Season 8 · Episode 7 Recent

An Iron-Age Roundhouse - Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire

Sun, Feb 18, 2001

The team are on Salisbury Plain, over 38,000 hectares of land in South West England owned by the MOD. Though the whole area is rich in ancient remains, they are concentrating on Beeches Barn, an unprepossessing field rumoured to conceal an Iron Age roundhouse. Alongside the dig, they are helping Ian Apter to build one of the team's most ambitious projects, a full-size thatched roundhouse. Early geophysics results indicate not one, but several banjo enclosures. Such features are always accompanied by Roman buildings. The aim is to get the site listed as an ancient monument, but time is running out. They are joined by army volunteers, and Iron Age expert Peter Reynolds. The many finds include a 2,000-year-old bone comb, a quern-stone and a Roman coin.