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Published: 6/14/2008 | Updated: 1/23/2009
By DEBORAH GERTZ HUSAR
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
BARRY, Ill. — PBS is coming to New Philadelphia.
The Pike County site will be one of five or six featured in “Time Team America,” a new show spearheaded by Oregon Public Broadcasting that puts viewers in the trenches to experience archaeology as it happens.
A television crew of about 15 and eight members of the Time Team will be on site the week of June 22.
“I think it will certainly increase name recognition in the general public,” said Anna Agbe-Davies, an assistant professor of anthropology at DePaul University and one of three co-directors of the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates field school at the New Philadelphia site.
“People who are in a position to make decisions about school curriculum, preservation funding or in a position to help the project move forward will find out about it and recognize its national importance.”
Crew orientation takes place June 23. Filming and three days of “intense” archaeology are scheduled for June 24-26.
Episodes are scheduled to air on PBS in 2009 or 2010 with additional content online. The Web site will feature digital video, photos, blogs, animated graphics and interactive features.
Viewers will be able to eavesdrop on conversations between experts, see artifacts emerge from the ground and watch over the shoulders of archaeologists.
“Time Team America” already has been to Fort Raleigh, N.C. looking for the lost colony on Roanoke Island and to Allendale County, S.C,. to ask when the first settlers came to the Americas.
Eric Deetz, husband of Agbe-Davies, is one of the Time Team members. He’s already on site and looking forward to filming another episode of the show based on the long-running and highly successful British Time Team program.
“If they can pull together enough funding, they’ll do six locations all across the U.S. They’re hoping in future seasons to branch out to other parts of North America,” Agbe-Davies said.
Research archaeologists in volved with the field school say the PBS program will complement ongoing work at the site.
Similar television shows “go for a lot of flash and dazzle” which troubles research archaeologists, but “Time Team has been at the other end of the continuum, doing archaeology the way archaeologists do,” said Chris Fennell, field school co-director and an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois.
— dhusar@whig.com/221-3379
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