Digging up History

Digging up History

Documentaries about archaeology.

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Digging up History
  • Ghost Ships: Forgotten Wrecks of the River Dart

    All around the UK, in rivers and streams, and in the mud on the side of riverbeds are the remains of our maritime past, which helps us understand who were are today.

    In 2013, a survey around the UK identified 199 different assemblages of hulks, remains of craft. These included paddle ships, ferr...

  • Walking with Cavemen

    1 season

    Professor Robert Winston meets Lucy, the first upright ape, and follows her ancestors on the three-million-year journey to civilisation. Broadcast in 2003, Walking with Cavemen combined special effects with the latest scientific theories, to show us what it really means to be human.

  • The Story of Egyptology

    Egyptologist Dr Chris Naunton explores the story of how Ancient Egypt was rediscovered, and how its incredible sites and treasures were gradually decoded. Starting with the earliest travelers who ventured inside the pyramids, Chris traces how this curiosity exploded into Egyptomania in the 18th ...

  • Fortress Britain: Ardoch Roman Fort

    Join Tristan Hughes in this short documentary as he explores the fascinating history of Ardoch Roman Fort in Scotland. Featuring historians Rebecca Jones and Andrew Tibbs.

  • The National Trust: Reimagining Our Past

    Here at History Hit, we love exploring the historic sites managed by the National Trust. In this special film we participate in a major National Trust event, the first Octavia Hill lecture, delivered by renowned art historian and museum director, Neil McGregor. Neil delves into two magnificent ho...

  • Finding the Lost Battlefield of Brunanburh

    The Battle of Brunanburh was one of the bloodiest and biggest battles of early medieval history. Fought 1100 years ago, Athelstan - the king of the English - opposed a coalition of Irish, Scots, Northumbrians and Vikings and won a decisive victory. The enemy shield wall was penetrated. Their troo...

  • Rome’s Disaster: The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

    2 seasons

    Tristan Hughes investigates one of Rome’s greatest disasters, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

    The Battle of the Teutoburg forest stopped Roman expansion in its tracks. It’s a story of betrayal, of one man’s vehement desire to liberate his people from Roman rule and the brutal, bloody length...

  • The Traces of War

    1 season

    Dr James Rogers, Assistant Professor of War Studies, is fascinated by these remains and exactly what they can tell us about not just the changing nature of war through time - but the stories of the people who lived through those events.

  • George Washington: The First Battle

    Dan Snow goes to Pittsburgh to explore the extraordinary story of how an over-ambitious young George Washington fought for the British and helped to fire the shots that started the Seven Years War, the world’s first global conflict.

  • The History of Westminster Abbey

    Sir David Cannadine shows Dan around the iconic Westminster Abbey, in the heart of London. With an unrivalled arrange of monuments - ranging from grand royal tombs to the grave of The Unknown Warrior - and spectacular architecture spanning nearly 1,000 years, join the two historians as they explo...

  • The Untold Story of the Unknown Warrior

    The First World War was a conflict like nothing the World had ever known. More than 700,000 men mobilised in the UK would die during the conflict. Roughly 250,000 of those would have no known grave. The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior became a place where all those people who were denied a grave to v...

  • The Scottish Massacre: Unearthing the Secrets of Glencoe

    Join historian Dan Snow as he journeys to Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands to examine an astonishing new archaeological discovery: a hoard of coins likely hidden during one of the most shocking episodes in British history - the Glencoe Massacre.

    At 5am on 13th February 1692, 38 members of the ...

  • In Search of the Great Viking Army

    In 865 AD, England was invaded by the Great Heathen Army. The Great Viking Army, as it was also known, was made up of a coalition of Scandinavian warriors mainly from Denmark and, legend has it, four of the five sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, including Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless, Bjorn Irone...

  • The Cutting Edge: Testing the Stone Age

    History Hit visits Kent State University, Ohio to film a fascinating ‘cutting-edge’ experiment that takes us to the beginnings of the Stone Age, over 2.6 million years ago.

    Kent State is home to one of the world’s leading experimental archaeology laboratories, scientifically exploring the distan...

  • American Revolution - Commemorating the Fallen of the Battle of Camden, 1780

    History Hit has been up close to a remarkable story from the American War of Independence, exploring the history and attending the commemorations for the dead of the bloody battle of Camden, 1780.

    Travelling to South Carolina for this special film, Dan Snow investigates some exceptional histo...

  • Ernest Shackleton: With Ranulph Fiennes

    In this fascinating interview, Dan Snow chats to the world's greatest living explorer Ranulph Fiennes about Ernest Shackleton and his heroic expeditions in the Golden Age of Antarctic Exploration.

  • The Stuka

    More famously known as the ‘Stuka’, the Ju 87 is perhaps the most recognisable dive bomber of the Second World War, made famous by its infamous Jericho trumpet. During the Battle of Britain, squadrons of Stukas gained some success destroying ground targets. On 13 August 1940 – Eagle Day – Stukas ...

  • Tutankhamun: Life Not Death

    Renowned Egyptologist Prof. Joann Fletcher explores the most famous pharaoh of them all - Tutankhamun. Jo has curated a very special exhibition in her hometown, Barnsley, not only to celebrate the world of Tutankhamun, but also the people from northern England who played an important role in his...

  • Paestum: A Tale of Three Cities

    The story of ancient Italy is so much more than just Rome. Tristan Hughes visits the extraordinary site of Paestum in southern Italy, home to some of the greatest ancient Greek temples from anywhere in the world.

    From majestic temples to pristine wall paintings more that 2,500 years old, he exp...

  • Secrets of Hitler's Island Fortress

    Guernsey and its neighbouring islands have a unique distinction which sets them apart from the rest of the British Isles. Together with the rest of the Channel Islands, they were the only part of the British Isles to fall to Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In this documentary Dan Snow disco...

  • Life and Death in Late Iron Age Britain

    Roman connections with Britain stretch back to (at least) the mid 1st century BC, but what has archaeology revealed about the Late Iron Age British societies they interacted with? Do we have any concrete evidence for the druids? Was human sacrifice a thing? Sit back and enjoy as experts provide a...

  • Ray Mears, The Bow: The History of Archery

    1 season

    The oldest known evidence of the use of the bow comes from South Africa, where microliths, believed to be arrowheads dating from around 70,000 years ago, have been found.

    Evidence of humans' use of the bow can be found all over the world, from cave art in Algeria that shows a man shooting a slig...

  • Life and Death in Roman London

    1 season

    Dr Simon Elliott explores the rise and fall of Roman London.

  • Hidden London

    1 season