Professor Michael Aston is best known as the leading archaeologist (series 1-19) on the popular Channel 4 television series Time Team. He is an Emeritus Professor at Bristol University, and Honorary Professor at Durham, Exeter and Worcester Universities. Please note that Mick Aston cannot be contacted via this website. He can be reached by post via the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UU.
News
Current Archaeology no. 274 (7 December 2012) saw the start of Mick’s Dig Diary, a column every other month by Prof Aston exploring the trials and triumphs of local archaeology projects. He started by recalling the genesis of the Winscombe and Sandford Archaeological Project : An Unexpected Project. He followed up in CA 276 with A green and pleasant parish. Both can be read online. The next installment is due out on 5 April. His publication fees go into the project kitty.
Mick has lent his aid just this once to Dig Village, a project on the
village of Dunster, Somerset, co-ordinated by Tim Taylor, producer of
Time Team. Drawing on his experience in his own Somerset parish
history projects, Mick explains to Danielle Wootton his method of
using maps to work back into the history of a parish, and the problems
of working out a monastic or town plan in two videos:
Shapwick book
Following the scholarly monograph on
Mick's 10-year project on the Somerset parish of Shapwick, comes
something with more popular appeal. Mick Aston and Christopher
Gerrard, Interpreting the English Village: Landscape and
Community at Shapwick, Glastonbury was published on 28
February 2013 with wonderful full-colour illustrations by Victor
Ambrus, familiar from Time Team. There is a sample on the cover. Mick
Aston was interviewed
by Oxbow Books & The David Brown Book Company as part of the
book launch. He answered questions sent in by the public. You can view
the result on YouTube.
Now that the new Museum of Somerset at Taunton, backed by Mick, is up and running, he has turned his attention to another museum project. On the memorable date 12.12.12, he signed a petition backing the £1.7 million bid to redevelop Glastonbury's Somerset Rural Life Museum. It is a museum dear to his heart. "I love this museum and have done projects of my own here, it's a brilliant place and should be developed further and further."
Time Team
Channel 4 has mercifully decided to allow Time Team to retire after series 20, showing this year. Channel 4 head of factual programming, Ralph Lee, said: "I am incredibly proud that, as well as providing hundreds of hours of education and entertainment on Channel 4, Time Team has invested, over and above production costs, more than £4m in archaeology in Britain over the past 18 years."
Current Archaeology issue 274 examines Time Team: the rise and fall of a television phenomenon in an insightful online feature. British Archaeology 128 (January/February 2013) also carries a loving obituary of Time Team and analysis of why it had to go. The analysis echoes that of Tim Taylor, series producer, who has admitted that Time Team simply grew too big and too far from its roots. Current Archaeology has the fuller picture of the problems of series 19, which sealed its demise. See Mick's resignation for the back story.
Archaeological legacy
Editor's choice on the letters page of British Archaeology November/December 2012 is a thoughtful plea from Mick Aston to consider where the personal archives of archaeologists should be deposited. Having passed the age of 65, Mick has been in talks with Somerset county museum and record office and has begun to deposit his archive there. Memorabilia of Time Team, such as those famous stripey jumpers, have been deposited in the museum, he tells me. Huge bundles of papers have been transferred.
Current Archaeology 271 carries an interesting interview with Mick, Mick Aston: an archaeological journey, part of which can be read online.
Brit Award Winner
Congratulations
to Prof. Aston! The 2012 British Archaeological Awards were announced
at a ceremony held on Monday 9 July 2012 at the British Museum in
London. The
Lifetime Achievement Award 2012 winner was Professor Mick Aston,
for his long‐term commitment to public education and for his on‐going
support for developing our understanding of past human behaviour, as
well as major personal contributions to archaeological knowledge and
the development of new methodologies. Also the award for Best Public
Presentation of Archaeology went to Time Team series 18 episode 1,
‘Reservoir Rituals’, which was the 200th episode of Time Time and led
by Mick. Since Mick hates going to London, the award was actually
presented to him at home on his birthday, 1 July. The BAA has put a
video up on YouTube of the
event in Mick's conservatory.
Mick's resignation from Time Team
The news came out in February 2012 that Mick had left Time Team - a
decision made in the previous summer. You can read his comments to The
Western Daily Press online at This
is
Somerset: Professor Mick Aston quits Time Team over 'dumbing down'
row. The March/April 2012 issue of British
Archaeology carried an interview with him, and
commentary by the editor. It was quite a Mick-heavy issue, so he
appeared on the cover. The editor of British Archaeology,
Mike Pitts, explains
on
his blog how a story about Mick leaving got spun by the Daily
Maul into an attack on the unfortunate Mary-Ann Ochota. Neither
on or off the record, in all the conversations I’ve had with Mick
over the past couple of months ... has he ever spoken of Mary-Ann in
a disparaging way. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong
time.
A farewell letter from Mick also appears in the April
issue of Current Archaeology.
In a nutshell Mick objected to the loss of key members of his team in
series 19, and changes in presentation that obscured the process of
archaeological discovery. Marion Ravenwood
gives
the
inside story at Digging the Dirt. Reaction from readers appeared
in the May/June issue of British Archaeology along with
a delicately-balanced damage-reduction piece by Tim Taylor, series
producer of Time Team, which confesses errors with the handling of
series 19, which he assured us had been addressed, while managing to
pour healing balm on the authors of said errors. His gift for PR has
been almost wasted on TT all these years, since the programme pretty
well sold itself, but he rose to the challenge of public uproar.
My own view is that Time Team (original flavour) broke the mould. It wasn't a standard documentary. Instead the viewers could watch the process of discovery and share with the team the excitement, the surprises and setbacks. Probably few viewers realised just how difficult it is to make such a programme. The standard documentary is so much easier; everything is worked out in advance and there is a script to follow. Whereas with TT (in its original format) the director had to improvise, to think on his feet. The archaeologists needed to be so knowledgeable and quick-witted that they could talk about their discoveries as they made them, rather than pondering for days or weeks or months, as is the norm. Simply having a degree in this or that does not qualify anyone for a speaking role on T.T. The core team and the experts that Mick recommended in series 1 had an average 20 years experience in their fields. That included Tony Robinson, who was an experienced performer. T.T. demanded exceptional talent on both sides of the camera. I foresaw years ago that key people would have to leave one day, with a consequent dimming of TT's brilliance. I said then that I would prefer T.T. to quit while it was ahead than sink into mediocrity.
Some have surmised that C4 was actually trying in series 19 to kill off the programme. Nothing could be easier if they so wished. They would only need to stop commissioning it. Why put money into creating a bad programme? Ironically the problems arose from the exact opposite desire. C4 and the production companies involved in making the programme had a vested interest in keeping it running. Hence the attempts to refresh the format with younger people. It might have worked if properly thought through. The idea of replacing people in their 60s with people in their 20s was misguided. It jumped a key generation. Time Team started with a bunch of people mainly in their 40s - young enough to have the energy for such a demanding format, but experienced enough to make it work.
Time Signs Online
Before the enormously popular Time
Team, Tim Taylor first collaborated with Mick Aston in making
the four-part series Time Signs,
broadcast in 1991. The series followed the exploration of the Wolf
Valley in Devon,before it was flooded to create the Roadford
Reservoir. The evacuation of its farming families gave the
archaeologists a free hand. The series has been made
available at YouTube by 4oD Documentaries (Channel 4 On
Demand).
Mick's Travels
In recent years British Archaeology has been carrying a regular contribution from Mick, called Mick's Travels.
Mick prowls around Durham in the May/June 2013 issue. He visits the city periodically to lecture at the university, but has found time to wander its lanes and explore its cathedral, with its relics of St Cuthbert and St Oswald.
In the March/April 2013 issue, Mick tracks down medieval farms on Exmoor, not to mention a 5th or 6th century memorial to a nephew of Caratacus.
Mick Aston stays at home in the January/February 2013 issue, showing just what can turn up in one back garden.
In the November/December 2012 issue, Mick enthuses about York.
For his contribution to older issues, see Mick's articles.