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What can reconstructing an iron age chariot tell you about how our ancestors travelled? Were they into home decoration - lime-washing the walls of their round houses and decorating them with the latest patterns ? Were wild boar sausages on the menu?
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Image from Chariots of Leather.
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Mike Pitts - the editor of British Archaeology - sheds light on the lifestyles of our forebears by recording on location around Britain and in America. He brings together professional archaeologists with present day crafts people to compare ancient and modern techniques for survival.
Programme 1: Changing Huts - round house style.
At Butser Ancient Farm in Wiltshire the reconstructed round house is painted dark red - another near Glastonbury in Somerset has whitewashed and patterned walls and is equipped with bed frames much like anything you might buy today. But what evidence do we have for iron age interiors and what was on the menu ? Mike Pitts talks to David Freeman and Ann Phipps who spend up to 40 nights a year living in round houses and to archaeologists John Coles and Stephen Minnit who have found evidence that our ancestors dined on beaver and pelican.
Programme 2: The first cross channel ferry?
How did we trade and travel in the past? Mike Pitts tells the story of the chance discovery of the best preserved prehistoric boat in Britain under a road in Dover and visits the Hampshire boatyard of Giff and Joyce Gifford who have built and sailed a bronze age style oak ship..
Programme 3: Chariots of Leather
At the International Museum of the Horse in Kentucky, America last summer a 2 wheeled wooden chariot with a suspension system made from woven leather was put through its paces. One of the passengers was Mike Pitts - who reports on this vehicle modelled from an image on a coin.
Programme 4: Chopping and Changing
At Yarnton in Oxfordshire Gill Hey and her colleagues have found what's thought to be the earliest loaf of bread in Britain. What do her excavations tell us about the first farmers 6,000 years ago and how they changed the landscape from forest to fields. Mike Pitts compares notes with the anthropologist Paul Sillitoe from Durham University who's studied the use of stone axes on farming and forestry in Papua New Guinea.
Programme 5: The Killing Machine
What can a big game hunter today tell us about how the woolly mammoth might have been killed? An excavation in Norfolk has revealed the best site for mammoth remains in Britain. The archaeologist Bill Boismier and the geologist Nigel Larkin discuss their findings and Mike Pitts also canvasses the views of the owner of a South London gun company Paul Roberts.
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