Digging up Britain: Ten discoveries, a million years of history

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The first series consisted of four episodes, initially broadcast on BBC Two in August and September 2010. Dr Alice Roberts visits archaeological excavations around the UK, linking together the results of digs and investigations the length and breadth of the country to build up a picture of the y. And after giving me episodes that I'd easily rate an 8 or a 9, they give me talk shows and reality shows, neither of which I watch because I consider them to be zeroes. Pitts pays tribute to the “meticulous and wise” Roger Jacobi here who put together scattered finds from a site that had been excavated and carved out for well over a hundred years.

A great sampling of the current usual suspects in archaeology as well as updates on old archaeological friends: Must Farm, Star Carr, Red Lady of Paviland, etc.All are extraordinary tales of luck and cutting-edge archaeological science that have produced profound, and often unexpected, insights into people’s lives on these islands between a thousand and a million years ago. This seemed really logical to me, and worked really well, and the author explains it using the way archaeologists dig down through layers in trenches from newer to older.

Pitts states that he is writing for the lay person, and (for example) goes into detail explaining half life dating. Although it’s a compact paperback and the margins are quite small, it’s really well-produced and easy to read. We move from rural Staffordshire and Norfolk to the centre of London, looking at layers of Roman history as we work back – and again, here, new planning legislation allows for the appropriate time for archaeologists to check what’s under new buildings, even if it was thought that we knew everything already. Britain has long been fascinated with its own history and identity, as an island nation besieged by invaders from beyond the seas: the Romans, Vikings and Normans.Judging from the place in the credits might be Nick Gillam-Smith for this episode, mistitled as Series Producer only. All are extraordinary tales of luck and cutting-edge archaeological science that have produced profound, and often unexpected, insights into people's lives on these islands between a thousand and a million years ago. It was fascinating to me to find out about new arrangements and legislation, too: for example, there’s a Portable Antiquities Scheme nowadays which works with detectorists to understand and record their discoveries in a national database, which has had a huge impact on the amount of data held in England and Wales on small and large finds which would have otherwise been missed by the authorities. Read all Dr Alice Roberts visits archaeological excavations around the UK, linking together the results of digs and investigations the length and breadth of the country to build up a picture of the year in British archaeology. He is manifestly annoyed by the misinterpretation and oversimplification of the press in reporting new information.

Please don't forget that we also have an app, which can be especially useful if you're working outside and using a laptop is inconvenient.

We'll share all of the questions and find *some* of the answers, as we join the teams in the field, Digging for Britain. We’re soon in the Bronze Age, finding that every house has its set of bronze household implements, then there’s fascinating DNA evidence of population changes during the Neolithic, with Stonehenge being built by “immigrants” and being a place of spiritual importance for hundreds and hundreds of years. The Geospatial Commission leadership would do well to read this report closely, and ensure its forthcoming work is additive to existing systems. They’re back to almost a million years now – and while there is not much to go on with the very early stuff, stories can be told, carefully, from evidence, and that evidence can be woven together to provide compelling discoveries and changes in thought.

With his background in both practical archaeology and journalism (not least being editor of British Archaeology magazine for 15 years), Pitts is supremely well-placed to give us this comprehensive but also compellingly fascinating and page-turning survey of British Viking to ancient history / prehistory. The same format as in series 3 was adopted for series 4 and 5, which first aired in March and December 2016, respectively. However here, we’re not looking back 300 or so years to Empire, but many hundreds and then thousands of years to the waves of migration which created our country. But then, starting with the third series, it looks like the producers decided they didn't want to make anything so staid as perhaps the best archaeology series on English-speaking television ever.It's a past so increasingly strange as time is peeled back that there is no practical way to make the modern comparison. In countries where there are hunter-gatherers today (often people pushed into marginal places where anyone else would find it hard to live at all), they can be treated as second-class citizens.