School topics · Teacher guide and download · CfE Second Level · P5–P7
Imagine standing outside your home almost 2,000 years ago. Your family grows food, keeps animals or makes useful things. You know the paths, rivers and neighbouring settlements. Then an army arrives with unfamiliar equipment and powerful leaders. What might change?
A country of different communities
The land we now call Scotland was home to many Iron Age communities. There was no single Scottish kingdom. Roman writers used names such as the Caledonii, but their accounts do not give us a complete picture of how local people understood themselves.
People were skilled farmers, metalworkers, weavers and builders. Many lived in roundhouses. Some built brochs: impressive stone roundhouses with thick walls. Brochs are especially associated with northern and western Scotland, although southern examples survive too. They were not everybody’s home, and we should not assume they were all built to fight the Romans.
Who were the newcomers?
Roman legionaries were soldiers who held Roman citizenship. Auxiliary units included infantry and cavalry recruited from across the empire. The Roman army was not made up only of people from Italy. Its soldiers could fight, construct defences and organise supplies.
“Roman” and “local” do not describe two groups who always thought alike. People might resist, negotiate, trade or change their choices over time.
What can survive for us to study?
Buildings, tools, pottery and food remains can reveal everyday life. Writing can reveal names and official claims, but some people left much more writing than others. Your challenge is to become an evidence detective.
Talk about it
Would a Roman writer and a local farmer describe the invasion in the same way? Give a reason, use evidence, and listen for an idea that might change your mind.
Classroom activity: Archaeological detectives
50 minutes • Social Studies and literacy • Learning focus: using historical evidence • Evidence to collect: one completed investigation record and a spoken justification
Teacher preparation
Use the three description cards on the printable evidence sheet. For close observation, display museum or Antonine Wall photographs using the linked sources below. State that a photograph represents an original object: the ancient object is primary evidence, while the modern caption and these cards are secondary interpretations. Replicas are modern teaching aids.
Lesson steps
1. Notice before naming — 5 minutes. Display a shoe or coin image without its caption. Ask pupils to describe only what they can see. Record “I notice” separately from “I think”.
2. Investigate — 18 minutes. Groups rotate through coin, shoe and distance-slab stations. Read the cards and complete: “I notice… This might suggest… My reason is… Another possibility is… We cannot tell…” If working from descriptions alone, label observations “the record says”.
3. Choose a source — 10 minutes. Give each group a question: “Who used this place?”, “How can we date activity?” or “Who wanted to be remembered?” Ask which object and which modern source best help answer it, and why.
4. Challenge a claim — 10 minutes. Offer: “A Roman coin proves the Romans ruled this place.” Groups suggest other routes by which a coin could arrive: trade, a gift, payment or later movement. Discuss how its excavation context changes confidence.
5. Curate — 7 minutes. Write or record a museum label with one supported claim, its evidence and one uncertainty. Explain that archaeologists record where objects occur, not just collect attractive objects.
Differentiation
- Support: use one object, enlarged images and a word bank: leather, metal, stone, letters, worn. Provide “I think… because…” and let pupils dictate their label.
- Core: investigate all three objects; distinguish an observation, an inference and an unanswered question. Choose two useful sources for one enquiry.
- Extend: compare an inscription’s official message with a shoe or food remains. Whose lives are most visible? Explain how two sources might support or complicate one another.
Teacher answer notes
Coins can help date a deposit, but may circulate for years and can move between communities. Shoes inform us about footwear and sometimes the range of wearers, but do not reveal an owner’s name or feelings. Distance slabs celebrate building achievements and imperial authority; they are neither neutral photographs nor ordinary road milestones.
Feedback prompt: “Which part is directly supported? What wording would show that the next part is only possible?” Look for careful language, not confident guessing.
Download the teaching pack and printable pupil sheets.
Evidence and further exploration
- National Museums Scotland: the Eildon Hills and contact
- Antonine Wall: personal belongings
- Antonine Wall: distance stones
Further evidence: David J. Breeze, Bearsden: A Roman Fort on the Antonine Wall (2016), chapter 19, pp 305–306; p 347. The teaching pack contains source notes.
