Invaders and Settlers: Anglo-Saxons Learning Objective: To find out what archaeologists do and how and why they dig for evidence. NEXT www.planbee.com Can you remember how long ago the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain? Can you remember where they came from? Think, pair, share your ideas. BACK NEXT www.planbee.com 1945 to today 1901-1945 1837 - 1901 1714 - 1837 1603 - 1714 1485 - 1603 1154 - 1485 Civil and Revolution War Empire and Sea Power Victorian Britain Victorian Norman Britain Roman Britain Roman 1066 - 1154 1945 onwards Anglo-Saxons Middle Ages World Wars Iron Age Vikings Tudors 790 - 1066 www.planbee.com 410 - 790 Timeline of British History 43AD - 410 themselves against the Anglo-Saxons. themselves against the Anglo-Saxons. 800BC - 43AD The Anglo-Saxons came to Britain in the year 410AD. They had 410AD. They came to Britain in the year The Anglo-Saxons BACK NEXT tried to invade Britain when then Romans were in power but they tried to invade Britain when then Romans were in power but they were beaten back. When the Romans left, Britons couldn’t defend The Anglo- Saxons came from countries that we know today as Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. BACK NEXT www.planbee.com Have a look at these pictures. Can you guess what job they are describing? They dig with trowels. They spend a lot of time in mud. They study the past. They find things underground. BACK NEXT www.planbee.com Did you guess correctly?! The pictures were describing the job of an archaeologist. Archaeologists find out about the past by discovering objects that have been buried in the ground over time. They carefully dig these objects up and investigate them. You can find out a lot about history by studying the objects that have been left behind. Sometimes, archaeologists will find lots of pieces of a single object that they have to put back together. Sometimes they will dig down and discover the remains of a whole town! BACK NEXT www.planbee.com Archaeologists find sites to dig up in different ways. Sometimes there are lumps in the ground that don't look natural and archaeologists will investigate them to see what they are. Sometimes you can see marks on the ground from the air that you can't see on the ground so archaeologists go up in small planes and take photographs. Archaeologists also walk over newly ploughed fields to see if any objects have been brought to the surface – they might be from larger collections that are still underground. Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project. BACK Photo by Michael Given. NEXT www.planbee.com What is Sutton Hoo? Sutton Hoo is one of Britain’s most important archaeological sites. It is a collection of mounds outside Ipswich in Suffolk, not far from the sea. Archaeologists were interested in the lumps and bumps in the ground and wanted to investigate. A big house was built near the mounds in 1910. When Edith Pretty bought the house in 1926 she was also interested in the mounds. In 1938 she asked a local archaeologist, Basil Brown, to do some digging to find out if there was anything interesting buried underneath. BACK NEXT www.planbee.com After he started digging, he realised that he had found something very important so he asked another archaeologist, Charles Phillips of Cambridge University, to come and help. As they dug they uncovered the imprint of a whole ship – and the remains of a burial chamber within it. They later found out that it was an Anglo-Saxon ship. BACK NEXT www.planbee.com Where did the body go? There was no sign of the body within the burial chamber and none of the wood from the ship survived. All that was found was the iron rivets from the ship and the glass, metal and stone objects from the burial. Why do you think only these items were found? This picture shows a reconstruction of the burial chamber inside the ship. It is on display in the Sutton Hoo BACK museum. NEXT www.planbee.com Different types of earth will make different objects rot, depending on what the earth is like. In normal soil, the bones of a skeleton would survive. However, the sand at Sutton Hoo is very acidic which made the skeleton rot. If the burial ship had been left in soil, we might still have had bones to investigate. This picture shows what the remains of a body look like when it is buried in soil. BACK Image courtesy of Oxford Archaeology NEXT www.planbee.com.