The Romans
Episode: 1x01 | Airdate: Aug 19, 2010 (60 min)
Episode: 1x01 | Airdate: Aug 19, 2010 (60 min)
Episode: 1x02 | Airdate: Aug 26, 2010 (60 min)
Episode: 1x03 | Airdate: Sep 2, 2010 (60 min)
Episode: 1x04 | Airdate: Sep 10, 2010 (60 min)
Episode: 2x01 | Airdate: Sep 9, 2011 (60 min)
Episode: 2x02 | Airdate: Sep 16, 2011 (60 min)
Episode: 2x03 | Airdate: Sep 24, 2011 (60 min)
Episode: 2x04 | Airdate: Sep 30, 2011 (60 min)
Episode: 3x01 | Airdate: Feb 3, 2015 (60 min)
Episode: 3x02 | Airdate: Feb 10, 2015 (60 min)
Episode: 3x03 | Airdate: Feb 17, 2015 (60 min)
Episode: 4x01 | Airdate: Mar 10, 2016 (60 min)
Episode: 4x02 | Airdate: Mar 17, 2016 (60 min)
Episode: 4x03 | Airdate: Mar 24, 2016 (60 min)
Episode: 5x01 | Airdate: Dec 6, 2016 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts with the very best in British archaeology 2016 - filmed by the archaeologists themselves, straight from the trenches, so you can see each exciting discovery as it happens. The teams then bring their best finds - from skeletons to treasure - back to the Digging for Britain lab, to examine them with Alice and reveal how they are changing the story of Britain. This episode looks at the west of Britain, and archaeologists are in the lab to look at the new finds and what they mean. Finds include: the lost WWI training trenches on Salisbury Plain; Britain's first 'double henge' - discovered just down the road from Stonehenge - where the evidence suggests our ancestors feasted and made sacred offerings as part of a visit to the ritualistic Stonehenge landscape; and luxury foreign goods discovered at Tintagel, the legendary childhood home of King Arthur.
Episode: 5x02 | Airdate: Dec 13, 2016 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts with the very best in British archaeology 2016 - filmed by the archaeologists themselves, straight from the trenches, so you can see each exciting discovery as it happens. The teams then bring their best finds - from skeletons to treasure - back to the Digging for Britain lab, to examine them with Alice and reveal how they are changing the story of Britain. This episode is from the north of Britain, where finds include: evidence for the first Roman siege in Britain, including the biggest cache of Roman bullets discovered anywhere; Britain's most famous monastery - Lindisfarne - rediscovered for the first time since it was violently sacked by the Vikings 1,000 years ago; and the incredible discovery of the ancient Scottish man-made islands that entirely rewrite our understanding of Stone Age tech.
Episode: 5x03 | Airdate: Dec 20, 2016 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts with the very best in British archaeology 2016 - filmed by the archaeologists themselves, straight from the trenches, so you can see each exciting discovery as it happens. The teams then bring their best finds - from skeletons to treasure - back to the Digging for Britain lab, to examine them with Alice and reveal how they are changing the story of Britain. Finds include: new revelations from 'Britain's Pompeii' - the 3,000-year-old perfectly preserved village in Cambridgeshire - including how our Bronze Age ancestor's designed their homes; the theatre where Shakespeare premiered Romeo and Juliet and Henry V, complete with sound effect props and evidence that the original audience was much rowdier than you might expect; evidence that we may have finally found the location of the Battle of Barnet, the Wars of the Roses site where Edward IV defeated Warwick the Kingmaker in a battle that would eventually bring the Tudor dynasty to England's throne.
Episode: 6x01 | Airdate: Nov 22, 2017 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts explores some of this year's most exciting archaeological finds from the west of Britain. Each discovery comes straight from the trenches/site, filmed by the archaeologists themselves. We discover the camp from which Vikings invaded Britain, and find groundbreaking new evidence that the world-famous Avebury stone circle isn't just a sacred site but a place where our ancestors lived and worked - a discovery that's 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.
Episode: 6x02 | Airdate: Nov 29, 2017 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts explores some of this year's most exciting archaeological finds from the east of Britain. Each discovery comes straight from the trenches/site, filmed by the archaeologists themselves.
We unearth the biggest collection of Roman writing tablets in Britain, giving insight into what Roman London was really like. Off the coast of Kent, we dive into the English Channel to complete the biggest marine excavation since the Mary Rose - an 18th-century East India Company ship, packed with silver. Also in Kent, we're on the detective trail to find the very first evidence of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain - an ancient fort scattered with human skulls and weapons.
Episode: 6x03 | Airdate: Dec 6, 2017 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts explores some of this year's most exciting archaeological finds from the north of Britain. Each discovery comes straight from the site, filmed by the archaeologists themselves. 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.
Episode: 6x04 | Airdate: Dec 13, 2017 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts reveals the forgotten story of the Roman Army's secret weapon in Britain - their cavalry. These fearsome horsemen were the key to defending Britain's most famous Roman monument fortification. Alice sets off across Hadrian's Wall to investigate any evidence the Roman cavalry left behind, while a team of archaeologists and historical re-enactors attempt to re-stage a Roman cavalry tournament - a spectacle that no one has seen for over 1,600 years. Alice joins them at a public display in Carlisle where 30 riders perform in front of a crowd of spectators. The film also explores the latest archaeological digs happening across the UK, each of which is searching for new evidence of the Roman cavalry. Alice visits some of the most iconic sites associated with the Roman cavalry, including Chester's Roman fort, Vindolanda fort and museum and Hexham Abbey. Along the way she builds a picture of the horsemen's lives here on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire.
Episode: 7x01 | Airdate: Nov 28, 2018 (60 min)
Alice Roberts celebrates the biggest and best archaeological discoveries of 2018 from the north of the UK.
Episode: 7x02 | Airdate: Dec 5, 2018 (60 min)
Episode: 7x03 | Airdate: Dec 12, 2018 (60 min)
Episode: 7x04 | Airdate: Dec 19, 2018 (60 min)
Episode: 8x01 | Airdate: Nov 20, 2019 (60 min)
In the Cotswolds, a secret location, which appears to be a high-status Anglo Saxon cemetery, gives up a very precious and fragile artefact.
Episode: 8x02 | Airdate: Nov 27, 2019 (60 min)
More than is expected is found in the remains of a house thought to be the childhood home of Lady Jane Grey. Plus the graveyard of a Victorian workhouse sheds new light on the Great Famine of 1845.
Episode: 8x03 | Airdate: Dec 4, 2019 (60 min)
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.
Episode: 8x04 | Airdate: Dec 11, 2019 (60 min)
In this special edition of the programme, the team are on the hunt for archaeology from our more recent past as they follow the search for artefacts from World War II.
Episode: 9x01 | Airdate: Jan 4, 2022 (60 min)
The astonishing discovery of a mosaic has art historians, archaeologists and Alice very excited as they slowly reveal its full beauty.
Episode: 9x02 | Airdate: Jan 5, 2022 (60 min)
The astonishing discovery of a mosaic has art historians, archaeologists and Alice very excited as they slowly reveal its full beauty.
Episode: 9x03 | Airdate: Jan 6, 2022 (60 min)
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.
Episode: 9x04 | Airdate: Jan 11, 2022 (60 min)
Unearthing a Jurassic giant, investigating finds from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery and uncovering the hidden heart of Roman Leicester.
Episode: 9x05 | Airdate: Jan 12, 2022 (60 min)
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.
Episode: 9x06 | Airdate: Jan 13, 2022 (60 min)
Featuring a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, evidence of early writing by the Picts in Scotland and a 3000-year-old Bronze Age coffin buried under a golf course.
Episode: 10x01 | Airdate: Jan 1, 2023 (60 min)
Digs in southern England reveal a previously unknown Roman town, a Tudor ship buried beneath a quarry and evidence of Henry VIII's financial
forgery under the Tower of London.
Episode: 10x02 | Airdate: Jan 1, 2023 (60 min)
In the west of the UK, a spectacular monument older than Stonehenge, a 200-year-old mine trapped in time and a lost medieval friary.
Episode: 10x03 | Airdate: Jan 1, 2023 (60 min)
In Scotland and the north of England, Alice investigates an Ice Age camp, the mystery of a medieval skeleton and the earliest evidence of salt making in Britain.
Episode: 10x04 | Airdate: Jan 1, 2023 (60 min)
Alice Roberts reveals a Dutch ship sunk by the English, a Cornish Roman fort and a 5000-year-old Neolithic monument.
Episode: 10x05 | Airdate: Jan 1, 2023 (60 min)
Travelling east, Alice discovers a Roman barn conversion, unearths a Tudor fort and finds intricately carved 10,000-year-old weapons.
Episode: 10x06 | Airdate: Jan 1, 2023 (60 min)
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.
Episode: 11x01 | Airdate: Jan 2, 2024 (58 min)
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.
Episode: 11x02 | Airdate: Jan 2, 2024 (58 min)
In central England, an RAF airbase with a Roman past, a forgotten medieval nunnery, a gold pendant from a 7th-century grave and a pub with a very long history of hospitality.
Episode: 11x03 | Airdate: Jan 2, 2024 (58 min)
In the west of Britain, there's a rare medieval cemetery, a disappearing Mesolithic landscape, a mysterious Iron Age burial and the ruins of a Gothic masterpiece.
Episode: 11x04 | Airdate: Jan 2, 2024 (58 min)
Roberts reveals the most fascinating archaeological finds this year in the East of England: a Roman dodecahedron, the secrets of Boudicca's hill fort and Waterloo's disappearing dead.
Episode: 11x05 | Airdate: Jan 2, 2024 (58 min)
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.
Episode: 11x06 | Airdate: Jan 2, 2024 (58 min)
Digs in the West of Britain reveal a forgotten fortress teetering on the edge of a cliff, evidence of the oldest house in Cardiff and a discovery at a Roman mosaic that shocks the experts.
Episode: S03 Special | Airdate: Feb 23, 2015 (60 min)
Professor Alice Roberts and archaeologist Matt Williams present the highlights from this year's archaeology in Ireland. There is new evidence and a new theory to explain the amazing phenomenon of Ireland's perfectly preserved Iron Age bog bodies. Could these men really have been kings, murdered when their reigns failed? A dig at the iconic Dunluce Castle opens up the controversial Plantation of Ulster. A disagreement pits experts against local knowledge as the hunt is on for the location of the Battle of Ford of the Biscuits from the Elizabethan Nine Years' War - with unexpected results. A burial ground yields clues to a Bronze Age invasion of Ireland, a period when it became known as Europe's Eldorado. An astonishing lough yields perfectly preserved boats from Bronze, Iron and Viking Ages. The burial ground of the prison known as Ireland's Alcatraz offers up unexpected evidence of kindness among the inmates. Plus amazing plunder from the Spanish Armada, from Viking raiders and from Ireland's age of heroes, all curated from the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
Episode: S08 Special | Airdate: Mar 17, 2020 (30 min)
Professor Alice Roberts re-examines key archaeological sites of prehistoric Britain, from the arrival of the earliest humans to mysterious ceremonies at Stonehenge.
Episode: S08 Special | Airdate: Mar 24, 2020 (30 min)
Professor Alice Roberts re-examines the key archaeological sites of Iron Age Britain, from an incredible chariot burial in Yorkshire to a vast coin hoard on Jersey.
Episode: S08 Special | Airdate: Mar 31, 2020 (30 min)
Professor Alice Roberts re-examines the key archaeological sites of Roman Britain, from the foundation of Londinium in the south to fierce siege battles in the north.
Episode: S08 Special | Airdate: Apr 7, 2020 (30 min)
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms