Human evolution can’t help but fascinate us - the story of where we came from. Today we, Homo sapiens, are the only human species left. But that wasn’t always the case….

For millions of years, there thrived a great range of early human species. From small-brained island dwellers in Indonesia to ...

From where did humans originate? What did the earliest humans look like? Why did homo sapiens survive while other hominin species went extinct?

In this filmed episode of The Ancients podcast, we're on location at the Natural History Museum in London as Tristan Hughes delves into a huge topic; t...

The Ancients host Tristan Hughes sits down with Professor John Mcnabb at the University of Southampton to discuss the extinct species of archaic human, Homo Erectus (aka the 'Upright Man') that existed about 2 million years ago.

Were these ancient ancestors the first to make stone tools? Were th...

Part 1 of 3.

5,000 years ago the remote islands of Orkney were a great centre of the Stone Age World, boasting connections that stretched across the length and breadth of Britain, Ireland and beyond. And yet, despite its fame and popularity today, there is still so much about Neolithic Orkney th...

Part 2 of 3.

Hidden away beneath a large slab of stone in an ancient tomb, lies one of the most exciting discoveries of the last five years - beautiful carvings of adult red deer, the first animal representations in Scotland. This is just one of the remarkable finds in one of the most extraordin...

Part 3 of 3.

All across northern Scotland, you can still see the skeletal remains of prehistoric skyscrapers. Unique to Scotland, these enigmatic Iron Age towers are called brochs. 2,500 years ago, these drystone structures dominated the Highlands and Islands, yet so much of their story remains ...

Ancient islands, shipwrecks, blue seas... In Britain’s Historic Isles: The Isles of Scilly, Dan Snow joins professional yachtsman and adventurer Conrad Humphreys as they tour the beautiful, rugged Isles of Scilly, on the wave-lashed shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

In this first episode, Dan and Co...

Britain is an island where history is well and truly part of the landscape and an island where human feet have walked for a million years. We are constantly making groundbreaking archaeological discoveries that are helping us to better understand the way in which our distant ancestors lived.

Joi...

12,000 years ago, Britain entered a new chapter in its long history. By this point, hunting tools had evolved, from hefty spears to the slick and stealthy bow and arrow. This revolution in technology would change the way humans hunted forever.

In a period in which Britain was also thawing and e...

Around 800 BC, Britain entered the Iron Age. This era saw the gradual introduction of iron working technology, although the general adoption of iron artefacts did not become widespread until after 500-400 BC.

As the Iron Age progressed through the first millennium BC, strong regional groupings e...