Good morning, today is our last day of Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  Today, I am throwing it back to the last series of the Time Team to air on Television series twenty.  It has been fun going through these episodes of the Time Team.  I am officially done with series one, two, three, and thirteen, hopefully, more episodes will be posted from the series four.  Anyway, the Time Team is at Horseshoe Hall and the run time for this episode is 47:06.

Oakham Castle is famous for the Horseshoe Hall and it is the best-preserved building from the 12th Century.  It hosted knights and kings.  The are plenty of lumps and bumps for the Time Team to explore to further the story of the castle.  Oakham is the center of trading routes, the heart of the agricultural center of Britain, and was a target for invasion.  What will the Time Team discover about this site?

Tony introduces the dig with Neil Holbrook, John Gater, and Phil Harding.  Not many remains of the castle except for a surviving grand hall.  This grand hall would have been surrounded by earthworks and there would have been a tower nearby.  Gater talks about the geophysics results he got.  He warns that they may find the services such as gas, electricity, and water.  Tony warns the team not to get drowned or electrocuted on this dig.

Trench one goes in and the Time Team is already trying to avoid an electricity cable.  Tony tours the great hall and sees that there are three hundred and fifty horseshoes on the wall.  It is here that Tony learns the history of the castle from Marc Morris.  It was built by the Ferrers family and the horseshoes may have been the result of a play on the name Ferrers meaning farriers who worked on horseshoes.  The man who built the castle was a favorite of Richard the Lionheart.  They would have fought together side by side during the Crusades.

The status of the man and closeness to the crown would mean that the castle would have been grand.  Stewart Ainsworth and Richard Morriss look over the grounds to visualize what the castle grounds would have looked like.  What else would have surrounded the hall?  There would have been workshops, stables, and other quarters around the site.  Stewart will march around and learn what he can from the ground.

Hopefully, Stewart will have better luck than Phil and John in trench one.  Unfortunately for the pair, there is clay in the ground which has thrown off the geophysics results.  The Time Team will have to rely on Stewart’s work.  Trench two goes in over a potential castle outbuilding, which Tony believes is a garden feature.  Despite this, Uncle Phil has discovered bits of the wall in fact this wall lines up with the great hall.  Tony catches up with Matt as he goes over the demolition ruble that was found on the site.  The demolition rubble consists of tiles.

In Trench two, there is more wall only there is a door in the wall.  Did this door lead into the stables or was this a people’s door?  At the end of the day one, John has more geophysics results and alongside the building, there seems to a series of structures.  Perhaps this is where the lord and lady of the manor stayed.

Day two kicks off with trench three going in.  In the meantime trench three is producing a wall.  However, this wall is not in alignment with the geophysics results.  It looks like it may have been a separate building from the great hall.  This wall confuses the Time Team. In the meantime, the finds keep coming and including a horseshoe.  It seems to hint that there was a kitchen off the great hall.  What will the Time Team continue to learn about Oakham Castle?  Will they find more horseshoes on-site?  Will John finally get some clear geophysics results?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out!

Overall, this was a good episode, because, despite the setbacks with geophysics, the Time Team continued to plug along in making discoveries to further the history of the site.  The discovery of the horseshoe was fantastic and really fitting for this site.  This would be a good episode to add to your list for the medieval period in history class.

Good morning, we are nearly done with October and the Thirty-One Days of Time Team.  Soon we will be saying goodbye to Uncle Tony, Uncle Phil, and Uncle Mick.  The episode is called Saxons on the Edge and the run time is 47:30.

Bits of pottery has been discovered in a field in Leicestershire.  Perhaps this pottery is hinting at something the Time Team has spent 15 years looking for: An Anglo-Saxon settlement.  After the Romans left Britain, there was an invasion of Germans known as the Anglo-Saxon settlers, leading to the dark ages in Britain.  Trouble is, there is not much known about this time.  Were these cremation burials?  Will the Time Team find a rare find, an Anglo-Saxon settlement?  Additionally, Phil will undergo a DNA test to learn where his ancestors came from.

Tony catches up with Helen Geake, Phil Harding, and Mick Astin about the site.  Phil has a map of where all the finds were discovered and talk about the whacking great trench that will be put in.  Helen is overly optimistic that there will be a Saxon building.  Tony is popping Helen’s balloon because, after all, the Time Team has dug for years and never discovered an Anglo-Saxon building.  However, Tony’s sourness will not damp Helen’s optimism.

Tony may be right when the Geophysics comes back.  John Gater says the results do not scream Anglo-Saxon to him.  So the Time Team will recalculate the size of the trench.  Trench one goes in and there may be a find or is it a stone?  Tony sums up the history of the Time Team and the struggle to find Anglo-Saxon settlements.  There have been many episodes of Time Team failures, however, other archeologists failed to find Anglo-Saxon settlements.

Stewart is off to study the landscape while metal detectorists head to the site.  Phil continues to work on the trench with pottery expert Phil Blinkhorn.  He is finding evidence of burning and two post holes.  Additionally, there is a piece of pottery in it too.  Phil is gleefully planning on making Tony eat humble pie.  He continues to dig the trench, there are six and possibly seven holes.  There were additional shards of pottery were found on the surface.  Phil placed the trench because of the dense concentration of pottery, however, Tony believes Phil was lucky.  Tony presses the discovery; however, the evidence is pointing in the direction of a Saxon settlement.

Local archeologists believe that they are on the verge of discovering an Anglo-Saxon settlement.  However, there is a possibility that the finds are from burials.  The Anglo-Saxons would burn their dead and then put the remains in pottery and then bury the remains.  Perhaps the site is a Saxon graveyard.

Trench one is expanded to find more post holes.  Something else then appears in the ground: a grub hut.  A grub hut was built over a pit in the ground and is used to store food.  Things are looking up for the Time Team.  What will day two bring?

Day two starts off with Tony summing up day one finds and after the summary, he catches up with Mick.  Phil continues to work on finding more post holes.   Geophysics is finding more and more features.  John shares the results with Mick and Tony.  Mick theorizes that these features could be features from the Iron Age and the Anglo-Saxons just took over the site.  Trench two goes in over a feature that is on a hill.  Why would the people live on the hill?  What drew the Anglo-Saxons to this hill site?  Are the Time Team on the verge of discovering something they never discovered in fifteen years: an Anglo-Saxon settlement?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more!

Tony’s skepticism is so funny in this episode and his narration was great.  Helen’s optimism was also a delight and Phil’s humor was on point.  I felt like Phil was also enjoying that he was right about the trench as well.  This would be an excellent episode to show to a history class not only because of the humor of this episode but also because of the finds that were discovered which provided a complete picture of the site.

Good morning, the Time Team is working on searching for the Spanish Armada.  However, this shipwreck was discovered in Scotland.  Was this a ship of the Spanish Armada?  The run time for this episode is 48:42 and is from series nine.

The Time Team is going to look at an amazing shipwreck just off the coast of Kinlochervie in northwest Scotland.  There were some amazing finds made at this site including anchors, cannons, and pottery.  It is tempting to think this wreck is connected to the Spanish Armada.  How did it end up on the sea floor?  Was this shipwreck part of the Spanish Armada?  How did it end up on the coast of Scotland?  The Time Team has three days to find out.

Kinlochervie is a seaport on the Scottish coastline.  Divers discovered this shipwreck over 20 Meters down while diving at the site.  One of the more important finds was a well-preserved, well-decorated jar dating back from the Spanish Armada.  In this episode, the Time Team will be teaming up with the local divers to learn more about the site.  An RAF dive team is also participating in this episode.  The Time Team will be rescuing pottery from the site.  Over time, pottery has been discovered broken and over time the pottery will disappear.  So the Time Team will be performing rescue archelogy.  The information will be lost if the pottery is not recovered.

Phil has to meet up with the newest team member: Eric the ROV.  The ROV is a camera that will be filming the wreck and it operated on the surface.  The ROV will be the Time Team’s additional eye on the site and will provide some extra safety during the dive.  Tony will still have to do a refresher course on diving, which Tony finds to be a challenge.  Phil heads out to the site first.  After Tony completes his course, he heads out to the wreck site as well.

Why would this wreck be a part of the Spanish Armada?  How would an Armada Ship end up in Scotland?  Dr. Felipe Fernandez Armesto talks about the Spanish Armada and Sir Francis Drake with Robin Bush and Carenza Lewis.  Robin is very hysterical in this section.  The English Ships would have pursued the Spanish Armada toward the Netherlands and managed to sink one ship.  So, it seems that this ship would not be related to the Spanish Armada, or was it?  Could the winds have driven that ship to Scotland? 

It is quite possible because Dr. Felipe talks about how the Spanish Armada would have sailed around Scotland to get back to Spain.  They would have encountered fierce storms on the trip.  There were ships found in the North Sea around Scotland.  While on the way to the wreck site, Tony catches up with Stewart Ainsworth who is talking about the landscape of the harbor and maps.  A Spanish Armada would have been driven towards unmapped rocks and they would have sunk.
The divers arrive at the site.  Once they get to the water they head to the wreck and start the rescue archeology.  Once all the divers are in the water, the ROV is launched.  The Divers also have a communication system with the surface and each other.  Phil is on the boat, getting familiar with all the equipment being used on this site.  Phil is a diver as well, but this site is going to challenge his skills.

The drivers work and survey the site.  Before the Time Team got to the site, over 200 hours were spent working on the site.  There have been some amazing finds on the site.  There were pottery shards with decorative patterns.  There were cannons found on the site as well as anchors.  There were also pots with three legs found on the site as well.  With all these finds, will the Time Team be able to prove that this ship belonged to the Spanish Armada?  Or was this some sort of Spanish Merchant ship?  Or was this a personal ship of a rich Spanish man?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

This Time Team episode was divided up into chapters for easy viewing and easy mining for lectures.  With the technical nature of this dive, I would show this to a science class as well as a history class.

Good morning the Time Team is heading to the Highlands and exploring a prehistoric man-made island.  The run time for this episode is 47:28 and is called Crannog in the Loch. This episode comes from series 11 and we are continuing with our Thirty-One Days of the Time Team for October.

The Time Team is in Loch Migdale.  There seem to be indications that people occupied this land during the prehistoric period.  The site is an archeologist’s dream.  The Time Team is excavating a henge as well as a man-made island.  It could prove to be historically significant to the history of Scotland.  What was going on in this area 4,000 years ago?  Will the Time Team discover a henge?  There are three days to find out.

Tony catches up with Francis Pryor and Miles Russell who talk about the potential of the site.  Francis is confident that there is a henge on site, while Miles tempers down that enthusiasm.  The first job of the Time Team is to remove the peat and then geophysics the henge site to see if there are features below the henge.  A henge was usually a place of worship or burial during the Stone Age and was the center point of ritual.  They could come in any shape or size.

Another feature that the Time Team is excavating is a man-made island, which could be a crannog.  A crannog was a place where people lived and took refuge. They were created by piling layers of rocks and then sticking stakes into the bedrock to build the house on top.  It was joined to the land by a wooden causeway.  Some were large enough to hold communities, however, the one the Time Team is looking at is small and would have been the size for a single family and their animals.  Tony talks with Nick Dixon.  (Who seriously looks like shipwreck expert James Delgado.)  Based on first impressions, he does not seem to believe it is a crannog.  However, upon further examination, the bases are not natural.  Phil and Nick will have to dive and shift stones to determine whether or not is a crannog.

This area is famous for the variety of prehistoric finds discovered.  The Migdale Hoard was discovered on the site.  It was discovered in a granite quarry.  Carenza will have to look at the local records to learn more about the Migdale hoard.  The owners of the land where the crannog and henge are found talked about what they knew about the land when they bought the estate.  They were aware of what was found on the site and the Migdale Hoard came from their land.  This hoard helped date the site.

Two trenches will be over the crannog site.  Before Phil dives in on the crannog he needs to learn the digging techniques.  The Scottish James Delgado talks about the differences between digging on land and digging in the water and teaches Phil what he will have to do to look at the site.  The divers will be facing down in the water and digging with their hands.  They will shift rocks to learn more about the crannog.

Back on dry land, John presents the results of the geophysics survey.  He is not getting any areas of burning however there are no rubbish deposits in the henge site.  So there was no domestic living in the henge site.  However, Stewart hates using the word henge, because when someone talks about henge for the most part they mean Stonehenge or something big.   In the prehistoric period, Stonehenge would be comparable to a cathedral while the Scottish site would be equivalent to a parish church.  Stewart will be calling the henge an enclosure for the time being.  Stewart is looking at the landscape to see what ties the enclosure to the crannog area.

What was this site?  Was Stewart right in calling the henge an enclosure?  Will the Time Team discover a crannog on the site?  What will the Time Team learn about this site?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out about the henge and the crannog.

This would be a good episode to show to a history class because of the archelogy that was present on the site as well as the debate over henge vs. domestic site.  Tony was thoroughly amused as well with Stewart.  I would include this on my list to show to a history class.

Good morning!  October continues to fly by and we’re just about ready to switch the calendar to November.  However, the Thirty-One days of the Time Team plug on and today it is a Village Affair and the Time Team is looking at Bitterly in Shropshire.  The run time for this episode is 46:18.

Bitterly is the quintessential English village and is bursting with pretty cottages and a church.  It is also surrounded by empty fields.  However, those fields might not be as empty as one would think.  The Bitterly Villagers invited the Time Team to investigate those fields to see if the village was bigger at one point.  Together the villagers and Time Team will be working on solving the mystery of Bitterly Village.  Hopefully, they are not bitterly disappointed.

The village dates back from the Domesday Book.  However, the villagers are looking to learn more about their village.  They will dig test pits and help solve the mystery of the village.  Tony catches up with Mick and Jane Buckard, who is with Bitterly Archeology.  In fact, the Bitterly team put in a trench where they found loads of Medieval pottery.  The Time Team will start on that original trench.  Phil watches the trench going in and immediately Phil makes a discovery that he shares with Tony and Mick.

A mile away, in the modern Bitterly village, Mary-Anne is helping the villagers dig test pits.  She will have to maintain order and report back with the results.  The Time Team will be looking for dating evidence and be able to chart the history of the village.  The village theorizes that the houses in the modern village were moved down from the hill to the modern site.  Jane talks about the possibility of the village being around the church and then when the plague hit the villagers moving the houses down the hill.  Many villages were abandoned as a result of the plague.  The villagers are really enthusiastic about this dig.

In Phil’s trench, he is noticing the appearance of stonework.  It looks like there was a wall in the ground that had collapsed.  Whether or not it is a building wall or a building wall only time will tell.  John Gater geophysics the site while Alex Langlands surveys the site.  It will be a challenge for the Time Team to get to grips with it.  In one of the pits, a coin from the reign of Edward VII and pottery was found.  Alex goes over the results of the survey with Mick.  He points at marks in the ground that hint that there were stone walls buried.  At one point there may have been buildings on the site.  Mick even finds stones poking out of the ground.

Trench two goes in over the marks.  Mick catches up with Mary-Anne and Tony about the theories about Bitterly.  He has two laws when it comes to local knowledge.  One of those laws is that local stories are wrong and the second law is that local knowledge is right.  What could be on this site?  Perhaps there were houses on the site but the landowner cleared them out when he started farming.  Everything is up in the air when it comes to Bitterly village.  Tony then breaks the news to Phil that Bitterly does not have a pub.  This leads to Tony coming up with a new theory: the village disappeared because there was no pub.

The next day, Tony does a catch-up.  Mick believes that Tony has a negative attitude towards everything and that Tony will have to take his medicine soon for having such a bad attitude.  Mick says that the Time Team will carry on with the dig to learn whether or not the stones are part of the house or a field boundary.  Alex plans on a third trench closer to the manor house at Bitterly.  So did the village move during the plague?  Or was Bitterly village always in its present location?  What will the villagers learn about Bitterly?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

This was a good episode because the villagers were so enthusiastic about helping the Time Team learn more about their village.   There were some interesting twists and turns in Bitterly’s story as well.  This would be a good episode for a history fun day and for a science fun day because of the application of the scientific method.

Good morning, we are continuing through the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team and this is Day Twenty-Six.  October is nearly done and then for November, I will do World War I and World War II blogs and then do fun documentaries for December.  I cannot believe we will soon be in January 2024.  I hope in some small way I have been helping teachers and even substitute teachers select documentaries to show to their classes.

Anyway, Time Team has lost a castle and is trying to find it in the episode “How to Lose A Castle,” and the run time for this episode is 46:14.

For generations, farmers are wondering if there was a castle on the hill.  Local legend talks about there being a castle on the hill from the Norman period.  However, there were no records of the castle nor there is a reason why a castle would be built on the hill.  This hill is the biggest in Somerset and the Time Team is in for a workout climbing up.  The Time Team will have three days to solve the mystery of the castle.

A geophysics survey may hint at something in the ground and Phil wastes no time in putting a trench in.  The results show that there was some sort of big structure.  With a little bit of luck, the Time Team may find a castle keep.  Alex Langlands surveys the landscape with Mick to see if there was a reason why a castle would be built on the hill.  Mick and Alex talk about a castle being built to defend the trade routes.  In the meantime, another pair of Time Team members look at the local records to see if there was a castle on the hill.  The documents hint that there was a castle in the area from the 1100s.  Somewhere in the vicinity, there was a castle, and the Time Team will have to locate where it was.

Phil is making some good discoveries in his trench.  He talks about the different types of dirt in the area of the rubbed-all wall in hopes of convincing Tony that there was a building on the site.  Trench two goes in lower down the hill over a potential ditch site.  The geophysics results show that there was something in the ground.  In the meantime, Alex and Mick go over a computer software that shows the landscape.  After going over the software, Alex heads off to another hill that is a contender for where the castle was.  There was a reference in a document from the 18th Century that there was a castle on this site.  This hill was near a town.  Alex seems to hint that the newly arrived Normans would have built a castle on top of the hill in order to look down on the Anglo-Saxons.

The finds keep coming.  This is evidence that people were living on top of the hill during the Medieval period.  In Phil’s trench, the investigation continues on the pile of rubble.  Is this really a pile of rubble or was this part of a wall?  Does the evidence at this sight point to this hill being home to a castle?  Or is the evidence pointing to something else?  Tony catches up with Mick, Alex, and Mary-Anne at the end of day one to go over the evidence. 

Day Two begins with the discovery of a post-hole in Phil’s trench.  John and Mick theorize that the castle was timber built with stone supports.  Mary Anne goes over the finds that were discovered in trench two.  There was a piece of a broach discovered, which would hint at the high-status nature of the area.  There were shards of pottery also found in the trench.  So what is really going on during this site?  Was there a castle on this site?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

There was a lot of back and forth between the theories of this site.  There seemed to be an abundance of evidence that confused everyone.  There was also a fascinating look at the anarchy when there was fighting between King Stephen and Empress Matilda.  This would be a good episode to show to a science class because there was a hypothesis: that there was a castle on the hill and that hypothesis was put to the test until there was a conclusion. 

Good morning!  We have less than ten days to go in the month and less than ten episodes of the Time Team to go!  It feels like only yesterday I started the October 2023 Edition of the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  I am still mining the Time Team Classics page for episodes.  I hope they eventually upload series four to that website because series one, two, and three are done!  Today’s episode is from series twelve and is called the Puzzle of Picket’s Farm, and the run time for this episode is 47:49.

The Time Team is heading to Dorset, following the discovery of Roman brooches and coins in a field.  The Team is sure that they are going to uncover a Roman Temple.  Unfortunately, the archeology is points in a different direction.  Something was going on at the site, however, there is no sign of any buildings.  The work is slow, but the trenches are slowly revealing their secrets.  Have the Time Team stumbled onto a Stone Age burial site that has been around for thousands of years?  Miles Russell joins up with the Time Team to talk about the Bronze Age.

When one family took over a farm, they immediately ran into difficulties plowing the south end of a field.   Every time the family plowed, the bolts on the plows broke.  The Roman finds soon emerged.  Tony catches up with the owners of the farm.  They talk about the number of Roman broaches that were found.  Then in the spring, a square shape showed up in the field.  So what is underneath the surface of the field?  Guy talks about the potential of a Roman temple.

Geophysics and field walking will commence on the field.  A Roman expert is looking over the building finds.  He disappoints Tony when he points out the features of the building material that was found.  The building material was not Roman in the first place.  However, the Roman building that was on the site, may have been a timber building.  Tony is lamenting that it is going to be one of those digs.  The field walkers are not finding Roman finds and the geophysics results are not good.  The only thing that is proving this to be a Roman site is the coins and broaches.

Trench ones go in in the area over where the Roman finds were found.  There was a concentration of finds that were in the area.  Tony feels like the Time Team is on the brink of disaster.  In the meantime, the Roman experts are looking over the Roman coins.  The coins were used for everyday purchases or given to the shrine.  The broach finds were broken, and in a religious context, the people gave the worse of their items.  It is a very strange place.  One Roman expert seems to think the site could be a Roman market or fairgrounds.  Phil discovers strange colors in the soil that seem to hint at a ditch in the ground.  Trench one is expanded because he needs to find the second edge of the ditch.

There is some archeology in the area.  Phil is thinking of flints and pottery.  This is not a Roman feature because they did not build in curves.  Perhaps this site is from an earlier time period.  What is in this area?  Who would have lived here?  The Time Team has a mystery to contemplate.  Geophysics continues to work to try to learn more about why the Roman coins showed up.

John, Tony, and the Farmer are going to look for the shadowy figure in the field.  The problem is that the farmer did not mark where the shadow was.  It was in the area where the bolts were broken on the plow.  John really does not see anything on the geophysics results.  Trench two goes in the area of the shadow even though the geophysics results do not show anything in the ground.

What will Phil find in his trench?  What will be discovered in the other trench?  Will the Time Team actually find Roman artifacts?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more!

Tony gets in on this dig and discovers a Roman coin.  This would be a good episode to show for a history fun day because of the twists and turns of this dig.

The Thirty-One Days of the Time Team continue for October and the month is flying by fast!  How about an episode that highlights the people from the Neolithic Age?  This time the Time Team is investigating crop marks that showed up on a photograph of a field.  The run time for this episode is 47:55. 

The Time Team is investigating a crop mark near Peterborough, and it is the first time a team has come in to investigate the site.  It was referred to as a causewayed enclosure.  This enclosure marks an area that dates back to about 6,000 years ago.  This places the causeway in the Neolithic Period.  Some believe that the ditches are evidence of farming, while others believe it has religious origins.  Francis Pryor and Ben Robinson join the team in the mystery. 

Geophysics is off and running, surveying the field.  Francis, Phil, Tony, and Ben look over photographs of the site.  Francis points out the rings that are on the photo and the gaps in those rings perhaps to let people into the site.  Ben talks about how this is the first time in British History that the landscape is being portioned for special purposes.  Then the team talks about what the site could potentially be.  It could be a cathedral or a farm.  Phil talks about the potential finds that could be discovered on the site.  He has the impression that the Time Team could strike it rich with finds or find nothing.

The trenches are placed where the Time Team believes where the inner ring is.  Trench one goes in over one of the ditch sites while the other goes over a feature in the ancient landscape.  The Geophysics team gets the results back for the two trenches, but the results are not good.  John says there is a problem and that one of the ditches is now showing.  However, the ring mysteriously disappears on the other side of the site.  Everyone’s favorite “uncle” Phil goes off to work on trench two.  Francis is going to look at trench one and after talking with a surveyor he is able to put in the trench.

The Peterborough area has an additional four other causeways.  Causeways were supposed to be a rare phenomenon during the Neolithic period.   Francis believes that these causeways have a ritual component to them.  Stewart will have to look at the other known causeways to determine how they relate to each other.

Knowing how to find a ditch is the trick.  They were holes in the ground dug over 6,000 years ago where special objects were placed in.  Phil and Matt look over the trench to talk about how to determine where the ditch is.  Phil discovers the ditch as well as the river running through his trench.  Phil shows off his ditch to Francis.  In Francis’ trench, they had to rely on a survey to put in the trench.  The survey was right and in fact, a small piece of pottery was found on the site.  The pottery belonged to the Beaker people. 

Tony and Francis talk about the Neolithic period.  Francis talks about hit was a time of change for ancient man.  It was a time when people started taking control of their environment and settling down into the community.  This settling down would have given birth to modern man.  He believes that the causeways were built to honor the ancestors of these people.  However, there are others that believe these were communities for the first farmers.  Now the Time Team has to look for evidence of these people.  After a strange start, what will the Time Team discover in three days about the site?  Will they find evidence of human activity?  Was this a religious site or a farm?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more.

This Time Team was broken up into spots to make for easy viewing and if you need to mine a clip from this episode you can easily click a spot and be taken to that spot to show in a lecture.  In fact, I would use the section where Tony and Francis talk about how the Neolithic period was a period of great changes in a lecture.  Over all, this would be good to show the full episode to a history classroom or for independent study students.

Good morning, we are working through Thirty-One Days of The Time Team.  Where has the time gone for October?  It seems just like yesterday that I started this edition of Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  Anyway, in this episode of the Time Team, our archeologists are looking for Heroes, in County Antrim in this episode called Hero’s Hill.  The run time for this episode is 47:32.

The Time Team is on a remote site twenty miles away from Belfast in Northern Ireland.  They are going to explore the prehistoric age in Ireland.  The site has not been excavated before and dates to the Bronze Age.  The promontory is magnificent and has views of the coast of Scotland.  Exploring this hill will be a challenge.  It is a half-hour ride up it by tractor and the Time Team will be battling wind, rain, and fog.  After he recovers his hat, Phil must contend with two site directors.  What will the Time Team discover in three days about the site?

The Time Team will be working with students from Queen’s College.  Together they will look at such questions as Who built this site?  Why did they build it?  What on earth was up on the hill to defend?  However, when geophysics reach the site all their plans to map the site have gone out the window.  The hill is proving to be a challenge for geophysics to survey the site.

Despite this, trench one goes in over a ditch site.  Phil and Tony look for flint and Phil is like a kid in a toy store.  Tony shows him some flints that he found, and Phil is thrilled with what was found on the site.  Then there is a discussion on flints and Phil’s flint addition.  Could the site be connected to the flint mind and tool making?  Were Stone Age people protecting their flint-making factory?  John Gater tries to work on geophysics in what he can.  However, there is trouble: the site is on a magnetic volcanic rock called basalt.  The Time Team is digging on a large magnet.

Brian Williams talks with Stewart Ainsworth about the landscape around the mound.  The mound is smack dab in the middle of a prehistoric landscape.  Francis continues to walk the site and found another potential site to dig: a stone age roundhouse.  Tony does not see it, however, once Francis shows it, Tony finally sees it.  Phil plans on the trench.  Trench two goes in over this roundhouse site.  If Francis is right, this would be evidence of people living on this site.  IT would also explain the defensive ditches.

Trench one is starting to show evidence of how the mound was built.  Tony discusses the history of hillforts with the professor from Queen’s College.  The Time Team concludes that the ditches were defensive.  What could have been on the site to defend?  A radar result may hint as to what was defended.  Was it a burial?  Was this mound a place for the dead?  However, Phil is trying to prove that people were living on the site.  Phil is finding a whole lot of flint in his trench.  Who were these people?  When did they live?

Day two starts with water in the trenches.  The tractors getting stuck in the mud.  The Time Team walked half a mile up the hill with their tools.  The digger cannot get up the hill.  However, spirits are high for the Time Team.  They discovered a system of prehistoric ditches.  Phil’s trench is showing a roundhouse on the site and shows that people occupied it.  Tony catches up with Frances and he talks about the plans for the day.  Trench two will be extended to learn more about roundhouse.  Another trench will go over the burial site.

What else will the Time Team discover about this prehistoric site?  Were the people who lived there working on a flint mine?  What about the place of the dead?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more.

This was a fascinating look at a site that was never excavated before.  The Time Team working with another organization to train future archeologists was great too.  This would be a good one for a fun history day.

Good morning, we are working through the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  The Time Team is working on the remains of a small Roman villa in There’s No Place Like Rome.  The run time for this episode is 46:28.

A small Roman villa was discovered coming from just after the start of the Roman invasion of Great Britain.  The locals would resent the invasion and it would take decades for full Romanization of the locals.  This villa would hint otherwise.  Previous excavations on the site hinted that it was inhabited by the locals and not by Roman invaders.  Could this be the site of an Iron Age settlement?  Can the Time Team sort out the history of this site?  The Time Team is joined by John Creighton, Tom Moore, and Claire Ryley.

In only a few years after the Roman invasion, Bath was built while local Britain was living in the round houses.  The locals seemingly clung to their local culture or did they?  Excavations on the site did find a Roman villa with a gatehouse near an Iron Age site.  Tony catches up with Mick, Phil, and Helen.  Tony wonders aloud why the Time Team is on this site.  Mick points out that there needs to be more work done on the site.  Helen is thrilled with exploring a Roman gatehouse and Phil wants more geophysics done.  The local archeologists hope that the Time Team can detangle the history of the site.

Just as Time Team begins to work, the heavens open up, and out comes the rain.  Mick takes a moment with a local historian to learn more about what was done on previous excavations.  Everyone assumed that the villa came later, however, there were finds that dated back to the end of the Iron Age.  This would hint at a long occupation.  Despite the sloppy field, the Time Team sets to work.  Matt is assigned to the villa trench, but he is finding it challenging to find dating evidence due to the demolition rubble.

A well is discovered on the site, and hopefully, there will be some finds down the well to help date the site.  The Time Team prepares to put tents over other trenches in case it rains again.  The Geophysics results are coming back, and John is happy with the results.  Features are clearer and there are even more interesting features on the site.

Phil puts in his trench over a feature that looks like a roundhouse feature on the geophysics.  A second trench goes in over a potential rubbish site.  A third trench goes over a mysterious set of crossing ditches.  Helen immediately discovers roof tile in her trench.  Tony talks about the Roman history of Britain during this time.  While some tribes were hostile to the Romans, there were others who saw them as potential trading partners and got along with them.  These tribes willingly adopted Roman technology.  Additional to architecture, the Romans brought gardens to Britain during this time.  Time Team will be recreating a Roman garden for this episode.

The Time Team is finding dating evidence that is hinting that the site had a villa soon after the Roman invasion.  In the meantime, Phil is showing off his deer antler in the potential roundhouse trench. The people would have been hunting deer and eating venison.  The deer would have provided the additional raw material for the Iron Age people.  When the Romans invaded these people’s lives would have been turned upside down. 

At the end of the day, Tony catches up with Mick about the history of the site.  Tony is proving to be impatient with the finds.  However, Mick preaches patients and time.  There have been many finds discovered on the site such as pottery, tile, and the like.  He is pleased with the progress of the site so far and is eying the field nearby.  What will the Time Team continue to discover about the site?  Will they be able to detangle the history?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out!

This episode would be at the top of my list to show for a history fun day because Tony is funny with his impatience and questioning about why the Time Team was on the site.