One fine day in Cardiff - the CAER heritage project
16 October 2013
A new film showcasing the University's excavations at an Iron Age hillfort in Cardiff has been produced by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The CAER Heritage Project, funded by the AHRC is a collaborative research project between the University's School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Ely and Caerau Communities First, local schools and local residents. The project centres on one of Cardiff's most important, but little-known, archaeological sites, Caerau Iron Age hillfort.
Caerau hillfort is one of the largest and best preserved in South Wales. Recent excavations by the CAER Heritage Project team including more than 120 local volunteers showed that occupation started around 500BC and continued until at least the third century AD, well into the Roman period.
The suburbs of Caerau and Ely are two of Cardiff's most deprived areas, facing significant social and economic problems. The CAER Heritage Project's objective is to help the people of Caerau and Ely to connect with this site's fascinating the past and make it relevant to the present. From the outset the project's key objectives have been to put local people at the heart of cutting-edge archaeological research, to develop educational opportunities and to challenge stigmas and unfounded stereotypes ascribed to this part of Cardiff.
Huw Lewis AM, Minister for Education and Skills, Welsh Assembly said: "The CAER Heritage Project addresses directly issues of the Welsh Government's Tackling Poverty agenda. Sometimes there's little or no opportunity for communities in which these sites are embedded to get involved. What delights me in this project is that it does from the bottom up, involve people. It goes back always to the local community."
The film visits the takes follows the project's launch event in early 2013, to this summer's excavations at Caerau hillfort. Along the way, we meet some of the researchers, members of the community, community partners, and school children who have been involved in this exciting project that is putting community at the heart of archaeology, and archaeology at the heart of a community.
