Time Team Day 12 - The Norman Neighbors

Good morning, we are working on the Thirty-One Days of Time Team for October.  I am pulling an episode from Series 12.  This time we are going to Yorkshire, England, and learning about the Normans.  The run time for this episode is 47:58.  The episode is called The Norman Neighbors.

Frances Davies, a Time Team fan, has been collecting finds from fields outside her house in Skipsea.  She has collected a variety of artifacts from the Neolithic, Roman, and Saxon items over the years.  The items reveal that people were living in the area over 1,000 years ago.  However, the geophysics results hint at a large village.  Could this village be the seat of power for a Norman lord?  The Time Team has three days to find out, but will three days be enough for the Time Team to investigate the site?

Tony kicks off the episode by catching up with Frances Davies and walks along her field.  She displays the artifacts she made over the years.  Tony brings up the geophysics results she paid for showing a large amount of activity going on.  One year the fields were plowed deeper and even more, artifacts were discovered.  Geophysics is working on the site and two trenches are going in.  More and more finds are being found.

Carenza Lewis catches up with Frances to put all the finds out on a table according to a timeline.  This timeline will show the site's rise and decline in activity.  Phil is gaga over the flint finds that were found at the site.  Some of the earliest finds are from about 4000 BC and were among the earliest farmers.  Phil examines the artifacts and explains what they all are to Frances.  He points out a broken axe head among the finds.  Phil thought Frances could have found more flint finds at the site.

The high winds do not deter the Time Team from finding the potential of the site.  There seemed to be a rivalry that developed between the geophysics team, the landscape team, and the trenches to what could be found on site.  The site is on the North Sea.  Tony tries to stay out of the wind and catches up with Stuart in the car.  He talks about the landscape of the area.  He will be looking for clues as to what was going on in the field.  Geophysics continues to expand its survey.  Early results show plenty of noise.  John Gater also sees a boundary line in the field, so trench three is going over the ditch.  This ditch may end indicate a settlement.  There was a round feature that Tony would like to examine.  Stuart seems to believe this round feature will be a quarry.

There was a clear occupation in the Neolithic Period and then there was a decline in activity until the Norman Conquest.  Then occupation on the site picked up again.  The Norman pottery found at the site has the Norman Pottery expert happy.  One element of this episode was recreating a medieval pot.  The Norman pottery expert works on making a pot.  There was one item that came from the field that showed a thumbprint of the pot’s creator.

John keeps coming up with the geophysics results.  The finds also keep coming.  There is a piece of metal found in one of the trenches that looked like it collapsed on itself.  This piece of metal is confusing Phil, was this a feature of the ditch, or did it come from a later period?  Landscape and environmental archaeologists continue to learn more about the landscape.  Could there have been an ancient lake on the site?  The evidence seems to point in that direction.  What will the Time Team continue to learn about this site?  Will Tony blow away?  What caused the people to leave this site?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more!

This was one cool episode to watch because of all the finds that were initially discovered.  Frances was thrilled to learn more about what she initially on the site.  I also like the recreation of the pot that the handle would have been part of.  It was also surprising how fast the archeology revealed itself.  Over all, it would be a good episode for a history fun day.