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How to Research the Prehistory of Your Local Area

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How to Research the Prehistory of Your Local Area How to research the prehistory of your local area Written by Kim Biddulph of Schools Prehistory Checked and Approved by Professor Francis Pryor of Leicester University Illustrations Cover photo: OS map of Ancient Britain, a good place to start your research. Illustration 1: Pastscape, English Heritage's archaeological archive online Illustration 2: Aylesbury Young Archaeologist's Club surveying Pulpit Hillfort using a string line and tapes. Introduction Archaeological research is very different from historical research. The records are more diverse and considerable skill is sometimes needed to get any information from them. Would you know if a piece of pot was prehistoric by looking at it? Neither would I! It's a specialist job. There's a lot of jargon in archaeology too (know what an orthostat is?) so this guide aims to give you some idea about how and where to get started finding out about the prehistory of your local area. Maps Ordnance Survey walking maps, the orange Explorer series at 1:25,000, are best, and record most visible archaeological features. Look out for the words tumulus (usually a prehistoric burial mound), cairn, standing stone, stone circle, stone row, cursus, enclosure, hillfort or any name in the font that shows it's an ancient monument. Take the grid reference of anything you discover. Online resources But once you've located these features, how do you find out anything else about them? Well, there are online databases of prehistoric monuments. One for the whole country is Pastscape from English Heritage at www.pastscape.org.uk. On the front page choose location search if you have a grid reference and type it in the first search box. Alternatively, you can just put in the school's postcode and that will work just as well. Choose a radius for your search, often 1km will bring up something but if you've had no luck, or indeed too much, try changing the setting. This will bring up results for historic stuff too, so you Illustration 1: Pastscape, English Heritage's archaeological might have to do some sifting. Another method archive online is to use the advanced search and put in your local authority area and then choose the prehistoric period specially. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (see booklet on How Archaeology Works) has an online database of finds made by metal-detectorists and others, many with images. Search their website for any prehistoric objects found in your local area: http://finds.org.uk/database. There are two large archaeology magazines in the UK. British Archaeology and Current Archaeology. You could subscribe to one or the other as a school, or search their back issues online for free. You need to register to get access to British Archaeology at http://new.archaeologyuk.org/british-archaeology-magazine/. For Current Archaeology you can see the contents of each magazine for free and then order any particular back issues you want: http://www.archaeology.co.uk/category/issues. Channel 4's website has many of the episodes from the entire run of Time Team on their website that you could look through to find anything near you, though it might not be prehistoric! http://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-team/episode-guide/series-1/. Wessex Archaeology, who Phil Harding works for, has prepared reports for the Time Team excavations from series 10 onwards http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/timeteam/reports. There are more detailed records of archaeology in each county. Look for your local authority Historic Environment Record and see if they have an online database. If not, contact them and give them details of anything you have so far found. See if they've got more details or records for you. They hold aerial photographs and excavation reports of sites. They may be able to point out any prehistoric archaeology you've missed. They should also be able to tell you if any artefacts are kept in a local museum. Visit You may need to visit the Historic Environment Record to look at material if it hasn't been digitised. It's also good to see if you can visit any sites you've identified to see if they are visible on the surface, accessible and not dangerous. Another place to visit would be the local museum to see what prehistoric artefacts they have on show from your local area. You can also contact the archaeological curator to see whether there's anything in storage that you could look at or get pictures of. Museums often have online catalogues of their objects, many with images. If the Historic Environment Record doesn't have copies of published reports about sites in their area, you can also visit the library to see if they have them. If not, you should be able to order them. The published report will give you the details of which university or commercial company did the excavation and should usually have contact details. Contact the original excavator to see if they have any more information or images they can lend you, or to help you understand the site. Many will be very glad to come in to your school to give a talk. Activities with your class Take your class through the same journey you took. Get them to pick out any likely sites on a map, teach them how to take a grid reference, get them to search online. Then give them resource packs for selected sites that you have decided to concentrate on. Get them to work out some basic things like: • What date is the site? • What is the site? • Who investigated it? • How did they investigate it? • Can anything be seen on the surface? Plan a visit to the site with your class. Ask them to generate some questions about the site that they think could be answered by visiting. On the visit, think about doing some of the following activities to help the class answer the questions they generated: • Draw the site as it is now • Take photos of the site • Write a description of what you can see • Take rubbings of any carved stones (if you're lucky enough to find some!) • Look for damage by vandals, animals or erosion • Do a quick survey (method described below) This will give you a lot of material to make into a display, a report or some other product back at school. Quick survey method You will need: • Some string • Garden canes • A line level (you can buy these at DIY stores) • A long measuring tape • A shorter measuring tape • A drawing board covered in gridded paper • A soft pencil (4H is good) • A large piece of tracing paper (the thicker the better) taped to the board over the gridded paper • A compass Find a good feature you want to survey. Tie the string between two trees or two garden canes so it is taut across the feature (perpendicular if it is a linear feature like a wall). Make sure it is level by hanging the line level on it. Get two pupils to hold either end of a measuring tape along the Illustration 2: Aylesbury Young Archaeologist's Club length of the string. surveying Pulpit Hillfort using a string line and tapes Get pupils to take turns recording the measurements on the paper. First of all get them to record a straight line to represent the survey line you've made across the feature. This is where you teach your class about scale drawing! Depending on the length of your line, and the size of your drawing board, you can choose a 1:10, 1:20 or 1:50 scale. For each metre on the surveying line, draw 10cm, 5cm or 2cm on the board. 1:10 will be the easiest scale for your pupils to deal with at first. Get two pupils to take measurements from the line to the ground every 20cm, 50cm or 1m along your surveying line. The person on the board should record these as points on the board. Get pupils to take turns doing all the jobs. Once all the points have been made, get someone to join them up. Now you have a profile of your monument! .
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