Evidence

Find out about the importance of ‘rubbish’ to archaeologists; investigate some ‘rubbish’ thrown away by a family today.

Teaching Outcomes:

• To understand that different materials degrade over different lengths of time when buried, and discuss the importance of ‘rubbish’ to archaeologists.
• To set up and report on an enquiry on the perishability of different materials.

Children will:

• Explain that some materials in the Indus Valley have not survived being buried for thousands of years.
• Understand that ancient rubbish tips can be good sources of information for archaeologists.
• Set up and carry out an enquiry to find out how quickly different materials perish.

This session does not need any provided resources.

• Black bin liner with some selected clean ‘rubbish’ from your home, e.g. food packaging, bus/train ticket, lengths of wool, an old cotton T-shirt, newspaper, chipped mug, photos no longer required, old mobile phone, light bulb (care needs to be taken!), plastic comb, broken toy, jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece, plastic drinks bottle, key, plastic shopping bag, an old paperback, toy car, etc.
• Garden soil or compost, sand, water, containers
• Clay objects, both fired and unfired if possible
• Bake some wheat and barley grains, chickpeas and lentils in a low oven for 12 hours to represent carbonisation
• Seeds, pieces of wood, leaves, vegetables, paper, cardboard, fabrics, clean food packaging, small unwanted toys, newspaper, paper written on with different media, plastic items, drink cans, broken ceramics
• Disposable gloves for handling soil/sand

This activity can be downloaded as a PDf from this website from bbc.co.uk
Useful resources about the speed of decay from exploringnature.org