[2][3] The programme was commissioned by David Attenborough in 1966,[1] and was produced by the Archaeological and Historical Unit headed by Paul Johnstone and later edited by Bruce Norman.

The Archaeological and Historical Unit at the BBC that produced the programme was headed by Paul Johnstone, later the show was edited by Bruce Norman.

[6][7] Other presenters included the archaeologists Glyn Daniel, Colin Renfrew, Mortimer Wheeler and David Drew, and the historian John Julius Norwich.

It financed projects that they filmed and televised, the first of which was a live broadcast of an excavation on a prehistoric mound, Silbury Hill, undertaken by Richard Atkinson in 1968.

[2] Other notable episodes aired included the excavations at Knossos and Sutton Hoo, and it was part of the 16-hour live coverage of the raising of Mary Rose from the Solent.

[9] Its most successful episodes were broadcast during the 16-hour coverage over three days of the raising of the Tudor warship Mary Rose in October 1982, which gained a cumulative audience of 20 million in the UK as well as other viewers in Europe.