halomanuk

I watched the 'Time Team Special' on Brunel and the launch (failed launch) of the Great Eastern last night,which i had recorded, and it was very interesting.
I learned quite a lot from it so well done Tony and the team !!

(And Tony Robinson was wearing a tie - got to be a first ).

Earl_of_Rochester

What we need now is an expert on slag - Time Team quote I've just heard.

Brunel

I like Time Team and Tony "Baldrick" Robinson.

Tony has a great interest in British history and has presented many other history documentaries other than Time Team. One of them is coming on tonight on the history channel "Yesterday" at 9pm.

With just 18 days to go until the start of the London Olympics, tonight's new documentary, called "Tony Robinson's London Games", sees Tony exploring the history of the site that is now the Olympic Park:


Tony Robinson at the 80,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in east London whilst filming the documentary

One of the country's best loved history broadcasters comes to Yesterday with a brand new one-off documentary that explores the Olympics in a way you've never seen before, in Tony Robinson's London Games Unearthed.

Time Team presenter Tony Robinson embarks on a personal quest to unearth the history behind the area of London that has been regenerated to host the games. Underneath the new stadiums and the new Olympic park, six millennia of history is waiting to be untapped and explored.

With the help of CGI and Tony's trademark storytelling, ancient Britain is brought to life. He begins his journey in the Olympic Park itself, where the regeneration unearthed some incredible finds. A bronze axe that was buried 6,000 years near to where the Aquatic Centre now stands reveals secrets about every-day life in Bronze Age Britain.



A Bronze Age axe was unearthed by workmen near to the London 2012 Olympics Aquatics Centre during the building work


There's also a personal twist when Tony discovers how his own grandparents were impacted by the fallout from the Industrial Revolution and how his father was part of a new spirit of British philanthropy that was born out of East London's slums.



Tony Robinson's London Games Unearthed: Yesterday TV

Nemowork

Thanks I missed that one, its on a 1am repeat so i should be able to catch that

Earl_of_Rochester

I'm back at my parent's home for 2x weeks looking after their dog and now I'm watching TT quite often on Sky. As an amateur I can't help but feel suspicious about these mildly eccentric Archaeologists with their wierd clothes, Indiana Jones hats and occasional earrings. I wonder if professional historians feel the same way? I've far more in common with the bookish Starkey and Schama than bimbling about in a muddy trench and getting excited about an obscure piece of pottery.

Undoubtedly their work is essential, but they've certainly a different way of seeing history than imagining it all from the warmth of a book. I can't perceive a Roman villa from a dank hole in the ground, can anyone else?

Does anyone else think Archaeologists are fringe freaks on the edge of our respectable subject? Perhaps in the same manner that a Physicist would view a Chemist?

For any Archaeologists, do you think there's a difference from your work and traditional historians? Is there anyone here who can happily combine the two subjects and feel at ease in the field or at the book shelf?

Larrey

In my experience, archeaologists are a rather straight-laced bunch compared to the anthropologists...

Crystal Rainbow

Oh dear David Starkey, he is the most pompous and arrogant historian. He is full of his own self importance and just spouts stuff of that was propaganda in the Tudor times. If I want to read propaganda I will buy the Sun newspaper. I love looking at relics, if it had not been for archaeologists we would not have a physical link with history.

Eigon

As a trained archaeologist, Earl of Rochester - pistols at dawn, sir!
As to "perceiving a Roman villa from a dank hole in the ground" - in the late 1980s/early 90s I worked on a big dig in Norwich, during the course of which we found the foundations of a Saxon house. Nearby we found an associated rubbish pit. I was working on the rubbish pit, and found the only complete Anglo-Saxon pot on the entire six acre site (we had enough pot sherds to fill a lorry, though!). The pot had a hairline crack in it, and had obviously been thrown into the pit when it started leaking. It was very easy to imagine the Anglo-Saxon housewife coming out of her back door and tossing the pot in the pit.
On the same site, we had a site mascot - the skeleton of an Anglo-Saxon cat, who we called Not-So-Fluffy. The cat had been carefully buried in another rubbish pit, with a saucer. It was very easy to imagine some little Anglo-Saxon girl burying her favourite pet.
That's the sort of thing that brings history to life for me in a way that a book cannot do.

Clodius

I'm an ancient historian-in-training, but I've been on digs, and I hope to be able to "keep my hand in" archaeology when I'm a fully-fledged historian. It's the same end by different means. What they do is essential. History as a discipline suffers as a result of the silly apartheid between documentary historians and archaeologists.

(But yes, it's true that there is often a striking prevalence of dubious haberdashery on archaeological digs).

cymru12

time team is and still is outstanding programme.i do agree with earl_of_rochester about bettany hughes