Museum News: Bones, flint stones and pottery. Have I won the archeological lottery?

Guest post by Isobel Bailey (All Hallows Catholic College, Macclesfield)

My week at the museum has been an amazing experience filled with learning new skills, information and meeting new, fantastic people who have passed their knowledge onto me. I have thoroughly enjoyed this week and I feel as though I have had a real taster of what working in an historical environment would be like and has made me certain that it’s what I want to do in the future. On Monday I was given the opportunity to help Lucy, a masters student from York who was here this week as well, to identify the sexes of human remains; I really enjoyed doing this as Lucy taught me what to look for in the bones and so was able to determine the sexes independently. On Tuesday I was cataloguing stone artefacts many of which are fantastically preserved and were wonderful to look at. On Wednesday and Thursday I was cataloguing flint stones which involved drawing them, labelling my diagram and photographing the flints. On Friday I was lucky enough to look through the social history section of the stores for medical equipment for a display the museum is showing next week which will celebrate the NHS’ 70th birthday. My time at the museum has been wonderful and I am so thankful to the museum for my experience and how its sparked an excitement in me for my  career and the future.