Henbury School Mock Excavation

HENBURY SCHOOL, BRISTOL

Mock Excavation Experience

For three weeks in September, I was given the very unusual task (even more than usual) of becoming a teacher and showing groups of local school children how to become archaeologists for the day. The Myers-Insole Local Learning project had been set up by a Bristol-based archaeologist (now SMR Officer), Peter Insole, and his partner Ruth, a local school teacher, with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. As part of a local learning initiative linking archaeology to the national curriculum through History, Literacy and Numeracy, it was a good excuse to play around in the mud as well as learn about the local community's great archaeological heritage!

The plan was to enable children to engage in the kinds of activities that archaeologists would undertake on a typical excavation. We wanted them to have a go at digging and discovering archaeological artefacts, recording and interpreting features, such as pits and ditches, and even wash their own finds up and identify them. In 2003, Cotswold Archaeology excavated an impressive Iron Age and Roman settlement, including a cemetery containing over 50 burials, under the playing fields of Henbury School, Bristol - the concept was that the whole of year 7 would be attend a mock excavation based on the real Henbury excavation.

Using a simplified version of one of the plans from the excavation report, Peter and myself, spent a couple of days setting up the site and a compound area. We deturfed a 3m by 5m area in the playing fields of Lawrence Weston College and set about recreating a number of pits and ditch terminus'. The finds department had supplied me with a fantastic array of finds including a variety of animal bones, Iron Age and Roman pottery, roof tiles and even some replica Roman coins, which we placed within the features and covered with sand.

Plan of the excavated features

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