BURIED: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF THE FIRST MILLENNIUM IN BRITAIN

Archaeologist, academic, author and broadcaster Professor Alice Roberts follows up her hugely successful Ancestors, published last year, with her latest book Buried, which looks set to be just as successful and to further cement her reputation as one of the brightest minds in the field as well as one of the busiest.

Ancestors focused on prehistoric Britain, uncovering stories about our forebears by studying the remains from seven burial sites that pre-dated the arrival of the Romans in these lands. For her new book, Alice goes digging again in the rich and fascinating source of burial sites, but these instead span the first thousand years of British history.

In the process she discovers Roman cremations with the remains of funerary feasts, treasure-filled AngloSaxon graves and the first Christian burial sites in Wales. Employing her customary tools of archaeological research, the latest DNA testing, written historical evidence and her razor-sharp mind, she is able to put together a picture of the funerary rites that took place at these sites and in turn build a picture of how people viewed death and the afterlife.

The stories are told with Alice’s characteristic flair for narrative, combining her forensic research with an empathy and understanding of the human condition that absolutely brings her subjects and the period to life. Through these stories of death we gain a clearer picture of how people lived. As one reviewer said of her previous book: “While the rest of us read words, Alice reads bones – and what stories they have to tell.” Simon & Schuster, £20;

ISBN: 978-1-47118-804-6