How do you know where to look? Noah Otte (6)

That’s a great question, thanks Noah! There are lots of different ways to look for archaeology that help us find out more about a landscape and give us clues about where to dig.

One of the first things to do is have a look at old maps and photographs, and to look in your local museum, library and archive to see what information they have about the history and archaeology near you. These will all give you clues about where there might be some archaeology.

After that it’s time for some fieldwork and I think the most important tool of all is our eyes! Archaeology is all around us and it’s amazing what you can spot when you’re looking out for things in your environment. If you go for a walk in the countryside look out for lumps and bumps in the fields which might be related to farming, or could be evidence of an old settlement. In the town you could look out for old buildings and see if you can find out what they might have been used for.  

Archaeologists might use special equipment to do geophysics to see if they can find out what might be hidden beneath the ground, or they might carry out some fieldwalking on some ploughed fields to see if they can spot any finds like flints, or pottery.

And don’t forget to use the YAC website’s brilliant A-Z. There you’ll find out about lots of tools that can help us discover archaeological sites like aerial photography, geophysics, the historic environment record and heaps more.