Thirty-one days of the Time Team continues and this time the Time Team investigates an Ancient Trading Post in Cornwall. What will the Time Team discover? Tune in to find out!
Time Team goes to Cornwall to investigate Cornwall’s role in international trade. Cornwall was where the world got tin. In exchange, the Cornish got manufactured goods. Pottery from Africa and Turkey has been found in Cornwall. Is there an ancient trading post in Cornwall? Time Team goes in and investigates. The Cornish Coast is notoriously dangerous for sailors. However, there are little havens where a sailor can pull in and shelter safely. The manager of the site flew over the area of the trading post and found crop marks in the landscape. There may have been houses on the site. What were these houses doing on this site? Was it a trading port? The Time Team opens up two trenches on the site. One trench is over a large anomaly in the ground. The second trench will be opened over an old Iron Age roundhouse. The Time Team could be looking at over one thousand years of activity. The finds that were found can only hint at the date of the site. However, the Time Team will look for their finds that were safely tucked away in the trenches. Although the size and shape hint about a roundhouse’s age, they will still need to have found to provide concrete evidence of a home’s age. The first finds are Roman coins. They would not be used in the Iron Age. Tony brings over a coin to a Roman Coin expert. He dates the coin back to Emperor Hadrian. This means that the particular site was used during the Roman Age. Can this site get dated back to an earlier period? The Time Team is determined to find out. As the Time Team digs, Tony is worried about the assertion that the site was a trading port. They will need more evidence to convince Tony. The site would not be a good one for sailors to pull into port since the waters around the area are shallow. So why would this site be linked to the Middle East? The Time Team will continue to explore why. A third trench is open on a site where a second roundhouse could be. They are finding evidence of ditches around the house. Ditches were used to help drive the rain away from the house. In the first trench, they are finding small finds. One of these finds comes from the Mediterranean area. This is the first link in the chain to prove that the area was a trading post. Day two ushers in more questions and possibly more answers. The evidence suggests that there is a gap between the two sites. One site could be ancient and the other site could be Roman. Additionally, the evidence suggests that this spot on the Cornish coast welcomed traders from the Middle East. Tony takes a trip with a Cornish fisherman. He talks about the challenges of sailing these waters. Although the seas could be calm, there were hidden dangers underneath that could wreck the sailors. Even the modern navigation maps hint that the waters were treacherous. However, the landscape archaeologist seems to hint that a harbor in that location would not be completely crazy. To find out why there was a port there continue to watch this episode of the Time Team. This one is an excellent episode to show in a history class. The Time Team explores international trade and how the Cornish contributed to that trade. They also discuss the importance of the finds and the provenance of those finds to accurately date a site. So if you are a teacher or a substitute teacher in the classroom, then show this episode in the class. If you have an independent study student, then put this episode on their list.
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