University of York field school features on BBC's 'Digging for Britain'
University of York students, Professor Dominic Powlesland and Professor Nicky Milner appear on the new series of the BBC's Digging for Britain.
The piece films our 2022 field school excavation on an Anglo-Saxon settlement in East Yorkshire - a landscape Dominic has been working on for decades.
The film tells the story of what was found on the site, and how the site was abandoned in the early Medieval period. Soil samples were taken and sent to Professor Simon Blockley at Royal Holloway for tephra (volcanic ash) analysis, and evidence was found for a new eruption.
Archaeology students excavating a trench at East Heslerton
This may suggest that at the time of abandonment, ash from a distant volcanic eruption in Iceland spread to this part of the world. The impact of such an event can be severe - the sun can be blocked out and crops can fail.
Further research is ongoing to fully understand the implications of these discoveries.
You can watch the programme, series 11 episode 1, on BBC iPlayer (bbc.co.uk/iplayer).