ARCHAEODISCOVERY – Play with the past!

Discover the past from the comfort of your own century:

Felicity and I are two passionate archaeologists who love sharing our experience of this fascinating job. We have both been working in commercial archaeology for many years but for us, it started well before that!

My Mum still loves telling the story about 5-year-old me walking back into the house covered in mud and holding a chicken bone like I’d found one of Troy’s greatest treasures: ‘Look Mum, I found a prehistoric man’s bone!’. And that was only the start! I never stopped loving the outdoors, and I never stopped loving poking at the mud.

Felicity a.k.a. Flick spent most of her childhood in a sand pit and was the classic dinosaur kid. She basically never grew up and still loves to get her knees muddy too.

We both have over two decades experience in professional archaeology.

Driven by our own curiosity, and passions as diverse as art, mythology, music, languages and storytelling, we are inspired to share our knowledge with all aspiring archaeologists, may they be 1 or 100 years old!

It has been a very long journey for Flick and I to finally reach the decision to set up ARCHAEODISCOVERY. We both started with a career in archaeology but also nurtured many other hobbies that intertwined and eventually formed the kernel of an idea. Flick has been involved in many art projects in the UK and worldwide while I spent several years working as a tour guide and took up writing. Feeling that all these disciplines could be combined and also worked well with archaeology, which encompasses so many different subjects, we thought it was time for us to try something new.

We come from very different backgrounds: Flick is originally from Sussex but studied in Exeter and worked in many parts of the country such as Yorkshire and Devon. I am from France originally but came to England to study and then ended up spending several years working as an archaeologist in Ireland. Having both worked in commercial archaeology in Sussex for many years now, we have steadily gained support from other professionals and are extremely lucky to have met many people in the industry who have been advising us and giving us much appreciated feedback.

In 2019, unaware yet that Covid-19 was about to hit and throw a spanner in the works, we started the Brighton Young Archaeologists’ Club. Unfortunately, lockdown ensued a few months later and everyone was confined to their homes. With archaeology being an outdoorsy and very hands-on subject, we had to become creative. As a result of schools being shut and most activities shifting to an online set-up, we decided to come up with a solution that would mean less screen-time. The Finds Box was born.

The Finds Box is an archaeology activity box for 6–12-year-olds. It contains everything a child needs to discover a time period, or a specialty linked to archaeology. Each box is delivered through the door and the kit inside includes a booklet with fun facts; a comic; some games that will challenge the child’s mind; as well as all the materials needed for two themed craft projects. The boxes encourage discovery, creativity, and critical thinking. Keeping it playful and engaging while still promoting learning has since remained our motto.

Our first Finds Box – “Back to the Palaeolithic” which includes cave painting and clay figurine activities.

The Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC) was and still is, inundated with a high number of enthusiastic applicants, and we have been operating a large waiting list since we began! We created Archaeodiscovery in 2020 in part, as a response to this demand. YAC comforted us in our opinion that children love the kind of hands-on, dive-in activities archaeology has to offer; but it also made us realise that the parents were just as interested (sometimes more!) than the kids and that they had no way of experiencing archaeology!

ARCHAEODISCOVERY is our way to present archaeology to a wider public, to both children and adults. We realised how tight-knit and inaccessible the industry can be: although many people have an interest in archaeology, fuelled by countless TV programs, it can be extremely difficult to gain access to an actual archaeological dig.

We rarely get a chance to do outreach in our line of work: because commercial archaeology is associated with planning and most of it takes place on construction sites, bringing members of the public even just to visit the site can be problematic. We are sometimes asked to do an open day, or to give a talk at a local historical society or school but it remains quite rare. And this is another reason why Flick and I thought we should come up with another way of introducing people to the elusive world of commercial archaeology – everyday archaeology!

We love to do outreach when we can!

As the restrictions around Covid-19 started to lift, we could finally organise workshops in schools, guided tours of sites in Sussex and of course the Finds Box is still available to order online – with the next one being released around Easter time, watch this space!

Our company is in its infancy but we’re constantly being inspired to grow by other successful female led, archaeology inspired business ventures – like ASHWOOD CANDLES! We have just begun to offer guided tours targeting Sussex archaeological sites but that can also be tailored depending on our customers’ interests, we love a challenge! We have plenty of artefacts (finds from archaeological sites as well as replicas) we bring on tours to help illustrate the time periods we are talking about, making for an immersive experience.

We are also in the process of arranging our own excavation program, where both children and adults will be able to become archaeologists for the day. We will give them the opportunity to dig on a real excavation where they will also get to learn the many skills involved in archaeology: photography, drawing, surveying, filling in context sheets, etc. In order to understand archaeology as a job, you have to remember it’s not all about the digging; the post-excavation process is as important – if not more! We aim to produce a report and publish our findings and that is the real goal of archaeology: sharing what we know, what we discover about the past for a better understanding of how our ancestors lived.

If you’re interested in learning more from Archaeodiscovery, you can find them on their website (archaeodiscovery.com) and their social links on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!