Hetty Lloyd is a Young Producer with the Shout Out Loud project, English Heritage’s flagship youth engagement project.

For the 2023 Festival of Archaeology, the Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC) teamed up with Shout Out Loud to create a bumper resource pack of activities based on the Festival’s theme of archaeology and creativity.

The resource pack was created by young people, for young people, ensuring the activities are youth-proofed.

Hetty tells us a little about the activity she created for the resource pack.

Biography
My name is Hetty and I study Bioarchaeology at the University of York. I decided to study Bioarchaeology because I couldn’t pick between studying Sciences or Humanities, and Archaeology is a hugely varied subject and involves both of these. I’m interested in Bioarchaeology because I find genetics and Ancient DNA really interesting. Archaeology is so broad that there are so many different routes and options that you can take within the discipline which is very exciting.

Activity: Prehistoric Rock Carving
In creating the engraving activity I took inspiration from the prompt of creativity and thought of the engraved Star Carr shale pendant. This is because in studying the pendant there seemed to be two types of creativity involved. The creativity involved in the creation of the pendant, but also on the part of the archaeologists interpreting the pendant, in order to come up with a variety of different ideas about what the pendant could be symbolising. In the activity I would encourage both of these roles to be taken on: both the creator and the interpreter. In Archaeology it’s important to think outside of the box. What seems obvious to one person isn’t always obvious to another. Different life experiences inform how we perceive an object or symbol and it’s important to remember that the people of the past have experiences that we may not fully understand or have knowledge of. This activity also aims to show how important context is in our understanding of an object. When you know the engraver well, you may find it easier to distinguish what the etchings represent.