From Animal, Vegetable, Mineral to TimeTeam: The changing nature of archaeology on television.
Community-based archaeological digs: Is archaeology the province of the wider community, or a peculiar specialism?
August 8, 2021A critique of the complications involved in using interviews within primary research.
August 8, 2021From Animal, Vegetable, Mineral to TimeTeam: The changing nature of archaeology on television.
Example archaeology dissertation topic 10:
From Animal, Vegetable, Mineral to TimeTeam: The changing nature of archaeology on television.
Broadcast from 1952 to 1959, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral was an archaeology quiz show on British television in which a panel of experts was presented with artefacts that they needed to identify and comment upon. Thereafter, archaeological programmes such as Chronicle were broadcast until 1991. In 1994, TimeTeam burst onto the nation’s television screens. It has now been shown on Channel 4 for eighteen series and, with its combination of ‘geo-phys’, tractor-dug trenches and cheery lead presenter (Tony Robinson), it continues to popularise archaeology in a manner that combines education with entertainment. This paper explores the value of archaeological programmes on television and evaluates whether the profession is enhanced by such popular programming.
Suggested initial topic reading:
- Dyke, R.M.V. (2006). ‘Seeing the past: Visual media in archaeology’, American Anthropologist, Vol. 108(2), pp. 370-375.
- Finn, C. (2001). ‘Mixed messages: Archaeology and the media’, Public Archaeology, Vol. 4, pp. 261-268.
- Merriman, N. (ed.) (2004). Public archaeology. London: Routledge.
