I’ve recently been watching Time Team on Amazon Prime. At least the seasons they have on anyway. I started watching it because of Sir Tony Robinson but the show did draw me in.
A couple of questions to start. Did they ever make any important discoveries that changed in some significant way the understanding of history at a site?
Leaving aside the places where their exploration was limited by law or local regulations, was limiting the dig to three days seen as irresponsible archeology?
Did the digs ever continue after the cameras shut off? It seems like at some sites they have a lot more to do.
Some of their conclusions seem to be based on some pretty flimsy evidence. Was their archeology looked at as sound or is it junk? I know the people on it have genuinely strong credentials.
Time Team has sometimes been accused of peddling stereotypes to the public, but anyone who has met the archaeologists will know that they are not cynical media-savvy operators adopting false personas for the camera. Indeed, the only affectation on Time Team was Mick’s famous stripy jumper. Requested by the production assistant to wear something more colourful, Mick turned up in his distinctive ‘extra-mural tutor jumper’, only to be told it was perfect. Far from a media concoction, the unique individuals on Time Team were filmed going about their work with an honesty and integrity that has seen the series heralded as Britain’s first reality-television show. There can be little doubt that part of the show’s early success stems from the audience warming to the group’s genuine passion for teasing out the past.
I remember Mick, the chief archeologist said they were like a advance team.
For example, they dig in a farmer’s field and find strong evidence of a Roman settlement. Foundations of rock walls and paved streets. The site could get protected status. It could be farmed but no one can bulldoze and build a housing complex on it.
Almost all the digs made a significant contribution to the understanding of that particular site. Did this also contribute to understandings of wider issues? Not any more than most archaeological excavations tend to do. Single excavations almost never overturn big theories. That’s not the way archaeology works. Big theories tend to be built on, modified or overturned by multiple excavations on different sites.
Far from being irresponsible, the time limit was the essence of responsible archaeology. What the programmes did so well was to demonstrate how archaeologists can answer interesting questions by focusing their approach. Have a clear set of objectives, use non-invasive methods first and then dig as little as possible. Making those points again and again really was the best service the programme did for the British public’s understanding of the subject.
I was thinking about the artificial 3 day time limit. It seems like that leads to incomplete work and shoddy science. Three days is a pretty short amount of time. Every site should only take 3 days?
I remember a relatively recent dig in my area. It was an early 17th century settlement they didn’t know much about. The dig had to happen before road expansion happened. It took a couple months to work a site about the same size of a normal Time Team site.
It would be irresponsible to dig that in a limited fashion over 3 days then. But the Time Team digs weren’t like that. They were minimally invasive explorations of sites. And the sites would still be there for future archaeologists. Lots of digs that aren’t limited to 3 days for entertainment purposes are limited due to available manpower and funds, so “do a limited dig and then rebury” isn’t exclusive to TV production, but is in fact standard archaeologist procedure.
And if you have a look at the Wikipedia page you’ll notice that it doesn’t, at least as I write this, have a “Controversy” section with cites from angry “real” archaeologists.
In the real world archaeological digs don’t have limitless time, anymore than they have limitless money and manpower. That’s especially true when the site is not at risk. Everything, including time, is tightly budgeted.
The sites dug by Time Team were not picked at random. They deliberately chose sites that their archaeologists, in consultation with the appropriate official bodies, judged could be easily investigated within three days. They were almost always right. Although there were lots of unexpected discoveries and certainly cases where other digs were subsequently done, there was never really one where they discovered remains far more substantial than they had anticipated as a possibility.
I used to work with a couple of ex archaeologists who were not fans of the show. Partly due to jealousy as Time Team always got to use the expensive technology like geophys that would rarely be used on an average dig.
But they also had friends that worked on the show and were badly treated.Most of the diggers in the trenches were students or post grads and got paid nothing. They had to pay for their own accommodation and in the early series they weren’t even allowed to use the TV catering facilities. I believe this got better as the show became more popular and budgets increased.
That time limit did have its disadvantages, or at least one I can think of – that time that the Looking for Richard Project tried to talk them into digging up a parking lot in Leicester, but it didn’t fit into their three-day format.
