Alice Roberts - Television Career

Television Career

A presenter on various science documentary programmes, Roberts first appeared on television in the Time Team Live 2001 episode, working on Anglo-Saxon burials at Breamore, Hampshire. She has since served as a bone specialist and general presenter in many episodes, including the spin-off series Extreme Archaeology. In August 2006, the Time Team special episode Big Royal Dig investigated the archaeology of Britain's royal palaces, and Roberts was one of the main presenters for this programme. She is also one of the regular co-presenters of BBC geographical and environmental series Coast.

Now a familiar face on British TV, Alice Roberts wrote and presented a BBC Two series on anatomy and health entitled Dr Alice Roberts: Don't Die Young, which screened from January 2007. More recently, she presented a five-part BBC Two series on human evolution and early human migrations entitled The Incredible Human Journey, beginning on 10 May 2009. She is now working on a second series on human migration. In September 2009, she co-presented (with Mark Hamilton) A Necessary Evil?, one-hour documentary about Burke and Hare murders. In August 2010 she presented another one-hour documentary on BBC Four, Wild Swimming, inspired by Roger Deakin’s book Waterlog. Roberts presented a six-part BBC Two series on archaeology in August–September 2010, Digging For Britain.

In March 2011 she presented a BBC documentary in the Horizon series entitled Are We Still Evolving? She also presented the series Origins of Us, which aired on BBC Two in October 2011, examining how the human body has adapted through seven million years of evolution. The last part of this series featured Roberts visiting the Rift Valley. She also mentioned species related to Homo sapiens, such as Homo habilis and Homo neanderthalensis. The programme mentioned how the Neanderthals might have used more sophisticated tools than was at one time believed.

From 22 to 24 October 2012, she appeared, with co-presenter Dr George McGavin in the BBC series Prehistoric Autopsy, which discussed the remains of early hominids such as Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and Australopithecus afarensis.