The team

Katie Hirst is Extreme Archaeology's lead archaeologist and diver. She is a hugely experienced archaeologist who has worked throughout Britain, Europe and the Middle East, including a lengthy stint living and working in Beirut. She is an advanced sub-aqua diver, experienced rock climber, and enthusiastic global adventurer, fluent in French, Spanish and Arabic. Katie has extensive television experience and has worked on 45 episodes of Channel 4's Time Team programme.

Katie first got into archaeology at the age of eight when she rummaged around in the local woods with her brothers looking for mysterious Victorian things. 'When I was older and realised that you could actually get a job doing that sort of thing, and would invariably get to meet Harrison Ford, I decided to do a degree in archaeology at Durham University,' she says.

After university, she dug for a number of years for various archaeological field units and managed to work abroad regularly, especially in the Middle East: 'The most interesting site I worked on was in Beirut, where we dug a Roman bath house that still had its hypocaust and vaults standing. The politics were pretty heated, though, and ended up with bulldozers arriving on site. I think it's a car park now.'

'I got involved with Extreme Archaeology through Time Team,' says Katie. 'Tim Taylor [Time Team series producer and deviser of Extreme Archaeology] arranged a strange meeting in Charing Cross station and over a very frothy cappuccino asked if I would be interested in a new project that he was developing. He didn't give me any more information, but I tentatively said yes, lured by the mystery of it. I was already a qualified diver, and have done quite a bit of climbing and some caving, so I guess those skills and my archaeological experience were why he selected me.'

Katie's favourite expedition for Extreme Archaeology was to Burgi Geos in the Shetlands. 'The landscape was so evocative with standing stones leading down to a sea channel that was dotted by islands,' she says. 'You really got a sense of why the Iron Age people who lived there had chosen that place to settle. The fortified house that we excavated was also so pristine that it felt like we were the next visitors after the last inhabitants had left.'

'We also had a great party there in the middle of nowhere underneath the northern lights,' Katie adds. 'Mark did a personal show for us all that involved a whip and women's clothing. I don't really need to say any more – for now!'

Her scariest moment? 'Without a doubt it was going through the 200-year-old mine in Parys Mountain, Anglesey in search of Bronze Age workings. The timbers that were supporting the mine were completely rotten, with a texture like sponge cake; and the rocks above were collapsing as we moved past them. It was an amazing experience though!'