School children will be digging for history this week as part of a pioneering archaeological project.

The team from the Bronze Age Round Mounds project will be teaching more than 300 youngsters all about skeletons.

Dr Rachel Crellin, co-director of the Round Mounds of the Isle of Man project, and the project osteologist Dr Michelle Gamble will be going into eight primary schools all this week to run the hands-on sessions.

The Digging for Bones workshops will show children what archaeologists can learn about us by looking at our skeletons.

These sessions will give pupils the chance to have a go at being an archaeologist by carefully excavating a bone as well as learning about the different parts of a skeleton and what archaeologists can learn from them.

Bronze Age

The Round Mounds project began in 2016 and has involved research in the museum looking at the burial remains which are kept there, geophysical surveys of sites, landscape analysis, and a dig this summer on a Bronze Age burial mound outside of Kirk Michael.

Dr Crellin, from the University of Leicester, said: ’We are really excited to be able to offer these hands-on workshops for primary schools.

’We ran a series of workshops for schools associated with our excavation this summer on the island and they booked up completely in a single day so it is wonderful that Culture Vannin have funded these workshops on skeletons giving us a chance to get even more students interested in Manx archaeology and history.’

Dr Gamble, of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, said: ’I am really pleased to be returning to the island to share the results of the project’s research on Manx burials through these workshops.

’Skeletons are a great subject to teach to get students interested and excited about archaeology!

Science

’We won’t just be learning about archaeology though we’ll be thinking about science too.

’We’ll be asking questions like what our skeletons are for? How do they change through our lives? It should be great fun."

Dr Gamble will also be carrying out analysis of a number of prehistoric skeletons and cremation burials while she is in the island.

’Her work last summer revealed a rare bone pommel from within a burial at Staarvey Farm that was originally excavated in 1947.

The project has received funding and support from Culture Vannin, Manx National Heritage, Leicester and Newcastle universities and the Steam Packet.