What would Time Team make of our city in 200 years?

One year is not enough time to create that distance for the people of Christchurch.

I really enjoy watching the Time Team programme on television. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, it is a documentary that is fronted by Tony Robinson, the actor who played Baldric in the Black Adder series, while he gallivants about Britain digging up farmer’s fields and inner-city gardens looking for archaeological remains.

They generally have a question they wish to answer like, ‘‘Was there a Roman manor standing here?’’ or, ‘‘Was this the site of a battle during the English Civil War?’’

They give themselves three days to answer question using heavy earthmoving equipment, a team of archaeologists, an historical recreation artist and really good local historians. They generally stitch together a fairly full proposition of what the site once looked like with computer generated reconstructions of the buildings and associated grounds.

Often there are more questions to be answered and, as the dig comes to an end and the mysterious archaeological code is once again covered over and consigned to the earth for perhaps another few hundred years, the audience is genuinely left wanting to know more.

One thing that always fascinates me is how much dirt is on top of some of these ancient settlements. Whether it was the site aworld War II airbase or an Iron Age village, there always seems to be two metres of soil and rubble on top of it. Where does it all come from? If the dirt is piling up at a metre or so every 50 years, surely we must be beating the rise of the oceans from global warming.

The other interesting thing is that one particular objective of the programme is to humanise, as much as possible, the findings of the dig. In most instances, apart from professional historians, all social community memory about these sites has vanished.

So Tony and his team recreate the jugs and jewellery, they attempt to explain the nature of family life and local economy at the time the site was thriving. But the reality is that two or three hundred years down the track everybody has forgotten you were there.

Your name may be written in a church record or on a title deed somewhere, or your descendants may recall you in family histories, but mostly the corporeal evidence of your time here has long vanished and the memories with it.

One year on from Christchurch’s most destructive earthquake and it is the human story and the bricks and mortar that are mostly with us.

At the memorial services on Wednesday it was clear the emotions were still raw, undoubtedly made worse by the fact of the anniversary. That edge appeared to be part of the entire crowd, not just those carrying the memories of lost sons, daughters and parents or those displaying the physical evidence of injuries sustained on that day.

Much of what was said was said in prayer. Despite a widely shared atheism among most Kiwis, the speakers and singers shared a strong religious theme asking for ongoing comfort and relief from grief, seeking strength of hope and spirit for those that have lived through the earthquake and continue to live in challenging times.

But if Tony Robinson was to travel 200 years into the future to produce a Time Team programme in Christchurch 2211, what would he find? Surely local historians would be able to tell him of the 2011 earthquake and perhaps it will still be part of New Zealand’s historical awareness just as we remember the eruption of Tarawera in 1886.

Moving into the present day site of the Square, once his diggers had removed the metres of top soil and put in the required trenches down to the 21st century, he would surely find evidence of the earthquake. Smashed tiles, building foundations cleaned off at the then ground level, plinths with the statues removed and broken masonry will all give testament to that moment in time.

With any luck our modernday digital archiving will still have some currency and be decipherable so Tony will be able to see the before and after images and read the news stories of the time.

They should be able to reconstruct a pretty comprehensive view of the event for their 23rd century viewers. But I doubt whether they will be able to truly understand the human story that is still with us only one short year after the earthquake.

Just as we understand that Mt Tarawera destroyed the Pink and White Terraces and that an art deco town rose from the ruins of Napier, time has surely distanced us from the horror and grief felt by those who lived through the event.

But one year is not enough time to create that distance for the people of Christchurch. There will be many more days of remembrance yet before the emotions truly subside.