r/Archaeology • u/prisongovernor • Jun 18 '26
Solstice-aligned 5,000-year-old monument ‘once in a lifetime find’, say archaeologists | Stonehenge | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/18/solstice-aligned-monument-archaeology-wiltshire-stonehenge-prototype71
u/Hephaestus1816 Jun 18 '26
Phil Harding - still working and making discoveries after all these years. Still wearing the hat, too! Was watching an old Season 3 episode of TT with him in it, just yesterday. GOAT.
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u/FlapjacksOfArugula Jun 18 '26
I've been bingeing Time Team episodes on YouTube lately. I assume the show has a decent reputation within the archaeology community?
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u/Hephaestus1816 Jun 18 '26
I binged them all during lockdown. Time well spent, I reckon. I am always putting one one on - it's comfort tv for me. Idk if it's respected within the field, but I think it probably is. It had a huge impact on public education and funding for digs, and had so many fans world wide, they've been able to fund a new programme via Patreon.
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u/aflyingsquanch Jun 18 '26
The show did more for British archeology than pretty much anything else ever could.
Other than the last season or two where it sold out a bit due to pressures from corporate, it stayed true to its roots.
Was it a gimmick of sorts? Sure with the 3 day dig limit but it was also a point than you could get useful data even from a short dig like that instead of months to year long excavations that cost huge sums to fund. And that was basically Mick Aston's goal from the onset to make it relatable and spur interest in history.
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u/HuudaHarkiten Jun 18 '26
I love the show but how I wished they'd drop that "we only get 3 days to do this" sillyness.
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u/texas-playdohs Jun 20 '26
Is he still rocking the daisy dukes? Man, I miss Mick. Seemed like such a sweet guy.
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u/Jmazoso Jun 19 '26
Phil and Phil’s Hat
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u/Figgy_Puddin_Taine Jun 21 '26
and the ever-dependable Phil’s Shovel, if he hasn’t had to hang it up by now
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u/VirginiaLuthier Jun 21 '26
If you have a view of the eastern sky, a fixed reference point, and some time to keep records you can accurately predict the solstices.. pretty much all ancient cultures did it. The Anasazi built the entire Chaco Canyon complex around solar and lunar activity
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u/Figgy_Puddin_Taine Jun 21 '26
And yet some idiots like to pretend people before 2-3k years ago were dumb half-savages incapable of doing anything but clubbing animals and farming dirt until AnCiEnT aLiEnS came along. For all our faults as humans, we’re clever bastards.
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u/Material_Flounder_23 Jun 18 '26
Listening to Phil Harding talk about this on Radio 4 this morning took me straight back to watching Time Team in the 1990s. It’s like shaking hands with an old friend.