The 'Time Team Dig Book' explains all the key skills the budding archaeologist needs to know. From gaining permission for your dig and surveying the landscape, to locating and excavating your first trench; from identifying pottery, to your final report and the legacy of your dig.

This title is a companion to Channel Four's programme, Time Team and includes all the sites excavated up to the publication date. These sites and the archaeological treasures they have yielded serve as a starting point for a quirky, yet fascinating view of British history.

We all know that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, London's 'one big burning blaze' tore through the capital in 1666 and that Britain declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939, but many of us remember the most important moments in our history by the folk stories which are attached to them. So we remember Henry VIII for his wives rather than the Reformation and Charles II for climbing a tree rather than the Civil War. But if we set aside these stories, do we really know what happened when, and why it's so important? Which came first, the Bronze Age or the Stone Age? Why did the Romans play such a significant role in our past? And how did a nation as small as Britain come to command such a vast empire? Here, Tim Taylor and the team of expert historians behind Channel 4's Time Team, answer these questions and many more, cataloguing British history in a way that is accessible to all. This book will give you and your family a clear and concise view of what happened when, and why.

For Professor and Channel 4 personality Mick Aston, landscape archaeology remains his first love, because it provides so much information about how ordinary communities lived in the past. Environmental archaeology, experimental archaeology, the archaeology of buildings, and his great project at the village of Shapwick in Somerset are just some of the other subjects brought excitingly to life in Mick's colourful and action-packed pages. Reading this book, it is easy to share the author's basic conviction that "Archaeology is fun."

For the times when you’re driving past a lumpy, bumpy field and you wonder what made the lumps and bumps; for when you’re walking between two lines of grand trees, wondering when and why they were planted; for when you see a brown heritage sign pointing to a ‘tumulus’ but you don’t know what to look for… Entertaining and factually rigorous, Hidden Histories will help you decipher the story of our landscape through the features you can see around you. This Spotter’s Guide arms the amateur explorer with the crucial information needed to ‘read’ the landscape and spot the human activities that have shaped our green and pleasant land. Photographs and diagrams point out specific details and typical examples to help the curious Spotter ‘get their eye in’ and understand what they’re looking at, or looking for. Specially commissioned illustrations bring to life the processes that shaped the landscape - from medieval ploughing to Roman road building - and stand-alone capsules explore interesting aspects of history such as the Highland Clearances or the coming of Christianity. This unique guide uncovers the hidden stories behind the country's landscape, making it the perfect companion for an exploration of our green and pleasant land.

Packed full of incident and insight, No Cunning Plan is a funny, self-deprecating and always entertaining memoir by Sir Tony Robinson. Sir Tony Robinson is a much-loved actor, presenter and author with a stellar career lasting over fifty years. In this autobiography he reveals how the boy from South Woodford went from child stardom in the first stage production of Oliver!, a pint-sized pickpocket desperately bleaching his incipient moustache, to comedy icon Baldrick, the loyal servant and turnip aficionado in Blackadder. It wasn't all plain sailing though. Along the way he was bullied by Steve Marriott, failed to impress Liza Minnelli and was pushed into a stinking London dock by John Wayne. He also entertained us with Maid Marion and Her Merry Men (which he wrote and starred in) and coped manfully when locked naked outside a theatre in Lincoln during the live tour of comedy series Who Dares Wins. He presented Time Team for twenty years, watching countless gardens ruthlessly dug up in the name of archaeology, and risked life and limb filming The Worst Jobs in History.

Thisguide for the interested amateur on how to spot archaeology in your own local landscape provides a period-by-period guide to the archaeology of Britain and an introduction to sites from all the main periods of British history. A guide to what to look out for and typical sites to visit, it outlines what you might expect to find surviving in the landscape, and providesinformation about how to discover archaeology yourself."

A prominent scholar explores King Arthur's historical development, proposing that he began as a fictional character developed in the ninth century According to legend, King Arthur saved Britain from the Saxons and reigned over it gloriously sometime around A.D. 500. Whether or not there was a "real" King Arthur has all too often been neglected by scholars; most period specialists today declare themselves agnostic on this important matter. In this erudite volume, Nick Higham sets out to solve the puzzle, drawing on his original research and expertise to determine precisely when, and why, the legend began. Higham surveys all the major attempts to prove the origins of Arthur, weighing up and debunking hitherto claimed connections with classical Greece, Roman Dalmatia, Sarmatia, and the Caucasus. He then explores Arthur's emergence in Wales--up to his rise to fame at the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Certain to arouse heated debate among those committed to defending any particular Arthur, Higham's book is an essential study for anyone seeking to understand how Arthur's story began.

A fresh look at the text which introduced for the first time some of the key figures in British myth and legend.

In Secret Britain, join anthropologist and broadcaster Mary-Ann Ochota for a tour of more than 70 of Britain's most intriguing archaeological sites and artefacts.