10th May 2007, 02:12 PM
Oral history for recent sites is essential in understanding and really interpreting theri remains - at the aforementioned Aberdulais we worked on the remains of a tinplate works - the process was invented in the late 17th C and went on until the 1950s in S Wales - we had film clips, one suprervisor had an elderly brother (in his 70s) who had worked in a tinplate rolling mill and gave us a guided tour of our own site to describe the reality (rather than the archaeology) and I spent an interesting haircut in Swansea chatting to the barber, an Italian immigrant who had worked in a tinplate works when he first came over. It makes the interpretation of a site to visitors a lot more real if you have 'first hand' experiences to relate.