Archaeology is an integral source of information for how we understand the past. It provides us systematic methods for discovering and interpreting the material remains of the past, through which narratives of human presence, their activities, knowledge and overall societies are understood. However, at different levels of our education system – from school education to undergraduate studies – there is little attention to archaeology either in the curricula or in teaching. In addition, there exists little opportunity at the post-graduate level for interested students to study archaeology. This has meant that lack of awareness and opportunities is often termed as a lack of interest in the past, a rhetoric which has prevailed since the colonial period in India.
This program was begun with the aim of connecting specialists working on various aspects of the past, be they archaeologist, epigraphists, art historians or numismatists, with diverse audiences, be they the general public, government officials or researchers in archaeology.
This initiative has been funded by Sundaram Finance in the form of a project titled “Understanding the past: Intervention through dissemination”. The activities conducted under this project include a two-day workshop, which was held on November 8-9, 2017. Three Kannada medium, state board schools and one CBSE school located in the immediate neighbourhood of NIAS were invited. The students were from classes VI and VII and a total of 45 students attended the workshop. The aim of this workshop was to introduce them to methods of archaeology.
On the 10th of November 2017, a meeting was facilitated through this project at NIAS, between researchers and teachers about teaching archaeology in the classroom. The workshop was carried out in collaboration with Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS) and teachers from schools in Gadag district, Mysore district, Mandya district, Gadag district, Raichur district and Mandya district were invited to participate.
Disseminating Archaeology 