Strata: Portraits of Humanity is a monthly half-hour newsmagazine-style show. Each episode of the human story is a portrait building on the many layers of the human experience. This is a record we are just beginning to uncover. From that perspective, Strata delivers in-depth coverage of a wide variety of archaeological and cultural heritage topics all around the world.
Pacific island funeral; Roman boat in French river
The death of a chief on the Pacific island of Pohnpei near the megalithic temple of Nan Madol prompts a big funeral...
Pacific Island War Dance; early Greek farmers
Only 100 people still live on tiny Mwoakilloa atoll in the Pacific, but the Mwokilese community on nearby Pohnpei. Archaeobotanist Tania Valamoti and her team excavating at Dikili Tash in northern Greece...
Underwater cave in the Philippines; highway archaeology finds Roman site in the UK
Archaeologists dive on Marigondon Cave, best known as one of the most famous diving spots in Cebu City, Philippines. Archaeologists carried out excavations over the summer of 2014 on the route to bypass Cannington, a town in West Somerset, England...
Roman lead coffin burial in England; Maya rain ceremony
Metal detectorists discover a lead coffin in a field near Ilchester in Somerset, England. The local police call in the archaeologists. Paul Hixon participated as a student in an ethnobotany field school in the Yucatan, Mexico...
Tehran 2015; Temple of the Giants
ALI Director Rick Pettigrew attended the 2015 edition of the Cinema Verite Iran International Documentary Film Festival at the organizers’ invitation. The affluent Greek city of Akragas in Sicily; an ambitious tyrant; an incredible victory over the most dreaded enemy; a temple of colossal proportions...
Reading Herculaneum scrolls; historic British Columbia and Nevada miner
About 2000 years ago, Mt. Vesuvius in southern Italy exploded, carbonizing a private library in Herculaneum. The papyrus scrolls are extremely fragile and many have been damaged. William Culverville, a British miner in the Cariboo mining district of British Columbia, skedaddled (i.e., escaped debts) to Nevada. While driving a stagecoach...