A History of Ancient Britain - Episode Guide

Neil Oliver travels back to ice age Britain as he begins the epic story of the evolution of the land and its occupants over thousands of years of ancient history. In this episode he describes a struggle for survival in a brutal world of climate change and environmental catastrophe.

Neil Oliver continues the story of how today's Britain and its people were forged over thousands of years of ancient history. It's 4,000 BC and the first farmers arrive from Europe, with seismic consequences for the local hunter-gatherers.

Neil Oliver continues his journey through the world of Ancient Britain as he encounters an age of cosmological priests and some of the greatest monuments of the Stone Age, including Stonehenge itself. This is a time of elite travellers, who were inventing the very idea of Heaven itself.

Neil Oliver continues his epic tour of Britain's most distant past with the arrival of metals and the social revolution that ushered in a new age of social mobility, international trade, and village life.

Neil Oliver continues his epic story of how Britain and its people came to be. Diving for 3,000-year-old treasure and pot-holing through an ancient copper mine, he discovers how a golden age of bronze collapsed into social and economic crisis set against a period of sharp climate change and would eventually be replaced by a new era, of iron.

Continuing his journey into our ancient past, Neil Oliver explores the age of Celtic Britain - a time of warriors, druids, and kings of unimaginable wealth.

Neil encounters a celebrated warrior from 300 BC, owner of the finest Iron Age sword ever discovered. He tries his hand at divination in an effort to discover the power of Celtic priests and searches into his own DNA for clues to Celtic identity.

Continuing his epic story, Neil Oliver explores the remains of brutal Iron Age battles and Celtic rebellion as he reaches the moment when Celtic Britain was ripped apart by the world's great empire - Rome.

Neil Oliver completes his epic journey through thousands of years of ancient history with the modern marvels of Rome. He digs beneath a London tower block, discovers building work from a massive stadium, and encounters the remains of an African woman who lived in York 1800 years ago - all evidence of the extraordinary multicultural modern world of Rome.

Neil Oliver investigates the discovery of a 5,000-year-old temple in Orkney. Built 500 years before Stonehenge, the temple has triggered new thoughts about the beliefs of Neolithic people, turning the map ofancient Britain upside down.

The vast site lies undisturbed until now, set within one of the most important ancient landscapes in the world. There have been some incredible finds, including the first ever discovery of Neolithic painted wall decorations, and even the pigments and paint pots used by Stone Age artists.

Special effects have been used to bring this archaeological evidence to life, creating a three-dimensional model of the entire temple, allowing Neil to walk inside in a bid to understand just how it might have been used.