Miles Russell

Miles Russell, FSA (born 8 April 1967) is a British archaeologist best known for his work and publications on the prehistoric and Roman periods and for his appearances in television programmes such as Time Team and Harry Hill's TV Burp.^[1]

Personal life[]

Russell was born and educated in Brighton, and in 1993 moved to Bournemouth, where he has lectured at Bournemouth University and, since 2009, has worked on the Duropolis "Big Dig", part of the Durotriges Project, with co-directors Paul Cheetham and Harry Manley. He has written 15 books,^[2] covering the Neolithic and Roman periods and has appeared numerous times on television, most notably in the Channel 4 television series Time Team alongside presenter Tony Robinson. He has also been a frequent contributor to Digging for Britain, presented by Dr Alice Roberts.^[3]

Career[]

As a graduate of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, he subsequently worked as a field officer for UCL's Field Archaeology Unit and a Project Manager for the Oxford Archaeological Unit. In 1993 he joined the staff of Bournemouth University, where he is a senior lecturer, subsequently conducting fieldwork on various projects across southern England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Sicily, Germany and Russia.^[4] He obtained his PhD from Bournemouth University, on the Neolithic monumental architecture of the South Downs in 2000 and became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2006. He is director of Regnum: the First Kingdom^[5] and co-director of the Durotriges Project,^[6] both investigating the transition from the Iron Age to Roman period as well as co-ordinating projects into Neolithic Flint Mines,^[7] Piltdown Man,^[8] The ‘Face’ of Roman Britain^[9] and the Lost voices of Celtic Britain.^[10]

In 2003 Russell published the results of a three-year project investigating the Piltdown Man hoax which strongly implied that the perpetrator of the fraud was the 'finder' Charles Dawson. In 2008 he co-directed excavations within Stonehenge, together with Professor Tim Darvill and Professor Geoffrey Wainwright. In 2013 Russell and colleague Harry Manley identified a fragment of a Roman statue, previously known as the "Bosham Head", as representing the Emperor Trajan.^[11] Russell and Manley have also identified a damaged statue of the young emperor Nero from Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex and have tentatively identified a Roman statue held at Petworth House as also being a representation of the Emperor Nero.^[12]

In 2017 Russell published the first results from the Lost Voices of Celtic Britain Project, reassessing the archaeological content of the 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth.^[13] A forensic examination of Geoffrey’s Historia Regum Britanniae has demonstrated the text was compiled from a variety of early British sources, including oral folklore, king-lists, dynastic tables and bardic praise poems, some of which date back to the first century BC.^[14] In deconstructing Geoffrey’s text, Russell has argued that the origins of King Arthur emerge as a composite ‘Celtic Superhero’ created by Geoffrey from five separate characters.^[15][16]

Works[]

• A Reassessment of the Bronze Age Cemetery-Barrow on Itford Hill and its place in the Prehistory of Southeast England (1996)
• Flint Mines in Neolithic Britain (2000)
• The Neolithic Monumental Architecture of the South Downs (2001)
• Prehistoric Sussex (2002)
• Digging Holes in Popular Culture: Archaeology and Science Fiction (2002)
• Piltdown Man: the Secret Life of Charles Dawson (2003)
• Monuments of the British Neolithic: the Roots of Architecture (2003)
• Rough Quarries Rocks and Hills: The Neolithic Flint Mines of Sussex (2004)
• Roman Sussex (Tempus, 2006)^[17]
• Bloodline: The Celtic Kings of Roman Britain (Amberley, 2010)
• UnRoman Britain: Exposing the Great Myth of Britannia (2011; with Stuart Laycock)
• The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed (2012)
• Bignor Roman Villa (2015; with David Rudling)
• Arthur and the Kings of Britain (2017)
• Hillforts and the Durotriges: a Geophysical Survey of Iron Age Dorset (2017; with Dave Stewart)

Television[]

• Mysteries in the Landscape (2002)
• Seven Ages of Britain (2003)
• Timewatch (Piltdown Man) (2003)
• Time Team (2004-2012)
• Time Team: Big Roman Dig (2005)
• Gangsters de la science (2005)
• Timewatch (Stonehenge) (2009)
• The One Show (2010)
• Digging for Britain (2010-2019)
• A History of Ancient Britain, Series 2, Age of Romans (2011)
• Petworth House: The Big Spring Clean (2011)
• Rome’s Lost Legion (2011)
• Time Team Special: Rediscovering Ancient Britain (2012)
• The Sacred Landscapes of Britain (2014)
• Border Country: The Story of Britain's Lost Middleland (2014)
• Operation Stonehenge: what lies beneath (2014)
• Secrets from the Sky: Maiden Castle (2014)
• Underground Britain (2014)
• Digging For Britain (2015)
• Der Schädel-Schwindel (2016)
• History's Greatest Hoaxes: Piltdown Man (2016)
• King Arthur's Britain: the Truth Unearthed (2018)
• London: 2000 Years of History (2019)
• Digging for Britain: the Greatest Discoveries (2019)
• Walking Britain's Roman Roads: Stane Street (2020)
• Mystic Britain: the search for King Arthur (2020)

References[]