Katie Hirst

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, Katie 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.'

Katie joined Time Team as a local digger on the Papcastle excavation (recorded in early 1998). She asked the production company if she could work on more sites with them and ended up doing all of the post-excavation work full time.

In her spare time she enjoys rock climbing, mountain walking, and looking for her next adventure. Her last adventure was Central America for Christmas. 'I would love to find a pyramid in the jungle. Someone gave me a machete recently, so it may happen!'

Katie Hirst ceased to be a regular Time Team digger after the 2002 series. Among other things, she now works on the Time Team spin-off programme, Extreme Archaeology.