The Topical Tuesday this week revolves around the strange occurrence of taking a 4,000-year-old skeleton to the dentist.
When a tree in Dorset was ripped up by a storm, it revealed a crushed skeleton, and Nancy Grace was straight on the case.
Nancy is a a detective and storyteller who finds clues from the past, and part of the National Trust’s archaeology team.
As an archaeologist, she spends her days researching past human activities from clues that are left behind underground, and this was one of the most memorable from her 33-year career.
She took the lower jawbone to a dentist, where an X-ray revealed signs of gum disease, and that this person was about 26 when she died, around 4,000 years ago.
This PDF resource includes this article, as well as accompanying activity ideas:
- Discuss whether we still need to spend time digging up the past. Don’t we already know enough about how people used to live?
- Write a diary entry as if you were an archaeologist 4,000 years from now just discovering today’s items. Describe the interesting things you find, and what puzzles you.
- Write a funny recount as this lady 4,000 years ago as you visit your Stone Age dentist.
- The word archaeology comes from the roots ‘archae’, meaning old or historic and ‘ology’ meaning study. Find out what these words mean the study of: campanology, dendrochronology, glottochronology, ichthyology, ufology, vexillology.
To find out more about The Week Junior and to download its free resources, please go to schools.theweekjunior.co.uk.
Find the whole range of free Topical Tuesday resources here.