Time Team (UK)

[Tarami]

This is a UK TV-series I want to recommend. It's fairly well-known over here in Europe I believe, and eventhough the US has had its own version recently, I don't think that one stood up well to the UK one.

Anyway, it's a series about a team of archaeologists that excavate small and large, unknown and famous historical places over the course of three days, like a kind of archaeological "dip" into history. Each episode they visit a new site and try to draw the typical archaelogical conclusions - the when's, who's and why's. It's a clever blend of enthusiastic, knowledgeable people doing the real work and game showy sensationalism ("it's fantastic!" or as Phil Harding likes to say, "absolutely cracking!") mixed up further with some reenactment/recontruction clips.

This isn't one of those documentary shows where they pull out an Egyptian mummy or a Roman chariot at every turn - if you're lucky they might dig up some coins, bones and a whole lot of foundations. I think it's one of the charms of the show, that fact that the guy finding a single gold coin in a spoil pile is trembling with excitement as he's presenting it to the camera.

I'm no archaeology expert, but I think this is high-calibre television. Obviously it's not "real" archaeology in the academic sense, but feels genuine for what it does and it's a cracking watch if you have the slightest layman interest in (British) history.

[Ironwood]

To my mind, the best episode (and there are usually moments of warm humour) was watching the Time Team go to America for a dig.

Usually, over here, they require all sorts of stuff to excavate trenches.  Due to the time differences between the nations, they were pretty much just using spades in the US.  It made me smile.  When Tony suggested a JCB, they looked at him like he was nuts.

[Sir T]

I remember the English guys standing around this trench these Americans were digging at with spoons and they delicately pulled out a coke bottle top and carefully stored it. When the Brits said what the fuck were the yanks doing, they were told its a really important part of 20th century archeology. The brits looked like they were going to strangle them  

[Ironwood]

It was a good dig though;  lots of Indian Arrowheads and stuff.  For the program, that was a major victory.   

[caladein]

I quite liked the American version.  All five episodes of it .

When it came out last year, they also showed a few of the original's specials which I thought were excellent.  I'd completely forgotten to look up the show until now.

[Tarami]

I found this forum, which had some... issues with Time Team. It's like f13, but archaeology instead of game design. Quite a "fun" read.

http://www.bajr.org/BAJRForum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=129&whichpage=1

It's expected and hard to take seriously, because intermittent with concerns which I can find credible are sour grapes and stepped-on toes. Yes, let's make a TV programme about filling in forms and endless meetings. Durr.

[Musashi]

I like the English version a lot.  It was on PBS here for a while, and I tried not to miss it.  It was basically my favorite thing ever.  I sometimes wish I was an archaeologist.  I think if I had it to do all over again, I'd do that.

The American version isn't quite as good.  They kind of distill the program down to more of a bland formula, and there frankly isn't nearly as much neat stuff to dig up here as there is in Europe.  The stuff that is here also doesn't really lend it self to the kind of thoughtful analysis as the stuff in Europe where the story they're telling is largely filling in smaller details of a larger, more already well known narrative.  Over here it's kind of like, 'Well man might have been here 10,000 years ago, but we're not really sure.  Here's this rock that kind of looks like somebody chipped some tool out of it, so maybe."

[pxib]

I've loved every episode I've seen from either side of the pond. I'll admit the Americans generally have less elaborate history to unearth. Our country is so big there are places that have been completely rotted away and forgotten after little more than a century. You can't have Ghost Towns in the UK... more because it's too crowded than because it's too wet.

I don't recall how it came up, but I remember mentioning to a British friend of mine that my father grew up in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Maine. "Oh yes," he says, "I love history. The church in my home town is listed in the Domesday book." 

[Tarami]

Yeah, well, it's called the Old World for a reason.

And poor geophysics-John get proven wrong a lot.