History Cold Case

An apparently African skeleton, unearthed near a medieval English monastery, pushes Professor Sue Black’s forensics team to its limits. Bone analysis offers clues about the true origins of the mysterious skeleton and facial reconstruction painstakingly reveals his face, not seen for centuries. The historical trail points to new evidence about British ancestry and the case takes an unexpected twist when they discover the tragic truth about how he died.

A skeleton unearthed in an archaeological dig in the historic borough of Southwark in London sparks a new cold case when it is found to be covered with disfiguring scars. Renowned forensics expert Prof Sue Black leads her team at the Centre for Anatomy and Human ID at the University of Dundee in an investigation that will drag them into the seediest corners of early Victorian Britain. They use the latest facial reconstruction techniques to bring the identity of one of history’s missing persons back into chilling view, but in the process the team discovers much more than they bargained for.

For decades experts have remained baffled by a jumble of human bones discovered in a unique series of caves on the North York Moors; one discovery in particular stands out - a tangle of bones that might belong to a family from two thousand years ago.

In 2008, construction workers just beyond York's city walls uncovered 113 bodies in a mass grave; the team spots an incredibly rare genetic peculiarity in two of the skeletons and wonders whether they have stumbled on a pair of brothers.

The remains of 17 people are discovered in a dry well shaft in the village of Norwich, England; thought to date from the early 1200s, this becomes a case of suspected medieval murder but the identity of the dead is the biggest shock of all.

In the town of Baldock in Hertfordshire, the team investigates the discovery of a skeleton dating from around 100 A.D.; it is buried in a bizarre position, along with the remains of three babies.