Awesome Archaeology

ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND TREASURE HUNTERS

	Mike Venezia’s Mary Leakey: Archaeologist Who Really Dug Her Work (Children’s Press, 2009) is a delightful introductory biography of one of the foremost contributors to the history of human evolution, illustrated with photographs and clever little cartoons. For ages 5-9.
	By Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug for Troy (Candlewick, 2013) is a great 80-page biography of the problematic amateur archaeologist who found the ancient city of Troy. For ages 9-13.
	Paul Bahn’s The Great Archaeologists (Southwater, 2009) is a 96-page composite biography of 47 famous archaeologists, illustrated with color photographs.
	Vandal, thief – or undeservedly neglected archaeologist? Ivor Noel Hume’s Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate (University of Virginia Press, 2011) is the biography of the early 19th-century Italian circus strongman Giovanni Belzoni who became one of the first Egyptologists. (Certainly he was the largest – 6’6” tall – and the most flamboyant). For teenagers and adults.
	The Great Belzoni is a great 50-minute film version of Belzoni’s life.
	Who Owns Archaeological Artifacts? Just because you dug it up, doesn’t mean you get to take it home. Read all about it.
	Just for fun – in James Patterson’s Treasure Hunters series, the four Kidd siblings have grown up diving for shipwrecks and traveling the world with their treasure-hunting parents, looking for everything from lost swords to gold doubloons. Action and humor for ages 9-12.
	Sharon Waxman’s Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World (Times Books, 2009) pairs trips to famous museums with visits to the countries where some of their most famous exhibits originated, dealing with the thorny question of who owns what. (Should the Elgin marbles go back to Greece?) An interesting topic for teenagers and adults.

ALMOST LIKE BEING THERE

	Stefania Perring’s Then & Now (Macmillan General Reference, 1991) is a collection of photographs of twenty famous ancient sites as they appear today paired with overlays of an artist’s reconstruction of what each site looked like originally. Included are the Parthenon, Machu Picchu, Pompeii, Angkor Wat, the Minoan palace of Knossos, and more. For all ages.
	Odyssey Online is a beautifully designed museum site in which visitors can explore the Near East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, and the ancient Americas. Learn about people, mythology, daily life, death and burial, writing, and archaeology; click on artifacts to discover their histories; access maps; and find lists of books and helpful websites. A terrific resource.
	National Geographic’s Archaeology site has an overview of archaeological disciplines and discoveries, paired with images of famous sites.
	Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur is an account of Leonard Woolley’s excavation of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur with a slide show of some of the fabulous artifacts found there. See a YouTube video on the Royal Tombs of Ur.
	The Ancient City of Athens is a photo archive of ancient Greek buildings and archaeological sites. Check out the Acropolis.
	At Smith College’s Museum of Ancient Inventions, visitors click on color photographs of (many) artifacts to learn all about them. For example, check out a Sumerian lyre, a cuneiform cylinder seal, and an Aztec calendar wheel.

PROJECTS, PUZZLES, LESSON PLANS, AND ACTIVITIES

	Richard Panchyk’s Archaeology for Kids (Chicago Review Press, 2001) is a survey of archaeology, variously covering how archaeology works, human evolution, the Ice Age and the Neolithic, the first civilizations, ancient Greece and Rome, the New World, and historical archaeology. Included are maps and diagrams, photos, a timeline, and a helpful bibliography. There are also 25 hands-on projects, among them calculating height from a footprint mold, analyzing soil, practicing dendrochronology by counting tree rings, playing a seriation game (with photos of old cars), and making an ancient-Greek-style oil lamp. For ages 9 and up.
	John White’s Hands-On Archaeology (Prufrock Press, 2006), an informational collection of “Hands-On Activities for Kids,” has a wealth of projects based on site research, excavation, field records, artifact preparation and cataloging, and more. Included are a lengthy appendix of teacher resources and reproducible forms and worksheets. For ages 9 and up.
	By Steve Daniels and Nicholas David, The Archaeology Workbook (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982) is a collection of thirteen detailed fictional archaeological puzzles intended to accompany an introductory college archaeology course.  Challenging for older teenagers and adults with some archaeology background.
	From the University of Minnesota, Archaeological Methods has detailed background information, illustrations, instructions, and activities for introducing preschoolers and early-elementary-level kids to archaeology. Kids discover “What Bones Can Tell Us” (in detail; find out all about pelvic bones and skulls and assemble skeleton puzzles), and practice stratigraphy with chocolate pudding, gummy worms, and Oreos.
	From teacher Mr. Donn’s website, Archaeology for Kids is packed with kid-friendly information (What is an archaeologist? How do archaeologists find sites to explore?), along with short biographies of famous archaeologists, games, quizzes, and interactive activities.
	What to do with pottery shards? In Archeology Game, kids decorate clay flower pots, smash them (gently; you don’t want smithereens) in a paper bag, and then re-assemble them with glue, archaeologist-style.
	From the American Museum of Natural History’s Ology site, see Archaeology for activities, info, and talks with real-live archaeologists. Pages include “Maya Investigation,” “If Trash Could Talk,” “Mint Your Own Coin,” “The Ancient City of Petra,” and more.
	The Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Research page has general information about archaeology and an overview of current projects.
	The Archaeological Institute of America has a great series of AIA Lesson Plans, variously for grades K-12, with complete instructions. Sample titles are Aztec Codex, Greek Vase Painting, Layer Cake Archaeology, and Shoebox Dig.
	From the Smithsonian, Decoding the Past is an illustrated, printable, three-lesson introduction to archaeology in which kids learn to identify and interpret artifacts, and date soil layers. For ages 9 and up.
	Dirt Detective in an animated interactive game in which kids learn about archaeological techniques with the help of a mole in an Indian-Jones-style hat.
	From the BBC, Archaeology is an information-packed and reader-friendly site, covering various subtypes of archaeology (including battlefield, aerial, and marine), archaeological techniques, artifacts, reconstructions, and excavations. Work through it all and test your knowledge with interactive quizzes.
	The Society for American Archaeology has lesson plans, simulated archaeological dig projects, online archaeological adventures, and more for a range of ages. (Click on “For the Public.”) For example, Archaeologyland is a collection of hands-on archaeology-based activities for ages 5 and up, in which kids replicate pottery designs, make a pot puzzle, create petroglyphs, make a cordage bracelet, and more.