Experimental archaeology

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Experimental archaeology employs a number of different methods, techniques, analyses, and approaches in order to generate and test hypotheses or an interpretation, based upon archaeological source material, like ancient structures or artifacts. It should not be confused with primitive technology which is not concerned with any archaeological or historical evidence, living history or historical reenactment, which is generally undertaken as a hobby, for entertainment or to demonstrate a romantic atmosphere of a specific (pre)historic era.

One of the main forms of experimental archaeology is the creation of copies of historical structures using only historically accurate technologies. This is sometimes known as reconstruction archaeology. However, the product of experimental archaeology is data, not the constructed house, axe, pot or whatsoever. A good example is Butser Ancient Farm in the English county of Hampshire which is a working replica of an Iron Age farmstead where long-term experiments in prehistoric agriculture, animal husbandry and manufacturing are held to test ideas posited by archaeologists. In Denmark, the Lejre Experimental Centre carries out even more ambitious work on such diverse topics as artificial Bronze Age and Iron Age burials, prehistoric science and stone tool manufacture in the absence of flint.

Other examples include:

The Kon-Tiki, a balsa raft built by Thor Heyerdahl and sailed from Peru to Polynesia to demonstrate the possibility of cultural exchange between South America and the Polynesian islands.
Attempts (so far unsuccessful) to transport large stones like those used in Stonehenge from their probable original location in Pembrokeshire to the site on Salisbury Plain, using only technology that would have been available at the time.
The reconstruction of part of Hadrian's Wall at Vindolanda, carried out in limited time by local volunteers.
Greek triremes have been reconstructed by skilled sailors from plans and archaeological remains and have been successfully tried out at sea.
Attempts to manufacture steel that matches all the characteristics of Damascus steel, whose original manufacturing techniques have been lost for centuries.
[Experiments in Ancient Roman Coin Minting].

Other types of experimental archaeology may involve burying modern replica artefacts and ecofacts for varying lengths of time to analyse the post-depositional effects on them. Other archaeologists have built modern earthworks and measured the effects of silting in the ditches and weathering and subsidence on the banks to understand better how ancient monuments would have looked.

The work of Flintknappers is also a kind of experimental archaeology as much has been learnt about the many different types of flint tools through the hands-on approach of actually making them. Experimental archaeologists have equipped modern professional butchers, archers and lumberjacks with replica flint tools to judge how effective they would have been for certain tasks. Use wear traces on the modern flint tools are compared to similar traces on archaeological artefacts, making probabillity hypotheses on the possible kind of use feasible. Hand axes have been shown to be particularly effective at cutting animal meat from the bone and jointing it.

References

Ascher, Robert (1961): Experimental archaeology. in: American Anthropologist (Menasha) 63, 4: pp 793-816.
Ascher, Robert (1970): Cues 1: design and construction of an experimental archaeological structure. in: American Antiquity (Washington) 35, 2: pp 215-216.
Coles, John Morton (1979), Experimental archaeology, London a.o.: Academic Press, ISBN 0-12-179750-3 / ISBN 0-12-179752-X, 274 pp.
Ingersoll, Daniel W., Yellen, John E., Macdonald, William (editors), (1977), Experimental archaeology, New York, ISBN 0-23103-658-2, 432 pp.
Mathieu, James R. (editor), (2002), Experimental archaeology, replicating past objects, behaviors and processes, BAR International Series 1035, Oxford, ISBN 1-84171-415-1.
Reynolds, Peter J. (n.y.): [The Nature of Experiment in Archaeology].
Stone, Peter; Planel, Phillipe, (1999), The Constructed past. Experimental archaeology, education and the public, 296 pp, Routledge: One World Archaeology Series, ISBN 0-41511-768-2, 296 pp.
Tringham, Ruth (1978), Experimentation, ethnoarchaeology, and the leapfrogs in archaeological methodology. in: Gould, Richard A. (editor): Explorations in ethnoarchaeology. Albuquerque, pp 169-199.
Verhoeven, J.D., Pendray, A.H., Dauksch, W.E., (1998), [The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades], in: JOM, 50 (9) (1998), pp. 58-64.

External links

[Butser Ancient Farm], Hampshire, UK;
[The Lejre Center], DK, the major example to many archaeological open air centres;
[EXARC], the European network of Archaeological Open Air Museums and other facilities involved in Experimental Archaeology;
[EXAR] the European Association for the advancement of archaeology by experiment;
[The University of Exeter] offers Europe's only MA in experimental archaeology.

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