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I went to the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological
Research Project (SHARP), between King's Lynn and Hunstanton, to
do a course on the archaeology of human remains, looking mainly
at skeletons.
The course was run by Dr Pat Reid, who works for
SHARP and was arranged by the NAGTY (National Association for Gifted
and Talented Youth).
Robert, right, with a skeleton |
During the past 10 years, the SHARP team has unearthed
over 100 skeletons from an Anglo-Saxon early Christian graveyard.
Every Easter, they have an archaeological dig.
There were 14 people on the course and we worked
in groups of three or four, each group with a skeleton.
We looked at the different ways to tell the age,
sex and find the build of the skeleton, as well as find out the
cause of death or any other illnesses the skeleton suffered from
at the time of death.
All of the skeletons we handled were dug up locally
at the Sedgeford dig.
My group worked with S1012, also known as Edith.
It is normal for the first digger to find a skeleton to name it.
As the first bone you find is nearly always the
forehead, the names are often the wrong sex, for example "Princess
Leia" is a six foot male!
The skeleton |
We were shown how to age our skeletons by looking
at how worn the teeth were.
We were also shown how to tell the sex of our skeleton.
You can find this out by looking at the the pelvis (hip), the cranium
(head).
Next, we we learnt about pathology which was basically
looking at bones and seeing if they were normal, or if they had
lumpy outgrowths or holes.
After the course the groups got together to talk
about their findings. We found that Edith was a 50-60 year old female,
about 1.57m who had a bad back and a limp.
Achilles was a male with a misshapen skull, too
small for his body, and Cnut was a 6'2'' male, who died from a sword
blow across the back of the head!
I enjoyed the course as it included an opportunity
to do something new and quite unique, in handling real skeletons.
It was a very interesting course and has shown
me what sort of information could be discovered from a skeleton
even after one day - maybe next time I will do a week long course!
If you want to find out how you can get involved
or become a volunteer with SHARP, you can find out more information
from the SHARP website.
If you'd like to write a report for the kids
section on a topic of your choice, then email us at Norfolk@bbc.co.uk
and put 'NORFOLK KIDS' in the subject.
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