I don't know why everybody's so mean to poor Francis. He's one of the only archeologists willing to put a theory out there without fear of being wrong. So what if he's all about rituals, if that's what interests him. I find his enthusiasm infectious.
I think the biggest "tell" of all is the fact that most of these people gave up their weekends to work together in often-appalling weather conditions for 20 years. I just don't think that would have happened if, for example, Tony Robinson was the dick a lot of commentators think he is (for the things he's scripted to say for the role he's contracted to play), or Francis Pryor was stupid or if the play-animosity between the dig-a-hole people and the look-at-the-landscape-people and the use-technology-to-learn-about-it people were real. So I think it's pretty much a given that everyone we're watching is generally cool and fun to be around. Every once in a while, they'll bring in a site director for an episode who is clearly just not fit to fill Mick Aston's shoes, or who is just a little too harebraned, and you know, he just never shows up again in subsequent episodes. The core team obviously like each other and get along well, or the show wouldn't work, although that obviously doesn't stop internet commenters from getting up in arms.
maxyakov I cannot remember ANY Time Team episodes where such a simple equation as you offer was used to arrive at their final conclusions. And since their three-day digs were designed to offer others hints and clues that would allow those others to research and explore the sites much more extensively, I don't believe Time Team ever claimed to be the final interpreter of the entire "history" of any site. They generally ended episodes by giving the best expert interpretations of what they found during those three days. Do you believe that any one person, having given multiple radically differing opinions of finds based on nothing more than "enthusiasm", would have continued to be kept on the show? Perhaps you could give an example of an episode where any one person's Enthusiasm + Interest + Speculation was allowed to = Historical Inaccuracy in the Team's final conclusions?
WashuHakubi4: Good question! Without a time machine it would be next to impossible to absolutely debunk any potentially doubtful hypothesis to explain something. However, I know there are many instances where more recent evidence or finds has overturned previous hypothesis (aka explanation or theory) for something. An interesting project would be to take conclusions made on Time Team dig episodes and compare them with later, continued excavations or opinions on the same sites to see how Time Team scored. The closest I can get is ANY episode where Francis Pryor offers up the "ritual" theory to explain something that may or may not be "ritual" and usually takes heat for it. Mr. Pryor has such a fascination with ritual that in one episode he offers a bronze dagger to a fen. It could be he is correct in most cases about the "ritual explanation". Another one is the Anglo-Saxon "invasion" theory which as Francis Pryor has asserted that it is not supported by any archaeological evidence, yet in many episodes it's mentioned several times (or at least in terms of "migration"). Of course, these 3-day, whirlwind, survey digs can produce a lot of "guesstimating", but they, IMHO, keep it under reasonability control. However, let's also remember that this is entertainment and they don't seem to like to leave the audience thinking that there was some kind of conclusion (usually).
maxyakov As for Time Team's "record over time", to a certain extent my "three day" assertion would hold true. On the other hand the "historical accuracy" that you speak of can only ever be the best evidence we have at any given moment. It is absolutely valid for new evidence to eventually reach a level of obvious agreement as to replace the old facts. That's how science should work. As to Francis' focus on the ritual aspect of things, all the Team members are specialists in certain fields, while maintaining a general knowledge of Archaeology to differing extents. I certainly can't believe you would advocate having no one with interests in that area, since we know from the earliest written records that man has always attached mystical or religious meanings to things he could not explain, or things that were essential to his survival; and there is certainly nothing to indicate that mankind before writing was less absorbed by such things. In one episode Time Team burned a "Wicker Man", but that didn't mean they had suddenly become Druids. I certainly cannot imagine any members of Time Team being forced to sign off on Francis' opinions if they didn't agree with them, as they are all very willing to argue their points of view. As for any invasion theories, we know from history that groups of people are rarely allowed to just move into already-occupied territories unless they have the power to enforce their presence; and we certainly have genetic populations of Angles, Saxons, etc., and we can say with certainty where they originated. They didn't beam in from the starship Enterprise. There are always some areas of science where we have not reached that level of obvious agreement I spoke of earlier, and we await that valid new evidence that will allow us to come down on one side or the other. The jury is still out, but that doesn't mean an expert on ritual practices cannot weigh in. Finally, I've covered the "three day" aspect of the show , and it's purpose. The people involved are serious, dedicated scientists. Do not confuse the presentation of a TV show intended to be educational and entertaining with the people behind the show, doing the job they have the training and experience to do well. I have not see any evidence with Time Team that they immediately jump to the "it must be ritual" conclusion every time they find something, or every time they find something they can't immediately explain, as some folks love to assert. And as I said in my first comment, they do not claim to perform miracles in three days, their final conclusions are based on their three days' work, not on the total history of the site.
One of my ancesters went from Co. Ulster to Campbelltown. He was a Stewart who married into the Campbell clan. I still have lots of research to do. Exciting! Of course this was a few thousand years after this.
The plight of modern man - we've forgotten stuff our grandfather's generation all took for granted. Like the prairie farmer's common practice of running ropes from house to barn to woodshed in the winter, so that chores could still be done in blizzards. Cause the cows still have to be milked y'know.
Yes, and our health and wellbeing in Modern society takes its tole. None of us are as healthy as our parents. I expect the life expectancy in the USA to go down. The days of raising our own food, canning it and eating food from OUR own areas is gone. Americans eat junk food and ready to eat foods. What do we expect?
@@pamelahawn9300 1 word - antibiotics. Modern medicine is the reason why junk food or no, life expectancy in the last 100 years has risen. Is this good for the gene pool as a whole? Maybe not, but it's certainly better for the individual.
@@tripleransom4349 Actually, antibiotics only make things worse. The stronger they get, the more resistant the strains of viruses become. Example: Penicillin does work in the veal calf industry to keep the calves alive until slaughter, but the penicillin is passed on to humans in the meat. It's like taking penicillin whether you need it or not. There are hundreds of other ways to keep yourself healthy.
@@lucygray6162 the logical answer to that is to stop using it in the meat industry! Plenty of countries have already done so, and they experience less and less resistance problem. And do some studying will you, antibiotics don't work on viruses, they only work on bacterias and some one cellular lifeforms.
How good documentaries make their point: At 10:36 Phil tells Tony "It's as plain as the nose on your face", and the camera immediately focuses on Tony's nose.
On another show they remarked that they looked like walkers for elderly people and they should attach the technology to them. Phil commented that it would be very slow data Gathering.
I have little interest in this particular period, but I love how earnest and passionate Francis is. About the site: I am so, so glad I never had a job that forced me to work in such conditions. And I live in Canada. About how livable a site such as this would have been: again, I live in Canada. There have been people, the Inuit, who have lived in more difficult conditions for thousands of years, so of course people did live on that promontory, unlike what some commenters argued.
'faffing' about.. what a funny and great word.. I get a kick outa listening to them.. expressing their differences.. coming together to agree to disagree.. it's refreshing and fun and heartening!! I'm thinking now of the foot wrestling, Mr Ainsworth knocked backwards in his chair by Mr Gator, one sock on and one sock off, legs hanging over the chair.. =)
This looks more like a defensive refuge ,rather than a full time village.The view gives you an excellent vantage point to spot threats. Look at what's growing up there on site.Grasses and sedge.It screams pasturage at best.Add constant strong wind,cold, and rain and it's hard to believe it's a place anybody would chose to live much less garden there.The winding entrance also represents a viable choke point easily defended by a small force.
Wouldn't it be neat to have an aerial laser survey of this site? I was also wondering if, on sites like this, mowing the grass would help reveal the topography of the land a bit more and help them determine where to dig. Love this show!
Couldnt agree with you more about Francis, Upsydasy Me :-) But am I weird to wish that I could spend the three days on that promontory learning how to knap flint from Phil? That would be a blast.
I don't imagine they were feasting on the cattle they raided from their neighbors, but the rest could be true. Not that they didn't eat beef. But you don't go to the trouble of stealing your neighbor's fine cows and maybe their prize bull just to slaughter it. Breeding was a big deal, that's why the bulls are so important in the stories. They were the kings of the herd, and the finer they were, the better your entire herd would be. The finest bull would've been a big status symbol. Have they ever found evidence of cattle pens in any of these digs in Ireland? I can't recall hearing anyone mention it in any of the shows I've seen. As for previous discussions about broken pots in people's gardens, people didn't keep lawns like we do now, where a bit of broken pot was an eyesore. Your pot breaks on the fire one day, you're not going to trek all the way to the big trash pit to throw it away. That would've been for carcasses and other nasty refuse, probably. No, you'd chuck the broken bits somewhere nearby but not under foot, like close to the back wall of the house. Or it could be people kept a small refuse heap near the home that they occasionally hauled off somewhere else, and bits and pieces just got left by the wayside. The homeowner's association wasn't exactly breathing down their necks. People weren't supposed to be throwing trash in my great grandmother's yard, either, but I was a big fan of digging holes when I was little, and I was always turning up broken pottery, pop tops, tins, glass bottles, nails, and other weird stuff from way before my time. Even in modern times, refuse just turns up. It's a fact of life.
@@OldSkoolWax I know! I've read the Tain Bo. lol. That's my point. Cattle were currency. They didn't raid just to slaughter the cattle. They raided to take wealth and show up their neighbors. Why would you take your neighbor's prized possession and then just light it on fire, when it would add to your own wealth?
@@meganw.4457 i wanted to write such a comment as well. why would someone go for a raid. and then slaughter everything. definitely one would keep a bull. and the cows to give milk and have calfs. for sure one could and for sure might, slaughter one or two of the -older -cows and make a BBQ. but not everything...
I am Green with envy! As many programs as I have seen, there remains at least One episode Somewhere when a person digs a trench and hits a tree root. If it were me I'd be hitting a root or a stump with every chuck of the spade. Must be the geophysics, right?
With much being said about Francis... I had a professor in college who taught Geology. He and Francis are so much alike its scary. VERY enthusiastic about their subject, not afraid to make suppositions about how or why things happened (even when others heartily disagree) and very willing to get their hands dirty along with the others. I can't help but like Francis because he reminds me so much of my old professor. Dr. Ed ,as we called him, made a very boring subject at 8 on Monday a delight to study.
the ditches could be irrigation or drainage ditches, for watering cattle, that are kept safe in the pastureland within. the sogginess of the place after a single rain suggests drainage ditches, pastureland makes more sense than agriculture. domestication of horses could be part of the activities here but they would have to find bones to prove it. a palisade would keep cattle rustlers out and cattle in, more than a defense in armed warriors sense of the word.
Foxden Wrong, these ditches are massively bigger than anything needed for drainage. They are repeatedly found in similar locations and associated with habitation and require a huge commitment in resources to build. Your proposition is akin to building a structure the size of a cathedral to garage one car. Ancient people did not waste resources and effort, any more than we do today, on something without good reason, whether defensive, religious or for industrious activities. A ditch and bank system of such size would not be required to drain water and why two ditches ?
But what are the two massive cirkes for (known as the Linford Barrows Bronze Age Barrows). They are about 700m from the top of Knock Dhu. I think they are really interesting. There is a standing stone nearby and also a unusual shaped standing stone about two miles away at Ballygilbert. Two miles up the road towards Glenarm there is also what's known as the 'Giants grave'. :-)
I would suggest the climate was very different back then. Much warmer. Noone would want to live in permanent rain and fog. But what do I know? I don't think they had SUV's and oil fired heating, etcetera....
@@garyrobinson2409 Maybe these ditches and banks where specifically meant as defense against attacks with chariots? Carts can not pass through ditches either, so everything and everyone had to pass through the central gate.
@@Exiledk You are probably correct. Areas of upland settlement (e.g. Dartmoor, the Peak District) were often abandoned, approximately, around the end of the Bronze Age, never to be significantly settled again. Presumably the changed climate no longer allowed these areas to be inhabited and exploited as they previously had been.
As I'm watching and looking at the illustrations I have to wonder. Where did the wood for the Palisades, the houses and the entrance come from? I didn't see a single tree in this whole video from anywhere in the landscape..
I don't think they were immediately slaughtering those raided cattle, Francis. Could you imagine being the one to lug fresh water up to that settlement? Fair enough they got a lot of rain, but I wonder at its desirability considering how it may have been collected.
"As John throws his geophysical toys out of the pram..." Jesus, Tony, you wound him up enough on camera, you don't need to pile it on from the Voice Off narration, as well!
I just had to chuckle at the Idea of a Francis 4000 years down the line, excavating toll booths of motorways and prattling on about their ritual significance.
I love this program..but I have been wondering if they've done anything about "Dalraida" on the north eastern side of Ireland, before they moved the town to the southern western side of Scotland?
I love how passionate Francis is. But he does assume a lot and I wonder if it's good practice to make such assumptions like they are absolutely true. I love this show so much. Neil drives me crazy, but hey he's just enthusiastic as well. It sucks Carenza left and it sucks seeing less and less of Helen and other team members, like Guy. They really screwed up by trying to change everything. What a shame. Rest in peace Mick Aston, and long live Sir Tony Robinson.
Probably more than one, but what I found was a Scottish reel called "Knockdhu." You can find it with all sort of instrumentation and variations online: th-cam.com/video/r-qM-WEucK0/w-d-xo.html
resculptit They aren't finding these pieces of pottery in the yard. They're finding them in places that would have been under floors (meaning broken pieces fell down through the cracks) and behind walls (meaning when stuff was demolished and rebuilt they fell there). People break stuff all the time and pieces go astray that we can't find. This just shows that it's been happening for thousands of years.
Yep, I just think of all the broken and separated bits and pieces I have found whenever I've had to clean out an apartment before moving with every PCS (Permanent Change of Duty Station).
You are very welcome. It wasn't always fun; sometimes it was just exhausting and even dull; and it was so much better when it was exciting and a bit dangerous!....but it was definitely an honor to be a US Army officer from 1986 through 2016. Whenever someone thanks my brother for his 32 years of Army service, he smiles and thanks them for paying their taxes! (He is a Desert Storm combat veteran.)
Wouldn't have necessarily slaughtered captured cattle, would have made more sense to distribute some to the chieftain, and the poor: cattle were wealth, milk, butter and cheese/curds before meat.
There is one thing well many really that I dont get! Why dont they send the GeofizzTeam Ahead a day or two? Like Recon!!! And the other dude on the bike too???
extensive trading from the sea . so next look at the coast for signs of a harbor and wrecked ships of shore...... 4000 yrs of coastal change must be accounted for.just send francis home and you will find.
Uh, no, 10th Century BC didn't have garbage dumps. 10th Century AD didn't have them either. Until you take the time to learn some anthropology/archaeology, you'd probably be better off not tossing out disparaging remarks about the people who actually *do* know what they are talking about.
The 21st century doesn't have coffee dumps, yet right beside my back porch... People are prone to making things orderly, and it's a huge evolutionary advantage.
Time team is always talking about rubbish pits. People seem to have been in the habit of digging pits and putting the rubbish in it. I suppose there were always net nicks that didn't care for throwing the garbage and trash on the floor and leaving it.
Hi magsmom, Thank you for adding the voice of reason, there are far too many poorly educated, ill informed people who seem to type whatever comes into their head with thinking first or reading about the subject before boring us with their idiocy. For those with nothing but stupid comments; before typing, engage brain. The people in this show are experts in their fields, well educated and have years of experience in interpreting what they find from having seen many similar sites in their careers. For those of you who know nothing about the subject, asking questions is not a problem , offering an opinion when it is obvious you have no idea what you're talking about simply underlines your ignorance. Magsmom thank you to you and the dozens of other well read people who patiently explain some of the phenomena featuring in this series to the clowns that post stupid comments here.
My data is some cities had the dung gate and locations were refuse was disposed off. Some even had people that removed refuse from the streets or at least from some streets.
Especially in ancient times, people ALWAYS took their garbage far away from where they lived because it could get smelly (and they WERE clean and didn't like foul smells in their domiciles). Also, they understood garbage drew potentially dangerous scavengers. While there may not have been a true "garbage dump" like in modern times, prehistoric people definitely removed garbage from their dwellings - the farther away the better - and usually it was buried. They weren't stupid - they were in many ways smarter than we are today - and they understood animals and nature MUCH, MUCH better than we do now. Many anthropologists believe one of the reasons people domesticated canines is because they were a living garbage remover - they eat everything, from meat and veg scraps to human feces (which was very useful and possibly among the primary reasons people kept them around: to clean up the poop and trash!). Dogs were not only on guard duty and used for hunting by early societies, they WERE the garbage dump. I'm not a layperson, I have a degree in anthropology, this is based on real research and archaeology. People didn't start living amongst their own filth and sewage until they were penned up in cities and had already lost all the skills to survive in "the wild." This is one of the reasons they call the period after the fall of the Roman Empire "the dark ages" - all the water and sewage systems fell to ruin, no one knew how to fix them and eventually no one even knew they had ever existed, and people started living in disease-causing ways, such as dumping their own excrement into the same river their drinking water came from. Unfortunately, this is still the case in places like India, where in the 21st century the "sacred" Ganges is as much sewage as it is water! That's the definition of a "3rd world" country - no clean water, no dedicated sewer infrastructure, people living amongst their own garbage and feces. People 100,000 years ago were smarter and cleaner than most are now, but of course, there were MUCH fewer people living in any single area so the waste-removal problem could not possibly get that bad, and if after several years it did get smelly and too rancid, they simply moved their settlement a few miles away from the place they had decimated. Cities are the problem; people were meant to live in small settlements amongst their own tribe and extended family, not with a million people they have no reationship whatsoever with in a 10-square-mile area, such as in Hong Kong and many other so-called "modern" cities. We modern humans could never survive in the wild like our ancestors did....very sad!
How can Brits live without sunshine? My DNA said I was 91% from the UK (71% English, 20% Scotch Irish...9% German) and I am pleased my ancestors brought me to the USA for the sunshine alone. It’s just so gloomy and depressing...🤗
26:35 Oh no, where's Phil..... oh right here, 6 feet away. He's like a five year old who's never seen fucking fog and it's just SO GODDAMN STUPID!!!!!!!!
Ritual. Ritual,,,, Today, 100 years ago,, 1, 000 years ago,, and I'd guess 10,000 years ago,, there are 10 times as many bars as churches, there are more cat houses than churches,,, anywhere and everywhere in the world. And ritual, today, is once a week plus holidays. It was not any different for Rome, or royal France, or, I'd bet, at the time of Stonehenge. So,,, yes,, our churches, mosques, temples, are the longest lived, largest, most impressive structures here and now. But do not ever forget, ten times as many bars. (For me,, that may well qualify as ritual too.)
Okay this was the bronze age _somewhere_. I'm not so sure it was actually the bronze age here at the time. The locals were mining, trading and using flint, pottery, and various organic materials but they didn't report finding so much as a lump of corrosion. If these people didn't have so much as a single bronze/copper pin go astray I'd say these people were for all practical purposed neolithic. It might have been the bronze age elsewhere but here it was very much the neolithic. Bronze/copper played absolutely no part in their lives.
Well bronze age is a time frame. Same way when the Iron age started, most people were still using bronze. The same way most people had home phones for years after the age of the cell phone. (I still have a home phone and no cell phone, and how far into that era are we. / lol)
susan webb To repeat, it was the bronze age _somewhere_. A few days journey south by boat and you'd have been there. There is not one shred of evidence suggesting these people had any knowledge of metals or that metal played any role in their lives however tiny. They were neolithic people pure and simple. They were a farming people who made their tools of stone/bone/antler/horn/leather/clay etc. with polished stone axes. _Their culture was neolithic._ That these people were living so near bronze age people for so long with not one shred of the material ending up in there community is well worth noting.
Dwight E Howell Actually, the bronze age WAS going on. Since it has a fixed start time. The Digital Age has started as well, though my neighbours don't have TV, Cellphone or computer, so are they still in another age compared to me? In a settlement, if one house has an iron tool, the one next to it a bronze one and next to that the guy is still using flint. Are we talking three ages at the same time within 300 yards? NO, keep in mind that these are "ages" and as such arbitrary. Hell, we call everything that is before the invention of the written word "prehistory" while we're talking about the written word being invented in the Levant. We talk Neolithicum when agriculture is discovered in the levant, yet use that date all across the globe too.
Makes sense, DEH, but wasn't this a very restricted dig? In three days and under the conditions I think it would need further investigation to do it right. If I heard correctly this dig was the first ever here. I'm not even an amateur archeologist just an interested viewer who is learning something new each episode!
I just adore the look on Tony’s face when the wind blows Phils hat off, at the very beginning!😀💕
I don't know why everybody's so mean to poor Francis. He's one of the only archeologists willing to put a theory out there without fear of being wrong. So what if he's all about rituals, if that's what interests him. I find his enthusiasm infectious.
I think the biggest "tell" of all is the fact that most of these people gave up their weekends to work together in often-appalling weather conditions for 20 years. I just don't think that would have happened if, for example, Tony Robinson was the dick a lot of commentators think he is (for the things he's scripted to say for the role he's contracted to play), or Francis Pryor was stupid or if the play-animosity between the dig-a-hole people and the look-at-the-landscape-people and the use-technology-to-learn-about-it people were real. So I think it's pretty much a given that everyone we're watching is generally cool and fun to be around. Every once in a while, they'll bring in a site director for an episode who is clearly just not fit to fill Mick Aston's shoes, or who is just a little too harebraned, and you know, he just never shows up again in subsequent episodes. The core team obviously like each other and get along well, or the show wouldn't work, although that obviously doesn't stop internet commenters from getting up in arms.
As long as it's NOT: Enthusiasm + Interests + Speculation = Historical Inaccuracy. Do you like Historical accuracy?
maxyakov I cannot remember ANY Time Team episodes where such a simple equation as you offer was used to arrive at their final conclusions. And since their three-day digs were designed to offer others hints and clues that would allow those others to research and explore the sites much more extensively, I don't believe Time Team ever claimed to be the final interpreter of the entire "history" of any site. They generally ended episodes by giving the best expert interpretations of what they found during those three days. Do you believe that any one person, having given multiple radically differing opinions of finds based on nothing more than "enthusiasm", would have continued to be kept on the show? Perhaps you could give an example of an episode where any one person's Enthusiasm + Interest + Speculation was allowed to = Historical Inaccuracy in the Team's final conclusions?
WashuHakubi4: Good question! Without a time machine it would be next to impossible to absolutely debunk any potentially doubtful hypothesis to explain something. However, I know there are many instances where more recent evidence or finds has overturned previous hypothesis (aka explanation or theory) for something.
An interesting project would be to take conclusions made on Time Team dig episodes and compare them with later, continued excavations or opinions on the same sites to see how Time Team scored.
The closest I can get is ANY episode where Francis Pryor offers up the "ritual" theory to explain something that may or may not be "ritual" and usually takes heat for it. Mr. Pryor has such a fascination with ritual that in one episode he offers a bronze dagger to a fen. It could be he is correct in most cases about the "ritual explanation".
Another one is the Anglo-Saxon "invasion" theory which as Francis Pryor has asserted that it is not supported by any archaeological evidence, yet in many episodes it's mentioned several times (or at least in terms of "migration").
Of course, these 3-day, whirlwind, survey digs can produce a lot of "guesstimating", but they, IMHO, keep it under reasonability control. However, let's also remember that this is entertainment and they don't seem to like to leave the audience thinking that there was some kind of conclusion (usually).
maxyakov As for Time Team's "record over time", to a certain extent my "three day" assertion would hold true. On the other hand the "historical accuracy" that you speak of can only ever be the best evidence we have at any given moment. It is absolutely valid for new evidence to eventually reach a level of obvious agreement as to replace the old facts. That's how science should work. As to Francis' focus on the ritual aspect of things, all the Team members are specialists in certain fields, while maintaining a general knowledge of Archaeology to differing extents. I certainly can't believe you would advocate having no one with interests in that area, since we know from the earliest written records that man has always attached mystical or religious meanings to things he could not explain, or things that were essential to his survival; and there is certainly nothing to indicate that mankind before writing was less absorbed by such things. In one episode Time Team burned a "Wicker Man", but that didn't mean they had suddenly become Druids. I certainly cannot imagine any members of Time Team being forced to sign off on Francis' opinions if they didn't agree with them, as they are all very willing to argue their points of view. As for any invasion theories, we know from history that groups of people are rarely allowed to just move into already-occupied territories unless they have the power to enforce their presence; and we certainly have genetic populations of Angles, Saxons, etc., and we can say with certainty where they originated. They didn't beam in from the starship Enterprise. There are always some areas of science where we have not reached that level of obvious agreement I spoke of earlier, and we await that valid new evidence that will allow us to come down on one side or the other. The jury is still out, but that doesn't mean an expert on ritual practices cannot weigh in. Finally, I've covered the "three day" aspect of the show , and it's purpose. The people involved are serious, dedicated scientists. Do not confuse the presentation of a TV show intended to be educational and entertaining with the people behind the show, doing the job they have the training and experience to do well. I have not see any evidence with Time Team that they immediately jump to the "it must be ritual" conclusion every time they find something, or every time they find something they can't immediately explain, as some folks love to assert. And as I said in my first comment, they do not claim to perform miracles in three days, their final conclusions are based on their three days' work, not on the total history of the site.
One of my ancesters went from Co. Ulster to Campbelltown. He was a Stewart who married into the Campbell clan. I still have lots of research to do. Exciting! Of course this was a few thousand years after this.
Thanks so much for posting.
Just found this channel, love all the history and people. From US. Great stuff.
Have a look at Irish RM ☺hello from royal hill Tara county Meath Ireland☺
Stewart is a genius.
He is a beast.
Stewart is probably m'y favourite.
He’s really not.
thanks so much for uploading the best show in the history of man :) i love time team
The plight of modern man - we've forgotten stuff our grandfather's generation all took for granted. Like the prairie farmer's common practice of running ropes from house to barn to woodshed in the winter, so that chores could still be done in blizzards. Cause the cows still have to be milked y'know.
Yes, and our health and wellbeing in Modern society takes its tole. None of us are as healthy as our parents. I expect the life expectancy in the USA to go down. The days of raising our own food, canning it and eating food from OUR own areas is gone. Americans eat junk food and ready to eat foods. What do we expect?
@@pamelahawn9300 1 word - antibiotics. Modern medicine is the reason why junk food or no, life expectancy in the last 100 years has risen. Is this good for the gene pool as a whole? Maybe not, but it's certainly better for the individual.
I remember reading this in little house on the Prairie books in my youth.
@@tripleransom4349 Actually, antibiotics only make things worse. The stronger they get, the more resistant the strains of viruses become. Example: Penicillin does work in the veal calf industry to keep the calves alive until slaughter, but the penicillin is passed on to humans in the meat. It's like taking penicillin whether you need it or not. There are hundreds of other ways to keep yourself healthy.
@@lucygray6162 the logical answer to that is to stop using it in the meat industry!
Plenty of countries have already done so, and they experience less and less resistance problem.
And do some studying will you, antibiotics don't work on viruses, they only work on bacterias and some one cellular lifeforms.
I love when the team does pre history
How good documentaries make their point: At 10:36 Phil tells Tony "It's as plain as the nose on your face", and the camera immediately focuses on Tony's nose.
LOL!! omg
Best closing comments of any Time Team episode, I guess the nice way to put it is that Francis has the richest imagination of all of the dig leaders.
+LettersAndNumbers3000 rich means much...francis is simple. not much.
I can't stand Francis...
Something tells me when John gets elderly he'll have a walker with a geophys unit mounted on it, lol.
Most of their rigs look like walkers. It'll be an easy adjustment lol
With a note pad to scribble on
On another show they remarked that they looked like walkers for elderly people and they should attach the technology to them. Phil commented that it would be very slow data Gathering.
lmao
Too too funny!
Francis is so dramatic. Imagine him in a classroom 😊
OMG! Ha ha ha! "While John throws his Geophys toys out of the pram". Priceless! Hahaha!!!!
LOL!!!
I have little interest in this particular period, but I love how earnest and passionate Francis is.
About the site: I am so, so glad I never had a job that forced me to work in such conditions. And I live in Canada.
About how livable a site such as this would have been: again, I live in Canada. There have been people, the Inuit, who have lived in more difficult conditions for thousands of years, so of course people did live on that promontory, unlike what some commenters argued.
My forebears are from Ireland ... this was fascinating. Thank you from South Africa 🇿🇦
Stewart is the man, might as well leave geofizz at home!
Geophys spelled with an "F"- could either be naturally sparkling mineral water, or a soda that tastes like dirt. 😂
@@componenx geofizz, the taste of yesterday!
'faffing' about.. what a funny and great word.. I get a kick outa listening to them.. expressing their differences.. coming together to agree to disagree.. it's refreshing and fun and heartening!!
I'm thinking now of the foot wrestling, Mr Ainsworth knocked backwards in his chair by Mr Gator, one sock on and one sock off, legs hanging over the chair.. =)
Beautiful site!
Such a magical country.
You think magical I think wet. Why did people live there at all.
Helga Anderson
Because not everybody is a whimp :)
MissCattitude63
Wet builds character. Rain is the evaporated blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors. Yes, and pee too.
Celto Loco
Nice of you to offer :)... BUT, you're too close to the US to be considered safe ... sorry! Not your fault, I'm sure.
I love it hear (N.I) the weather may be shit but we have such a huge history here some of it may be dark but it's fascinating
“While John throws his geophysical toys out of the pram”. Hahahahaha hahahahahaha
I giggled for a few minutes! That was one of his best one liners!
This looks more like a defensive refuge ,rather than a full time village.The view gives you an excellent vantage point to spot threats. Look at what's growing up there on site.Grasses and sedge.It screams pasturage at best.Add constant strong wind,cold, and rain and it's hard to believe it's a place anybody would chose to live much less garden there.The winding entrance also represents a viable choke point easily defended by a small force.
Wonderful series, thank you for uploading. An ex-pat stuck in America...
Wouldn't it be neat to have an aerial laser survey of this site? I was also wondering if, on sites like this, mowing the grass would help reveal the topography of the land a bit more and help them determine where to dig. Love this show!
At the mill dig Stewart actually finds a tractor somewhere and mows a field to see better.
Don't mow; get a herd of sheep up there for a summer.
Couldnt agree with you more about Francis, Upsydasy Me :-) But am I weird to wish that I could spend the three days on that promontory learning how to knap flint from Phil? That would be a blast.
I´d pay for that, rain and all!
@@miekekuppen9275 Absolutely!
Even got some flint and a striking antler and was going to teach myself......
Hang on to your hat Phil, here we go again! Showtime!
Great show.
What a bizzare place! Tracey is my fave
My 3rd great grandfather Noble Harrigan was from Antrim .Vary cool to see all this great history.
I don't imagine they were feasting on the cattle they raided from their neighbors, but the rest could be true. Not that they didn't eat beef. But you don't go to the trouble of stealing your neighbor's fine cows and maybe their prize bull just to slaughter it. Breeding was a big deal, that's why the bulls are so important in the stories. They were the kings of the herd, and the finer they were, the better your entire herd would be. The finest bull would've been a big status symbol. Have they ever found evidence of cattle pens in any of these digs in Ireland? I can't recall hearing anyone mention it in any of the shows I've seen.
As for previous discussions about broken pots in people's gardens, people didn't keep lawns like we do now, where a bit of broken pot was an eyesore. Your pot breaks on the fire one day, you're not going to trek all the way to the big trash pit to throw it away. That would've been for carcasses and other nasty refuse, probably. No, you'd chuck the broken bits somewhere nearby but not under foot, like close to the back wall of the house. Or it could be people kept a small refuse heap near the home that they occasionally hauled off somewhere else, and bits and pieces just got left by the wayside. The homeowner's association wasn't exactly breathing down their necks.
People weren't supposed to be throwing trash in my great grandmother's yard, either, but I was a big fan of digging holes when I was little, and I was always turning up broken pottery, pop tops, tins, glass bottles, nails, and other weird stuff from way before my time. Even in modern times, refuse just turns up. It's a fact of life.
Cattle raiding was huge in ancient Ireland. There are defensive structures all over to defend against it. It's even in our mythology.
@@OldSkoolWax I know! I've read the Tain Bo. lol. That's my point. Cattle were currency. They didn't raid just to slaughter the cattle. They raided to take wealth and show up their neighbors. Why would you take your neighbor's prized possession and then just light it on fire, when it would add to your own wealth?
@@meganw.4457 i wanted to write such a comment as well. why would someone go for a raid. and then slaughter everything. definitely one would keep a bull. and the cows to give milk and have calfs. for sure one could and for sure might, slaughter one or two of the -older -cows and make a BBQ. but not everything...
G'wan, Francis. They couldn't have driven cattle up and down those ditches.
But they could have driven them through the non-ditched entrance way.
When Francis starts talking 'ceremonies'......it's time to stand from under and take a sip of beer.
Truer words....
This is my favorite time team episode. Love your work Francis Pryor
😂 Tony, mate please carry a compass with you! 🤔😂
It wouldn't have helped in the circumstances. He was looking for someone who had moved from the trench he had actually found.
"Come back when the fog lifts."
How long have you got?
Mike Summers-Smith.. if you can see the Mull it’s going to rain. If you can’t see the Mull it’s already raining.
The namesake of the county I live in Northern Michigan...Antrim County.
You'll have to come over and visit County Antrim in Northern Ireland. :-)
I was able to trace my family name from here in America to Loch Sween, to that region. I even know what our name would have been at that time. Stebin.
Loch Sween is where the Templar's are supposed to have fled with their treasure, in 1307 A.D.
I am Green with envy! As many programs as I have seen, there remains at least One episode Somewhere when a person digs a trench and hits a tree root. If it were me I'd be hitting a root or a stump with every chuck of the spade. Must be the geophysics, right?
That's why I brought you these poles!
Run Stewart!
With much being said about Francis... I had a professor in college who taught Geology. He and Francis are so much alike its scary. VERY enthusiastic about their subject, not afraid to make suppositions about how or why things happened (even when others heartily disagree) and very willing to get their hands dirty along with the others. I can't help but like Francis because he reminds me so much of my old professor. Dr. Ed ,as we called him, made a very boring subject at 8 on Monday a delight to study.
Ha ha ! Phil is lost in the fog.
the ditches could be irrigation or drainage ditches, for watering cattle, that are kept safe in the pastureland within. the sogginess of the place after a single rain suggests drainage ditches, pastureland makes more sense than agriculture. domestication of horses could be part of the activities here but they would have to find bones to prove it. a palisade would keep cattle rustlers out and cattle in, more than a defense in armed warriors sense of the word.
Foxden Wrong, these ditches are massively bigger than anything needed for drainage. They are repeatedly found in similar locations and associated with habitation and require a huge commitment in resources to build. Your proposition is akin to building a structure the size of a cathedral to garage one car. Ancient people did not waste resources and effort, any more than we do today, on something without good reason, whether defensive, religious or for industrious activities. A ditch and bank system of such size would not be required to drain water and why two ditches ?
But what are the two massive cirkes for (known as the Linford Barrows Bronze Age Barrows). They are about 700m from the top of Knock Dhu. I think they are really interesting. There is a standing stone nearby and also a unusual shaped standing stone about two miles away at Ballygilbert. Two miles up the road towards Glenarm there is also what's known as the 'Giants grave'. :-)
I would suggest the climate was very different back then. Much warmer. Noone would want to live in permanent rain and fog.
But what do I know? I don't think they had SUV's and oil fired heating, etcetera....
@@garyrobinson2409 Maybe these ditches and banks where specifically meant as defense against attacks with chariots? Carts can not pass through ditches either, so everything and everyone had to pass through the central gate.
@@Exiledk You are probably correct. Areas of upland settlement (e.g. Dartmoor, the Peak District) were often abandoned, approximately, around the end of the Bronze Age, never to be significantly settled again. Presumably the changed climate no longer allowed these areas to be inhabited and exploited as they previously had been.
As I'm watching and looking at the illustrations I have to wonder. Where did the wood for the Palisades, the houses and the entrance come from? I didn't see a single tree in this whole video from anywhere in the landscape..
Isolated archaeologists "desperate for a date", sources report.
Some archeologists and a scarecrow take a trip to Antrim.
If your "stuck" in the US I'd happily trade places with you! You're welcome to the UK,there's bugger all here.
I don't think they were immediately slaughtering those raided cattle, Francis. Could you imagine being the one to lug fresh water up to that settlement? Fair enough they got a lot of rain, but I wonder at its desirability considering how it may have been collected.
Digging a well deep enough in the right spots usually works. Take the pit at 23:00 for example
"As John throws his geophysical toys out of the pram..." Jesus, Tony, you wound him up enough on camera, you don't need to pile it on from the Voice Off narration, as well!
Yes, but you can count on John whining in every episode.
I imagine his job is difficult but...you don't hear Henry crying all the time.
I just had to chuckle at the Idea of a Francis 4000 years down the line, excavating toll booths of motorways and prattling on about their ritual significance.
HotelPapa100 And rightly so. After all we all sacrifice at the altars to the gods of Pecunia.
HotelPapa100 ..and sacrifice the planet to the God of personal mobility (by cars).
+HotelPapa100 francis is stuck in black magic mode.........it is an easy way to explain all.
Look up the book "Motel of the Mysteries" by David Macaulay - very similar idea, and quite entertaining.
I love this program..but I have been wondering if they've done anything about "Dalraida" on the north eastern side of Ireland, before they moved the town to the southern western side of Scotland?
They were just an ancient Gaelic kingdom who spread to Scotland.
I just love the mind Frances has.
what a waste of a mind
Ok, finally we got to know why they had to defend themselves - against cattle raiders, rather like later times in the Wild West. ;-)
I wondered about all that scrap flint...suppose a father was giving instruction to a son...?
Or a daughter
What about the three geophys signals in the entrance?
31:39 everything is green EVEN THE MUSIC
Ancient, '' people on the hill.''...........
I love how passionate Francis is. But he does assume a lot and I wonder if it's good practice to make such assumptions like they are absolutely true. I love this show so much. Neil drives me crazy, but hey he's just enthusiastic as well. It sucks Carenza left and it sucks seeing less and less of Helen and other team members, like Guy. They really screwed up by trying to change everything. What a shame. Rest in peace Mick Aston, and long live Sir Tony Robinson.
A non Britisher may be forgiven for asking , why didn't they start their dig in the summer. Well . er they did.
Welcome to the British Isles.
All that wood in a landscape void of trees. Did they burn them all down?
They cut them down and used the wood.
Lots of peat for the fire, if nothing else.
What kind of boats did they use to cross the channel?
I wonder where they got their water from.
Didnt need water they had beer and whiskey.
Wells come in handy when you dig deep enough in the right areas. Take the pit at 23:00 for example.
Was here in in 2019
He throws his geo phys toys out of the pram 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
9:12 N A W E E C. H A I S E S
Looks to me like they were trying to handle the water
What were people defending themselves against?
Wasn't their and old song about Knockdhu?
Probably more than one, but what I found was a Scottish reel called "Knockdhu." You can find it with all sort of instrumentation and variations online: th-cam.com/video/r-qM-WEucK0/w-d-xo.html
That’s funny
33:51 🙀 What. The. Hell??
How far is this from "The Giants Causway"?
resculptit They aren't finding these pieces of pottery in the yard. They're finding them in places that would have been under floors (meaning broken pieces fell down through the cracks) and behind walls (meaning when stuff was demolished and rebuilt they fell there). People break stuff all the time and pieces go astray that we can't find. This just shows that it's been happening for thousands of years.
The idea of wooden floors had not yet been introduced locally.
Yep, I just think of all the broken and separated bits and pieces I have found whenever I've had to clean out an apartment before moving with every PCS (Permanent Change of Duty Station).
You are very welcome. It wasn't always fun; sometimes it was just exhausting and even dull; and it was so much better when it was exciting and a bit dangerous!....but it was definitely an honor to be a US Army officer from 1986 through 2016.
Whenever someone thanks my brother for his 32 years of Army service, he smiles and thanks them for paying their taxes! (He is a Desert Storm combat veteran.)
Were there forests?
Once, long ago, but probably not on the top of this hill.
Any updates on this site?
no
Its sad that something like Time Team is not working in Germany
Wouldn't have necessarily slaughtered captured cattle, would have made more sense to distribute some to the chieftain, and the poor: cattle were wealth, milk, butter and cheese/curds before meat.
As soon as you hear "Prehistoric" you know that all your going to see are different shades of mud as "Evidence".
Alien...as good an explanation as any
They keep on digging an digging but where the houses 🏡 they talk about
and how often is there NO fog...?
There is one thing well many really that I dont get! Why dont they send the GeofizzTeam Ahead a day or two? Like Recon!!! And the other dude on the bike too???
Francis, no gyophis & no hands of Stewart! Recipe for?
Season 16 definitely has a different vibe from the previous seasons..it seems slightly less friendly for some reason....
Stewart is very good, smart guy!
Less bullshit lol
...interesting, others have noted this as well on other shows
Look at my reply to a comment 3 above yours. Pretty sure that might explain a big part of it. lol ):
folks seem a bit testy and are compensating with false enthusiasm. must be the weather and fine local cuisine.
Where’s all the dirt come from ? On top of rocky hill yet everything buried?
Heard of ice ages?
Great question to google.
Why do vacuum cleaners need to be emptied so much?
Or, ya know, they kept the not great but usable stone tools for themselves and traded away the high quality stuff.
extensive trading from the sea . so next look at the coast for signs of a harbor and wrecked ships of shore...... 4000 yrs of coastal change must be accounted for.just send francis home and you will find.
Uh, no, 10th Century BC didn't have garbage dumps. 10th Century AD didn't have them either. Until you take the time to learn some anthropology/archaeology, you'd probably be better off not tossing out disparaging remarks about the people who actually *do* know what they are talking about.
The 21st century doesn't have coffee dumps, yet right beside my back porch...
People are prone to making things orderly, and it's a huge evolutionary advantage.
Time team is always talking about rubbish pits. People seem to have been in the habit of digging pits and putting the rubbish in it. I suppose there were always net nicks that didn't care for throwing the garbage and trash on the floor and leaving it.
Hi magsmom, Thank you for adding the voice of reason, there are far too many poorly educated, ill informed people who seem to type whatever comes into their head with thinking first or reading about the subject before boring us with their idiocy. For those with nothing but stupid comments; before typing, engage brain. The people in this show are experts in their fields, well educated and have years of experience in interpreting what they find from having seen many similar sites in their careers. For those of you who know nothing about the subject, asking questions is not a problem , offering an opinion when it is obvious you have no idea what you're talking about simply underlines your ignorance. Magsmom thank you to you and the dozens of other well read people who patiently explain some of the phenomena featuring in this series to the clowns that post stupid comments here.
My data is some cities had the dung gate and locations were refuse was disposed off. Some even had people that removed refuse from the streets or at least from some streets.
Especially in ancient times, people ALWAYS took their garbage far away from where they lived because it could get smelly (and they WERE clean and didn't like foul smells in their domiciles). Also, they understood garbage drew potentially dangerous scavengers. While there may not have been a true "garbage dump" like in modern times, prehistoric people definitely removed garbage from their dwellings - the farther away the better - and usually it was buried. They weren't stupid - they were in many ways smarter than we are today - and they understood animals and nature MUCH, MUCH better than we do now. Many anthropologists believe one of the reasons people domesticated canines is because they were a living garbage remover - they eat everything, from meat and veg scraps to human feces (which was very useful and possibly among the primary reasons people kept them around: to clean up the poop and trash!). Dogs were not only on guard duty and used for hunting by early societies, they WERE the garbage dump. I'm not a layperson, I have a degree in anthropology, this is based on real research and archaeology.
People didn't start living amongst their own filth and sewage until they were penned up in cities and had already lost all the skills to survive in "the wild." This is one of the reasons they call the period after the fall of the Roman Empire "the dark ages" - all the water and sewage systems fell to ruin, no one knew how to fix them and eventually no one even knew they had ever existed, and people started living in disease-causing ways, such as dumping their own excrement into the same river their drinking water came from.
Unfortunately, this is still the case in places like India, where in the 21st century the "sacred" Ganges is as much sewage as it is water! That's the definition of a "3rd world" country - no clean water, no dedicated sewer infrastructure, people living amongst their own garbage and feces. People 100,000 years ago were smarter and cleaner than most are now, but of course, there were MUCH fewer people living in any single area so the waste-removal problem could not possibly get that bad, and if after several years it did get smelly and too rancid, they simply moved their settlement a few miles away from the place they had decimated. Cities are the problem; people were meant to live in small settlements amongst their own tribe and extended family, not with a million people they have no reationship whatsoever with in a 10-square-mile area, such as in Hong Kong and many other so-called "modern" cities. We modern humans could never survive in the wild like our ancestors did....very sad!
my clan has been Irish Scott for a long time we are Gaels?
And before the Picts there was Game of Thrones.
Gaels aren't Scott's
you could always get therapy, all hope is not lost.
How can Brits live without sunshine? My DNA said I was 91% from the UK (71% English, 20% Scotch Irish...9% German) and I am pleased my ancestors brought me to the USA for the sunshine alone. It’s just so gloomy and depressing...🤗
Lester Piglet Do you mean that it’s not always cold, wet, & windy?
26:35 Oh no, where's Phil..... oh right here, 6 feet away. He's like a five year old who's never seen fucking fog and it's just SO GODDAMN STUPID!!!!!!!!
AKA Time Team VS Ireland
Ritual. Ritual,,,, Today, 100 years ago,, 1, 000 years ago,, and I'd guess 10,000 years ago,, there are 10 times as many bars as churches, there are more cat houses than churches,,, anywhere and everywhere in the world. And ritual, today, is once a week plus holidays. It was not any different for Rome, or royal France, or, I'd bet, at the time of Stonehenge.
So,,, yes,, our churches, mosques, temples, are the longest lived, largest, most impressive structures here and now. But do not ever forget, ten times as many bars. (For me,, that may well qualify as ritual too.)
Or managing water
If only had realized that putting to different metals together thay could have had electricity ....
Maybe they couldn't spell "two" correctly on the order form.
Pisses me off the limitation of three days
Okay this was the bronze age _somewhere_. I'm not so sure it was actually the bronze age here at the time. The locals were mining, trading and using flint, pottery, and various organic materials but they didn't report finding so much as a lump of corrosion. If these people didn't have so much as a single bronze/copper pin go astray I'd say these people were for all practical purposed neolithic. It might have been the bronze age elsewhere but here it was very much the neolithic. Bronze/copper played absolutely no part in their lives.
Well bronze age is a time frame. Same way when the Iron age started, most people were still using bronze. The same way most people had home phones for years after the age of the cell phone.
(I still have a home phone and no cell phone, and how far into that era are we. / lol)
susan webb To repeat, it was the bronze age _somewhere_. A few days journey south by boat and you'd have been there. There is not one shred of evidence suggesting these people had any knowledge of metals or that metal played any role in their lives however tiny. They were neolithic people pure and simple. They were a farming people who made their tools of stone/bone/antler/horn/leather/clay etc. with polished stone axes. _Their culture was neolithic._ That these people were living so near bronze age people for so long with not one shred of the material ending up in there community is well worth noting.
Dwight E Howell
Actually, the bronze age WAS going on. Since it has a fixed start time. The Digital Age has started as well, though my neighbours don't have TV, Cellphone or computer, so are they still in another age compared to me? In a settlement, if one house has an iron tool, the one next to it a bronze one and next to that the guy is still using flint. Are we talking three ages at the same time within 300 yards? NO, keep in mind that these are "ages" and as such arbitrary. Hell, we call everything that is before the invention of the written word "prehistory" while we're talking about the written word being invented in the Levant. We talk Neolithicum when agriculture is discovered in the levant, yet use that date all across the globe too.
Makes sense, DEH, but wasn't this a very restricted dig? In three days and under the conditions I think it would need further investigation to do it right. If I heard correctly this dig was the first ever here. I'm not even an amateur archeologist just an interested viewer who is learning something new each episode!
Are you suggesting that the importance of copper alloys during the bronze age have been seriously exaggerated? ?8^)
Why would you wear a white shirt to dig in the mud?
Sherry Elliott is a blue or brown shirt going to be any less dirty - mud is mud 🤔
Probably because it was on the top of the pile.
In 2200 BC in Egypt they'd already built the great pyramid at Giza. In Ireland they dug some ditches.
And the ancient Egyptian royalty used Celts as mercenary bodyguard s ..
Newgrange, older than the pyramidsth-cam.com/video/P6XAFJ_FdOA/w-d-xo.html
clan McDonnell