Digging for Britain

Season 1

2010 · 4 episodes · 4h 0m in all

Dr Alice Roberts follows a year of British archaeology, joining up digs and investigations

Episodes

1. 

   1. The Romans

   19 Aug 2010 · 60 min

   Roman finds include the mystery of 97 babies murdered by the Thames, a fabulous Roman coin hoard found in Somerset and a man buried on a layer of dead animals.

2. 

   2. Prehistory

   26 Aug 2010 · 60 min

   Her journey takes her from Orkney to Devon by land, sea and air. In Norfolk, flint tools unearthed this year push the earliest human occupation back by 200,000 years, to around one million years ago. In Orkney an early farm yields glimpses of our ancestors' earliest religious beliefs and customs - cattle skulls buried within building walls, and tiny household goddesses. In Devon, we find one of the oldest known shipwrecks. And a bronze age burial holds a mystery, and touching evidence of grief echoing down over 2000 years.

3. 

   3. Anglo-Saxons

   2 Sept 2010 · 60 min

   The Anglo-Saxons - they divided our land and heralded the arrival of the Dark Ages. But were they really just barbarians? Dr Alice Roberts continues her journey through a year of archaeology, visiting the key sites that are throwing light on this most mysterious of periods. She visits the royal seat of power at Bamburgh, Northumbria and sees how the skeletons tell tales of violent death, but also of tenderness.

4. 

   4. The Tudors

   10 Sept 2010 · 60 min

   Alice Roberts finds out about discoveries that shed new light on the Tudor Age, visiting excavations at Shakespeare's first theatre, in London's Shoreditch, and at his last home in Stratford-upon-Avon, where clues reveal his economical use of money. In Wales, she meets a team of archaeologists learning about the realities of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, while on the banks of the Thames, the history of a forgotten royal palace is uncovered