This week was the fist of our four week summer school for the Jarrow Hall Young Archaeologists Club. As part of this summer school they’ll be excavating on site, learning different advanced archaeological techniques, and taking responsibility for their own section of site.
Sadly the weather had different ideas so our first day was spent inside.
They diligently washed and sorted finds, keeping us in line with our archive cataloging procedure; there are no shortcuts with YAC.
As a bit of fun after lunch, we let the Young Archaeologists lose with the site camera and take some snaps of the museum, with the task of finding objects in the museum that reflect or relate to the objects they had spent their morning cleaning and sorting.
“The Young Curators Museum Spotlight – part of a whistle.”
“We’ve found tons of metal, as well as batteries, and nails. We had some screws and nails too.”
“This photo reminds us of Bede’s world as it is the home of local history and the world wider Catholic church.”
“This photo reminds us of all the different glass that we cleaned and different parts of history. It shows us the natural beauty of the Northeast with all of the different pigments used and the long heritage northern glass working.”
“This reminds us of an animal like the ones on the farm.”
“We enjoyed cleaning all of the artefacts and we managed to break a record for muddiest water. We would definitely recommend YAC to other people.”
“We enjoyed looking at some of the artefacts from JAM 2025 and 2026”
“Our favourite part was naming the ferrets – we want Gerald, Kiko, Casper and Oswald!”
YAC is important to us at the museum and JAM because it gives young people the chance to gain experience in an area that would otherwise be barred by red tape. For some its a great summer adventure, for others it might be the things that launches an entire career, which is why we’re so proud of their dedication and attention to detail whenever they get on site.