These Worksheets Can Be Used on Their Own to Get Pupils Familiar with Methods of Investigating

Archaeological skills and concepts

These worksheets can be used on their own to get pupils familiar with methods of investigating the past other than looking at historical documents, or with enquiry based worksheets looking at the archaeological remains left from each period. Below are short descriptions of what each worksheet aims to do and links to the full worksheet, should you want to use it.

National Curriculum Links

This worksheet is intended to supplement historical knowledge, skills and understanding. Many archaeological skills also involve geographical skills.

History; Key Stage 2; Knowledge, skills and understanding

·  1b: use dates and vocabulary relating to the passing of time, including ancient, modern, BC, AD, century and decade.

·  3: recognise that the past is represented and interpreted in different ways, and to give reasons for this.

·  4: how to find out about the events, people and changes studied from an appropriate range of sources of information, including ICT-based sources [for example, documents, printed sources, CD-ROMS, databases, pictures and photographs, music, artefacts, historic buildings and visits to museums, galleries and sites]

History; Key Stage 3; Knowledge, skills and understanding

·  1: recognise and make appropriate use of dates, vocabulary and conventions that describe historical periods and the passing of time.

·  3a: how and why historical events, people, situations and changes have been interpreted in different ways

·  3b: to evaluate interpretations.

·  4a: identify, select and use a range of appropriate sources of information including oral accounts, documents, printed sources, the media, artefacts, pictures, photographs, music, museums, buildings and sites, and ICT-based sources as a basis for independent historical enquiries

·  4b: evaluate the sources used, select and record information relevant to the enquiry and reach conclusions.

Geography; Key Stage 2 & 3; Knowledge, skills and understanding

·  2c: to use atlases and globes, and maps and plans at a range of scales

·  2d: to use secondary sources of information, including vertical and oblique aerial photographs [for example, stories, information texts, the internet, satellite images, photographs, videos]

·  2e: to draw plans and maps at a range of scales [for example, a sketch map of a locality]

·  2f: to use ICT to help in geographical investigations

·  3d: to explain why places are like they are [for example, in terms of weather conditions, local resources, historical development]

·  3e: to identify how and why places change [for example, through the closure of shops or building of new houses, through conservation projects]

·  4a: recognise and explain patterns made by individual physical and human features in the environment

Archaeological words

There is an illustrated glossary giving explanations of archaeological words used in the website. The glossary terms are not exhaustive but do cover some of the most common and more outlandish terms used in the Unlocking Buckinghamshire's Past website. Many of the glossary terms also have accompanying pictures as examples or to illustrate some of the more technical ideas.

They can be browsed by clicking on the Themes List button and then on more… under the first few glossary terms. There are also links from the difficult words so your pupils can easily consult the glossary to work out what a word means as they come upon it.

You can use the archaeological words worksheet with your pupils to help them get familiar with archaeological words before they do other work on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire's Past website. This helps towards literacy targets as well as learning words associated with history.

The first task involves finding definitions of some of the most widely used and jargonistic terms in archaeology. These are artefact; earthwork; monument; landscape; feature; BC and AD. They are all defined in the glossary. Your pupils may need a bit of help to get their heads around some of the concepts, others are easier to understand.

The worksheet continues with four types of monuments that represent different periods in archaeology: prehistory; Roman; medieval and post-medieval. This is a chance for your pupils to look in depth at what these monuments are and draw a picture of them (from the illustrations in the glossary term) so they understand them more fully. They have been given a definition of the monuments and they have to find the word that encapsulates all of the definition. The terms (in order) are barrow, villa, monastery and ha-ha.

The following worksheets explain and set out activities to help your pupils understand some of the basic concepts and techniques of archaeological theory and investigation. They are all suitable for use in the classroom.

Looking at landscape:

·  Lumps and bumps in the ground

This worksheet outlines, using plans and aerial photographs of earthworks, what to look for when out in the field. This will be a useful worksheet to do before visiting any earthwork sites.

·  Hedgerow dating

This worksheet gives some principles for hedgerow dating, which is useful for dating the age of field boundaries, and, therefore, the fields themselves. There is also a checklist of species you may find in hedgerows. You can then go out and date some of the hedges of the late Saxon, medieval and post-medieval period. See the Resources section for a website on hedgerow dating.

Map-based skills:

·  How to read a map

This worksheet starts with 2 figure grid references and there are options to extend the activities to 4 and 6 figure grid references for older or more able students. An optional extension activity would be to select an OS Landranger map of your area and ask the children to work out the 6 figure grid reference of archaeological features, like settlements, tumuli, hillforts and mottes. You must contact the County Archaeological Service for the maps to accompany this worksheet.

·  Contours

This activity is for use at Key Stage 3. It enables the students to understand how contours are created on maps and also to transfer the contours on a map to a scale model.

Aerial photography:

·  How to interpret aerial photographs

This worksheet gives the principles for interpreting aerial photographs and some examples for the students to test their understanding of the concepts.

·  How to plot from aerial photographs

This worksheet should be used in conjunction with How to read maps. It outlines two techniques for plotting from aerial photographs. Sketch plotting could be done with most students whereas the network method could be used with older or more able students.

Building recording:

·  How to measure the height of a building

This gives a number of different ways you can measure the height of a building.

·  How to record the fabric of a building

This worksheet gives some principles for recording the exterior and interior of a building. After reading this the children could test their understanding by recording the exterior or interior of the school.

·  How to date buildings

This worksheet gives some principles of the history of architecture for both secular and religious buildings, along with illustrations of each item. This is to be used in conjunction with either the worksheet about dating your village’s church, buildings or doing a character assessment. There are many links to building and church architectural history websites in the Resources section below.

Artefact interpretation:

·  Rubbish bin excavation

This worksheet asks the children various questions about the rubbish they are going through. You can either arrange to bring in rubbish from home or from a friend and the children have to deduce something about the person from his or her rubbish, or you can use rubbish bins from around the school and the children have to work out which room they came from. This activity can also explore the idea of decay by getting the children to think about, out of everything in the rubbish bins, what would survive for archaeologists to find in 500 or 1000 years time. It is advisable that bins are vetted before use and any hazardous items removed. Children should wear latex gloves and aprons whilst looking through the rubbish.

·  What do archaeological artefacts tell us?

This worksheet is best undertaken with real and replica archaeological artefacts. These can be borrowed from the Schools Library Service. The worksheet asks the children questions about the material, colour, shape and weight of each artefact and then challenges them to work out what it was from and what kind of date it was. This is done through an illustrated glossary of similar artefacts; the children have to match up the objects and the pictures. Your students could also look to see what is in their garden and bring that in to compare with the illustrated glossary. More pictures can be found on the Portable Antiquities Scheme website, the address is in the Resources section.

Archaeological site interpretation:

·  Decay and destruction

This worksheet invites the students to think about what types of things decay when put in the ground and which types of things don’t. They are then given the records of four archaeological sites and asked to work out how each site was destroyed, was it left to rot, burned, flooded or dismantled? They can then make a decision as to which form of destruction leaves the best-preserved sites. The archaeological site records are available under the Resources section below.

·  How to interpret archaeological site plans

This worksheet gives some examples of site plans for the children to interpret. The principles of site recording are explained so that the plans and sections of features and whole sites become intelligible. This will be useful when interpreting site plans in order to draw a reconstruction.

·  Understanding stratigraphy

Stratigraphy is a concept that has been borrowed from geology. Rock strata were laid down in sequence so that the oldest are at the bottom and the youngest at the top. Some of these strata have moved over the years and lower strata have sometimes risen above the upper strata but generally the principle is strong. The same is true on an archaeological site. Roman layers tend to be below Saxon ones. You could demonstrate this with a layered cake. If you cut through a cake, you can see several layers. With a Victoria sponge cake, the top layer of cake could be medieval, the jam Saxon and the lower layer, Roman. However, it gets more complicated on archaeological sites because humans have a tendency to dig into the ground, digging through earlier layers so that the strata get mixed up.

Reconstructing the site:

·  Draw a reconstruction

Once the students have learned how to interpret an archaeological site plan, they will be in a better position to draw a reconstruction of what they think a site looked like. They will also be encouraged to find out about predominant building materials for each period to incorporate into their reconstruction.

·  Evaluate a reconstruction

The children will be asked to evaluate the reconstruction of the Saxon site at the Orchard, Walton, which is accompanied by information about the site. Print off a copy of the reconstruction for each child and get them to create a spider diagram around it. Where different sources of evidence have been used for a specific element of the drawing, they can be written in different colours. When a report is written the colours are all grouped together. This helps the students form paragraphs.

Planning:

·  Do a character assessment of your village or town

This worksheet introduces your students to the concept of Conservation Areas and doing character appraisals. In this way it ties in with Citizenship targets by explaining one of the duties of the local authority. It also develops the idea of dating buildings and can be done after the How to date buildings worksheet. Instead of characterising a conservation area your class could characterise their whole village or part of their town. The children will be asked to split the area you have chosen into character areas. Character can be defined by a number of things, such as the size, scale and style of buildings as well as things like the detailing on the houses, the provision of front gardens, front walls or fences, driveways and so on. The local authority often uses character appraisals to inform planning decisions. Perhaps you could contact the Conservation Office in your District Council and get them to have a look at the character appraisals your class has done.

·  Giving advice on a planning application

The children are asked to think about an area you have studied in detail, such as your own village or town. Several thousand houses need to be built and the children have to figure out where they should be put, what they should look like and what the names of the streets should be. They will also need to think of ways of using any archaeological earthworks in a positive way so they contribute to the development but also so they are protected and conserved. Alternatively, the children can take a site like Quarrendon, which has Tudor garden earthworks, the moat of a great house, fishponds, the ruins of a church and three deserted medieval villages within a small area to the north of Aylesbury. Three thousand houses will be built in this area, so perhaps the children could use this as an example.