Time Travelling by Water

Time Travelling by Water appeared at the Hampshire Water Festival for the second year running on the 25^th and 26^th July. The Festival celebrates all aspects of the water around us – from boats on the river, to the animals and insects in it, to the archaeology below it and much more besides. Hundreds of people visited the Time Travelling by Water stand during the Festival to meet our hard-working archaeologists and learn about the range and variety of artefacts that can be found in our seas and rivers. Marine archaeology is often inaccessible so we are pleased that events like this one allow everyone to handle their heritage and explore our past.

Time Travelling by Water will be at the Hampshire Water Festival for the second year running. Join us in the main education marquee this weekend to learn about the archaeology all around us and handle some real finds. The event is open to the public from 10am on the 25^th and 26^th July and this year is being held in Staunton Park, Hampshire.

Time Travelling by Water’s Festival of British Archaeology celebrations at Salisbury Museum were a huge success. Crowds of intrepid archaeologists braved the weather to make this one of the largest celebrations of British archaeology held at the museum in recent years. Visitors to the Time Travelling by Water stall learnt about trade and the routes that have bought food to our tables in the past. We would like to thank everyone who took part in making the day a great success.

Time Travelling by Water will be celebrating the Festival of British Archaeology at Salisbury Museum on the 18th July.

The theme of the day is ‘Fabulous Food and Gruesome Grub’ and Time Travelling by Water will be exploring some of the ancient trade routes that have brought different foods to our tables. Join us on the front lawn of the museum and step into our giant world map to explore these for yourself. You can also make your own medieval sailing vessel, handle real finds and ask the experts your archaeological questions…and that’s just on the Time Travelling by Water stall!

Entry to the museum is free on the 18th of July and other events include meeting a Georgian tea dealer and a Tudor confectioner, and helping to create a medieval feast. Hope to see you then.

 Download the Festival of British Archaeology at Salisbury Museum Poster.

Time Travelling by Water has spent the last two weeks in Norfolk supporting Wessex Archaeology’s Area 240 project.

During the first week over 300 people aged between 9 and 90 benefitted from talks and workshops delivered in Norwich and Great Yarmouth.

Four times this number of people learnt about the project last week at the Norfolk Show, a huge event visited by thousands, where visitors had the chance to handle real archaeological finds.

Time Travelling by Water will be in Norfolk for the next two weeks to support Wessex Archaeology’s Area 240 project. Our Area 240 team are exploring an area of seabed 13km east of Great Yarmouth, where flint tools and animal remains from thousands of years ago were found last year. Time Travelling by Water will be talking to schools, community groups and appearing at event days such as the Royal Norfolk Show. Hope to see you there!

For more information on this or any Time Travelling by Water project please contact education officer Gemma Ingason.

Time Travelling by Water joined Sutton College of Learning for Adults (SCOLA) last Saturday to host some fun free family activities in Sutton Library.

Intrepid volunteers snorkelled to discover real archaeological finds and handled some dry finds on our touch table. These included a 1940’s telescope, a machine gun and mammoth tusk and teeth, all of which have been dredged up from around our coasts. The events were very much enjoyed and there was a great response form the public.

Though Sutton, in Surrey, is not within one of Time Travelling by Water’s target counties, this event demonstrates the out of area interest in this valuable project. This is especially important in an area which has seen much development over the past few years, much of which will have used marine aggregate.

How big was a woolly mammoth and what tools did people in the past use to hunt them? Intrepid visitors to Trowbridge Museum found out the answer to these questions on Thursday when Time Travelling by Water joined forces with the Trowbridge Archaeology Group to explore past Ice Ages.

During an Ice Age the earth becomes colder and water freezes into ice sheets. At these times land which is today underwater (and studied by marine archaeologists) is dry enough for people and the animals they hunted to live on. This means that some of the best evidence for exploring Ice Age people can be found under the water. Fittingly then our brave volunteers donned snorkels to find mammoth remains and explore ancient prehistoric tools on our submerged virtual seabed. 

But how big was a woolly mammoth? To answer this question we looked to our feet. We made life-size replicas of mammoth footprints and drew our own footprints inside them. We found out that a mammoth’s foot is 13 times bigger than one of our own – using a size 3 ½ shoe – so a woolly mammoth would have been around 13 times bigger than one of our volunteers. They were around 3 metres tall and 3 metres long from tusk to tail. To remind us of what these impressive beasts looked like we modelled them in clay – though of course not at actual size. And we marvelled at how people in the past hunted such large creatures.

Time Travelling by Water is joining forces with the Trowbridge Archaeology Group this summer to step into the Ice Age! 

On Thursday 21^st August we will be at Trowbridge Museum hosting some mammoth activities. You can drop in anytime between 10 and 12.30 to join in the fun.

We’ll be searching underwater for mammoth remains and exploring real woolly mammoth bones from thousands of years ago. Visit the museum on the 21^st to see how your footprint compares to a mammoth’s and find out how our distant ancestors were able to hunt these massive animals. Play pin the tail on the mammoth and make your own clay mini mammoth to take home!

Time Travelling by Water celebrated the Hampshire Water Festival in Romsey last weekend.

Rather appropriately the forecast was for rain and it didn’t disappoint! Hampshire residents weren’t put off by the deluge and the festival was a huge success.

Intrepid explorers visiting the Time Travelling by Water stand learnt about the history of Romsey and dived deep to uncover a range of submerged artefacts – all of which were discovered underwater. This reminded us of how important water has been to people in the past whilst the festival celebrated how important water is to us today.