The chalk hills of southern England, from the White Horse figures cut into their slopes to the barrows and ditches beneath them, are the subject of this BBC film presented by Aubrey Manning. He joins a team of archaeologists from Reading University who are trying to pin down when the hills' human-made markings and earthworks were actually cut, using excavation and dating techniques to test dates that had long rested on guesswork and folklore. The dig contends with the terrain itself, since the chalk downland that makes the figures visible for miles also makes it slow going to trench and sample. Manning threads the geology, how chalk forms and erodes, together with the legends that grew up around specific hills, treating both as part of the same story. The film sets out the region's landscape and history first, then follows the archaeologists into the field as they work toward an actual date rather than a myth.