This story is all about Nancy Grace, a detective and storyteller who finds clues from the past.
Nancy is part of the archaeology team at the National Trust, an organisation that preserves historic buildings and areas of countryside across the UK, and one of the most memorable moments from her 33-year career is the time she took a 4,000-year-old skeleton to the dentist.
The resource includes a news article, and activities related to the story.
This PDF resource includes this article, as well as accompanying activity ideas:
- Archaeologists spend a lot of time and money digging up evidence from the past. Is it time we just left it all in the ground? We already have a pretty good idea of how people lived in the centuries before ours; do we really need to find out more? Or is it always important to study evidence from the past? What do you think?
- Imagine you are an archaeologist 4,000 years in the future and you have just discovered the remains of the house you are living in today. Write a diary entry for the day you made your find, describing the most interesting things you unearthed
- Imagine you are Grace, the woman with gum disease from 4,000 years ago. Write a funny pretend recount of going to 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
Find the entire series of Topical Tuesday resources to download here.
What is The Week Junior?
The Week Junior magazine looks at current affairs and helps children make sense of the world, provides context and clarity to complex issues, improves general knowledge and encourages discussion and debate.
To find out more about The Week Junior and to download its free resources, please go to schools.theweekjunior.co.uk.