A History of Celtic Britain tonight


Status
Not open for further replies.

Weremuthe

Striker
Don't miss it

Continuing his epic story, Neil Oliver explores the remains of brutal Iron Age battles and Celtic rebellion as he reaches the moment when Celtic Britain was ripped apart by the world's great empire - the Roman army.

From Boudicca to the Wall
 
Don't miss it

Continuing his epic story, Neil Oliver explores the remains of brutal Iron Age battles and Celtic rebellion as he reaches the moment when Celtic Britain was ripped apart by the world's great empire - the Roman army.

From Boudicca to the Wall
What channel mate?
 
FFS i've missed the first two parts. I hate it when that happens.
 
Don't miss it

Continuing his epic story, Neil Oliver explores the remains of brutal Iron Age battles and Celtic rebellion as he reaches the moment when Celtic Britain was ripped apart by the world's great empire - the Roman army.

From Boudicca to the Wall

does quite a good series neil olliver tbh
 
He's a good presenter. It's a cracking good series like. He does seem to be on the TV every time I turn the thing on like.
 
A very good series. Neil Oliver is a very smart bloke - intellectually a cut above the likes of Dan Snow - not that I'm slagging off Dan Snow like...
 
A very good series. Neil Oliver is a very smart bloke - intellectually a cut above the likes of Dan Snow - not that I'm slagging off Dan Snow like...

He makes some extraordinary leaps of faith in his assumptions at times. Like last week when they found an iron age plate in a Scottish Loch. Oliver saying its an offering to the lake or some such. Of course it could have been some pissed bloke hoying the plate in the lake:lol:
 
He makes some extraordinary leaps of faith in his assumptions at times. Like last week when they found an iron age plate in a Scottish Loch. Oliver saying its an offering to the lake or some such. Of course it could have been some pissed bloke hoying the plate in the lake:lol:

He really gets on my wick and last weeks programme was particularly annoying because of the reasons you say. It's great seeing the artefacts and remains of homes and stuff, which is the reason I watch it; but I hate it when he starts making stuff up about why people did things, when the truth is we haven't got a clue how they lived or what they believed.

Spinal Tap were well ahead of him here: "Nobody knows who they were, or what they were doing".
 
He really gets on my wick and last weeks programme was particularly annoying because of the reasons you say. It's great seeing the artefacts and remains of homes and stuff, which is the reason I watch it; but I hate it when he starts making stuff up about why people did things, when the truth is we haven't got a clue how they lived or what they believed.

Spinal Tap were well ahead of him here: "Nobody knows who they were, or what they were doing".

How do you know he's making it up though and making assumptions? He doesn't have time to fill in the entire provenance of each artefact, so has to make generalisations - it's popular history not a Ph.D thesis.
 
How do you know he's making it up though and making assumptions? He doesn't have time to fill in the entire provenance of each artefact, so has to make generalisations - it's popular history not a Ph.D thesis.

Because he says he's making it up, by introducing many of his assumptions with words such "you can just imagine". The truth is he hasn't clue why Iron Age people threw swords into rivers - it could have been a wedding custom, retirement of a warrior, disposing of stolen goods, or the one he always prefers, "appeasing the gods". He doesn't know and we don't know.

To be honest, I'd rather have more stuff on the provenance of the artefacts and what evidence leads him to make these obviously educated guesses, instead of a loads of pointless shots of him striding over windswept moors.

I'll watch any programme on subjects such as this because I'm fascinated by the period it covers, especially because it's almost a total mystery what was going on. I know that making 'popular history' programmes is always going to be difficult when there's a complete absence of historical facts from that period, but nobody benefits from his wild assumptions if he isn't going to explain what lead him to make them.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top