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00:00:15
just under 1500 years ago00:00:18
something terrifying happened to the00:00:19
world's climate00:00:21
something nobody could understand00:00:28
the sun began to go dark00:00:37
rain the color of blood poured from the00:00:39
skies00:00:42
clouds of fine dust enveloped the earth00:00:45
[Music]00:00:49
winter gripped the land for two years00:00:55
then came drought famine00:00:58
plague death00:01:03
whole cities were wiped out00:01:06
civilizations crumbled00:01:09
and nobody knew what had happened00:01:13
it was a catastrophe a catastrophe that00:01:16
affected millions and millions of people00:01:18
all around the world00:01:21
but what was it00:01:49
the mid 6th century catastrophe was the00:01:52
most00:01:53
important date in the history of the00:01:55
past 2000 years00:01:57
it really did lay the foundations of the00:01:59
world we live in today00:02:03
for five years in the attic of his00:02:05
unassuming suburban home00:02:07
david keys a writer on history and00:02:09
archaeology00:02:10
has immersed himself in a worldwide00:02:13
investigation00:02:17
he's consulted over 80 experts on00:02:19
drought00:02:20
famine floods cosmic and ecological00:02:23
disasters00:02:24
epidemics and ancient wars00:02:27
he scoured the annals and chronicles of00:02:29
the 6th and 7th centuries a.d00:02:32
from all over the world00:02:36
his book tells the story of a00:02:38
catastrophic climatic event00:02:40
buried in the heart of the dark ages00:02:42
which keyes believes00:02:43
totally altered the course of history00:02:52
[Music]00:02:57
the mystery which has so tantalized him00:03:00
began at a conference on archaeology00:03:02
in 1994. one particular talk00:03:06
uh really amazed me it was a lecture00:03:09
given by00:03:10
a dendrochronologist an expert in tree00:03:12
rings00:03:13
called mike bailey and he was00:03:16
giving a a lecture about00:03:20
how all the tree rings in the world00:03:24
really went haywire somewhere in the00:03:26
middle of the 6th century00:03:32
[Music]00:03:40
thirty years ago when he was a physics00:03:42
student professor mike bailey of queen's00:03:44
university in belfast00:03:46
pioneered a revolutionary idea in a00:03:49
totally different field00:03:50
to his own he devised a computer system00:03:54
which would put trees to scientific use00:03:59
he'd realized that trees had the00:04:01
potential to become the silent witnesses00:04:03
of the world's changing weather going00:04:06
back thousands of years00:04:09
every year trees put on a new layer of00:04:12
growth within the bark00:04:15
these layers show up as rings00:04:20
[Music]00:04:22
every ring varies in width a wide ring00:04:26
is a year of good weather00:04:27
a narrow ring a bad year00:04:31
the pattern of wide and narrow rings is00:04:33
distinctive00:04:36
each ring sequence can be matched with00:04:38
the rings of previously felled trees00:04:41
and precisely dated00:04:43
[Music]00:04:47
the computer program which matches the00:04:49
patterns of the rings00:04:51
was mike bailey's invention and it's now00:04:53
used by laboratories all over the world00:04:58
over the last 30 years in northern00:05:00
europe a variety of people00:05:03
a variety of laboratories have set out00:05:06
and and worked back from00:05:08
known filling dates taking you back00:05:11
through long ring records of living00:05:12
trees00:05:13
and then overlapping to patterns from00:05:15
historic buildings for example00:05:17
fitting together these sort of long ring00:05:20
patterns going back hundreds and eventually00:05:22
thousands of years00:05:27
it's by painstakingly analyzing and00:05:29
overlapping the patterns of00:05:31
older and older trees that a complete00:05:34
unbroken record of tree ring widths is00:05:36
built up00:05:38
so you've got this sample with its very00:05:41
clear character change just here00:05:43
when we processed another sample from00:05:45
the same building00:05:47
we could see that it came originally00:05:48
from the same parent tree00:05:50
and you could extend the pattern back00:05:53
from00:05:54
the first sample right back00:05:57
through to the beginning of the sample00:06:04
many many samples have to be analyzed by00:06:07
mike bailey's computer program00:06:09
to get the average width for every year00:06:12
it took 14 years to build up the00:06:15
complete data00:06:16
just for irish oaks this tree record00:06:20
is now telling irish scientists what the00:06:22
weather was like00:06:23
every single year for the last seven and00:06:26
a half00:06:27
thousand years00:06:31
if you think about that that's an00:06:34
astonishing position to be in00:06:35
we can interrogate for any calendar year00:06:39
in the last thousands of years what00:06:41
trees thought of their growth conditions00:06:43
over a big geographical area00:06:45
that information simply didn't exist00:06:46
before but what we're interested in is00:06:48
why did this tree go narrow at this00:06:50
point and narrow again at this point00:06:52
what what what is the environmental00:06:54
information which is actually stored in00:06:55
the patterns00:07:02
david keyes went to ireland to see for00:07:04
himself the mysterious 6th century event00:07:07
stored in mike bailey's tree rings00:07:11
yeah shuffle through here david00:07:15
it was 10 years ago that mike bailey00:07:17
noticed his oak rings went abnormally00:07:19
narrow00:07:20
in the mid 6th century a.d signs that00:07:23
something very powerful00:07:24
was stopping the trees growing 5 3900:07:29
one forty two extremely narrow00:07:34
bailey then told keys of similar00:07:36
evidence from europe00:07:37
particularly from a colleague in finland00:07:40
he sees a really abrupt00:07:41
drop in 536 a bit of a recovery in 5 3700:07:45
and 38 and then it drops00:07:46
dramatically into 542 so00:07:50
you begin to see a pattern00:07:54
and that pattern wasn't just confined to00:07:56
ireland and finland00:07:58
by contacting other labs david keys00:08:00
found that wherever you looked in the00:08:02
world00:08:03
in the mid 6th century trees were having00:08:05
a terrible time00:08:10
foxtail pine rings from the sierra00:08:12
nevada mountains in california00:08:14
showed that 535 536 and 54100:08:18
were three of the four worst years in00:08:20
the past00:08:21
two millennia00:08:24
in chile fitzroya trees record the00:08:27
greatest summer growth drop00:08:28
of the past 1600 years00:08:34
in siberia a 20-year decline in tree00:08:36
growth in the 530s and 540s00:08:39
was the most serious in the past 190000:08:42
years00:08:45
so why were the trees not growing was it00:08:48
dark00:08:49
cold natural pollution or drought00:08:52
for mike bailey the answer lay in a00:08:54
microscopic examination00:08:56
of a 536 a.d oak ring00:08:59
cells normally seen in winter were00:09:01
showing up in summer too00:09:03
a colleague in germany sent me this00:09:05
photograph of00:09:07
one of his german oaks the tree puts on00:09:09
a line of these large spring vessels00:09:12
and it then puts on fine cell wood00:09:14
during the the the summer00:09:15
and goes dormant then it does again the00:09:17
next year so each year's growth is00:09:20
from the beginning of one line of00:09:21
vessels to the beginning of the next00:09:24
and in this year the year 53600:09:27
the vessels are enormously small and00:09:29
they're also distributed right through00:09:30
the summer00:09:32
so it's widely reckoned that this00:09:35
phenomenon00:09:36
is due to frost damage00:09:40
the implication from this kind of00:09:42
worldwide evidence00:09:43
was that the weather was extremely cold00:09:46
for long periods in the mid 6th century00:09:51
mike bailey also had archaeological00:09:54
evidence from ireland which backs this00:09:55
up00:09:56
much of the wood that he dated came from00:09:58
crannocks00:09:59
wooden island forts that people built as00:10:02
refuges in times of trouble00:10:04
and clan warfare00:10:07
bailly took keys to the remains of one00:10:09
in loch catherine near omar00:10:11
to look at the submerged timbers that00:10:13
once formed the outer wall00:10:18
my first inkling it was something going00:10:19
on came from timbers specifically from00:10:22
sites like this00:10:27
the mid 6th century marks the beginning00:10:29
of the construction of crannogs00:10:32
bailly believes that this was due to the00:10:33
hostile conditions stemming from the00:10:35
climatic disaster00:10:37
when you look at the overall picture00:10:39
there seems to be about a decade of00:10:40
really bad conditions starting in 53600:10:43
and running on to the mid 540s at least00:10:46
the implication from lots of bits of00:10:48
evidence is that it was extremely cold00:10:51
and that this reduced sunlight and cold00:10:54
caused crop failures so basically people00:10:56
in an area like this00:10:57
were would be forced back onto00:11:00
non-agricultural produce00:11:02
they would be forced to fish they would00:11:03
be forced to00:11:05
to hunt and that would put a lot of00:11:07
strain on the population which was used00:11:09
to having agricultural produce to see00:11:10
them through the winters for example um00:11:14
so i think things would have been fairly00:11:15
bleak here00:11:28
keys was now hooked not just by the00:11:31
tree-ring evidence that it was cold00:11:34
but also by the fact that people seem to00:11:36
be suffering too00:11:39
his next step was to see whether there00:11:41
were any written accounts from the time00:11:44
of the climate falling apart00:11:53
by far the greatest civilization of the00:11:55
sixth century00:11:56
was the roman empire rome had been00:11:59
sacked a hundred years earlier by huns00:12:01
and goths00:12:02
but now the empire was resurgent with a00:12:04
new capital00:12:05
in constantinople once again00:12:09
it was the center of mediterranean00:12:11
culture00:12:13
by contacting classical scholars keys00:12:16
unearthed many00:12:17
highly significant roman accounts of00:12:19
bizarre weather00:12:22
one eyewitness a syrian bishop john of00:12:25
ephesus00:12:26
describes the extraordinary events00:12:28
during the years 53500:12:30
and 536 a.d00:12:34
there was a sign from the sun the like00:12:37
of a witch had never been seen00:12:39
or reported before the sun became dark00:12:43
and its darkness lasted for 18 months00:12:46
each day it shunned for about four hours00:12:49
and still00:12:50
this light was only a feeble shadow00:12:53
everyone declared that the sun would00:12:55
never recover00:12:56
its full light again00:13:07
[Music]00:13:13
historians of the 6th century empire do00:13:16
not usually record climatic events00:13:19
unless they are something really00:13:20
stupendous00:13:22
a natural event like a comet will get00:13:25
mentioned00:13:27
now in the 530s the fact that john00:13:29
mentions00:13:31
a two-year dimming of the sun indicates00:13:35
that it was significant john writing in00:13:38
constantinople mentions it00:13:40
cassiodorus writing in italy00:13:43
he too refers to a dimming of the sun00:13:50
we have had a spring without mildness00:13:53
and a summer without heat the month which should have00:13:57
been maturing the crops00:13:59
have been chilled by north winds rain is00:14:02
denied00:14:03
and the reaper fears new frosts00:14:10
these accounts from the mediterranean00:14:12
and middle east were extraordinary00:14:14
enough00:14:15
but what about the other civilizations00:14:17
of that time00:14:18
keys scoured records from north and00:14:20
south china00:14:21
korea and japan00:14:29
and as it turned out there were out of00:14:32
say well over 30 um sources00:14:36
there were around a dozen which actually00:14:39
refer00:14:40
directly to the dark and sun event or00:14:44
to its consequences to its immediate00:14:46
climatic consequences00:14:51
in 540 the japanese great king00:14:54
wrote food is the basis of the empire00:14:58
yellow gold and ten thousand strings of00:15:01
cash00:15:02
cannot cure hunger what avails a00:15:04
thousand boxes of pearls00:15:06
to him who is starving of cold00:15:09
and the nanshi ancient chronicle of00:15:12
southern china records00:15:14
yellow dust rained down like snow it00:15:16
could be scooped up in handfuls00:15:24
as the research continued i began to00:15:26
realize more and more this disaster had00:15:27
really00:15:28
enveloped the entire world that it just00:15:31
wasn't just a few places but it was00:15:33
virtually everywhere the only question00:15:35
was00:15:36
what was causing it it seemed in my mind00:15:39
only three possible answers to that00:15:43
either an asteroid or a comet00:15:46
or a volcano00:15:54
imagine living in the middle of the 6th00:15:56
century suffering a climatic catastrophe00:15:59
an event so horrendous that trees hardly00:16:02
grew for years00:16:03
and the sun was dimmed00:16:07
whatever it was it would have taken00:16:09
thousands of cubic miles of dust00:16:11
to be hurled into the atmosphere to00:16:13
cause this permanent winter00:16:16
was an asteroid comet strike or volcano00:16:20
responsible00:16:32
[Music]00:16:38
at los alamos the birthplace of the00:16:39
atomic bomb00:16:41
scientists have been studying all the00:16:43
possible atmospheric consequences of00:16:45
nuclear strikes00:16:46
and cosmic collisions certainly have00:16:50
plenty of evidence that the earth is00:16:52
struck repeatedly by asteroids large and00:16:55
small00:16:56
comets large and small you have to have00:16:59
a big thing that hits the ground00:17:01
in order to have a climate effect00:17:05
extraterrestrial bodies come in all00:17:07
shapes and sizes00:17:09
meteors are small rocks which roam space00:17:11
occasionally hitting planets00:17:13
usually causing little damage asteroids00:17:17
are big meteors when these things hit00:17:20
the earth's surface00:17:21
they explode churning up vast amounts of00:17:23
dust and debris00:17:35
david keyes asked an astrophysicist to00:17:38
calculate00:17:39
how big an impact would have been needed00:17:41
to generate a climatic catastrophe00:17:43
lasting at least a decade so what we can00:17:46
say00:17:47
is that the total number of particles in00:17:49
the atmosphere00:17:50
because this is one then rho is around00:17:53
one over kappa l00:17:57
to cause a major climatic catastrophe00:18:00
that would last decades00:18:02
we would need an impact by a rather00:18:03
large asteroid say00:18:05
four kilometers across00:18:10
it would take an even bigger comet to00:18:13
create the same effect00:18:16
a comet consists mainly of gas and ice00:18:19
this gives them their distinctive tail00:18:21
as they move across the sky00:18:24
because they're less dense alan00:18:26
fitzsimmons has calculated that it would00:18:27
take a six00:18:28
kilometer wide comet to affect our00:18:31
climate00:18:32
such a crash would have a spectacular00:18:34
effect on our planet00:18:43
when it was just over two days from00:18:46
impact it would only be seen as a very faint00:18:49
star00:18:50
in the night sky now as it approached us00:18:53
as it got closer and closer00:18:55
we'd slowly see it brighten and grow00:18:57
larger until about 30 minutes before00:19:00
impact it would be about the brightest00:19:02
thing in the sky and by then of course00:19:04
we believe everybody would have noticed00:19:06
it but we wouldn't be able to do00:19:07
anything about it00:19:09
now the time it takes for that asteroid00:19:12
to travel00:19:13
from the top of the earth's atmosphere00:19:15
until it reaches sea level00:19:17
is only eight seconds00:19:26
so we'd see this brilliant fireball all00:19:28
the time of course making no00:19:30
sound because it's traveling about 2000:19:32
times00:19:33
the speed of sound the first sound we00:19:36
would hear00:19:37
would occur minutes after we see the00:19:40
huge flash of light00:19:41
when the asteroid strikes the earth's00:19:44
surface00:19:45
and is instantly vaporized in a00:19:47
ginormous fireball00:19:52
could this disaster have happened00:19:54
without at least one civilization00:19:56
noticing00:19:57
and reporting it no civilization at the00:20:00
time records any such event00:20:03
in addition scientists have found no00:20:05
evidence of a crater left by an impact00:20:07
from the 6th century00:20:09
i mean that's that's just yesterday in00:20:11
geologic time it'd be a big crater we'd00:20:13
know about it00:20:14
certainly that happened 65 million years00:20:16
ago when the dinosaurs died00:20:18
but i don't think it happened in the 6th00:20:20
century00:20:23
but the lack of a crater alone does not00:20:25
rule out a comet or asteroid strike00:20:28
70 of the earth is covered in water00:20:31
could it be that the impact was on the00:20:33
oceans00:20:35
if the asteroid landed in the ocean00:20:39
then that the initial wave caused by the00:20:42
impact would be miles high00:20:46
there would have been humongous tidal00:20:49
waves big huge tidal waves that00:20:51
that would have uh swamped the coasts00:20:54
for over the margins of whatever ocean00:20:57
it struck00:20:58
[Music]00:20:59
the tidal damage would have traveled00:21:01
miles inland00:21:03
again no civilization recorded such an00:21:06
event00:21:07
and scientists haven't detected any00:21:09
significant interruption00:21:11
to the growth of coastal plants at this00:21:13
period00:21:15
there doesn't appear to be any evidence00:21:17
of an asteroid or comet strike on earth00:21:19
at this time00:21:21
the search seemed to be narrowing down00:21:23
to a volcano00:21:25
but could there be another00:21:27
extraterrestrial explanation00:21:30
this time not a complete comet hitting00:21:32
the earth but one which had fragmented00:21:34
and scattered throughout the atmosphere00:21:36
it's a theory mike bailey suggested to00:21:39
david keyes00:21:42
well the bombardment event um has been00:21:45
like classically defined as a large00:21:47
number of pieces of comet00:21:49
arriving in a short period of time and00:21:51
exploding in the atmosphere00:21:53
and the model for that is the 190800:21:55
tunguska impact over siberia00:21:57
which was a single object which probably00:21:59
caused about00:22:00
a 20 megaton equivalent size of00:22:03
explosion00:22:04
the 1908 tunguska event was an example00:22:08
of an airburst explosion a lightweight00:22:11
meteor hit the earth's atmosphere00:22:13
and exploded in the air while the00:22:15
shockwave caused massive local00:22:17
destruction00:22:18
there weren't enough microfine particles00:22:20
released to affect the weather00:22:23
[Music]00:22:24
but mike bailey believes that a whole00:22:26
shower of cometary debris hitting in a00:22:28
tunguska style event00:22:30
could affect the climate00:22:33
if you have a large number of those00:22:34
you're going to just put a lot of00:22:35
material into the atmosphere00:22:37
and you're going to cause a dust feel00:22:40
mike bailey believes that it's possible00:22:42
to use mythology to support his theory00:22:45
he's analyzed the life and death of one00:22:47
of the most famous legends of all time00:22:50
and reached an intriguing conclusion00:22:53
sixth century britain was supposedly the00:22:55
time of king arthur00:22:57
all the many later legends tell that00:22:59
arthur lived in the west of britain00:23:01
and that as he grew old his kingdom was00:23:03
reduced to a wasteland00:23:05
curiously the legends give the date of00:23:07
arthur's death00:23:08
as 539 or 542 a.d00:23:12
right in the middle of the climatic00:23:14
catastrophe00:23:16
the legends also tell of terrible blows00:23:18
which rained down from the skies onto00:23:20
arthur's people00:23:22
mike bailey thinks that arthur's death00:23:24
could therefore be a symbol00:23:26
of something that really did happen00:23:28
devastation by a comet00:23:30
as it shattered and crashed into earth00:23:36
then you look at the mythology you00:23:39
discover that00:23:40
arthur isn't just an you know00:23:43
somebody with a nice suit of shining00:23:44
armor and some buddies sitting around00:23:47
a round table the origins of the stories00:23:49
are in celtic mythology00:23:51
um and that one of the key figures that00:23:53
you can trace him back to00:23:54
would be the celtic god luge that luge00:23:57
is a00:23:58
bright solar deity who curiously comes00:24:00
up in the west and has a long arm00:24:02
which could well be the description of a00:24:05
comet00:24:06
and luke also is famous for delivering00:24:08
these00:24:09
terrible blows could bailly's myths hold00:24:13
a grain of truth00:24:15
by process of elimination it now seemed00:24:18
to come down to a clear choice00:24:20
cometary bombardment or a volcano00:24:23
but which david keyes discovered that00:24:25
there was one00:24:26
hostile area of the earth which could00:24:28
just hold the final clue00:24:31
the polar ice caps00:24:36
[Music]00:24:39
for the past decade a multinational team00:24:42
of scientists00:24:43
has been extracting 1 000 meter deep00:24:45
columns of ice00:24:46
from greenland in the north and the00:24:48
antarctic in the south00:24:51
in the same way trees put on a new ring00:24:54
of growth each season00:24:56
the polar ice caps put on a fresh layer00:24:58
of snow00:25:00
and in each layer is a record00:25:03
of what was in our atmosphere00:25:15
[Music]00:25:17
the chemistry of the old atmosphere is00:25:19
in there and even the chemistry today is00:25:22
changing in our atmosphere00:25:24
if we combine this we can have a record00:25:26
which we can compare00:25:28
with other records from the deep sea00:25:30
sediments from tree rings from00:25:33
lakes but the fantastic thing about the00:25:36
ice caps is that they are directly00:25:38
related00:25:39
to the atmosphere itself00:25:43
professor hammer's team are testing a00:25:45
new greenland core00:25:47
from the 530s a.d that has just arrived00:25:50
at their laboratory00:25:51
if pieces of a comet or asteroid had00:25:54
exploded in the atmosphere the team00:25:56
would expect to find traces of rare00:25:58
chemical elements like iridium00:26:01
if there had been a massive volcanic00:26:03
eruption they would expect to find an00:26:05
excess of sulfuric acid the tell-tale00:26:08
signature of a volcano the sulfates would have00:26:12
been hurled up into the atmosphere by00:26:13
the explosion00:26:14
and scattered by the winds they would00:26:17
have then got into rain00:26:18
and snow to be finally stored at the00:26:21
poles as ice00:26:23
and what we're going to do now is take a00:26:25
piece00:26:26
of ice out around 5 35 after christ00:26:30
we will have to clean it a little00:26:32
roughly here first00:26:40
we will now bring it into this setup00:26:42
here00:26:45
where it will be cleaned in the end and00:26:47
on all sides00:26:49
and then it will be cut by the steel00:26:51
knife00:26:52
so that we are not touching the core we00:26:54
have to remove quite a lot00:26:56
to be sure that we don't have any ice00:26:58
outside00:26:59
contamination00:27:03
the cleaned core is sliced into five00:27:05
centimeter lengths00:27:09
each length is then melted and analyzed00:27:15
they will be measured one at a time00:27:17
automatically from now on00:27:19
and the results will show up on this00:27:21
computer00:27:22
as chromatograms so what does the ice00:27:26
contain00:27:27
cometary debris or volcanic sulfates00:27:30
the sulfate peak is increasing when i go00:27:33
to the next sample00:27:35
that must be come from sulfuric acid in00:27:38
the00:27:39
atmosphere and that's an indication that00:27:42
there's been a volcanic eruption and as00:27:46
the final result shows00:27:47
it wasn't just any eruption i'll show00:27:50
you here is the sulfuric acid00:27:52
and actually these00:27:56
huge amount of sulfate here lasting00:27:58
several years00:27:59
and clearly higher than anything else in00:28:02
this part of the record corresponds00:28:04
exactly to this around 53500:28:07
so there's no doubt it's a major00:28:09
eruption00:28:11
the evidence from greenland seemed00:28:13
conclusive00:28:15
lots of sulfates and no cometary debris00:28:18
but for the eruption to have had00:28:20
worldwide consequences00:28:22
more was needed if you want a climatic00:28:25
important major eruption it must show up00:28:29
with a large signal00:28:30
in both hemispheres that is you might00:28:33
see it in antarctic ice cores and you00:28:34
must see it in greenman00:28:37
at the moment information from the00:28:38
antarctic ice core is less precise00:28:41
but from their existing data professor00:28:43
hammer's team already know that there is00:28:45
a volcanic signal in the antarctic00:28:48
too we have a volcanic signal which00:28:50
lasts several years00:28:52
we have from an antarctic core similar00:28:56
evidence as in greenland but not as good00:28:58
not as well dated but indicating that00:29:01
this00:29:02
volcanic eruption could have taken place00:29:06
the data from both the north and south00:29:08
poles is the same00:29:10
a huge sulfur spike around the mid 6th00:29:13
century00:29:14
that strongly suggests volcanic ash00:29:16
caused the global climate damage00:29:18
seen in tree rings00:29:25
the idea of volcanoes causing climatic00:29:27
catastrophe00:29:28
may seem unfamiliar but tree rings and00:29:32
ice cores now show that every thousand00:29:34
or so years00:29:35
massive climate downturns have happened00:29:39
the mid 6th century event is simply the00:29:41
most recent00:29:44
in fact what surprises volcanologists is00:29:46
how00:29:47
few volcanic eruptions there have been00:29:49
in the last00:29:50
hundred years00:29:54
one of the amazing things which people00:29:57
sometimes forget even scientists00:29:59
is that our century is one of the most00:30:02
quiet centuries with respect to00:30:06
volcanism00:30:19
if you go back in time in 19th century00:30:22
and 17th century00:30:23
18th century there's a lot of volcanoes00:30:26
they come in lumps00:30:27
say 20 30 years a lot of them they even00:30:30
overlap in the stratosphere mixing up and00:30:34
it's not speculation but people do think00:30:37
that00:30:38
turner's paintings with his sunsets00:30:41
it was not the taste of the artist to00:30:44
make them so red as they were but they were00:30:47
actually painted in a time00:30:48
when the real sunset looked like this00:30:52
[Music]00:30:58
we live on this planet with over 20000:31:01
active volcanoes00:31:03
they may have been quiet recently but a00:31:05
really massive eruption00:31:07
can turn the climate upside down00:31:11
[Music]00:31:12
to create a dust veil that spreads all00:31:15
around the world00:31:16
the eruption has to happen near the00:31:18
equator as only equatorial winds can00:31:20
spread dust over both hemispheres00:31:23
but there are over 90 equatorial00:31:26
volcanoes00:31:28
could david keyes discover which one00:31:30
caused the mayhem00:31:32
of the 6th century00:31:34
[Music]00:31:37
david keyes began to narrow the search00:31:39
for the 6th century volcano00:31:42
he knew that the highest concentration00:31:44
by far of large tropical volcanoes00:31:47
lies in an arc straddling southeast asia00:31:50
from india through sumatra java the philippines and00:31:53
japan00:31:55
first he turned to the greatest00:31:56
civilization near this area00:31:58
which was then producing written records00:32:01
china00:32:02
i in great excitement started looking to00:32:06
see whether there was any trace of anything00:32:08
happening in 53500:32:10
and in fact in february 53500:32:14
there's a record of a loud bang00:32:19
a huge thunderous sound coming00:32:22
from the south west and with this one00:32:26
there was no mention of lightning or00:32:27
anything it was merely00:32:29
a rather sort of mysterious entry in00:32:31
which they00:32:32
only referred to uh the sort of00:32:35
thunderous noise and interestingly that00:32:39
points straight towards that00:32:43
indonesian area where all those00:32:45
volcanoes are00:32:48
for the chinese to have bothered to00:32:50
record such a sound00:32:51
it must have been an exceptional one-off00:32:54
event00:32:55
but could the sound of a volcanic00:32:57
eruption have traveled the 3 000 miles00:33:00
from indonesia00:33:01
to china to help locate the volcano00:33:05
keys asked experts at los alamos00:33:07
laboratory in new mexico00:33:08
to explain the physics of long-range00:33:11
sound travel00:33:15
we know that near the volcano the00:33:19
sudden explosive eruption provides a00:33:21
shock wave in the near field00:33:22
and that propagates out going out to00:33:25
thousands of miles00:33:26
but as it propagates out you lose the00:33:28
high frequencies the shock00:33:29
very sudden sharp reports of the00:33:31
volcanoes and all you're left with are00:33:33
the low frequencies00:33:34
that we measure in what we call00:33:36
infrasound which is generally below 1000:33:37
cycles per second00:33:44
the long range perception of that sound00:33:47
would be very low rumbling00:33:48
much like very distant thunder00:33:55
the los alamos experts had said it was00:33:57
possible00:33:59
now could keys find any written evidence00:34:01
from indonesia00:34:10
[Music]00:34:19
unfortunately very little writing00:34:21
survives from the area00:34:23
but once again he found a fascinating00:34:25
clue00:34:26
housed in the royal palace at solo in00:34:28
central java00:34:29
is a massive set of manuscript volumes00:34:32
called the book of kings00:34:34
put together in the 1850s but based on00:34:36
ancient sources00:34:41
it describes an extraordinary event00:34:43
which took place around the middle of00:34:44
the first millennium a.d00:34:47
today's javanese royal archivist prince00:34:50
puja reads from the original text00:34:56
a mighty thunder which was answered by a00:34:59
furious shaking of the earth pitch00:35:02
darkness00:35:03
thunder and lightning and then came00:35:06
forth a furious gale00:35:08
together with a hard rain00:35:11
a deadly storm darkening the entire00:35:14
world00:35:16
in no time there came a great flood00:35:20
when the water subsided it could be seen00:35:22
that the island of java00:35:24
had been split in two thus creating00:35:27
the island of sumatra00:35:31
had keys struck gold with the book of00:35:33
kings00:35:36
geophysicists he consulted said the00:35:38
story00:35:39
accurately described a major volcanic00:35:41
eruption and would have been difficult00:35:43
to invent00:35:45
but which of the many indonesian00:35:47
volcanoes was the book of kings00:35:48
describing00:35:50
there was a clue the only major volcano00:35:53
in that specific area between the00:35:55
islands of sumatra and java00:35:56
is the legendary krakatoa the world's00:35:59
most notorious volcano00:36:01
which last erupted in 188300:36:05
but could keys prove krakatoa was the00:36:07
culprit00:36:08
an icelandic volcanologist professor00:36:11
harolder sigurdsson00:36:12
now working in the usa joined the chase00:36:16
he had visited the volcano many times00:36:18
and already knew that krakatoa00:36:20
contained an ancient mystery an eruption00:36:23
long ago far bigger than anything00:36:26
recorded in modern times00:36:29
about five years ago when we were doing00:36:31
research on the 188300:36:32
volcanic eruption of krakatoa we00:36:34
discovered this00:36:36
deposit of a major eruption and so we00:36:38
became very interested00:36:40
in this deposit but uh at the time we00:36:42
didn't have the time00:36:44
and resources to study it in detail00:36:47
so what we really want to do is ideally00:36:50
find charcoal within this layer00:36:52
or charcoal immediately above and00:36:54
immediately below it00:36:56
in order to give us a date of the event00:37:03
it was an irresistible temptation david00:37:06
keys's ingenuity had led us this far00:37:09
we had to go on channel 4 decided to00:37:11
finance an expedition to java00:37:13
by professor sigurdsson00:37:18
[Music]00:37:20
his goal to test keys theory by dating00:37:23
krakatoa's major eruption00:37:38
krakatoa is part of a group of00:37:40
uninhabited rainforest islands lying00:37:42
west of java00:37:43
and just south of the equator00:37:54
[Music]00:38:00
it's also the scene of the most famous00:38:03
volcanic eruption of recent times00:38:06
in 1883 krakatoa blew itself apart00:38:11
killing 36 000 people on the mainland00:38:14
[Music]00:38:15
the first stop for professor sigurdsson00:38:18
and his team will be the island of anak00:38:20
krakatoa00:38:21
meaning child of krakatoa anak00:38:25
has formed entirely since the eruption00:38:27
of 188300:38:28
and grown up into a thousand foot high00:38:30
volcanic island00:38:32
each year anak becomes ever bigger and00:38:35
ever more dangerous now actually when you get00:38:39
up to them these rocks are the size of00:38:40
houses00:38:42
and five six meters in diameter00:38:45
and these were ejected by the explosions00:38:48
of00:38:49
anak and they travel through the air00:38:51
like a bomb00:38:52
basically and they fall to the ground00:38:54
and when they hit the ground they create00:38:55
a00:38:58
crater00:39:04
well this is about as big as they come00:39:07
this one must be two meters high00:39:10
and what do you think about four meters00:39:12
wide yeah i'd say so00:39:13
that's a big bomb beautiful crop hard to00:39:17
hard to imagine this thing flying00:39:19
through the air and landing here during00:39:21
an explosion00:39:23
plunking down and creating this crater00:39:25
that it sits in00:39:29
this one is a good one because you can00:39:30
hide behind it in an explosion and take00:39:32
shelter00:39:37
let's hope they don't land like this00:39:39
today00:39:40
it'll be very dangerous00:39:49
anak krakatoa is a noisy and quarrelsome00:39:52
child00:39:53
only two hours after the team pushed off00:39:56
from the island anna let rip hurtling rocks and lava00:40:00
onto the area where we had stood00:40:03
from the safety of the sea it was00:40:05
possible to gaze back00:40:07
at one of the greatest firework shows on00:40:09
earth00:40:19
this activity is just part of a cycle00:40:21
that's been going on for hundreds of00:40:23
thousands of years00:40:24
krakatoa grows up out of the sea every00:40:27
little eruption00:40:28
adds more and more rock to the island00:40:30
eventually it gets so large00:40:32
it blows itself apart00:40:38
this time anak continued its barrage00:40:41
throughout the night00:40:42
on into the heat and dust of the next00:40:45
tropical morning00:40:52
but sigurdsson's task is to journey back00:40:54
in time00:40:55
hundreds of years back long before anna00:40:58
krakatoa was born00:41:01
for decades scientists have thought that00:41:03
krakatoa contains a centuries-old secret00:41:06
illustrations from a 1920s book show a00:41:09
possible pattern00:41:11
first there was ancient krakatoa which00:41:14
exploded possibly around 535 leaving islands00:41:17
behind which eventually with occasional00:41:20
minor eruptions00:41:21
grew back to the krakatoa of 188300:41:25
this in turn blew up leaving the00:41:27
krakatoa islands of today00:41:33
sigurdsson's last survey of the island00:41:35
seems to confirm this00:41:37
five years ago he charted the ocean00:41:39
floor using sonar00:41:41
the charts show the outlines of a00:41:42
caldera the term for a giant crater00:41:45
left after a massive volcanic explosion00:41:50
there's a structure out here in the00:41:52
ocean a circular structure00:41:55
which is much larger in diameter and it00:41:57
is possible that this00:41:59
buried circular feature that we see here00:42:03
to the north and the east00:42:05
may in fact be a gigantic ancient00:42:08
caldera crocodile00:42:09
well it must be right on the edge here00:42:13
so can sigurdsson find any hard evidence00:42:15
to date this eruption00:42:17
of ancient krakatoa00:42:20
such evidence is only contained in00:42:22
charcoal which is formed when hot lava00:42:25
instantly carbonizes trees the charcoal00:42:28
can then be carbon dated in the00:42:30
laboratory00:42:31
to get an exact date sigurdsson must00:42:33
find charcoal from the major eruption00:42:35
layer which is on the islands around00:42:37
anak krakatoa it's a vertical drop00:42:44
failing that he could also narrow the00:42:46
margin if he finds charcoal in the00:42:48
layers above00:42:49
and below looking for charcoal is like00:42:53
looking for a needle in a haystack00:42:55
and a lot more dangerous i'm right in00:42:58
the middle00:43:00
of the this major00:43:03
pyroclastic deposit00:43:06
that is formed by a very large eruption00:43:08
of krakatoa00:43:10
now this is very likely to be the uh00:43:12
deposit that was created by00:43:14
a uh eruption possibly in the sixth00:43:17
century a.d00:43:19
and this is the one i'd really like to00:43:20
get some charcoal from00:43:22
so we can date this very important event00:43:26
now we'd be very lucky to find charcoal00:43:28
but i'm going to00:43:30
keep digging around here a little bit00:43:32
and see what we got00:43:38
the material in the layers of krakatoa00:43:41
spans hundreds of thousands of years00:43:44
even narrowing down the date of the00:43:45
major ancient eruption to within a few00:43:48
thousand years00:43:49
would be a big stride forward00:43:58
often it's extremely difficult to find00:44:00
the charcoal you might think that would00:44:02
be a lot of burnt wood or carbonized trees here00:44:05
because it's a tropical environment00:44:07
but many volcanoes are barren because00:44:10
there's so much activity that the00:44:11
vegetation00:44:12
and the forest doesn't really get00:44:14
established we've had a lot of problem00:44:16
with finding charcoal00:44:18
in this particular deposit but we must00:44:20
keep in mind that there are only small00:44:22
pieces of the island00:44:23
sticking up above sea level so we have00:44:25
very small area to prospect00:44:33
during the fortnight he was in krakatoa00:44:35
professor sigurdsson was only able to00:44:37
find00:44:38
10 charcoal samples he was unable to00:44:41
find a charcoal sample big enough to00:44:43
date from the major eruption layer however he00:44:47
was able to find good samples for the00:44:49
layer immediately above it00:44:51
and a layer a few levels below it it00:44:54
will now be possible to see whether 53500:44:57
falls between those dates if it does not00:45:00
david keys's theory will fall00:45:09
[Music]00:45:18
six weeks later the carbon dating00:45:20
analysis is completed00:45:22
professor sigurdsson faxes the results00:45:25
and an accompanying report00:45:26
to david keyes00:45:32
yeah so what's this assessment00:45:35
that's really good news00:45:40
the results show that the layer00:45:42
immediately above the major eruption00:45:44
is dated as 12 15 a.d00:45:47
a layer several layers below it is dated00:45:50
as 6600 bc00:45:54
well if we look at this in detail over00:45:56
here then we have this00:45:57
picture we have 121500:46:01
80 right on top here00:46:04
in in this deposit then we have the00:46:08
the major eruption00:46:14
deposit right underneath it and then we00:46:17
have about00:46:18
five layers and then00:46:21
down here we have the charcoal that we00:46:23
dated at 660000:46:26
bc so in here we have00:46:29
quite a a a period of activity and00:46:32
development of the volcano00:46:35
possibly several thousand years00:46:38
and that leads us to think that the00:46:40
event is much closer to 12 15 8000:46:43
as opposed to 6 60000:46:47
that span still covers the 53500:46:50
ad event so it doesn't rule it out at00:46:53
all00:46:54
in fact i think uh as a result of this00:46:57
we are00:46:58
focusing more and more in on that time00:47:01
frame he thinks that the00:47:04
the the lead period the lead option if00:47:07
you like for when00:47:08
the major eruption that we're talking00:47:10
about took place00:47:11
was the first millennium a.d00:47:15
so although technically can be anything00:47:17
between 6600 bc00:47:19
and 1300 ad all the other00:47:23
pieces of evidence that he's got suggest00:47:25
that it's actually00:47:26
we can narrow that down to the period00:47:29
let's say00:47:30
zero to one thousand now uh 53500:47:34
is uh marvelously00:47:37
right in the middle of that window so i00:47:40
think that00:47:41
it's looking good00:47:44
david keys's five years of detective00:47:47
work00:47:48
suggests that there is overwhelming00:47:50
evidence of a massive volcanic eruption00:47:52
around 535 a.d in the tropics00:47:56
krakatoa is now the most likely culprit00:48:01
the volcano that did go up in 535 a.d00:48:04
would have produced a dust cloud that00:48:06
enveloped the world00:48:08
it would have been one of the most00:48:09
dangerous spectacles ever seen00:48:30
a 30 mile high column of ash and dust00:48:34
brought global climatic catastrophe00:48:38
darkness drought frost and famine00:48:41
and ultimately chaos and war00:48:50
[Music]00:48:53
it was a natural catastrophe that would00:48:55
change the course of human history00:49:21
youDescription:
Researching a climatic catastrophe that rocked the Earth in A.D. 535, causing two years of darkness, famine, drought and disease. Written records from China, Italy, Palestine and many other countries suggest a huge catastrophe blighted the world in 535AD. But the cause of it has been uncertain. Was it a comet? An asteroid? A volcano? Archaeologist David Keys reveals the latter is to blame for the Dark Ages of famine and plague that shaped the world order of today. It's like Netflix for history... Sign up to History Hit, the world's best history documentary service, at a huge discount using the code 'TIMELINE' ---ᐳ https://access.historyhit.com/ You can find more from us on: https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser This channel is part of the History Hit Network. Any queries, please contact [email protected]
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