Sunday 8pm FINDING YOUR ROOTS - Celebrities view ancestral histories, sometimes learn of connections to famous/infamous people, discover secrets, and share the emotional experience with viewers.
Hard Times Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the family stories of filmmaker Michael Moore and actors Laura Linney and Chloë Sevigny—three people whose distant ancestors overcame great hardships in ways that resonate with their lives today.
9pm SECRETS OF THE DEAD - Science/History – See how experts use modern forensic techniques to shed new light on historical mysteries. Viking Warrior Queen - Swedish archaeologists prove through a DNA study that remains found in the burial chamber of a Viking warrior in 1878 are that of a woman -- not a man.
In 1878, archaeologist Hjalmar Stolpe uncovered a grave containing a large number of weapons and the skeletal remains of what seemed to be a great Viking warrior. For a century, people assumed the body was male until the 1970s when Berit Vilkans, a young researcher, observed the bones had female characteristics. In 2017, a team of Swedish geneticists proved through a DNA study that the great warrior wasn’t a man, but a woman. Join this team of experts as they examine the DNA results and complete a field investigation, uncovering the truth about the only archaeological discovery of a female Viking warrior and battle strategist known to date.
10pm NOVA: Ghosts of Stonehenge - Science/Technology - Archaeological digs reveal new clues as to who built Stonehenge and why.
Stonehenge is the grandest and most enigmatic of Europe’s prehistoric monuments, and it has inspired countless theories to explain who built it and why. Over the last decade, fresh answers have come from an ambitious program of research, including the first scientific study of human remains—thousands of fragments of cremated men, women, and children—buried at the site 5,000 years ago.
In this Stone Age detective story, archaeologists analyze the bones and piece together tantalizing details of the elite families who presided over Stonehenge. Remnants of huge feasts that fed the laborers at the site have come to light, including evidence that they traveled from the far corners of the British Isles to raise the stones and celebrate the winter solstice. Yet Stonehenge’s place as a centerpiece of ancient culture was not to last.
