18/08/2015   |   Megan Clement

Over the summer, Team North has been busy outreaching across the region. So we thought we would give you the load down on a few of the different things we’ve been up to ...

In May, CITiZAN attended the Dearne Valley Archaeology Day, a day conference set up by Elmet Archaeology Ltd, at Dearne Valley College. This was the first of many day schools CITiZAN North plan on attending to spread the word about our project. The talks included fascinating topics such as; witchmarks at Knole, rediscovering forgotten women archaeologists and how an archaeozoologist’s pet chicken linked to Anglo-Saxon burials. Megan spoke about coastal and intertidal archaeology and what CITiZAN are hoping to achieve over the next few years.

July was a busy month for outreach and training for CITiZAN, in every region! July is the month of the Festival of British Archaeology and CITiZAN had many events organized for this. In typical British summer weather, CITiZAN North spent a very soggy day in York Museum Garden's outreaching to waterproof local residents and those as far away as South Africa. The public were most fascinated by the range of finds that could be collected along English beaches and were shown examples of Roman roof tiles, a clay pipe bowl with a Hussar's face, a Post-medieval shoe buckle and a fragment of clear glass from a HP Sauce bottle (my favourite!).

Later that month, we took a trip a bit further south to Sheffield, to meet an eager bunch of Young Archaeologists' at Weston Park Museum. The topic today - Coastal and Intertidal Archaeology! Through a few games and activities the Young Archaeologists' learnt about what to look out for on the coast including; lighthouses, boats, pillboxes and fish traps. Now clued up on what to look for, we let them loose on our portable foreshore challenging them to archaeologically plan a fish trap, parts of a submerged forest and an anchor chain. We finished the session by making tin foil boats, which produced everything from tiny pirate ships to huge luxury liners.

One type of outreach that we do frequently in the North is guided walks. In July we hosted one at Heysham, focusing on the National Trust’s site of St Patrick's Chapel and surrounding area; looking at the exciting and beautiful archaeology of the area. The walk covered everything from a Post-medieval terraced orchard, to a Mesolithic settlement site, to an Anglo-Saxon plastered chapel and finally concluding at St Peter's Church and the best preserved Viking Hogback Stone in England. The unique human-shaped rock cut graves at St Patrick’s chapel provoked the most questions of the walk and were a lot of peoples favourite feature.

Hopefully this gives a flavour of what outreach Team North, and indeed the other regions, have been up to over the summer and what is to come in the next few years. There is something for everyone!