Mick Aston

Mick Aston
Mick Aston (left) at the Time Team Big Roman Dig in 2005 with the programme's originator and producer, Tim Taylor
Born	Michael Antony Aston 1 July 1946 (1946-07-01) (age 65) Oldbury, England, UK
Occupation	Archaeologist
Known for	Time Team

Professor Michael Antony 'Mick' Aston (born 1 July 1946) is a prominent English archaeologist. As an academic, he has taught at a number of universities across the United Kingdom, and has helped popularise the discipline amongst the British public by appearing as the resident academic on the Channel 4 television series Time Team, which has been airing since 1994. Through the series, Aston has become iconic to the viewing public for his trademark colourful jumpers and flowing, untidy hairstyle.^[1] He has also published a number of books on the subject of archaeology, some of which are written for an academic audience, and others which are written for the general public.

Born into a working class family in Oldbury, West Midlands, Aston studied geography at the University of Birmingham before going on to become a professional archaeologist and gaining further degrees in the subject. Working for Oxford City and County Museum and then becoming the first County Archaeologist for Somerset, he also taught classes at the University of Birmingham, University of Oxford and the University of Bristol. With the television producer Tim Taylor, Aston began to work on creating shows that would bring archaeology into popular consciousness, being involved in the creation of the short lived Time Signs (1991), which was followed by the far more successful Time Team, which began airing in 1994 and continues today. He retired from his university posts in 2004, but continued working on Time Team and commenced writing regular articles for British Archaeology magazine.

Aston is a specialist in landscape archaeology, focusing on the study of British landscapes in the Early Mediaeval period (circa 400 to 1200 CE). He has a particular research interest in the archaeology of towns and monastic sites from this period.^[2][3] As site director, he also undertook a ten year project investigating the manor at Shapwick, Somerset.^[4]

Biography

Aston was born in the town Oldbury in the English Black Country, he attended Oldbury Grammar School and studied geography at the University of Birmingham. At the same time he pursued his interest in archaeology both academically and through fieldwork, finding his vocation as a landscape archaeologist.^{[citation needed]}

Academic work

While researching for a higher degree, he taught at the Extra-Mural Department of the University of Birmingham. When he moved to Oxfordshire to take up a post at the Oxford City and County Museum, he taught many extramural classes for the University of Oxford. From there he moved to Taunton to become the first County Archaeologist for Somerset. Again he taught extramural classes, this time for the University of Bristol. In 1978 he became a full-time tutor in local studies at the Oxford University External Studies Department. Then in 1979 he returned to the West Country as tutor in archaeology at the University of Bristol Extra-Mural Department. He was awarded a personal chair at Bristol University in 1996.^[5]

When he retired in 2004, he became an emeritus professor at Bristol University, and an honorary visiting professor at the University of Exeter and the University of Durham. In the same year he was awarded an Honorary D.Litt by the University of Winchester, formerly King Alfred's College. He had long been associated with this college as an external examiner. The archaeology students of King Alfred's also participated in a 10-year project led by Aston to investigate the manor of Shapwick in Somerset. He received an honorary degree from Worcester University on 31 October 2007.^{[citation needed]} Following his retirement from acadaemia, Aston continued occasionally to return to the universities at Exeter, Durham and Bristol to do a bit of teaching.^[6]

Aston has published many works, particularly on landscape archaeology and monasteries.^[7] He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1976^[8] and was the 21st member of the Institute of Field Archaeologists.

Time Team and television presenting

Aston (centre) with presenter Tony Robinson (left) and Roman expert Guy de la Bédoyère (right) on the set of Time Team.

A fervent supporter of getting the public engaged with archaeology,^[9] Aston is known for his work in promoting the discipline through the popular media. This began at Oxford, where Aston had a long-running radio series on Radio Oxford.^{[citation needed]}

In 1988 the producer Tim Taylor invited Aston to work on a new four-episode television series for Channel 4 called Time Signs, broadcast in 1991.^[10] They subsequently decided to begin working together on a new archaeology-based television series, devising the format for Time Team. Whilst Taylor was busy sorting out the film production side of the project, Aston was tasked with finding some suitable sites to excavate, and gathering together a team of archaeologists to appear on the show. He knew the actor and television presenter Tony Robinson after they had met on an archaeological course in Greece, and after Aston requested that he join them, Robinson agreed to participate.^[11]

Time Team was subsequently first broadcast in 1994. Aston has acted as chief archaeological advisor to the programme ever since, and has taken a prominent on-screen role in most episodes.^{[citation needed]} In 2008, Aston commented that when it first started he had no idea that the series would go on to run for so many years.^[12]

Aston has also appeared in several Time Team special programmes, which are documentaries on various topics related to history and archaeology, and in three programmes of another series produced by Tim Taylor called History Hunters, broadcast in 1998. He also devised his own series of six programmes for HTV called Time Traveller 1997.^{[citation needed]}

Commenting on the popularity of Time Team, and its role in exposing the British public to archaeology, in a 2010 interview Aston remarked that "My motive was to get as many people as possible interested in archaeology, because we [in the profession] all enjoy it and think it interesting. That was my personal aim… and on that basis I think it is a success."^[13]

Publications

Alongside his academic publications, Aston has also written two books on archaeology for a more general audience, both of which have been published by Channel 4 Books as a spin-off from the Time Team television series. The first of these was Time Team's Timechester: A Companion to Archaeology, co-written with Carenza Lewis and Phil Harding and published in 2000. Based around the fictional British town of Timechester, the book looks at how the settlement would have progressed from the Palaeolithic through to the modern day, and examines the remains that each period would have left behind in the archaeological record.^[14] This book was followed in 2002 by Archaeology is Rubbish: A Beginner's Guide, which Aston co-wrote with Tony Robinson and dedicated to Harding. Archaeology is Rubbish describes a fictional excavation site in an ordinary suburban backgarden, and discusses the evidence from different archaeological periods, the various field methods and techniques used by the excavators, and the legal proceedings and problems that archaeologists in Britain face.^[15]

In 2006, Aston began writing a series of articles under the banner of "Mick's Travels" for British Archaeology magazine, the publication of the Council for British Archaeology. Appearing regularly in the bimonthly magazine, Aston discusses the various different archaeological sites and monuments that he has visited across the British Isles,^[16] dealing with such disparate places as the early Christian monasteries in Glamorgan^[17] and the Second World War defences on Jersey.^[18]

Personal life

Aston has a son, James,^[19] and a stepdaughter, Kathryn, both children of his former partner Carinne Allinson,^{[citation needed]} who he broke up with in 1998.^[20] He lives in what he calls "a rather grotty sixties bungalow" in Sandford, Somerset, located between the Mendip Hills and Somerset Levels.^[21] The reporter Steve Eggington visited Aston's home in 2008, where he noted that it was filled with "a labyrinth of books and maps, seemingly with different projects at different stages in each room."^[22] Aston is a vegetarian and naturist,^[23] and his hobbies include gardening, walking, listening to classical music and cooking.^[24] He supports a number of charities and other causes, including Greenpeace, The Woodland Trust, Oxfam and Sightsavers International.^[25] A self-described "solitary person", he finds it somewhat annoying being a television celebrity in Britain, where he is often recognised by members of the public, some of whom request his autograph.^[26][27]

Aston has commented that throughout his life he has suffered from poor health, living with aspergillosis since the early 1980s,^[28] and also being afflicted with asthma.^[29] He suffered a brain haemorrhage in March 2003, and was hospitalised for two weeks. The experience sent him into depression for eighteen months, during which time he read the autobiography of actress Jane Lapotaire, who had gone through the same experience, something which he believed aided his recovery more than anything else.^[30][31]

Bibliography

Mick's Archaeology
Author(s)	Mick Aston
Language	English
Publisher	Tempus Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Publication date	2000
Media type	Softcover
Pages	160
ISBN	0-7524-1480-1
OCLC Number	43186723

Aston has written or co-written a number of books on the subject of archaeology which have been published in Britain:

• Aston, M. and Bond, J., The Landscape of Towns (1976, reprinted with additions 2000).
• Aston, M., Monasteries (1993), reprinted as Monasteries in the Landscape (2000).
• Aston, M. and Lewis, C., The Medieval Archaeology of Wessex (Oxbow, 1994).
• Aston, M. and Taylor, T., The Atlas of Archaeology (1998).
• Aston, M. Mick's Archaeology (2000, revised edn. 2002). His professional autobiography.
• Aston, M., Lewis, C. and Harding, P., Time Team's Timechester (2000).
• Keevil. G., Aston, M. and Hall, T., Monastic Archaeology: papers on the study of medieval monasteries (Oxbow, 2001).
• Robinson, T. and Aston, M., Archaeology is Rubbish - a beginner's guide (2002).
• Aston, M., Interpreting the Landscape from the Air (2002).
• Gerrard, C. with Aston, M., The Shapwick Project, Somerset: A Rural Landscape Explored, Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 25 (2007).
• Aston, Michael (1988). Aspects of the medieval landscape of Somerset. Somerset County Council. ISBN 0861831292. 

References

Footnotes

1. ^ Eggington 2008.
2. ^ Aston 1998.
3. ^ University of Bristol 2002-2011.
4. ^ Aston 1998.
5. ^ M. Aston, Mick's Archaeology (2000)
6. ^ Aston 2010.
7. ^ Mick Aston: bibliography
8. ^ Society of Antiquaries of London: List of Fellows
9. ^ Aston (unknown).
10. ^ Aston (unknown).
11. ^ Aston (unknown).
12. ^ Eggington 2008.
13. ^ Aston 2010.
14. ^ Aston, Lewis and Harding 2000.
15. ^ Aston and Robinson 2002.
16. ^ Manco 2011.
17. ^ Aston Jul/Aug 2008.
18. ^ Aston Sept/Oct 2010.
19. ^ Aston1999.
20. ^ Aston1999.
21. ^ Aston1999.
22. ^ Eggington 2008.
23. ^ Aston1999.
24. ^ Aston 1998.
25. ^ Mick's good causes
26. ^ Eggington 2008.
27. ^ Aston (unknown).
28. ^ Aston 2010.
29. ^ Aston1999.
30. ^ Aston 2010.
31. ^ Eggington 2008.

Bibliography

Books

• Lewis, Carenza; Harding, Phil and Aston, Mick (2000). Time Team's Timechester: A Companion to Archaeology. London: Channel 4 Books. ISBN 978-0752272184. 
• Robinson, Tony and Aston, Mick (2002). Archaeology is Rubbish: A Beginner's Guide. London: Channel 4 Books. ISBN 978-0752265193. 

Interviews

• Aston, Mick (21 February 1998). "Mick's Live Chat!". http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/mick_chat.html. Retrieved 21 March 2011. 
• Aston, Mick (28 August-03 September 1999). "Mick Aston talks to Radio Times!". Radio Times. http://www.buildinghistory.org/mickaston/mickinterview.shtml. Retrieved 21 March 2011. 
• Aston, Mick (2010). "Mick Aston reveals the secrets of Time Team". http://www.archaeology.co.uk/british-features/mick-aston.htm. Retrieved 21 March 2011. 
• Aston, Mick (unknown). "Mick's Blessings". Folio. http://www.buildinghistory.org/mickaston/micksblessings.shtml. Retrieved 22 March 2011. 

Articles

• Aston, Mick (July/August 2008). "Early Monasteries in Glamorgan". British Archaeology 101: pp. 40-41. 
• Aston, Mick (September/October 2010). "Jersey: a defended island". British Archaeology 104: pp. 46-47. 
• Eggington, Steve (January 2008). "The Time Team Prof". The Mendip Times Vol. 3, issue 8. http://www.buildinghistory.org/mickaston/interview2008.shtml. 

Websites

• Jean, Manco (2011). "Articles by Mick Aston". http://www.buildinghistory.org/mickaston/micksarticles.shtml. Retrieved 21 March 2011. 
• "Professor Mick Aston". University of Bristol. 2002-2011. http://www.bris.ac.uk/archanth/staff/aston/. Retrieved 21 March 2011. 

External links

• Mick Aston: news, interviews, bibliography and related links
• Professor Mick Aston: profile from Bristol University
• Prof Mick Aston: profile from Exeter University

Persondata
Name	Aston, Mick
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1 July 1946
Place of birth	Oldbury, England, UK
Date of death
Place of death