Festival of History 2010

Everyone at YAC had a brilliant time at the 2010 English Heritage Festival of History at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire.

We took a marquee of hands-on activities including excavating fake poos to find dietary evidence and making medieval tussy mussies to ward off the plague.

We also met lots of our YAC members and joined up loads of new members too!

Excavating Poo!

Archaeologists find out what people in the past ate in several different ways. One way that they do this is by excavting their poo (or copralites as they are known to archaeologists).

YAC made 600 fake poos and filled them with the sort of dietry evidence that would survive in 5 different time periods; Aztec, Roman, Egyptian, Tudor and Viking. It was then up to our brave Young Archaeologists to excavate the poos and help us work out which time period their poo was from based on the evidence inside.

If you would like to find out more about this activity, including instructions on how to make fake poo, you can download the PDF instructions by clicking here.
You can also try recording your poo like a real archaeologist using our organic remains recording sheet- why not have a go yourself at home or school?

Making Tussy Mussies!

Plague Doctor (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

In medieval times people didn't know as much as we do today about how diseases are spread. A lot of people believed that disease was spread by bad smells, so they carried a tussy mussy with them which was a small pouch filled with sweet smelling herbs. They would use this to stop themselves smelling a bad smell and hope that it would also stop them catching a horrible disease like the plague. The famous Plague Doctor filled his beak shaped mask with herbs to protect himself from the plague as he treated his patients.

Over 400 Young Archaeologists at the Festival of History made their own tussy mussies to ward of bad smells using a selection of herbs kindly donated to YAC by G baldwin and Co, Norfolk Lavender and The National Herb Cente.

Why don't you have a go at making your own tussy mussy? Download the worksheet by clicking here.

There's also an extra role-play activity in which you can become medieval doctors and patients. Diagnose illnesses and come up with cures! Click here to download the activity sheet.

Downloads

• Fake Poo! - Make and excavate fake poos to find out about how dietary evidence survives and how you can discover what people ate in the past.

• Organic Remains Recording Sheet - Record the dimensions of your fake poo and list the dietry evidence you find in it.

• Tussy Mussies - Make a sweet-smelling tussy mussy to ward off the plague!

• Medieval Medical Role Play - Become a Tudor doctor or patient and learn about illnesses and cures in the past.

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