News from our Community Archaeologists: The CAER Heritage Project

Kimberly and I have been extremely busy over the past few weeks so we thought it was time to update you on some of our recent activities.

We have been working with the CAER Heritage Project (Caerau and Ely Rediscovering Heritage Project) in West Cardiff.  Archaeologists from Cardiff University are working with Ely and Caerau Communities First, local residents and schools to explore the history and archaeology of the area.  The project runs all kinds of activities, and we were fortunate enough to be involved with a guided walk around the magnificent Caerau Iron Age hillfort, which forms the focus of many of the activities.

Guided walk led by Oliver Davies of Cardiff University showing the community archaeologists and members of the local community around the hill fort.

Kimberly and I also helped with the CAER project exhibition and I helped out on the day with the stand at the Peace75 Festival held at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff to celebrate its 75th anniversary.  This was a great event, I spoke with lots of people about the project, asking them to consider the debate about whether hillforts were places where people came together to show their community identities or whether they were defensive structures, and I had a fun time designing Iron Age tribal symbols with children, and writing ‘postcards to the Iron Age’ asking what life was like back then.

Sarahjayne explaining about the CAER project.

Sarahjayne working with children to create Iron Age tribal symbols and ‘postcards to the past’

As part of our time with the project we also attended the Engage Conference  in Bristol, which was focussed on public engagement and partnerships.  Here we helped facilitate a workshop on the creation of funding bids.  Our placement with the Commission has provided us with many training opportunities and I have recently completed courses on project planning and ‘building effective relationships’.

Engage Conference

There are also lots more activities to report, including a session I set up for the Young Archaeologists Club in Swansea with Swansea Metal Detecting Club, who came to talk about responsible metal detecting and how this works within Archaeology.
 

Sarahjayne with Mike Davies and members of YAC looking at Mike’s collection and asking lots of questions!

The Young Archaeologists learning how to use metal detectors

Finally, we have been organising a workshop event for Pembrokeshire College Welsh Baccalaureate students as part of our joint shipwrecks project with CADW on the Charles Holmes and the Great Gale of 1859. This is due to take place in January, and we will let you know how it goes.

By S. Clements


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