This is the Oldest Family Tree in the World (From the Tombs of Neolithic Britain)

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Long barrows are the earliest great monuments of the British Isles. They could be over 100m/330ft long and there are hundreds of them, dating from 3800 BC.
But what were they? But who built them? Why did they put so much effort into making them?
And what can the latest studies on ancient DNA tell us, about the family relationships of the people buried inside them and the societies that they lived in?
This is the story of the mysterious Long Barrows of Neolithic Britain.
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My Links
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Sources
The First Stones: amzn.to/3pmJikc
Earthen Long Barrows: amzn.to/3XoOa4G
People of the Long Barrows: amzn.to/3JwzjQ0
A high-resolution picture of kinship practices in an Early Neolithic tomb: www.nature.com/articles/s4158...
Radiocarbon dates from the chambered tomb at Hazleton - Saville et al (1987)
Megalithic tombs in western and northern Neolithic Europe were linked to a kindred society - Sánchez-Quinto (2019)
Rites of Passage: Mortuary Practice, Population Dynamics, and Chronology at the Carrowkeel Passage Tomb Complex - Kador et al (2018)
East Anglian early Neolithic monument burial linked to contemporary Megaliths - Scheib et al (2019)
Diversity, lifestyles and rites: new biological and archaeological evidence from British Earlier Neolithic mortuary assemblages - Wysocki & Whittle (2000)
‘In this Chambered Tumulus were Found Cleft Skulls …’: an Assessment of the
Evidence for Cranial Trauma in the British Neolithic - Wysocki & Schulting (2005)
Serious Mortality: the Date of the Fussell's Lodge Long Barrow - Wysocki & Bayliss (2007)
William Cunnington and the Long Barrows of the Wylye Valley - Eagles & Field
The Fussell's Lodge Long Barrow Excavations 1957 - Ashbee (1966)
The above links include affiliate links which means we will earn a small commission from your purchases at no additional cost to you which is a way to support the channel.
Thank you
David Macleod: / graenwulf
Video Chapters
00:00 Neolithic Long Barrows
01:20 Video Sponsorship
02:43 What are long barrows?
05:07 Symbolic meanings
06:57 Houses of the dead?
11:32 Who was buried inside them?
15:14 Neolithic patriarchy
16:05 Neolithic violence
17:24 DNA analyses
21:15 The Story of the Long Barrows

[@DanDavisHistory]

Sign up for a 14-day free trial and enjoy all the amazing features MyHeritage has to offer. If you decide to continue your subscription, you’ll get a 50% discount: bit.ly/DanDavisHistory

[@kkupsky6321]

Family trees to show you your Royal whatever is great. Please Don’t grift the dna tests tho.

[@kkupsky6321]

Please

[@kkupsky6321]

Please. Look a bit deeper. I lost some respect for you man. It’s a grift. I’m I’ve 1.5% Zulu so I’m basically Elon musk. I know u need all sera but Comon man. You let me down peddling that shit. I’d buy a shirt. Not shit

[@kkupsky6321]

Disappointed. Good video. Don’t grift*

[@neutronshiva2498]

You are amazing, please never stop making theese videos.

[@MagnusItland]

It is easy to underestimate the hardship of that age. Even thousands of years after the onset of the Neolithic revolution, crops were still closer to the wild grasses and weeds they started out as, rather than the bountiful crops of today. While hardy, they would yield much less food for the labor put into them. Likewise the livestock, while hardy, would be rather gamey and give less milk and meat than in later times. The men and women who took this land from the wood and the wolves were heroes indeed. Sadly, only these mist-shrouded hills and scattered bones remain to tell their incredible tales.

[@liquidoxygen819]

Well-said

[@Paulftate]

Like you said? Easy to underestimate. Then again.. with the evidence left to us.. all left up to the interpretation.. with our mindset. Goes a long way when you say it's left up to interpretation

[@perceivedvelocity9914]

They were survivors who lived in a untamed land.

[@Paulftate]

@@perceivedvelocity9914 no doubt... just couldn't run down to the 7-Eleven & get a six pack

[@edd5883]

how very dialectical

[@danibissonnette1601]

I'm an archaeologist, and I really appreciate your work, Dan. I also like reading your stories on digs. I always learn something from your videos (as a professional) and I love how accessible you make the information for everyone from people just starting to get interested in their history to professionals. Please keep them coming. 👍

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much indeed, that's great to hear!

[@godschild3640]

@@DanDavisHistoryJESUS 🩸IS 🩸WHITE🩸 REVELATION 1:14:15. 🩸.. the oldest family on the face of this earth are my 💚white 🩷family. .. any metal in the inside of a furnace, not outside cool down, it says in that means inside as white brass when we find in a furnace is white fire when it burns is blue, white and gold, Jesus eyes are blue face and hair white as snow like the wool of a lamb 🐑. White people were not on Noah’s ship. God kept white people for eight times times and a half until we complained about the.manna … what is slavery in each of India, Africa, America, all Spanish, Asian Arab, Muslim nations, Rome, Germany, Ukraine, and Poland, Australia, and Canada. You have abused, my white family in every way imaginable all white nations have been invaded America, Australia, and Canada to kill my white family and the oldest bones in America, Egypt, Iran, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii Israel were white people look at David’s picture. You have a literally a raise my white history and you hate my white family and I’m going to tell the truth before I die you have a boost my wife’s family in every way imaginable, and you bear false witness and the tribe of dead. She’ll be your Judge.👩🏻‍🦳🧑🏻‍🦳✝️.. may God have mercy on your soul😡

[@BARBARYAN.]

The amount of work, research, reading, and cross referencing you gotta do for these doesn’t go unappreciated my friend. We anthropologists have a special place in our hearts for channels like this! Golly, I respect the dedication you have for this stuff.

[@rokurussell9862]

Paleoanthropologist here. I agree with the comment above. You always give a variety of potential explanations while stressing what can and can't be known.

[@gothicwestern]

Me too. I've seen some documentaries about various longbarrows but to be able to watch this, drawing all the knowledge together, encompassing the totality and geography of the tradition, and offering plausible insights into the culture is just AMAZING.

[@giuliakhawaja7929]

No such word as “gotta”.

[@BARBARYAN.]

@@giuliakhawaja7929 i guess I gotta use a different word then

[@giuliakhawaja7929]

@@BARBARYAN. It probably doesn’t matter as you are a barbarian !

[@neclark08]

I LOVE that Dan Davis has sufficient confidence in his research- & writing -- and enough Respect for his viewers -- to narrate his own episodes with his Own Voice...unlike so many YT-ers who run their scripts through Speech Replicator software...

[@lindathomas5500]

I think the most AMAZING discovery ever in Britain was finding cheddar gorge man, separated by 10k years, has a direct descendant alive today who’s a teacher! That link to the past still blows my mind even now after all these years since they discovered the family lineage!

[@kelllefae3026]

And the fact cheddar man was black .......

[@lindathomas5500]

@@kelllefae3026 This is true, as were all early man. Conditions were different, Britain was more like the Sahara, so as a result their skin was darker!

[@kelllefae3026]

@@lindathomas5500 I hope all our uk rednecks took note! Haha ...

[@lis819]

A history teacher, no less!

[@lindathomas5500]

@@lis819 that’s right, you know I’d forgotten that until you mentioned it!

[@AdamMorganIbbotson]

The Lake District has a unique variety known as 'Long Cairns', dating around 3700 BC. A few examples, notably Raiset Pike Long Cairn, show evidence of stone rows along their spines, and a staggered building process over centuries. Many examples have very close landscape features, either small valleys or crags (rocks) - suggesting they were positioned to overlook them. This may suggest they were built in woodlands. They're also often found in later Bronze Age cairnfields; areas where people dumped field clearance rubble. Rather than treating them like a dump, it seems Bronze Age people chose to cultivate landscapes away from the long mounds, while depositing smaller cairns around them as a way of preservation.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Yeah long cairns are a sub type of long barrow found in many places especially the north of Britain where there's plentiful small rocks for building them. Raiset Pike is especially interesting as it's one of those examples where it seems two smaller monuments joined together. There are various long barrows that started out as smaller round barrows or other monuments that were later extended, giving the external form of a long earth mound, hiding the earlier monument beneath. It seems like a small round barrow was a common very early form probably brought in by colonists coming from what's Normandy today. Amazing that what might be a mound of earth today (or perhaps a rock cairn now stripped of its earth mound) can hide a complex history of multiple rebuilds and modification.

[@Survivethejive]

Great doc Dan. The terminology for longbarrows and related tombs is a nightmare minefield. Even in Britain the terms barrow, cairn, howe, tomb and dolmen are used interchangeably, and that's just among academics! Now that scholarship is even more international, it makes it even more confusing. While we took the Breton word "dolmen" for smaller megalithic tombs, or the stone tomb sections of large longbarrows, in Brittany itself dolmen is used just for freestanding small chambers and sometimes for the elongated versions of these which are intermediary between the small dolmens and later large passage tombs, but sometimes they are called Allée couverte (covered alleys) whereas the larger tombs are either called tertre or tumuli - not consistently - but tertre is supposed to be a type of Neolithic barrow that is more round, according to some, yet for eg. the Kerlescan Tumulus is also known as the tertre du Manio and yet it is described by British archaeologists as a "long barrow" since at least 1868!! Here in UK we can be sure that no one will call for eg. Maeshowe a longbarrow, but it seems to me as much like one as some of the things on the continent that get called such.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much! You're right, it's a minefield. The books on this subject all seem to start out with a section bemoaning the confused terminology.

[@BARBARYAN.]

Survive the Jive + Dan Davis collab soon? 🙂

[@rabidspatula1013]

Visiting West Kennet and Wayland's Smithy was legitimately one of the greatest experiences of my life. Crazy to think that when these were made there were relect populations of wooly mammoths on Wrangle Island.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Yeah it's incredible how ancient they are, really. The ones in Britain are up to 5,800 years old and those in France are even older.

[@gothicwestern]

Wooly mammoths, seriously? Wow!

[@cuhurun]

@@gothicwestern : Yep, they were a dwarf variety that had evolved independently on Wrangel island, a way off the coast of Russia.

[@gothicwestern]

@@cuhurun interesting - survived till 4000yrs ago. They (the non-Wrangle) weren't as big as I thought, size of African elephant.

[@cuhurun]

@@gothicwestern : Yeah, the old adage about things being 'Mammoth' in size is a bit misleading, eh ? Most varieties of mammoth ranged between heavy horse and Indian elephant size, although there were some larger ones, African elephant size as you've rightly pointed out. Reckon the illusion of huge size might be partly coz the tusks were disproportionately uber-massive in comparison to today's elephants.

[@akostarkanyi825]

So... These barrows inspired Tolkien when he wrote about the Barrow-downs and Barrow-wights.

[@mikef.1000]

Fascinating stuff, Dan -- very well told and particularly liked how you pulled it all together with your reconstruction/ joining of the dots at the end. No over-reach, just a plausible synthesis of the available data.

[@LuvBorderCollies]

Wow!! What an awesome presentation. All the detail along with DNA and dating made this the most complete, understandable, straightforward video I've ever seen...ever. You knocked this ball way out of the park.!!

[@easternflower6476]

Totally agree- great video! It really makes it seem more humanized to know that one single family was buried in this structure for generations… I wonder if any of us today are descendants of these people, who are now just myths and legends.

[@LuvBorderCollies]

@@easternflower6476 Between the Vikings and the Batavians I think its a safe bet I've got ancestors scattered from Iceland to the eastern Mediterranean to western Ukraine.

[@easternflower6476]

Very cool, who knows, then, maybe these are your great x1000 grandparents! Could be true!

[@lifagrass]

FANTASTIC video!!! Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It never ceases to amaze me just what the Ancients were able to accomplish and build with the most basic of tools!

[@thefisherking78]

YESSSSSSSSSSS new Dan Davis! Gonna try to get one of your books in rotation on the family road trip next week.

[@larsrons7937]

So interesting these long barrows. We have them in Denmark too, some close to where I grew up. Thanks for uploading this video, it was very informative and educating.

[@casanovajones3262]

Just an excellent channel, one of my few must-watches. Thanks for your hard work and fantastic content!

[@3dhell]

I'm just a history fan, looking for answers to questions that I have. Without nonsense, with the latest and non-biased view,, you provide. I love your channel. Kudos that professionals love it too. I love history and have been to the sites you talk about many times and have always tried to put myself 'there', living that Human life. Thank you!

[@matthewh6172]

The fact that people 6000 years ago could build structures like this and we have no knowledge into why is both amazing and frustrating. Most of us would love to see what these ancient civilisations were doing and why.

[@dickwankenson4398]

It's just the same as today. These structures were commissioned by elites/wealthy while labourers or skilled builders made them. Culture and traditions have changed over thousands of years, but humans and human instincts have remained exactly the same

[@matthewh6172]

@@dickwankenson4398 Human ingenuity has always been there. The ignorance people view ancient cultures through is silly.

[@gyalsnextman4725]

Leverage was a big part in moving stones, have you ever tried to lift and carry a big rock then realise if you just placed a strong enough stick underneath and used it as a crowbar you could lift the entire rock and even pivot it. Even rolling it would be an easy way to move it.

[@fjalling]

Research fallen angels, giants, antique tech / electromagnetic tech. Same people covering up that are same pushing evolution.

[@andrewtrip8617]

@@dickwankenson4398 all the evidence so far suggests they were a tribal endeavour with no elite direction and no skilled trades .

[@boreabalsam]

Thank you Dan Davis. In so many ways, your work is deeply meaningful and enjoyable. Best of the Tube 🤘

[@wafikiri_]

My family heritage, even with the help of genetics, has several centuries-wide holes. It was arduously traced manually by a cousin of mine to the 12th. century, but she could not fill up but minuscule portions of the previous one thousand years. Fortunately, a Roman mausoleum contains the remains of the Roman general that started my maternal lineage in my Roman-invaded country about the 2nd. century, current era. Connections with the Kingdom of France's (Toulouse) and the Kingdom of Leon's rulers in the eighth and sixth centuries, with the Kingdom of Aragon from the second to the twelfth.

[@aliceduanra7539]

Awesome that you could track that far back!

[@nikbear]

Outstanding Dan! Another beautiful and thought provoking video ❤ 👏👏👏

[@robincowley5823]

Excellent as ever. It's always interesting when another documentary drops.

[@mariepindstruplinde1671]

When I was a kid growing up in Denmark, I was told the name of the long barrows where Jættestuer - translate to Giant Rooms. But Giants as in the Giants/Baddies in the old Norse mythology.

[@tommeakin1732]

It's a similar phenonomena with places like Wayland's smithy where later populations incorporate ancient sites into their own mythological and cultural framework

[@feldgeist2637]

Langbetten (long-beds) are traditionaly called Hünenbetten (beds of giants) or Riesenbetten (also giant-beds) here in Schleswig-Holstein

[@alexanderhanooman]

Thanks for your continued great work on our recent and ancient ancestors.

[@murder13love]

Your explanation at the end has me imagining a great epic movie.. Its a shame film makers are so focused on such dull subjects. Great video

[@bc7138]

I'm a bit late to this video but it was worth the wait! Excellent video and very informative. It's amazing how genome research has opened up new vistas in prehistory, but there's still so much we don't know and evidence is still open to interpretation.

[@Frenchylikeshikes]

I find the old civilisations of Western Europe absolutely fascinating, and I feel like for a very long time, they were never given the credit they deserve as far as being great architects and builders. This part of the past as been slowly taken out of the shadows those past decades, and it is only fair (and great for us). Thank you for this video. This is why I love YT.

[@Thor-Orion]

They didn’t wreck their environment and they were all freemen.

[@shafsteryellow]

​@@Thor-Orion😂 lmao

[@cliftonfurney5083]

Get hyped when I see you have a new one out. Saved it for after work.

[@flamencoprof]

I am a New Zealander who drove around Europe and Britain in 1996. The long barrow shown many times in this vid, at West Kennett, was immediately recognised as one I visited. So impossibly old compared to anything we have. I was amazed it was possible to actually enter it. A strange experience I have never forgotten. It had a different feel to some dolmen I had earlier entered at Carnac,

[@DanDavisHistory]

Yeah it's difficult to comprehend such a span of time. These things might be a thousand years older than the pyramids at Giza but you can just stroll around on top of them or poke about inside. I've also been into a few dolmens in Brittany and the megalithic chambers were often of a similar scale while the original earth mound is long gone, making them appear drastically different.

[@flamencoprof]

@@DanDavisHistory Yes, it took me decades later to find out that dolmen were just bare bones. Mostly through KZbin, I'm not ashamed to say. What a resource.

[@stephenhoward7454]

New Zealander; Have you been to the Kaimanawa "wall"? 12km approx. on left Clements Road (Lidar results embargo until 2063). Nelson sea wall. (Boulder bank the built a sewer next to it). Split Apple rock. Moeraki sphere boulders. Waipoua Forest stone civilisation (remnants thereof, and embargo Kauri Forest dieback...hmmm). Come back from Australia, as NZ history has been muffled by those who must preserve the maori indigenous theory. Truth eh. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

[@flamencoprof]

@@stephenhoward7454 No. Just no.

[@stephenhoward7454]

@@flamencoprof Have you been to any of them? I have seen these with my eyes. Their sight makes you shiver, how can these be hid in plain sight. The prince of the power of the air - has you all in his grasp. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

[@jamessarsgard1342]

Great video. I really love the storytelling at the end, think it speaks to why prehistory is so alluring-we absolutely can’t know for certain so much about these people’s lives but we can certainly do our best to imagine. That said, you do a fantastic job of balancing that speculation with a very solid presentation of the evidence that we do have. Well done:)

[@PamelaNeimann-rn9mt]

Very interesting and easy to follow. Thank you ❤️

[@liquidoxygen819]

Great in-depth analysis on this, and a great supplement to your original Neolithic Britain documentary, along with the previous upload on the Amesbury Archer. I wonder if these structures represented syncretism between the WHG & EEF cultures; I see some of the artwork (which was especially good in this video) showcases leaders or ritual specialists of sorts wearing antler headdresses, which also makes me think of the apparent selection for, and preservation of, WHG lineages elsewhere in the British Isles (Ireland, if I'm not mistaken, and maybe elsewhere as well?).

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you so much! I think it's quite likely the hunter-gatherer part continued to exert an influence on these societies, considering that following the hunter-gatherer resurgence there was a melding of material culture detectable archeologically. There's the fact that British Neolithic males all carried the I2a Y-hapolgroup of the hunter-gatherers from that earlier resurgence. And the evidence that the first great earthworks were built by the WHG of Brittany before the arrival of the farmers all does suggest there was surely some influence and syncretism. The possible preservation of WHG phenotypes in those later Neolithic tombs in Ireland would have to mean they existed in the early Neolithic too. At those sites like the Boyne valley and the Ness of Brodgar I have to imagine these were more sophisticated societies and larger polities than those of the early Neolithic. And I wonder if those earliest tombs and rites were facilitated by someone more like a shaman or medicine man in each clan or extended family group while the later ones were ruled by "god kings" who carried both spiritual and political authority. I very much hope that more of these incredible aDNA studies will be done to keep shedding light on this era. It's a very exciting time and they've only just scratched the surface.

[@Joyride37]

@@DanDavisHistory I wonder, in contrast to later PIE-speaker colonization where their Y-haplogroup replaced the Neolithic one, what it was about WHG societies that made the men so appealing as to be integrated into the neolithic farming communities and replace much of the neolithic Y-DNA. Especially because the neolithic cultures overall supplanted and replaced the hunter-gatherer cultures. It at least implies a difference in cultural approaches in the different colonization periods. The neolithic colonization seemed far more syncretic, as you said, rather than total replacement.

[@CarnageDogg]

Hello Dan if you read this message.Jonathan from Adelaide Sth Australia.If you could reply,what are your views about pottery being invented indepedently in different civilisations,is this the probable case? Perhaps you could do a video although I know from your vids of which i enjoy you concentrate on select patterns and cultures.

[@audreyroche9490]

​@@DanDavisHistory yea because of the druids in Ireland I get what u mean as I've watches A guy on u tube says he from druid lineage ( Ben mcbrady The last druid ) hopefully u got time to watch it he has at least 2 videos and fit in and druid ruins in Ireland not in history books

[@jaxellis3008]

Amazing as always, Mr. Davis. I am really in awe of your work as a whole but this more recent series relating to the Isles is really truly on another level and I just have to thank you for the insane amount of time and love and detail that you put into it. Thank you. I am enamored and cannot wait for the next installment but i must! Everyone I know is probably very tired of me sharing your videos and babbling on about your content but the ones who take the time to check them out are similarly amazed and intrigued as i. Anyway, sorry to ramble, but sincere love and thanks again from North Florida. Your work is a treasure.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much.

[@sarah7589]

The only part that I sometimes don’t like is how we talk about people that far back as completely different than us when in fact they had the same mental capabilities as we do. If we can figure something out they could too.

[@CorinneDunbar-ls3ej]

This is terrific, thank you. Your interpretation of that period ties up so many loose ends and makes perfect sense, to me at least. I'm grateful for a wide view that isn't shackled by the scientific method of the archaeologist, while, at the same time, utilising all, including the newest, information from a broad range of disciplines, and building an informed account of how things were at a particular time. This is exactly what I want. Huge thank you for a great video.

[@vickywitton1008]

Your documentaries are wonderful and so well made and so interesting, your voice is very soothing too

[@CodeCasanova]

New video from Dan Davis--I'm in!

[@rosesilveira344]

I'm sure there are older family trees but no one has taken the time & interest to research it. This author took great care to compile his tree. Giod job!

[@nickbarton6022]

Yeay a new Dan Davis video! My run tomorrow is gonna be cool 🤙

[@TheWizardOfTheFens]

You do make some extremely thought provoking stuff. Thank you.

[@taurielnightblade7200]

thks so much!!!! i was expecting long barrows!!!!! thks for the guiding books as well. they are going to help me a lot in my college studies.

[@lovelandfrog5692]

I visited Newgrange in Ireland a year ago. What an incredible and beautiful place. The workmanship of those ancient people is astonishing. It’s utterly astounding that they built it so that it aligns with the winter solstice sunrise. The Neolithic peoples of ancient Britain and Ireland must have been incredible.

[@Art-is-craft]

If you want your mind blown check out Göbekli Tepe.

[@silvergirl2847]

Hi it's lovely to hear of people visiting our precious places .so many don't realise whathey have on their own doorstep. I was there in the chamber in new grange after winning a place to witness the solstice in 2007 It was spectacular, like reaching into time. Knowing people thousands of years previously had done the same thing was humbling and magical. Their where many visitors from around the world athe time which warned my heart. Love from Ireland ❤

[@Jojothegodofrandom]

Your building up of context and passion for these eras are like mana from heaven compared to the early 2000s, kudos my man!

[@ramonasp4989]

Your ideas are pretty good ones, and you give us the information in a nice storyline that stays chronological too. Very entertaining, Thank you.

[@billbennett9309]

Great video, really enjoy your freedom as a novelist to do the sort of "big picture" hand-waving synthesis and speculation that professional archaeologists can probably only do in the pub after a couple of pints, lest they damage their reputation. As a professional biologist with a casual interest in this sort of thing, the Hazleton North paper was absolutely astounding. If you can get past the dry technical details, it is just mind-blowing. And note that the lead author (Inigo Olalde) on that paper is the same guy (a Basque) who did the amazing Bell Beaker genomics study you touched upon. One of the other things to note about Hazleton is that the barrow itself is now just a boring couple of mounds in a farmer's field. They were planning a road expansion or something equally mundane back in about 1980, and an archaeologist named Saville was given permission to go in and investigate the site before it got trashed. It is a testament to the skill and far-sightedness of Saville's team that 40 YEARS LATER, the new genomics technology can be married up to precise locations of bones to give us the family history of this barrow. Probably more interesting to look at is the reconstruction of the burial chamber in the Corinium museum in Cirencester? It's on my bucket list next time I visit Gloucestershire!!

[@DirtScraps]

The “You know what this is” in the bottom left during the Stonehenge snippet made me chuckle. 😅

[@MrVvulf]

There's just so much we don't know. Archeologists are particularly prone to overreaching with explanations based on scant clues. For all we know, the barrows might have been a "Hall of Fame" for each family, and only their top "skull kicker" could be interred, being replaced if a more recent family member brought an even greater degree of fame and honor. Every spring they'd haul out the bones of old Thag Thunder Toe and ask him to bless the coming season and give them victory over the hated family from across the valley.

[@silviuvisan505]

Chad Thundercock was top G

[@gracetruthandlight]

Fascinating. Beautiful photography and excellent research. Thank you..

[@shahad_alsayed]

Thank you doc DD and team..what an incredible archaeology film..with your deep knowledge and hardworks you created this. What a treasure I found

[@terryhughes7349]

Great documentary!. Well done!

[@emilyflotilla931]

Interesting piece. I've visited Newgrange in Ireland, years ago, and had the privilege of actually walking in the winter solstice chamber. This was several years before they built an incredible visitor center around it. Being if Irish descent, i felt connected.

[@nigelsheppard625]

The Barrows also bear a remarkable similarity to the temples on Malta, Sadinia and Corsica.

[@simracingwales4997]

Love the channel you have a new subscriber thank you for the upload .

[@HistoryBro]

Boom. Lovely-jubbly. Watching right now. Love me some Long Barrows. Thanks Dan Davis!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks for watching, Bro 🙏

[@laara1426]

Luv your channel ! Keep up the excellent work.

[@KellAnderson]

Dan, thank you so much for these. I'm working on a fantasy novel set in the early Middle Republic era of Rome, and I've been using the videos on the cultures of Europe between the late Neolithic and late Bronze ages to flesh out my otherwise very Gaulic orcs.

[@petrapetrakoliou8979]

Plowing the soil before building a burial mound is a common practice much later, in the migration period, in Scandinavia. There are also many burial mounds built on ancient houses, so there may have been a very, very long tradition or ritual involved here. In Scandinavian legends written down in the medieval period, houses were sometimes burnt down with people inside it which became their living tomb, quite often in fact. Building a mound on the top may have come naturally. Plowing was a major ritual in very ancient times: that's how Romulus is said to have delimited the sacred precinct of Rome and also diverse Germanic gods were plowing out pieces of land in Scandinavia to build sees or islands out of them.

[@ruththinkingoutside.707]

Yay 😍 love these topics So fascinated with prehistoric UK!!

[@karphin1]

Impressed by the scholarship involved in this type of video, and also, nice to read that professional historians are too!

[@JohnTandy74]

Great to see KZbin content givers 🙏🏻 quality kiaszen continuous improvement x keep it up. I miss my Neolithic fix being a child of time team

[@icescrew1]

The best channel period.

[@wuzgoanon9373]

That was excellent. Glad I clicked this video.

[@williammashtalier479]

Never been so happy to find a video. I wish I had been notified when the video was posted. I mean I clicked the bell that KZbin says will give me notifications, so where was it? In any case I am happy to see another video from you.

[@williammashtalier479]

Alright, I just clicked the bell, again, as in for the second time, I am pretty sure. So hopefully, I will now get notifications?

[@AncientAmericas]

Awesome video as always!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks for watching, AA, glad you enjoyed it.

[@ceceehawkins9813]

Absolutely enjoyed this.

[@TheWitchInTheWoods]

Wow, at 16:12 I meet an old man and woman from Dinnington, South Yorkshire. We knew there had been a long barrow there, but excavated, and now sadly ploughed out. How amazing to see, (and hear the story of )the people who were buried there. Respect to the Ancestors. We know where they are! Would love to see what they looked like. (Also would love to know where you found the pictures)

[@kellysouter4381]

He does list sources in the description.

[@TheWitchInTheWoods]

@@kellysouter4381 Oh.. thank you! hadn't noticed x

[@Pteromandias]

According to The Guardian, they were all black as tar.

[@helenwood1]

Excellent work! Thank you.

[@robertallan4916]

People that other people loved sent their beloved into the long journey of sleep. Imagine the stories made in order to make sense of the loss of a loved one and also the hope of their success in their new journey. The land of sleep, as we all know, is full of glorious journeys.

[@seanwhelan879]

Dan , simply fantastic, I absolutely thoroughly enjoy your content, visuals, narration, and most of all, the history. Just thanks so much for your channel, I watch your videos 2, sometimes 3 times. Extremely happy subscriber. 🤝🇮🇪

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks so much Sean.

[@daveharden5929]

I'm in total agreement, as I watch some of his more excellent episodes 2-3x.....as well. I admit this freely as well.... However, my wife has recently started to question my zeal, labeling me a "DDavis History Nerd" - still in the closet and in need of therapy ! Lol, she's joking!

[@jamessadler5073]

I think most, if not all, behaviours have a biological route. That is to say they serve a purpose in the sense of surviving and passing your genes on, or they are an artifact of an advantageous adaptation. When land ownership is life and death marking the land as yours becomes essential. The sense of connection and legitimacy is also important if your descendants will have to fight and kill to keep the land. Believing you have the right and a just cause can help in a pinch. I think Dan is right the underlying motivation is to mark the land as belonging to the builders. A quick Edit. Land ownership is taken for granted now. I think in the early neolithic Land ownership and humans being separate from nature may be quite a new way of thinking. Thanks Dan great stuff.

[@darthdonkulous1810]

Hello Dan, I have been watching your videos for a little longer than 18 months now and I just wanted to say that your channel really is fantastic! After watching many of your videos (the cult of the ancestors one in particular) I bought the audiobook version of "Godborn"... I was not disappointed in the slightest! Also bought the Vampire Knight series of stories at all and they were just as brilliant! Sorry for rambling on a little, I just wanted to let you know I greatly appreciate all your work. I would love to see you rewarded with a TV series on the various topics you cover as you would absolutely smash it. All the best dude.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed the stories. As for a TV series, you never know, we could see one for my novels one day...

[@darthdonkulous1810]

@@DanDavisHistory Now that would be something..!

[@JohnDoe-px4ko]

Found the genetic analysis particularly interesting. One of the most important questions needing answering is who was interred in these long barrows? Helps to better understand the society in which they lived. Greatly appreciated- thank you

[@AcidRain09]

I think it's a very sensible summary at the end. Liked it 👍🏻

[@tobyplumlee7602]

Once again another excellent video!

[@jamesleonard2870]

Wow! I really enjoyed this documentary. Thanks 🌊🏄‍♂️🌵☀️

[@shaneziegler2555]

If I could give u a million likes I would, these quality videos are unreal

[@JavierAlbinarrate]

There is something anxiously clear from studying prehistoric times. How marvelous and powerful the invention of writing systems was.

[@eh1702]

Wait - western Europe was keeping cattle nearly 6k years ago? This made me search around a bit, and the proposed date for the introduction of domestic cattle to Britain is just exactly this time, around 3,800BCE. The article I read (Cummings & Morris: Neolithic Explanations Revisited: Modelling the Arrival and Spread of Domesticated Cattle into Neolithic Britain)gave the opinion that a surprisingly small number of cattle were necessary to avoid inbreeding, but that bringing newly weaned (smallish) calves would mean travelling at a risky time of year for sailing - and then (depending on whether they only bred in spring like modern cattle) they may have to be fed through the winter. Then you have about another three years before they can breed. The cattle were small compared to modern cows, and a neolithic boat probably could carry an adult. But it must have been a nerve-wracking business, setting off with a live animal and no weather forecast. Each individual, male or female, would have been a precious thing for these first generations.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Yes they brought their cattle with them. The literature suggests adult cattle could swim across while tethered behind boats, citing examples of this happening in historical times. But it's a huge journey across most of the English Channel so I reckon cattle in boats would be more common.

[@MrRourk]

Still to this day in Ireland you can watch them load cattle and sheep into the small canoe like boats in the river.

[@barkershill]

One tiny point , maybe you missed typed this but modern cattle definitely breed all year round . For years my family milked a dairy herd with calving on every month of the year . But yes obviously primitive cattle all calved in spring . I think calving at any time of year is Quite a modern thing

[@eh1702]

@@MrRourk Yes, boats built with modern tools and designs, but still, seagoing vessels are a different prospect. It’s not far geographically, but it’s treacherous. Look how many small boats sink in it even now.

[@eh1702]

@@DanDavisHistory Honestly, I don’t think cattle swimming the English channel or the Irish sea tethered to the relatively light, small craft they had is all that likely. These are very dangerous and unpredictable waters for small craft, even for people with modern weather forecasts.

[@johnboy1536]

Very good video indeed, thank you very much for your inspiring work.

[@pedrobaeck1541]

i think i ran out of dan videos, i am so sad, gonna watch all of the again i supose, needless to say i love your content dan, keep it up!

[@jeffebdy]

I've missed your videos. This one particularly close to my heart. Did long barrows come after round barrows?

[@DanDavisHistory]

The round barrows seen all over Britain largely date to the earlier part of the Bronze Age. However, there actually was a tradition of building small round barrows at the start of the Neolithic in Britain. It seems to have been brought specifically by the colonists coming from the region of what's Normandy today. Many of them were actually later converted into long barrows a few generations after they were built, presumably by the descendants of the round barrow builders. Perhaps they wished to make them more impressive, perhaps they were implementing a new style of monument they saw built by neighbouring clans. Or perhaps they were even new people coming in and taking over the land, building their own cultural expressions on top. But yes, although round barrows are associated with the (bronze age) Beaker period, there was another kind of small round barrow at the same time or even earlier than the long barrows.

[@jeffebdy]

@@DanDavisHistory thanks Dan for such a detailed reply! Appreciate it

[@tonnywildweasel8138]

Fascinating! Fantastic vid again 👍 ✌from the Netherlands, T.

[@CliveofEngland]

Great introduction to these marvellous, mysterious monuments. Sad to think that although we have a few hundred long barrows left - many with imposing megalithic chambers - there were thousands originally and most have been ploughed away.

[@peteram9527]

Built on the site of the house belonging to the first to clear the land, barrows could be seen as a sign ownership, an ancestral right passed down the line. In the days before written land deeds a way of staking the claim.

[@motuekarewaka5145]

I do wonder if every long barrow started as a house and when a family finally ended the house would be infilled to become a family tomb.

[@DanDavisHistory]

No they didn't all have a house underneath them but some of them probably did.

[@erik7386]

Thanks for the heads up

[@rialobran]

Brilliant. Your hypothesis of the positioning of barrows with the boundaries put me in mind of the reaves on Dartmoor. Is there physical evidence of a boundary of some kind? Other than the topographical brow of a ridge/hill.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you. It's not my hypothesis, it's put forward by archeologists. There are no obvious land divisions from this era. Field boundaries in the form of obvious ditches and drystone walls don't really appear widely until the late Bronze Age. So the land divisions are speculative based on the positions of the barrows and the local topography and the need for access to water and so on.

[@rialobran]

@@DanDavisHistory Thanks, late Bronze Age Dartmoor is more my era. I'm trying to work out what the heck reaves are all about. The tribal land division idea doesn't quite fit (for me), so I'm clutching at any straw I can find, your mention tweaked my interest.

[@ellierace3350]

I'm from South shields and still live here its not very often you hear our little town's name anywhere 😊

[@DanDavisHistory]

My mum used to go up for family holidays throughout her childhood. They stayed at her nan and grandads place. They owned an antiques / bric-a-brac shop in the high street and lived above it.

[@Paulftate]

Good narration

[@faragraf9380]

i liked it how you recherched it. and such wonderful pictures you added. I visited West Kenneth long barrow and had some special vision in it. I liked it a lot.

[@haroldgodwinsonshouldhavew3875]

Damn I waited so much for you to post that i rewatched your chanel...twice

[@lucysin414]

My local long barrow belas knapp shown here ❤️ such a beautiful structure

[@rnedlo9909]

Well done, Thank you.

[@TERMICOBRA]

Thank you, Professor Davis.

[@vijaykumarnadaraja531]

Dan, in the video at point 6.7 the long barrow's horned extensions resemble a similar pattern of a particular type of tomb in Sardinia. Those Sardinian tombs were covered in the video by you about Sardinia.

[@all4one5]

The representation of the shape of the tumulus perhaps mirrors the Aurochs skull, as that animal was very important to early British Islanders

[@imnotanalien7839]

Beautifully laid out description of the horrific problems of an ancient geography where hundreds of clans, tribes, cultures, languages, religions, governments, ethnicities, races, (I’m sure I’ve left out some) are forced to live under one umbrella. Thank you for highlighting that aspect of the Douglas Murray discussion. 🌎

[@barkershill]

Thank you Dan . A truly brilliant video . Well researched and well presented . Just one question . I have visited several long barrows and some of them seem in remarkably good condition . I seem to recall the West Kennet one even had a glass ceiling . So how much of what we see has been restored in very recent times ?

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you so much. And yes you're right most of the well visited ones - eg West Kennet, Belas Knap, Wayland's Smithy - have certainly been "restored" and yes the West Kennet skylight is controversial for sure. Ridiculous really. Most of them though haven't been restored or even properly investigated and remain mounds of grass covered earth.

[@mooncat7009]

you have a very soothing voice. very pleasant to watch your videos…❤

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much.

[@ted1045]

It's a bit surreal to realize that given my own family ancestry there's a decent chance I may have had ancestors that worked on building some of those monuments. Pretty interesting all the same.