Making ‘Meet the Ancestors’

Creating ‘Ancestors’

Years before he became a TV regular, Julian Richards made his name as an archaeologist by studying Stonehenge. It was this that led the BBC to first approach him to act as a consultant on ‘Secrets of Lost Empires’, which focused on Stonehenge in one episode. While working on ‘Secrets’, Julian became friendly with BBC researcher Tania Linden , and the two of them started swapping ideas for more TV shows. Their collaboration resulted in ‘Meet the Ancestors’.

Excavations proceed at a snail's pace at the best of times, and the presence of the ‘Meet the Ancestors’ crew slow things down even more! Everything has to be filmed several times to make sure it's perfect, and things also tend to be hampered by local journalists, who are invariably attracted by the arrival of Julian and his team. Patience isn't just a virtue, it's essential!

In the interests of good television, the excavation scenes are often contrived to make them look as ‘authentic’ as possible. This means that mobile phones, coffee mugs and other things you'd find lying around on a normal dig are kept out of view, and suitably muddy shovels, picks and other archaeological utensils are left lying around for effect.

The familiar white Land Rover used in the show was the idea of producer Ian Potts , who – midway through the first series – abruptly decided that they needed a trademark vehicle. The white Landy was eventually chosen as their ‘logo on wheels’. In a later series it was replaced by a newer model, which had to be painted to resemble the original. Despite this, emails came flooding in from eagle-eyed viewers demanding to know where the first Landy had gone!

Filming the digs may be slow, but the most time-consuming aspect of ‘Ancestors’ is the background research. Each individual episode requires months of work, with teams of researchers trawling through records and talking to experts around the world. Julian himself never seems to tire of it though: ‘It's not very Indiana Jones, but I have to admit I love doing the research. I guess I'm an anorak!’