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Did my first (and probably last) Time Team last year, having heard a lot of stories from many sources, some of which were merely random slagging offs from folk in the pub, to more balanced judgements from people I know and trust.
Basically had no problem with any of the A lister archies, although we had very little to do with most of them. The B listers seemed nice enough as well. What troubled me the most was that so much of it was done on the whims of the production crew, some of whom had that "we're in TV and more important then you" attitude that media types often exude.
This lead to complete chaos as far as organising digging personel went, with inexperienced volunteers being left unsupervised and, potentially wrecking the archaeology. There was also no one present in a monitoring role from the County Councils archaeology section which was more worrying.I suppose as it was not PPG16, then they would have no power to monitor what is essentially a research project taking place on private land.
The recording was being done by one, very harried bod from Wessex and us, although we were mostly recording on day four when everyone else had gone. Over a year later there is still no sign of even a summery report for the local SMR, so the people who work there tell me.
Grub was good though
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Having once done an episode of the TT I have some clue as to how good/bad it is. As a t.v. programme it is somewhat understandable that it has drifted into digging better and better sites, frequently SAM's. Hence episodes where they end up digging in the middle of an abbey or a castle and pretend to be amazed when they find stone walls and lots of nice finds. I know that I am at least a bit jealous of this as my job frequently seems to have had all hope of finding interesting archaeology mitigated out of it. I think that their excavation is generally not too bad but my main problem is with the recording and publishing. The site I was on sounds very like Beardstroker's with only one person alotted to record the trenches (on a SAM natch)and that was several years ago. As the TT's jobs are essentially evaluations and many of them are on important sites that us mere mortals don't seem to be allowed near then surely they should actually get around to writing up their work. I don't believe I've seen anything resembling a series by series set of excavation publications. I would guess that if they were to do this then we wouldn't have such good grounds to complain.
Ayway, what's the most shocking site they were allowed to work on that you can think of? My vote goes to that Viking boat burial in the Shetlands. Ha ha, in 3 days.
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Keep it coming..this is good stuff! I went and had a little nose at one of their sites after they had left it to be finished by "professionals" when the magical three days were up. I was confronted by much hack and slashing by the knee-pad and marigold brigade led by a dripping-wet new graduate. Whilst I agree, TT have raised the profile of archaeology-I also feel that they have done it in the wrong way. Hunting for goodies in 3 days and then recreating entire cultures from one sherd of crap pot before running off to the next heritage savaging makes us look little different to nighthawk metal detectors.
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Publication or the lack of it is their worst crime. Particularly interesting saxon site at Bawsey, Norfolk was extensively trenched in a TT Live. Years later the only stuff in the HER is the geophys (as far as I Know),
Worst thing is TT are so far down the line, dont care about proper publication that lots of sites they have done will never see the light of day: this could be such a useful resource.
Gumbo
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Gumbo- Agreed. It has to be said that commercial units and academic departments are equally guilty of such behaviour. About time the IFA re-assessed the absurd ten-year allowance for writing up reports? Whilst I accept that some excavations produce such enormous quantities of finds and data, on the whole, I would argue that such sites should not be touched without adequate planning. I heard rumour that certain counties refused to allow TT to work on their turf for a number of reasons...we need strong County/City archaeologists who can see the resource as much more than a p.r exercise and simplistic entertainment.
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perhaps aston is going to publish his memoirs instead.
deep
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It's actually almost impossible to stop anyone doing archaeology on private land - however badly they are doing it. It would help if the Government and English Heritage had a proper look at the Valletta Convention that was signed a couple of years ago, and implemented some of the stuff that's in there properly (Article 3 in particular). It would be nice to have some teeth!
Luckily for me, when TT wanted to vist this area they found it was too boring for the TV. I dread the day when they may be back though. What I hated was The Big Dig, which was organised really badly and just perpetuated the idea that anyone with a shovel is qualified to dig up archaeology any way they fancy just to have a bit of a laugh. I didn't spot TT following any of the work up later to make sure details were submitted to the SMR either. In effect, TT project managed a whole load of archaeological interventions that weekend and abdicated completely from the responsibility of reporting them.
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Too true....
We offered them a site (next door to where I live)
An untouched Anglian church and cemetary on top of an Iron Age site, which served as teh church for an untouched Anglian/Medieval/Post Med village with connections to Wallace, King Oswold, St Aiden, Earl Douglas, Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots, Churchill, Lord BAlfour, LAurence of Arabia etc etc... throw in a local group (40 strong) of keen amatuers.. a couple of curators, a full field survey already completed to help locate the sites... sits in perfect landscape only 20 mins from Edinburgh and the response;
er..... I really need a bit more to come up that far... it's logistics you see...
Kind of Glad now!
I did do one time team... ended up dressed in armour with a sword up my arse to show how to kill scottish knights! oooooooooooooooooooooch
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One of my friends did a lot of geophys for them one season, she thought it was great... but then all she had to do was find things for them to mess up!
They have done a couple of programmes here in the Emerald Isle (which might I add is lovely and emeraldy today in the glorious sunshine, ahh, somedays i would like to be on site again...!). I never saw any of those episodes, and I'd be curious to see if the reports were submitted by the licenced director they had to employ!
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Anyone know the answer?? was anyone the director??
