YAC Project 2023 – The Avebury Papers

Below you can watch Georgia Smith’s presentation given at The Council for British Archaeology and CIfA’s 2024 Early Careers Special Interest Group online conference. The conference was delivered during Youth Day sponsored by the Royal Archaeological Institute as part of the CBA Festival of Archaeology.

Summary: “In recent years, archaeology education for young people has been reduced dramatically, notably by the removal of the archaeology A-level in 2016. The reduction of opportunities to study archaeology in formal education has amplified the need for effective and engaging out-of-school resources. Achieving a balance between presenting archaeological information accurately and presenting it in an age-appropriate manner is key to inspire interest in archaeology, and it is needed now more than ever before.

Currently, the Avebury Papers project is in the process of digitising, transcribing, and publishing online the museum’s archive, which contains a multitude of media including artefacts, photographs, and written documents dating mostly from the 1934-39 excavations led by Keiller. The team is a collaboration of the University of Bristol, the University of York, the National Trust, and the Archaeology Data Service, with support from Historic England and English Heritage.

This study explored effective methods of communicating archaeological techniques to children. As part of this, a two-hour session was delivered to a Young Archaeologists’ Club branch, and its success was evaluated using survey data from both the children and the group leaders. The session was themed around archaeological diaries and included two activities exploring transcription and creative writing, using resources gathered from the Alexander Keiller Museum archive at Avebury. The study concluded with several key points to consider when designing activities for Young Archaeologists’ Club: focus on activities that simulate archaeological methods, consult existing resources, and make evidence clear for leaders who are not archaeologists.

Overall, this research highlights the importance of out-of-school archaeological resources for children, and the responsibility of institutions to use the information they care for to create meaningful and engaging resources. Currently, archaeology within schools is limited to when it fits the National Curriculum, and thus supporting the Young Archaeologists’ Club and other extracurricular groups is vital to inspire the young archaeologists of today and to generate a lifelong interest in the field.”

Georgia’s research is also archived at the York Open Research repository.

By Georgia Smith (BA Archaeology, University of York)

Update August 2024: Georgia’s research won a York Open Research Prize 2024 – congratulations, Georgia! She also presented on her work at the Council for British Archaeology and CIfA’s 2024 Early Careers Special Interest Group online conference.

I’m Georgia, an undergraduate student at the University of York, currently completing my dissertation on communicating archaeological techniques to children.

*Georgia welcoming the young archaeologists to Avebury*.

Back in December 2023 I welcomed a branch of the Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC) to Avebury, to explore the henge, discover how the Avebury Papers team goes about transcribing diary entries, and explore the ways that archaeologists have historically made records.

*Walking around the South West sector at Avebury.*

The session began with a short walk through the henge, where we talked about Keiller’s method of excavation and restoration at Avebury.

There were two activities, separated by a ten-minute break where the children had a snack and a drink. The first activity was based on transcription, where the children were given a range of extracts to try to detangle. The diary pages that were used in the session were taken from Denis Grant King’s 1938 account of his time at the site, as well as the 1934 excavation log written mostly by Alexander Keiller himself, with some entries penned by Stuart Piggott when he was absent.

These diaries represent a range from most complex handwriting (Keiller) to least difficult (Piggott). While I was researching and planning this session in August 2023, I visited the Avebury Papers volunteer team who were in the process of transcribing the excavation logs, which prompted conversation surrounding Alexander Keiller’s slightly illegible penmanship and inspired this activity.

*Young archaeologists have a go at transcribing handwriting from copies of archival materials.*

As they had a go with transcription, a few of the kids asked about what the “answers” were for unfamiliar or indiscernible words. This began a discussion about what the Avebury Papers volunteers do when a word is unidentifiable, such as leaving a blank space or inserting their best guess between square brackets to show their uncertainty. Some of the children incorporated this methodology successfully into their own transcriptions.

The second activity asked the children to attempt to write their own diary entries, imagining that they had spent a day excavating on site.

The influence of the sources from the previous task was evident in some of the children’s diary entries. An example of this is in the picture below, in which it is clear that the child noticed and incorporated some of the style of Keiller’s excavation log, such as the abbreviation of names (e.g. Alexander Keiller becomes AK), the description of the weather, and his brief sentences. Although I’m glad they didn’t incorporate his indecipherable handwriting!

*An entry for ‘July 1924’ by one of the young archaeologists.*

To end, I want to give a big thank you to the YAC members for being so enthusiastic, and to the YAC leaders for all their help throughout the planning process and the session itself.

You may freely view, download, and reuse the diary extracts (images and transcriptions) below. Right click to save files.

Georgia’s workshop outline

GeorgiaSmith_Avebury_Transcription Download

West Kennet Avenue 1934 excavation diary,
accession number 78510467

78510467: 19-20 April, written by Alexander Keiller, spread 71a-71b

WestKennetAvenue_Diary_spread_71 Download