6th July 2005, 04:24 PM
Having been involved on several TT sites over the last 3 years, and been involved with the site recording, archive management and on a number of occasions writing the final site reposrt I have seen the quality of the excavation by the TT archaeologists to be relatively high and a damn sight better than the work of many professional commercial archaeologists.
I was one of many archaeologists like most of you who bitched about TT being rubbish until actually getting invloved and seeing how well things are dug. Ok there's the odd one who shouldn't be let anywhere near a site with a trowel, but we all know people like that.
Perhaps it was different a few years ago, but things are differnt now, sites aren't trashed. Ok corners maybe cut to get things done quickly, but no more than any other archaeological evaluation, which is all TT sites are in the end, evaluations. And thankfully the majority of sites aren't subsequently really trashed by developers.
TT sites are research based evaluations.
Following a pipeline job or a road scheme might be interesting to most archaeologists but not for the majority of joe public, and its the public TT is aimed at. It is not ment to represent real archaeology or the work of commercial units, its a TV show about trying to answer a few archaeological or historical questions in a few days, more often than not at the request of a community interested in the archaeology and the landscape around them.
TT had raised the public image of archaeology and by being on for thirteen weeks of the year, with occasional repeats and specials, it keeps archaeology almost constantly in the public mind and informs them of the vast amounts of archaeology which surrounds them when often confidentiality clauses in contracts between commercial units and developers means the archaeological information isn't been made public.
TT serves a purpose in british archaeology by having a very visible face, and by raising the awareness of our profession amongst the public and developers. Ok so if some hairy arsed ground worker complains that TT could dig a site faster, explain what you're doing, and why it takes longer, don't jsut whinge about some thing which has raised the awareness of a profession which in the grand scheme of things isn't very important.
Dog}
I was one of many archaeologists like most of you who bitched about TT being rubbish until actually getting invloved and seeing how well things are dug. Ok there's the odd one who shouldn't be let anywhere near a site with a trowel, but we all know people like that.
Perhaps it was different a few years ago, but things are differnt now, sites aren't trashed. Ok corners maybe cut to get things done quickly, but no more than any other archaeological evaluation, which is all TT sites are in the end, evaluations. And thankfully the majority of sites aren't subsequently really trashed by developers.
TT sites are research based evaluations.
Following a pipeline job or a road scheme might be interesting to most archaeologists but not for the majority of joe public, and its the public TT is aimed at. It is not ment to represent real archaeology or the work of commercial units, its a TV show about trying to answer a few archaeological or historical questions in a few days, more often than not at the request of a community interested in the archaeology and the landscape around them.
TT had raised the public image of archaeology and by being on for thirteen weeks of the year, with occasional repeats and specials, it keeps archaeology almost constantly in the public mind and informs them of the vast amounts of archaeology which surrounds them when often confidentiality clauses in contracts between commercial units and developers means the archaeological information isn't been made public.
TT serves a purpose in british archaeology by having a very visible face, and by raising the awareness of our profession amongst the public and developers. Ok so if some hairy arsed ground worker complains that TT could dig a site faster, explain what you're doing, and why it takes longer, don't jsut whinge about some thing which has raised the awareness of a profession which in the grand scheme of things isn't very important.
Dog}