Archaeology

Kieron Tyler, Senior Archaeologist: Hi! My name is Kieron Tyler. I work for the Museum of London and we've been employed by the Olympic Delivery Authority to deal with the archaeology of the Olympic Park for them. It's an amazing opportunity for us because it's a massive, massive area and it's a part of London which had never had its story told before.  

We all know that the Olympics in 2012 is going to be very significant, but archaeology is the only way you can find out about the past of the Olympic Park and what we've found out is about 5,000, 6,000 years ago people were in the Olympic Park and there is a continual presence right up to today. 

This flint hand axe is from five to six thousand years ago and it is was oldest object that we've uncovered in our excavations and it's really significant. Nobody knew what those people were doing - we've actually found the artifacts they've left.

On the site of the Aquatics Centre we've uncovered the remains of some circular houses from about 3,000 years ago and we've also seen burials from the period as well, so what we have there is a little settlement. They were also using their boats in the river valley and they were hunting on dry land as well - it was a proper village.

Over the last few months I've done a number of talks in venues in the boroughs that the Olympic Park is within, and I've really been surprised by how many people have turned up, they've been interested in what we're doing. 

I'm quite fascinated by what has turned up...  I find it very interesting to see some of the slides he showed us.. 

So many interesting findings...

In addition to all this very early material that we've uncovered from thousands and thousands of years ago, we've also found that human activity really picks up again in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries with the arrival of industry in the area. We're finding the remains of factories, and the railways come for the first time as well and that really changes the environment.

If you look at a map of the Olympic Park you will see that there is lots of rivers crossing the area, none of those rivers are in a natural position - human activity constrain those rivers, moves them around.

The change represented by the construction of the Olympics is absolutely in keeping with all the change that 's happened in the Lea Valley beforehand - it's just happening in a shorter time period.