The Archaeology Channel
Have high-speed internet? Switch to High-Speed
Videos load too SLOW? Switch to Low-Speed
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2020 (Ships aground in desiccated Iranian lake)
Text: Focusing on the Iranian sailor-turned-farmer, Soleiman, this film highlights the plight of Lake Urmia, the largest lake in the Middle East. Located in the northwestern corner of Iran and surrounded by ancient sites up to 9000 years old, Lake Urmia has become a salt plain. The desiccation of this lake poses serious environmental challenges. The film takes a tour of the area, following Soleiman and his new life as a farmer. The viewer sees rusting ships, blowing clouds of salt and plant damage that are the legacy of a once thriving lake.
For more information, click here.
Media on this Channel
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2020 (Ships aground in desiccated Iranian lake)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2020 (TAC membership promo; the feminine narrative in archaeology)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2020 (Protecting cultural heritage worldwide; monolithic temples of India)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2020 (Sculpting Armenian cross-stones; how to become an archaeologist)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2020 (Archaeology on the road in Spain; traditional mirror handicraft in Iran)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2020 (Stone, Bronze and Iron ages; Caveirac Castle)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2020
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2020 (The Battle of Jerash)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2019 (How the Romans made glass; discovering ancient Trento, Italy [Part 2])
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2019 (Archaeology, museums and the public; discovering ancient Trento, Italy [Part 1])
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2019 (Archaeology A to Z, Part 1; Egyptian mummy in upstate New York)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2019 (Packing for archaeology; drones and rock art in Iraq; Persian poetry and music in London)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2019 (Tulsa race riot; archaeologists tell about themselves)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2019 (ArchaeoDuck interviews an osteoarchaeologist; Croatian city besieged by Ottoman Turks)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2019 (ArchaeoDuck explains archaeology; megalithic constructions in the Pacific)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2019 (Fish Guys comedy; Muslim minaret in Spain)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2019 (Modern discovery of Magan; TAC Festival 2019 preview)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2019 (Viking Coloring Book; stone carvings in Persian homeland)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2019 (Shaman burial; Spanish rock art)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2019
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2019 (Fort Fremont)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2018 (Landscape archaeology; preserving Himalaya forests)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2018 (Alien myth-busting; medieval city in India)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2018 (Archaeology explained; Plains Indians town)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2018 (Lanzhou Waterwheel; Iranian New Year ritual)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2018 (Javanese gong; Bridge of Avignon)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2018 (Vikings; Dakota Access Pipeline)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2018 (Temple of Victory; Solomon Islands carver)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2018 (Roman Mining Technology; Tour of Iran 2017)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2018 (Tour of Iran 2017; Woodmen of Anatolia)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2018 (On Nikumaroro in search of Amelia Earhart; Medieval French abbey)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2018 (Buried landscapes of Pennsylvania ; TAC Festival 2018)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2018
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2018 (historic Idaho aircraft; underground Verona)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2017 (Honey Hunters)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2017 (Dawn of the Etruscans)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2017 (Community abandoned to build nuclear facility)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2017 (Naval power of Athens; traditional scarf of Iran)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2017 (Secrets of ancient Paros; French royal mistress poisoned by gold)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2017 (Nevada Native American pipemaker; drama in pre-Roman Gaul)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2017 (Organic residues in pots; Passamaquoddy language keeper)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2017 (Bronze Age lake-dwellers)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2017 (People of Lombok; Maori warrior; Byzantine icon)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2017 (Middle Fork Salmon River Tukudeka; Battle of Alesia)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2017 (Virtual Mandan village; erecting a menhir)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2017
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2017 (Pacific island funeral; Roman boat in French river)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2016 ( Pacific Island War Dance; early Greek farmers )
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2016 (Underwater cave in the Philippines; highway archaeology finds Roman site in the UK)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2016 (Roman lead coffin burial in England; Maya rain ceremony)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2016 (Tehran 2015; Temple of the Giants)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2016 (Reading Herculaneum scrolls; historic British Columbia and Nevada miner)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2016 (Ancient Australia; replicating Alexandria coins)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2016 (Quivira: Conquistadors on the Plains)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2016 (Mariana Islands latte stones, Part 2; Life at Roman Baths)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2016 (Historic Norwegian farm; Mariana Islands latte stones, Part 1)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2016 (Church of St. George at Akrefnio)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2016
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2016 (Islands of Darkness; Louisiana plantation site)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2015 (American Revolutionary War fort)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2015 (Youth diving on shipwrecks; saving Cyprus frescoes)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2015 (Syracuse 3D Reborn)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, September 2015 (Ruins of Nan Madol)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, August 2015 (James Madison slave quarters; Iron Age mirror; HMS Fowey)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, July 2015 (In and near Istanbul; The Mountain Wars of Fiji)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, June 2015 (Basque arborglyphs; abandoned US World War II base in the UK)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, May 2015 (Betty’s Hope)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, April 2015 (Historical archaeology in downtown Boise; South Carolina pottery kiln excavation)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2015
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, March 2015 (Historic wetland in England; Nevada Basque celebration)
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, February 2015
Archaeology in 12 Minutes; Photographing the Invisible (1) Christian Ris explains the story of archaeology, its challenges and major advances in a narrative style with numerous archived images. People always have been interested in our past, but only since the Nineteenth Century has archaeology become a recognized science.
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, January 2015
The Secret Passage; prehistoric Florida canoe update; Roman soldier tombstone in UK
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, December 2014
East and southeast Anatolia; English China Shipwreck site in Biscayne Bay
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, November 2014
Metalla Oiassonis–Roman mining in northern Spain
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, October 2014
Pacific islanders renew sailing tradition
Video News from TAC, August 2014
Video News from TAC, August 2014 (Biscayne shipwrecks: Erl King; Comca’ac of Mexico)Divers and snorkelers can tour six shipwrecks on the Maritime Heritage Trail in Biscayne National Park. The Erl King had three masts, but also a steam engine. She fatally ran aground in 1891.
Video News from TAC, July 2014
Video News from TAC, July 2014 (Time Team America preview; Biscayne shipwrecks: Arratoon Apcar; California mountain tramway)Chelsea Rose remembers excavating the house floor of Josiah Henson, whose autobiography inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for the upcoming PBS season of Time Team America.
Video News from TAC, June 2014
Video News from TAC, June2014 (Biscayne shipwrecks: unnamed vessel; Jamestown Colony; Saxon sword replica)Divers and snorkelers can tour six shipwrecks on the Maritime Heritage Trail in Biscayne National Park. One of these is an unnamed 19th Century wooden sailing vessel.
Video News from TAC, May 2014
Video News from TAC, May 2014(Rovereto 2013; Biscayne shipwrecks: Lugano; Tauste)(1) ALI Executive Director Rick Pettigrew visited Rovereto, Italy, in October 2013 to serve on the jury for the annual International Review of Archaeological Cinema.
Video News from TAC, April 2014
Video News from TAC, April 2014(Biscayne shipwrecks: Mandalay; Hidden Cave)
Video News from TAC, March 2014
Video News from TAC, March 2014 (Biscayne shipwrecks: Alicia; Iran 2013; Magnetometry at Ocmulgee)
Video News from TAC, February 2014
Video News from TAC, February 2014 (Guam: The Ocean Oasis)
Video News from TAC, January 2014
Video News from TAC, January 2014 (Shipwrecks of Biscayne National Park; story of Stone Mother; Building in Conflict)
Video News from TAC, December 2013
Video News from TAC, December 2013 (Palestine architectural restoration; Etruscan Odyssey)
Video News from TAC, November 2013
Video News from TAC, November 2013 (Eugene’s Civic Stadium; Chinle Valley Singers in China)
Video News from TAC, October 2013
Video News from TAC, October 2013 (Lummi Nation and coal exports; Day of the Dead; They Called Him Skipper)
Video News from TAC, September 2013
Video News from TAC, September 2013 (Hozomeen chert; WWII segregation; Guam trailer)
Video News from TAC, August 2013
Video News from TAC, August 2013 (Ebey Slough Bridge; Sandor Lau interview)
Video News from TAC, July 2013
Video News from TAC, July 2013 (Arizona roadside prehistoric site; Tom Dillehay interview) (1) In an area of northeastern Arizona formerly used by the Zuni, Hopi, Apache, and Navaho, archaeologists with the Arizona Department of Transportation explore a prehistoric habitation site, the Beethoven Site. The area was slated for future highway construction work.
Video News from TAC, June 2013
(1) Mochican iconography comes to life in this film, which portrays a ceremony of sacrifice carried out by the Moche culture in coastal Peru between A.D. 100 and 800. Each part of the ceremony is shown, beginning with the battle of great warriors. (2) On the Micronesian island of Kosrae lies the site of Menke.
Video News from TAC, May 2013
(1) In the 1970s, near the Greek village of Aidonia, a mule fell into a hole. Upon rescuing the animal, villagers discovered a rare golden treasure buried amidst a group of skeletons. They tried to keep it a secret. This is the story of the plunder of Mycenaean tombs and the recovery of precious cultural heritage.
Video News from TAC, April 2013
(1) In 1928, the coastal city of Hoquiam in Washington state was a boom town supplying timber for the rapidly growing American West. The Simpson Avenue Bridge opened that year, but its design became problematic as it entered the Twenty-First Century.
Video News from TAC, February 2013
Video News from TAC, February 2013 (Egyptian cave hides royal mummies; Robert Blake and English Civil War)(1) Three thousand years ago, Egyptian priests gathered up the mummies and grave goods from many royal tombs and hid them away in a secret cave. Three thousand years later, a young boy chanced upon the tomb. Then the looting began.
Video News from TAC, January 2013
Video News from TAC, January 2013 (Volunteers catalog Utah artifacts, abandoned Irish island, indigenous tale from Brazil)(1) Lay volunteers catalog artifacts through the Forest Service Passport In Time (PIT) program at the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding, Utah.
Video News from TAC, December 2012
In a family feud nearly two centuries old, two Appalachian families keep alive their tradition of egg fighting. The annual Peters Hollow Easter Egg Fight in Stoney Creek, Tennessee, was a way to settle a dispute over which family's chickens laid harder eggs. The Watermill Theatre in Berkshire, England, resides in a structure with a three hundred year history. The wooden
Video News from TAC, November 2012
One of the greatest places to see rock art is Nevada, which has lots of rock faces, a dry climate that preserves it, and limited vegetation to cover it up. The Nevada Rock Art Foundation is busy recording what’s there and finding ways to preserve it.
Video News from TAC, September 2012
A Maya pyramid at El Zotz, Guatemala, with images done in dramatic painted stucco and a royal tomb full of artifacts and human remains, may have linked the deceased lord to the eternal sun; technicians using ancient building techniques work to save crumbling walls at “The Mithraeum of the Painted Walls” in Ostia Antica, the harbor of classical Rome; workers restore Paschoal Ha
Video News from TAC, October 2012
Important decisions surrounding archaeological work in the path of a major Pennsylvania highway involved sensitive discussions among 15 Native American tribes, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. For archaeologists, the research was exciting, yielding prehistoric longhouses, a palisade, key-hole structures, and 100,000 artifacts. For
Video News From TAC, August 2012
Always a cultural melting pot, Malaysia has cultural and historical links to distant places in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Archaeology here is young, but already reveals a rich and deep cultural record both on land and in the sea extending from Paleolithic sites in the Lenggong Valley to the Neolithic, Iron Age, and more recent periods.
Video News From TAC, July 2012
Excavations in 2005 prior to the upgrade of “The Avenue of the Saints,” U.S. Route 61 in 15 miles of the Mississippi River valley in Missouri, revealed over 1000 buried features, 60,000 artifacts, and copious environmental data from over two dozen sites spanning 10,000 years; In a video interview at TAC Festival 2011, Dr.
Video News From TAC June 2012
Famed UK archaeologist and lecturer Dr. Brooklyn Hornswoggle-Smyth expounds on contemporary archaeology (exploring the very recent past) in a short film parody created by two irreverent UK students from the University of Bristol; Rick Pettigrew interviews Dr.
Video News from TAC, May 2012
The Penn Museum’s exhibit, “Maya 2012: Lords of Time,” rides a wave of interest in the Maya calendar; which this year reaches the end of something, and hopefully the beginning of something else; the recently concluded Louvre Museum exhibit, “In the Kingdom of Alexander the Great: Ancient Macedonia,” featured nearly 500 priceless objects from northern Greece;
Video News from TAC, April 2012
Dr. Mark Van Stone, a leading expert on the Mayan calendar and the significance of 2012, describes the front of Quiriguá Stela K, a Guatemalan stone monument carved in AD 805, just before the Maya Collapse. The USDA Forest Service investigates the extent and significance of the prehistoric Silver Glen Springs Site in Florida.
Video News from TAC, February 2012
People have been making wine in Cyprus for thousands of years, so the Cypriots are thoroughly familiar with all facets of the wine industry and long ago developed their own distinctive wine culture. In the 1860s, Aurora, a mining boom town in western Nevada, was home to a Chinese population for which history is mute.
Video News from TAC, March 2012
Dr. Mark Van Stone, a leading expert on the Mayan calendar and the significance of 2012, reads the story of a powerful Mayan king on Quiriguá Stela D, a late Eighth Century stone monument in Guatemala. A French team of experimental archaeologists stamps coins in an effort to recreate the “Silver Owl” coins of the Fifth Century B.C. Greek city-state of Athens.
Video News from TAC, January 2012 (Maya creation story; historic Greek fountain)
Dr. Mark Van Stone reads the Creation story on Quiriguá Stela C, the late Eighth Century monument in Guatemala which tells us the myth of the "Planting of the Three-Stone Hearth (of Creation)." This creation myth has a connection with current fears that the world will end in 2012.
Video News from TAC, December 2011 (Geophysical survey of Ohio earthworks; mysterious prehistoric temples of Malta)
Magnetometer survey by Dr. Jarrod Burks in Ohio relocates part of the 1000 foot wide Shriver Circle, a now invisible Woodland Period (300 B.C. - A.D. 500) earthworks feature, suggesting that remote sensing can revolutionize our understanding of Ohio earthworks. Long before Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, Neolithic people in Malta built many impressive megalithic temples.
VIdeo News from TAC November 2011
This is a short clip from the November edition of Video News from TAC. Featured this month is battlefield archaeology from the battle of Oudenaarde in Belgium, the recovery of a lost language in Peru, and an exhibition of Mayan hieroglyphs by Dr. Mark Van Stone who will be giving the keynote speech at our annual film festival on May 11th.
Video News October 2011
Featured this month is a fort in Bahrain on the Persian Gulf, the newly-mapped underground cisterns in Alexandria, and the casting of fossils in the evolutionary record of humans for use by researchers and museums. Go to http://www.archaeologychannel.org/ for more information on the Video News and the Archaeological Legacy Institute.
Civic Stadium, Eugene OR
Synopsis: Civic Stadium, beloved by the people of Eugene, Oregon, USA, may not survive much longer. This critically important gathering place integrates the community and connects it to generations of the past and, hopefully, the future.
Filmmaker: Teal Greyhavens
Contact: Rick Pettigrew
Producer: ALI
Year of Production: 2009