Ancestors

'Most of what we know about our Anglo-Saxon ancestors comes from their graves,' said Tony Robinson in the opening to a 2001 Time Team episode about the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery. He wasn't wrong. But this isn't only true of the Anglo-Saxons. Graves provide us with an extraordinarily detailed picture of the past. We may be looking at someone long dead, but we learn as much about life in the past, as we do about death, from these remains. Now, in her superb new book Ancestors, Alice Roberts investigates seven British graves to discover all that we can learn about our forebears, dating back to Neanderthal times some 220,000 years ago in North Wales right up to the Iron Age burial site in Pocklington, Yorkshire, dating back about 2500 years. The seven burials in this book stand out because they are so rich in detail, so emblematic of a particular time and place, or because they tell us unexpected things about our ancestors. Each burial provides us with a window onto the past - onto a certain time, place and culture. Taking advantage of the very latest archaeological science - including DNA and isotope analysis - to reveal the intimate biographies of these individuals, we obtain an astonishing glimpse into ancient lives and times long forgotten. We also find threads which, passing back through time, tie us to our landscapes today. Comparing these particular burials with others in Britain and much further afield, we learn about migration, culture and connections in the past.