Tag Archives: Neolithic

Workshop: Mesolithic and Neolithic Life in Glen

Date: [Morning] Wednesday 2nd of October 2013

Location: Kilmodan Primary School’s Forest School, Glendaruel

Workshop: Mesolithic and Neolithic Life in the Glen

Walking Youth Theatre Team: Sadie Dixon-Spain and Alana Mathers

Guests: Susan Gaffney and Alison Sykora

The aim of this exercise was to encourage the pupils of Kilmodan Primary to use their imaginations and experience what life would have been like in Mesolithic and Neolithic Glendaruel. This is where the timeline the pupils created begins, and by bringing to life this era, it allowed the children to have a realistic knowledge of how life has evolved, how the Glen has changed, and of course, aspects of life in the Glen which have remained from the Early Settlers.

We took part in ‘Forest School’, a weekly excursion to an allocated outdoor classroom the pupils undertake each week. Sadie and Alana from The Walking Youth Theatre were accompanied by weaver Susan Gaffney, and professional chef Alison Sykora, who kindly shared their expertise to give the pupils hands-on experience of Meso & Neo-lithic life.

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Susan taught the pupils how to weave plates and bowls, the way our Early Settling descendants would have done so in the very beginning of life in the Glen. This fantastic hands-on experience was enjoyed by all, and our pupils made some expertly designed serving dishes, just in time for a Mesolithic feast!

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Alison cooked up a Mesolithic feast, with a little help from our hardy pupils! Food foraging brought to our attention the vast variety of ingredients that lie in the Glen, and by using traditional methods as far as possible, our pupils had a real-life Hunter Gatherer experience! From fruit to fish, vegetables to seaweed, an extraordinary insight into the feasting habits of 10,000 years ago brought the history of the Red River to life in a very exciting way!

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Workshop: New Term, New Website!

Date: Wednesday 21st of August 2013 

Location: Kilmodan Primary School

Workshop: New Term, New Website: Hunting and Gathering for Content!

Walking Youth Theatre Team: Sadie Dixon-Spain and Alana Mathers

Our Project

The Glen of the Red River project is part of the All Our Stories scheme, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.  To recap on our project, visit our All Our Stories page on our website.

Over the Summer, our website for the project was created, and the work the pupils of Kilmodan Primary created in the previous school year was given an online home! With their fantastic logo, timeline, and artwork, our website is up and running – now all we need is content!

Sadie and Alana headed down from TWTC HQ this afternoon to host our first new term workshop, to begin gathering the content for the website.

Where do we start?! At the very beginning, of course!

Today’s workshop focused on the Mesolithic and Neolithic time periods, and we learnt all about what life would have been like for our hunter gatherer and early farmer ancestors! The pupils came up with some great stories about life as Mesolithic and Neolithic clans, and created artwork and dramatic pieces of life in the Glen over 8000 years ago!

The pupils also created a soundscape, exploring life in the Glen in Mesolithic times – the story included howling wolves, hunting wild boars, fishing in the river, and running through the foliage back to base camp away from predators!

The research gathered and work created today will be put on the website, to share with the whole world what Glendaruel would have been like at the very beginning of time!