Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts

Hello.

I'm going to talk about another show I saw just now and it was about Pompeii.
For those of you who haven't heard of Pompeii, it was a Roman city that was covered in ash and pumas. ( pumas is a type of rock that can float )

The guy who was in it was talking about how and why the Romans were trapped when the volcano, Mount Vesuvius, went off with a bang.

The reason why all of the people where trapped was that the town that they were living in had been broken up by an Earthquake a few weeks before, and thus they were rebuilding their town.
When Vesuvius did blow it's top, instead of trying to get as far away as possible, they stayed where they were and saw the volcano as a form of entertainment, sort of like when you're at home watching the TV in the afternoon after school, or something like that.

The surprising thing is, they weren't killed by magma or anything like that, instead, they were killed by falling rocks, breathing in ash and the pyroclastic flow.
A pyroclastic flow is a mixture of hot gas and rock. You can read about it here.

Now, if you want to see some more on Pompeii, than click here.

'ello, 'ello.

I'm going to tell you about a TV show I saw last night, and it was about Easter Island.
The current thought pattern is that the ancient peoples of the island killed all of the trees so they could move their giant statues and for canoes.
But it wasn't them, it was really the 16th century Europeans.
They had brought disease and rats on their ships, and the rats ate all of the tree seeds.

The islanders didn't need much wood, 'coz the statues walked.
Now you may think I'm crazy, but they did, in fact when the statues were finished, they were lifted up and had ropes tied around them.
When the statues were finished the bases of them weren't, it was in a half circle so they could rock sideways.
There would be 4 teams of men on each corner, and they would chant a song so they would know when to pull on the ropes and keep in time.
It was something like when we "walk" a heavy piece of furniture today, tipping it from corner to corner and side to side, moving it forwards.

Also they've discovered that the eyes weren't just holes in the statues, they used to have big white eyes with pupils made from coral.
They are replacing the coral eyes on the statues now and it makes them look really different, more like a living person that they were supposed to represent.

If you want to find out a little bit more( and when I say a little bit more I mean a whole lot more!) then click here.

Hullo.

Last night I saw a show about Stonehenge on National Geographic, and it was very good.
It was really great finding out the latest news about what it was really for and the things they've just discovered.
It was so fun and a little gruesome.
There was another type of Stonehenge about 2 kms away but it was made from wood and was for the living.
Stonehenge was for the dead.

It was very fascinating.
The stone was moved only by people, no horses at all and it took a long time to build.
The people who carved the stones had only other stones to work with because it was the Stone Age and they hadn't found out about metals and making tools from metal.
It was also a world premiere.

To fill in the gaps I've got a link right here, so if you want to know about it, then click and step into another world.

It's so interesting.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Phil from Time Team was in it( if you watch Time Team, then you'll know who I'm talking about) and he talked about how hard it would have been to carve the stones and how the people were real artists and very clever to find ways to carve the stone like they did.

The strange thing is, there's one Stonehenge in Africa and South America.

Hello again.

Did you hear about the Ned Kelly dig finishing at Glenrowan?
If you haven't, then don't worry about it, but if you didn't read my blog post about it, then I'm sorry, you'll have to go and search for it on my blog, 'coz I ain't going to talk about it again, 'coz it took me ages to put together.
And yet again I didn't read the local blah, so I've got a link up here as well, so what are you waiting for, click it.
They've found over 7000 artifacts at the site, but they haven't found the cellar where Dan Kelly was said to have hidden when the building burnt to the ground.
They also found bullets at the back of the building where Ned and Dan reloaded their guns.

Hello.

There's another show on the History channel on Foxtel, and it's called Two Men In A Trench.
It's about two men who are archaeologists who go to old battle grounds and dig up all the things that are left behind, like human bones, WWII bunkers, WWII anti-aircraft guns, shrapnel etc.

They investigate really old battlefields where battles and wars were fought, like Culloden, Seige of Newark, etc and other battles up to world war 2.

It's really fun to watch, but sadly they aren't making any more of the series, and the history channel is replaying it.

If you want to find out more, then you know what to do, click here.

Hello.

I've finely recovered from my cold! (Hurray)

I'm now able to do my blogging again, and I'm going to tell you how the stone knapping went.
Dad and I got up really early and went on a train to Flinders street station.
We went out of the train station and went on a tram.
We stopped at Latrobe Uni, where we had to go.
We walked 1 or 2 K's until we got to a gate where we had to go through into their bush land that they have.
We waited 1 hour before we could go in 'coz they already had a group in there.
Once we did go in a man told us to go to a hut called Ironbarks Hut.
There were quite a few that led to little parts with old trees in the way, so we thought these little tracks weren't tracks at all, but we were wrong.
We came to a lake but we didn't think the lake led to Ironbarks Hut.
We were right, 'coz we followed the clinking sound of our guides that were going to help us.

When we got there we were told to sit down and grab a stool.
Then once we did this we were told to get some glasses on.
Once we did this we were given a few pointers and then we started.
I knocked off great big bits of rock.
Then I made them into the stone tools that were for scraping the hide of a animal for the bits of meat that is left on it.

After I made my second one it was time to go, so I was allowed to pick up a rock that Dad had started making into a tool and a few flakes of rock.
It was fun, but sadly it was the only time it would be on this year.

After I went through the bush land again a woman was talking about how Australia's most famous archaeologist was there, and Dad and I were talking to her for about half an hour and she's really nice.

So I had a really good day.

Hello.
I've done all of my work and watched some science shows today.
One of them was that Archaeology show again.
Another one was about the Great Wall of China, which has two parts to it, the second one is on as I'm writing this.

I've done my Excel work books ( now, if you're wondering, I haven't done all the other work books I told you about 'coz there were to many of them and many of them I didn't get to do before dinner), which are really cool.

I had a fight with mum and I fell into some buckets and I was stuck!
I couldn't get out and mum was laughing so much she could hardly help me out of them.

I haven't much more to tell you, so, just stay tuned, 'coz you might see some thing else on the blog that might catch your eye.

Mum's really sick, she's on the couch with a hot water bottle and boy is she really really grumpy!
I'm not going to the lecture tonight but I'm really looking forward to the Ned Kelly re-trial that's on tomorrow night.
Mum's going to give me some of the AIM tests in a few weeks.

I've been watching some science shows today 'coz I've still got the cold, anyway, I saw a show about Dinosaurs that went for two hours that told about how some people can easily fake some fossils.
I saw another show about Archaeology.

I know I haven't done much today, but as I said, the cold's shot me down in flames, so I'm going to rest for a few days and keep it easy.

Kelly's siege site found.

Old bit's of bullets and pieces of metal were found in the place Ned was captured.

Ned was hurt badly and was caught at the Glenrowan Inn on the 28 of June 1880, when he had threatened to kill 60 people that lived in the area.

The famous Heritage Victoria has sent 6 archaeologists, 1 conservator and 40 students to look for anything there that is still there.
The gun fight was between Ned Kelly and some police officers.

Up to 15,000 rounds was fired at the time of the siege.

If you want to find out more about it, then just click here and the archaeology dig here.

Hullo.

I'm going to talk about the finds I've got from the hole I've been talking about for days.
I've got buckets of things coming out of that hole and there's also a medicine bottle that isn't broken and it has a hallmark on it.

I've also found old bottles and a old house that had blue stone walls. I've found bits of old wooden walls, and window glass, but sadly they're all in small bits of rubble.

I've found heaps of stuff, but you're going to have to wait 'coz I haven't taken a pic of them, yet.

Hello Folks!

At the moment I'm helping Mum plot the old cable tram route, which is a type of Archaeology.

It's so fun doing this, that last night I got bugger all sleep.
I'm also reading Unravelling Piltdown
and I'm just about to start reading "THE CALL OF THE WILD" but any way I'm doing a type of Archaeology, and I just love it!

The tram routes used to go all the way from Market street to Station pier and South Melbourne Beach.

It's a type of Archaeology 'coz if you want to know more about history, you sometimes have to learn about, say, I don't know, where cable trams went to.
If you want to know where some thing was and there's not a complete map of where it was, than you'll need to get some info and try to see if those streets where it was are still there, and if so, then try and place the info together and make a map of where it was.

But if that street isn't there any more then try and use the street that is there as a guide and try to find and ask local historians that know about that street and area.

The cable trams conected the city to distant places. Another benefit was, they helped expand Melbourne, expand suburbs and it was cheaper than catching a horse taxi.
The cable tram also helped make businesses much bigger and let those businesses go to places where they couldn't go to before.

Helloooooooooo. This is one of my digs in the back yard. It's the reason why I haven't put a post up.

So far I've found beer bottle glass, plus, I think I've found the blacksmiths house.
I've found plaster and blue stone walls and white washed wood.
I'll take a photo of it all soon.

If you look closely at the pic you can see one of our chooks that's over-seeing my work.
It even jumped on my shovel and I had to shake it off, but the little bugger jumped into a tunnel I'm digging 'coz I can't dig the hole wider, so I have to dig a tunnel, and trust me, it's safe and I'm not up setting Mum.

We have two chooks but the other one hasn't seen it yet or she's going in it when I'm not around ( don't say they don't want to go in 'coz it's so deep, 'coz I dug a hole at least 6 feet deep and they were always in it no matter what but we had to fill it in, but I'll talk about that another time).

I have just found out the best thing that I have known, I have just found out that my house is on the same land as another building was on!!!

Now, I don't know if I have ever told you about the smithy I found, but I have just realized that we had some stables and that the smithy was not far away from them, I've also realized that in that time you normally had more than one building on your block of land.

So it makes sense to have a blacksmith right next to your stables right?
Yes, you see, if you have a blacksmiths far away from your stables then it's going to take up to much time lugging around all of those horse shoes, so it's just common sense to have them right next to each other, now isn't it?
And plus I've found the bounderies of the old walls of the old building, which by the way is almost next to the midden where I've found all the pottery shards and things.

So until I can get some clue that the building in our back yard is something else, I say it's a blacksmiths forge.

NED IS FINALLY FOUND!!! It's been two years and we've Finally found him!!!

Ned's last resting place has been found. Ned Kelly's body was in a mass grave at Pentridge prison site in Victoria. For 80 years he's been missing and now we've found him. The grave site of Australia's most famous bushranger was discovered after archaeologists unearthed a Department of Justice document which had a clue to where he was buried.

Archaeologists from Heritage Victoria during the last week finally found the mass grave where he was buried. They have also found other executed prisoners in the same pit; removed from the old Melbourne prison in 1929 they were then buried in the Pentridge prison complex.

Bones from the mass grave, thought to be from five different prisoners, have been sent to the Victorian Insitute of Forensic Medicine at Southbank.

We need to take greater care of our history, even though we are a young country we still have to protect all of our history or we will lose it forever, because a lot of our history has been lost that way and if we do lose it we'll never get it back, and if we don't get it back then the next generation of people will never know what it was like in that time.

That's why we need to protect our history forever or else, say, great, great great, great, great, great grandchildren may never know who Ned Kelly was, who Henry Lawson was, Banjo Paterson was, who Daisy Bates was, what the rainbow snake was, etc, the point is that if we don't protect and collect things today we wont have them tomorrow.

Here are some of my finds from my backyard, I hope you like them.

These are some of the medical and alcohol bottles I've found in the midden. Some have writing on them thats how I know some are medical bottles.






These are made of lead and are very heavy. I think the soldier is supposed to be a Roman soldier.









This is just a little bit of the pottery shards I've found in the large midden (rubbish pit).






The round brown shape at the top of the photo is the inside piece from a teapot.










The little white square is a ceramic decoration from a bracelet or necklace.






More again.






I've also found many bones from meals, a pair of mens boots and belt buckles and lots and lots of mussel shells.
I keep digging when mum lets me.

Hello again!
It's me, and I'm going to talk about Archaeology.
(For those of you who don't know , it's where you dig up really, really, really, really, really old towns, temples, graves, homes, roads, streets, dock yards, Roman stuff, etc.) .

I really love archaeology 'coz it's a window into another time and you get to see what it was like in that time, but you have to be careful digging the trenches to get the stuff you find out of your trench.

I just love every thing about Archaeology.
It's so cool digging up weird and wonderful thing's, plus finding things that were forgotten and then reinvented and some times made better or made even worse.
I know you're probably saying ''well what about the wheel '' well that was a separate invention based on a spider in Africa that tuns into a wheel , but only if it feels unsafe.