June 2008 Berries and burials Following on from last session, where we were looking at how people lived in post-glacial Britain, for this session we went out and about, to the village of St Nicholas, to visit the Burial Chamber at Tinkinswood. Tinkinswood Burial Chamber was built about 6000 years ago, and it's thought that the chamber was once in a village! It is probably the largest burial chamber in Europe, and the cap stone weighs over 35 tonnes! which would take at least 100 YAC members to maybe lift it. Can you imagine how much effort was involved getting it there? As we had to walk across some fields to get to Tinkinswood, we stopped to survey a hedge, to try to determine when it was first planted. You do this by counting the different types of shrub in the hedge, and each type adds about 100 years to the hedge's age. The hedge we chose was very thick, and mainly Hawthorn, and we split into groups, each looking at a 10m section. In the first section, we found Holly and Elder, there was Ash in the second, and in the third there was Hazel and Wild Rose. Including Hawthorn, that's 6 types of shrub in our section, meaning the land was cleared and the hedge was planted probably about 600 years ago, in the 14th century. If you were at the Wild Foods session in May, maybe you can identify which of those shrubs might be food-sources? Did you notice what other useful plants and food sources there were in the hedgerow? If you want to know more about Hedgerows, and how to do your own survey, you can find more information here. If the hedge isn't by a public path, remember to ask the landowner if they mind you doing a survey of their hedge, before you start.

May 2008 Living in the Mesolithic This session was all about life in post-glacial Britain, and what we know about how people lived in those times. We know they were mainly hunter-gatherers, living off Wild Foods. They lived a nomadic lifestyle, following the migrating herds, finding food where it grew, and living in huts that might have looked like the ones we built. We know that people in the Mesolithic also painted images on cave walls, and there are many examples of these, from Creswell Crags in Nottinghamshire to Lascaux, in France. They used substances like charcoal and ochre to leave their mark, be it pictures of animals, or the outline of their hands. We used poster paint and crayons, but we think ours look better.

April 2008 Castles Richard kindly took this session on Castles in Wales. We looked at the different kind of castles that can be found around Wales, starting with the earliest ones built by the Normans, and to begin with, castles were built mainly for defence. Castles affected how people lived, not just those inside, but everyone outside them too. Life changed as times moved on, because the people who lived in them changed how they ruled the land, and their word was usually the law! Richard told us about several different styles of castles. There were Motte and Bailey castles, like the one inside Cardiff Castle, and there were Concentric Castles - Caerphilly Castle is a good example of this sort. It might have been the first Castle of this type. Castles were often kept as status symbols, so your castle had to be bigger and more elaborate than your neighbour's, and maybe good enough to impress the King to visit! But as they got bigger, they got more and more expensive to keep in good condition. After the talk, we had a quiz about castles in Wales, where we had to match up the name of the castles with photographs of bits of them. It was quite difficult, even for the adults! Following this we made our own castles from white cardboard, and for those who wanted a shield, we also designed our own coats of arms, including the ones you can see on the shieldwall to the right. Click this link if you want to know more about the history of the castles in Wales. Maybe you can visit some yourself, and work out who built them?

March 2008

Making Faces

This session, we started off by taking a look at how to enter this years
Young Archaeologist of the Year Award,
after our successful entry from last year.

Ashley brought in a lovely collection of his finds for us to look at.
Hopefully everyone will bring their finds in to the next session as well,
as we will be choosing 5 of our favourites to go in our display case at the next session.

We got into practise by first playing the POTATO Game, where everyone chooses a potato and describes it, so that another member of the group can pick it out from all the other potatoes. Then we chose some things from the Hub's display cases found around Tondu, which we practiced recording on our data sheets.

For the second part of the session, Ellie told us about Facial Reconstruction, and how useful it is. She explained how the procedures are done and how it is useful in creating faces from the past from the bones that archaeologists excavate, and asked us to come up with ideas about different applications of facial reconstruction outside of archaeology. We then had a go at doing our own facial reconstructions using masks and clay, and thought about the characters and characteristics behind the faces we were making.

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February 2008

Cave Song

This month's session was in the National Museum Wales Cardiff, where we explored the new Archaeology Gallery -

Origins: In Search Of Early Wales.

Ken and Dylan took us around the new Gallery, which includes a display about the evolution of humans, and The Red Lady of Paviland - who is not really a Lady, but archaeologists don't always get things right the first time! The remains of the 'Red Lady' are on loan to the museum for a year. They were found buried in a sea-side cave on the Gower peninsula, and are the oldest proof that humans like us were in Wales and the British Isles nearly 30,000 years ago. Also, the burial is the oldest known ceremonial one in Western Europe! As we stood by the 'Red Lady', we discussed who was buried, how he died, and what sounds might have been made to accompany the burial ritual. We decided the sounds would not be happy ones, but maybe sad, or perhaps even a curse! Dylan gave us some instruments which might have been available to the people who performed the burial, and helps us recreate sounds, and we made a song to send the Red Man on his way to the Afterlife he believed in. Click on the photo to hear the song we made. ------>

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January 2008

Crazy Paving?

This month, we looked at the Romans, in particular their Mosaics.

When the Romans built their homes in Britain, they put mosaics in, and we discussed why.

We didn't reach a firm conclusion.

Some of us thought Mosaics are beautiful and are definitely art, whereas some thought it was just crazy paving.

The oldest Mosaics found were made in Greece,
(which is probably where the Romans got the idea from)
but the Romans made them a prominent sign of their occupation when they conquered a new area.


Mosaics are still made today, both as decoration like this one in Barcelona, and to be informative like this one for the American Natural History Museum in the New York Subway Station.

After the discussion, we tried making our own mosaics, using different colours of paper.

We also tried a few other activities.

Caroline found a pattern for some Roman pouches called Bulla, which we cut out from felt and threaded together with ribbon.

We also found out how to tell what people ate, by disecting 'coprolites' and looking at the seeds you find - we used some fake ones that Sian made, with flour and water, and a little food colouring.

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December 8^th 2007

Air Raid!

Just before Christmas, we took a trip back in time to Swansea Bay's 1940's Museum, to experience Christmas 1940s style. There wasn't much we could buy because of rationing, but it was fun to just look how people managed during the war.




We got kitted out in uniforms and clothes, so we would fit in and look the part, and then took a trip back in time!

First, we were invited into the RAF's plotting room, to observe them tracking the various Spitfire and Hurricane patrols along the coast.

But then the Air-raid siren started, so we all rushed into the public Air-raid shelter for safety! When we heard the all-clear signal, we stepped out into the street where there were bombed buildings, shops, a pub, and even a railway station!

Afterwards, because we had been caught up in the air-raid, we had a small party, and we were given food and drinks of the types people ate during the 1940s, including Orange squash, Spam sandwiches and carrot fudge! We also made paper-chains from shiny sticky strips of paper, to help decorate the place for Christmas so we felt a bit more festive!

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Click the year to see what we got up to in previous years.
2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. .