The last ever Time Team

[robin wood]

Just heard that the Time Team special on the Dover boat I helped build which goes out Sunday will be the last Time Team ever, end of an era, glad to have been part of it even if right at the end.

 

[wingstoo]

That'll be worth watching, have enjoyed a fair few over the years, be sorry to see it come to a close...

And archaeology is so much better than football

Please excuse any naughty words I missed, I have tried to edit them out.

Firstly, imagine every time within a day that football is mentioned by someone else. Secondly, replace it with something that you don't want to hear about every day. Say... Archaeology. Then, think about how an average day would pan out.
So, you awaken to the clock radio. It's 7AM. Just as you awaken, it's time for the news and archaeology already. Not news and other historical investigations, like library restorations or museum openings (unless there's another event happening), but just the news and archaelogy. Malaysian plane is still missing. Pistorius is still on trial. New dig announced in Giza. Ancient Mayan temple discovered. Exciting stuff.
Time for a bite to eat over the morning TV. More news. More archaeology. Yes, you are aware of what is up with the missing plane. Fine. Now the archaeology in video format. Video of people dusting off some skulls and bits of pottery. All well and good, but archaeology isn't your thing. It would be nice to hear about something else. Even when it isn't archaeology season, the media follow noted archaeologists. They drive fast cars, have sex with beautiful women, advertise fragrances, and sometimes they go to nightclubs and act in the worst possible way. Scandals erupt as the tabloids follow these new celebrities when they're not searching the past for answers. It is entirely possible you can recite the names of certain researchers, even if you don't pay attention to archaeology. You don't know what transfer season is, but you know that someone was transferred to a dig in Peru for a sum of money that could fund the London Underground for two whole days.
Out of the car at 8:55 and into work. What are the colleagues talking about, I wonder? Oh, Jones dropped a 3,890 year old pot and smashed it? What a useless plonker! Someone should do something unpleasant to him. And don't even ask about the unfortunate incident in Athens two years ago - you'll be there all day! Breaking a pillar like that! We don't talk about that here, mate. What? You don't want to discuss the finer points of the prevalence of phallic imagery in Pompeii? Is there something wrong with you?
The drive home from work. Every thirty minutes, no matter the station, someone mentions the archaeology. Best sit in silence. Drive past a huge billboard with a black and white picture of a rakishly handsome archaeologist draped over an impossibly beautiful woman. He's winking at you. Trowel in his left hand, supermodel in the right. Jurassic, by Calvin Klein.
And now the pub. A nice pub with a beer garden. Posters in the windows. LIVE EXCAVATION AT THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS! All of it on a huge TV with the volume up too loud. Drunken people yelling at the screen. "SEND IT FOR CARBON DATING, YOU USELESS PLONKER!" "WHAT ARE YOU ON, MATE? DUST THE ANCIENT MEDALLION GENTLY! SMELTING METHODS OF THE TIME PRODUCED VERY SOFT AND IMPURE METALS EASILY PRONE TO DISFIGURATION!" All this from two men out of a crowd of twenty. One lousy drunken idiot and his chum ruin the image of other archaeology fans. Carbon dating report from the lab updates on TV, read by a man employed because they've been following the beautiful science since they were a boy. The drunk chimes in again. "WHAT PHARAOH'S REIGN DID YOU SAY? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THE UNDERPINNINGS OF OUR THEORY OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF 4TH BC EGYPT? GET IN, MATE!" A cheer cascades through the building and you can only wonder why.
Best go home and avoid anyone who might be drinking and singing. You once met a disagreeable chap who threatened to beat you up because you didn't watch the archaeology. "Not a late paleolithic era supporter are you? Think you're better than me? I'll have you, you scrawny git!"
To bed. To repeat the cycle tomorrow. The inescapable, inevitability that wherever you go, someone, somewhere, is just dying to talk to you about the archaeology.

 

[Pandabean]

Its sad when a show like this goes, but more people are interested in x-factor and big brother these days. I grew up watching Time Team from when I was a kid to now. I loved how they did their digs and nearly always have some kind of ceremonial interpretation of the features to later be turned around at the end into something different.

It got me interested in archaeology and history enough for me to do a diploma in it just for interest.

I shall make a reminder for Saturdays show.

 

[THOaken]

I shall definitely be looking into this. The Butser boat project before the Eurybia was the Prometheus, a Bronze Age oak boat.

Thanks for the link.

 

[tom.moran]

That's a real shame. I do like time team

 

[robin wood]

I shall definitely be looking into this. The Butser boat project before the Eurybia was the Prometheus, a Bronze Age oak boat.

Thanks for the link.

The Dover boat is very different to a dug out, amazing technology and weird joinery that was an evolutionary dead end.

 

[bullterrier]

Sad. If they have any sense they'll continue to do the odd special every so often. That series did huge amounts for British archaeology.

 

[THOaken]

The Dover boat is very different to a dug out, amazing technology and weird joinery that was an evolutionary dead end.

I've had a look at the your 2012 reconstruction. It's impressive.

Does this mean then that dugouts were still being used in the bronze age, in conjunction with these larger, more complex boats like the Dover? It seems strange to me that simple dugouts would coincide with complex boats during the same period, the Bronze Age. I would've thought that there would a linear progression from the simple to the complex, but it looks as if they mixed. In ancient maritime history, is in the Bronze Age that boats because more than just simple dugouts?

Thanks.

 

[John Fenna]

I will miss them ... but I still enjoy the repeats!

 

[DavidJT]

I suppose it was hard to keep the series going now Mick Aston is no longer with us. The partnership of him and Tony Robinson was the crux of the show.
Look forward to your episode though Robin.

 

[colly]

i will miss them.
learnt alot about different times and also how little is known about certain things.

 

[bobnewboy]

For me, one of the best bits was the experimental archaeology through out the programme series. Some of the stuff they did makes me want to do it too. I got into making bows, arrows, knives, wooden garden structures etc, but I still want to make a bronze sword....v expensive though, IIRC...

 

[Steve27752]

I suppose it was hard to keep the series going now Mick Aston is no longer with us. The partnership of him and Tony Robinson was the crux of the show.
Look forward to your episode though Robin.

And Phil Harding.

 

[DavidJT]

And Phil Harding.

Oh No! has he gone too? Missed that news.

 

[kaiAnderson]

Hes still alive.

I work from home and never watch TV, apart from TimeTeam when its on CH4 or so. I really hope they bring it out on DVD. I know the alter seasons are but would love a massive boxset.

 

[Mafro]

For me, one of the best bits was the experimental archaeology through out the programme series. Some of the stuff they did makes me want to do it too. I got into making bows, arrows, knives, wooden garden structures etc, but I still want to make a bronze sword....v expensive though, IIRC...

If you want to make a bronze sword you need to speak to Will Lord. He does amazing courses that are very very reasonably priced.
http://www.will-lord.co.uk/will-lord-bronze-casting.html

 

[treadlightly]

Sad to see it go..

 

[skate]

Watched them do a dig down my way on an old mill. All seemed nice enthusiastic people. Probably seen every episode made. Shame it has finished. Always felt the proper work was done by geophysics and Stewart Ainsworth. The actual digging was just proving them right or wrong.

 

[robin wood]

Does this mean then that dugouts were still being used in the bronze age, in conjunction with these larger, more complex boats like the Dover?

Thanks.

Yes that's exactly what it means, new technologies rarely replace old ones, here I am typing at a computer but I still use a biro, occasionally a fountain pen and I have plenty of friends that still carve lettering in stone. Lawn mowers didn't replace scythes nor mini diggers spades. The Dover boat should not be seen as a replacement for the dugout it is a very different thing, making one would require huge effort compared to just a few people to maker a dugout and it is a seagoing vessel rather than flat water/river vessel. Dog outs were certainly made well into the iron age and I suspect much later though they are not my speciality.

 

[robin wood]

I was working away for the weekend so missed it, about to catch up on 4OD now this is the link http://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-team-specials/4od#3752430