Time Team Day 30 - Saxons on the Edge

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.