Secrets of the Dead - Season 16

Researchers working in secret inside a quarry study the charred remains of a 3,000-year old English settlement that's rewriting Western history.

Scientists try to determine which giant animal was the apex predator 58 million years ago - a 43-foot-long snake called titanoboa or a giant crocodilian. A mining operation in Cerrejon, Northern Colombia, opened a window onto a previously unknown period of the earth's history and a world teeming with giant creatures emerged. The biggest of all was Titanoboa a 43-foot snake, the largest that ever lived. But new discoveries in Cerrejon suggest that Titanoboa's rule was challenged by a giant crocodilian. Follow scientists as they try to comprehend the size of this animal and uncover what made it so successful. Close analysis of fossils and scientific experiments reveal unmatched hunting prowess. So which one was the apex predator in Cerrejon 58 million years ago?

The moment when Vincent van Gogh looked into a mirror, held up a blade and cut into his own ear defines his turbulent life and art. But what did he really do on the night of December 23, 1888, in the town of Arles, France? What was his state of mind? No one has been clear on the details … until now. Bernadette Murphy, a researcher living in Provence, has spent five years piecing together a meticulous picture of his life in Arles, person by person, house by house. She has uncovered definitive evidence, never before published, and pieced together a detailed timeline of the events leading up to the night of the event, explaining the driving force behind the story that dominates art history.

Baiae … An escape for ancient Rome's powerful elite, the Las Vegas of its day. Underwater secrets reveal a seaside city where Nero and Julius Caesar once lived. Now, archaeologists are mapping underwater ruins and piecing together what life was like in this playground for the rich.

Leonardo da Vinci is well known for his inventions as well as his art. But new evidence shows that many of his ideas were realized long before he sketched them out in his notebooks — some even 1,700 years before. Was Leonardo a copycat?