In each chapter, the careful and methodical recording and preservation of structures and finds is highlighted, with any new technologies that arise in the telling well-explained, and the various experts who are brought in – whether that’s people who know about pollens or people who know about human bones – are celebrated and given their space and story.

With his background in both practical archaeology and journalism (not least being editor of British Archaeology magazine for 15 years), Pitts is supremely well-placed to give us this comprehensive but also compellingly fascinating and page-turning survey of British Viking to ancient history / prehistory. In countries where there are hunter-gatherers today (often people pushed into marginal places where anyone else would find it hard to live at all), they can be treated as second-class citizens. A theme runs through the book that, even in the earliest periods, the UK was linked with Europe with lots of movement across the Channel and, earlier, across the land bridge of Doggerland, with aDNA showing what a varied population the UK has had over the millennia.

This excitement comes through palpably in his descriptions of the sites and of the people working on them – and of his own work around Stonehenge, treated mid-way through the book. Alex Langlands investigations the unique properties of the stones that make up the monument, while Helen Skelton visits the nearby village where its builders lived.

Extremely rare 'ancient Celtic ornament' discovered in Norway believed to have been stolen by Vikings". Much of the book is about the origins of people crossing to England over the millennia by boat or by foot and some of the analysis is a little gruesome. There were other bias as well that caused misinterpretation such as a military person identifying a site as having a military history and in reality it did not and the other is those only interested in the status sites and ignoring any evidence of the full value of how people in all walks interacted and lived out their lives. This book highlights ten archaeological finds that change the way we think of British history and prehistory.And as so often in the history of archaeology, and as I will show in this talk, new ideas about Stonehenge and the landscape around are leading some of those changes. All are extraordinary tales of luck and cutting-edge archaeological science that have produced profound, and often unexpected, insights into people’s lives on these islands between a thousand and a million years ago. We open a door and see a new world: but all around are a hundred more doors, and we have no idea what lies behind them.