England Had INDUSTRY 5,000 Years Ago?! | North American Reacts

[00:00:00]Hey, you guys. Welcome back to the channel. We've got another video here from English Heritage, and this one actually seems really, really cool because one, again, we're doing something going to be learning about something I have never heard about and didn't know about. Um but it's also in an area that we uh look at a lot of properties. Um a lot of the houses we look at are in the Norfolk area.

[00:00:29]Uh so this is actually s- This is really cool to me. Hopefully, you guys enjoy it, too. But it is how England was made episode 1 Neolithic mines. So, it's not that I know you guys had mines.

[00:00:46]Um a couple of different areas like coal mines, but this one like I think predates the Romans, which is wild. Um so, I'm super excited to hear more about it. I will link this video in the description along with links to Patreon and how you can support the channel here on YouTube. And if you haven't done so and you enjoy watching uh my content, one, thank you so much.

[00:01:12]Uh but two, please jump over to Patreon.

[00:01:15]You can join totally for free and get access to tons of uh full episode reacts, um videos that aren't on YouTube, um you can get you can get access to them for free. Uh there is content that's paid, but like I said, you get access to tons of stuff uh for free that is not on YouTube. You get like full first seasons of shows.

[00:01:43]Uh I do a lot of British shows, and we're about to start two more. So, um go check it out. But let's do this.

[00:01:51]>> Here in Norfolk, on this unassuming patch of land about 35 mi to the west of Norwich, lies an important landmark in this country's history.

[00:02:03]I'm Rob Bell, [music] engineer and adventurer, and I'm exploring some of the most fascinating and significant sites of England's industrial heritage.

[00:02:13]Grimes Graves is a complex of Neolithic flint mines.

[00:02:18]It first operated over 4 and 1/2 thousand years ago and continued for several hundred years.

[00:02:25]And in the present day, visitors are still able to descend an open shaft and walk in the footsteps of those prehistoric miners.

[00:02:35]Before we head down, let's meet with English Heritage historian Susan Greaney to find out more about this prehistoric [music] site.

[00:02:44]>> [laughter] >> Susan, nice to meet you.

[00:02:45]>> Welcome to Grimes Graves.

[00:02:46]>> Thank you very much. It's It's quite a landscape. I'm not sure if I've seen anything like it before.

[00:02:52]>> isn't it? It's really special place.

[00:02:53]>> And And all these divots and bunkers all around, they're the actual flint mines, are they?

[00:02:59]>> Yeah, each of these hollows is the top of one of the really deep shafts that goes down. And there's about 430 of them here at Grimes Graves.

[00:03:06]>> Wow.

[00:03:06]>> only place in the country [music] where you can actually go down into a Neolithic flint mine.

[00:03:10]>> And we can do that right here right now?

[00:03:13]>> So there's more than just this. This is just the only one that is open to the public.

[00:03:19]Wow.

[00:03:21]>> I was hoping you'd say that.

[00:03:25]>> [music] >> Susan, it's great to be down underground here. But what exactly is Grimes Graves and where does this name come from?

[00:03:35]>> Well, Grimes Graves comes [music] from the Anglo-Saxons who gave this funny undulating landscape the name of Grim, who [music] was their god, it's also known as Grim. So it's Grimes and then Graves, as in pits or hollows.

[00:03:46]>> How important was flint in Neolithic Britain? I mean, what what kind of things was it being used for?

[00:03:52]>> Flint was the most important material for Neolithic people. [music] It was used to make every single tool that you can imagine. It's kind of the Swiss Army knife of the Neolithic. You make axes, to make knives, to make cutting tools, boring tools, anything really where you needed a cutting edge.

[00:04:08]>> Well, what was being used before flint was discovered and started being used for all these tools then?

[00:04:12]>> Flint was in use for a really, really long period of time. So, right back into the Paleolithic period, the ice age here in Britain. Before that, they were using stones to pound and break things, but not really working stone in such a way.

[00:04:25]>> Mining is a a hard, hard graft. Cuz I'm now thinking as well about the the tools and machinery that they might have had available to them. And I'm and I'm guessing it's rudimentary if anything really.

[00:04:36]>> Right. The main tool that they were using was antler picks. So, they were using these both [music] to hammer out the flint and also to chip away at the chalk to expose areas of flint. Flint is quite a strange material in some ways. It's incredibly hard, but most of it appears in kind of nodules.

[00:04:51]So, you're just taking out nodules from the ground that are already self-contained. And if you strike flint in the right place, it breaks in a very predictable way. So, people would have been able to break up pieces quite regularly.

[00:05:05]>> So cool.

[00:05:05]>> It's phenomenal to think that this hole we're standing now was dug out by antler.

[00:05:10]>> Have you guys you guys go let me in the know in the comments if you have been to these mines and what you thought of them. Like if it was gigantic, if it like like it would blow my mind. Like obviously we know people in the past did this and and used this for tools like they said because it's easy to break off and stuff like that, but being able to see it with your own eyes and and and knowing it are two kind of different things, aren't they?

[00:05:44]>> Yes.

[00:05:45]>> Yeah.

[00:05:45]>> Was this just another flint mine amongst a number of flint mines around Britain?

[00:05:49]>> The flint here in this part of Norfolk is particularly high quality. I've got a little bit here to show you. You can see it's this beautiful black color and it's got no impurities in it. It's really pure. And it seems that people were deliberately selecting this type of flint because it was very easy to work and created amazingly good and sharp and hard tools. So, they were probably coming here deliberately. And the reason they were digging down [music] so deep was here it occurs as something called floorstone which is a complete layer of this very black pure flint. So, it's quite unique.

[00:06:17]>> Once they established that it was here on this site, all shafts they'd go down for that third layer.

[00:06:22]>> They drop down their shafts to that layer and then go out sideways into little galleries.

[00:06:27]>> And that's what That's what we see around us here, is it?

[00:06:29]>> seeing here, yeah. And then they're just following that floorstone and they're following the line of that floorstone and digging it out.

[00:06:34]>> In a shaft like this, that would be open to the skies, [music] but when you go off into these galleries, I imagine you get kind of get pretty dark in there.

[00:06:42]>> Yeah, the the shafts themselves would stay relatively open to the daylight.

[00:06:44][music] That's okay. But yeah, once you're off down the galleries, it's very dark. We have found very small little chalk lamps in some of these mines.

[00:06:51][music] Um and some of them have been found to have traces of oil in them. So, it's quite likely they were taking in little lamps or perhaps kind of burning tapers of some [music] kind.

[00:06:59]>> As you think about like this and then like modern day people, they were just so much more efficient. I mean, I guess they had to be, but like look what we've evolved into. Like we'll just sit on a couch and stare at a phone all day long. You just like arguing with like bots on on the internet and social media.

[00:07:25]Like we we have gotten so much knowledge at our literally at our fingertips and we I I feel like we've just gotten so dumb. So dumb and useless.

[00:07:42]>> The people would have been mining this flint, which is incredibly sharp. They probably would have had cut hands a lot of the time, but they'd have also been white. You know, they'd have been covered in chalk dust. So, people coming down here mining [music] this flint, it would have been quite an experience. And you'd have known which people have been down mining cuz they would have looked so different.

[00:07:58]>> Once the flint's been dug out from the ground, then what happens to it?

[00:08:03]>> So, once it gets up to the top of the shaft, they're working it into what we call rough outs, which are the basic rough shape of an axe, just knocking off all the sides of the nodule that you don't want to be carrying around with you. [music] And then those rough outs are exported.

[00:08:16]>> And do we know where these products might have gone on to?

[00:08:21]>> We know that it gets transported all across southern England. There's even a hint that perhaps it gets across to the continent [music] into France. Because it's such good quality, because it's lovely dark color, it can be made into the most beautiful polished axes and things. People that do seem to have been transporting it a very long way from its origin here.

[00:08:38]>> Do you think that those people who were involved in the mining here would have known the significance and and the quality of the flint [music] that they were mining, or was it just another flint mine for them?

[00:08:48]>> They knew. They knew that this was particularly special and important flint. They came back here and dug over 430 shafts over many hundreds of years.

[00:08:56]They would have been famous. I mean, I think people across southern England would have known >> [music] >> Grimes Graves, that's where the really black flint comes from.

[00:09:03]>> What happened for there to be an end to the mining [music] of the flint here at Grimes Graves?

[00:09:08]>> Grimes Graves has been dug in the very end of the Neolithic period, the end of the Stone Age. And what happens is that basically metal arrives [music] from the continent. And of course, bronze as a material is very, very hard. It's much more efficient at doing things like cutting down >> Do y'all call Europe the continent? I've never noticed that in any other videos.

[00:09:27]So, silly. Where? But is that what y'all call Europe?

[00:09:32]>> trees. And it's also moldable. You can make it into any shape [music] you wish.

[00:09:36]So, really metal takes over as the tool of choice. And here at Grimes Graves, flint mining [music] stops.

[00:09:42]>> Season, thank you so much for bringing me down here. It is fascinating to come and learn exactly what's going on here.

[00:09:48]>> It's been a pleasure.

[00:09:50]>> When you come to Grimes Graves, the first thing you notice is this bizarre landscape, [music] these pitted craters all around you. And that's intriguing enough, but it's even more fascinating when you get to scratch beneath the surface and find out just how important an operation this flint mine was to prehistoric progress in this country.

[00:10:14]Grimes Graves is open to the public during the warmer months of the year, and you can find out everything you need to know to plan your visit on the English Heritage website. And whether you're more interested in what's above ground or beneath the ground, I can tell you it's well worth the trip.

[00:10:33]>> That was awesome, y'all.

[00:10:35]That was really cool and interesting. Um Yeah, let me know if y'all have been down there. I know there's like a couple of you. You guys are so cool because there's such an eclectic group of people that will comment and watch the channel, and it's um it's an honor to be able to talk to some of you guys because there's like archaeologists, there's people that'll worked underground, and uh I I just think it's so cool. Just different wealths of life and so and just wealths of knowledge. You guys are wealths of knowledge.

[00:11:10]And um yeah, let me know if you guys been there, if you have any stories, if you have additional information to add.

[00:11:17]Um If we should look at any other mines, uh let me know in the comments, guys. Uh and don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and I'll catch you guys tomorrow, as always, with another video.