Member Article

Hirst Park Middle School students capture history in the making

Budding historians and investigative journalists at Hirst Park Middle School in Ashington who documented the excavation and rescue of delicate prehistoric remains at Druridge Bay through a series of films received a special visit from the lead archaeologist.

Dr Clive Waddington from Archaeological Research Services Ltd, which led the ‘Rescued from the Sea’ Community Archaeology Project at Low Hauxley on Druridge Bay, joined pupils for a unique workshop to tell them more about the site’s past inhabitants.

Some of the artefacts recovered from the multi-period site include 14,000 flints, many of which have been worked, narrow-bladed microliths, which are stone tools from the late Mesolithic period, pottery beakers, Bronze Age serrated knives and a spectacular Neolithic leaf-shaped arrowhead.

The excavation also uncovered an Iron Age structure with a stone flagged surface and three stone-lined hearths, a Bronze Age cemetery and a 16m wide burial cairn.

As well as looking at the progress of the excavations, the films produced by the students also look at the community and educational aspects of the project, generating over 100,000 hits on You Tube.

Brian Cosgrove, media manager at Hirst Park Middle School and the Ashington Learning Partnership, said: It’s fantastic to welcome Dr Waddington and his team for a project update. It was always a feature of the Rescued from the Sea excavations that local schools would play in important part but it was thought that this would simply involve groups of students actually taking part in the dig.

“When Hirst Park Middle School arrived with a team of young investigative journalists and a plan to make a series of video features we took the educational element in a slightly different direction. Our student media crews worked with volunteers and professionals throughout the excavation and I am very proud of their achievements. The final cuts are extremely professional and we’ve had fantastic feedback from the archaeology team and partners at the Northumberland Wildlife Trust about their work.”

The student video crews have not only learned the technical skills involved in recording video and sound, they have also had to do research, come up with scripts and questions, and have been involved with the final edit of each film.

Dr Clive Waddington, said: “Giving young people the opportunity to be a part of an inspiring and exciting project like this is fantastic in so many ways. They’re directly involved in discovering, understanding and recording their past heritage, the changing landscape and life in Northumberland through the ages.

“The film crews from Hirst Park Middle School have been great to work with. Their enthusiasm and professionalism was exceptional and the films have brought an important dimension to the project, giving people a fantastic insight into the excavation.”

Further evidence of Mesolithic activity has also been found in an inter-tidal peat bed located to the south of the site. Impressed into the peat are over 100 animal and human footprints, created when hunter-gatherer-fisher groups lived in this area. Both adult and child footprints have been identified. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed that the footprints are approximately 7000 years old.

Rescued from the Sea is a partnership project formed primarily between Northumberland Wildlife Trust and Archaeological Research Services Ltd, with funding from Heritage Lottery Fund.

The project was launched last year due to coastal erosion from the sea. The clay, peat and sand foreshore at Low Hauxley is disappearing at the rate of a metre a year and is potentially claiming thousands of years of history with it.

Once all the artefacts from the dig have been studied and recorded they will go on exhibition at the Great North Museum in Newcastle.

Hirst Park Middle School’s Rescued from the Sea documentaries:

http://hirstparkmiddle.org/index.php/rescued-from-the-sea

http://hirstparkmiddle.org/index.php/news

http://hirstparkmiddle.org/index.php/bonus-video-two

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Amy Maughan, Contributor .