S22 | Dig Watch: Anglo-Saxon Cemetery: Day One - Community Test-Pitting

Delightful snapshot of a kind of activity I'd love to take part in some day.

Justin T Donie

Thank you

Sheila Sanderson

Hi Sheila, the completed episodes are due to premiere in Spring 2023. Until then, we have more insights and interviews to share from both digs and the post-production process. We'll also be delving deeper into development of our third site. Watch this space for more details.

Time Team

Have a missed a post about when these digs will be shown?

Sheila Sanderson

I can picture this... makes me smile 😊

Patricia Amero

My younger son got hooked 20 years ago: he did our 'pond' and it was excavated in 10cm spits. Victorian blue and white, spoil from the late Victorian house next door. Great for a primary age lad!

Susie Stockton-Link

me too! I loved it

Donna Holt

Thanks Patricia, get ready for another weekend of fun and discoveries ahead.

Time Team

I loved this bit. It’s one of the gifts of Time Team to work so closely with the community.

Dyana Mason

I appreciate the email updates so I don't miss anything. Dani... you are an absolute GEM. You ask and answer every single thing I'm wanting to know about each subject. Fabulous work- camera crew & everyone behind the cameras... excellent editing. ZERO complaints, HUGE praise to all. 😎👍

Patricia Amero

Good to see you back at it Dani! I loved what the lady said about liking the archaeology, but it’s the people that make it fun. The test pit program seems to also be a quiet bit of community building … That’s just kind of nice!

Robert Wise

I wonder if anyone confronted for a test pit was excited to hear that Time Team have returned if they were unaware? Which brings me to an idea I just had! What if during the off season, one or two of our notables go out with a cameraman, and knock on a few random doors to try and answer some small questions about the history of some of these communities? I would be thrilled if they knocked on my door! It might be another way to say “We’re Back!”, as well as a way to put together some more fun Patreon content during the dry spells! Episodes with community test-pits, or in general, the sudden destruction of private property and back gardens were my favorites! Right up there with the old pub scenes…

Jon Colcord

I started a test pit in my garden several years ago, and was surprised to find a concrete wall, just below the surface that extended 4 or 5 metres under both my compost heaps. Amongst various things, I found a 1923 German aluminium Pfennig (I live in Germany.) A tag for a quarry, which delivered chalk to a nearby factory by means of a overhead cable system, and various fairly modern wrappers. The village is a model industrial village, 100 years old this year, so I am not really expecting anything more than 100 years old,.

Jon

So that's what Dani has been up to. :) I wonder how often the stratification is completely messed up - when I tried test pitting in my garden it was all mixed up together, likely a result of some extensive landscaping done several decades ago. It's a bummer to find pottery from the 1700s and then a piece of plastic packaging underneath... especially since then there's no guarantee the historical pottery wasn't transported from a different area with the soil itself.

Jakub Jůzl

Great that we can learn a bit about the finds in some of the upper layers,. Fantastic to see the enthusiasm of those involved.

David Boon

Now I can’t wait to participate! When is a Time Team community dig coming to a place near me? 😉

André Beuving

Yep, that was a strange comment..did he subscribe by mistake? As you said, cant get enough!

Mark Lund

Cant get enough. If this is perceived as spam why not filter it out and go scold somebody elsewhere??? Keep them coming.