Sep 24, 2009

How do we Know About the Past?

Archaeology is an excellent way into mysteries as I hope the activities here demonstrate. But they’re not just about interest. Activities like Digging up a Mystery introduce pupils to the processes of history and archaeology, how sources trigger questions and hypotheses which then need to be tested against other sources and how conclusions are often more ‘probably’ than ‘certainly’. The simulated discovery has a lot of potential, not just when dealing with the early periods normally associated with archaeology – as any industrial archaeologist will be only too keen to point out.