Year 3 had the chance to be archaeologists this week when we visited the Horniman museum for a Prehistoric Britain workshop.
Having spent the past term studying the topic, including the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, we were very excited to get our hands on some replica and authentic artefacts from the time period. At the museum we were introduced to the role archaeologists play in discovering how we used to live and were given the chance to try it out for ourselves.
First, we shared our knowledge about Prehistoric Britain, including what we knew about how people lived, what they ate and how they found food. We were then shown a number of artefacts that were laid out around a skeleton. These included animal skins, a fish skeleton, deer antlers, and lots of stone tools. We had to look closely at these to decide what they had been used for. We decided that they had eaten fish, used the skins for clothing or shelter, and the antlers and tools for hunting or building. We were then allowed to hold a fossilised mammoth tooth! It was huge, rough and heavy.
Then, we had the chance to look at and touch more artefacts. We explored the concepts of hunting and farming by looking at animal skulls. We were able to look at and explore the objects at a fake archaeological dig site, deciding where and how we thought the person had lived by examining the artefacts. We also had the chance to feel and explore tools from the time period, including a hand axe that was 300,000 years old!
After our workshop we were able to explore the museum grounds and the permanent exhibitions to find objects in the collection that also came from Prehistoric Britain. This included a visit to the animal walk where we got to see some large, fluffy sheep up close, while thinking about how farming had developed during the Neolithic Stone Age.
We really enjoyed our trip to the museum, particularly getting to see the animals and touching the really old objects. Some of us are even interested in a career in archaeology now!