CBA London trip to UCL

I have to admit, going round the UCL collection made me a little bit jealous and wanting to do my degree again. I loved my time at Winchester and Oxford, but UCL just blew me away. I guess I'd take any excuse to go back to uni!

The amount of material the university holds is immense, and they hold objects from all over the world, apart from China, and North America - which is held by the Anthropology department. The idea is that students are handling objects as well as learning about certain time periods and cultures, increasing their knowledge and experience. I think this is a brilliant idea and I feel my archaeological education would have benefited greatly by being able to hold and examine pieces from excavations all over the world. Hands on learning is a great way to teach. Here are some photographs of the collection:

A Hand Axe from the Olduvai Gorge

A collection from Swanscombe

All the bones are laid out in different drawers depending on the animal, to help students identify bones.

The feline drawer

One of the artefacts Flinders Petrie donated to UCL

The trip was organised by CBA London group, and I really look forward to their next event. More information about the group can be found here: http://www.archaeologyuk.org/cbalondon/

More information can be found about the UCL Institute of Archaeology here, as well as access to their collection database: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/ The archaeology library is also very good, and somewhere I've used for preparing for interviews. For members of the public you have to demonstrate a need to use the library, and it costs £7 a day.