I recently delivered a workshop to the whole of Brockwell Nursery and Infant School in Chesterfield. The theme was the 1920s onwards – not often a period of time that comes to mind when you think of archaeology. However, as I always say, archaeology is about the material culture of the past and, as such, everything up until yesterday is fair game! And what a great day we had.
I think I have said this before somewhere, but I am always blown away by how much children as young as 4 years can engage with archaeology. It is also down to the hard work the teachers had put in previously that the children were able to recognise which artefacts belonged to which decade. It may have been the picture of the Beatles that gave the 1960s away, but it was the money box in the shape of the crown that enabled a year 1 girl to deduce it must have belonged to the 1950s, as that was when “the Queen became Queen”. Fabulous!
All excavated in their teams with care and due diligence and then tried their hand at reconstructing the pots they had found. The teachers and I gave each other wry smiles as we realised that our childhood toys and trinkets were now being considered as “ancient” artefacts!!