The Incredible Neolithic Finds Of Ancient Britain | Digging For Britain | Unearthed History 

We would really benefit as a species if more of our educators were as excited, dynamic, curious and interesting as Prof Roberts. Eminently watchable, again and again.

I love listening to someone whose passion for history can be heard in their voice. I could listen to these for hours and in fact do so. They are great for me to listen to while packing boxes at work.

I could watch Dr. Roberts all day.

These shows are FANTASTIC! MORE! MORE! MORE! Dig up the whole island!!!😂

My late wife and I used to stroll along that beach at Happisburgh, thanks for bringing back such fond memories.

I enjoyed years with Tony Robinson and Time Team but you Alice have stolen my heart for the foreseeable future!

Fascinating. Can listen to this all day long.

Another fascinating episode fronted by the mesmeric Alice Roberts, now Prof. Alice Roberts, and with whom I have had the singular pleasure of meeting at several of her ' live ' events around Oxford in recent years. The stone, ' Flint ' featured in the first part of this episode, for those who have never handled it, is a wonderful experience. I have, on my bookshelves several ' knapped ' specimens, their edges as sharp today as when I first created them, providing clear evidence at just how useful, and game changing the discovery of this extraordinary stone must have been to those early inhabitants. Marvelous episode, and thank you for uploading it :)

Awesome! Philomena Cunk couldn't have done it better

Wow... you make history exciting and beautiful 😅

Alice. Thank you for another wonderful briefing. The part of your story about the shipwreck off the Devon coast, with its tin ingots, reminds me of stories I was told as I walked on a farm on the Devon/Cornwall border, along what was called the highway the Phoenicians used to transport tin from Cornwall back home, using ships anchored off the coast of Devon. The locals call it the "Phoenician M5". Approximately which river mouth location is the wreck. Happy to give you the locality of the old road I walked across that farm.

Just a suggestion to the makers of these documentaries....why not investigate Loughton Camp in Epping Forest, Essex? A dig was done there over 100 years ago and finds were apparently made dating back to Mesolithic times. It's an eerie place with a bit of superstition attached to it (the pond next to it is sometimes known as the Suicide Pool!). The earthworks are much worn away so the site possibly pre-dates the Iron Age.

The English and French admire its cave paintings. In Brazil, this very old paintings were made in the open, some of them are true cathedrals. In the distant past, life in the heat was, as it still is, different from life in the cold. This is obvious, but it also suggests that on every continent the primates that evolved until our species dominated the planet had a characteristic that we share: delicate, thin, almost hairless skin (which forced the earliest inhabitants of France and England to manufacture clothes and hide from the winter cold in caves). A delicate, thin, hairless skin is essential in a hot climate, but in the Northern Hemisphere (especially during ice ages) it would make more sense for hominids to develop thick skin completely covered in hair, thus naturally insulating them from the cold. If Europeans had inherited this peculiar characteristic, the world panorama would be very different, as they would not have been able to colonize hot regions from the 16th century onwards and travelers from hot regions would write Travel Literature reporting the existence of talking furry Apes in France, England, Norway, etc... A small genetic detail would change everything. 😂😂😂😂

On my mom's side, my ancestors came from Banffshire and Perthshire, Scotland with a little from Armauge County, Ireland. According to my computer, the Scottish men were also in Ireland. My family's last names are Thain, Cochran, and Dick. My several times Great, Grandpa Major General Sir Robert Henry Dick was killed in Punjab, India in the first Sikh war. I have been working on my family history for several years,[ I am 86 now as of January 3rd, 2023], and because my health is good have years to go! On my Dad's side, we are from Novastifta, Slovenia. What a combination!👵🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛ me, Teo, andTwoTwo my kitties

Such an exciting episode! I really enjoyed the early history details. Archeology is a wonderful science! Thanks so much for sharing with us!

what a great and informative programme - it might present only small clues to our past but in total they are impressive.

Great content, excellently presented. Nice work Doc

Great show ❤ I really enjoyed this

Jean Luc Picard would be highly envious of those archeologists discovering evidence of early humans in what is now Britian so many hundreds of thousands of years ago!

more please alice could watch all day ???? awsome

The Bronze Age gold is just staggering. It suggests an artisan industry to make those. Thanks Alice.

very enjoyable program of much interest. the Neolithic farmer peoples and their migrations from Anatolia on thru into Europe and then to Britain is a favorite subject of mine. was good to see nick ashton, a pal of Phil Harding I recall from earlier episode of time team

Fantastic . . Thank you Professor 😁👍👍

I still consider The Incredible Human Journey to be the greatest documentary of all time. Even though I know that the pace of paleoanthropological study meant that it was out of date by the very fact that it needed to be written, filmed, edited, and released. Full disclosure: My wife is a talking head in a lot of space documentaries.

Fascinating. Meadowsweet is used today as a mild painkiller, usually for arthritic pain, makes me wonder if he was gifted it to take some pain relief into the afterlife! Also I wholeheartedly believe that our ancestors were far more advanced and adept than we give them credit for, it's always frustrated me how dismissive people are, when they survived in ways modern humans wouldn't be able to with the same resources as they had.

When I was at school we went on a trip to creswell crags I spotted some painting on a wall in a cave I told the guide he said no it's not paint it's natural oxidisation of the rock I said it looks like art to me . Sure enough some years later rock art was discovered in a cave and yet again it was a schoolgirl who was credited with finding it all I can remember is the cave was very high with a small river in it the walkway was on the right as was the art river on left

I used to see various art in random patterns in floor tiles when I was sat on the toilet.😮

Brilliant series!

I could listen to her day! What a beautiful, cool Voice

The neolithic, my favorite. Also , Alice is so beautiful.

I'd guess the best Neolithic finds would be where the coastline was at the time, some 300-400 feet deep under the ocean currently. Thanks for your very interesting vid!

I really enjoyed this and found it fascinating, and will certainly watch others in this series. Though I was a bit disappointed at the end. The disolving skeleton theory seemed a bit of a leap from a time when there is evidence of sky/animal burials 9 (lots of gnawed bones retrieved from burial mounds) so perhaps the grave had been left open initially? Also that fragile flower heads were preserved when bones disolved..... really? The other speculation that didn't quite ring true is that the flowers were a mark of love and honour for the dead. Perhaps, though meadow sweet is also a powerfully medicinal herb which may have been considered useful on the journey to or through an afterlife, as well as being pungent with antiseptic properties which have long been understood even if the reasons haven't, so would have had practical reasons to add to a grave, especially an open one.

Very interesting doc!👏👏👏👍👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

I LOVE this so!!!

The Time Team should ask Dr. Alice Roberts to join them. I found out she started on the original Time Team, but they need her now. Please, Time Team, make it happen. Please. Cheers

Brilliant programme just watched Banberry castle which was also brilliant quick question when did Archaeology actually start in what year did it start and where

Excellent AAA+

It makes sense that ancient people travelled around, they had no shops to go to so following animal migration and finding different food sources would have been a matter of survival. Meeting others might have been a priority to satisfy carnal desires, safety and companionship - there being fewer humans on the planet than today - Brilliant content.

Good on you both! Time for a warm spot and a pint or two. 😊❤

Diving team is pretty amazing.

Brilliant documentary!

Looks like a nice block of Solid on the thumbnail 🔥💭

Oooh need a track ID for 20:47 - so nice

LOL the ad hoc “Missile Launch” plastic cover @ 28:55 for which a patent was supposedly applied for! 😂

Awesome....

I don’t care who you are, finding Bronze Age tin around Britain is exciting

Top quality TV.

Thank you Dr. Alice for another interesting bit of British history. How did Britons get there accent? 🤔

just at the beginning and they're sifting the sea! (just finished reading Harry potter, sounds like something mr z lovegood might try.. 🙂 x )

I'm writing a time travel novel for children and the main characters find themselves in the ice age so this video is fascinating. can learn from this.

One of the greatest discovery of my lifetime is Terra Preta a Ancient man-made soil, consisting mixture of bacteria, charcoal, bones, broken pottery, compost, manure it lasts for thousands of years when researcher discovered Amazonian Terra preta it covered a man-made garden twice the size of Great Britain.

I love how she explains the process in such detail as well as sets each project into context, so interesting. Another Tony Robinson? Great to see she’s come so far since Time Team.

I’m guessing that that old bullet @ 39:58 is from the Brass Age. 😉

The Westray wifey makes me feel a connection to those people all that time ago facing lifes ups and downs and finally perhaps marking their move from that place. 50 generations living on that site and then a decision to go. My mins is blown.

16:26 this rock art just can’t be the only one.

❤this Digging for Britain

My theory for the abandoned Farm would be as if they got struck with a last big event that broke their neck. Like a fire that killed the kettle and maybe destroyed their crops. That must have been a devastating blow to their lives as they now wouldn’t have enough to go through the winter. Hunger was followed by sickness and it may have took the life of the settlers children. And so, in a last ritual before abandoning the farm, they buried those figurines as a goodbye gift before wandering off into the mist of time…

It's amazing what we don't know, thinking about the cattle sculls in the walls makes me think they were using them as wall ties to stop the walls moving apart and slumping?

Great episode yet again and to top it off she is absolutely beautiful!

"i can't believe it was raining this morning and now we have sunshine" - hardly a unique weather experience in the UK

End titles MMX, 2010?

Love this show. I'm trying to figure out - can anyone identify the region she's originally from based on her accent? Is it Devonshire?

Awesome video 👍🏻 DUKE

Fantastic finds on here. With those finds off the Devon coast, would the sea level be the same as today, or was the coastline somewhere else? Is it the result of a shipwreck?

Was just watching a video on Çakmaktepi, as well as one on Boncuklu Tarla, and both mention cattle skulls built into the walls. Seems like more than a coincidence…

Fascinating as always. What puzzles me is why do presenters walk while they talk? Is this necessary?

It`s a pitty this will all come to an end soon.😞

Its really great to see science shows with no AI text to speech or gpt scripts or useless graphics, if only YT could tag all videos as pure or AI tainted

Triple R, Nice video. Do you know the geology of Raspberry Rock? Is it granite? How old is it? Just asking. Peace ✌️

That deer scratched into the cave wall was a PRAYER. Please, oh great whoever, please let us have enough deer to help us survive the winter.

9:24 "its still sharp.."

When was this first broadcast?

40:54 Did she say "homonyms"? Sounds like that through my speakers. That segment was quite interesting and while it's great that the divers have found that site, I suspect actual marine archeologists watching would be sputtering with rage, as it seems there's no recording of finds on any type of grid to try and determine pattern, distribution of objects, etc.

England has flint and other rocks like quartz, it would be easy enough to make a fire. you could use two flints but that makes sharp shards fly, they might have had iron ore

I am very interested in stuff like this as I have actually found out that my ancestors are britons

Alice Roberts is more talented, beautiful and insightful than she realises.

There were Hippo's and crocodile in Britain back then too. Hippo and crocodile were, and are, an Equatorial species. That can only mean one thing. I'll let you guess why.. It's the same reason Siberia was once a warm lush wooded grassland in the not so distant past. Siberia, one of the coldest places on Earth, was warm and lush during the last Ice-age.. only to get colder when that Ice-age ended. ....Gold Star if you can guess why

"Hey Boss! Whattaya want me to do with all these old cattle skulls?" "I dunno. Just toss 'em in the wall so we don't have to look at them any more." "Heh. Someday this is really going to confuse some archaeologist."

Oh, Alice Roberts - A beautiful woman with a beautiful mind. There really is something about her.

I doubt if the copper and tim were found in the same area. Either one of them was brought or send but not both together on the same ship

Here's a fact Despite his military achievements, Alexander's reign was relatively short-lived. He died at the age of 32 under mysterious circumstances, sparking various theories about the cause of his death.

Important not to forget that these bones are found there because the coast was so far from there at the time.

Dad carved the small figure for his daughter. It was her doll.

Most people think of Norman, Viking or Anglo-Saxon England, about a 1000 years old, or the Roman times, 2000 years old. A million years is a thousand thousands!

You must admit, it'd be dead interesting if she looked down the beach and saw the top of Nelson's Column sticking outtov the sand!

Terrific stuff. Although art (inc rock art I suppose) is less a frivolity more an intelligent response one or more traumatic events. The artist isn't an artist (according to themselves initially) but just a human attempting to process a situation that has happened to them or loved ones, ensuring (at least in the hope of) the avoidance of perpetuating the trauma by behavioural response. A learning process, so next time it happens they have more agency. Anyway my penny's worth for out there in the world. Appreciating a lot of what in the world this program is also putting out there!

cool

Tibetan people used everything in harsh environments where you couldn't just bury the dead because the ground was frozen, there was no waist even the human body was re-used. Because of this, there may be no other reason behind the skull's use than they were strong structural objects that worked well for building a strong wall (somewhat like we re-use glass bottles to help build a more solid wall out of mud or use straw in the mud mix for houses. The skulls are mixed with other solid materials and then covered up so people aren't reminded that bones are in the walls but that it is only a purposeful use of waste material and no real religious reason for it or love of that particular animal. I think our modern interpretation of something is based on religious ideas behind something instead of the practical use behind something. Like stone henge may of had nothing to do with ritual/ religious uses

Janet and Jane have a good sense of humour, "Patent pending missile launch key use only in black special alert". 🙂

Heres a thought... people migrated like birds do. In warm months move north following big game. Easy to do 100 plus miles a week. 20 or 30 miles a day, couple of days camped up. London to rome is about 1000 miles. Thats 2 to 3 months strolling. 3 months out, 3 months back, winter in the warm.

I find bits of flint on my land .on the edge of dartmoor

Their a miniature version of the statues of the statues of Christmas islands

Any chance that disease killed those cows and they abandoned the “plague “ site?

Yuo are so goog looking dearest Alice Robert s

I am certain that they are at least 200:000 years out on the rock art..People go back way longer than we are taught

Brilliant and informative, but so difficult to arrive at the correct interpretation of why people did things. It did look as if we honoured people when they had died, which makes today's war monuments more important to us.

If one take a moment to digest the thought, as a human species we r so tiny compare to the endless time of the universe. Yet, if we never make contact to recognizable intelligence, therefore in our reality unique at least in one way. The universe created consciousness that could unravel its own secrets of origin.

Carbon dating which you said you used, only works up to 50,000 so how did you date that million years?

If the people of Westray stuck it for 50 generations before the struggle became too great. That takes us back to William the Conqueror and we’d just be throwing in the towel around now. There must have been some good bits to last that long..