Celts and The Iron Age

We found some smashing books in the library to help us with our prehistory work. We learnt that the Celts spread from Austria, throughout northern Europe. The Boy was thrilled to contribute that the Celtic French were called Gauls. He loves Asterix and Obelix!

Understanding how communities formed, settled and functioned  throughout Britain.

Scottish Broch: a stone house with several floors.

 Our super cool artifact discoveries from our week-long garden dig were cleaned and classified.

I am in contact with several people in an attempt to date these amazing nails.

 A bunch of bones! 

And some incredible pottery. Good work kiddies!

Iron Age warrior with blue face paint (they made theirs from woad), colouring in a Celtic picture.

Iron Age oatcakes

We ate these with mashed swede and pork, something that would perhaps have been in the Iron Age diet? They were YUM!

Celtic colouring

Taming a Robin, The Beaker People and Wattle & Daub Farming Settlements

We've worked our way through to the Bronze Age.

Timeline of prehistory

As communities began to settle their houses changed. Rather than use animal hide shelters which could be packed up and transported during the hunter/gatherer years, they began to make permanent homes with wattle and daub walls and turf or thatched roofs. We made our own version of wattle and daub, minus the manure. :)

Britain was home to lynx, wolves and brown bears. Panda girl put them on the timeline under the years which historians think they died out.

The Boy made a woolly mammoth.

And animal finger puppets.

And the girls made Stone Age and Bronze Age people finger puppets.

Some interesting prehistoric printables.

We talked about Bronze Age burial hoards. Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin and the discovery was huge. We made a 'bronze' sword, arrowhead, jewellery and bowls.

We also learnt about the Beaker people who arrived in Britain from the continent. They made decorative pottery beakers.

Stone Age burial long mounds became Bronze Age burial barrows.

Bronze Age circular rock art. It's not easy to chisel a circle!

Understanding how bronze is made.

 And archaeology. This had to be done. It turned into hours, which turned into days and days of digging and exclamations and lots of animal bones and pottery and long nails. Cool!

Incredibly the children tamed a robin while they were digging. Tempting him with dozens of grubs they unearthed, he now sits on their hand and feeds off of it! Amazing!