this was truly tragic that this bronze age site was destroyed! This made me so very very sad. It had survived for almost 4,000 years and is now gone, never to be seen again. What a damn shame.
I have been reading Elly Griffith books about archeology, tract ways, henges, & causeways in or around the marsh near the sea. Her books also describe about druids wearing capes & protesting on dig sites . She also mentions time team digs in her books. I had no idea that it was an actual thing. This video gives very good visualization and education about the bronze age dig sites.
Something tells me that ancient druids did not in fact look like a cross between a grunge-phase mid-20's college kid covered in tattoos and an American hippie...talk about disrespecting ancient peoples. At least Time Team is trying their best to keep the original pieces of archaeology preserved while they're investigating and taking samples.
I can dig their desire to have it be left alone. I also get digging it up. Maybe it's not about what he looks like but the sentiment. He didn't seem disrespectful at all but you do.
I agree with you. The Druids were the cream of their culture, doctors, lawyers, priest, adviser to their kings. they wore the best clothing. Here is the thing when Christianity came to those islands Christianity was an out law religion so no one held a sward to to there necks. The people converted because Christianity offered them some thing the old religion did not have. WE do not know what they believed except what the Romans tell us so these people are making it up as they go a long.
"Phase" is a term people who lack individuality use against those who do or at least appear to. I can tell by the fact that you use a Deadpool meme as your avatar that you are one of those collectivists who can't think for themselves and relies on herd mentality. Do you use Reddit by any chance?
Also the druids were iron age. Not the earlier bronze age. And if Julius Caesar was only partly honest in his descriptions they were definitely not peaceful.
I'm far from being an expert in these things but, I recall hearing the the neolithic people believed that there was an alternative universe beneath their feet and inverted. My guess would be that the tree was either a gift or some sort of conduit to connect the two dimensions. A holy man would act as the interpreter of messages given and received, thus becoming a place of great reverence that would draw people from many miles away. This conduit would allow them to contact loved ones, mythical creatures, etc. It most likely would involve sacrifices, traditional dances, prayers and chants passed down through the generations. Much like many tribal inhabitants still do to this day. In essence, we are all still connected to our long lost history. Preservation is key.
@John Newsome Exactly. "As above, so below". It wasn't a place of death, destruction or sorrow....it was a means of connection and communication, reverence, greeting, goodbye and joy as well.
You must be very careful what somebody say about neolithic people. First of all I suggest we do not assume there was something like a collective of "the neolithic people". We talk about several thousand years and a vast geographic area. Second thing is we have absolute no written sources so we only can interpret the archaeological evidence. And now take a 100 hundred year old book about the Romans or Stonehenge and compare it to what we think today about it. You see how our interpretation of things depends onto our own experience / bias? If you would dig a church without knowing anything about Christianity what would you interpret into the findings. The most impressive and high structure is the organ. Until you figure out it is a music instrument you might think this is a bunch symbolic trunks and the people worshipped woods. When you find out the organ is a music instrument you might think the cult is about music or a church is just a concert hall at all 😂 🤣
I am so surprised to read that seemingly intelligent people can not see the import or benefit of Archeology. Without the work that Time Team and many other field archeologists, researchers, preservers and historians like them do, we would not know what we do about the development of our planet and all the beings that exist or ever have existed on her. In the past 200 years, these diligent people have found out not only about how the animal kingdom has evolved but how we as humans have evolved physically, emotionally, communally and intellectually. If you don't think that is worth digging up a farmers field for some "pointless" information that will just wind up in a library, so sorry you never learned anything in school that was discovered by people just like these.
+Stannous Flouride Hahaha! You are so right! But it's the people who choose to remain ignorant who make it so much harder for us that want to learn and advance. Thanks for the laugh. ;-)
Agreed..and I have to add, just ignore the idiots. They’re everywhere, but usually higher intelligence wins and silence their stupid arguments against learning and history. The rest of us know that dinosaurs existed and that the world is much older than they want to admit. I love archeology, and am constantly amazed by just how full of history the UK is. It’s like: take a step, it’s Roman times. Another step, it’s Tudor England. Wow, just WOW! I’m sure there’s definite drawbacks to it as well, but still...what must it be like to find Roman coins in your garden as you’re digging a hole for a rosebush?! (To a Canuck like me? That would be heaven, lol).
It astonishes me that some people are so ready to throw themselves on their swords for what is essentially a load of nonsense. To believe that these 'Henges' cannot be studied, removed or disrupted for whatever reason (I don't know, nature, fickle thing that she is, will send the world spinning in another direction if you move just one pebble from there to there) is complete tosh. For all we know that little seahenge could have been a bronze age child's form of hopscotch. Now you have a grown woman rolling in the mud and making a laughing stock of herself.
What astonishes me even more is that so many think they know everything, when in *fact* we know next to nothing about even just this one world. Sure, humanity all put together has learned a thing or two, but even our combined knowledge as a species is nothing compared to all there is to know. I think *maybe* the _hippies_ in the beginning here are a bit misguided, but they may indeed know something we do not, and to simply dismiss them because we do not understand something they might, is unwise at best on our part. *To actually deride them for it though, would simply be indecent of us.* But I personally agree with digging it up since our oceans are going to keep rising because so many in our world are utterly devoid of wisdom and forethought (lets not forget that saving our world from pollution is something the hippies have always stood for). But even the assumption that we wouldn't learn more in the future by leaving it, could turn out to be wrong. All that said, I cannot blame anyone for their curiosities. Curiosity is integral to us, it is a seriously major component of how we learn, evolve and even survive. Another major component is making mistakes, so it's also good not to be too harsh in our criticisms of others and ourselves. But that curiosity needs to be tempered by not just logic, but also wisdom of forethought. It's incredibly likely that in the future, present day archeology will seem infantile to them and much of what we do now will be viewed as destructive. One of the best chats I've ever heard on Time Team was when Mick brought this subject up and addressed it as such. I think most of us do realize that Mick was far wiser than some gave him credit for. May he rest in peace.
Putting offerings into water. Could the modern practice of throwing coins in fountains for good luck be some faint echo left of the ancient custom? There is no ancient tradition of throwing stuff in water in my culture.
That seems unlikely. Though it was most prevalent for the longest period with the Celts in Europe, most ancient cultures threw things in water. The Americas cultures seemed to mostly limit it to times of drought. Asian cultures often used flowers, oils and blood, rather than goods. (Luckily, they had writing, so we know this.)
The source of the Seine in Burgundy has a tremendous amount of offerings to the Celtic goddess, Sequana. www.burgundytoday.com/historic-places/archaeological-sites/source-of-seine.htm
@@tracishea5053 I will make a minor correction to your comment on The Americas. Both the Lakota and Blackfoot tribes worshipped several water deities, as water was equal to life, and the Seneca and Iroquois tribes protected their water sources by killing English settlers that came too close, all who did so not only in times of drought. They often honored the lands by submerging many offerings into the lakes and rivers on their lands to either pacify their deities or ask for blessings of power and protection.
@@outrageouslycrazy1 Indeed. (That's why I used "mostly." Because while a few tribes had water deities, basically all of them made offerings during times of drought.)
There has been ceremonial sacrifices in Northern European bog peat. I believe that this are a matter of giving a gift to the Gods. The Danish “Tollundmanden” is one of the best preserved bog sacrificed corpses. About 40 km away were the finds in “Iller Ådal” where a huge amount of veapons and horses has been sacrificed presumedly after a battle. Tossing valuables in the water to honour the Gods? Propably maybe 😊
But they did not look UNDER THE STUMP !?! The sword is broken so that noone can use it. The object held the owners mana and could not be passed on to anyone else after he died.
I've always believed that the inverted tree stumps were ritually killed after serving as trees used to hang people. Considering how people believed in lingering ghosts and evil; then burying the tree that was host to that evil and then 'fencing' it in, makes some level of sense. Perhaps the walls were to contain the evil within.
waste of a lovely tree that looked better alive than dead for an unnecessary experiment, and as for the old one, it should have been left. Sometimes we humans need to step back and leave history alone
I can see the problem that some cannot see the stump anymore where it was placed, for a few vocal ones there must have been many that also felt ripped off a landmark/beach mark. Would be like moving stone henge inside a warehouse.
Did you not get the fact that it was about to disappear into the sea? They made that very clear. That was the whole point of preserving it elsewhere. It isn't like Stonehenge.
My interpretation of the upside down tree, I think it was used as a burial platform for a very important person to that tribe…and imagine 2,000 years from now people running across your hinge and looking at each other with that WTH look 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
There might have been a huge Bronze Age battle! What is the one thing that's going to get lost during a huge battle? Swords. Or it might have indeed been offerings visa-vis what we see with the "Lady of the Lake" when she hands Arthur his royal sword.
The first things that would get lost from an ancient battlefield would be any organic material, such as flesh, fabrics, wooden spear shafts, shields and the like. Metal would preserve much better. Copper, which is the main component of bronze, actually preserves really well in the ground. When copper oxidizes it develops a green patina on the surface, protecting the material inside. In contrast, when iron objects oxidizes it rusts, and the rust will over time eat its way through the rest of the iron object. This makes it unlikely to survive, unless it's located in a low oxygen environment, such as a bog. In any case, metal objects tend to last way longer than anything organic. With this in mind, I imagine that what we would expect to find on a bronze age battlefield would be things like arrow heads, spear heads, swords or anything made out of copper/bronze (or flint and other stone weapons, which didn't go out of use in the bronze age, at least not entirely). Chances of finding such things could still be very slim, though. The victors of the battle may be expected to loot anything of value.
Haha....Back in 2050 bc a small clan of humans buried a tree upside down in a circle of timbers. They said LOL " there, let those knuckleheads in 2002 AD try to figure that one out!
The last bit? Those posts would have been placed in Middle Ages to the 1800's because of all the commerce along the Thames. I highly doubt those are bronze age, seems a bit of a reach if you ask me.
Obvious talisman to bring rain during a prolonged drought. The roots of the tree not in the ground to pull in moisture from the underground and soil but the roots in the air pointed to the sky to pull down moisture, rain.
+Robert Lemasters +"d you on that one, hadn't considered that . I guess the next question would be, was there a drought scenario to instigate such a Shrine?
What was that protester guy talking about when he said it has to be understood at a "deeper level" by leaving it at that location and be claimed by the sea?These sods block everything that is beyond their capacity to understand.
My guess is that he has had some sort of psychedelic experience. I've had one such experience, and at the other end it seemed like there could be more ways to know and understand things than science usually touches on. It's extremely hard to explain to someone who's had no such experience, and I'm certainly not capable of doing it. But this could be related to what he meant when talked about a deeper level of understanding. Some people would perhaps use terms such as "spiritual understanding", or something similar. But this is all speculation on my part. The only way to know would be to have an in-depth conversation with said individual.
History is filled with things we can learn about our past accomplishments and more importantly, our past mistakes. Not learning history is akin to ignoring our mistakes, as opposed to learning from them. It's even possible that this is the main function of curiosity.
Those nuts would rather things rot and be destroyed than save what is possible and preserve and learn from it. They used to hospitalize the mentally ill.
Well, it was being drowned by the sea, and wouldn't have been visible until low tide. They removed the items so that they could be better preserved and studied.
Clemens Van Stekelenburg It would not have survived to this day, the tide would probably have destroyed it in a decade or so. Now it is preserved, although not on it's original location.
Stop asking ridiculous questions that were already answered in the video. Pay attention next time, because your lack of comprehension is pretty annoying.
So, i've been watching & rewatching Time Team for about 15 years, & this is probably my 3rd time watching this episode. But, this was the first time i interpreted the title in a different way. This time, i had a flashback to the 60s & 'dig' meant, like or understand. 😂 Gave myself a good chuckle over that.
Now imagine hundreds of years from now someone finds the Time Team Tree and some hippies start screaming about its social significance and how it should be left they just like the original builders had intended XD
Maybe they will find that the people who put the tree into that position had woven some spiritual connection into the wood and it was destroyed. It shows a total lack of respect for a sacred site simply because the Time Team is of the governing culture. They showed a deep lack of understanding and empathy for an ancient sub-culture as do you
@@alwynemcintyre2184 I understand what should be and can see what is. I can see what we lose when people from the primary monotheistic religions blunder through archaeology because they have no sense of the sacredness of other people's beliefs
Imagine four thousand years from now someone finds a huge crucifix from Canterbury Cathedral. That is what the inverted tree is. A spiritual experience. Do not poopoo it.
I'm sad that they chopped down a mighty live tree, instead of recreating the tree from an already-fallen mighty big dead tree. Do you think they could have used an uprooted tree, as I see in many natural woodlands? Also, I'm in agreement with the protestors that "geezers are still making these things today"--but I believe that's a good support for studying the one that will be lost anyway--because we can create another one.
27:32 This is the type of guy John Cleese was most often invoking during Monty Python skits. I love how he rocks back and forth along with his narrative . . . Cleese did that too actually.
Platforms along a single wide trackway would be used as resting or passing points. 2 people walking along in opposite directions would find it difficult to pass each other when theres only room for one, the longer the trackway the more passing sections and really long ones across fens would need platforms to rest on. Then finding items in the water along a trackway doesn't necessarily just mean ritual offerings to some unknown gods. Go below any bridge anywhere in the world that has foot traffic and you will find a wide assortment of stuff dropped by people crossing the bridges, jewelry, watches, electronics, all sorts of things you wouldn't expect someone walking across a bridge would have. Modern people don't toss their wedding ring or phone off a bridge as an offering to the gods and yet it happens plenty often. No sense in thinking it didn't happen in the bronze age too. And that sword used as an example was clearly damaged in combat and broke during, Who is going to jump into the water after the battle to retrieve it? And could they even find it if they did? The owner sure they fished his corpse out, that's easy it floats.
One of our sons-in-law worked for an insurance company. One night, shortly after midnight, a customer 'phoned, to ask if he could claim for his cell 'phone. Seems he slept with it in his pyjama top pocket and had just lost it in the toilet ...
I understand the frustration of moving it, but it had to be moved to be preserved and understood. Or it would be lost forever. It’s worth saving and learning from. But I get both sides. I feel for the people trying to preserve it, and the people who wanted it left alone. Both groups wanted it preserved. Just in different ways. Both honor the memory, and both cherished it.
My feeling is the recreation should have been undertaken at the original site - not so valuable should it continue to degrade at least but provides the site with the same structure for people to worship at if they wish.
@@classicambo9781 The "original site" was a mile or more inland. Its current position at the shoreline was nothing like the original environment, and would quickly have been eroded once it was uncovered. A new one at the site would not have fared any better.
The protesters are fools!!! Nothing more than uneducated wannabes playing dress up. Their point of view is irrelevant and nonsensical. No one is going to be worshipping at this monument as the religion it is connected to is gone.
I can understand the frustration of those who are connected to the historical monuments disruption, especially because of its immediate conection to the past; yet I find it very important to better understand what its all about! Education about the past is important! One would think anyone wanting to know more would want to be involved in every aspect of the project. brilliant episode!
Clearly I am not concerned what people educated in white monotheist religious understandings of the sacred think. The fact that they think it is not a reason it shouldn't change
its gone because of the sea...if we didn't dig it nobody would know what it for or how old it is and some lunatic would probably say it was built by aliens. lol@@MyBlueZed
The pallisade fence was to keep things out...animals more than likely. Which means the tree stump, upside down, with the roots up has meaning. A corpse either of someone who died or a sacrifice was placed or killed on the roots. THink of it this was, the roots sucking up the soul or blood and transferring them to the underworld or below ground, just as roots of a living tree transfers water and minerals up from the ground to the tree proper...roots in the dark and below ground now in the light so to speak performing their function...most ancient art and artifact is simple to understand....like the so-called Ice Age ivory spear straighteners which are in fact tent pegs...for large hide movable tents...so obvious.
Why not just take a core reading like for dating house-beams ? The bits of wood will not be kept anyway so why remove from their meaningful place where the monument makes sense to someone or even "just" is important to them ? Also the tree marked a spot, the time it could remain there might have been enough for someone to work out why it was at that place perhaps a distance marker or ... whatever it would have lasted longer where it was because i'm sure it is no longer housed. The house where the wood was put in water could have housed people instead of old logs.
Trees are culled only with permission from the Tree Preservation Conserve, unless it's on your own property. Lots of hoops to be jumped through. If you want to feel bad about a tree, volunteer for tree planting after forest & wildland fires. Millions of trees were vaporized in California in the 2000 teens. That's just California. Check your area's reforestation projects, usually under the state's Fire & Rescue Department. In California it's Cal Fire. There are Forest Nurseries throughout the state.
I can understand were he is coming from. I wish / hope America, your prodigal sons, learn to appreciate the beautiful culture and history that is germinted in GB. Thank you.
Interesting thought on that hand axe, Phil found at 2:10, It appears that the Bronze Age person who buried it didn't recognize what it was, probably thinking it was just another piece of gravel! There was that much of a time span between the two men, the one who made, used and lost the artifact and the one who tossed it away in a scoop of dirt, possibly as much as the second man and Phil, who picked it back up like it was a gift from the ages.
I am so happy to this type of special on the many different types of eras the shows dug. Glad that this TIME TEAM did digs from the era of mammoths through to WW2. For a small island, it was very busy with people.
Was the tree sonw kind of altar? An altar or human oder animal sacrifice? Just wondering. Apart from that? I have to laugh about those nutters who did not know about this cultic place if it was under water. So why are they crazy about protecting it? I am too rational to understand their mindset.
Every time I watch a documentary and hear an archaeologist speak of a culture's religion that has no 1st hand accounts in a definitive manner I am reminded of a talk by an archaeologist in a documentary I saw many years ago. He had been working in Africa and set down a Coke bottle the local children had picked it up and filled it with stones and sticks and other things and he had an epiphany. If this object was buried for several thousand years and then dug up by an archaeologist would it be labeled as a religious artifact because it had obviously been worked on by human hands and served no real purpose? He further went on to say that he had made it a point to not rush to a conclusion and to remember that sometimes human nature makes people do things that are eccentric, strange and just plain contrary.
Sorry. There is no comparison. There are no written records from the prehistoric age. Most interpretation is based on speculation. As more research goes on interpretation changes. If you are so knowledgeable why aren't you on time team.
It's funny, I usually laugh at these fake Druid new age type people, but I really felt conflicted when they dug up the tree and cut into it for samples. It really was defiled even though those people are long gone. Maybe it would have been better to let the sea take it after doing in situ studies? Respect is the word I am searching for, and it felt like something sacred and human died when they desecrated that site. I get the same sad feeling walking through museums looking at the desiccated and faded sacred objects collected from tribal cultures across Africa, Polynesia and the Americas. These objects were powerful private things that are now curios for museum visitors. Maybe some things should remain unseen if we are to remain humans?
You're dumb if you even pay'd attention you would know the three would be removed with or without time team. They had the oppertunity to film the whole thing. I am glad they removed the tree. Now there's a possibility to learn more about it, otherwise it would be destroyed by the sea. England's shores are slowly drowning in the sea and it's very destructive for countless archaeological sites. So go find another tree to hug.
Imagine that during the bronze age a storm blew over this oak tree. Now this old oak tree would have provided lots of acorns to feed to the animals they raised ( cattle and boar pigs ) and maybe baked and ate in winter months for people? If you collected food from this tree for many years and now its dead- they would have done a thing like this to remember the tree.
Masie Taylor only appeared on two or three episodes of TT, but I thought she brought a wonderful body of knowledge to the show. And she was awfully charismatic as well.
I always ask myself if they didnt leave the roots more on the turned tree basis because its weird but a tree looks the same over the earth and under the earth and if it was a celebration point for afterlive side than it would make scence when they just turned the world view around! You become birth after that dead wath is a birth for the other side and this game so long as its needed
Re: Tree Stump and Enclosure. I too wish they had explored the area below the inverted tree stump… did they try to determine if it was placed on a foundation or if it was placed upon the remains of a being? Also were the enclosure timbers uniformly positioned with their exterior parts to the outside or some mixture of split in side or rounded exterior surfaces?
Should have left the stump alone bunch of butchers…. They can’t agree on anything even if they did it would be reinterpreted in a year or two……. Smart people but they should apply themselves to more valuable professions like medicine or technology
On a side note. We still make offerings today .. There’s a regular practice when traversing the southern inter-coastal waterway , that when you cross the Mississippi River you pay a fair to the old man river.. We usually toss a 50 cent piece , or even a silver dollar overboard .
I think this circle was about how the sky grows down into the earth, holding the sky in place! the ancients did not believe that the natural world was seperate from being. Also roots are the speakers of the tree to the underworld, these concepts are an on going discussion for the basics of religion and myth. Inverting a tree is sending magic into the earth, this sort of magic would needs to be contained by a circle. Look to the Norse significances of trees!
For the sea trree Why not just move it so it won't be under water I doubt it was under water before Those strange talking hippies don't seem to understand Just ask the scientist to put it back after the dating but somewhere safe
Concerning the upside down Tee: My Interpretation - as I used it in a P&P Role Playing game - is a sort of communication device with the "Underworld", the Ancestors. The Tree growing INTO the earth. In the ritual i designed around the Idea, people hung colorful ribbons, small trinkets and pieces of birchbark with wishes, and names of children ( the setting was literate, but i'm convinced it is also possible without writing, by attaching hair or milk teeth of kids or symbols incribed by priests representing wishes) and bark masks, they wore during the festivities (so the ancestors could look through their eyes) onto the roots , so they would grow into the other world and bare fruit there, "nurishing" the ancestors with thoughts, prayers and the like - so that they, in turn, look to the trees and the crops and all things coming out of the earth. A spiritual Newsletter for the Ancestors if you like, with an attached Giftbasket :)
A very interesting conception that seems entirely plausible. There was a strong naturist element to religious practices in this era, and this seems to be an almost reverse form of Yggdrasil...the Norse tree of life. Forms of worship are practiced world round..leaving gifts and messages. I like it.
Yes, they could have all stood around wanking on it for all we know. We will never fully understand unless we lived in that era, and in the end it doesn't make a lot of difference.
What amazes me is that it appears that, in Britain, you can wander into a forest and just chop down a tree. In Australia, every tree is sacred, every tree is great. If a tree is chopped down, the Greenies get quite irate.
