What I don't get is prehistoric, indeed historic, documentaries where we get to see all these blokes driving in cars, slamming the doors, and yes talking all the while. Are those digs whizzing by out the windows?
You know what would be funny...if those stone circles are just part of a fencing system around the circular houses they lived in....like the most elite of the village or a priest lived in the biggest circular house at the center of the circle. That thought just popped into my head when they showed the remnants of a house in the center of one of the circles. It would really be something if one day we found out these stone circular monuments were used for something as simple as a fence, when for centuries we have speculated about what grand purpose they served.
This guy riffing away starting at 29:03 or so "IF this idea works..." The procession from wood to the stone, meaning wood= life; stone = death - he's just making it up! I'm glad for people to do this, but he clearly goes WAY past what is KNOWN - and does the science-y-SOUNDING authoritative presentation. I wish he'd label his FACTS and his SPECULATION because a lot of people go whack over this. Oh well, at least he doesn't do the Major-league trick - wear a white lab coat, carry a clipboard and WHOAH, BABY! You're in like Flynn.
Our knowlege might just be a bit further on if the establishment didnt insist on linking every material aspect of the new stoneage with religion/ritual/sacrifice. No body ever questions this rubbish. I wonder why?
I wonder if archaeologists in the future will be able to "see" the religious significance of clockwise and how we designed our fasteners (screws and nuts and bolts). Just sayin.
Can anyone suggest a study (book, paper, documentary) that theorizes a time when British society adopted the very Roman character of using violence to maintain control over its own citizens (or subjects)?
ujean56: I only know how American Indian psychologists view conquest: as a macro example of child abuse (i.e. the micro example of conquest). As an abused child often internalizes (adopts) the characteristics of the abuser, because the abuser is seen as strong and able to survive (whereas the child sees himself as weak and helpless, and a thoroughly unattractive and despised being), so the conquered People sometimes adopt the attitude and actions of the conquerors, seeing the conquerors as "the way to be" (this is a subconscious process). The book I recommend for a complete discussion of this phenomenon is a book called "Native American Post-Colonial Psychology" by Eduardo and Bonnie Duran. Some of the principles discussed can be applied to Europeans, including but not limited to, the British. (The main Peoples conquered by Rome as far as I can see, who had the opportunity, in turn became conquerors themselves, i.e., Britain, France, Spain, Portugal.) The only other book I can think of off-hand is Robert J. Miller's "The Doctrine of Discovery: the International Law of Colonialism" which goes into the history of international law towards discovered lands and is pretty dry, but does give the history going back hundreds of years as to how discovery law was formulated, which might reveal something of how the colonial powers viewed discovery and conquest.
I think that has always been the way chieftains and warlords maintained their power. The idea everyone in Britain were all sat around singing songs and democratically debating local issues until the Romans arrived is for the birds.
I'm not sure about where you went to school. I went to school in Massachusetts. We were required to take and pass four years of U.S. History, two years of World History, one year of civics, one year of geography and one year of any of a dozen other social studies electives. World History I started with the Sumerians and ended with the conquest of Britain by the Normans. World History II picked up where the first course ended and it ended in 1976, the year I finished that course. In between I believe we spent two weeks on Roman Britain and before that a week on the topic of this video though not with the more modern insights. That was all in high school, a public high school. In middle school we alternated the years between a general social studies course and world and U.S. history so we had a basic foundation before high school. I could explain who Charlemagne was before the 9th grade. Of course I had a relative who had a Ph.D. in history and went to school at Harvard and at Brown and I used to "borrow" his books all the time while in middle school. So I always loved the topic and unlike my classmates, I was disappointed that we didn't have enough history courses. I remember in 5th grade when we were learning world geography and the teacher was asking us to come to the map at the front of the class and identify a country she pointed to, when it was my turn I did so correctly and then I went on to tell her what it used to be and what was there before that and who invaded and conquered it and who owned it before that happened and so on. Besides there not being enough history taught as far as I was concerned, I was disappointed later in life when I realized how Eurocentric the program was. We learned very little of African history beyond Egypt and the further east of Europe the less we learned. I think we had all of one day of Japanese history which started with the first Europeans to visit Japan and ended with the U.S. nuclear strike in 1945. I recently moved from Rhode Island and before I left I had a disturbing conversation with an 18 year old high school senior. She informed me that in the high school in our town in Rhode Island (the state where one of the most prestigious history programs is taught at Brown) only select honor students are permitted to take the one course in history available in that high school and it is limited to 20 select students from a high school with 1500 students. Geography isn't taught at all nor is civics. She couldn't define civics for me. She was in that honors course and she couldn't tell why George Washington was famous other than as a notorious slave owner. She could list 25 civil rights activists but could not name three president, any founding father or identify the name or dates of any war. She could not tell me the difference between the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution nor could she explain a single one of the bill of rights but she could write a dissertation on the civil rights act of 1964 and she could name dozens of notorious slave owners, some of whom had been president, a fact she was unaware of. She had no clue how the voting process worked. She could not tell me the difference between a senator and a governor and she could not tell me the difference between the executive office and the legislature and had no idea of the function of the supreme court. But she could list a whole bunch of non existent rights that she thought she had that are not mentioned in the constitution, any supreme court decision or any other document or decision. We need a constitutional amendment that requires all students to take and pass U.S. history, world history and civics prior to graduating high school and another one requiring a high school diploma prior to registering to vote. We have far too many ignorant people participating in the democratic process which explains how idiots get into office. No I'm not singling out a particular party, both have devolved into idiocy.
i get your handle, none of your business, but surely the whole idea is to dumb people down so that the powers that be can keep ruling them, and the web is the best propaganda tool ever and facebook makes it easy for them to spy on us
Yes great stuff, but now a tad outdated (if I can say that about a history programme?) The analysis of the stones and settlements in Orkney has to be revisited after the more recent discoveries at the Ness of Brodgar. Probably the most significant archealogical find in Neolithic Britain, if not Europe. Google it people you will be amazed.
"Objects reverently placed in the water on either side of the causeway." Some of what Mr. Prior is trying to displell is the hold over of previous generations orthodoxy (we were barbarians until the Romans civilisized us) that inhibibit current people from seeing the past. The idea that abandoned objects, or artisit expression, MUST be religious. Object; metal work, carvings, jewellery, could have been made for the purpose of paying a toll for access to the site. A site that may have been sharing knowledge or religious insight, or economic opportunity, or technological improvement ... we need more digs to find out if these discoveries are religious or economic or technological.
I would look at the oak tree and its roots in exactly the opposite direction. It's about the roots springing from the earth and spreading. Am not making it "more" than it needs.
The first Britons were Trojans. They came here a hundred years or so after the fall of Troy led by a man called Brutus. They landed at Totnes in Devon. The ancient Britons were the only north Europeans to use chariots. Also there is evidence of farming in the Greek style. Stonehenge was built by people when the Gods (rebel angels) walked on the Earth and have nothing to do with our ancestors. Those people were destroyed by cataclysm a long time before the Trojans arrived.
If this were even remotely true, DNA evidence would support Britains coming from Greece...however, it does NOT. Not even close. DNA suggests Britians evolved over thousands of years and even have Neanderthal genes in a good portion of their society today....Greeks have specific genetic markers as well, which aren't found in either ancient skeletal remains, or modern occupants of Britain.
@@mysticmama_3692 The people to the west of the British isles have DNA from Iberia which is where the Trojans stayed for awhile before travelling to Britain. Everyone has Neanderthal genes except sub Sahara Africans.
That's based on a book by Gregory of Monmoth written in the 1100s which doesn't really have any basis in real history, some of it is downright laughable.
John Smith-and it wasn't the Catholics who established Christianity in Britain. It was the Orthodox. Before 1054 AD, the date of the Great Schism between Catholics and Orthodox, all Christians were Orthodox. There is an Orthodox monastery on the Island of Mull which has the history.
about 8 the upside down tree trunk it was the bottem end of the tree that supplied the logs to build the circular fish trap. A dry place for the fisherman to stand while they harvest the fish. Upside down sending it's life force into the underworld lol
@Tabourba omg take it easy dude. It's just a reply on youtube not a personal attack. A little bit of moderation goes a long way. Some Zoloft might help too. Consult your physician.
Pryor is a brave voice crying in the wilderness, battling centuries of Roman worship and entrenched propaganda. The New World suffers the same malady - that nothing worthwhile existed until the colonial powers arrived and fixed everyone. I wonder how any of the great pre-colonial civilizations of North and South America or Africa would respond if someone popped in from the 21st century and explained to them that they were just a bunch of savages who would be taken over and corrected by a superior race. I'd love to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.
He seems to be battling some outdated ideas from the 1940s maybe, but I went to The British Museum recently and there's just nothing really there in the Ancient Britain room that makes you go wow. Some of the metalwork is quite good by the 100sBC but compared to the Mesopotamia, Persia and Especially the Ancient Egpyt Section it just doesn't come close. It's almost nationalistic folly to try and claim parity. Some of our outdoor sights are very interesting but things like The Mausoleum of Halikarnassos show a level of advancement so far ahead of anything he can produce in this programme. He just seems fixed on the idea everything was wonderful and flourishing back then in Britain.
when i was a lot younger i used to sleep under stone henge it belonged to the people then the only people that thought it was a pain were the farmers, now its been kidnaped and held to ransom Show less REPLY
LOL, how old are you? There has been no general access to the interior since 1979 (solstices are different.). No farmers have farmed there for a century of more. It was privately owned till the early 1900's too, and an admission was charged ever since then.
Archeologists often seem hard put to imagine meanings that are not religious. Find a carving of a pregnant women - it's a proto-Venus. Find a circle of ditches, it's not a defensive fastness, it's a temple.
I once read a saddening but hilarious article on just this, that asked the reader to look at an American football game from the perspective of ETs or future archaeologists: it's a contest between two groups of male priests who are dressed to enhance their maleness (shoulder pads) and to resemble sperm (the helmets), fighting over an ovum-shaped ball in an ovum-shaped temple (the stadium), with stylized Fallopian tubes as the goals. Obviously, it's some sort of fertility cult.
I don't know whether to cry or scream when I hear religion religion, religion; agriculture, agriculture, boundaries, dead; the living ceremony; dancing round the ancestors etc etc etc. Its about the UNITY of energy which abounds in EVERYTHING. Creating streams and banks and so called 'causeways' are all about channelling ENERGY. Stand still for a few hours; walk backwards and forwards across these places and supposed 'Roman Roads -- which they weren't as Francis P. knows -- and says -- very clearly. So what are ALL these places? Once you begin to FEEL the difference in ENERGY doing this you see (or rather you FEEL) what ALL these places are about and what is being done there to aid and direct the FLOW OF ENERGY. The Chinese call it Feng Shui and have done for millennia. The 'ancestors' and stone circles are NOT about dancing round the Maypole. The ancestors STILL EXIST and their energy is NON physical. And so is the energy stone circles radiate AND round Barrows AND Tumuli, AND Causeways, AND standing stones -- whether single or collective. Come out of the archeological dolls house of creation and join the world of energy vibration and frequency. Which is already being done to ALL of us with HAARP and its related technologies to mess up the earth's ionosphere, magnetic field, the weather; the oceans currents and much more. Its called 'Geo Engineering.' Meaning to control, manipulate, destroy, interfere with and play power games with the earth's natural energies. And ALL the people living on it (at the moment).
Pause @ 30:18, can anyone else see those two parallel lines going across the 'Processional Route'? From one side of the screen to the other? Maybe some other 'Processional Route'? Or something natural? Or made by modern man? Great video by the way.
Check it out on Google Earth. You will find the scars in the fields near Stonehenge are much easier to see than in this video and you can explore as you wish and zoom in where you want to, though you wills see more sometimes by zooming out. There are parallel lines in the field near Stonehenge, for example, that run north east for hundreds of yards before they fade away though if you look carefully you will see other long straight lines not far from there that may be a continuation of the same. You will also see countless circle mounds all over Wiltshire. I've recently learned that I have ancestors that came from the area so it is especially interesting to me now.
Very interesting part 1 and2 given thumbs up BUT he did not mention Carnac once as if all prehistoric building was made by uk rules and regs .....not to mention the 10,000bc sites scattered all over corsica and sardinia in their thousands...just my thaughts long live ley lines lol
The religion this man talks about,and other of his type, always neglect to tell us that those religionists,who made up their own rules,also killed babies in front of oak trees.
Interesting but loaded with conclusions based on modern, enlightened interpretations that were, no doubt, totally foreign to the ancient Britain. It would be of more value to allow a primitive, basic subsistence farmer to express his/her view on the purpose of such ancient artifacts within the capabilities, time restraints and sheer human labour requirements generally available in a agricultural society.
You are making the assumption that ancient peoples weren't as intellectual as today's modern people....and you are also making the assumption that farmers are somehow not as intellectually enlightened either. Those are rather pompous assumptions to make, and makes it seem as if you have a superiority complex going on...
nobody has ever explained, why have the stones got a 45% angle at the top, i can speculate but its not the same as knowing, also if you make a circle of course, you can make as many alignments as you like, in any direction, one of them will fit your theory for age
. Making a box that fills with light at the midwinter solstice is not by chance. It is also very, very hard to make a perfect circle in stone; most are actually elipses although SH is a true circle.
The host asks the question over and over, as to why pre Roman Britain is discarded... The answer is christianity. The Romans introduced it. And the christians have always been threatened by "other" ideas. Imagine how different the world would be if Constantine hadn't converted to the cult of christianity?
It's got far more to do with the lack of written records I'm pretty sure. Throughout the middle ages knowledge of roman history was kept alive when many of their writings were saved, also many people in the past still literally lived alongside the remains of roman buildings and walls. All we had left of ancient Britain were just some mounds and stones.
There seems to be an awfully lot of supposition with not much actual evidence in these theories. More like projection than good science. Enjoyed part one though more actual evidence there.
Ergo...theories. We can only hypothesize the reasons for the actions of our prehistoric ancestors but displaying interest is a good first step in understanding.
No scholar passionate about their area of interest is completely objective. I have read thousands of books on history and anthropology and I have found the best thing to do to get at the truth is read multiple books by multiple authors, especially those who oppose each other's theories. And whenever possible seek out evidence that supports what is claimed. I had some very good history teachers both in school and in my family. One of my close relative studied history at Harvard and Brown and even spent s semester at Oxford. He got his Ph.D. when I was ten and that was many decades ago. I had the benefit of his passion and his private library. He also snuck me into Harvard and Brown when I was in middle school and let me pick out books that he would check out for me to read. I wish more people had that kind of access though today through the internet, if people are taught critical thinking, they can nearly have the same advantage. One thing that relative taught me was always seek out evidence and learn how to understand and interpret that evidence. Just look at the evidence and try to filter out the lack of objectivity.
@@nunyabiznez6381 I found in school that many instructors choose and teach the texts that mirror their own opinion. Therefore, one has to do one's own research to find the truth, instead of simply regurgitating what the instructor taught.
@@nunyabiznez6381 Well, I discovered in school that instructors generally choose and teach from texts that mirror their own opinion. Therefore, I found that one has to do one's own research instead of blindly believing and regurgitating what is taught. It's too bad that many students don't realize this.
Yes but what is ancient British history. First problem is identity who is British now doesn't mean British then. British is English Welsh and Scottish. But then to be British you were welsh/British not English or Scottish and this is the problem with people today when you say British,this history doesn't belong to England or Scotland it belongs to the Welsh and cornish the true British Britons. So don't use the word British use the word Welsh but they don't because then it gives the Welsh a greater history but modern British historians don't like the word Welsh.
There's a Scot who makes his own videos, quite serious and scholarly ones, on the channel Dip In Video. I think he's the one who makes a really good case for the Picts being pre-Celt and retreating to northeast Scotland when the Dal Riatans invaded from Ireland. More and more I hear/read/watch scholars coming round to this idea. The Picts may have eventually been absorbed into the Celtic culture, but I think there were some ancient British hold-outs up there.
why do people need background music to talk over, young people seem incapable of talking without it, if your going to play music to sing along with fine,but if your going to talk, why dont you turn the music off, lets see historians sort that one out
he shows you a group of concrete pillars and then tells you they represent wooden posts, and then he tells you how high the posts were, like its a fact, ok, where are the posts to back up your claim, a photo even, your guessing because you dont know, and he spouts his version of stonehenge like its a fact, again wheres your proof ? the more you try to tell me what to think, the more i reject it, ive got a mind of my own, show me whats there, and let me decide what i think, when i was a lot younger i used to sleep under stone henge it belonged to the people then the only people that thought it was a pain were the farmers, now its been kidnaped and held to ransom
I think it's time to rearrange glastonbury.i suggest a new name for the place.the village centre is a disgrace,and badly designed.it needs demolishing and replaced with newer roads and a business district.it should be, however, environmentally sound by the removal of noise pollution from music festivals.it needs to be a design utopia.the new buildings,however,must support pointed rooves and competent guttering and drainage.there should be no flats.all should have a house,from a one bedroom bungalow or upwards.there should be plenty of trees also.there should be no new age or other wacko shops,to guard against mental illness. The t tor can be demolished also.
I retired as a history teacher 25 years ago. At the time I didn't have to stick to a National Curriculum, and as I was living and working near Avebury and Stonehenge, Tan Hill and Old Sarum I based a lot of my lessons on what I and my pupils could see. However, by the time I retired, history had become a lot more economical and political! I agree with Francis Pryor, that more should be taught about Britain BC. I found a flint arrowhead when I was four, and was hooked.
Agreed.
Thank you for preserving this documentary.
What a great series. Thanks to everyone who made it and got it here!
Pryor is an established master of his subject.
Hello to all from Kansas City!
Avebury is well worth a visit.
Having read and enjoyed Rosemary Suttcliffe in my teens, this documentary and Pryor's viewpoint is very meaningful to me, anglicised Sri Lankan that I am. Thanks for uploading. Encore!
Great documentary with some really interesting new perspectives on the real soul of our ancestors.
NOTE: I am not an expert (However, I am a sociologist. But my historical comments here are gross generalizations.)
This is a very hopeful and refreshing look at early British culture. Until now we have identified "civilization" by a group's ability to organize into a rigid social hierarchy, and maintain control by building an economy based on violent exploitation and theft. Rome accomplished all of these things. It was brutal, ignorant, appallingly superstitious and incapable of any significant signs of empathy. Rome remains the prototype and classic reference for the most primitive totalitarian fascist rule. The idea that an early example of an egalitarian, cooperative and relatively anarchic society could succeed, remains very difficult for consensus historians to accept. This is a wonderful series and wonderful episode. Thanks for posting it. Although I'm late in commenting, I have viewed it several times over the years and it always captures my imagination.
Such a society only works when it is small in population and, more importantly, ethnically homogeneous.
@Theseustoo Astyages...Possibly, but they are informed assumptions. If you are a student of history like myself(I would assume you are) you see these sorts of things play out, time and time again, across the ages.
They should make this part of the national curriculum. My stepson was taught at primary school that we were savages before the Romans and they brought us everything important.
Schools teach received ideas with out much questioning and sadly those are quite demoralising .
Your national curriculum is basically correct. Do not change it! At the time of Caesar your ancestors either painted
their faces blue or else were living in some forest in Denmark and Northern Germany.
@@leoxiv1942 While we're taught the sacredness of the Native Americans existence prior to European migration to the USA, we're also taught that the indigenous peoples of Britain and Europe were largely without worth. I find this unacceptable.
muchomusiclibre 100% with you on this. Same standards for all
@@leoxiv1942 lol what
Fascinating stuff indeed. Always worthwhile to re-visit our understanding of things.
I like the way it finished. So true!
Much appreciated recognition of reality.
An excellent programme Dr Pryor, I, like you had no formal education on the subject of our ancient forebears.
Excellent, thank you for uploading these videos,they,are so interesting. I'm enjoying them very much.
He says the Romans killed off the Druids......... more accurately said that Rome committed Genocide. It is ghastly. Brilliant series and am truly grateful for the opportunity to see this. thank you.
that'll be civilization??
The word "Druid" is a Roman word which the Romans claimed was derived from Celtic sources. Irish and British sources use different words which probably have common roots. The word "Druid" is so grossly over simplified in how so many people perceive it. It would be inaccurate to call it a genocide since there was no Druid ethnicity per se. Druids, in an over simplified explanation, were class of people who could best be described as the educated and ruling class of the ancient Celtic peoples. They were found everywhere Celts were found a far back as 500 B.C. and probably much further back than that. They consisted of teachers, judges, clergy, healers and so on. The Romans knew that to conquer the Celts, they needed to cut off the head as it were. A genocide would have meant killing off every member of an ethnic group and clearly that didn't happen. My cousin is descended exclusively from immigrants from England yet his DNA report shows about 1/3 Celtic blood. Obviously it was not a genocide or at least not a successful one. I'm defining genocide as the annihilation of a specific ethnicity. While they obviously killed Celts who were not Druids, they were specifically targeting Druids due to their important position not over their ethnicity. They were paving the way for their own administrators to come in and take over. This is why so much of Druid knowledge was lost. Druids were believed to keep all their knowledge in their heads not written down. So by eliminating the entire educated class, the Romans eliminated virtually all knowledge of the past hence documentaries like this and all the speculative books on the topic.
@@nunyabiznez6381 Please, what are the Irish and British words which are different? The sources I can find refer to Celtic words that are clearly related to 'druid'.
@@nunyabiznez6381 One doesn't have to kill ALL members of a group to commit genocide, and they don't have to be of an ethnicity, just of a group which is identified as having some commonality among themselves as a group.( It could be a religious group.) Genocide is the killing or eradicating in some way enough members of a group, AS A GROUP, such that the group is no longer viable (able to survive). So in that sense, the killing of the Druids was genocide of the Druids (see Genocide Convention...www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crimeofgenocide.aspx
That little animation about Maes Howe was beautiful, how an old homestead became a cathedral effectively
Very good summary at the end. Totally agree. Right on the button.
People are so fixated on present history, and they can not comprehend there was a history before this one.
The rant at the end about the British Empire was ridiculous....
A bit further north from this amazing complex on Orkney is the fantastically named Twatt :-)
My ancestral memory is tingling, SERIOUSLY. I am getting the connections, slowly building an understanding through some sort of gnoetic instinct. Eerie.
Wonderful. Intelligent. Compelling history and entertainment. Very well done
Francis - I like this and the Time Team episodes.
I think, that as the modern native american still gives offerings to the earth they live on in return for bounties received, so did our forebears honour and placate their land and celebrate their ancestors. To still be following the opinion of a roman who lived 2000 years ago is quite mad.
I thank you kindly for this recommendation, I will most certainly have a look at that.
I have enjoyed hours and hours of enjoyment thanks to aireschel1787's uploads. Pat yourself on the back, from me.
LOL, and I suppose all the people who actually made the programs are just incidental?
This is brilliant, brilliant stuff. An organisation I'm affiliated with, the Troubadours of Albion, has always taken this line of history; even though we call ourselves Kelts, for simplicity's sake, we were in fact here long before the supposed 1200BC threshold conventional history has us arriving. Why isn't this history being taught in schools? Why do we have to suffer the conventionally convenient fictions forced upon us? Why can't we as a nation be proud of our achievements?
Prior to the advent of DNA testing it was largely believed by some factions that the Celts killed off any indigenous people in the British Isles when they arrived. Another theory was that there simply were no other people prior the Celts arrival and that the British Isles were devoid of human habitation before that. We know today that obviously someone lived in the British Isles for many thousands of years most likely going back to the moment the last ice age receded. DNA testing shows that no people survive with genes of anyone prior to the Celts. It is unlikely that NOBODY prior to the Celtic invasions survived since Celtic peoples often enslaved those they conquered. so I don't personally believe that there was an invasion as such but simply wave after wave of Celtic peoples have been arriving in the British Isles since the ice age. I don't believe there were anyone else. Granted there were most likely a very large number of different Celtic tribes, as different from each other as Irish and Welsh and Scottish etc are from each other today. I believe there is an unbroken cultural and genetic chain in the British Isles going back to the ice age. Obviously there is archaeological evidence of humans since then. I don't remember the name of the book but some thirty years ago I read a book about pre Roman Britain and the author insisted there was a race of people who lived in Britain and he credited them with building Stonehenge and other pre Roman stone structures. He insisted they were wiped out by the Celts who he did not write about favorably. As I said, it is unlikely that any ethnic group is ever completely eradicated in an invasion/occupation/conquering. Someone always survivors and passes their genetic material along to future generations. The nazis attempted to annihilate the Jews but failed. They didn't even really make a thorough attempt. Several of Hitler's generals were known to have Jewish grandparents, something others were executed for. Even Hitler had a Jewish physician. Had the nazis one and achieved what they attempted in eradicating the Jewish people as a whole, they were never going to be 100% successful because many would have survived anyways as members of the NSDAP. My point being that no matter how thorough a genocide is attempted, there are ALWAYS a few survivors and they always leave their genes behind to be passed on to the next generation. In Britain, there is no such pre Celtic tribe so, the only conclusion is that the people who lived in Britain since the ice age always were Celts.
your really into this stuff arnt you dear how come your not the one writing the books ? oh wait let me guess, nunya biznez
It's politically expedient to not teach this at schools.
These people worshipped their ancestors.. Building over the cemetery was probably a way to keep them close..
You can hardly argue the Britain's were enslaved by the romans given that all free inhabitants later recieved full roman citizenship.
12:15 Great! Best introduction to Orkney's Skara Brae I've seen. Showing us that rock formation was worth a 10,000 words. Having the perfect resource on hand and learning how best to use it, that's the story of Orkney and human ingenuity. Well done Francis Pryor! Thanks
FYI. another interesting perspective: Prehistoric Orkney (A History of Ancient Britain) - Ness of Brodgar (Skara Brae) Prehistoric Orkney (A History of Ancient Britain) - Ness of Brodgar (Skara Brae)
A circle is easy to draw. And design around. put a mark in the center and use a length of anything to trace. Laying the length at the mark in the center on one end. And tracing another mark at the other side of the length. In addition, the ease of roof construction would be enhanced. Quite simple. Look at the teepee and the Mongolian yurt. Imagine if there was a timber roof on top of Stonehenge. The wood would have decayed into dust by now. And at Stonehenge, I think, am remembering the discovery of graves, recently.
Yes, a couple of videos here on UA-cam about Stonehenge and the source of the blue stones describe many burials as well as middens, with food scraps and broken goods that indicate thousands of people came there over many, many years from all over, even what is now northern Scotland, and stayed for some time. There is another near-by henge with similar middens and burial spots.
Artificial islands are called CRANNÓGs( kran- owg) here in Ireland. We were thought about our ancient past in primary school. Not sure if they still teach this, I'm sure it's not "inclusive".
Very good
I think he misunderstandings or misleads on the Boudica revolt, the romans reacted as quickly as possible once it started. Also he leaves out embarrassing little detaills like 80,000 people being murdered by her forces when Londonium was sacked, or the horrible attrocities carried out.
It was just the indigenous population defending themselves from the colonists.
fuk i thought it was a lot more
Francis kind of contradicts himself at the end descriptions of rome occupation as a brutal supression, in his Britain Ad doc he uses roman bath as an example of romans treading lighly and respecting the local beliefs and customs of the Brits, well which is it?
I just got spooked...Ill be watching Orphan 55 , today...which is a Doctor Who Episode...One of the Charactors has green hair...Possibly in deff to the Oak .
... Francis makes it quite clear that the pre-Roman Isles were as sophisticated as the Romans that invaded, just weaker militarily. ... 400 years of occupation may have stopped the round house architecture but not the native ingenuity that built stonehenge
AND contrarily to what he claims... those structures were not only specific to Bthe British Isles... but are actually found globally...
... and no written history.
+Jesse CRAIGNOU interesting, what site are you referring to?
I think the circularity of stone is distinctive.
Yes we had writing, the Coelbren alphabet, that is a false claim. No work is done digging up our buried cities that would reveal our history. We know where they are. Google global megaliths. plenty of barrows globally too, Google that. The bloke is lying basically. He's a history hider and that's his job.
Really interesting stuff, thanks for posting. Think we are in danger sometimes of posting our own ideas on the past. Some of the pyramids in Egypt are said to pre-date Egyptian culture and appear to have connection to other ancient sites in ways we don't fully understand so these would also probably pre-date Stonehenge and Woodhenge...
One of the pitfalls of anthropology is the lack of evidence. So like the fallible humans we are, we are tempted to fill in the blanks with our imagination. We see a tiny isolated fragment of evidence and then we build a complex story around it which may have a grain of truth to it but rarely is more than gross speculation.
Anthropologists pick up where historians leave off and have the more difficult task of attempting to find the truth from scant evidence. We humans hate being in the dark about any topic we are interested in. So we will grasp desperately at anything presented and often will swallow every word as though gospel truth. This is where critical thinking comes into play. We need to understand that presenters of these documentaries are usually attempting to fill in the blanks with their imagination and their opinions and are no more right nor wrong than the next one that comes along and most likely they are all largely wrong. A claim that a location must be sacred is just an assumption based on scant evidence. We assume Druids were the only religion but for all we know it was a late comer and a previous different religion existed for thousands of years before. Through scientific dating we can see that some of the ancient structures in Europe are over ten thousands of years old yet we really can't go back much more than about 2500-3500 years ago in most of Europe and the nearby surrounding areas. And in many places, we have almost no written history that is more than a thousand years old. What little that is written down in early historical records was commissioned by kings to decorate their egos. Or written by religious "scholars" to promote their religion. Almost nothing in the way of history was written from a neutral point of view that is more than a couple of hundred years old and even much of that could be challenged by someone. The only way to get a clear picture of history is by reading two or more different points of view on the same topic then finding actual evidence to back it up and even then you are unlikely to get better than half the picture.
I was on a field trip to Cape Cod 40 years ago and my history teacher took us to where the Mayflower passengers first landed. I found an old coin later identified as a Roman coin nearby and I showed it to my history teacher. When we identified the coin as authentic Roman he then declared that it proves that the ancient Romans visited Cape Cod 1800 years ago. To which I replied "Or it means somebody obtained it from Europe and accidentally dropped it while visiting Cape Cod and I was the lucky one to find it. My history teacher liked his theory better. So on another field trip I dropped my Roman coin in front of the whole class right in the middle of a historic cemetery in Boston and declared "Oh look, I found proof that Ancient Romans visited Boston to pay homage to the founding fathers!" My history teacher was not amused but I got an A in that class anyways.
your right about one thing, they hate not knowing the answers and are to proud to say i havnt a clue, so they guess, and make it sound, like, they know what their talking about
If the schools refuse to teach this then provide your children with the correct information.
I think in fairness the ancient British history is still so mysterious and without written records its very hard to work out what was happening. Avebury for instance is still not really understood.
I find the "reason" for circular housing as interesting as our penchant for square houses. I wonder if the mailbox out front is religious? Or the water faucet?
If you think about this from a structural point of view....its much harder to make a strong sturdy circular structure than it is to make square ones. There are no corners for support bearing in a circular structure, so they would have to have had a reason for building everything that way, when it is much easier to build in the traditional square or rectangular fashion. Being that our beliefs play a huge part of every aspect of our lives, especially in ancient times, its a good theory that it was some sort of religious or superstitious belief that made them build literally every house and monument in a giant circle.
I don't understand why comments are turned off for part one.. These video's by Francis Pryor are of deep interest. What I've found outside of his investigations is much confusion. I want to ask one question. Were The Druids Celtic ? ( My personal belief is they were not initially. )
"Land that belonged to everyone and no one." Like parks are today. Too bad we don't treat them with a similar reverence.
Let me skip almost 2000 years of history between the Romans and today to draw conclusions about how things might have been as woke as I am. Archaeology and history are just words too, obviously with this guy.
I despair to note, yet again, how a theory is spoken of as if it is a fact because the egos of these people cannot stand not knowing something.
Or, they might actually know something.
Got a point there friend.
Why is it historians now only seem to think a right wing biasis exists in our understanding of the Brits and Romans?
As Francis well knows, Britain had been invaded and vied for by numerous groups of people between the time of the Druids and today. You've had the Romans, various Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Britons, Welsh, and eventually Normans, all seeking out their own claim within England alone. It's gotta be tough to prove that current British folks today are "direct descendants" of whoever built structures such as Stonehenge.
I wish producers would one day understand that viewers are not interested in watching people speak... but seen what they're supposed to be shown... and hardly ever get to see... we can listen to a guy talking while watching the site !
Director.
What I don't get is prehistoric, indeed historic, documentaries where we get to see all these blokes driving in cars, slamming the doors, and yes talking all the while. Are those digs whizzing by out the windows?
I wish he had discussed the Iberian migration of man to the UK:
You know what would be funny...if those stone circles are just part of a fencing system around the circular houses they lived in....like the most elite of the village or a priest lived in the biggest circular house at the center of the circle. That thought just popped into my head when they showed the remnants of a house in the center of one of the circles. It would really be something if one day we found out these stone circular monuments were used for something as simple as a fence, when for centuries we have speculated about what grand purpose they served.
This guy riffing away starting at 29:03 or so "IF this idea works..." The procession from wood to the stone, meaning wood= life; stone = death - he's just making it up! I'm glad for people to do this, but he clearly goes WAY past what is KNOWN - and does the science-y-SOUNDING authoritative presentation. I wish he'd label his FACTS and his SPECULATION because a lot of people go whack over this. Oh well, at least he doesn't do the Major-league trick - wear a white lab coat, carry a clipboard and WHOAH, BABY! You're in like Flynn.
Our knowlege might just be a bit further on if the establishment didnt insist on linking every material aspect of the new stoneage with religion/ritual/sacrifice. No body ever questions this rubbish. I wonder why?
I wonder if archaeologists in the future will be able to "see" the religious significance of clockwise and how we designed our fasteners (screws and nuts and bolts). Just sayin.
Pre contact British
Pre contact Americans
INTENSE!
It gets a bit silly when they start telling us exactly how the processions would have been done.
Can anyone suggest a study (book, paper, documentary) that theorizes a time when British society adopted the very Roman character of using violence to maintain control over its own citizens (or subjects)?
ujean56: I only know how American Indian psychologists view conquest: as a macro example of child abuse (i.e. the micro example of conquest). As an abused child often internalizes (adopts) the characteristics of the abuser, because the abuser is seen as strong and able to survive (whereas the child sees himself as weak and helpless, and a thoroughly unattractive and despised being), so the conquered People sometimes adopt the attitude and actions of the conquerors, seeing the conquerors as "the way to be" (this is a subconscious process). The book I recommend for a complete discussion of this phenomenon is a book called "Native American Post-Colonial Psychology" by Eduardo and Bonnie Duran. Some of the principles discussed can be applied to Europeans, including but not limited to, the British. (The main Peoples conquered by Rome as far as I can see, who had the opportunity, in turn became conquerors themselves, i.e., Britain, France, Spain, Portugal.) The only other book I can think of off-hand is Robert J. Miller's "The Doctrine of Discovery: the International Law of Colonialism" which goes into the history of international law towards discovered lands and is pretty dry, but does give the history going back hundreds of years as to how discovery law was formulated, which might reveal something of how the colonial powers viewed discovery and conquest.
Ronald Hutton is a useful writer on these subjects I believe.
@@oscartravis5740 😂😂😂
I think that has always been the way chieftains and warlords maintained their power. The idea everyone in Britain were all sat around singing songs and democratically debating local issues until the Romans arrived is for the birds.
I want this guys job.
I'm American, this ancient history is not taught?? Heresy!!!
British ancient history is soooo interesting but hardly anyone even knows about it :(
I'm not sure about where you went to school. I went to school in Massachusetts. We were required to take and pass four years of U.S. History, two years of World History, one year of civics, one year of geography and one year of any of a dozen other social studies electives. World History I started with the Sumerians and ended with the conquest of Britain by the Normans. World History II picked up where the first course ended and it ended in 1976, the year I finished that course. In between I believe we spent two weeks on Roman Britain and before that a week on the topic of this video though not with the more modern insights. That was all in high school, a public high school. In middle school we alternated the years between a general social studies course and world and U.S. history so we had a basic foundation before high school. I could explain who Charlemagne was before the 9th grade. Of course I had a relative who had a Ph.D. in history and went to school at Harvard and at Brown and I used to "borrow" his books all the time while in middle school. So I always loved the topic and unlike my classmates, I was disappointed that we didn't have enough history courses. I remember in 5th grade when we were learning world geography and the teacher was asking us to come to the map at the front of the class and identify a country she pointed to, when it was my turn I did so correctly and then I went on to tell her what it used to be and what was there before that and who invaded and conquered it and who owned it before that happened and so on. Besides there not being enough history taught as far as I was concerned, I was disappointed later in life when I realized how Eurocentric the program was. We learned very little of African history beyond Egypt and the further east of Europe the less we learned. I think we had all of one day of Japanese history which started with the first Europeans to visit Japan and ended with the U.S. nuclear strike in 1945.
I recently moved from Rhode Island and before I left I had a disturbing conversation with an 18 year old high school senior. She informed me that in the high school in our town in Rhode Island (the state where one of the most prestigious history programs is taught at Brown) only select honor students are permitted to take the one course in history available in that high school and it is limited to 20 select students from a high school with 1500 students. Geography isn't taught at all nor is civics. She couldn't define civics for me. She was in that honors course and she couldn't tell why George Washington was famous other than as a notorious slave owner. She could list 25 civil rights activists but could not name three president, any founding father or identify the name or dates of any war. She could not tell me the difference between the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution nor could she explain a single one of the bill of rights but she could write a dissertation on the civil rights act of 1964 and she could name dozens of notorious slave owners, some of whom had been president, a fact she was unaware of. She had no clue how the voting process worked. She could not tell me the difference between a senator and a governor and she could not tell me the difference between the executive office and the legislature and had no idea of the function of the supreme court. But she could list a whole bunch of non existent rights that she thought she had that are not mentioned in the constitution, any supreme court decision or any other document or decision.
We need a constitutional amendment that requires all students to take and pass U.S. history, world history and civics prior to graduating high school and another one requiring a high school diploma prior to registering to vote. We have far too many ignorant people participating in the democratic process which explains how idiots get into office. No I'm not singling out a particular party, both have devolved into idiocy.
i get your handle, none of your business, but surely the whole idea is to dumb people down so that the powers that be can keep ruling them, and the web is the best propaganda tool ever and facebook makes it easy for them to spy on us
nunya biznez. The result of the feminization of faculty: 84% of teachers are females.
Shoulda kept paying decent salaries, then. Duh
I feel like this guy is more interested in proving his agenda, than in exploring history.
Yes great stuff, but now a tad outdated (if I can say that about a history programme?) The analysis of the stones and settlements in Orkney has to be revisited after the more recent discoveries at the Ness of Brodgar. Probably the most significant archealogical find in Neolithic Britain, if not Europe. Google it people you will be amazed.
History is more about the telling.
Not the programme makers fault what is discovered after the program.
It's more than a decade old now this programme. A lot has happened since 2010
Did anyone besides myself have difficulty with the visuals because the quality was set at 240 dpi? The whole thing was very blurry.
They didn't have sophisticated potatoes in the Bronze age.
"Objects reverently placed in the water on either side of the causeway." Some of what Mr. Prior is trying to displell is the hold over of previous generations orthodoxy (we were barbarians until the Romans civilisized us) that inhibibit current people from seeing the past. The idea that abandoned objects, or artisit expression, MUST be religious. Object; metal work, carvings, jewellery, could have been made for the purpose of paying a toll for access to the site. A site that may have been sharing knowledge or religious insight, or economic opportunity, or technological improvement ... we need more digs to find out if these discoveries are religious or economic or technological.
A bit ambiguous for my taste, but nicely done. Some supposition is expected.
I would look at the oak tree and its roots in exactly the opposite direction. It's about the roots springing from the earth and spreading. Am not making it "more" than it needs.
The first Britons were Trojans. They came here a hundred years or so after the fall of Troy led by a man called Brutus. They landed at Totnes in Devon. The ancient Britons were the only north Europeans to use chariots. Also there is evidence of farming in the Greek style. Stonehenge was built by people when the Gods (rebel angels) walked on the Earth and have nothing to do with our ancestors. Those people were destroyed by cataclysm a long time before the Trojans arrived.
If this were even remotely true, DNA evidence would support Britains coming from Greece...however, it does NOT. Not even close. DNA suggests Britians evolved over thousands of years and even have Neanderthal genes in a good portion of their society today....Greeks have specific genetic markers as well, which aren't found in either ancient skeletal remains, or modern occupants of Britain.
@@mysticmama_3692 The people to the west of the British isles have DNA from Iberia which is where the Trojans stayed for awhile before travelling to Britain. Everyone has Neanderthal genes except sub Sahara Africans.
That's based on a book by Gregory of Monmoth written in the 1100s which doesn't really have any basis in real history, some of it is downright laughable.
@@lw3646 Evidence of Greek farming methods have been found so that is something else for you to laugh at.
@@lendusaquidits just an origin myth, about as factual as Jason and The Argonauts....
Interested in British history Alan Wilson
Britain is a place of high learning from 4000 BC to the present day.
The Vatican have admitted that Christianity was first established in Britain .
@S.Mack I find your ignorance offensive , people like you disgust me .
@SoMàcķ Piss off !
@@JohnSmith-vy4lh Spot on.
Well put.
John Smith-and it wasn't the Catholics who established Christianity in Britain. It was the Orthodox. Before 1054 AD, the date of the Great Schism between Catholics and Orthodox, all Christians were Orthodox. There is an Orthodox monastery on the Island of Mull which has the history.
about 8 the upside down tree trunk it was the bottem end of the tree that supplied the logs to build the circular fish trap. A dry place for the fisherman to stand while they harvest the fish. Upside down sending it's life force into the underworld lol
@Tabourba omg take it easy dude. It's just a reply on youtube not a personal attack. A little bit of moderation goes a long way. Some Zoloft might help too. Consult your physician.
Heil Boudica!
Why were these standing stones cut at 45 degrees on the tops?
Pryor is a brave voice crying in the wilderness, battling centuries of Roman worship and entrenched propaganda. The New World suffers the same malady - that nothing worthwhile existed until the colonial powers arrived and fixed everyone. I wonder how any of the great pre-colonial civilizations of North and South America or Africa would respond if someone popped in from the 21st century and explained to them that they were just a bunch of savages who would be taken over and corrected by a superior race. I'd love to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.
He seems to be battling some outdated ideas from the 1940s maybe, but I went to The British Museum recently and there's just nothing really there in the Ancient Britain room that makes you go wow. Some of the metalwork is quite good by the 100sBC but compared to the Mesopotamia, Persia and Especially the Ancient Egpyt Section it just doesn't come close. It's almost nationalistic folly to try and claim parity.
Some of our outdoor sights are very interesting but things like The Mausoleum of Halikarnassos show a level of advancement so far ahead of anything he can produce in this programme.
He just seems fixed on the idea everything was wonderful and flourishing back then in Britain.
when i was a lot younger i used to sleep under stone henge it belonged to the people then the only people that thought it was a pain were the farmers, now its been kidnaped and held to ransom
Show less
REPLY
LOL, how old are you? There has been no general access to the interior since 1979 (solstices are different.). No farmers have farmed there for a century of more. It was privately owned till the early 1900's too, and an admission was charged ever since then.
My family used to go there regularly in the 1960s and early 1970s. No admission charge. No rubbish and no graffiti.
Maybe because foreign tourist was chisling chunks off to take home might off had something to do with it, and unscrupulous bastards with spray paint..
What was the name of these Ancient Britains? How are we to refer to them?
Celts?
Archeologists often seem hard put to imagine meanings that are not religious. Find a carving of a pregnant women - it's a proto-Venus. Find a circle of ditches, it's not a defensive fastness, it's a temple.
I once read a saddening but hilarious article on just this, that asked the reader to look at an American football game from the perspective of ETs or future archaeologists: it's a contest between two groups of male priests who are dressed to enhance their maleness (shoulder pads) and to resemble sperm (the helmets), fighting over an ovum-shaped ball in an ovum-shaped temple (the stadium), with stylized Fallopian tubes as the goals. Obviously, it's some sort of fertility cult.
Great info shame about the picture quality.
Very good documentary, though seeing it after Brexit leave a bitter taste... It was all already there.
And still is for britain..
I don't know whether to cry or scream when I hear religion religion, religion; agriculture, agriculture, boundaries, dead; the living ceremony; dancing round the ancestors etc etc etc.
Its about the UNITY of energy which abounds in EVERYTHING. Creating streams and banks and so called 'causeways' are all about channelling ENERGY. Stand still for a few hours; walk backwards and forwards across these places and supposed 'Roman Roads -- which they weren't as Francis P. knows -- and says -- very clearly. So what are ALL these places?
Once you begin to FEEL the difference in ENERGY doing this you see (or rather you FEEL) what ALL these places are about and what is being done there to aid and direct the FLOW OF ENERGY. The Chinese call it Feng Shui and have done for millennia.
The 'ancestors' and stone circles are NOT about dancing round the Maypole. The ancestors STILL EXIST and their energy is NON physical. And so is the energy stone circles radiate AND round Barrows AND Tumuli, AND Causeways, AND standing stones -- whether single or collective. Come out of the archeological dolls house of creation and join the world of energy vibration and frequency.
Which is already being done to ALL of us with HAARP and its related technologies to mess up the earth's ionosphere, magnetic field, the weather; the oceans currents and much more. Its called 'Geo Engineering.' Meaning to control, manipulate, destroy, interfere with and play power games with the earth's natural energies. And ALL the people living on it (at the moment).
Great documentary series but it seems at times Francis' own personal leftist/utopian views get in the way of his reporting of history.
Not a fan of the British Empire then Francis?
Pause @ 30:18, can anyone else see those two parallel lines going across the 'Processional Route'? From one side of the screen to the other? Maybe some other 'Processional Route'? Or something natural? Or made by modern man?
Great video by the way.
Check it out on Google Earth. You will find the scars in the fields near Stonehenge are much easier to see than in this video and you can explore as you wish and zoom in where you want to, though you wills see more sometimes by zooming out. There are parallel lines in the field near Stonehenge, for example, that run north east for hundreds of yards before they fade away though if you look carefully you will see other long straight lines not far from there that may be a continuation of the same. You will also see countless circle mounds all over Wiltshire. I've recently learned that I have ancestors that came from the area so it is especially interesting to me now.
How beautiful it would have been if the Roman's did not kill the Druids in England
Along with the druid practice of large scale human sacrifice? We'd literally be living in a film like The Wicker Man 1973.
Good Doc, she just like Spartacus though failed in the end, neither were Arminius who did succeed in Germania.
Very interesting part 1 and2 given thumbs up BUT he did not mention Carnac once as if all prehistoric building was made by uk rules and regs .....not to mention the 10,000bc sites scattered all over corsica and sardinia in their thousands...just my thaughts long live ley lines lol
peter bamforth It is perhaps not surprising that in a documentary called Britain BC, dr. Pryor confined himself to monuments in Britain.
Because Carnac is in FRANCE.
@@tuss44 agreed or why not have called it world wide bc, lol...
What did the Romans ever do for us...
Well, they factually murdered millions of people, so if someone is as evil as a person can be, I suppose they did something for *them.*
They did finally fuck off, so that was a good thing :-)
The religion this man talks about,and other of his type, always neglect to tell us that those religionists,who made up their own rules,also killed babies in front of oak trees.
Interesting but loaded with conclusions based on modern, enlightened interpretations that were, no doubt, totally foreign to the ancient Britain. It would be of more value to allow a primitive, basic subsistence farmer to express his/her view on the purpose of such ancient artifacts within the capabilities, time restraints and sheer human labour requirements generally available in a agricultural society.
You are making the assumption that ancient peoples weren't as intellectual as today's modern people....and you are also making the assumption that farmers are somehow not as intellectually enlightened either. Those are rather pompous assumptions to make, and makes it seem as if you have a superiority complex going on...
Ah, archaeology, where if they don't know it must be religious/ritual in nature. Francis really limits himself when theorizing.
Yes and when another settlement appears hundreds and hundreds of years later "41:15" 'They knew they were building on a sacred place!"
nobody has ever explained, why have the stones got a 45% angle at the top, i can speculate but its not the same as knowing, also if you make a circle of course, you can make as many alignments as you like, in any direction, one of them will fit your theory for age
. Making a box that fills with light at the midwinter solstice is not by chance. It is also very, very hard to make a perfect circle in stone; most are actually elipses although SH is a true circle.
The host asks the question over and over, as to why pre Roman Britain is discarded...
The answer is christianity.
The Romans introduced it. And the christians have always been threatened by "other" ideas.
Imagine how different the world would be if Constantine hadn't converted to the cult of christianity?
It's got far more to do with the lack of written records I'm pretty sure. Throughout the middle ages knowledge of roman history was kept alive when many of their writings were saved, also many people in the past still literally lived alongside the remains of roman buildings and walls. All we had left of ancient Britain were just some mounds and stones.
Use extreme caution when reading anyone’s post.
There seems to be an awfully lot of supposition with not much actual evidence in these theories. More like projection than good science. Enjoyed part one though more actual evidence there.
Ergo...theories. We can only hypothesize the reasons for the actions of our prehistoric ancestors but displaying interest is a good first step in understanding.
I like Francis Pryor, but he's not being very objective here
No scholar passionate about their area of interest is completely objective. I have read thousands of books on history and anthropology and I have found the best thing to do to get at the truth is read multiple books by multiple authors, especially those who oppose each other's theories. And whenever possible seek out evidence that supports what is claimed. I had some very good history teachers both in school and in my family. One of my close relative studied history at Harvard and Brown and even spent s semester at Oxford. He got his Ph.D. when I was ten and that was many decades ago. I had the benefit of his passion and his private library. He also snuck me into Harvard and Brown when I was in middle school and let me pick out books that he would check out for me to read. I wish more people had that kind of access though today through the internet, if people are taught critical thinking, they can nearly have the same advantage. One thing that relative taught me was always seek out evidence and learn how to understand and interpret that evidence. Just look at the evidence and try to filter out the lack of objectivity.
@@nunyabiznez6381 Excellent comment, imo.
You have a superior opinion.
@@nunyabiznez6381 I found in school that many instructors choose and teach the texts that mirror their own opinion. Therefore, one has to do one's own research to find the truth, instead of simply regurgitating what the instructor taught.
@@nunyabiznez6381 Well, I discovered in school that instructors generally choose and teach from texts that mirror their own opinion. Therefore, I found that one has to do one's own research instead of blindly believing and regurgitating what is taught. It's too bad that many students don't realize this.
Is this Richard Pryor's twin-bother??
for people with PHD's they sure say maybe and I think a lot.
Its because they are THEORIZING. We don't have concrete facts about Britain BC, so all they can do is give things their best educated guesses.
Because its ancient history. Even today there's lots about roman lavatories and baths we don't know.
Yes but what is ancient British history. First problem is identity who is British now doesn't mean British then. British is English Welsh and Scottish. But then to be British you were welsh/British not English or Scottish and this is the problem with people today when you say British,this history doesn't belong to England or Scotland it belongs to the Welsh and cornish the true British Britons. So don't use the word British use the word Welsh but they don't because then it gives the Welsh a greater history but modern British historians don't like the word Welsh.
Correct and well said.
Cimmeroi am byth.
There's a Scot who makes his own videos, quite serious and scholarly ones, on the channel Dip In Video. I think he's the one who makes a really good case for the Picts being pre-Celt and retreating to northeast Scotland when the Dal Riatans invaded from Ireland. More and more I hear/read/watch scholars coming round to this idea. The Picts may have eventually been absorbed into the Celtic culture, but I think there were some ancient British hold-outs up there.
why do people need background music to talk over, young people seem incapable of talking without it, if your going to play music to sing along with fine,but if your going to talk, why dont you turn the music off, lets see historians sort that one out
Great documentary. Could have done without the PC BS lecture at the end though.
We are all enslaved by luxuries
Well the Brits used to enslaved eachother.
he shows you a group of concrete pillars and then tells you they represent wooden posts, and then he tells you how high the posts were, like its a fact, ok, where are the posts to back up your claim, a photo even, your guessing because you dont know, and he spouts his version of stonehenge like its a fact, again wheres your proof ? the more you try to tell me what to think, the more i reject it, ive got a mind of my own, show me whats there, and let me decide what i think, when i was a lot younger i used to sleep under stone henge it belonged to the people then the only people that thought it was a pain were the farmers, now its been kidnaped and held to ransom
Yawn, fantasy. You may have slept there once at some solstice.
What is your problem!! Piss off and watch something else if dont jive with your own narrative..
I think it's time to rearrange glastonbury.i suggest a new name for the place.the village centre is a disgrace,and badly designed.it needs demolishing and replaced with newer roads and a business district.it should be, however, environmentally sound by the removal of noise pollution from music festivals.it needs to be a design utopia.the new buildings,however,must support pointed rooves and competent guttering and drainage.there should be no flats.all should have a house,from a one bedroom bungalow or upwards.there should be plenty of trees also.there should be no new age or other wacko shops,to guard against mental illness. The t tor can be demolished also.
Interesting but also frustrating documentary.