Stories

Advanced search

Back to the Stone Age

26 August 2009

Archaeologist holding up muddy trowel

An archaeologist at West Amesbury
Image by Aerial-Cam/SRP 2008

Work by Bristol-based archaeologists at some of the world’s most important Neolithic, or New Stone Age, sites gives local people and enthusiasts the chance to get close to our distant past.

Dr Joshua Pollard is an archaeologist who specialises in the European Neolithic Period. Over the past few years he has been co-director of major collaborative projects at the famous Neolithic sites around Avebury and Stonehenge. These projects have won praise for the way they give people the chance to get involved in their heritage by volunteering to help with research.

“There’s a long tradition in British archaeology of amateur involvement in fieldwork,” says Joshua. “This is manifest in the number of local archaeological societies, but there are also individuals who have a passing interest, visit an excavation and then end up volunteering.”

For archaeologists, this is a long-standing part of their culture and brings many benefits. Joshua explains: “Many archaeologists have an ethos that encourages public volunteers to take part – it helps with local relations and with assisting public understanding, as well as providing extra ‘hands’ for the work.”

Many archaeologists have an ethos that encourages public volunteers to take part – it helps with local relations, and with assisting public understanding, as well as providing extra ‘hands’ for the work.

Dr Joshua Pollard
And those ‘hands’ bring a huge amount of variety to the sites. “Often local volunteers are more enthusiastic than our students!” says Joshua. “You get some interesting people volunteering – the last excavation included a water board engineer, army major and retired wing commander.”

For their part, the volunteers get a huge amount out of it. “I suppose it’s a sense of participating in research, learning new skills, having a direct contact with the past,” says Joshua: “basically the same reasons that lead archaeologists to embark on their careers.” In fact, volunteering on the sites has led at least two young people to go on to study and work in the field; testimony to the lasting enthusiasm that can happen when researchers work with local people to uncover the past.

Please contact The Public Engagement Officer for further information.

Further information:

The Longstones Project is the subject of a case study by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which praises its public engagement elements: Avebury and the Longstones. The University of Sheffield hosts the official website of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. The AHRC has also produced a case study on the project. If you want to get involved in archaeological volunteering, there are lists of archaeological excavations that welcome volunteers published in two magazines: British Archaeology and Current Archaeology. Alternatively, find out where your local archaeological society meets. If you live in or around Bristol, there are two local societies: the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society and the Bristol and Avon Archaeological Society.