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This page is designed for history teachers and home educators who want to bring archaeology into their teaching in meaningful and manageable ways. Each post explores how material culture, archaeological evidence and investigative thinking can support history learning, helping pupils understand not just what happened in the past, but how we know about it. The focus is on practical ideas, clear examples and approaches that work across all stages, without requiring specialist equipment or prior archaeological knowledge.
Each month I post free downloadable resources that you can use to prepare your lessons.
Material culture means the objects people made and used in the past, such as pots, clothes, tools and buildings. In history lessons, these objects help children learn through evidence, not just stories or dates. Looking closely at objects helps pupils ask questions, spot details and think about how people lived long ago. It also helps them understand how we know about the past, not just what happened. We’ve prepared some resources that we hope you can use with your pupils to explore how material culture helps us understand the past.
When we teach the past, it can look as if societies were neatly separated: “Romans”, “Egyptians”, “Celts”, “Greeks”. Pupils quickly absorb the idea that cultures are like boxes, with clear edges and fixed labels. But archaeology tells a different story. It shows that people have always lived in worlds shaped by contact: through trade, travel, intermarriage, conquest, diplomacy, slavery, pilgrimage, seasonal movement and the everyday realities of living alongside neighbours who did things differently. Archaeology helps us see that identity is not simply inherited or biologically determined. It is shaped through choices, relationships, power, memory and circumstance.
This image has been adapted from an original photograph. The child’s features have been digitally altered using ChatGPT to protect their identity.
How can making a mosaic help pupils understand the Roman world?
How can making a mosaic help pupils understand the Roman world?
Roman mosaics are often admired as beautiful works of art, but they were also the result of careful planning, technical knowledge, skilled labour and considerable time. By making a mosaic themselves, pupils begin to see the practical decisions hidden behind the finished image: how square tesserae can be arranged to form curves, how colour and scale affect a design, why some patterns are more difficult than others and how the size of the tesserae changes both the appearance and the cost of the work.
Archaeology allows us to explore mosaics not simply as decoration, but as evidence for craft, labour, wealth, identity and the use of space. Why were elaborate mosaics placed in some rooms and simpler designs in others? Who designed and made them? What materials were chosen, and what can those choices tell us about the people who commissioned them? Through hands-on making, pupils can think about the knowledge and experience of ancient mosaicists while also reflecting on how archaeologists reconstruct the lives of craftspeople from the objects and buildings they left behind.
Unearthing Greek Sculpture: Make, Move and Discover
Unearthing Greek Sculpture: Make, Move and Discover
Ancient Greek statues are often admired as beautiful works of art, but they were also the result of careful planning, technical knowledge, skilled labour and considerable time. By making a statue themselves, pupils begin to understand the practical decisions hidden behind the finished figure: how a sculptor creates a stable figure, how the body can be balanced while appearing to move, how materials affect what can be made and how details such as facial expressions, clothing and hair contribute to the character of a sculpture.
Archaeology allows us to explore Greek statues not simply as images of gods, heroes and people, but as evidence for craft, labour, identity, belief and social values. Through hands-on making, pupils in schools and home-education settings can think about the knowledge and experience of ancient sculptors while also exploring how archaeologists reconstruct the original appearance, purpose and meaning of sculptures that are often incomplete and have lost much of their original colour.
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