I Dig Sheffield | Digging around Sheffield and the Peaks

Bead from Doll Tor

Object glossary

Archaeologist
A person who studies evidence for our human past, usually by excavation.

Bronze Age
2500-900 BC. In this period most people were farmers. They built stone circles, and wealthier people were buried with objects in round burial mounds. The working of bronze was developed over many centuries.

Cairn
A cairn is made up of stones piled on top of each other. In the Bronze Age, cairns could cover a human burial or cremation.

Cist
A cist is a setting of stones containing a human burial or cremation. Cist can be various shapes and can be buried underground or covered with an earth mound.

Excavation
Excavation is the process of digging into the earth, for example to find archaeological remains.

Faience
Faience is made of sand and clay mixed together. This is heated until the materials fuse together to form a blue-green glassy surface. It was mostly made into small objects, like beads.

J. P. and J. C. Heathcote
The Heathcotes were a father and son team who excavated archaeological sites mainly on the Peak District moors. They published the results of their work and the finds were housed in their museum at Birchover. These are now in Weston Park Museum.

Stone circle
A stone circle is a roughly circular or oval setting of upright stones. Stone circles can have other stones circles inside them.

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