Time Team S10-E03 Carsington,.Derby

Time Team travels to the Peak District to uncover the story behind a grisly discovery; a mysterious collection of human bones in a deep cave in Derbyshire.

[@biancacastafiore383]

As a Illustrator I love the art of victor ambrus, how he can draw these big nosed iron age people instantaniously.

[@judeirwin2222]

Instantaneously.

[@ianscott9396]

Look up is history it's an amazing story.

[@eboracum2012]

Absolutely. It's no wonder his horses leap off the page with his cavalry background...not to mention his vampires and goats/trolls.

[@fredgrove4220]

Time Team is the most therapeutic program ever aired on any TV channel,

[@lindasue8719]

fred grove Best observation, ever!

[@mamavswild]

True; I’m going through depression after a great loss a couple years ago, and for a while there I was unable to sleep without time team on...it’s better now but I still like to have it on.

[@amherst88]

There's a great episode where they dig Saxon remains at a modern military site assisting a group of injured British soldiers who are the primary diggers -- much meaningful testimony from the soldiers about the therapeutic value of the series -- here's the link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jaCqeICkrdN5eJI

[@harbourdogNL]

How utterly bizarre. And hats off to Katie & Alice archaeologists & brave babes to boot. I would't go down that cave.

[@Go-Dawgs]

"What a cow has crapped in the trench has it Phil? Afraid it has Mick." My favorite conversation lol

[@dalekundtz760]

Another great video done by TT. Am proud of people like Katie, Phil and others recovering these remains and showing respect for each and every life that was represented there. RIP to all the adult and children found here.

[@victoriaeads6126]

Andy Currant is one of my favorite occasional TT members. This guy, he's over the moon about vole teeth the way Phil is about flint tools 💜💜💜

[@lizzy66125]

shame he wasn't on more episodes,only remember the Cheddar Gorge and Elveden.

[@Libbathegreat]

@@lizzy66125 I believe he was also in the "Bone Cave" episode in Alveston, Gloucester (s08e09). Reijer doesn't have it but it's on the official Time Team channel.

[@Maunakea0]

I remembered these big noses, lying awake in bed just now, I remembered watching this when I was eight or nine in the 90’s on TV. Amazed that I could find it by searching for “big nose archeology BBC”. What a world.

[@sc0ttishlass]

Wow you must be a time traveller if you have seen that season of TT in the 90s as season ten was on air in early 2003

[@ian_b]

@@sc0ttishlass Memory plays tricks. Maunakea probably both watched TT in the 90s as a child, and saw this on TV in 2003, and his brain constructed a memory that combines the two. This is why it's so dangerous relying purely on memory for legal cases, the further back we remember the more flaky it gets.

[@patrickomeagher9868]

Great show as always. Imagine though, going into a prehistoric cavern with a skull partially encased in stone in an area full of the bones of infants. A slimy, murky cave with minimal clearance all around under a foggy landscape covered in hills and boulders. It's enough to give modern people nightmares, let alone people in the past. In the misty outdoor shots, you can almost imagine faceless hooded figures and wicker golems with animal skulls and antlers. It's easy to see why ancient people thought caves like this were gateways to the underworld. I have to wonder how often the crew got the heebie jeebies.

[@polaide8036]

What a trooper Katie is, kudos! I'm not particularly claustrophobic, but not sure I'd get very far down in that cave.

[@lindasue8719]

"I made a sharpish retreat"… Not like me who would've been screaming and scrambling 😄 Seriously though, what a story! The stuff that Hollywood movies are made of!

[@angelitabecerra]

Talk about an extreme excavation. Kudos to everyone working so hard to rescue archeology in this cave. Especially the ones who went down into the chambers and risked their lives.

[@miekekuppen9275]

Infant mortality was often high before modern medicine. Maybe putting dead infants into a narrow cave felt like putting them back into the womb, giving them a chance to be born again - either with their own mother´s next pregnancy or to a stranger.

[@Inglott]

I also saw the womb-like symbology with the cave and the infant bones.

[@horseradishpower9947]

An interesting idea, and one that could be correct. Should be strongly considered, at any rate.

[@a.westenholz4032]

Burial in general has in many cultures (whether as primary or second stage of death rituals) been likened to a return to the womb. It is the whole idea of seeing the earth as a mother so whether it is in a cave, mound, in whatever shape or form, that ritual of putting them into the ground (eventually) could be conceived that way, even with those who might have been kept for generations as bones by their descendants. I think with the cave the symbolism though would have been more obvious and striking, and having better preserved all those infant bones that are usually lost just gives us a better picture of infant mortality.

[@mimiboulanger2358]

Beautifully expressed! This is exactly what came to mind as I was watching.

[@Rincypoopoo]

Good comment. These folk were really into their ancestors.They believed in spirits. Did they remove that man's legs because he was a nasty person and they didn't want his spirit to walk ? Were the children there so that they could play together ? I suspect that Mick is correct. That was just a good place for the preservation of thin baby bone. It rots away elsewhere.

[@evelyneweissenborn8231]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how terrifying it must have been as a bronze age person to crawl into those caves in UTTER DARKNESS?? Even with the benefit of electric lighting those caves looked far to treacherous for any sane person to navigate safely...perhaps more then a few of those fellows down there were not just placed buy others, but simply fell in or couldn't get out...

[@diannew6066]

Apparently most commenters here can't take a moment to be anything other than silly and juvenile. I wonder why they even bother to watch videos like this.

[@Pauldjreadman]

We can only imagine.

[@eboracum2012]

@@diannew6066 Whereas "long time youtube people" like @alanrtment porter has been informing the rest of us since as long ago as 2011 ;-) I myself am a stark newcomer and I admit it.

[@andyhastings5950]

Maybe 3500 to 4000 years ago the weren't as tight as now. Earth moves all the time. Just look at the rock falls.

[@judeirwin2222]

Too treacherous, not “to”.

[@junestanich7888]

Amazing Phil, he’s got a sixth sense about where to find stuff.

[@jomakwee]

Actually thought that Stewart's GPS hat was a joke... Turns out it was real. Haha

[@kristianstipe]

Me too. Especially with the dildo looking thing on the top of it :D

[@t.j.payeur739]

Hoy God..I'm a Mohawk halfbreed, I'll climb a tower 250 feet in the air but you couldn't drag me in to that cave, you'd have to kill me first..even if Alice is in there..no way...

[@maxb4074]

I don't know.... maybe with Dr. Alice Roberts

[@ArmchairDeity]

LMAO @ “even if Alice is in there” 😂😅 I’m so with you, brother! I’m white as the driven snow, American - but every bit as descended from English, Irish, Welsh and Scandinavian as anyone in the episode… and you couldn’t drag me in to that cave alive OR dead. I swear my ghost would collapse the cave first. 😖😅😂

[@ArmchairDeity]

Actually I have to admit that watching the cavers transit the entrance and tunnels occasionally causes me to catch my breath and look away from the screen… I am DEFINITELY NOT a submariner or an astronaut! 😂😅

[@janielaurel]

As I look at the overhead shots at the close of this episode I can't help but wonder what ARE those "holes" or "pits" around the cave. Fascinating episode that still leaves a lot of questions unanswered :D

[@spacelemur7955]

They have the appearance of small sink holes. That whole ridge looks like pitted, dissolving limestone. Don't forget that above the present surface use to be a lot more rock, so the pits could be the bottom of caves long gone. The various strata would have different characteristics, such that there could be little continuation of karst formation spanning them vertically. All this is highly speculative, and I wish they would have had a geologist on site.

[@BoredCertified]

Oh no, no, no, no! The cave is terrifying! My claustrophobia would kick right off!

[@lindasue8719]

BoredCertified I had to fast forward through parts of it! I couldn't believe that one guy tossing stones around, and then brought a bunch more down! In that split-second between he did it and it happened I was asking myself "what the hell is he doing!?" Then they worm their way to the third cave. No, thanks!!

[@AFatalPapercut]

especially that part where one person pulls another feet first through a hole....nope nope nope

[@lucygray6162]

That was too many people in one little bitty place, not to mention the camera and sound man. No way. Too many to get out in an emergency.

[@tommyfred6180]

the cavers a laughing about the rock falls. but what they are doing down there is extremely dangerous. I suspect they are trying to keep the atmosphere of the dig light to try to stop the time team people getting to scared.

[@wieldwords]

One of the most fascinating - if slightly heartstopping - episodes of the series imo. I also love that Dr Alice has a favo(u)rite bone. She’s a gem.

[@paulbriody297]

I can't stand being confined, they are much braver than I could ever be in such circumstances. Fascinating.

[@hughgordon9527]

Anyone else think the kids were going back to the womb? How about the Roman lady being the native wife of a roman officer dying in child birth and the officer respecting her dying wishes for the baby??

[@tessat338]

A lot of babies didn't survive birth. Infant mortality was high until the 19th century.

[@asburycollins9182]

Actually it was much higher in the 19th century than on earlier periods. Also it seems people in the country side had a sigiifficantly lower infant mortality rate.

[@AnnBearForFreedom]

"Andy has gone flaccid." What? I'm sorry, what??? Oh. Never mind."

[@kimepp2216]

Wouldn't it be interesting to compare the dna of all the remains to see their relationships.

[@graceamerican3558]

It was giving me the heebee geebees just watching them crawling around in there. The thought of being stuck … 🥺. Those poor babies.

[@semisophisticate63]

I bet a hot shower felt good at the end of the day for those cavers. Brave!

[@estherwhittle5860]

Love Time Team.

[@andrewschmidt5312]

V. V.

[@MsRain49]

This is one of the most interesting episodes I've seen. There is just so much to it.

[@johngadsby1526]

Our ancestors had more feeling for their relatives that we do today!!

[@VictorRochaGaming]

Love Dr. Pearson. Next to Phil, he has my favorite English accent.

[@MaryAnnDaniell]

Agree! He is so calm and precise. Easy on the ears.

[@kevinmcneill468]

I think he played or plays rugby!

[@harperoconnor5285]

Because of course if you find a skull, you name the place Yorick... ROFL!

[@andyhastings5950]

Explain Flacid without mentioning the little Blue pill will cure it 😱😱

[@lizzy66125]

fascinating site!I have read the report on this site,well worth a read.

[@meganw.4457]

Wouldn't a cave burial be a rather strange thing for a Roman? Unless maybe she was Romano-celtic and wanted to go the way of her ancestors.

[@littledikkins2]

or for some reason the local British buried her.

[@mch12311969]

"Katie bring me back a bone" out of context that sounds sinister

[@sharimullinax3206]

Mike Parker-Pierson would sound good reading the phone book!

[@slhughes1267]

The neo-natals might possibly be stillborns or deaths just after being born that were given to the Fae in that underground cave--a Between place, making it perfect for giving the infants to the Fae so that the infants may live forever.

[@victoriaeads6126]

I thought about that possibility, too. There is too large a concentration of neonate remains unless you've got either stillborn/neonatal deaths dedicated to the fae/spirits/gods...or the horrible possibility of child sacrifice to the same. I suppose it's possible that many other sites simply aren't the right conditions far preserving such delicate remains, but this still seems like an intense concentration.

[@stannousflouride8372]

The mouth if the cave us here on Google Earth: 53.079787ºN, 1.640982ºW And the barrow is here: 53.082648ºN, 1.641187ºW

[@cojones8518]

Neolithic time out room. They didn't play around back then. The others are a Roman archeology team that got caught in a cave in.

[@lindasue8719]

Always a treat to see Andy!

[@jcortese3300]

Wow, a dangerous, crazy spelunking episode and Carenza's not down there! Every time they seem to plumb the depths of some scary cave, it's always her who ends up in the cave.

[@cojones8518]

8:00 Holds up bone needle. Twenty seconds later, holds up deer antler with cuts in the exact same size and shape as the needle. "We have no idea what it was used for."

[@Dal606BBN]

Maybe the man with the missing legs was put down the cave alive so he couldn't walk back out or maybe so he couldn't walk into the afterlife. We'll never know but I do Love The Time Team!!

[@ian_b]

I would totally help Katie and Alice find a bone in Flasid. I know. I'll get me coat.

[@mamavswild]

😂😂

[@Libbathegreat]

Came down looking for this comment, was not disappointed.

[@ian_b]

@@Libbathegreat Glad to be of service!

[@bertrandlechat4330]

Perhaps those who lived here were a bit too closely related, and newborns often didn't survive.

[@meemurthelemur4811]

Infants often didn't survive anyways, why would you assume incest?

[@lucygray6162]

@@meemurthelemur4811 As in all small communities over a period of time, intermarrying happened until genetic mistakes happened. Still goes on today. There was simply no one else to mate with.

[@DragonFae16]

My theory is that the infant skeletons belong to infants that were either stillbirths or infants that died in infancy. And they were placed in the cave as a way to unite them with the ancestors, or something akin to that.

[@yank1776]

No Way would I go down there. Those folks are nuts.

[@hughgordon6435]

Any one get all teatime at the thought of a roman soldier taking a local girl as wife and promising her a traditional burial, and fulfilling that promise?

[@johanneswerner1140]

The noses give me an extreme Monty Python vibe."Oi, bignose"

[@suwaidajalal]

I have to say that the illustrations are smashing. They talk about stuff that most of the times is difficult to picture and then their artist sketches it and the period comes to vivid life. It's something that the later 3D art somehow just doesn't seem to capture. I'm sure, though, if they revived the show now, we would get better electronically created art, more access, and the addition of DNA mapping and phenotyping.

[@kevingouldrup9265]

As soon as I saw Dr.Mike Parker Pearson @ 11:22 I thought I was looking at a young Peter Ustinov! lol

[@2gulfalco]

My heart lurched when I thought dear Alice and Katie might get hurt 😮 such a strange feeling to get when watching this show....

[@davidshelow5334]

Day Two, the team is lost on the Barrow Downs, like Tolkien's hobbits.

[@saveusmilkboy]

17:01 "Including the clavicle, which is my favourite..." Alice, do you have a favourite bone?! Is this a common thing for archaeologists and anthropologists to have? And why the clavicle, of all bones? I am not judging, I am just wondering...

[@christianpatriot7439]

If this cave is so dangerous to be in now, how different did it have to be thousands of years ago for people with much more primitive technology to get safely into in order to bury anyone? And what's the probability that the cave remained in local human memory well enough to be in use from the Stone Age to Roman times?

[@Whatareyouareyou]

Was more than likely not filled with crud and was generally more stable

[@a.westenholz4032]

I did wonder if people had brought stones into the cave as part of burying them there. It is easier to lower baskets or stones into a cave, gradually piling them up with each subsequent burial, than dragging them out from what has become an unstable pile stones and rubble. No doubt that some of the rubble was naturally formed within the cave itself by water, which probably gave people the idea. It wouldn't take a all that many stones to cover each burial, but it would add up over thousands of years.

[@Libbathegreat]

ANDY! Never forget him as the paleolithic horse in season 6 (the one with Lord Bath)!

[@miarosagreen8672]

proof here that gnomes and tolkien dwarves existed! he didn't make it all up you know ;-)

[@alanatolstad4824]

Day 2 Fog! We call that June Gloom where I live in Central Coast California (which follows our May Gray!)

[@JETWTF]

Join us in central valley and get to love the hot dry air where your sweat dries too fast to cool you off by June and August is just miserable like July. Otherwise hello neighbor! So care to head to Redwoods or Tahoe in June or July for a weekend vacation?

[@CanChikMay]

Interest8ng!

[@paulbriody297]

'Gloopier and gloopier, said Alice!'

[@jppcasey]

Katie is absolutely cute as heck.

[@annk.8750]

Perhaps the high number of infant bones indicates a high mortality rate due to inbreeding of a small population. The evidence of the noses and the evidence of the "barrow for this valley, cave for the other valley" suggests that there might not have been much gene mixing with other groups.

[@LordPubeck]

Never mind the lovely Dr Alice - Victor's sketches at 41:18 are beautiful!!

[@allenhonaker4107]

Imagine it's the year 3500 and these guys descendents are holding your skull up to the camera. Perhaps you should rethink the expensive funeral and burial. Donate your bodies and remember that memorials are only temporary.

[@davekinghorn9567]

Alice Roberts(caver) has her own Archaeology TV shows now.

[@Pauldjreadman]

Them caves, holy Jesus. They need a stiff drink after that.

[@davidlowe5204]

Skeletons not water-sorted, gnawed or butchered, so laid there by man. The pasture is riddled with lead workings back to Roman times. Any sign T'Owd Man came across them in his fossicking?

[@Pikkugen]

Those people with huge noses remind me of the depictions of Scandinavian Trolls. Now we know where they went... or where they came from.

[@judeirwin2222]

Did anyone speculate on whether the man with the severed limb might have had this treatment to prevent him from “coming back” from the afterlife? This kind of practice - either breaking legs or turning the head 180 degrees on the neck so a wandering spirit could not find its way home, was known in Britain and other countries into the 17th century. Maybe that chap was considered a bad egg. But if so, why was he honoured by being placed in a sacred cave?

[@peanut71968]

Well folks, if you ever discover I’m missing, worry not for I won’t be found in a cave!

[@bilgeratjim]

I watched this episode to see Dr. Alice and Katie mud wrestle. No such luck, lol.

[@JETWTF]

Andy Currant not talking about voles and getting excited about their significance is kinda missed in this episode. Ok there was Dr. Alice Roberts to cheer me up.

[@DarrylWilletttoy4rn85]

Alice and Katie are part of another show called Extreme Archaeology. Go figure.....😊

[@keolas6916]

I just watched those. The show doesn't do them justice at all. More stupid drama than science.

[@tphvictims5101]

3:23 😆👍🏻 Time Team Gold

[@gregb6469]

So Jimmy Durante's ancestors were buried here?

[@andyhastings5950]

I wonder why all the small excavations? Some even in lines. Are these possibly earlier robber excavators at work?

[@johngadsby1526]

It was clearly a Sacred Place and that continued for thousands of years!!!

[@OstblockLatina]

The multiple skulls and bones of newborns might be hinting to infanticide in the context of disposing of babies that were unwanted for whatever reason (most frequently the lack of sufficient resources to feed and raise them, i.e. babies born right before or during Winter, or just being too much burden to already large families regardless of the season of the year). Elsewhere people would just bring the babies into the woods and leave them to die, but where there were no woods in the neighborhood, the cave would be a logical alternative. Such practices continued sometime after christianisation of Europe, especially in the country where, according to old traditions, a baby that didn't yet taste earthly food wasn't considered a real human being yet.

[@lvlister2005]

Ohhh Ahhh Alice :P

[@MiriamStrawberries]

Wouldn't it be natural to find a lot of dead infants in a place, where adults were clearly closely related? That tends to lead to rising infant mortality. Also about the cutmarks on one of the adult bones; I bet the bodies were not carried there as whole, you saw how hard it was to move there. So they probably cut the body in bits or took the flesh away, and just transported the bones.

[@gazzaboo8461]

Finally, we've found the ancestral line of Barry Manilow's nose.

[@BladeRunner21577]

Yeah! What happens in Derbyshire stays in Derbyshire.

[@maxb4074]

Flaccid and gloopy

[@carlymoore1935]

This was my second sample match from the bronze age ,on my true ancestry'.

[@svennielsen633]

These people are crazy!

[@CreatingwithWinglessAngel]

I just once want to meet the time team. To bad they ended the show.

[@Terri5101]

I reckon they were way too closely related and the babies were either killed for being born deformed, or stillborn

[@Wally-H]

I sometimes wonder if they simply had too many children. No birth control in those days, after all, so maybe they made offerings to their Gods in order to get rid of some of them

[@meemurthelemur4811]

@@Wally-H a much more likely scenario than incest, especially since there's no mention of deformities (which, btw, is a highly exaggerated fantasy of sick pricks and scifi fans). It would not have been unheard of, if the tribe was short on resources or were experiencing bad weather or warfare for them to have either killed or left the infants to die in order to reduce the strain on their resources.

[@johnanthonyfingleton2954]

Could it be possible that the cave was so small that children were 'forced' to bring adult bones into it and were then left there as a sacrifice?

[@tessjuel]

No. There have been many studies on infant and child mortality rates of various cultures throughout history and the estimates the researchers have managed to come up with are remarkably consistent from the neolithic period all the way up to the 15th century and all across the globe: About a quarter of people who were born died in their first year and about half died before they reached puberty. The only thing unusual about this particular ancient burial site is that the tender bones from the small children lasted so long.

[@lindasue8719]

🎶"It's a caver's life for me!" 🎶 NOT! 😄

[@spacelemur7955]

There has been ongoing research in the two decades since Time Team visted the site. KZbin will not let me post a link (😠), but if you use your favourite magic site finder, the following will take you to a very nice summary dated 2021 by Dr Tom Booth. The new info far exceeds what Time Team could produce 20 years ago. Carsington Pasture Cave A National Site of Significant Archaeological Importance

[@lizzy66125]

I have just read the article...,tried to share the link but it wont let me .

[@Chubachus]

"Does my bum look big in this?"

[@twothreebravo]

Ooo Aaahh

[@WashuHakubi4]

Who else but Time Team could bring us a spelunking tease?

[@LarryThePhotoGuy]

The expert looks a lot like Peter Ustinov.

[@davidmitchell9575]

Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well...

[@wewenang5167]

WOW THIS EPISODE IS THE MOST AMAZING AND EERIE FOR ME! THAT BURIAL CAVE MUST BE A BURIAL FOR THE SAME COMMUNITY AND FAMILY FOR 4000 YEARS. THE FAMILY OF BIG NOSES LMAO...PERHAPS WITH DNA TECHNOLOGY NOW WE CAN FIND IF THEY GOT ANY RELATIVE THAT STILL ALIVE TODAY. OR...JUST LOOK FOR A BIG NOSE FOLKS IN DERBY XD.

[@steveharris4958]

Derafunk...How would you know? Related?

[@KYIRISH1]

He's talking about me here in Kentucky and my English/ Irish ancestors I suppose. No big deal, everybody has to be somewhere. On the subject...This cave looks way too unstable to me. I'm used to exploring Mammoth Cave with its vast caverns and 400 miles of passageways. Zillions of bats clinging to the walls also but they are in some kind of hibernation.

[@bluewolf993]

37:55 Dairy cows randomly grazing in the background.

[@Fox1nDen]

the barrow burials imply the bereft had time to bury carefully. the cave burials imply times of violence, as when invaders kill the small children to enslave th adult women. the severed knees imply death in combat or punishment for a crime one would use on a rebellious slave. The cave suggests an invasion to me in ancient times. The barrow skulls were from peaceful times after that, or before that based on the carbon dating. Starving people groups chose whether or not to keep their newborns based on food availability. People buried in the cave were under duress.

[@sergehalytsky]

So Peter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronimus Bosch were painting not caricatures, but natural big nosed people???

[@joshuahjfarquharm.3269]

It really makes you wonder how much of our history we don't know. I mean they really look bizarre like a different subspecies. They should really try to do some genetic testing on those bones.

[@delphinazizumbo8674]

The Cave of Skulls The Cave of the Legless Man

[@blaggercoyote]

Does my bum look big in this? Hahaha. Yes!