ARCHAEOLOGY:The study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artefacts and other physical remains.
Dear 7B,
I love that description of archaeology up there. It makes the task sound so clean, so simple, so straightforward. It might be more honest to mention that archaeology is a slow, painstaking and supremely messy job, which is only undertaken by truly dedicated people in a quest for knowledge.
I hope you’ll show some of the same attention to detail in History, though I don’t expect you to get muddy. Of course, there is always the oval, should we decide that we need to set up a dig…
Today you can learn more about the story of Ötzi, the man from theCopper Agewho, about 5000 years ago, climbed up a glacier and died. Naturally preserved in this frozen environment, he was found in 1991 and became the subject of intense archaeological study.
This is an example of natural mummification, like the kind that sometimes occurs in a peat bog, where the lack of oxygen and the low temperatures slow the decay of the body. In Cheshire, England, for instance, two well-preserved bodies were discovered in Lindow Moss in the 1980s, arousing great archaeological interest. At the time Lindow Woman was found, police suspected a criminal, Peter Reyn-Bardt, of the murder of his wife. Confronted with the discovery of Lindow Woman, Reyn-Bardt confessed to the murder; imagine his chagrin when radio-carbon dating later showed that in fact the body was almost 2000 years old. On the strength of his confession, however, he was later found guilty of his wife’s murder.
(The radiologists who studied Lindow Man nicknamed him “Pete Marsh”, a play on the phrase “peat marsh”. The British press took up the phrase.)
And now, back to Ötzi…
Read these sites to discover more…
♦DNA tests have been successful in producing Ötzi’s complete genome. Read the details at this site.
♦Ötzi was wearing an intriguing collection of clothing, including a grass cloak, specially made shoes that allowed him to walk in the Alps and a knee-length garment made of tanned goat leather. The shoes are particularly interesting because they were made of bear leather (sole) and deer leather (upper) and were carefully lined to protect Ötzi’s feet from the cold. For precise details about Ötzi’s clothing, go to this link:
♦Ötzi was carrying some beautifully crafted tools, including the only perfectly preserved prehistoric axeever found. While the axe was made of copper, the dagger was made of flint. This shows that even when people started using copper, flint was still a very important resource. Read about Ötzi’s equipment at this site:
YOUR TASK: See what else you can discover about Ötzi. Create an A4 page of pictures and information boxes. Include one box with 4 conclusions about Ötzi, which should be worded with care. Make use of some of the “possibility words” in the slide at the bottom of this post.
This is my Year 7 History Blog, an amateur mini-website that you can use to brush up on your knowledge and extend your reading beyond your text book.
The best thing about this blog is, you can visit it any time, whether at school or at home, so long as you know the address. That means you can use it to check on what we’re doing in class, to flick through class powerpoints, to revise for tests and to find websites with useful information.
There’s a little alien whose name is at the top of this blog. His name is Emit Repoons. You can see him in the picture below. In a way, he is the mascot of the blog.
You have been a delightful class so far, full of ideas and quick with intelligent comments and knowledgeable remarks.