Dig Watch: Spoil Heap Q&As – Ask away!

Never. It's sacrilege. 😉

Emily Flotilla

Good question. I'm sure Phil's knees and back are riddled with arthritis.

Emily Flotilla

What equipment are the metal detectorists choosing to use on this site and why?

Michael Louk

Thanks Julianne. The problem I have is that south and southwest Northamptonshire appears to be on the border between Angles and Saxons and everything (as far I can tell at the moment) is dumped into the Anglo-Saxon bracket. Research is still ongoing.

Kenneth Brawn

It seems rare to find whole pots on digs, even in midden pits. If someone threw out an old pot, you would think they'd throw out all of it in one go. So, where's the rest of the pot (s)?

Phillip Nelson

Must be Canadian Bacon! (At least down here at 48° North)

Paula Holter-Mehren

I'm 100% up for Canadian Bacon anywhere, any time!! 😃👍

Patricia Amero

🤢 Yuck to pineapple on pizza, that's a NO from me (in Canada) 😂

Patricia Amero

I'm looking forward to the TT Q/A... Seriously, TT Patrons ask such interesting questions that make me say "wish I'd asked that..." bring it on.

Patricia Amero

Dr Sophie Kay, what DNA evidence amazed you the most either in this dig or across your career?

Carl Johnson

Look up "Cheddar Man"!

Susie Stockton-Link

Or you could use Canadian Bacon.

Richard Hartman

Dr Richard Parker, how often do you find historical blueprints of buildings or design plans from the time of construction?

Carl Johnson

The question that always fascinates me is what happens when the cameras are switched off, or more generally, when you finish a dig. To what extent do you try to put things back the way you found them or do you just leave clear markers for those who might come after you to tell them where you have been? So much of what you do seems ultimately to be destructive of something that might have sat there for 3000 years.

Ian Holden

Definitely! 😊

choklityum

Dr. Parker, is there an example you can give of a building (or part of one) that fooled you into thinking it was from a different era? (example: "ancient" ruins that turned out to be Victorian-era folly, or something like that)

Michael Sperry

I have a general question for anyone. I am looking to start a career in Archaeology and starting from step one although I do have a History Degree from a Canadian University. What do you recommend as the best education path to become an archaeologist? Are there any particular universities that you recommend that I look into? Also do you have any general tips for someone trying to break into the industry?

Thomas Grenn

How far back can you go with DNA -stone. age, iron age, etc. - and connect with people of today in a particular locality?

Question for anyone in the team but related to this style of dig. Comparing commercial, research and community archaeology, what do the team think makes public engagement/involvement so important?

Justin Freeman

🤣🤣🤣

Julianne Ture

Yup.It is a Canadian invention…pineapple on ham pizza

Cathy Martichenko-Grilz

The Angles and Saxons were generally in different parts of Britain (East “Anglia” vs. Wessex/Essex/Sussex, i.e., the West, East, and South Saxons respectively), so it’s a geographical rather than an archaeological question. The Angles founded the kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia, which were later conquered by the Vikings. Following the Saxon-led victories over the Vikings in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Anglian and Saxon realms merged into the first unitary kingdom of “the English” and the Angles effectively disappear as a distinct group.

Julianne Ture

For Dr Sophie Kay please - is there any way to differentiate the Angles from the Saxons through archaeological finds alone please? Sorry, I didn't quite make myself clear - I was thinking about bodies :-).

Kenneth Brawn

What is your favorite piece of TT clothing to wear on site from the official shop?

Michael Louk

Will you be looking for the lost Priory of Modbury? What sort of archival and geographical research are you doing to try to locate where the priory buildings used to be? Might robbed out stone from the priory be visible in existing buildings? Thank you!

Ann Wagner

Dr Parker, what do you look for to distinguish between buildings of different eras?

Leitchy

A question for the not-so-spring-chicken-anymore in the team: Time Team's Phil Harding is no longer involved, because he is getting on a bit and is (presumably) not able to do three days of digging anymore. How do archeologists deal with getting older? Do you dig until you drop, do you step back and let the younger ones do all the work, do you step into other fields of archeology that are less physically demanding?

Goijaart van Dijk

That’s three good questions! My punter’s answers would be yes, yes, and yes…just a guess.

Eggs Ackley

For Dr. Sophie Kay: My grandfather was a keen amateur genealogist. He spent 18 years (from retirement until his death in 1968) finding his own paternal ancenstry in actual paper archives. He soon realized that everyone is related to everyone, so as he was getting on with it, he also found the ancestry of most of my hometown's inhabitants in 1950. (Tilburg NL, at the time around 70.000 people.) I have published the family tree he made online, on MyHeritage, just to make it accessible to my own (extended) family. It goes back to 1300, so there are many links with other family trees. I have noticed that most links I get notified of, relate to copies of the research my grandfather did, or interpretations of it. This makes finding new connections, or even older ancestry, quite difficult. So my question is: How reliable is the data of sites like MyHeritage? Does it relate to actual, scientifically checked, genealogical databases, or should it just be considered the basis for further offline research?

Goijaart van Dijk

My questions are for Sophie Kay - How are you planning to use genealogy to connect individual families to local sites/buildings and to the places they later immigrated? Will you be using any DNA research as part of the focus on Modbury? How might family historians / genetic genealogists in countries they moved to be able to assist in your research? For example, I know there was immigration to Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) where I live from Modbury in the early 19th century. Will there be any possibility of identifying surnames/families of interest during the weekend and Patreons such as myself who have a background in history, genetic genealogy and local archival sources to flesh out the stories of these people? I am not suggesting it will necessarily be a focus on Tasmania but wherever the focus, you involve locals to help with the research spreading the community aspect of the dig to the global context.

David Boon

Please could you solve a puzzle for me? Years ago I dug on the Insula 9 project at Silchester - the first bits of archaeology were quite close to the surface, however, I’ve been on other digs were you have to dig quite deep down. What is the reason for some sites being well covered, and others having shallow cover? Is it simply a case of how much use it has post abandonment?

When we see bits of ruined/destroyed buildings redistributed around a village (stonework, etc)... I wonder if there are any accounts of how that actually happened. Did the entire village work together to pull down the old buildings and then help themselves to the spoils in some sort of festival/community/group event? Or did individuals/families sneak up to the ruined buildings in the night and pinch bits of stonework under cover of darkness? Or did the ruins' owners perhaps sell bits of their old buildings to the townsfolk, effectively recouping some cash from their downfall... like someone breaking-and-selling an old car for spares?

Paul Faulkner

I guess the rental agreement usually requires you to return the Pineapple clean and undamaged, so don't place it on pizza 😉

Wolfgang Zenker

Pineapple on pizza?

Time Team