Secret Britain: Unearthing Our Mysterious Past

"A cornucopia of our weirdest and most wonderful archaeological sites and artefacts. They make you feel proud to be a citizen of these gloriously intriguing isles." Sir Tony Robinson

An Ice Age cannibal's skull cup, a hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold, a seventeenth century witch bottle... anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota unearths more than 70 of Britain's most intriguing ancient places and artefacts and explores the mysteries behind them.

Britain is full of ancient wonders: not grand like the Egyptian pyramids, but small, strange places and objects that hint at a deep and enduring relationship with the mystic. Secret Britain offers an expertly guided tour of Britain's most fascinating mysteries: archaeological sites and artefacts that take us deep into the lives of the many different peoples who have inhabited the island over the millennia.

Illustrated with beautiful photographs, the wonders include buried treasure, stone circles and geoglyphs, outdoor places of worship, caves filled with medieval carvings, and enigmatic tools to divine the future. Explore famous sites such as Stonehenge and Glastonbury, but also discover:

• The Lindow Man bog body, showing neatly trimmed hair and manicured fingernails despite having been killed 2,000 years ago
• The Uffington White Horse, a horse-shaped geoglyph maintained by an unbroken chain of people for 3,000 years
• A roman baby's bronze cockerel, an underworld companion for a two-year-old who died sometime between AD 100-200
• St Leonard's Ossuary, home to 1,200 skulls and a vast stack of human bones made up of around 2,000 people who died from the 1200s to the 1500s
• The Wenhaston Doom painting, an extraordinary medieval depiction of the Last Judgement painted on a chancel arch

Explore Britain's secret history and discover why these places still resonate today.


About the Author

Broadcaster and anthropologist Mary-Ann Ochota is a familiar face on TV archaeology programmes, including the cult show Time Team, History Channel's Ancient Impossible, and the Smithsonian Channel hit Mystic Britain.

She's written two other popular archaeology books, including Hidden Histories: A Spotter's Guide to the British Landscape. It was shortlisted for Current Archaeology's Book of the Year Award. Mary-Ann also writes regularly for newspapers and magazines on outdoor adventures, anthropology and archaeology, presents documentaries on BBC radio, gives guided walks and performs archaeological storytelling. She's a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a hillwalking ambassador for the British Mountaineering Council and she holds an MA from Cambridge University in Archaeology and Anthropology.

Find her at maryannochota.com and on Twitter and Instagram @MaryAnnOchota.