Sandi Toksvig's Hidden Wonders

Sandi Toksvig rediscovers her love of archaeology, more than 40 years after earning her degree in the subject. She is joined by the current President of The Council for British Archaeology, Raksha Dave. In this first episode, Sandi and Raksha go on a dig in Dorset, where a team from Bournemouth University are unearthing the secrets of a 2000-year-old Iron-Age cemetery. As they explore the world of the Durotriges tribe, the discovery of the skeleton of a teenager found face down hints at a darker side to this ancient community. Could this be evidence of human sacrifice?

Sandi and Raksha join the team from the University of Reading at the site of Cookham Abbey, once ruled by the powerful Queen Cynethryth, as they uncover exciting new evidence of early medieval monastic life in eighth-century Britain, including clues that this site may have once served as a hospice for the sick and dying.

Sandi takes her first ever trip to Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland to discover what life would have been like for the soldiers, their families, the traders and enslaved people at the edge of the Roman Empire almost 2000 years ago. At the nearby site of Vindolanda, Sandi helps clean a massive size 14 boot, discovered in one of Magna Fort's defensive ditches.

Sandi is in Essex, helping to find and identify the wreckage of a Second World War US Army Air Forces fighter plane in the hope of repatriating its pilot. As archaeologists carry out a forensic search, Sandi unearths training logs and a weather report from the day the plane crashed, gaining further insight into a young life cut short.