Time Team
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 1999

Sunday 19 December

Inside Barley hall

With a new Time Team series starting on 2 January, this pre-Christmas special offers a taster of what is coming up in the new year – and provides an update on previous Time Team digs. Presented by Tony Robinson from York's Barley Hall, where a Medieval Christmas celebration is in full swing, the show tells what has happened at many of the digs featured in the last series.

In particular, the Christmas Special reveals startling new evidence about one of the 'stars' of the last series – a complete skeleton discovered during last summer's live dig at Bawsey in Norfolk. The skeleton had the top of its skull sliced off and, at the time, the Team were reasonably confident that it was a man, dating from the 10th or 11th century, who had died instantly from his wounds. Since the discovery, however, the remains have been subjected to the rigours of modern science – everything from teeth analysis and carbon dating to DNA tests and the scrutiny of a leading osteo-archaeologist. The findings give us a remarkably detailed picture of what happened.

'Most unusually, the piece of the skull that was sliced off was still there,' says executive producer Philip Clarke. 'It's very rare to find all the 'bits' in a case like this. We've now completed an extensive post-excavation analysis on it and can say exactly how old the person was, how they were killed and what happened to them between being injured and dying. We can confidently surmise what was actually going on at this site, on that day. The truth is quite stunning.'

The Christmas Special also revisits Reedham Marshes in Norfolk, to pay a special tribute to the crew of a B-17 'Flying Fortress' which crashed in February 1944. In the last series, Time Team excavated the plane, which had been buried in the peat marshes for over 50 years, and Tony Robinson returns to the site to erect a memorial plaque and reveal more details about the men who died.

'This is our Christmas present to loyal Time Team viewers,' says Tony. 'With thousands of calls after a programme and half a million hits on the Time Team website, it's obvious that fans of the series want to know what happened next. We revisit several of last year's digs and look ahead to the highlights of the new series starting in January.'

Back to the Time Team Past programmes page

Try the Time Team Christmas quiz

Back to the 2000 series page