The Entire History of Neolithic Britain and Ireland (4000 - 2500 BC) | Ancient History Documentary

[@DanDavisHistory]

If you enjoy the video please hit "like" and share it with a friend, that would help me out enormously. Cheers! And check out the People of the Bronze Age playlist for more videos like this: kzbin.info/aero/PLUyGT3KDxwC8u4jG_tOjN-8-bsHxucUxn

[@StephenMortimer]

maybe they brought the MUMPS with them and the "others" were susceptible to it

[@perplexedpapa]

@@StephenMortimer That's a curious thought. I'm sure someone has already researched the genetic paths of the different pathogens, and now I'll be thinking about them too. When Dan was talking about how the people flourish in the northern areas during one of the declines, I was wondering if a flu like virus may have been introduced from the South but didn't make it to the North because the people there stayed isolated. Would be a little ironic if the peoples that took the British Isles from the "native" British people used mumps in trade blankets to take their land. But that's in another time.

[@StephenMortimer]

@@perplexedpapa this quasi myth of smallpox blankets is too often repeated by SJW's... go to a local reservation and observe the miserable wretches (not the half breeds)

[@mookins45]

@@StephenMortimer wretched fascist, i pity you

[@perplexedpapa]

@@StephenMortimer My mother's mother was raised on a reservation. Have you been to any of the reservations? They didn't choose which lands they were stuck with, the government did. Mostly lands that couldn't be easily farmed, no living wage jobs nearby(until the casinos), treated like a lower class of people, forced to learn the ways of the white or die, all of this after they stopped bounties and a bunch of other laws to keep them weakened. If it wasn't so cruel it would be impressive. A little island nation taking over a very big portion of the world using drugs to fund their conquests. Sugar, tobacco, opium... Along with cotton, potatoes, and maize they got filthy rich. I know that the English were not alone in the taking of the Americas, but they held on the longest, and came back for more a few decades later. Hopefully the days of conquests are over for the most part, but we never know. There are still some radical thinkers out there.

[@Survivethejive]

I find the Neolithic dark age so interesting. It shows how easily and regularly civilisations fall! Learned a lot from this one thanks Dan

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you, great to hear that! Yes that pattern of growth and collapse seems to be inevitable right from the start of civilisation.

[@anandvardhantedlapu7414]

@@DanDavisHistory Please make a video on Dravidian links to Indus valley Civilization.......

[@Mysucculentchinesemeal]

Me too, I never got to spend much time on them in school, I think that’s why I find it so interesting.

[@helenamcginty4920]

I think of the neolithic period as a cultural thing rather than a civilisation. People came together in large numbers at Avebury where they constructed the huge henge and stone circle with all its other internal structures and at Durrington Walls and built wood henges there and, eventually, Stonehenge just down the river. But I think of it more as a society with common cultural practices as witnessed by the stone monuments all along the Atlantic coasts of Spain, Brittany and Britain. But a civilisation is a much more organised thing. There dies not seem to have been a centralisation of governance as developed in the bronze age. Any other ideas anyone? Am I out on a limb here?

[@thegreenmage6956]

@@helenamcginty4920 A ‘cultural thing’ *would* be a civilisation

[@reporebo]

hedgehog with mushrooms on its spines at 4:40 was the surprise hit

[@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733]

When sonic enters Mario world.

[@davidh6300]

@FilthyDank Wasteman the 11th he he he

[@Henchman34]

That freaked me out lol. Are they growing on the hedgehog!?

[@originaluddite]

Do hedgehogs just wander around and get all sorts of softer things stuck to their spikes?

[@cmur4372]

@@Henchman34 IKR!

[@Non-Serviam300]

I love how you talk TO your audience, not AT them👍🏻

[@DanDavisHistory]

That's a wonderful thing to say, thanks.

[@Non-Serviam300]

@@DanDavisHistory 👊🏻😉

[@sonoransaguaro3786]

@Vexed Ascetic🌵re; "TO and not AT"... "Aye, aye, Arrrgh, Cap'n!!"

[@petedandrea8463]

Ex of St. Albans, Herts here, now living in CO, USA. I grew up playing on new housing developments near my mums house. Every so often work on the building site would stop due to a piece of Roman pottery being dug up. My and my mates would hang out at the archaeological dig hoping for treasure to be discovered, lol. I never gave up my fascination with British history and channels like yours are a God send. Thanks for doing what you do, much appreciated!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much Pete.

[@andyw8984]

Love St Albans, my grandparents lived there so spent many happy holidays there feeding the ducks at Verulamium! Between there and my teenage years spent in North East Scotland , I think I was primed for a lifelong interest in archaology too!

[@annakobuk3618]

This channel is one of the best things that happened to the internet

[@johnpatrick5307]

The Neolithic people CAME BACK to Britain! There was a mass migration of Early European Farmers into Britain in the late Bronze Age, making the people darker, and introducing the Welsh language. So the English are Anglo-Spanish and the Welsh are British-Spanish!

[@juneroberts5305]

Every now and again I go through your whole channel. The amount of information you cram into an episode never ceases to boggle my tiny mind, and you are so engaging that listening to your uploads never gets old.

[@Missangie827]

people have never stopped trying to get away from their relatives have they?

[@DanDavisHistory]

lol

[@oftin_wong]

That's what I've always suggested for the systematic population of the ancient world ...by foot Something was driving it lol

[@markgarin6355]

Well... people already live where you are...so if you want to have your own land....you got to go somewhere else. Depending on rights of inheritance, most conquistador were 2nd or later sons, they had no guarantees, parental property went to first born.

[@oftin_wong]

@@markgarin6355 you must be a lot of fun at parties

[@markgarin6355]

@@oftin_wong freaking hysterical....

[@ruththinkingoutside.707]

This channel makes presentations that are so incredible they defy expectations in every way.. it reaches a place that’s oddly both emotional and intellectual.. it’s just SO GOOD.. ..you are compelled to rewatch all of them..

[@andersschmich8600]

Absolutely fantastic! I am getting my Master's Degree in History in Ireland starting this fall, and my tentative research thesis concerns cultural continuity and Medieval use of Neolithic sites.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Wonderful. That cultural continuity and reuse of the sites of previous peoples is fascinating isn't it. That's a fascinating and worthwhile degree, Anders.

[@andersschmich8600]

@@DanDavisHistory Oh yeah, especially given the analysis of remains at places such as Newgrange. It kind of does seem like the 'ghost' of the Neolithic lived on.

[@elizabethford7263]

@@andersschmich8600 how did the medieval Celtic Christian mind explain these monuments? Did they continue the folk tales of the Tuatha de Danaan or any earlier "invasions"? We know they christianized the old gods, so how did they interpret the physical remains in the Landscape???

[@bazzaboy1100]

@@andersschmich8600 just yesterday i was reading a reddit post in r/history, it was a BBC article about a site in England with artifacts and traces proving use from the neolithic to the 18th century, the site is on the route of a new main road being built, with other points along the route signifying that a "road" existed long before Romeans arrived

[@danic9304]

That sounds a fascinating thesis!

[@WWeronko]

With the arrival in Neolithic Britain of the Bell Beaker peoples came the renewed growing of barley in a massive way. Barley at the time was strongly associated with beer brewing. The spread of the Beaker culture in Britain introduced high levels of steppe-related ancestry, resulting in a near-complete transformation of the local gene pool within a few centuries, to the point of replacement of about 90% of the local Neolithic-derived lineages. It clearly demonstrates the power of beer.

[@hoponpop3330]

Wouldn’t the increase in Barley be indicative of a colder climate and soil changes ?

[@horatiuscocles8052]

Based boozer

[@blacktigerpaw1]

Sounds like genocide. The Yamnaya wiped out the Neolithic lineage in Spain.

[@DaVultureTTG]

@@blacktigerpaw1 it doesn't look great does it 💀

[@pedrolucasdesousa4718]

Beer Beaker Culture 🤣

[@ryanoreilly4176]

You showed great respect for Ireland by distinguishing it each time from Britain. Thank you.

[@capatheist]

Oh really? What’s it to an O’Reilly?

[@highgarden9704]

@@capatheist You replied to O'Reilly quite wryly, I must say I think of you quite highly

[@GrandSolarSystemPoobah]

​@@highgarden9704 I hope these comments are smiley and not bile y

[@highgarden9704]

@@GrandSolarSystemPoobah I never replied slyly, although the comment was made quite dryly

[@Alhajfnfncudj]

😆😆

[@finishhim6663]

Why do I always stumble across great docs when I'm supposed to sleep.

[@DanDavisHistory]

It's a grand conspiracy, I'm afraid.

[@basilbrushbooshieboosh5302]

Love the video Dan. And two things especially: That you intersperse the video with maps that have dates for migrations, and also that you own your earlier misconceptions. On the first point, it gives viewers a chrono-spatial context to work by. Especially if they have picto-graphic learning leanings such as myself. On the second point you become inclusive of your viewers possible fallibilities. Thanks for the large section on the ritual sites of the Orkney's, as that is one of my ancestral origin areas through my mum's mum. I can never hear enough about that site.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you.

[@peterfrance7489]

That was great Dan. Thank you. I've been missing a coherent narrative that weaves together all the different threads of the successive migration waves and their ways of life - and here it is presented in digestible form.

[@richardsleep2045]

Wow! Excellently researched and explained, thanks. This period's events have puzzled me for years.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you Richard.

[@paulbennett772]

Stonehenge - not midsummer sunrise, but midwinter sunset. Brilliant series of videos! I'd like to read a story describing the travails of Doggerland people, as they cope with the aftermath of the Storegga catastrophe, and a video of the research that went into it. Any chance, Dan?

[@honeybadgerisme]

Oh wow! I bet it would be beautiful! Too bad you can't share pics in the comments.

[@helenamcginty4920]

I understood it was focused on midwinter sunrise. Marking the return of the sun after the solstice.

[@masterdrewanthony]

This is spectacularly narrated. Even if the subject matter weren't factual, and were entirely fictional, it would have been a pleasure to watch all the same. Bravo!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much.

[@needfoolthings]

It's true. He could read Earthdawn sourcebooks to me.

[@michaelleblanc7283]

Dan Davis Author - You are a good man to meet. You've made all of us all better time travellers. Thank you for allowing us to watch you.

[@michel3386]

Really great work Dan!!! The neolithic its one of my favorite subjects in history, and there is still some many mysteries yet to be discovered about this time.

[@ArturdeSousaRocha]

That summary at the end is the cherry on the cake. It reinforces understanding of the presentation as a whole, what with it containing so much information.

[@TheWitchInTheWoods]

Really interesting. I think the Bronze age history of Britain is a fascinating story of waves of invasion. But I can't help but wonder what happened before all this.. I'm talking of the history of Doggerland and the deep dark ice ages. As I live near Creswell crags, I know where I live these stories go back into even deeper histories, of people arriving between one ice age and the next. If you could do a video about these people that would be amazing. Although I know we know very little about them. But very interesting, thank you.

[@oftin_wong]

Clan of the cave bear... is a good read, the author is clearly intrigued by this subject, dramatized but still a good read. Jean M. Auel (author)

[@TheWitchInTheWoods]

@@oftin_wong thank you.

[@elenavaccaro339]

Look for Don's Maps on the internet. Loads of information related to that time period including links to some of the anthropology papers Auel used as the basis for the books.

[@cindyleehaddock3551]

I love this show, but there also is the Britain BC and Britain AD show by Francis Pryor. The first ones do cover Doggerland some. There are also a few episodes of Time Team that cover the subject.

[@ahklys1321]

But why, of all place Ireland? I can only guess they were being chased there

[@A_Saddler]

This is an amazing documentary and incredible content! I've been watching almost all of your videos these past few days and learned so much about prehistoric Europe. Thank you! Also, just wanted to mention how the history of these people mirrors the history of Rapa Nui so much (Fall of Civilizations channel). A population boom and bust, then an equilibrium that evolves into a lot of monument building before newcomers discover them and they succumb to disease and conquest.

[@grandmastersreaction1267]

So happy to see your channel is blowing up. Well done mate and keep it up!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks, bro, appreciate it.

[@cpswyl2]

Great production, Dan. Your honesty and plain speaking is greatly appreciated. Its good to get the closest juxtaposition to how things likely really were so long ago. My only comment regarding improving such a production (just a personal preference that may or may not resonate with others) is I think it is possible to overuse musical accompaniment. You have a good clear speaking voice. The information is compelling enough. I would suggest looking into selecting phases or moments where music can be best used to highlight. Otherwise it can get a little wearing. Well done.

[@cathjj840]

I sort of agree, although I generally just spontaneously tune it out. It never came into my consciousness as invasive or distracting.

[@theknave4415]

There is so much to learn about these topics and issues, that the more you learn, the more you realize how truly ignorant we really are, when it comes to ancient history. You're doing great work, Dan. Keep after it. ;)

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you! Yeah I agree, it's a never ending delve.

[@t_time5053]

@@zsbacskai7331 ok

[@jenellsaphid]

@@zsbacskai7331 history is a social science and it's useful for a lot of things... mainly in how events have shaped today.

[@Maddog3060]

It's really amazing looking back on these far periods of history. Our recent history as a civilization has massive, world changing events happening on a decade-by-decade basis, or even sooner. Even in the early modern period you had countries rising and falling in power in as little as a century; see Sweden as an example. But these periods of history that one may consider a mythic age lasted for as long, or longer than the time between us and the birth of Christ. What stories have we lost? What history was forgotten? Were there kingdoms? Wars? Heroes and villains? What stories did they tell each other. What explorers dared venture forth and bring back tales of far off lands? Sadly we have lost this information, and probably will never know. Something to mourn, I think.

[@adamgill537]

Beautifully put

[@vee1545]

Reading this gave me a wee shiver, well put

[@madderhat5852]

This is one of the best , concise shows I've seen on this topic. And here I am, an Australian whose ancestors come over in the Irish/British immigration waves of the mid 19th century. They came from the Liverpool area and County Cork. I wonder why the rush in from 4000bce to 3700bce? On day, post-covid, I'll get to Skara Brae as it's on my bucket list.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

[@aaron6178]

This was awesome. You made my Saturday super enjoyable. Thanks buddy. Your analysis is considered and well researched.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks! Most of the info is from the book The First Farmers of Europe.

[@seanwhelan879]

I absolutely love your channel , content is excellent 👌 and your narration is brilliant. Waiting on you're books to arrive. Great work. Peace all 🇮🇪

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you Sean! Much appreciated. I hope you enjoy my stories.

[@PortmanRd]

Makes you wonder how these islands would've developed had Boudicca been successful in kicking the Romans out of Britain.

[@dirksharp9876]

It's blowing up Dan! You deserve it.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you.

[@JBroughton2]

Amazing video, watched the whole thing, great work. This and Jive’s works, are the best out there bar none.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you, I appreciate that enormously.

[@edgarsnake2857]

Thanks for the timeline emphasis. It really helped to keep it all in perspective. Outstanding work. Thanks.

[@LeedsLyons]

Excellent work Dan, the narration of your videos is brilliant.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much.

[@mattrusingmail]

9:10 - I’ve been searching for this understanding of history for so long. Thank you so much.

[@norsemagicandbeliefs8134]

Really well put together videos! Always liked your history! Do you edit these yourself with stock footage? Or outsource the editing? Been thinking making more videos with this style

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks man, appreciate it! Yeah I edit with stock. It takes ages and having an editor would help but the editing is really how you tell the story isn't it so I don't know. Yours must take quite a bit of editing as well - bringing in so much text and images etc.

[@elizabethford7263]

I found your channel through Dan's. Great minds and all that.

[@norsemagicandbeliefs8134]

@@DanDavisHistory Yes takes too much time either way haha. Thank you! and good luck to our channels so we may grow and be able to pay editors to save us time someday

[@DanDavisHistory]

Yes indeed, I'm sure we will get there eventually. Your content is excellent.

[@staninjapan07]

Top-class work, Mr. Davis. It's a fascinating topic, and I was pleased to hear you openly speculating about what might have been. Liked. Subscribed.

[@jennifermcdonald5432]

Although I know I could not survive this kind of life, I can’t help but think that life must have incredibly beautiful. So very few people in the entire world, absolutely no pollution anywhere, very connected small groups of people living together. Of course it was a very hard life, lots of loss through death and illness, not to mention no pain killers.

[@oftin_wong]

A cracked tooth or a deep splinter could certainly end your time on earth back then

[@jennifermcdonald5432]

@@oftin_wong True, but you’d never be hit by a drunk driver, or get Covid-19 or the like. I know there were about a million you could die of, or suffer from with absolutely no help to be had, anywhere but the scenery would have been magnificent, and hopefully the people wouldn’t have learnt to be so horrible.

[@oftin_wong]

@@jennifermcdonald5432 oh look I agree, i know they found evidence of bone cancer, and arthritis on ancient skeletons, lots of injuries that healed over, lots of sooty smoke youd be breathing in living on top of a fire constantly ... not too sure about people being nicer, I'm sure that the spectrum of human emotions and human nature was identical to what it is today at all extremes. I reckon you wouldve seen the most wonderful things in nature To the point of knowing what animals were thinking and being able to predict their behaviour perfectly

[@e.priest8937]

@@jennifermcdonald5432 the people would still be people.

[@vaahtobileet]

@@jennifermcdonald5432 obviously you had disease back then as well

[@ronaldboulder308]

This kind of content is what the world needs.

[@Ghost2743]

Thanks for this, your channel is my favorite new subscription. And thank you for the tone, for not suggesting my people were completely wiped out. I realize it's only a thin slice of my ancestry in a way but I descend from an unbroken male line of the first men of Britain and Ireland. Their surviving of everything discussed in this video and everything after means a lot to my eyes.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Very cool

[@dirksharp9876]

That's actually incredible. I would have thought most of the men similar to that lineage would have came to Britain with Germanic peoples.

[@Ghost2743]

@@dirksharp9876 Most male haplogroups in Britain (R1b-L21) come from the bell beaker migration during the bronze age, followed by Germanic/Saxon lines (Mostly R1b-S21,R1a,I1), then Scandinavian (I1,I2,R1a) and native subclades of I2.

[@dirksharp9876]

@@Ghost2743 To my understanding most of the R1b that came to Britain via various Germanic migrations was R1b-U106. And since most I haplogroups in Britain overwhelmingly came from Germanic migrations, it makes it that much more rare that a modern man could be directly paternally descended from WHG there. That's quite a legacy.

[@Ghost2743]

@@dirksharp9876 In England yea actually R1b-L21, and -U106 would both be around 30%, but the former is much more common as you move north and or west, I'm used to thinking of it being more prevalent in the isles on the whole. But yea thanks man, def proud of my forefathers.

[@iceetmarne3571]

It's great to listen to your uploads Dan. I'd never really recognized how immersive your images were. Thank you.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you.

[@lesleeg9481]

Hedgehog wearing some lovely mushrooms - priceless. Thanks for this video. It fires the imagination to think about being a Mesolithic or Neolithic Briton.

[@kevinmccarthy8746]

I am from a VERY BRITISH state in America, called Massachusetts. The city of Boston is the capital of Massachusetts and is the second wealthiest state next to Connecticut. I was raised to love history and Archeology. I hope to go HANG GLIDING in England. The Glide Port is stationed 50miles North by North West of London. Great show thank you.

[@yuron8210]

ok

[@cyberedge881]

Your videos are absolutely exceptional.

[@manzelli1981]

Dan, your content has taken this 20th Century history geek and made him into an ancient history addict. Keep up the great work!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much indeed.

[@DinoFuzz1988]

Awesome vid! I especially love these long form vids. good vibes!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much!

[@citytrees1752]

Really well put together. Thanks for the calm voice over and the quiet - not overpowering - music (there could even be spots where you don't put music at all).

[@westower7898]

I found your level of detail in your research and your presentation so captivating, that I just went out and ordered The Wolf God. I'm eager to see if your level of wordsmithing equals your skill as a documentarian. If it does, I found another favorite author to read all their works eagerly.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you, I hope you enjoy the novella, Wes. If you read ebooks you can try any of my novels by downloading a 10% sample from Amazon. Cheers.

[@MaicoWeites]

How did I not find this channel earlier? Great video incorperating lots of the more recent findings!

[@jezusbloodie]

"Why do it the easy way when you can do it the hard way" - personal motto Please never stop making it not simple for yourself if that means this damn high quality content 💜

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much.

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

I can't wait for you to do a Bell-beakers video it's gonna be awesome. I hope you cover the Bell-beakers both continentally and in Britain. This video is awesome btw

[@spcm6781]

Hi Dan I know this video is 9 months old but I think I've watched this video 4 times now! I absolutely love it, it brings history to life. I'm fascinated by the neolithic period on these Isles. I live in Sligo Ireland. I'm surrounded by neolithic megalithics, its one of the richest part of Ireland for such sites. Carrowkeel in Sligo is several hundred years older than Newgrange.

[@adambane1719]

Yo bro, I grew up in Strandhill at the foot of Knocnarea

[@j1hnyny]

im from Sligo too!

[@alphabarbs]

4:20 "..masters of their Environment, although they never did much to change it..." Well - that's the very point of the thing; mastery of a thing doesn't require the destruction of a thing. I feel this one statement really underlines how messed up we are as a species atm, that we seem to assume that mastery requires destruction.

[@oftin_wong]

Not really, too many elephants also destroy their environment The planet wont even notice it, it's ok

[@Ometecuhtli]

Elephants are to the environment like lighting a match inside a volcano compared to what humanity does.

[@hearsomeevil9199]

He said change not destroy

[@sonoransaguaro3786]

@@hearsomeevil9199 🌵Well said, Chase!! Isn't it absolutely AMAZING... how MANY people misinterpret a thing simply by misreading it?!! "If it disturbs you, or upsets you, READ IT AGAIN!! Maybe, just MAYBE, you read it wrongly! No one is infallible!" 💖🌵🌺🌴🌼 P.S. The same thing holds true for "mis·hearing" ANY thing! Ask "a repeat please". This is why it IS so terribly important for people to have corrected hearing. It will eliminate so much unnecessary negativity in our lives, not to mention how much Joy it brings!! If we expect to educate our children properly, OR "re-educate" people in this time of misinformation, then they need to hear and see properly & fully!! Let's "go for it"! Let's make it a goal for all our people.

[@anthonysheppard1175]

After watching a couple of your videos I have now read a couple of your books and really enjoyed them.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks Anthony that's great.

[@dennisscott2516]

This is so well produced. This channel’s vids are bonkers. Meaning how can something this good exist for everyone.

[@benndanny12]

Hi Dan, I really enjoyed the video. It enormously clarified a lot of things for me. I just wanted to mention I read an article, a few month ago, that Mesolithic people seem to have formed a powerful elite at New Grange. Prestigious burial sites had individuals with Mesolithic DNA and there was also evidence they were inter breeding to a significant extent -like the Egyptian Pharos. Thanks again.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks Hugo. They weren't Mesolithic people, they were Neolithic people with Mesolithic ancestry. They certainly were inbreeding. There certainly seems to have been an elite rulership with significant Mesolithic ancestry who were possibly inbreeding in order to maintain their sacred Mesolithic bloodline and - perhaps - retain the black hair and blue eyes of their Mesolithic ancestors that marked them out as special.

[@benndanny12]

@@DanDavisHistory There's so much we don't know or understand about these times. Do you think it would be possible to interpret the Irish legends to see if this can shed light on their beliefs and culture?

[@DanDavisHistory]

Plenty of amateurs are sure. Academic anthropologists / folklorists etc are generally wary of committing to such things but I think it's quite likely. Even in the study we are discussing now they point out that one of the barrows was known in historical times as "The Hill of Sin" or "The Hill of Incest". So - amazingly - there is no doubt the memory / knowledge / legend certainly survived in some form for thousands of years.

[@benndanny12]

@@DanDavisHistory I read a paper by a Finnish academic, a couple of years ago, that investigated folk law in Portugal which were associated with dolmens. The presiding theme was a cow, a harp, a woman and a pot of gold. Other stories were associated with seasonal sheep movements as dictated by the night sky. There is a guy called Goran Pavlovic (Old Europe) who puts interesting interpretations on Ancient European folk law in Ireland and Serbia and has recently turned his attention to glazed images on pottery in Greece and the Middle East. Almost all of it relates to the seasons and planting times of different crops as indicated by the mating seasons of domestic and wild animals. Nikolai Tolstoy writes about British folk law. Some of his interpretations of the early saints are very interesting but other things are a bit doubtful on further analysis. I think it's possible but very hard.

[@claudiosaltara7003]

Despite my caustic comments, I like you videos. The photography is excellent and your delivery is clear and the expose’ of this ancient and obscure period is magisterial.

[@Eldude93]

Damn Epic, Dan!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks! It's an epic tale to be sure.

[@loveoaks]

Thanks!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much

[@sebvillars]

This is an incredibly well presented history of the period. Waw! Cheers from a French-speaking Swiss listener.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you.

[@Melkimund]

loved the video! I learn so much! i found the segment at 19:02 particularly interesting, have revisited that part a few times now to really grasp the content.

[@jamienelson3470]

Absolutely fascinating, as usual!

[@RaySawhill]

Nicely done, very informative and enjoyable, many thanks.

[@olinayoung6287]

Spectacularly good!! I’m only 3/4s of the way through because every second is packed! But wanted to comment & thumbs before more time goes by. Thanks so much ⭐️✨☀️⭐️✨!!!

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you! So glad you're enjoying it.

[@therationalcollection2999]

It's funny. Ive been to 42 countries and caught many planes.. but yet I'm still jealous to understand the feeling of discovery these people must have felt ferrying over their livestock from Europe

[@missourimongoose7643]

Imagine seeing your first Irish elk (the largest of the deer species) it had horns that were over 10 feet across

[@DanDavisHistory]

Pretty sure they were long extinct by this point but yes they were truly magnificent creatures.

[@alfredoaohansen7468]

@@missourimongoose7643 How many toes are 10 feet

[@Atroposian]

VERY good work! Thank you for putting it all into context.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Much appreciated!

[@dracodistortion9447]

so glad i found your channel! havet read your books but you certainly give great KZbin videos, I might just have to read your stories 🤔

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much I appreciate it.

[@dracodistortion9447]

@@DanDavisHistory of course mate 👌🏻

[@delivertilidie8356]

Love how in depth you get. Very interesting period of history.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you. It is fascinating isn't it.

[@delivertilidie8356]

@@DanDavisHistory It has always amazed me how people were willing to move great distances with so many unknown dangers around them. The whole mining aspect is very interesting as well. What made people first think of turning ore into metal or how to even do it ? Thanks for taking the time to educate us.

[@Maracanazo50]

Dan could you do a video on the history and progression of ancient peoples sailing and their most impressive voyages? I can’t wrap my head around how time after time people were able to reach new lands. Also it’s incredible they even considered it an option to go into the unknown of water

[@DanDavisHistory]

Yes the subject has been requested by patreon supporters and is on the video list. I agree it's an amazing subject.

[@Maracanazo50]

@@DanDavisHistory I’ll be on the lookout for it thanks!

[@alayneperrott9693]

Beautifully presented and really enjoyable.

[@ianbeddowes5362]

I am utterly fascinated by the Neolithic culture.

[@helenfawcett9685]

Fascinating, both for understanding the deep history, and the process of research for wriitng. Thank you!

[@talanigreywolf7110]

Time Team is coming back thanks to Tim Taylor's efforts to revive it. They already have two digs under their belts, with several more prospective sites listed. They best part, in my own opinion, is they've named their command vehicle, a beautiful RV, "The Mick Mobile"!

[@timthorne381]

Fantastic thank you. It is clear you have done extensive research, but distill this to the main conclusions. Thereby creating a great in-depth account of the events in an acessable formate. Impressed that you underplay the research you must have spent days doing. Thank you.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. Yes it was quite a lot of work - the real trick with a complex subject is indeed making it as simple as is possible.

[@johnarmlovesguam]

Fascinating tales from the past well-told. Thanks Dan.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you.

[@iambenk]

Wow, great video. And probably your best one until now. I really enjoyed it.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Glad you enjoyed it, thank you.

[@jamienelson3470]

Apropos of nothing, the hedgehog with the mushrooms stuck all over was the very best.

[@ellerose9164]

Yes so cute🦔

[@arynheath2381]

That feeling that their lives seem just out of reach is something that has haunted me all my adulthood.

[@doggerlanddk664]

Remember Doggerland

[@OblateSpheroid]

Wonder what the chances of human DNA ever being recovered from Doggerland are. Would love to see how well represented populations from there were in Neolithic Britain. Could have been mostly replaced by later groups.

[@sawahtb]

Exactly, that's how the cattle got to Britain.. not sure about Ireland, but a calf isn't as big ..

[@DanDavisHistory]

That isn't how the cattle got to Britain. Doggerland was gradually submerged by rising seas until it was finished off in about 6200 BC.

[@runedyrting8476]

@@DanDavisHistory Other videos on Utube claim that Doggerland existed to a degree until 4000 BC. And it is a much more likely explanation to assume that cows were driven overland.

[@DanDavisHistory]

They're wrong and the cows weren't driven over land.

[@casualcommanders230]

Fantastic and well researched videos Dan. Thank you. Also, at 18:34 I noticed something interesting… that’s where I live:)

[@bremnersghost948]

Great stuff as always Dan, Could you please do a Video on the Thornborough Henges? One of/If not The Largest Prehistoric Earthwork Sites in Britain. Yet barely covered by Historians and very little on YT. Make a great setting for a Book too ;-)

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you! Funny you say that, I had that area in my script but I cut it out because the video was already so long (I also cut out a whole 5 mins on stone circles). But yes it's a fascinating area and a great example of what I was talking about when I said ritual landscape with sites linked by cursus. Can't promise a dedicated vid but I will make more Neolithic videos for sure - there's so much more to say. Cheers.

[@joycewycoff3061]

Curious about why you think it's a great setting for a book. I'm planning a month of exploration this fall, mainly research but with an eye on a book location. Would love to hear your thoughts.

[@bremnersghost948]

@@joycewycoff3061 Hi Joyce, Where to begin, The beauty of the landscape there, The Scale of the Henges, The amount of other monuments in the surrounding area eg Star Carr, Perhaps most importantly for an author, Nobody else has yet based books there lol. Since original comment, The whole site has been donated to English Heritage so hopefully there will be serious archaeology done there now its not privately owned.

[@cecileroy557]

I subscribed a while ago. I LOVE your channel. Your voice is pleasant and extremely easy to listen! Sometimes I leave certain well-researched channels because they are so difficult to listen to.

[@kclark3188]

Thanks for the reference and images of Time Team. Have watched them all several times over.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Me too.

[@cathjj840]

For those who don't know the Time Team series, besides being so interesting from a historical and archeological standpoint they have two other characteristics that hook their watchers: seeing the participants' rich, interpersonal interaction among the disparate professionals and others: with real camaradery, humor and respectfully dealing with disagreements; and as therapy for hurting souls. As for the latter, it was astonishing to read the number of comments mentioning the good these shows did for people's psychological well-being!! Sometimes it was only as a sleep aid (not from getting bored but from feeling calmed down enough to fall asleep), but for others they were a serious help in dealing with trauma. They're all available on YT.

[@nataliajimenez1870]

Love how carefully you craft these videos even though you're not a historian. You have genuine curiosity to figure out how these ancient people lived that is often missing from most popular history videos

[@tct84]

One of the more interesting aspects was your thought experiment on what might have been. I’ve never thought about them reaching the heights of the Minoans if left to their own devices, very thought provoking take.

[@thetnsm3319]

I'm truly in love with your channel. An excellence trough the tube.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you, I appreciate that. 🙏

[@bencopeland3560]

Excellent work as always. Voted Neolithic in your recent poll and this was just what I hoped for. Love the long form too! The last five minutes of this are chilling (but only if you put in the full 48 min so don’t cheat yourselves people). Side note, I sure hope your agent is beating down Joe Rogan’s door. You’d be the perfect guest and your stuff is too good not to be exposed to a broader audience.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you!

[@victoriahhigman9611]

Thanks

[@victoriawilliams6156]

Again, another well-made well presented video.

[@margaretford1011]

Thank you for this! Crossing a sea with full grown cattle is quite the feat. I wonder if a younger group might have sought new lands carrying calves given to them by their parents out of the communal herd and I wonder what their boats looked like….

[@TheHiddenHistoryChannel]

Another great video. Very comprehensive.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

[@KnightsWithoutATable]

Thanks for putting this video out. I have been looking at this time period for inspiration for making a RPG setting that would involve different eras and how the monuments like Stonehenge and the complex in the Orkney Islands would tie into the religions, cultures, cosmology, and even more fantastical elements, like older peoples tied to the land and traveling between the ages and locations by use of magic.

[@massonman9099]

Amazing. Well told, lovely video.

[@AmandaSamuels]

Very interesting video, Dan. I strongly recommend that you do a tour of the archeological sites of Orkney. It will stimulate your imagination and help you feel closer to the Neolithic people. The stone there doesn't weather much so when it can be hard to tell between a stone wall built recently or one built thousands of years ago. I feel they must have had some sort of ancestor cult that led them want to spent time communing with the bodies of their dead ancestors in spaces which you have to crawl into and must have felt extraordinary. One detail that you didn't include but helps to picture the scene is that the sheep of the Neolithic were not woolly. Woolly sheep must have come in the Bronze Age. So we need to picture the Neolithic people wearing clothing made of animal hides perhaps similar to the sort worn by Native Americans in North America.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you! You're right - long wool sheep were developed maybe from about 4000 BC and certainly by 3000 BC probably on the western steppe. We know that woollen thread was traded from the steppe herders into Mesopotamia from about 3000 BC but of course warm woollen clothing was more appropriate in the north than in the middle east. People also used linen clothing from even earlier than this time but in northern Europe when wool became widespread linen was far less common. And in cold places people would have used furs extensively.

[@oldmedic3216]

Thank you for this amazing video. Your explanations and analysis are phenomenal. You have definitely peaked my interest in the Neolithic period. Yes, I have subscribed.

[@oltyret]

Land rush? Sounds familiar. In fact, there were a lot of land rushes in North America and European farmers displaced North American Hunter Gatherers. Land would be...reserved for the Hunter Gatherers. Then, due to population pressure, it would be opened up. Some leapfrogged ahead to get there...Sooner? Dan Davis, you have a historical model for what may have happened in Neolithic Britain in the colonization of North America, Australia and South Africa.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Yeah you're right - I think there are many historical and prehistorical examples of this process! Actually I was thinking about this recently as I've been reading a bit about the Bantu expansions and there were periods of rapid migration just like this. The Bantu people were also farmers and this gave them a huge numbers advantage over the native hunter gatherer peoples in the Congo and Southern Africa. Some of these Bantu speaking groups would settle in the new lands and others kept going in different directions. They were astonishingly successful in all different environments.

[@catmomjewett]

Dan, that was amazing. Thank you. 💛

[@ReubenAStern]

Good work. I like how you portray them as hard working resilient people. i think it's obvious they were, but some people just want to think aliens did everything, or would use magical gods as a crutch so they don't have to think about character development.

[@lilaotearoa5399]

Amazing content man.

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you.

[@daviddalberg6255]

Awesome effort and love the video, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for! In the colonization graph around 12:00, is there any sense as to the population density? Such an aggressive settlement pattern over the whole of the isles would seem to indicate denser source populations, but surely they couldn't have been at this stage? Were they in the 10s or 100s of thousands?

[@DanDavisHistory]

Thank you very much. With regards to the population density - the density was not so high that it explains the speed and spread of the geographic expansion. That is what is so unusual about the speed of colonisation - or rather the post-colonisation expansion. They had no apparent need to move so far away from one another, over and over again. A successful generation of children could quite easily have moved to the edges of their parent generation's land and clear the forests there. However in Britain during the first centuries these groups must have decided to spread further away than they needed to. If there was economic necessity we can't see it so presumably there were cultural drivers. It was different to this in earlier cultures in central Europe where you see for example the Michelsberg culture increasing in population density as the spaces between settlements were gradually "filled in" over time - as well as creeping growth at the edges of the cultural area. Once population density reached a presumed "critical mass" there was a sudden migration north into Jutland and across the Channel into Britain (and subsequent depopulation of the Michelsberg culture area due to thousands of people leaving). Perhaps the migrants had some memory of this crowding period they wanted to avoid. I don't know. As for specific numbers - I don't know if there are any serious attempts to quantify it. The studies we're basing this on looked at a range of evidence, some local, some national. Some studies looked at pollen counts for either woodland or cereal crops or field weeds, others hazelnut quantities (hazel colonises cleared forest first and therefore shows secondary forest regrowth), others settlement samples. The weight of evidence clearly shows the geographic distribution and demographic trends but putting numbers on these periods is tricky but it MIGHT be about 250,000 at the peak. Maybe more.

[@daviddalberg6255]

@@DanDavisHistory Thanks so much for such an in depth answer! Crazy to think there was barely a quarter million people in the British Isles, pushing so aggressively towards the extremities of the known world. Fearless folk to be sure!