Programme 1
Prehistory
Right across Wales there are monuments to a long-lost civilization that are thousands of years old. Stone circles and standing stones are dotted across the country, but if you plot the distributions of cromlechs around the country, there is a clear pattern. The majority of these ancient stone burial chambers are located close to the Welsh coastline.
- Dover Boat
This strongly suggests that our ancestors had the ability to sail around the coast when these monuments were built, around 5,000 years ago. However, since there is so little archaeological evidence from these ancient settlements, it’s difficult to guess what kind of vessels they had.
But there are some clues in the ‘Dover Boat’, the earliest example of a boat that has come to light in Britain. These remains were discovered lying deep under the town centre 15 years ago, and the Welsh maritime expert Owain Roberts was instrumental in deducing the boat’s original shape.
9:00PM Tuesday
Repeated on S4C Digidol 9:00PM Saturday
with English Subtitles