Iron Age

A recent conference, funded partially by UISPP, was held in Queens University Belfast. While its main focus was on Bronze Age metalsmithing tools and assemblages, the MeTools conference (23-25 June at Queen’s University, Belfast) had several presentations that focussed on experimental archaeology as a means of exploring metalworking craft...

MAMUZ is the new name that combines the Lower Austrian museum of prehistory Niederösterreich Asparn/Zaya and the museum centre Museumszentrum Mistelbach to create a centre of experiences and knowledge covering 40,000 years of the history of the human race. Using the example of its archaeological open-air site, the museum of prehistory MAMUZ aims to...

The European Textile Forum (Textilforum) was held between the 2nd and 9th November 2015, at the Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology (LEA) in Mayen, Germany. LEA kindly hosted the European Textile Forum as part of their inaugural event in 2012 and since then the Director Michael Herdick has invited the conference to return annually...

At the age of thirty Edoardo started to study Archaeology for pleasure at the University of Genoa (Italy) while working as a computer programmer. Since then has taken part in archaeological excavations of prehistoric sites. Here he met many enthusiastic students, who dreamed of a future as prehistoric archaeologists in Italy, a country much more structured for classical archaeology...

Archaeological parks, routes and paths in Slovenia are becoming new cultural-tourist products/attractions which, due to their content, enable visitors to “travel” back to the most remote periods of time. These products/attractions were first created in order to preserve the archaeological heritage and to make visitors aware of the rich cultural heritage which can be found at a specific place.

During archaeological excavations, burned bones are often found as a result of cremation, cooking or accidental fire. Even though the bones are burned, their elemental composition might still hold information about diet, habitat and health history in the past.

Analysis of plant remains and soils collected during excavations of the Iron Age and Roman Period salt production site at Stanford Wharf Nature Reserve on the coast of Essex have shown that saltmarsh plants and adhering sediments had been used as fuel to evaporate brine and crystallise the sea salt.

As the manager of the Ancient Technology Centre (ATC) in Dorset, England, like many of you, I consider regularly what it is that we actually do. What services do we provide? How are we regarded by the public, by the education sector, by the children we teach, and by those who pay to come through our doors.

In the last quarter of the 1900s, John Coles (1979) and Peter Reynolds (1999) introduced the subject of experimental archaeology, which has gained significant momentumin the past few years. The discipline has become essential for reconstructing past technologies, in addition to supporting archaeological theory.

OpenArch Special Digest 2015 Issue 2
***This article summarises the main issues that were faced in running a group of reconstructed Iron Age roundhouses as an educational and visitor resource at St Fagans National History Museum from 1992 until 2013. Plans to build a new Iron Age farmstead at St Fagans are then outlined along with the steps...