Time Team: Season 20, Episode 5

20 - 5:

In a sensational three days, an ancient site yields burials dating back to 2000BC, along with rare Saxon brooches, beads, spears and jewellery. In the middle of the army training ground on Salisbury Plain, just a mile from Stonehenge, is the extraordinary Barrow Clump. It's a huge mound of earth built by Bronze Age people to bury their dead. More than 2500 years later, the Anglo-Saxons re-used Barrow Clump, burying their dead with staggering artefacts. But it's now being destroyed by badgers. At the dig site, Tony and the Team join soldiers from Operation Nightingale, who are being trained in archaeology as part of their recovery after being wounded or traumatised in Afghanistan. Working alongside these soldiers is a moving and thought-provoking experience, as modern-day warriors respectfully uncover the remains of their ancient predecessors. As the finds pile up, pottery dates the earliest burial to around 2100 BC - much the same time as when the big stones went up at nearby Stonehenge. And the Saxon finds speak of a relatively wealthy, cosmopolitan people living in the area in the sixth century.