Dinosaur Highway and Roman Sauna

Alice journeys around central Britain to uncover the most exciting archaeological discoveries made in the region in 2024.

A quarryman makes the chance discovery of a set of very large footprints, giving a team of palaeontologists a unique chance to reconstruct the world of these awesome beasts from the Jurassic. A metal detectorist makes some small finds that lead archaeologists to discover an incredible, luxurious Roman farmstead.

On the other side of the county, a small community dig in the walled town of Irchester gives clues as to how and why the Romans created prosperous ‘new towns’ to manage their newly conquered territories. And on one of the largest single archaeological excavations ever undertaken, archaeologists strip the Cambridgeshire landscape, uncovering multiple Iron Age settlements.

Finally, there's another look at the skeletons from 2023’s Leicester Cathedral excavation. The burials become source material for a groundbreaking scientific study that brings scientists, archaeologists and historians together to investigate how the arrival of a new product, tobacco, changed the health of the nation for the worse.