experimental archaeology

This is an extract from a lengthy and lively Facebook discussion in the Experimental Archaeology group, illustrating the main points as it took place between 16 August 2014 and 22 August 2014. The full discussion can be found at: www.facebook.com/groups/experimentalarchaeology

Linda Hurcombe, senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, visited the Hunebedmuseum in Borger ( NL) as part of a staff exchange for the OpenArch project. She talked about how to twin new tech-nologies, such as 3D-printing, within archaeology and museums...

Spawned from an HMS (Historical Metallurgy Society) conference at West Dean College in 2010, this book is a unique compilation of papers written by both academics and craftsmen. Further articles not directly drawn from the conference have been included and cover non-ferrous experiments and an ethnographic study of blacksmithing...

Annual Proceedings of the EXAR Tagung
***According to James Mathieu in 2002, experimental archaeology is “A subfield of archaeological research which employs a number of different methods, techniques, analyses and approaches within the context of a controllable imitative experiment to replicate past phenomena...

The goal of this project is to reconstruct the operational sequence of manufacture of Iberian Iron Age pottery, from clay procurement to firing in a reconstructed kiln. Although pottery is the most characteristic artefact recovered on Iberian Iron Age excavations, most of its complex processes and production techniques remain poorly known...

7th UK EA Conference Cardiff 2013
***The Prometheus Project was an experimental archaeological investigation carried out at Butser Ancient Farm, Hampshire, England, into prehistoric logboat building techniques. The project focused on exploring the use of fire in building logboats...

The VII OpenArch Conference took place from 11 to 15 June 2014 at Kierikki Stone Age Centre, 50 kilometres northeast of Oulu in Northern Finland. The conference was jointly organised by Kierikki and the University of Exeter, which are in charge of Working Package 5, “Dialogue with Science”...

The publication in 1979 of the John Coles’ book Experimental Archaeology can be called the vademecum of the experimental archaeology. Many particular experiments have been published since then, such as A Bibliography of Replicative Experiments in Archaeology (Graham et al. 1972) and...

How do you personally approach the concept of experimental archaeology?

Experimental archaeology - in my opinion - has the main and only aim to find answers to questions where classical archaeological methods fail to find them.

EXARC, Experimenta and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid invited several universities to a round table meeting in Madrid, in May 2014. EXARC's aim was to bring colleagues into one room to share their experiences in handling experimental archaeology from an academic perspective...