Time Team
| Time Team | |
|---|---|
| File:Time Team logo.gif | |
| Presented by | Tony Robinson |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 256[1] (as of 20 January 2008) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Tim Taylor |
| Running time | 60 minutes (including adverts) |
| Original release | |
| Network | Channel 4 More4 |
| Release | 16 January 1994 – present |
| Related | |
| Time Signs | |
Time Team is a British television series that has aired on Channel 4 since 1994. Presented by the actor Tony Robinson, the series features a team of specialists doing an archaeological dig in three days, with Robinson explaining the process in in layman’s terms.
Time Team has had many companion shows during its run, including Time Team Extra, History Hunters and Time Team Digs. The series also features special episodes, often documentries on history or archaeology, and live episodes.
Time Team was developed from an earlier Channel 4 series Time Signs, first broadcast in 1991. Produced by producer Tim Taylor, it features Mick Aston and Phil Harding, both of whom later went onto to appear on Time Team.
Format
A team of archaeologists, usually led by either Mick Aston or Francis Pryor (the latter usually heads Bronze Age and Iron Age digs), and including field archaeologist Phil Harding, congregate at a site, usually in the United Kingdom. The site is frequently suggested by a member of the viewing public who knows of an unsolved archaeological mystery, or who owns property that has not been excavated and is potentially interesting. Time Team uncover as much as they can about the archaeology and history of the site in three days, often in conjunction with the local archaeological unit.
At the start of the programme, Tony Robinson explains, in his "piece to camera", the reasons for the team's visit to the site, and during the dig he enthusiastically encourages the archaeologists to explain their decisions, discoveries and conclusions. He tries to ensure that everything is comprehensible to the archaeologically uninitiated.
Excavations are not just carried out to entertain viewers. The archaeologists involved with Time Team have published more scientific papers on excavations carried out in the series than all British university archaeology departments put together over the same period.[2]
Other team members
The regular team includes:
- landscape investigator Stewart Ainsworth
- archaeological geophysicist John Gater
- surveyor Henry Chapman
- illustrator Victor Ambrus
The original Time Team line-up from 1994 has altered over the years. Historian Robin Bush was a regular in the first nine series, having been involved with the programme through his long friendship with Mick Aston. In 2005 Carenza Lewis left to pursue other interests. She was replaced by Anglo-Saxon specialist Helen Geake.
The team is supplemented by experts appropriate for the period and type of site. Guy de la Bédoyère has often been present for Roman digs, as well as those involving the Second World War such as D-Day and aircraft (such as the Spitfire). Margaret Cox often assists with forensic archaeology, and other specialists who appear from time to time include David S. Neal, expert on Roman mosaics. Local historians also join in when appropriate.
More recent regular team members have included archaeologist Neil Holbrook and historian Sam Newton.
Younger members of Time Team who have made or currently make regular appearances include:
Mick Worthington, formerly nicknamed "Mick the Dig" as he worked largely on site excavation in the early years, occasionally still appears in his current occupation of dendrochronologist and is now known as 'Mick the Twig'.
Production
Time Team is commissioned by Channel 4 Television (the broadcaster) and made in partnership between VideoText Communications Ltd and Picturehouse Television Co. Ltd (based in London). Recently-formed Wildfire Television was involved in the production of The Big Roman Dig (2005) and The Big Royal Dig (2006). It is produced by Tim Taylor, the show's originator, with Associate Producer Tony Robinson.
Sites
Sites may be suggested by landowners, local archaeologists, academics, interested bodies or members of the general public, and have included everything from the Mesolithic period to World War II. For example programmes have featured the excavation of Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements, Roman villas and medieval churches. Several excavations have resulted in the discovery of sites of national significance.
Other formats
Time Team Live broadcasts show selected Time Team excavations as they are under way. The edited highlights of the live broadcasts are then shown as a programme in the regular series in the following year. The first dig featured was at Turkdean, Gloucestershire, in August 1997.
Time Team's Big Dig was an expansion on the live format. A weekend of live broadcasts in June 2003 was preceded by a week of daily short programmes. It involved about a thousand members of the public in excavating test pits each one metre square by fifty centimetres deep. Most of these pits were in private gardens and the project stirred up controversies about approaches to public archaeology.
Time Team's Big Roman Dig (2005) saw this format altered, in an attempt to avoid previous controversies, through the coverage of nine archaeological sites around the UK which were already under investigation by professional archaeologists. Time Team covered the action through live link-ups based at a Roman Villa at Dinnington in Somerset - itself a Time Team excavation from 2003. Over 60 other professionally-supervised excavations were supported by Time Team and carried out around the country in association with the programme. A further hundred activities relating to Roman history were carried out by schools and other institutions around the UK.
Time Team Extra (1998) were a series of eight broadcasts in which archivist Robin Bush and a guest archaeologist or historian would elaborate on the information learned during the Time Team episode shown earlier in the week, using libraries, archives, discussion and visits to other historical locations. The Time Team Extra shows were intended to further flesh out the viewer's understanding of the history, community and lifestyle of people who would have occupied the dig site.
Time Team History Hunters (1998) hosted by Tony Robinson. Each of the seven episodes featured three teams of individuals interested in their local history. Using only historical materials accessible to the general population, each team would attempt to learn the history of a location and find the truth behind local legends and long-held theories.
Time Team Specials are documentary programmes about topics in history and archaeology made by the same production company. They are generally presented by Tony Robinson and often feature one or more of the familiar faces from the regular series of Time Team. In some cases the programme makers have followed the process of discovery at a large commercial or research excavation by another body. Time Team usually does not carry out excavations for these programmes, but may contribute a reconstruction.
Impact on public interest in archaeology
Time Team regularly receives two to three million viewers, with at least 20 million turning on at some point over any one series[citation needed]. Foreign audiences also enjoy the programme, with particular interest in the Netherlands. The programme has also been transmitted on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, on TVOntario in Canada, on ABC TV in Australia and some episodes have also been broadcast by History International.
There is no doubt that Time Team has substantially raised public awareness and understanding of archaeology. Time Team contributor Francis Pryor has written: "Before the first series of Time Team in 1993, it was hard work starting an excavation. I can remember arriving at a building site in Fengate, where I was to cut some exploratory trial trenches. When I announced that I was an archaeologist, some wit in a JCB quipped that I had lost my way to Egypt. Much hilarity. After Time Team that same chap would be asking when I was planning to bring in the geophysics." (Pryor, 2005)
Archaeologist Robert Van de Noort, Head of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources at the University of Exeter, said: "Tony Robinson's Honorary Doctorate, and the Honorary Professorships for principal presenter Mick Aston and producer Tim Taylor, reflect our great appreciation for what Time Team has done for the public understanding of archaeology in this country. We know that the enthusiasm and skill of those working on the show has contributed greatly to creating a new generation of archaeologists, some of whom we hope to teach here at Exeter."[3]
Such is the popularity of Time Team that it has even made its way into alternative humour, as this article (registration required) by the British parody and humour site NewsBiscuit demonstrates.
2007 accident
On 13 September, 2007, while filming a jousting re-enactment for a new series of Time Team, a splinter from a balsa wood lance entered the eye-slit of one of the participants. Mr Paul Allen, a member of a re-enactment society in his 40s, died a week later in hospital.[4] Channel 4 stated that the program would be aired, but without the re-enactment sequence.
Episode listing
Time Team episodes
Time Team specials
Time Team Digs
Time Team History Hunters
Time Team Live
Time Team Extra
Notes
- ^ This figure includes all live episodes, specials and episodes of Time Team Extra, History Hunters and Time Team Digs.
- ^ Channel 4 programme website (Retrieved 23 October 2007)
- ^ Exeter University
- ^ BBC News(Retrieved 22 Oct 2007)
References
- Current Archaeology magazine
- Ambrus, Victor and Aston, Mick, Recreating the Past (Tempus, 2001).
- Aston, Mick, Mick's Archaeology (Tempus, 2000, new edition 2002).
- Gaffney, Chris and Gater, John, Revealing the buried past: Geophysics for archaeologists (Tempus, 2003).
- Lewis, Carenza, Harding, Phil and Aston, Mick, edited by Tim Taylor, Time Team's Timechester (Channel 4 Books, 2000).
- Pryor, Francis, Flag Fen: Life and death of a prehistoric landscape (Tempus, 2005).
- Robinson, Tony and Aston, Mick, Archaeology is Rubbish (Channel 4 Books, 2002).
- Taylor, Tim, with photographs by Bennett, Chris, Behind the Scenes at Time Team (Channel 4 Books, 2000).
- Taylor, Tim, Digging the Dirt (Channel 4 Books, 2001).
- Taylor, Tim, Time Team Guide to the Archaeological Sites of Britain and Ireland (Channel 4 Books, 2005).
- Taylor, Tim, The Ultimate Time Team Companion: An alternative history of Britain (Macmillan, 1999).
External links
- Time Team at Channel4.com
- The Unofficial Time Team site Fan site