About this season
Dr Alice Roberts follows a year of British archaeology, joining up the results of digs and investigations the length of the country.
Episodes (6)
1. Scottish Massacre and 70s Skate Park
Aired 7 January 2026 • 59 min
Featuring visceral evidence of a bloody massacre in the Scottish Highlands, one of the largest Roman cemeteries ever found in Britain, Bradford’s first Muslim burial, more finds in Carlisle from a Roman bathhouse, and from the 1970s, Scotland’s first skatepark.
2. Our Rarest Find and Biggest Dig
Aired 14 January 2026 • 59 min
Featuring two incredibly rare finds from an Iron Age hoard, a look inside the UK’s largest and most complex dig in a generation, an Iron Age site perched on the very edge of the White Cliffs of Dover, and the earliest example of an artist’s signature from Roman Britain.
3. A Mysterious Bone Box and Admiral Nelson’s Favourite Ship
Aired 21 January 2026 • 59 min
Rare Anglo-Saxon swords, a mysterious and macabre Roman bone box and a cross-continental investigation into Admiral Nelson’s favourite ship.
4. England’s Last Anglo-Saxon King and Scotland's First Whisky
Aired 28 January 2026 • 58 min
The lost estate of Harold Godwinson, last Anglo-Saxon king of England, a completely intact 4,000-year-old cremation vessel and an unprecedented Roman whetstone factory.
5. Medieval Murder and Roman Pets
Aired 4 February 2026 • 59 min
Featuring a vast first-century Roman compound, the warhorses that changed the course of history, a medieval murder mystery, the thriving farmstead belonging to Isaac Newton's mother, thousands of animal bones from a Roman farm, and a 300-million-year-old forest that built the modern world.
6. A Cornish Legend and an Ancient Wishing Well
Aired 5 February 2026 • 58 min
Tantalising clues to the ancient origin story of St Michael’s Mount, rare Roman cavalry swords with hidden secrets and a wishing well of coins at a promontory fort in Pembrokeshire.