In the Archer’s grave, excavated near Stonehenge, lay the earliest metal artefacts found in Britain – gold hair rings and copper daggers. He was one of the Beaker People. In his head and hands he carried magical knowledge of metalwork. What made him set out from the mountains of central Europe, risking wild animals and hostile tribes to cross the sea in a small boat?
Jane’s workshops will illustrate many of the questions she explored and some of the answers she discovered. Participants will be encouraged to think of questions of their own and to discuss the differences between their lives and those of girls and boys in a pre-literate, male-dominated, status-conscious warrior society (!). They will be given resources to make drawings and /or write about the Archer and his sister, the Beaker People, their homes, the animals they farmed and hunted, their clothes and kit, what they believed and more.
Jane is an experienced teacher of drawing. As an illustrator she collaborates with archaeologists to interpret their findings and ideas for books, museums and the media. Her involvement in prehistory began long ago when she worked as a digger and draftswoman on the Stonehenge Environs Project. She made the original image of the Amesbury Archer which was published worldwide and is displayed in the British Museum.