Digging for Britain

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.

Alice Roberts finds out about discoveries that shed new light on the Tudor Age, visiting excavations at Shakespeares first theatre, in Londons 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 VIIIs dissolution of the monasteries, while on the banks of the Thames, the history of a forgotten royal palace is uncovered

Includes a visit to Orkney where Viking dominance outlasted anywhere else in Britain.

Dr Alice Roberts goes in search of our elusive Stone Age ancestors.

Finds include evidence of the first Roman siege in Britain and Scottish man-made islands.

We discover the camp from which Vikings invaded Britain, and find groundbreaking new evidence that the world-famous Avebury stone circle isnt just a sacred site but a place where our ancestors lived and worked - a discovery thats also changing our understanding of neighbouring Stonehenge. In Staffordshire, the oldest Iron Age gold in Britain is unearthed - a set of beautiful gold torcs, mysteriously abandoned 2,500 years ago.

Alice discovers the well-preserved writing tablets, swords and domestic items left by Romans at Vindolanda during a time of British rebellion. On the Scottish island of Iona, there are traces of a long-lost monastery and pilgrimage site that was originally built by the legendary saint Columba, and has been compared to Jerusalem. In the east of Scotland, a weapons hoard belonging to a wealthy Bronze Age warrior is unearthed.

Professor Alice Roberts celebrates the biggest and best archaeological discoveries of 2018 from the north of the UK. Each digging team has been filming its own excavations, giving us an unprecedented view of each excavation as it happens. Alice begins the programme with a prehistoric Pompeii at the Black Loch of Myrton. Uncovering incredibly preserved 2500-year-old houses, archaeologists are stepping back in time and glimpsing what life was really like in an Iron Age village. We follow archaeologists uncovering a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Lincolnshire full of spectacular and unusual grave goods. We go on the hunt for a lost Second World War reconnaissance Spitfire in Norway and piece together the story of its brave pilot. Deep in the vaults at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, we explore one of its greatest treasures, the Westness Brooch. We also head to the island of Rousay in Orkney, where archaeologists rescue a Neolithic tomb before it gets washed away and discover an incredible trace of our ancestors on a rare Pictish stone. In Salford, a major regeneration project is unearthing the largest jail in Georgian England and its radical approach to crime and punishment. Roving archaeologist, Raksha Dave gets privileged access behind the scenes in the conservation labs at Vindolanda Roman fort and discovers what really happens when the digging stops.

Professor Alice Roberts explores this year’s most exciting archaeological finds from the East of Britain. Every new discovery was filmed by the archaeologists themselves giving us an unprecedented view of each excavation as it happens. In this episode, we join a team in Suffolk as they uncover an ancient lost monument as old as Stonehenge. We travel a little further East than usual to a WWI battlefield in France to explore one of Britain’s earliest and most disastrous tank battles, and then return to Suffolk as archaeologists try to make sense of some disturbing Roman burial practices. Also, one lucky metal detectorist chances upon a coin hoard that gives us insight into the effect the English civil war had on the lives of ordinary people. Our roving archaeologist, Raksha Dave goes behind the scenes at an archaeological lab in Brighton and follows an investigation into a lost medieval village.

Archaeological discoveries with Professor Alice Roberts. In the Cotswolds, a secret location, which appears to be a high-status Anglo Saxon cemetery, gives up a very precious and fragile artefact.

How a lobster led archaeologists to the discovery of an 8000-year-old neolithic settlement. And Naoise Mac Sweeney visits a construction site as it gives up the secrets of its Elizabethan past.

The astonishing discovery of a mosaic has art historians, archaeologists and Alice very excited as they slowly reveal its full beauty.

The best archaeology from the north of Britain, including Scotland’s oldest railway, one of the best-preserved Norman castles and an extraordinary find from a Neolithic tomb.

A new Roman town and hundreds of finds are discovered. The Cerne Giant finally gets a date, and a World War II air crash mystery is laid to rest.

Digs in southern England reveal a previously unknown Roman town, a Tudor ship buried beneath a quarry and evidence of Henry VIII’s financial under the Tower of London.

A gatehouse riddled with Civil War bullets, a unique Iron Age shield made from bark and Roman burials with pots where the heads should be.

Travelling east, Alice discovers a Roman barn conversion, unearths a Tudor fort and finds intricately carved 10,000-year-old weapons.

Digs in northern Britain reveal a Roman emperor’s lost bathhouse, the sunken treasures of medieval pilgrims and a formidable fortress perched on top of a Scottish mountain.

In the west of Britain, theres a rare medieval cemetery, a disappearing Mesolithic landscape, a mysterious Iron Age burial and the ruins of a Gothic masterpiece.

Archaeology in the south of England unearths Britain’s oldest shoe, the lost shipyard of one of England’s greatest warrior kings and Britain’s top-secret WWII defences.

The most incredible grave goods ever found on Digging for Britain, a strange Roman sarcophagus filled with plaster and an intriguing medieval coin hoard.

Exploring Britain’s islands: a 5,000-year-old Neolithic tomb, an international effort to save a WWI warship, and a Neanderthal hunting ground off Jersey’s coast.

In the west of Britain, theres one of the largest Roman buildings ever discovered in Britain, an Iron Age chariot is saved, and evidence is found of the transatlantic slave trade in Devon.