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Artifact Interpretation
| Strand: |
Archaeology |
| Grade Level: |
5 - 12 |
| Duration: |
40 minutes preparation
40 minutes completion |
| Location: |
classroom |
| Objective: |
Students will assess the characteristics of a society based
on analysis of a single coin.
Students will make inferences, analyze details and features, examine assumptions,
brainstorm, work cooperatively, formulate questions. |
| Materials: |
one or two pennies for each group
paper
pencils
Background Information |
| Vocabulary: |
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| Procedure: |
- Divide students into groups of three or four. Distribute one or two pennies per
group, and tell the groups to select one member to be responsible for recording the
group's findings on paper
- Ask students to imagine that they are examining a single artifact, found alone from an
unknown society. Their task is to determine as many features as possible about the
people who made the object.
- When the work group time has elapsed, ask teams to present their conclusions and to
describe the processes that they used to reach their decisions. Lead students in a
discussion about the details that can be derived from artifacts and the problem of making
assumptions based on modern knowledge and behavior. Discuss as well the cumulative
process that allows archaeologists to reach larger conclusions about a population of
people.
Extensions
- Present this activity using old or foreign coins
- Ask older students to develop a schema for artifact analysis and test it on other
artifacts from contemporary society.
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