Welcome to the Archaeology at Heathrow Terminal 5 website. The excavations at the T5 development site which took place between 1998 and 2006 are the largest archaeological excavations ever undertaken in the UK and, since the first finds were uncovered, many hundreds of hours of research and analysis have taken place. Through this website we hope to explain what was found, to suggest what these findings mean and hope that with our help you will be able to discover the archaeology of Heathrow for yourself.
Our website presents the story of Heathrow as a series of time-landscapes. We will explore each landscape through themes chosen to reflect the individual viewpoints of some of the archaeologists who contributed to the project. So far we have uploaded material on the late Mesolithic landscape, termed “Pre-monumental” because of its lack of large scale features, and the early to middle Neolithic landscape which we have called the “Monumental” landscape because of the remarkable constructions it contained. In the coming months there will be a great deal more to read, think and perhaps even argue about. We hope that you will track our progress by visiting us again or by subscribing to our RSS feed.
As an alternative to our storyline you can also explore the archaeological evidence through a map interface which links to pages describing the important elements making up our landscapes.
Downloading our GIS based “Freeviewer” will give you access to highly detailed information about the thousands of features we excavated and the materials we recovered. Perhaps you will disagree with the interpretations we have made and go on to develop theories of your own.