New school pack brings Avebury to life

Wessex Archaeology has produced a new online Teacher’s Kit for Avebury World Heritage Site, commissioned by English Heritage.

The new Teacher’s Kit is available online from today. It will soon be available on the English Heritage website.

The Kit will help schoolchildren heading for Avebury and the surrounding monuments make the most of their trip to the World Heritage Site. It is a downloadable resource for teachers of Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils. As well as information sheets for teachers there are on-site investigation sheets, puzzles, maps, treasure hunts and other games and activities to help pupils to learn about the history of these historical sites in an entertaining and engaging way.

“We want to encourage more schools to come to Avebury World Heritage Site and ensure that pupils have an educational and stimulating visit,” explained Lucy Bradley, Education Manager for English Heritage in the South West.

“The site is steeped in a rich and mysterious history and there is so much children can learn from a visit here. This new web resource will help them to discover the site’s historical significance using fun learning tools”.

The Teacher’s Kit came about after last year’s successful project at Silbury Hill to stabilise the ancient man-made mound. “Pupils from two primary schools and a secondary school visited while the work was in progress. The visit really helped the children to get an in-depth learning experience of the mysterious hill”, said Lucy “So we thought it would be great if we could create a Teacher’s Kit which encourages active learning for visits to the whole World Heritage Site.”

Avebury World Heritage Site is a Neolithic landscape which encompasses Avebury Stone Circle, West Kennet Long Barrow and Avenue, The Sanctuary, Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill.

Avebury Stone Circle, West Kennet Long Barrow and Avenue, The Sanctuary and Windmill Hill are managed by The National Trust on behalf of English Heritage.

View the Avebury Monuments Teacher’s Kit.

The South (West Kennet) Avenue at Avebury is part of one of the greatest surviving concentrations of monuments from the Neolithic (4000-2000 BC) and Bronze Age (2400-700 BC) in Western Europe.

British Telecom cables, running alongside the road parallel to the Avenue, need updating. So Bob Davis of Wessex Archaeology was asked to work with the BT engineer to record any significant finds uncovered during the maintenance work.

While digging under the cable trench to the north end of the Avenue, Bob uncovered a small pit containing cattle bones and fragments of pottery. Similar pits had been discovered in the 1930s when Alexander Keiller carried out investigations between the stones of the Avenue and within the great henge itself.

The exact date and function of these pits has remained a mystery. The deposits follow a similar pattern, with cattle bones and pottery sherds placed deliberately within the pits, suggesting that a ritual has taken place.

The pottery in this pit, as in many others in the area, is of a type known as Mortlake pottery, dating between 3400-2500 BC.

The cattle bones are being sent for radiocarbon dating which will give useful information not only about this newly discovered pit, but also about the ones dug some 70 years ago when such precise dating tests were not available.

School children from three local primary schools were at Avebury taking part in an education project with Wessex Archaeology and World Heritage Sites. They had an unexpected treat when they were invited to handle objects fresh from the ground where they had been buried for more than 4,000 years.

See the full story at http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/wiltshire/avebury/index.html