Buried Treasure

Buried Treasure

What is treasure and how do you find it? We're going on a treasure hunt, but how can we tell what is valuable? Gold, silver and gems are valuable, but what about animal bones and cloth? They may not look like treasure, but they can tell us how people lived long ago.

When something has been buried in the ground for a long time, it may change colour and shape. Gold stays shiny. Silver turns purple-grey and may break. Iron turns into rusty lumps. Copper and bronze go green. Bones may crumble. Cloth survives only in very hot, very cold and very wet places.

Anyone can find buried treasure, but you need an archaeologist to tell you more about it. Archaeologists study the past using objects that have been dug up. Buried treasure may tell us what happenedin the past, when it happened and sometimes why.

An archaeolegist's toal hit On the dig trowel sieve brush pegs string Recording the treasure bag label box camera notebook

Flint hand axe This piece of flint was found buried on a beach in England. It's a hand axe and it's 500, 000 years old. You can tell it's a hand axe by looking at the shape of the stone and the sharp point at the top. It was made at a time when people made tools out of stone, not metal. Flint tools were sharp enough to cut down trees.