Archaeology in local history studies
These notes are intended to give teachers some ideas of how to use the
archaeological database on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire's Past website in a
local history study. There are links on the version of these notes on the website
from each of the titles below to a worksheet that can be used in the classroom to
help your pupils use the website. Alternatively, you can use these notes to
become familiar with the website yourself and then guide your pupils through a
study of their local area.
National Curriculum Links
This package describes how you can use archaeology in a local history study.
Archaeological skills also overlap with geographical skills.
History; Key Stage 2
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7: local history study
Geography; Key Stage 2
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6a: study a locality
Worksheets
Mapping findspots in your parish
Prerequisites: How to read a map
Other relevant worksheets: What do archaeological artefacts tell us?
Findspot is the term archaeologists use to refer to the place where an artefact
has been found, either on the surface, with a metal-detector or from deeper
excavation.
Mapping findspots can sometimes give clues as to the location and character of
past human activity. An easy way to do this is on the Unlocking
Buckinghamshire’s Past website. Once your pupils have done their search for
findspots in your parish they can choose to display the results on a map by
clicking on the Map the results button at the bottom of the page.
You can change the map layer that shows under your findspots to be either a
modern map, a historic map or a vertical aerial photograph. Features on an
historic map may correlate with your findspots. It may also be useful to look at
the vertical aerial photograph to see the lie of the land, although you must
Archaeology in local history studies
remember that the field system and vegetation cover will probably have been
very different in the past. The pupil worksheet asks them to choose which layer
they want to display their results on and print it out. If there are concentrations of
findspots you may want to zoom in and look at these in more detail.
Once this is printed they can label the map. Your pupils will need to keep the
map on the computer open so they can hover over each findspot, find out what it
is and label the corresponding findspot on their printed map. You should tell your
pupils that each findspot may have five dots, one for the centre and one for each
of the four corners showing the area from which the artefact/s came. In this case
they do not need to label each of the five dots but should put a label in the
centre. The children will have to make decisions about where is best to put their
labels as some of the findspots could be very close to each other.
If you have few findspots in your parish and there are clear concentrations of
artefacts of a single period then all you may need to do is get your students to
draw a circle or box around each concentration and label it with a date e.g.
Roman. If you have lots of findspots it may be better if your pupils trace the base
map and photocopy that several times and then label one map with the
prehistoric finds, another with Roman and so on.
Once your students have identified concentrations of finds of a single period,
they can look at what the artefacts actually are to give an idea of why they are
there. Ploughing will have disturbed many sites and so artefacts might be spread
over a field. The descriptions of each record may give a reason, such as the
presence of a building, industrial site or burial, for instance. Otherwise you can
ask your pupils to suggest some ideas. Here are some guidelines:
Prehistoric:
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Settlement – this might include scatters of pottery sherds, animal bone
and flint tools and flakes.
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Industrial - (a flint-working site). A large number of flakes and cores
would indicate an industrial site. Prehistoric pottery kilns are rare but a
large number of pottery sherds and misfired sherds could suggest a
kiln. Metal-working sites can be identified by the presence of slag,
which is formed during the smelting process and looks like a metallic
lump of stone.
Archaeology in local history studies
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Roman
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Saxon
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Hunting site - may be suggested by arrowheads as well as some
flakes, which could have been used to skin the animal after it had been
shot.
Burial – burial practices changed during prehistory but generally may
include pottery, items of personal decoration, such as beads and
jewellery, and weapons, such as arrowheads and spearheads.
Ritual site – these can range from large sites such as causewayed
enclosures to votive offerings in a river or bog. Often large stone or
metal tools are deposited, such as axes or spearheads.
Settlement – this might include scatters of pottery sherds, oyster shell,
animal bone and building material such as brick and tile and maybe a
few coins.
Industrial – Roman pottery kilns can sometimes be identified by lots of
pottery sherds, many misfired so their shapes are distorted, and items
used in the kiln to separate pots from one another. Metal-working sites
can be identified by the presence of slag, which is formed during the
smelting process and looks like a metallic lump of stone.
Burial – Roman burials, whether inhumations or cremations, can
include pottery, glass and metal vessels as well as brooches and
beads.
Ritual site – temples and shrines were often the focus of votive
offerings in the Roman period, including coins, miniature tools such as
axes or scythes and clay figurines.
Settlement – pottery, oyster shell, animal bone.
Industrial – early Saxon kilns are difficult to identify as they were more
temporary and flimsy structures than Roman ones. Later Saxon kilns
are also rare as pottery-making does not seem to have been very
widespread. Metal-working sites are also rare, perhaps because they
are difficult to date.
Burial – In early Saxon burials you may find pottery, glass and metal
vessels, brooches, rings, beads, metal spearheads, shield bosses,
strap ends (belt mounts). In later burials when the majority of the
population were Christian it is rare to find any grave goods and so the
Archaeology in local history studies
only stray finds may be bits of human bone where they have been
broken up by the plough.
Medieval
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Settlement – pottery, oyster shell, animal bone, building material such
as stone and tile.
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Industrial – medieval pottery kilns are much more common than Saxon
ones. Pottery starts to be made on an industrial scale. Normal and
misfired pottery sherds can suggest the site of a medieval kiln. These
kilns also sometimes made brick and tile.
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Burial – Like later Saxon burials medieval burials were Christian and
so did not contain grave goods. Human bone is sometimes found on
the surface if it has been churned up by ploughing.
Post-medieval
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Settlement – pottery, animal bones, building material such as brick,
stone and tile.
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Industrial – Pottery kilns are still in action as well as brick and tile-kilns;
these can be identified by normal and misfired pottery, brick and tile
fragments. Cattle horn-cores suggest the working of horn for windows,
vessels and lanterns amongst other things. Many other industrial sites
are still standing.
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Burial – Human bone may be the only suggestion of burial as grave
goods are very rare in this period too.
Mapping listed buildings in your parish
Prerequisites: How to read maps
Other relevant worksheets: How to date buildings
Buildings are listed if they are considered to be of historical or architectural
importance. English Heritage decides which buildings should be listed and
whether or not people living in them can make changes to them.
Most churches are listed and are usually the oldest building in a village or town.
Non-conformist chapels are also often listed. Usually most other listed buildings
are secular and date from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Some secular
buildings fall outside this date range. Although most of our towns and villages
now have houses dating to the twentieth century, these will not appear on the
Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website because they are not listed.
Archaeology in local history studies
The pupil worksheet asks the children to search for all the listed buildings in your
parish on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website and display them on a
map. Unlike with findspots and archaeological sites, listed buildings usually have
only one dot showing where they are. Listed buildings will often be very close to
one another, as well. Sometimes whole streets are listed individually. This might
mean that your pupil’s maps have to be zoomed right in to distinguish between
houses and for labelling purposes.
The children are then asked to work out what period most of the listed buildings
are in your parish. Many of the listed buildings have a wide date range, mainly
due to rebuilding and repair at later dates. Your pupils should be able to decide
which is the main period of building by reading the descriptions. If there are a lot
of listed buildings in the parish, divide the class into groups and get each group
to look at a small number of the listed buildings. The children should then be able
to create a bar chart displaying houses of different centuries.
Outside the classroom
Once this is done, you may like to use the How to date your village’s buildings
worksheet to take the class out into your village/town and identify some of the
listed buildings from the map and descriptions. You may want to decide which
buildings to look at first from the ones that look most interesting. It would also be
good to look at buildings from a range of dates.
Your class should be able to pick out the dominant features of each century’s
buildings, such as timber-framing in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries,
fanlights over windows in the eighteenth century and so on. Even if you are not
able to take the class out to look at the buildings, many have images linked to
them on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website and features specific to
each century can be deduced from the description, for instance, cruck-built
houses tend to date to the fifteenth century.
If you do go out, perhaps the children can take photographs with disposable
cameras or draw one of the listed buildings and stick the resulting pictures onto a
large version of the map to create the display.
Posters
Finally the children are asked to put everything together to create a poster. The
finished poster should have:
Archaeology in local history studies
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Title
The main building period for your village
The main characteristic of that building period
The reason why the houses date to that century
Pictures of a few of the houses in the village taken either from the
Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website or taken or drawn by the
children themselves
The listed building descriptions for the houses you have pictures of –
you may need to help the children put these in their own words
Your bar chart showing the number of houses from each century
Your map created from the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website
of the listed buildings in your parish
Mapping periods of archaeological activity in your parish
Prerequisites: How to read maps
Other relevant worksheets: Changes in the landscape
In order to find out what archaeology is in your parish you need to go to the
Advanced Search on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website and click on
the box next to Objects/Finds to deselect this type of record. Then on the first line
choose the following options:
Location
Area – Civil Parish
(choose parish)
Type/Description
Monument Record Type
Archaeology
Run the search. You can display the results on a map by clicking on the Map the
Results button at the bottom of the page. Different map layers can be displayed
under the archaeological sites, such as historic maps and aerial photographs.
Features on an historic map may correlate with your archaeological sites. It may
also be useful to look at the vertical aerial photograph to see the lie of the land,
although you must remember that the field system and vegetation cover will
probably have been very different in the past. The pupil worksheet asks them to
choose which layer they want to display their results on and print it out.
The pupil worksheet then takes the children through drawing copies of the map
and displaying each period’s sites on separate maps and labelling them. This
Archaeology in local history studies
helps the children get to grips with maps and understand the spatial patterning in
the parish. Alternatively you can do searches and print out a map for each
period, especially if your area has lots of overlapping sites. If there are a few
concentrations of sites, you can zoom in and look at those in more detail.
You should make your pupils aware that many sites have five dots to show the
four corners of the extent of the site. Your pupils should label just the centre of
this area. If there are any types of site where you are not quite sure about the
function, take the link from the monument type to its glossary term.
A number of generic questions have been devised for the pupil’s worksheet but if
after doing your search you come across a well-researched site or something
unusual you may want to concentrate on those areas.
From this point your pupils will have a number of maps and could be asked to do
some more work, such as
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Comparing the archaeological sites to the findspots of the same period
– do they correspond or do the findspots suggest further sites to be
discovered? (See the Mapping findspots in your parish worksheet)
Drawing reconstructions of the sites they have come across (see the
Draw a reconstruction worksheet)
Looking at the aerial photographs of the sites and plotting the
cropmarks onto maps (see the Interpreting aerial photographs and
How to do map plots of archaeological features from aerial
photographs worksheets)
Doing period-based worksheets to compare what is in your parish to
the rest of Buckinghamshire
Visiting and recording some of the sites, especially if there are
upstanding earthworks (see the Lumps and bumps in the ground
worksheet).
Case Study - Waddesdon local history study
This study was undertaken with Waddesdon School in order to work out how to
incorporate archaeological information into local history studies at Key Stage 2.
Example results and real work are both available for other teachers to use as
examples for them to create their own local history study and/or to show pupils
Archaeology in local history studies
so they know what to aim for. There are several maps that we cannot display
online.
The children were first asked to look at the findspots for the village and print off
their results on a map, all of which could be done on the Unlocking
Buckinghamshire’s Past website. You can look at the results on the Waddesdon
findspots page.
They were then asked to identify different periods of archaeological remains.
From counting up the number of sites per period they could determine which
were the main periods of activity. You may want to concentrate on a certain
period or would prefer to look in less detail at a wider range of periods. In
Waddesdon the Roman and medieval periods were chosen. You can see the
results by looking at the Waddesdon in the Roman period and Waddesdon in the
medieval period pages.
Finally the children were asked to look at the listed buildings in the parish. Some
of these overlapped with the medieval period but most of them were later in date.
Because of the presence of Waddesdon Manor house in the parish it was
considered appropriate to look at that house and all the garden features, which
are all listed. Most of these structures date to the nineteenth century and you can
see the results on the Waddesdon in the Victorian period page.
All in all the children learned about a good range of periods from the Roman to
the nineteenth century, and also from a range of types of archaeological
evidence, findspots, sites and buildings. Many of the latter were visible and
Waddesdon Manor itself was usually part of a visit when learning about local
history. After using the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website this visit could
be much more rewarding as the teachers and pupils knew in advance the date
and subject of each of the garden structures. Because of this the children could
work out what the Rothschild family were trying to say about themselves through
their garden architecture.