Another Look at the Heritage Channel

I previously reviewed the Heritage Broadcasting Service on October of 2021, so I’ll try to make this one a little different. This was during the Pandemic and a lot was going on for us all.

And I sort of forgot about it. For a couple years anyway.

Moor recently, however, I thought I’d give the channel another look and see what’s new. And, wow. I’m glad I did!

Looking at the full catalog of shows, I see some familiar titles: Arkeo, Strata, and a few others. I also see a lot of new content, some of which I’ve already checked out and share with you here. And I’m eager to explore the rest!

New content

My first review of the Heritage Broadcast Service was in their first year of operation. They began with just over 100 titles in January of 2021. Today, they have over 357 titles and they’re adding about 6 per month. What follows is brief description of some of the new shows that grabbed my attention during this more recent look.

America From the Ground Up, Season 1 and 2

I watched the first two episodes of both seasons currently available and really enjoyed the presentation value of both. Presented by archaeologist-film maker, Dr. Monty Dobson, this series has a focus on the United States. The two episodes I watched focused primarily on pre-contact peoples and their archaeology. Other episodes look at post-contact settlement and colonial history: from the earliest days of fur trade, to enslaved peoples of Texas and Louisiana sugar plantations, to the Civil War.

America’s Lost Civilization, AD 800 – 1600

Episode 1 of Season 1 centered around the Native American city of Cahokia. At first, I objected to “lost civilization” in the title. I never really thought of Cahokia as “lost.” This was a thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis a full thousand years before European contact. When contact finally did happen in the 1700s, French missionaries built a small chapel on the largest of the mounds. Not even a hundred years later, Henry Brackenridge named that mound after the Trappist Monks that took up residence there. This was Monks Mound.

The name, “Cahokia,” comes from one of the tribes of the Illiniwek tribes that lived in the area. They undoubtedly knew about the mounds, but perhaps didn’t realize their once full glory. The Illiniwek tribes lived centuries after the population of the city started to decline. So maybe in that sense it was “lost” until archaeologists excavated and interpreted this site many years later.

Another reason to consider it “lost,” even today, is its relative anonymity. Cahokia is perhaps the largest most unknown city in America. I live just a four hour drive from it and ask people all the time if they’ve visited. Most don’t recognize the name. Fewer still recognize it for a former city in what is now the United States.

Episode 1 of Season 1 is the perfect primer for anyone that’s never heard of this Mississippian site or its connections to other, contemporary sites around the middle and eastern United States.

The Ancestors, 3500 BC to AD 1589

This is the first episode of season 2. What I like about it is how Dobson explores indigenous peoples at different times and places, adapting to changes in environment, climate, and perhaps even themselves. As populations grew in North America, so naturally does competition for resources: land, game, water…

Stolen Blood Antiquities

This documentary, by François Cardona, shines a harsh light on the practice of antiquities trade. From the Middle East to Europe and the U.S. and how it benefits terrorism by helping fund their activities. Watch and learn as investigators track stolen antiquities they find in auction houses and museums back to their dealers. Sometimes even back to the terrorists that loot them from the ground.

You’ll see special European police and investigative archaeologists uncover a sprawling criminal network. One that includes auction rooms in Paris, Brussels, and New York. Then follow the trail back to Libya, a new center for crooked dealers, many of whom have ties to terrorist groups like ISIS.

The documentary is dubbed in English, but that was a very minor annoyance. It was every bit as riveting as an investigative “true crime” television show you might find on a major network.

So What’s the Story Behind the Stories?

Next up on my list of shows to watch are Orkney Islands: A Neolithic Pilgrimage and Ancient History of Anatolia: Adventure of Neolithic from East to West.

But what’s the story behind the Heritage Broadcasting Service? How’d they come to be?

I started listening to podcasts before they were called “podcasts.” The iPod wasn’t yet a thing, but the Rio PMP300 and a few other MP3 players were. I would load my MP3 player up with regular downloads from an RSS feed reader. I listened to shows like the Audio News from Archaeologica and whatever else I could find in MP3 format. It just needed to be about archaeology or science in general. There wasn’t much in the beginning.

The Audio News from Archaeologica, hosted by Richard Pettigrew, was a regular, consistently interesting source of news and information about archaeology. This proto-podcast was originally hosted on The Archaeology Channel website along with some early video streaming. Today, you can get Audio News from Archaeologica just about anywhere you aggregate your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, etc.). I get mine through the Podcast Republic app on Android.

The Archaeology Channel and Audio News started in 2000 and 2001 respectively and this was just prior to the iPod. The term “podcast” wasn’t even coined yet. Ben Hammersley, a BBC journalist, probably started that term in 2004.

Born Out of the Pandemic

Richard Pettigrew, a PhD archaeologist and member of the Registered Professional Archaeologists, has clearly devoted a huge portion of his life to presenting archaeology, anthropology, and cultural heritage to the public. Starting with some of the earliest video and audio streaming on the internet at the beginning of this millennium, he and his staff eventually created the Heritage Broadcasting Service.

What I didn’t know until recently is that The Archaeology Channel ran a film festival (now in its 22nd year). One of the very few archaeology-themed film festivals in the world. In fact, it’s the longest running film festival in Lane County, Oregon.

I must confess, when Rick Pettigrew shared that with me, I was impressed that he held an annual film festival. And then I googled “Lane County film festivals.” This is Eugene, Oregon and there are more than a few.

It was in 2020 that they ran their Festival online “for the first and only time.”

Rick tells me he and his staff had “a long-held dream of creating our own version of Netflix.” This dream gave them the desire to seriously consider it when the Festival was forced online. The Pandemic forced them to learn about creating a subscriber service. It gave them a practical example on how it might come together. And, in January 2021, the Heritage Broadcast Service was launched with just over 100 titles.

Today, they’re rocking over 350 and expect to have 363 by September 16, 2024. They’re adding about 6 titles each month.

The Service is currently only available on Roku, so you won’t find it on Amazon Fire or other streaming services. At least for now. However, you can stream them online at heritagetac.org, where you will probably find subscribing the easiest. You can however, subscribe from any Roku device. I’ll add the newer the device the better since the content seems to be largely at 1080 HD.

Subscription rates

Monthly $5.99
3-months $15.99
6-months $29.99
1-year $56.99
Via Roku $5.99
Pay-Per-View $5.99 (2-days access for a single film)

You can pay with PayPal, credit card, or debit. Or you can redeem a gift card, which you can also purchase. Do you have a history-lover or archaeologist in your life? Buy them a gift card for the Heritage channel!

Subscribe to the Heritage Broadcasting Service today through their website or on any Roku device. Just type “Heritage” in the Roku search bar to sign up or add the channel to your existing lineup.