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A disused RAF bomber base, with one of the longest runways in the country, currently covers a large area near the village of Throckmorton. Though still in commission, large parts of the base are now occupied only by grassland. The recent national foot-and-mouth outbreak brought new action to the base, however: as a disposal site for the carcasses of slaughter cattle and sheep.
Before the government started burying cremated animals here, though, they had a geophysics survey done of the site. Enough prospective archaeological features were discovered to make the authorities relocate their disposal area. So what is the archaeology all about? It looks like a dense Iron-Age or Bronze-Age settlement, judging by the geophysics results. What was happening here in prehistoric times and how big was the settlement? Time Team is here to try to find out.
The Tricks of the Time Team Sound Crew
Day One starts with the geophysics team facing a massive area to survey. Only part of the site was surveyed before, so John Gater and his team have their hands full trying to complete the picture. Judging by the earlier geophysics printout the quality of the archaeological features is outstanding. The plan is not to plough right through the middle of the site, but to place 'surgical' trenches around the outside to try to discover more about it without damaging the preserved archaeology. The first trench is placed at the edge of the site through what looks like a boundary ditch.
Part of the day is taken up with investigating the surrounding landscape to try to get the site in perspective. 'We need to know what else surrounds this place so that we can understand it better,' says Time Team landscape guru Stewart Ainsworth. A large Iron-Age hillfort is on the high ground nearby, while the River Avon cuts through its large terraces of highly fertile land so prized by farmers, both now and in the past. Worcester archaeologist Robin Jackson confirms that lots of finds and scatters of evidence point towards the river terraces being popular places for settlement in prehistory.
By the afternoon another two trenches have been opened over features at the edge of the site. Phil Harding has discovered a ditch together with finds of Iron-Age pottery, while over at Trench One Katie Hirst has discovered more Iron-Age pottery and what looks like the foundations of a roundhouse about nine metres (30 feet) in diameter. There is still some debate about whether the site is Iron Age or Bronze Age. Dr Francis Pryor (Bronze-Age expert) is convinced that some aspects of the site could be Bronze Age, while Dr Jeremy Taylor (Iron-Age Expert) thinks otherwise.
Day Two and the geophysics results for the rest of the site look great. Lines of circular features and various ditches cover the whole area. 'Now we've got lots of targets to look at,' says Mick Aston. With the approval of Worcester County Archaeologist Malcolm Atkin the team can now investigate further to try to determine the nature and function of the settlement. More trenches are added at prudent locations and the evidence quickly starts to appear. Most of the trenches are producing Middle-Iron-Age pottery (100-300 BC), so the Bronze-Age theories of Francis Pryor look like they are fading into the distance.
By Day Three the site has seven trenches open. The task now is to establish the boundary of the settlement and try to get some clues as to the status of the site. Phil's trench has evidence of a roundhouse and that is the focus of activity. But Francis Pryor hasn't given up on a Bronze-Age connection. He's grabbed a mattock along with Jeremy Taylor and started to excavate a Bronze-Age-looking ditch. Sure enough, after a few hours' digging they find that this particular ditch can be dated to the Bronze Age. Francis looks happy and the team can now extend their knowledge concerning the occupation of the area.
Meanwhile, geophysics has located the boundary ditch for what was clearly a sizeable settlement and Phil has even discovered some iron fragments inside the area of his house. It seems that ironworking may well have been taking place here. Things are going well and as the sun goes down on Day Three the team is happy to have answered the principal questions about the site. Throckmorton was busy with activity some 2,000 years ago; from Bronze-Age origins the site became a classic Iron-Age settlement with roundhouses, enclosures and boundary ditches. Not a bad synopsis after just three days' hard work.
Time Team sound technicians are connected to the digital tape held in the film camera by a cable. They then carry what amounts to a small audio mixing desk in a special pouch on their chest. This is a receiver for the special radio microphones that the members of Time Team wear, and can also handle a direct feed from a boom-arm microphone.
'Each person who is going to speak has a radio mike that transmits on a certain frequency,' says sound man Pete Fisher, who works regularly with Time Team. 'I receive the signal from each microphone and mix the sound as we record. As there are often three crews on Time Team we all use different frequencies, so that we only pick up the sounds from what our particular crew is filming. You have to watch what is being filmed very closely as some people either scratch their clothes against the mike or speak a lot louder than the others. I can raise or lower the levels live as we record.'
The sound technicians also use microphones mounted on boom arms to pick up ambient sound. 'The boom mike can fill in a lot of sound space,' Pete continues. 'Sometimes we rig mikes in the trees and just record continual ambient sound. This is called a wild track. We may end up with an hour of crows and diggers scraping and this can be very useful for pasting over any joins during editing and post production.'
Work by archaeologists such as Francis Pryor and Jeremy Taylor has helped us to understand a great deal about prehistoric roundhouses. The size of roundhouses varies considerably, from just a couple of metres to over 15 metres (50 feet) across.
Dating from the Bronze Age onwards, they are often found in groups of three or four, possibly representing small extended family farmsteads – and in the Iron Age in larger community groups.
Some evidence for internal divisions in houses and the grouping of houses in settlements indicate multi-group occupation and this should be considered when trying to reconstruct a model for society at the time. The fact that Iron-Age settlements often include more boundary lines, and sometimes earthworks, could indicate that there was an increased emphasis on property ownership and definition between groups in this later age.