Neil Oliver: News, Comment, History

In this episode we travel with Neil to one of the most magical lakes in the British Isles.In the beautiful dark waters of Llyn Fawr, in Mid-Glamorgan, Neil comes face to face with the reflections of another world - home to ritual, ceremony and an ancient way of life that spanned the Bronze and Iron Ages. He rubs shoulders with an elite group of thinkers, whose power and knowledge spread right across the British Isles and discovers a hoard of incredible artefacts.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil takes us on board the oldest known seagoing boat in the world – the Dover Boat.Next door to the White Cliffs of Dover, one of the most unmistakeable, and instantly recognisable landmarks in the whole of the British Isles, Neil comes face to face with what for him, is one the most extraordinary artefacts he has ever seen. An incredible bit of ancient kit that was made by Bronze Age shipbuilders and used, by our ancestors, to travel and trade across the channel - Neil brings the Dover Boat to life.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Neil takes us with him to Llandudno to explore deep within the belly of a mountainous sea serpent.Across the world the powerful marriage of copper and tin was producing a new metal alloy that was propelling the future of our species and driving a new age, the Bronze Age. Around 4000 years ago, at the Great Orme in Clwyd our ancestors started mining copper one of the metals needed to make this new metal alloy. The result, a vast almost industrial operation, helps shine a light on the drive, determination and sophistication of our ancestors - the mine they dug is the largest known prehistoric copper mine in the world.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s podcast we travel with Neil across the British Isles into the Bronze Age, investigating the metal alloy that would transform the human species.The ancient world knew Cornwall as one of the richest sources of tin on the planet. And in the Bronze Age tin was in demand, because it is one of the two metals, along with copper, needed to make the new 'wonder' alloy, bronze. Neil takes us to Geevor tin mine on the incredibly beautiful Cornish coast exploring how this part of the British Isles played its part in helping to create the weapons, tools, jewellery and artworks that powered the world’s Bronze age.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Neil takes us to a place swirling with myths and legends.In Cardigan bay lies the fabled Welsh Atlantis, Cantre’r Gwaelod. Legend tells of a rich land that was prized and protected but lost to an unstoppable flood. Setting off from Borth, Neil walks across an ancient landscape that intersects with history and archaeology to reveal some of it’s hidden secrets.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode Neil takes us to Salisbury to meet a Time Traveller from around four and a half thousand years ago who still has much to say.Neil uncovers the stories this remarkable man tells us about the journey he took, walking right across Europe to Wiltshire in a time when you could hear the banging and clattering of building work at Stonehenge. Known as the Amesbury Archer, our Time Traveller was a man of great status. When he died, he was buried surrounded by beautiful flint arrow heads, fine archer’s wrist guards, gold and other precious metals - the richest Bronze Age burial ever discovered in Britain.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Neil travels to the largest artificial, prehistoric mound in Europe.Half a million tons of chalk were used by our Neolithic ancestors to build Silbury Hill. Neil explores this colossal monument, the mystery and myths that surround it and the role it played in the lives of the people who constructed it. Built at a time when our ancestors had moved from being hunter gathers to farmers and were starting to make marks on the landscape, it’s an incredibly powerful statement that shouts ‘we are here’!Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s podcast Neil’s journey continues across Wiltshire’s powerful ritual landscape, taking us to the largest stone circle in the world.Avebury is a colossal monument built over centuries by our Neolithic ancestors. It consists of three stone circles and at its heart is the cove stone weighing nearly 100 tons. This complex and mysterious monument chart’s the seasons, marks time and once brought our ancestors together. Awed by its sheer scale and intent Neil testifies to the fact that, thousands of years ago, this surely was a place that meant so much.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil takes us to a place that is famous around the world and speaks of massive intent.Constructed with huge stones weighing up to 40 tons and great sarsen trilithons - Stonehenge is truly monumental. It brought our ancestors and their ideas together, tracking the light, the planets and time - and 5000 years after it was begun it's somewhere that still has the power to put you in your place.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil takes us across Wiltshire’s Ritual Landscape to investigate a mysterious chambered tomb.Built by our ancestors over 5000 years ago West Kennet Long Barrow is one of the largest chambered tombs in the British Isles. In it were found stone daggers, beads and pottery together with skulls, long bones and other human remains – a place that that still has the power and presence to make the hairs on the back of your neck rise as you crawls inside.Check out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Neil explores heaven itself.Travelling back in time to the Neolithic and the inspiringly beautiful Great Langdale in Cumbria’s Lake District, Neil delves into the history behind the famous greenstone axe heads. Telling the story of our ancestors who produced them and finding out what them tick. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil takes us deep underground chasing the beautiful, ‘must-have’ raw material our ancestors craved.Travelling to the incredible lunar landscape of Grime’s Graves in Norfolk, Neil unravels the story of how, 5,000 years ago, our ancestors mined high quality flint on an almost industrial scale. Miners with a deep sense of responsibility, always giving something back for what they took from the earth - an ancient knowledge we are only just starting to relearn today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil travels to a time when our ancestors lived with their dead in a way many of us would find shocking today.Journeying to the World Heritage Site on the east coast of Ireland, where the incredible Neolithic tombs at Newgrange and Knowth sit, Neil explores an age that still has many hidden secrets. As soon as he steps foot inside the monumental megalithic art, it’s clear that this place continues to hold the power to move us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil turns the British Isles upside down! Travelling to Orkney, off the north-east tip of Scotland, he uncovers ancient burial tombs, ceremonial halls and gives us a glimpse of an influential powerhouse long hidden by time.As he tells the story of the profound changes this once formidable centre of influence has undergone, Neil unravels the lessons history tells us and the pointers it gives to what may lay ahead in the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Neil takes us to the roots of the most profound, self-inflicted, social upheaval our species has ever known.Travelling to the west coast of Ireland, Neil tells the story of how our view of the world, and our place in it changed forever - the introduction of farming and the daily grind around 10,000 years ago has had social and psychological consequences we are still coming to terms with today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Neil brings us face to face with the violent, bloody birth of the British Isles.In this episode Neil takes us to Angus, in Scotland to see the breath-taking beauty of the Montrose Basin and evidence of the biggest natural disaster the world has seen in the last 8000 years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil’s journey across the British Isles, and through its history, continues as he takes us on a walk down one of the oldest streets on the planet.In this episode Neil is confronted with some of the oldest art ever found in Britain. Around 16,000 years ago Creswell Crags, in the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire borders got its latest tenants, a group of hunter gathers who made their homes home with beautiful decorations and mysterious painted symbols. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Neil’s journey across the British Isles brings us face to face with a dead body and a case of mistaken identity.In Goat’s Hole Cave, on the Gower Peninsula, Neil uncovers tantalising clues and profound emotions surrounding a grave that is 34,000-year-old - the grave where the remains of the oldest modern human ever found in the British Isles was discovered. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Oliver’s Love Letter to the British Isles begins a million years ago, as he sets off on his journey through time and space to tell the story of the British Isles and how they came to exert a profound influence over the whole world.Neil’s journey starts on the Norfolk coast, in Happisburgh, where he brings us footprint to footprint with evidence of a lost tribe, human, and yet not quite us – the first tenants of what would become the British IslesCheck out the Podcast Instagram Account - Neil Oliver Love Letter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.