Introduction
This one-day walking tour will take place on alternate Fridays during the summer months and has been developed to give you a fresh look at an old landscape. The day brings the past alive using the landscape of the National Park visiting sites that date from the end of the last Ice Age to WWII.
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Background
Archaeology is the study of people and societies in the past. This is achieved through the retrieval, analysis, and interpretation of their material remains, which can be literally anything left behind by people in the past. This can include buildings from any period, artefacts (things made by people), pollen/plant remains, animal bones, human remains and even the landscapes themselves that people have lived and worked in. It is by studying this evidence that archaeologists can begin to reconstruct past societies and environments. As such, archaeology is a discipline that crosses boundaries between the humanities and the hard sciences. It uses a range of techniques including excavation (digging for remains), non-invasive surveys such as field-walking or geophysical surveys, and aerial photography to identify sites. It uses the scientific analysis of plant remains, including wood, and other organic remains such as bone for dating, identifying diet, and more recently tracking movements of people in the past. Archaeologists also use ‘experimental archaeology’ in which they try to recreate how people lived in the past. Archaeology can give insights into the study of any period beyond the written record and is the principal means of studying prehistory. All material remains are archaeology, but for most people it seems to be generally considered to be anything older than 50 years.
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When will it take place?
July 7th 21st
Aug 4th 18th
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Contact us if you have any questions or to make a booking.
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What Does The Day Involve?
You will be picked up from a central location in Buxton and taken to the start of the walk in the Upper Dove Valley. We will spend the day walking through a landscape that has developed over thousands of years and stopping at a number of points en route.
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The tour will have a maximum of 6 participants and will involve walking approximately 9 miles. It will give you the chance to look in depth at what seems to be a familiar landscape. Most of the walk (80%) will be on tarmac, but there are some elements that involve trackways and farm tracks, and a single short but strenuous climb. There are also several stiles and gateways to be negotiated, and there may be livestock in fields.
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The walk ends in Hartington, where you will be picked up and transported back to Buxton.
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Why walking?
Walking has, since the time of Aristotle and Socrates, been associated with thinking. Other famous thinkers who used walking to think include Rousseau and Wittgenstein. But don't worry, we are not walking directly in their footsteps! We are using walking as a tool, one which generates "an imaginative access to the past" (Readman, 2022)*. When we walk we begin to have time to think, Rebecca Solnit wrote "The rhythm of walking generates a rhythm of thinking"** We are going to slow down our pace from that of high-speed, everyday thinking to a more leisurely 3 miles per hour. And gain the benefits.
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The Cost
The cost for the day is £70 per person. Refreshments are not included, and you are advised to bring enough water/drinks as you feel you need. We will stop at a pub for lunch and have rest stops en-route.
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*Paul Readman 'In Conversation - Antiquarianism, history-writing, and the embodied experience of landscape'. Environment and Culture in Britain, 1688-1851 Friday 14th January, 2022.
** Rebecca Solnit 'Wanderlust. A History of Walking'. 2014.
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