I am thrilled to say I am a member of Time Team. It started thirty years ago in Britain as an reality archaeology, based on the premise that the usual archaelogical survery takes three days. The reason i became interested was a little bizarre.
I have lived in upstate New York all my life. I had already started researching my family in 1994 and knew I had a diverse European background. In August 2014 my mother broke her hip. She had to go to a rehabilitation center. One beautiful day in September she wanted to go outside. I took her out in her wheelchair. I wonder if all wheelchairs are so cumbersome to move and manuveur. I strained my right shoulder badly. I just gotten a job that required using a computer all day. The only thing I did at night after that little incident was eat a frozen dinner and ice my shoulder. I needed some entertainment. I got a subscription to the Britbox streaming service and that's where I found Time Team. The service had a very limited number of episodes it turned out. I wondered if there were more. There were, 20 years and 62 specials!
It was an easy and entertaining way to learn about my British ancestors. There were episodes in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland as well. It seemed like a lot of the people knew each other and it wasn't unusual for people to give each other a good-natured hard time. At that time I never knew where the team would be in the next episode or what they would find. Sometimes they found what they were looking for. Sometimes they found something else entirely. One time they found "absolutely nothing." Each episode featured at least one specialist and as the years went on, usually multiple. I've watched them countless times since then. It's sort of like attending a really good party, at least for me.
The episodes ended in the early 2000s, but the interest and enthusiasm continued on. I think the pandemic helped too. So many interesting channels started on YouTube! A few years ago it was announced that Time Team was reforming and would be fan-funded. There has been at least two special digs in the last two years, and information in-between. This past spring I thought I'd join. This is the type of group would welcome me if I showed up one day to watch and someone would go out of their way to talk to me. Too bad I can't. I've had a couple dreams of Time Team coming for a dig in the upper Hudson Valley. Hint, hint.
