ROMKids Show: The One About Archaeology

Tune in every Tuesday at 2:00 pm on Instagram Live @ROMtoronto as ROM Kids Coordinator and Camp Director Kiron Mukherjee combines his passion for children’s education with storytelling to bring to life science, history and art for you and your loved ones in the comfort of your own home. Kiron will share activities, easy at-home crafts, behind the scenes anecdotes and fun facts—all connected to the ROM collections.

This time on the ROMKids Show we learn about archaeology and exploring our past! Archaeologist Dr. Craig Cipolla returns to the Show to talk about the archaeological record, how archaeologists are time detectives, and what artefacts can tell us about people. Finally, we’ll run a few demonstrations to explain the process of preservation, and we’ll also test our new detective skills!

• paper
• washable markers
• permanent markers
• water

1. What we find in the archaeological record is often not the full picture. The act of preservation, which is how complete something remains over time, plays a key role in how we interpret what we find. For the first step, draw with your washable markers, a house, a few buildings, maybe a farm.

2. With your sharpies, draw a few people, maybe a family.

3. Submerge your drawing in a shallow bowl of water. Let it rest and return a few hours later.

4. What do you see? Has the washable marker faded, lifted, changed? Show your drawing to someone who did not see the original and ask them what they think the drawing showed? Would they know that the people who lived in the buildings, or would they think it’s just a drawing of people? This is why preservation is so important to the way we interpret the past. Without being there, we can only guess. Quality preservation of objects is critical to allowing us a more complete picture of the past.

As the ROMKids Coordinator & Camp Director, Kiron is the public face of the Royal Ontario Museum’s family and children’s programs. Kiron started volunteering at the ROM at age 14 and has never looked back. Though he majored in history at York University, Kiron also considers his early years as a ROMKids camper to be a highly formative part of his education. Now, he strives to provide engaging and educational kids’ programming so that future generations can look back on their ROM experiences as fondly as he has.