This is the series which preceded Time Team, presented by Professor Mick Aston. This episode features Phil Harding making a fire with a bow/drill, then an arrow with a flint arrowhead napped by himself.
I actually saw him mention on his flint knapping video, that he put a sheet underneath and took all the bits away so as not to confuse future archaeologists. Interesting, I thought.
This is what archaeology is all about, the knowledge and passion of these two much respected men is obvious and ads so much to the program. Bring it back,,
I have watched all four episodes and enjoyed them. It's so laid back, especially when compared to time team and I can see many people not persisting with it. I think a lot of credit needs to go to Tony Robinson for the success of time team. I found him irritating from the very first episode but the energy he brought and his ability to force reactions from Mick, Phil and the others, really did make for a much more essential series.
Watching Phil walking through the woods with the sunlight glistening on that beautiful hair gets me every time. He was so very handsome back then. Sadly time and gravity take their toll on all of us eventually.
I love watching Phil work with and talk about flint, it's so relaxing for me. I also love TT and I think Mick would have preferred it to be more like this. Thank you for the upload!
@@rrc7t3 That's fantastic....I will look forward to that....I want to thank you for bring this to YT....I do so miss TT and all the the Team from the earliest to the last....they managed to bring the past alive.
Mick wanted a presence that wasn’t an archaeologist, that asked real people questions! When he met Tony on a cruise, he asked him to be the presenter! That’s how it started!
@@catofthecastle1681 I didn't mean anything about Tony. I was referring to Mick's struggles with how the show was run after a few seasons, not anyone in particular.
I was also surprised, as a flintknapper myself, I always enjoy watching other people knapp. Shame he wasn’t mentioned, I’m sure he chuckles to himself if he was to watch this now! Gotta love that laugh! RIP Mick Aston, grew up watching this and time team, your work goes on!
Yes, it's most remarkable that he was excluded from credits, no doubt caused from Tim's owning class ignorance Yet, we can trust Mick Ashton pushed to ensure the MAN they relied on for this entire video was Phil. He's also more or less unmentioned in early Time Team. Such classism only seen in England, eh Phil.
Like every American who found Time Team during Covid, how cool is this. I’ve never seen this. I didn’t know Mick had other clothes and Phil could operate without a hat…and his voice…huh?
As much as I love TT through the years, I do have a big soft spot for this earlier gentle method, which you can see a little in the first season of TT. I'd love to see someone revive this formula of going to a particular place and peeling back the layers of time. Thanks so much for uploading!! 🙏❤
Have you seen any of the new Time Team episodes? They are a bit more lowkey; the current presenter is a bit more soft-spoken than Tony Robinson and is himself an archaeologist, so they have a very different feel. Many of the regulars from the older series are back, like Matt Williams, Carenza Lewis, Helen Geake, and of course John and Stewart needling each other whenever they have the opportunity.
Enjoyed this and the others in the series. The slow pace is very relaxing to watch. What a difference to the fast pace and pressure to succeed of the excellent Time Team!
Something about this is bothering me, both Phil and Mick are younger here than I am now, that's not a pleasant thought lol. I was about to start my last year of school when this was first broadcast.
Phil sounds different. More formal. He was much more country on Time Team. It could be the sound equipment got better or he just relaxed and was himself as he got more comfortable on television.
This reminds me of the late 1960's early 1970's filmstips they used to show us in elementary school. I much prefer it to Time Team. Phil's broad accent is also a whole lot less pronounced.
If you are referring to Phil, he is not Viking. They tested his DNA and found that he is pure Celt. He was very pleased to learn that. He did a little happy dance and told Tony to get off his land. I loved it.
Mick, Phil and Tony are the 3 stooges.....Love Time Team, could watch and listen to them all day! I have learnt more from them.... than I had in high school. So much interesting information to learn from. Keep digging guys....I will be there with you
I'm grateful to the person who identified, in the comments to an earlier episode, that it's actor Ray Brooks. I've heard him in radio dramas but couldn't put a name to the familiar voice. He certainly did a great job here: clear, well-paced, warm, naturally animated where appropriate but without being over the top or having any irritating quirks.
If these shows had have been used in teaching us in school science class I would have retained this knowledge. We were taught by reading which was not very interesting 🤔. It’s a shame.
16:55, my father, a skilled axeman, would have given you a few pointers to make your work easier. Let the tool do the work! That said, I am so thankful that you allow me this glimpse on history. We all stand on the shoulders of giants!
Beers and cheers To Phil Harding, a man whom we are all glad never stopped searching . " Well I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind, I left my body lying somewhere in the sands of time, But I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon, I feel there's nothin I can do,yeah.... I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon, After all I knew it had to be something to do with you, I really dont mind what happens now and then, As long as youll be my friend in the end. I really dont mind what happens now and then, As long as youll be my friend at the end.." Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down
Like the format & music, I can't remember seeing it, so these few video's have peaked my interest. Phil did well! Somewhat reminds me of Stuart Peachy's Tv living history presentation.
This is what TT should have been ; more analysis and thought, a more thorough longer look at the dig and less needless drama. I far prefer the style of these vintage programs, no jarring camera work, no heavy over the top music and no dumbing down of factual content; we are not idiot's. Thanks for uploading, much appreciated.
I agree but this series of programmes did not take off like TT did hence the change of format. But watching this I to preferred this style. Reminds me of the series in the mid 00's 'Return to Green Valley' of the tudour farm and house in Wales. Thinking about it maybe the same narrator? Enjoy.
You are missing the point of time team. Times signs is a typical documentary for its time, but for many people it is hard to absorb because it is too dry and not nearly engaging enough. It is preaching to the converted: those like yourself who have already made a commitment to learn about the subject. Time team's primary purpose was to draw in the unconverted into a very esoteric activity that also happens to be very hard work often in horrible conditions. Time team achieved the impossible: it made digging holes for broken pots sexy, and interesting. This was absolutely vital to raise popular interest in the science; popular interest vital to ensure funding for the science. You knew they had succeeded when the team was introduced to the Queen. If only the same could be done for Taxonomy
Interesting that Tim Taylor evolved Time Team from this earlier series and got Mick and Phil to help him do it. I hope that he is able to make a go of the new relaunch of TT now on RU-vid. I have seen that Carenza and Helen are eager to try it, although I have not seen Phil's reaction. Apparently, Tony (Sir Tony!) is busy with other projects and will not be involved.
One thing not mentioned and which was probably as important as or more important as stone tools: fire, that and simply girdling the trees. It's pretty well known that in America primitive man used those two techniques for dual purpose, to promote new tender growth which drew the game and to clear and maintain farmland. Why fell a tree with a stone are when trees can be killed and defoliated by using that same stone are? It would allow subsistence planting between the dead standing timber.
❤Ahh the eternal dilemma of the Devil's shilling. Highbrow programmes with no airtime or flashy/trashy T.V. formats but morie people are interested in archaeology/history? Tough one. Time Team trod a fine line very astutely IMHO.😊
I don’t think people totally cut the tree down to clear the land for cropping. Much easier to just ring bark the tree to kill it and then next year in summer the area of ring barked trees then is burned. This process was used by some these people’s descendants in Australia in the 1800’s.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to make the same comment. My father spoke of my grandfather clearing land in just that way in Indian Territory before it became Oklahoma. Fire is an old tool, as old or older than flint.
@@larryreese6146 I believe there is an account of the Iroquois ringing trees to create new gardens, but they didn't burn because they were hoeing and hilling, not plowing. Subsequently they had to watch out for falling branches in following years. Probably a good source of firewood for cooking.
They burned. Fire adds to the soil. Especially in areas that are highly acidic from the tannin of leaves. Also leaves and detritus from years of leaf accumulation promotes pest growth that leads to diseased forests. Also, when fires are set consecutively year after year and the debris is kept down so that when there is a fire it doesn't devastate everything and become uncontrollable. Fire promotes new growth to bring game into an area. Some plants need it. Huckleberry grows old and wont produce but burn the forest and it will produce the second year. It was a general practice by Native Americans both in th East and on the western prairies to burn. Most probably they burned twice a year, once in spring, once in fall. Spring to promote new grass and herbage, fall to get rid of detritus and sweeten the soil.
@@larryreese6146 You don't have accumulation when the women with stone hatchets rely on fallen wood for fuel, and deciduous leaves tend to keep the soil sweet by cycling calcium. Leaf litter wet from deep winter snows and spring rain doesn't burn, it gets broken down. They may have scraped together piles of dead understory weeds as they hoed, and burned those for convenience, but that is not what you are talking about. Clearing fields left fallow for a couple of years is a different story because those will burn.
@@tyrander1652 they burned. Not only do I know this from word of mouth and remembrances from my childhood but also from various sources which I have read. I site Washington Irving's A TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES for one example and would have to dig some to find my other examples from other books. But I have them. Also, when i was a youngster, growing up in the foothills of the Ozarks, it was a common thing every spring for folks to go out and set the world on fire. Note the new growth that came after the fires in Yellow Stone Park. When the first Eiurpeans arrived in America they didnt find a howling wilderness, they found forests of large trees, interspersed with open meadows and prairies. Why? Fire. Note the demise of red oaks and other forests in the Ozarks today. Why? Beetles, which have always been present but which over winter in leaf detritus, have been allowed to multiply in population until they are killing the trees. Only Europeans with their fixed abodes dislike fire. Fire is cleansing and promotes new growth for deer browse and food for other game animals. Native Americans managed their forests and fields with fire. On the plains they fired the prairies after their last fall hunt to get rid of invasive cedars and to clear the ground for new spring growth.
I like time team but I rather think I like this better. There's no annoying little actor running around screaming "and they only have 3 days to do it!" While he throws his hands about, running through trenches.
If they wanted to keep an actor, they should've tapped Stephen Fry. He's a lovely person, quite funny, and incredibly intelligent. Also from Blackadder 😅
I'm grateful to the person who identified the narrator as actor Ray Brooks. The voice was familiar ( to me , from radio dramas but he's done a fair bit on TV including Eastenders) but I couldn't name him. [Funnily enough , a suppressed Richard Briers had occurred to me too! There's an occasional lilt that these two seem to have in common!]
At the time they didn't have the genetic evidence that the late neolithic farmers were colonisers from elsewhere (anatolia) and that the hunter gatherers did not "gradually evolve" into farmers.
if the worst happened to phil, at least he has the necessary skills to survive in a primitive lifestyle, most modern townies wouldn't have a clue. modern softy city dwellers would say, what use is it having the skils to rough it, it's just a waste of time you just book into a hotel and use the electric gadgets to get all that you need, and you pay other people to do all of the necessary crap stuff like food and drink etc etc. but, the one thing that phil would have to learn how to make, would be beer, for him, that would be, the end of a civilized lifestyle that would hit the hardest for him, also, finding the time and ingredients to brew his own beer or cider, when eating came first, to say nothing, of time for planting vegetables, to add vitamins to the diet, so as to stay healthy. that's a lot of work and skills to do it successfully, if it's just you doing it all. that's why people traded with others, who did have what you wanted. and books would come into their own again, forget about computers or telephones.hand held tools would be your number one priority .
What makes you think Phil couldn't make his own booze? That man can do anything and do it with style. I'm just sorry I've never been able to find a video of Phil playing his guitar.
Great to go back to the very beginning of the Mick Alston Experience 😆 Phil doing his best David Gilmour Cos-Play 👍😆 (Phil is excellent at flint knapping, he learnt it as a very young man) You can see why they changed the show and brought in Tony, it's terrifyingly DULL....
YOU TUBE ADS< Disney shit and all you impose on us quality video archeology keeners cream: GET OUT And Leave us in SANITY> We know whose attempting to cause psychological fuckery in 2020-22
