Tim Sutherland

that changed in the summer of 1996.

While the conditions of preservation were excellent, it wasn't possible for the archaeologists excavating the grave, led by Tim Sutherland, to determine precisely how many individuals were buried in it.

The corpses had been thrown in haphazardly, sprawling across each other in closely packed layers.

The dearth of artifacts suggests that they had been plundered, if not stripped entirely, after death.

The actual course of the Battle of Towton is debatable.

For such a large clash, solid information about what really happened there is hard to come by.

Tim Sutherland has recently suggested that three separate clashes spread over two days and 10 miles of countryside have been wedged together into a single story that doesn't cohere particularly well.

I'm inclined to agree with that.

Twice a day you can cross, and twice a day it's reachable only from the sea.

Archeologist Tim Sutherland has worked on digs across Europe, but never yet on Lindisfarne.

It's in an incredibly remote place.

There's very little around you.

Back in the trench, the team are making progress.

As the dig goes on, it's becoming more apparent how this part of the priory grounds has changed over the centuries.

Tim Sutherland now explains the layout of the burial area.

There would've been very little stone around, and it might've been cultivated.

holes.

Simon had heard of the excavations at Towton Battlefield, where Tim Sutherland had been at work to recover the remains of victims of the battle in 1461.

Remembering the skull with the rhomboid hole in the side of its skull and the ones at Towton, putting two and two together, what I'd found there might have been a victim from the Battle of Towton.

So then I got in touch with Tim.