Digging Up Britain: Ten Discoveries, A Million Years of History

by Mike Pitts

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating:

Synopsis:

Digging Up Britain traces the history of Britain through key discoveries and excavations. With British archaeologist Mike Pitts as a guide, this book covers the most exciting excavations of the past ten years, gathers firsthand stories from the people who dug up the remains, and follows the latest revelations as one twist leads to another.

Britain, a historically crowded place, has been the site of an unprecedented number of discoveries--almost everywhere the ground is broken, archaeologists find evidence that people have been there before. These discoveries illuminate Britain's ever-shifting history that we now know includes an increasingly diverse array of cultures and customs.

Each chapter of the book tells the story of a single excavation or discovery. Some are major digs, conducted by large teams over years, and others are chance finds, leading to revelations out of proportion to the scale of the original project. Every chapter holds extraordinary tales of planning, teamwork, luck, and cutting-edge archaeological science that produces surprising insights into how people lived a thousand to a million years ago.

It took me a while to get through Mike Pitts’ Digging Up Britain, because there’s a lot to take in. Pitts discusses various sites across Britain representing dozens of discoveries each, and tries to analyse what they mean, reimagine their contexts, and also provide the context of the modern excavations, the techniques used, etc

The book is illustrated by maps, black and white images, and two inserts of colour images too — I didn’t always find myself flicking through to look at those, because I was more interested in following the sense of the text, but it does let you get a look at what’s being discussed, and adds a bit more context.

In the end, I wasn’t too surprised by any of the findings discussed: after growing up eagerly awaiting new Time Team episodes, I’ve stayed a little big plugged in to the big archaeological discoveries. That said, sometimes later analysis has discovered fascinating but not newsworthy things, so I learned some new stuff too.

Rating: 4/5