My name is Oliver and I’m studying Archaeology at Cardiff University. As part of my course at the University, four weeks’ practical archaeology work must be undertaken. This could be in a museum or out in the field. During the first year, as part of my practical work I went to a private archaeology company in Cardiff, but decided in my second year that I wanted to carry out more field work, along with more community work, if possible. This is why I decided to go to the site at Caerau and Ely to work on the Iron Age hillfort. As part of the work on the site we needed to work with schools in the local community. Every pupil would have their turn to work on this.
Working with the children at the school, I improved a lot of my social skills. As part of the work with them, different groups needed to be taken up to the site in order to see different aspects of archaeology as well as seeing archaeological digging for the first time. The children also had a chance to take part in the process by using a sieve to find small pieces of rock.
After going up to the site, we took one of the groups to show them some of the artefacts that were found in the hillfort some years ago. Following this, the children had a chance to draw and take pictures of the artefacts. It has to be said, working with the school and people from the community has been an excellent experience and I have learnt a lot. Thank you very much to Kim and all the ACE team, they do an excellent job of bringing the community together.
Oliver Heard, August 2019
CAER Heritage Hidden Hillfort 