Archaeology at work

Archaeology at Work
Looking for and Uncovering the Past
Archaeology at Work is a series of films that introduces the methods and the equipment used by archaeologists today. The first two parts deal with the discovery and excavation of sites. Looking for the Past examines archaeological methods for finding sites in the countryside without digging for them. It shows and explains such techniques as aerial photography, looking at documents, surveying earthworks, fieldwalking and geophysical techniques such as magnatometer and resistivity surveys. In the final section we see a team of archaeologists working on a fieldwork survey of a whole landscape. Uncovering the Past examines the work of archaeologists on two rescue excavations.
We see the whole sequence; removing the soil, uncovering features, recording them, dealing with the finds and drawing the evidence together to make interpretations.
The first section looks at the excavations of an AngloSaxon village in North Yorkshire. We see how the archaeologists piece together the evidence of how the community lived and worked in that place 1500 years ago. In the second half we look at a rescue excavation in the city of Worcester. We see the complications of excavating a site that has been continuously occupied for over two thousand years. We see that archaeology is all about finding people.