Age of Ice

Tue, Feb 08, 2011
Archeologists find footprints (in one case literally) of prehistoric people in Britain from different ages, waves and paleontological qualifications, as early as 5000,000 BC, including Neanderthals and even an earlier, distinct species. Homo sapiens arrived only the latest 31,000 years, but also in different waves, due to extremely variable climatological and geological conditions, mainly the stages of the latest Ice Age.
8.1 /10
Age of Ancestors
In the last 10,000 years, after the Ice Age, the rising sea turned the British regions into islands, largely covered with woods. Only some thousands Mesolithic hunters-gatherers roamed around. However, apparently in several waves and at several coasts, neolithic people invaded, importing sedentary life. The superior productivity of agriculture and other technology, as i tool-making, enabled the start of many aspects of civilization, such as ownership, socio-political structures and armed violence. They left the first monuments, still hard to read.
8.1 /10
Age of Cosmology
In the Iron Age the productivity of agriculture and social buildup allowed people to invest in know-how, such as astronomy, and monumental constructions, of daunting scale, such as Stonehenge, such stone circles being numerous in and almost unique to Britain. Their assumed significance is multiple, partially reflecting social status f priest and nobility, partially (religious) efforts to give people a place in a cosmological context.
8.2 /10
Age of Bronze

Tue, Mar 01, 2011
The discovery of tin and its amalgamation with copper to produce bronze kicked off a continental trade explosion which put the previously peripheral British isles, rich in both metals, at the center. The organizational requirements of mining and resulting wealth stirred the emergence of a rich, leading class which presided over the erection of major monuments, some even as personal tombs. Bronze became the reference commodity, measure as well as medium of wealth and prestige beyond its practical use.
8 /10

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Stelvio. Crossroads of Peace

Stelvio. Crossroads of Peace

A documentary that showcases an extraordinary place in the heart of Europe: The Stelvio Pass. Here, at 3,000 metres above sea-level in the middle of the Italian Alps, one finds an imposing natural treasure where the present meets the past and the visitor discovers a breath-taking landscape and mountain sports experience. Whereas the Stelvio alpine glacier is a big tourist attraction for summer skiing, the mountain road to the Pass, an engineering wonder built in 1825 by the Austrian Empire, hosts the most famous stage of the Giro d'Italia. But people once battled here not just for sporting reasons: One hundred years ago soldiers on those peaks experienced the so-called White War which took place on the highest and coldest battlefield of World War I. After one hundred years trenches, cans, bombs and weapons from that cruel war are still found in the snow by people like Mario Pasinetti, a hotel porter and former member of the Italian Alpine brigade, who collects war remains in his spare time. Through Mario's story the viewer meets the people that make the Stelvio a lively microcosm: Claudia, a female forest ranger; Gustav Thöni, a former world skiing champion; Pompa, an aficionado and pilot of vintage airplanes as well as inventor of Artic rescue tools which he tests personally on the glacier; and Lorenz, a shaman who lives at the foot of the Stelvio road. Through these people and other characters, along with the help of majestic mountain shoots (including helicams and wescam shoots), this documentary enables us to discover the unexpected power and magic of this alpine microcosm that has changed from a point of collision between hostile forces to a place of interchange and discovery, of encounters and leisure activities: a "crossroad of peace".

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