Time Team America

Josiah Henson's 1849 autobiography inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and galvanized abolitionists. But for 30 years, he was enslaved here, on what was once a 270-acre plantation run by Isaac Riley. An acre of land and an old house are all that remain. Time Team America descends on a upscale DC suburb, digging for clues beneath the manicured lawn and peeling back layers of the old kitchen floor to tell the story of one of the most important Americans of the 19th century.

At Badger Hole, Oklahoma, the Time Team America crew excavates what may be the largest Folsom-period bison kill site in North America. Long extinct, Bison Antiquus roamed the plains 10,000 years ago. How were Paleoindian hunters able to kill so many of these massive bison—weighing 1500 pounds each—without the help of bows and arrows or even horses? The lives of these ancient ancestors seem elusive, but by investigating bison bones, arrowheads and more, the Team discovers clues about their habitat, hunting range, and their ingenuity that will help us understand them.

In the fall of 1864 the Confederate Army marched Union prisoners into a hastily built compound called Camp Lawton in Jenkins County, Georgia. The population mushroomed to more than 10,000 in just six weeks. Then, as Sherman's army approached, guards and prisoners alike were forced to flee. Abandoned, the camp disappeared into the forest and remained undisturbed for over a century, until a team from Georgia Southern University surveyed the site. They found what appeared to be on wall from the camp stockade wall, Civil War era coins, a daguerreotype, and more. The rest of the story was waiting to be uncovered. Time Team America joined the effort to map the entire stockade and learn more about this important moment in the nation's history.

In Cortez, Colorado, the Team explores the Dillard site, a village that some 1500 years ago was home to people of the Basketmaker III era, a culture that advanced itself with technologies like farming, pottery, and the bow and arrow. The innovations of the Basketmaker III era led to the complex, beautiful Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings of the nearby Mesa Verde region. Recent discoveries at the Dillard site—located at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center—lead researchers to ask: was this site more than just a village? Was this concentrated settlement the scene of a turning point in human history? Time Team America hopes to help solve the mystery.