Channel 4 Television’s popular archaeology programme, Time Team aims to solve archaeological mysteries suggested by viewers in just three days. The achievement of this goal naturally requires considerable human and technological resources, including a first-rate surveyor and state-of-the-art equipment. The programme’s makers have for years relied on Trimble GPS, currently used by Dr Henry Chapman the Time Team surveyor and landscape archaeologist.

Trimble has supplied its Differential RTK GPS and a reflectorless EDM together with associated software including the latest Trimble Geomatics Office^™ software. Dr Chapman, who is a Research Fellow at Hull University , carries out three main tasks on a Time Team dig:

• A GPS stake-out of a geophysical grid indicating trenches to be excavated and incorporating data received from a variety of sources such as aerial photography, which will show, for example, crop marks that often provide valuable clues to the position of artefacts.
• A site survey locating archaeological finds within ± 2 cm. The ability to produce a survey of this nature is often crucial in obtaining permission to dig. Geophysical, excavation and metal detector data is processed to produce maps that are used on-screen and later archived.
• The creation of three dimensional computer models of the dig using Geomatics Office or GIS software.

Channel 4 Television's popular archaeology programme, Time Team aims to solve archaeological mysteries suggested by viewers in just three days. The programme makers have for years relied on Trimble GPS, here being used by Dr Henry Chapman the Time Team surveyor and landscape archaeologist.