Continuity and Change Sara Huws, 11 July 2013 I've just spent a few minutes taking in this blog feed - it's been a while since I visited and it's amazing how many new bloggers and topics you can find here. Well done everyone! My own contributions have been more sporadic, and for that, dear reader, I hope you'll forgive me.Even though a lot has been going on here at St Fagans, most of it has been behind the scenes - and not the interesting, 'sneaky peek' behind the scenes either. Nope, it's been large grids and even larger bits of paper; evaluation, planning and decision-making. Nothing to write home about maybe (although my mother does love those letters*) - but the results of this hard work will start to show on-site very soon.We've completed a fair bit of infrastructure work, audited our sprawling, wooded site for 3G and wi-fi capability, and worked with an access consultant to learn more about how to open up the site to a wider variety of peoples. I can't wait to see how we implement what we've learned. The aim is to keep that special something that makes St Fagans such a draw to visitors from all over the world, and to improve the facilities as well. We want to do this is a way which is open and participatory, so our committee room doors have flung open to welcome new youth, teacher and craft forums, to name a few. The galleries are also getting a complete re-vamp, and I'm very curious to see what my colleagues have come up with for the new display.Meantime, I would like to keep you updated as the project develops - the question is how?Do I write more about our current buildings' history? Or show you the new ones as they appear?The big stories, or the everyday wonders? How about our future plans for sleepovers and performances? More Tudors? Less Tudors? Fewer Tudors?I'm a firm believer that if you don't know, you should ask. So, to practise what I preach: What would you like to see on this blog? Pop your suggestions in the comments - I look forward to hearing from you. *with apologies to Woody Allen
Beans on Toast Ciara Hand, 9 July 2013 3 primary schools took part in activities exploring the new Beans on Toast exhibition at the National Museum Cardiff last week.Pupils from Windsor Clive Primary School, Trelai Primary School and Ysgol Wirfoddol Abergwili explored where in the world our food comes from and how we can make sustainable choices about the food we buy. They then worked with an artist to create a 'World Food Stall' display to encourage discussion on the issues of food security back in school.Funding was received to work with the artist through the British Ecological Society.The exhibition will be open until 29 September 2013. Contact the Learning Department 029 2057 3240 if you would like to take part in future activities.http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/whatson/?event_id=6501
The oldest people in Wales - Neanderthal teeth from Pontnewydd Cave 9 July 2013 Reconstruction painting showing Early Neanderthal Man. Upper jaw of a child aged around 9 years old. Early Neanderthal tooth (left), and X-ray (right). The X-ray show the enlarged pulp cavity that has helped archaeologists to identify the Pontnewydd teeth as belonging to Neanderthals. Pontnewydd Cave was excavated by Amgueddfa Cymru between 1978 and 1995. The wall that can be seen across the entrance to the cave was built during the Second World War, at which time Pontnewydd Cave served as a munitions store. Pontnewydd Cave Excavations at Pontnewydd Cave, Denbighshire have discovered the oldest human remains known from Wales dating back some 230,000 years. Excavations at the cave by Amgueddfa Cymru between 1978 and 1995 unearthed a total of 19 teeth , discovered found deep inside the cave. These have been identified by experts at the Natural History Museum, London as belonging to an early form of Neanderthal. Neanderthals in Wales Neanderthals are one branch of the human evolutionary tree that is thought to have died out approximately 36,000 years ago. Our own species shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals, but did not evolve from them. Neanderthals were fairly short and stocky, had ridges under their eyebrows, big square jaws, and teeth that are larger than ours are today. Study of the remains found at Pontnewydd found that these teeth represent the remains of at least five individuals. Neanderthal Teeth The teeth have all been x-rayed and they show an interesting characteristic known as taurodontism - an enlarged pulp cavity to the teeth and shorter roots. Taurodontism is a characteristic (although not unique) feature of Neanderthal teeth and it is one of the features that has led experts to decide that these are Neanderthal as opposed to another early human. The people discovered in Pontnewydd Cave range in age from young children to adults. The most complete discovery from the site is a fragment of an upper jaw of a child aged around nine years old. In the jaw a very heavily worn milk tooth can be seen sitting next to a newly erupted permanent molar. Food remains The teeth were not found on their own inside the cave. Alongside them were stone tools and animal bones , some of which show signs of butchery - evidence that these were the food remains of these early Neanderthals. Questions remain as to whether these humans were originally buried in graves within the cave. The cave has since been washed through by the melt water from the retreating ice sheets at the end of the last Ice Age. Unfortunately the forces that have remarkably led to the preservation of these teeth deep within Pontnewydd Cave destroyed any traces of their original burial context. Background Reading Ice Age hunters: neanderthals and early modern hunters in Wales by S. Green and E. Walker Published by the National Museum of Wales (1991). In search of the neanderthals: solving the puzzle of human origins by C. Stringer and C. Gamble. Published by Thames and Hudson (1993). Pontnewydd Cave: a lower Palaeolithic hominid site in Wales: the first report by H. S. Green. Published by the National Museum of Wales (1984). Neanderthals in Wales: Pontnewydd and the Elwy Valley Caves edited by Stephen Aldhouse-Green, Rick Peterson and Elizabeth A. Walker. Published by National Museum Wales Books and Oxbow Books (2012).
Rhondda Super Scientists Danielle Cowell, 8 July 2013 Williamstown Primary School pupils, in the Rhondda Valleys, were awarded first place amongst the sixty three Welsh schools taking part in the Museum's Spring Bulbs for Schools investigation this year. The class of Super Scientists won a fun-packed nature trip to St Fagans: National History Museum where they were awarded certificates. As part of the day trip they studied newts, looked for mini-beasts, watched bats and built giant nests in the woodland!Professor Plant: ''They all had a great day and should be very proud of how they represented their school. The standard was very high this year, the schools are getting better and better at recording and logging their data. Williamstown did extremely well with their recording and really got involved in the project from the start last November until the end in the spring - which came very late this year!"Alison Hall, Teacher at Williamstown Primary: "The pupils said it was the best day out they had ever had - they loved viewing the bat roost in particular! In terms of the investigation, the children have have loved the whole process from planting and recording to measuring and waiting for the first bloom to appear. It has been great for improving their science, numeracy and ICT skills. We are now really enthused about nature and the environment and are keen to set-up more outdoor investigations in our school grounds".If you would like to take part in this project next term - please complete the on-line application form: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/1738/To see our teacher evaluation report - follow this link: https://scan.wufoo.com/reports/spring-bulbs-for-schools-evaluation-report/As you can see from the evaluation question below the project is very cross-curricular:
Theatre of insects Jennifer Evans, 8 July 2013 Thomas Moffet [Moufet, Muffet] (1553-1604), was a physician and naturalist. After graduating from Cambridge, he travelled abroad, gained the degree of MD in 1579 from Basel University and eventually established a successful medical practice in Frankfurt. In 1580 he visited Italy, where he studied the culture of the silkworm and developed an absorbing interest in entomology. By 1588 he had returned to England and secured a good practice, first in Ipswich and afterwards in London. On 22 December of that year he was admitted as a candidate of the College of Physicians, then became a fellow and eventually censor. In 1589 he was appointed to a committee responsible for compiling the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1618) for the College of Physicians. Moffet combined real literary aptitude with his interests in natural philosophy, publishing the lengthy poem, The Silkworms and their Flies, in 1599. Theatre of Insects was published posthumously. In 1590 he had completed a compendious work on the natural history of insects, partly compiled from the unpublished writings of Edward Wotton, Conrad Gesner and Moffet’s friend [and fellow physician] Thomas Penny. After Moffet’s death, this still unpublished manuscript (BL, Sloane MS 4014) came into the hands of his apothecary [Darnell], who sold it to Sir Theodore Mayerne, who published it in 1634 as Insectorum, sive, Minimorum animalium theatrum. It was translated into English by J. Rowland as The Theatre of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures and appended to Edward Topsell’s History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents (1658). We hold copies of both the 1634 and 1658 editions; the copy photographed here is one of the earlier editions. These books, along with many other early natural history works, were bequeathed to the Library by Willoughby Gardner in 1953 [for more details visit our website or see The Willoughby Gardner Library: a collection of early printed books on natural history, by John R. Kenyon, published by Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru / National Museum Wales, 1982] It has been supposed, on the basis of Moffet’s interest in spiders that his daughter Patience was the ‘little Miss Muffet’ of the nursery rhyme; although some sources state this unlikely as the rhyme did not appear in print until 1805. Biographical information taken from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
