PAS Volunteers
Volunteers play a very important role in the work of the PAS. People volunteer for many different reasons – to gain experience of working as an archaeologist or in a museum, out of interest in the past or to develop a new skill. The types of finders vary too – including students, finders and retired people. At least 83 volunteers have worked for the PAS in 2005/6; an increase from 34 last year.
Luke Leech is home schooled and worked one day a week with Lisa Staves (North Lincolnshire FLO) at North Lincolnshire Museum recording a pottery assemblage recovered by a finder whilst out metal-detecting.
Liz Walker was looking to get involved in archaeology after she retired and contacted Liz Andrews-Wilson (Sussex FLO) to volunteer her services after seeing an article about the PAS in a local newspaper. She has worked for a couple of years recording and identifying finds and aims to continue.
Following completion of a degree at University of York Shona Williams volunteered to work with Rob Webley (Hampshire FLO) recording finds and helping out at metal-detecting rallies. This has been useful work experience and she is now hoping to work full time in archaeology.
Geoff Burr, a member of the West Kent Detecting Club, works with Andrew Richardson (Kent FLO), recording finds found by club members - with images and precise findspot information - direct onto the PAS finds database.
Day School for Truro College
In April 2005 Anna Tyacke (Cornwall FLO) ran a day school for Truro College Students and Cornwall Archaeological Society members on ‘Understanding early metalworking and metalwork’ with the help of Martin Page (Truro College).
The day school was held at the Royal Cornwall Museum where Anna illustrated her talk with artefacts from the Royal Institution of Cornwall’s collections, many of which had come off display and are not normally allowed to be handled. These included an Early Bronze Age gold lunula and a Saxon silver hoard. These complex and intricate artefacts were used to illustrate the various techniques and materials used and to gave members a first-hand look at the details of the decoration and the feel and look of the metals.
Anna also looked at the cleaning and conservation of metals and the recording of finds on the PAS finds database. In the afternoon, Martin continued the day school in the workshop at Truro College using various tools and equipment to show the manufacture of metal objects, the decoration processes and the metallurgy involved. The students were also able to try their hand at sand casting and chip-carving the surface of the metal with chisels!
Hands-On Archaeology Workshop for Museum Archaeologists
In January 2006, Creative Minds, a Yorkshire based project that aims to offer children inspirational and creative learning opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, invited the PAS to a Hands-On Archaeology workshop in York to demonstrate to other heritage educators in the audience, some of the types of education work that the Scheme is undertaking. Anna Marshall (South & West Yorkshire FLO) and Lisa Staves (North Lincolnshire FLO) talked to the group about the types of education work they had done with children and demonstrated the PASt explorers website whilst Simon Holmes (North & East Yorkshire FLO) gave examples of his work with adult, further and higher education institutes, such as lecturing and providing placement and volunteer opportunities for University students, as well as finds identification and handling sessions.Training programme for Suffolk archaeologists
In August 2005 Faye Minter (Suffolk FLO) collaborated with Professor Martin Millett, (Cambridge University) and Jude Plouviez (Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service) to facilitate 10 days of geophysics and topography training for Cambridge University archaeology students and professional archaeologists from Suffolk. The project had a dual purpose: to provide a good training opportunity and also to investigate sites discovered by local metal-detectorists. The project is the first of what will hopefully be a yearly training event further investigating Roman sites in Suffolk which have been identified through the work of the PAS. It is hoped that members of the public and local metal-detectorists will also be trained in the future. The site investigated was an especially complex one near Mildenhall, Suffolk. The site had come to light as a result of the activities of Mick King, who had reported a wealth of metal artefacts and pottery from all periods to the Suffolk FLOs. Paul Johnson and Helen Woodhouse (Cambridge University) ran the survey and the results confirmed that the archaeological potential of the site was very high and that it was occupied throughout antiquity. Especially striking was the discovery of two probable Bronze Age round barrows as well as of a group of structures and enclosures, perhaps of Medieval date. A systematic fieldwalking survey is now planned.Ros Records Finds at a Weekend Wanderers Rally!
Our FLO in the Field, Ros Records Finds at a Weekend Wanderers Rally!
It was a cold windy Sunday in March. It was so cold, some kind soul loaned me his car rug, to put round my knees and so windy the gazebo shelter blew down! I turned up to record any finds that the Weekend Wanderers might make. There were about 100 cars in the field as I arrived and I did 48 records that day & 42 more the following Sunday. The Weekend Wanderers know I don't usually record objects that are less than 300 years old, so many will not bother to show me. They know more about Georgian buttons and Victorian pennies than I do anyway! However, this time, I was shown a little heart-shaped locket which was a royal souvenir commemorating the wedding of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.
Edward VII was the son of Queen Victoria. He was called Albert originally, but changed his name upon succeeding to the throne when his mother died in 1901. His queen was the daughter of the Danish king Christian IX. Edward and Alexandra had 5 children. King Edward VII died in 1910, aged 68.
Just to show the variety of finds that people make while detecting, on the same Sunday I was also shown a lovely little object that was much older. This one was a curious looking piece (see picture in the gallery). It was a Viking age stirrup strap mount, but one that was very different from any I’d seen before because it was a pear shaped mount with two attachment or strap loops at the top. I looked at the design and I could see what it probably was but there were differences from the ones I had seen previously seen and as it tuned out it was an unusual type.
As I am down at the entrance, the detecting is sometimes being done in fields a long way from where I am, so I don't see the actual finding. They come back
To their cars for coffee or lunch and show me what they have found. I
get them to mark the find spots of the objects that are old enough, on
The large scale map I have. They are interested to see how the
distributions are building up in case there are any interesting hotspots. The mount and the other objects were from the same field but spread across it.
Year 6 Conservation Day at N Lincs Museum
Results of Evaluation (by end users) of Educational Activities for Young Learners at Conservation Day held at North Lincolnshire Museum, Scunthorpe, Thursday 6th October 2005 The Year 6 teacher from Park Wood Junior School, Scunthorpe approached the education department at North Lincolnshire Museum. They put her in touch with her local FLO, Lisa Staves, who is based at the museum and Rose Nicholson the Archaeology Assistant (Collections).
The children were lucky enough to be doing an archaeology module at school, which unfortunately, is increasingly rare. Lisa, and Rose worked out what sort of activities would give the children the best learning experience and agreed the programme with the teacher. An all day outreach programme held at the school was decided on and planned. It is becoming more and more difficult for school groups to get out of the classroom and this was a way to bring the museum, the finds and the archaeologists out to the children.
The day took the form of an introduction to archaeology and Portable Antiquities, followed by a plenary where children could ask questions, followed by activities: ‘Investigating Objects’ Children received an archaeology object from the museum’s collection and a worksheet to complete. They had to go through the worksheet answering questions about the design and function of the object to discover its identity. Designing an heraldic shield using the rules of medieval heraldry. ‘Field Walking Objects’.
Children were given a selection of pottery, clay pipes and flint from a field to identify and record with the help of one of the FLO’s or archaeology assistant which they then had to sort by date. They were then given a map of a field with the finds plotted on it. The children then coloured in the find spots using a key which they had devised to show objects from different periods. This lead on to a plenary talking about different distributions of finds and what it can tell us about the past. This was a great combination of history with maths and geography skills, handling and potting data, making observations and inferences and using evidence. ‘Blind Drawing’.
Introducing the concepts behind why archaeologists, museum curators and historians write detailed description of objects or evidence. Each child was given a different object and the task of writing as detailed a description as possible without mentioning what the exact object was. They then passed the description onto another group who had to draw the object from only the description. The children find this activity difficult and frustrating when they can’t draw the object because the description is too vague but it uses discovery learning and reinforcement to explain why the more detailed the evidence, the more accurate the interpretation can be. To finish the activity they write a detailed museum label using what they learnt from the blind drawing exercise. ‘The Skeleton Game’. Before the workshop, the children were asked to bring in an object that meant a lot to them. They were then divided into groups of three/four and took it in turns to pretend to be buried with their personal object. The rest of the group have to decide what would survive in 500 years time, first in dry conditions and then in boggy.
The Workshops were lead by Rose Nicholson (Archaeology Assistant NLM), Lisa Staves (FLO N Lincs) and Anna Marshall (FLO South & West Yorks).
Number of respondents: 51 (100% response rate)
Feedback- questions and answers
- After today, do you understand more about things from a long time ago? Yes 40 No 1 Not sure 10
- Today, did you find out something new? Yes 49 No 0 Not sure 2 How did today’s visit make you feel? 39 0 13
- What was your favourite thing?
“Pottery, flint looking at different stones” Jamie-Lee Smith “Domonic dead!!” Declan Taylor, see scan
“My favourite thing was we were all keep swopping over (finds)” Daniel Ross
“I now more more and I understand about things from a long time ago. I found out new things and it made me feel happy my favourite activity was the first one because I liked the Victorian skirt lifter.” Sophie Corcoran
“Sorting the stons and playing deid.” Josh, 6H
“that the 10 Roman coins is a treasure all found in the same place. Treasure!” Liam W, 6H
“sorting the pottery” Daniel Gray, 6H
“I liked it when we had to write about an object and then swap sheets and gues someone else’s object”, Laura Hickman
“My favourite thing was the blind drawing because we got to write a description ands someone else got to draw your object you were describing. And you get to draw theres.”, Emily Cowell, 6H
Learning about Death and Burial in Roman Times
Bringing History to Life:Learning about Death and Burial in Roman Times - The Roman ‘Reiter’ Tombstone from Lancaster YAC Kendal, Cumbria, Dec 16th, 2006
In November 2005, a rare yet extremely well preserved Roman ‘Reiter’ - (German: rider, horseman) tombstone was found in the City of Lancaster and when, a year later, it became official that finally funding had been secured for it, it was clear that it wouldn’t leave the front pages of the local newspapers for quite a while.
Because of the media attention and craze it generated I thought it would be a good idea to have children look at it in more detail and so I developed a 20-30min session for Years 3&4 children which I then did at a local primary school based in the village of Quernmore, not far from Lancaster itself.Firstly, I wanted the children to look at the tombstone very closely (not all tombstones are as well preserved as this and it really offers lots of detail to discuss!) and match the object identifications I’d written next to the picture with the actual objects carved on the tombstone. I then told them that, since red paint had been found in the grooves of the lettering, it was possible that the entire tombstone was painted in more or less bright colours (I left it to the children’s imagination exactly how colourful!). Obviously, as soon the first boy asked me if we was allowed to draw blood dripping off the barbarian’s head and the Roman soldier’s sword I knew that we were approaching a ‘bloodbath’!
The last task was to think of what else the family and friends could have chosen to have depicted on the deceased soldier’s tombstone – and we ended up with pictures of him beheading other barbarians, the soldier and his grieving wife and daughter, as well as the soldier fighting lions in the Coliseum in Rome!
See pictures of this session in our image gallery!
YAC Kendal, Cumbria, Dec 16th, 2006
Bringing History to Life: Creating a collage inspired by objects found at Birdoswald Roman Fort – YAC Kendal, Cumbria, Dec 16th, 2006
For the December meeting of Kendal’s Young Archaeologists’ Club I decided to do another crafty objects-based session, where the kids could not only learn how to handle and draw real Roman artefacts, but also how to interpret them and think about how they were used or how they were worn in Roman times. We were really fortunate that Tim Padley, Keeper of Archaeology at Tullie House, Carlisle, let us borrow the most amazing artefacts from their collection of objects from the Roman fort at Birdoswald, amongst which were the gold earring, the eagle and standards intaglio and best of all – the unique little genus, a deity that usually comes in threes and appears to have been local to the North West. I’d thought we could use the artefacts to inspire the children’s imagination and have them draw pictures of ‘Life at Birdoswald’ showing how the artefacts were used in an ‘every day’ – context. The kids did SO well: we ended up with drawings of, e.g. an altar (where the little genus was reunited with his two lost ‘friends’), a jeweller’s shop (where the jeweller was about to sell the gold earring), a document and candle (and the seal with eagle intaglio about to be used to seal the letter) and last but not least, a scene from a tavern where two Roman soldiers were involved in gambling (showing the bone die found at Birdoswald)!
See pictures of this session in our image gallery!
PAS Evaluation Methodology
All of the evaluations collected by the PAS for their educational outreach work use the Inspiring Learning For All (ILFA) toolkit developed by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, in conjunction with DfES. (See www.mla.gov.uk/ilfa for more details.)
The PAS evaluation forms are for a variety of purposes. There is one for teachers or educators to fill in after a session with their local Finds Liaison Officer or the PASt explorers web-based educational resource. The KS2 evaluation form is for children aged 7-11 to fill in to let us know what they learned, what they liked and what they didn’t like about the lessons using either the lesson plans downloaded from PASt explorers or with a FLO visiting their school. Evaluating cross-curricular, outdoors, enrichment or out-of-the-ordinary sessions can be tricky and the ILFA toolkit aims to evaluate consistently the following generic learning outcomes (GLOs):
The Learning Outcomes being assessed are:
- GLO 1, Knowledge and Understanding
- GLO 2, Skills
- GLO 3, Values, attitudes, feelings
- GLO 4, Enjoyment, Creativity, and Inspiration
- GLO 5, Behaviour (Activity, Modification, and Progression)
Please have a go, look at the information about ILFA on the MLA website and, most importantly, let us know what you think!
Conservation days - Informal Adult Learning
During the first few years of the PAS, before it was fully rolled out across the country, the educational work of the project was mainly concerned with adult learners. These people were the PAS’s original target audience, people who were finding archaeology and archaeological objects but had often felt excluded from the heritage world and did not come in to regular contact with heritage professionals or visit museums. By asking potential learners what they wanted and what had stopped them from learning in the past[1], the PAS realised that what was needed was friendly, accessible archaeologists to act as both a conduit for information and a catalyst for learning. Research done in 2000[2] and followed up in 2004[3].
These specialist sessions have been in addition to the Finds Days, lectures, history fairs, local society and community group evenings and other outreach sessions that the FLOs go to and talk at. In the year 2003-4, 13,518 people got involved in learning in this way. showed that the finders of portable antiquities like learning through the PAS because it does all of the things that they are looking for: it takes the learning opportunities out to the metal detecting clubs and society meetings and by using the FLO as a learning facilitator, learning is personal, relevant and responsive to people’s needs. When questioned about their learning needs in 2003, finders told the PAS that they wanted an individual learner-centred approach whereby learning is incorporated in to other activities. They don’t want formal learning scenarios or to be archaeologists. They want to know enough to satiate their thirst for knowledge and allow them to be more skilful at their hobby and then, if they are ready or have the inclination possibly progress on to other areas of archaeology.
Those finders that told us about learner progression said that what they wanted to do next was a practical course in excavation techniques, remote sensing and finds processing, something along the lines of practical courses like the old HND in Field Archaeology that Bournemouth University used to run.With this in mind, the PAS has worked in conjunction with other archaeological bodies to provide the learning that finders want. One of the most notable ways that this has happened has been through regional Conservation Days which were held in a variety of locations all over the country in conjunction with York Archaeological Trust during 2005-2006 and were accompanied by a series of friendly advice notes dealing with questions like how to record and lift finds on site, how to store and display finds and why cleaning isn’t a good idea
Henry Moore Primary School, learning & teaching with artefacts
During the week of 10th - 14th July this year, I was part of a teaching team using archaeology as a hook to hang exciting, out-of-the-ordinary lessons on for groups of Key stage 2 children from schools in the Castleford-Featherstone area of West Yorkshire.
The activities took place at Smawthorne Henry Moore School, Castleford and children from both Henry Moore and neighbouring Oyster Park School took part.
In a team that consisted of teachers, the local government’s Archaeology Advisory Service Education Officer, the Education Co ordinator for a national community archaeology project run by the British Museum, lecturers and specialist history teacher trainees from Leeds Metropolitan University children from Years 4, 5 and 6 were offered a rolling programme of 3 different activities.
Activity 1 was an archaeological excavation where the young learners could get a chance to actually do it their own dig.
Activity 2 used real archaeological finds and active learning to bring the past to life through objects
Activity 3 used role play to add another dimension to the children’s discovery of history, with trainee teachers using hot seating and historical sources to add a personal touch.
I co-ordinated and delivered Activity 2, using real artefacts, the children’s prior knowledge, their imaginations and observation skills.
The session started with us using ‘The Skeleton Game’ as both an ice breaker and a bit of brain gym.
The first part of the session (about 10 to 15 mins, depending on the class and time of day) aimed to get brains warmed up and the children thinking about how archaeology works and why some things survive while others don’t.
Children were arranged in a large horseshoe (this worked both inside the classroom and out-of-doors on the school playing field).A quick plenary to find out who had seen archaeology programmes on the TV, read books or used websites about the subject and also find out how much the children already knew about the types of things that can be found under the ground, waste, decay and irreversible changes.
With every group, the children suggested that an archaeologist might find dead people/dead bodies/skeletons or bones.
So, to follow on from this, I asked the class teacher for a suitable volunteer. This next part of the lesson lasted about 15 mins, but is quite open-ended.
The volunteer had to "not wriggle or giggle" and lie still, in the middle of our horseshoe being our dead body. We looked at what the volunteer was wearing and together, as a plenary, tried to work out what would survive and what would not. A combination of closed and gradually more open questioning was used.
Would Ryan’s trainer’s survive? Yes? Which bits, the laces, the rubber soles, the plastic parts on the sides? What about his cap, would that rot, or not? Would Danielle’s pencil case survive? What about her glasses? What do you think would last longest in the ground? Which bits of a mobile phone would survive, what do you think?
The conversation was then steered towards the type of things that a person might like to be buried with and the children asked if they could think of special objects, things with meaning that they might like to buried with, if they had been a pagan Romano Briton. What type of objects would tell a future archaeologist about them?
The children were then given a proper skeleton recording sheet, the same as the ones used on commercial archaeological sites and asked to annotate them-either by writing, or for those who preferred, by drawing, to show the objects that they would choose to be buried with and to write down which parts of the object (if any) would survive for tens, hundreds or thousands of years. The kids came up with some great ideas. They talked about which parts of a family photograph might survive-the frame and glass, but not the photo itself. I told them the story of an Anglo-Saxon girl's grave that I had excavated and how she has a jumble of bones where her feet should have been and how, after careful observation and thinking, you could see that she had been buried with her feet resting on her pet dog.
This really caught the children’s' imagination, especially as the girl was probably about their age when she had died and prompted a whole flurry of questions and answers between the children and also some directed at me!After the skeleton activity, the kids were given, or rather got to choose from a big pile of artefacts, all real. I don't think that a replica works in the same way as the feel of the thing is so important and the artefact can't be a tangible link with the past unless it hass a real age and history.
The children were asked, in groups of 4, to pool their objects and arrange them in order of age, like a timeline. After this, they then had a go at recording and drawing the objects and working out what they thought they were.This activity takes longer than those preceding it but again, depends on how much time the teacher would like to spend with the children on it.
These 2 activities worked well together. You could do the skeleton activity for one lesson and artefacts for another. We were lucky with time as the children had been taken out of their normal lessons for either a morning or afternoon.This activity, or set of activities can be kept short or developed in a series of lessons or a block teaching; it’s very flexible. The main thing though is it works, its real and tangible, the children enjoy themselves and can be inspired and creative, the teachers and TAs can join in too and it is suitable for a whole spectrum of learning styles and literacy levels.
The skeleton game and the finds recording forms can all be downloaded from this website (under 'Resources'); why not have a go with your class?
