Digging up Britain: Ten discoveries, a million years of history

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Pitts is a great communicator and deals effectively with some complex excavations, technical information, and wider implications. The report reiterates the ‘safe digging for all’ message, and highlights who was digging, where they were digging and why they were digging. Journeying was instinctive, and inhumanities – aggression, war, despotism – arose when the virtue and dignity of travel were suppressed. Although Robin is probably a mythical character, there are reasons why the King stirred widespread resentment among ordinary people. I'm sure it's cheaper to send Professor Roberts to fewer locations, but if I wanted to watch a talk show or a reality show, I would have selected one of those to watch.

An excellent overview of some of the latest discoveries and theories in British archaeology, discusing sites including Must Farm, Black Loch, Starr Carr and Gough's Cave. Pitts pays tribute to the “meticulous and wise” Roger Jacobi here who put together scattered finds from a site that had been excavated and carved out for well over a hundred years. At the end of the book, Pitts points out these are only some of the stories that could be told, and reminds us that there’s been a succession of worlds here, each with technologies and characteristics and cultures, just as important as the Victorian era or the Middle Ages, and that the prehistoric footprints at Happisburgh and the deer-hunters’ platforms at Star Carr are equally as important as a medieval cathedral or Roman London.The report complements well Streetworks UK’s own survey work in 2020 around excavation working practice, and further reinforces the need to share information on LSBUD’s world class platform. Much of the book is about the origins of people crossing to England over the millennia by boat or by foot and some of the analysis is a little gruesome. All of us go back to dark-skinned hunter-gatherers who have walked over a land bridge, and he asks us to remember that in a striking finale.

It would have been interesting if the author had included Ireland and related the findings to the classic “Book of Invasions. It deals with some very interesting subjects of archaeology, but I found it didn't grip, mainly because I didn't understand enough about the subject. Absolutely brilliant - some of my favourite sites are mentioned, with the latest developments - the London Mithraeum, Star Carr, Stonehenge, and others I was less familiar with. As the author says, it's a past that's not a long parade of us in funny costumes—a fascinating 5-star read.We'll share all of the questions and find *some* of the answers, as we join the teams in the field, Digging for Britain. With his background in both practical archaeology and journalism (not least being editor of British Archaeology magazine for 15 years), Pitts is supremely well-placed to give us this comprehensive but also compellingly fascinating and page-turning survey of British Viking to ancient history / prehistory. All this is changing what we know about Britain’s early history, and the way we think about ourselves.