Ancestral Skills Weekends Poster ready!

Dates and details about our Ancestral Skills Weekends!

Escape the rat race, come and join us to find your inner European aboriginal self! Explore and gently reflect on the life skills,crafts and technologies or our prehistoric ancestors in a relaxing and stunning natural location!

You are welcome to stay overnight on our on-site campsite for free or we can provide you with a list of local accomodation. We will provide two delicious lunches and plenty of reviving drinks!

We do ask that you turn off any phones/tablets or other smart devices (apart from your brains) as we will be letting go of the modern World and returning to a simpler more natural time.

The price is £150 per person (we offer a 10% discount for bookings of more than two people) and ask for a £70 deposit on booking. Here are our Terms and Conditions http://www.ancient-arts.org/terms.html and you can book a place here: http://www.ancient-arts.org/training.html.

Please contact us if you have any questions!

Ancient Arts replicas for the Ice Age Exhibition at Llandundo Museum

We were recently asked to make a replica of the decorated Kendrick's Cave horse jaw from Lalndudno and a number of other items which would have been used at the same time (at the end of the Last Ice Age).

Our replica of the decorated horse jaw bone.  The original is normally on display at the British Musuem but has temporarily returned to Llandudno for the exhibition.

 

Perforated animal teeth probably from a necklace were also found on this site.  We remade the the necklace.

Our flint knife blade, hafted onto an antler handle.

Making a bone dart point.

Ancestral Skills Weekends 2014...breathing new life into the best of the past.

Come and join Ancient Arts on a two day experience where we will take time to leisurely explore our ancestral skills in a beautiful, natural location; to make connections with our landscape and to enjoy and relax into the moment.

Based on the philosophy of 'slow' we will be taking time to explore and reflect on the life skills, crafts and technologies of our Prehistoric ancestors and how they were part of their environment, using it, forming it and prospering in it.

We would like to invite you to come and join us on this fascinating exploration into past knowledge and have a great time!

The these weekends will be held on:

28^th-29^th June

2nd-3^rd August

16th-17^th August

6^th -7^th September

at our beautiful Studio at Rowen in the Conwy Valley, on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park.

You are welcome to stay overnight on our on-site camp-site for free (which comes fully furnished with its own communal fire circle and composting toilet!) or we can provide you with a list of lovely, local B&B's, hotels or hostels for you to choose from. We will also provide two delicious lunches over the weekend and plenty of refreshing drinks.

We do ask that you to turn off any phones/laptops/smart devices etc. for the weekend as we will be gently escaping from the Silicon Age and, for at least two of days out of 365, returning to a simpler and more natural pace of life.

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. Plato

More details to follow!!!!!

Wow! Facebook 'likes' go crazy!

We were at 499 'Likes' yesterday AM.  Thought that it would be nice to go over 500 so put out a call for a couple more 'Likes'.  Checked Facebook about 5pm we had over 1,900 'Likes'!  

Thanks everyone and hope you enjoy our future adventures!

Drying mud bricks in the wettest January in over 200 years!

Well we have managed to make and dry our mud bricks.  It was great fun making them but the drying process was a bit stressful!

The raw material.

Cutting straw to mix with the mud.

Adding the water.

By placing the mud in the middle of a tarp, you can just cover it with the rest of the tarp and then walk on it (and not get covered in mud).  Keep uncovering the tarp and flipping the mud over and covering it with the other side of the tarp.  This quickly and cleanly mixes the mud.

The mixed mud and straw.

The bricks drying.  We left them outside, but undercover; stood them on their narrow sides and let the wind (of which we had plenty off along with rain!) blow through them slowly drying them.  We did have to dry some by an open fire, but were careful not to fire them (they become partially cereamic) as the client didn't want that.

Certainly an interesting job.  Here in North Wales there is a tradition (used into the 20th century) of cob (clay) buildings, but these have to covered in lime mortar or they just weather back into lumps of clay!  Cob walls also don't have to be 'dried out', they are compacted together.  Drying out mud or clay in Wales is a slowwwwwww process :)

Mud glorious mud!

We have been asked to make a number of mud bricks!  An unusual request even for us.  Mud is of course a very useful building material.  

Some of the bricks frsh out of the mould.

Prehistoric lamps

Here's our prehistoric lamp in action underground at the Great Orme Mines late last year.

Stonehenge - not so straight forward!

With the recent opening of the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre in the news, its always interesting to remeber that not everyone agrees with the accepted narrative of the site:  
http://structuralarchaeology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/twelve-reasons-why-stonehenge-was.html

Sod houses from the Isle of Man

A really interesting example of a sod or turf built house: 
 
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=754532797893307&set=a.440873832592540.106715.436741266339130&type=1&theater

New National Curriculum Teaching Collections and Museum Teaching Collections

NEW for 2014!!! Our new teaching collection for the National Curriculum is now available. Give young people a real feel and experience of our Prehistoric past with this 'hands on' introduction to ancient technologies and life:http://www.ancient-arts.org/teachingcollections.html#Resources

In addition to our new National Curriculum Teaching resources we have also simplified and revamped our Museum and Higher Education Teaching Collections http://www.ancient-arts.org/teachingcollections.html#Handling