ATTENBOROUGH JOINS ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG FOR BBC ONE DOC

Sir David Attenborough joins an archaeological dig uncovering Britain’s biggest mammoth discovery in almost 20 years.

 In 2017, in a gravel quarry near Swindon, two amateur fossil hunters found an extraordinary cache of Ice Age mammoth remains and a stone ‘hand axe’ made by a Neanderthal.

Sir David Attenborough joins biologist Prof. Ben Garrod and a team of archaeologists and palaeontologists as they carefully excavate this prehistoric crime scene. Why were the mammoths here and how did they die? Could the Neanderthals have killed these Ice Age giants? The team searches for clues to unravel this Ice Age mystery.

Mammoth bones found in the UK often date to tens of thousands of years ago, but the bones here are hundreds of thousands of years old. As the team finds more stone tools lying nearby they realise this could be a once in a generation discovery offering a unique window into a period of prehistory we know very little about.

It could unlock new clues into how our Neanderthal relatives lived in the harsh conditions of Ice Age Britain, and even how they died.

Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard (w/t) is a 1x60’ for BBC One and iPlayer.