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Archaeology and Television: Life Beyond the Trench
Glasgow 6th September 2003The Dalrymple fund, administered jointly by Glasgow University and Glasgow ArchaeologicalSociety (GAS), was established in the early 20th century to finance a series of free publiclectures on subjects of historic or archaeological interest. Lecture series have been run since1907, but the annual one-day conference is a recent innovation, timed to celebrate ScottishArchaeology Month. The first was held in 2001 on "Archaeology and Science", with a range of subjects from Forensic Archaeology, to advances in Environmental and Palaeobotanical issues.In 2002 the topic was "Archaeology and Museums", reviewing the multiple issues of conservation, preservation and who archaeology is for.I have absolutely no idea how I managed to completely miss these two important eventshappening virtually on my doorstep! But I have cottoned on now and will make a point of looking out for it in future years.The subject for 2003 develops the question from 2002 on 'who archaeology is for' by looking at"Archaeology and Television", the crucial medium by which the mass of the public encounterarchaeology. According to the conference notes the speakers were invited to give generallyinformal, entertaining and thoughtful talks based on their personal experiences and reflections toa mixed audience of the general public, interested amateurs and professionals, as well as youngstudents of archaeology. Topics to be considered might include what is the nature of therelationship, what are the opportunities and constraints, what does it demand of professionals, theviewing public and the promoters and producers of the subject, what different forms of presentation are successful, why and to whom?The first talk of the morning was a double act entitled
"Presenting the Archaeology" deliveredby Dr Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver.
Both are graduates of Glasgow University. Tony Pollardwas described as Britain's leading battlefield archaeologist, and indeed a part of their talk focussed on their fight to get "battlefield archaeology" recognised as a legitimate discipline bymainstream archaeological practitioners. They seemed bewildered by their transition fromarchaeologists to television presenters, which apparently happened almost by accident. A TVproducer had been commissioned to make a series of programmes with an archaeological theme, just at a time when Tony was getting some attention for doing battlefield work in South Africa.They met, talked, and the producer decided that the result would be a series of programmes aboutTony and Neil "doing archaeology"!! The duo then went on to out line a little about the way theprogramme works. Since they are in essence acting as presenters, they tend not to do the actualarchaeology (of which more presently), but they do do all the research and preparatory work.Once a potential site is chosen, there are various recce visits, and if it appears that the site is agoer they have the luxury of a full week's geophysics survey to pinpoint the most interestingparts of what can be a huge area. They also do metal detecting "big style" - their words not mine.But they explained that it is the nature of the beast, a battlefield very often doesn't have physicalremains in the way of structures, but will almost certainly have a scatter of metal artefacts. Neilalso explained that the "dressing up" element of the programmes had not been their own idea,and indeed they had been against it at the beginning. However, they had found that it actually
 
gave them insights that they could not have got in any other way, and they did come to enjoy iteventually. In the second series - which we were exclusively told -several times - will be shownon BBC 2 from Saturday October 11th at 8pm - the re-enactments have become more realistic.They have been allowed to do live firing this time (last series they were restricted to "sharppointy bits of metal") and to do horseback riding. This led Tony to observe that he now knowswhy Parliament won the Civil War - as Neil (who was playing the Royalist) threw his swordaway the minute the horse began to move! (Neil explained his Mum had always taught him notto run while holding scissors - so swords and moving nags did not seem like a goodcombination!!)They concluded that winning a contract to make a TV programme had given them the fundingand impetus to do what they had always wanted to do - battlefield archaeology.The next topic on the programme was
"Delivering the Archaeology" given by Dr. Iain Banksof GUARD
(Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division). He has the responsibilityof supervising the actual archaeology in many of the "Two Men in a Trench" programmes, andclaims to be the REAL archaeologist on the series, although he did say that the diggers are thereas background colour, and they have to learn the art of stunt trowelling (which turned out to bethe ability to trowel the same piece of trench numerous times until the TV people are satisfiedwith the shot!). Iain is often involved with the recce visits, helping to plan which parts of the sitewill be televisual.There are many problems involved in the delivery of the archaeology: lack of finds, alterations tothe project which may involve the digging of unexpected holes - and as archaeologists they haveto ensure that every one of them has been fully recorded.It is Iain's opinion that "Time Team" is the filming of archaeology being done, whereas "TwoMen in a Trench" is the filming of Neil and Tony doing archaeology. Another problem relates towaiting for the cameras - TV needs to learn how long archaeological processes take, andarchaeologists need to allow for several takes of filming!!He finished by iterating the good and bad points of being a digger on TMIAT.The bad points were the hard work and long hours, as well as the shoestring budget - hecomplained bitterly about the van they use - which continually slips out of third gear and whichthe diggers have to drive to every site - all the way from Glasgow! The producer won't shell outfor something better because he quite likes the image of down-at-heel archaeologists!However there are good points - while Neil and Tony live in the tent we see on the programme,the diggers get to stay in comfortable hotels along with the film crew, and the whole group havebuilt up a good friendship.Our third talk was entitled
"Twenty Five Years Around TV Archaeology: A Personal View"and it was presented by Dr. Colin Martin,
a familiar figure to anyone who has watched the TVprogrammes featuring the Civil War shipwreck off Duart Castle on the Island of Mull. He is oneof Scotland's best-known Scottish archaeologists, and has recently retired from St AndrewsUniversity.Having worked on TV archaeology programmes since Chronicle in the 1970s, he began hispresentation with a review of archaeology on TV going right back to the first-ever 'archaeology'programme "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" in 1952 with Sir Mortimer Wheeler. This wasfollowed with a series of full-length documentaries under the title of "Buried Treasure". In 1966the BBC's history and archaeology unit was established and that led to "Chronicle". Dr. Martin's
 
first experience of TV archaeology was the filming of an Armada wreck off Donegal. This led to"Armada" the first TV series to use archaeologists as presenters speaking directly to camera.Coming more up to date he was a touch disparaging about the two series he has recently beeninvolved in, describing "Journeys To The Bottom of the Sea" as a lightweight approach toarchaeology which is more interested in the personalities than in the time capsule aspect of thefinds. "Wreck Detectives" he considered to have a formulaic approach which was an artificialconstruct leading to contrived outcomes.However Dr Martin has most recently worked on "Time Team" on a programme on MediaevalRoxburgh, and gave it a much better report. He was impressed with the professionalism of thearchaeologists and with the work of the production crew. He enjoyed working with Mick Aston,Phil Harding, Carenza Lewis, John Gator, and Stewart Ainsworth, and appreciated Tony's skill inasking the right questions. He thinks Time Team works because the archaeology is real.So what of the future? Dr. Martin feels that the public is being left with a positive impression of archaeology from the current TV coverage. However TV must continue to make sure that theformulas are right. Good archaeology must frame the questions, and must be flexible enough torespond to new situations. Perhaps the next innovation should be a complete video diary of adig? Dr. Martin himself has been filming his Mull excavation for 10 years, and considers hisfilms to be an integral part of the archaeological record. He concluded by stating thatarchaeology complemented by moving pictures is here to stay.After a break for lunch, first on in the afternoon was
"Producing the Archaeology" fromJeremy Cross of the independent TV company Wildfire.
Jeremy told us that he had had nocontact with the world of archaeology until he was commissioned to produce the 1997 "TimeTeam Live". He was pleased to be involved with the Team, as the programme consistentlydelivers a higher percentage of the watching audience than any other Channel 4 factualprogramme. But, he pointed out, nothing can stay exactly the same forever and "Time Team"needed to grow outside its format.The concept of "The Big Dig" had come from a survey of the Time Team club, in which 80%responded that they wanted to "have a go" at archaeology. A small-scale feasibility study hadindicated that the format could work, and so the proposal was written for a week's worth of programmes. However, when the idea went public it was not well received by the archaeologicalworld, with comments such as "appalling" and "grotesque comedy" being bandied about.Jeremy told us that one of the reasons that "Time Team" works so well is that the three-dayformat is real. In order to work "The Big Dig" had to be real also. But it was vital that it shouldappeal to the archaeological community. A working group was set up which liased with all theheritage bodies. Various restrictions were agreed and the number of sites that eacharchaeological advisor would deal with was limited to five. Putting these checks in place beganto reassure the professionals.Once the programmes went ahead, it was treated in the same way as an outside broadcastsporting event - Jeremy pointed out that archaeology is unpredictable and the crew had to beflexible enough to respond to whatever was the most interesting thing happening.The post-programme assessment showed that "The Big Dig" had worked well in TV terms,gaining 10 to 12% of the available viewing audience and more than 600,000 hits on the website.Had it worked well archaeologically? So far there has been no call on the fund set aside forconservation of finds. It is expected that about a quarter of the registered sites were never dugand about three-quarters of the rest found nothing. It was Jeremy's opinion that "The Big Dig"
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