Modern finds
When archaeologists say ‘modern’, they often mean things that other people think of as still quite old. When the Finds Liaison Officer records modern objects, this means that they are less than 300 years old. The Scheme only records objects that date from 1750 or earlier. The reason for this is that there are so many modern finds, things that are less than 300 years old, that if we tried to record them all, we wouldn’t have enough people or time to record the older objects too! However, if you find something and you are not sure if it is more than 300 years old, you can still take it to your local Finds Liaison Officer to check if it should be recorded!
The Modern period produces far more finds than the other periods. This is for two reasons. The first is that because this period, or slice of time, is more recent, objects haven’t rotted away (called corrosion); the second is that more of them were made in the first place. This is because of mass production .
The Industrial Revolution sounds like a sudden, one-off event, but it was in fact, a series of clever inventions, harnessing of new technology and changes in the way that people worked. Before this, everything was made by hand but during the Industrial Revolution, factories full of steam-powered machines mass produced goods. Canals, and later railways, linked towns and cities together so that food, raw materials and finished goods could be moved more easily and cheaply than before.
Just like in our century, the world changed very, very quickly from about the 1750s to the late 1800s, leading to the technology of the twentieth century and the modern world that we know today.
Can you imagine a world without computers and mobile ‘phones and Gameboys? Well your parents can! Can you imagine a world without cars and aeroplanes? Well your grandparents and great grandparents can!
Now think about what kind of world your grandparents great grandparents might have known, when machines that spun wool, made cloth or made steel tools seemed very modern and up-to-date. This was the time of the Industrial Revolution when our country became modern. This is why archaeologists call the period from 1750 until now, the Modern period.
