Bringing the past to life for Polesworth High School
Earlier this month pupils and teachers from Polesworth High School had the past brought to life for them in a unique archaeological experience.
The school’s archaeology group were granted access to a dig that is part of a research project by Birmingham University and is normally closed to the public.
The dig provided an opportunity for the children, who belong to the school’s archaeology group, to see a real archaeology in action and find out more about Warwickshire’s history.
The children saw the excavation in progress and one of the barrows, a Bronze Age and Neolithic burial mound, being uncovered. They also saw objects found on site earlier this year including pottery and flint.
The research project has been running since 2000 in the area where there is a concentration of sites dating from the Neolithic through to Medieval periods.
The visit was organised as part of a series of events to get the community more involved in local history and is run by Warwickshire County Council’s new community outreach project, Extracting Warwickshire’s Past.
Christina Evans, Archaeological Projects Officer for Warwickshire County Council said: “This is the first school visit to a live dig that we’ve organised and we hope we’ve inspired the kids and teachers to go back to school wanting to know more.”
Paul Addison, a teacher from Polesworth High School said: “The visit was excellent and we would certainly like to do it again. We hope to do more with our local archaeology group in the future and maybe go back to Wolvey next year to see how the excavation is getting on.”
For more information about Warwickshire’s archaeology please visit contact Christina Evans, at Museum Field Services, The Butts, Warwick, CV34 4SS, Tel: 01926 412734.
You can see more information on past work at the Wolvey site at http://www.iaa.bham.ac.uk/research/fieldwork_research_themes/projects/wolvey/wolvey.htm