Canada

“Look at the Bones!” - Adding Bone in a Bloomery Iron Smelt

Author(s)
Darrell Markewitz 1
Publication Date
A case study of a practical experimental test. Through 2019, much was made in the popular press suggesting that during the Viking Age, exhumed human bone had been used in the chain of production from iron ore through to finished swords. Contradicting this, considerable experience with small scale direct reduction process bloomery iron smelting furnaces indicated that at least while creating the iron itself...

Courtney John Lawrence

Member of EXARC since
Country
Canada
Crafts & Skills

I am an academic archaeologist who regularly flintknaps and practices experimental archaeology. Currently, I am a Master's student at UNBC who is almost done my program. I have close to a decade of experience analyzing stone and faunal tools. For experimental archaeology, I have close to 3 years

Standardized Reporting of Experimental Iron Smelting - A modest (?) Proposal

Author(s)
Darrell Markewitz 1
Publication Date
The development of effective bloomery iron smelting has progressed over the past decades from the first repeated experiments into documented, effective, methods. This progression has primarily been the work of often isolated individuals, many with great practical experience as artisans, but most often with little formal academic training. The overall result is a patchwork of recording methods and descriptions...

Hunting for Use-Wear

Author(s)
Matilda Siebrecht 1 ✉,
Diederik Pomstra 2
Publication Date

Harpoons are an essential part of the hunting toolkit amongst Inuit and have been integral to the material culture assemblage of Arctic groups for thousands of years. The pre-Inuit population known as the Dorset cultures (app. 800 BC–1300 AD) - also sometimes referred to as Tuniit - were highly dependent on a maritime subsistence with harpoon heads as one of the dominant artefact categories at Dorset sites...

University of Alberta (CA)

Member of EXARC
No

The University of Alberta is one of the top 5 institutions in Canada and is known nationally and internationally for their innovative research. They aim to foster creativity through a mixture of theoretical and practical courses. Through the Undergraduate Research Initiative, students of all levels of education can access funding for research and creative activities.

Department of Anthropology

The Department of Anthropology specializes in archaeology, biological anthropology, and socio-cultural anthropology. Courses are offered in Prehistory, Indigenous and Prairie Archaeology, as well as human skeletal and dental biology, disease processes in antiquity, and forensic anthropology. They have a number of different reference collections and laboratory spaces, including the Bryan/Gruhn Ethnographic Collection and a Photographic Studio.

Working with Artisans; The ‘It Depends’ Dilemma

Author(s)
Christina Petty 1
Publication Date
We live in a world where scientific method is both the expected and accepted path to knowledge. With any scientific method, experiments based on detailed, well-documented, well-considered theories, and precise set-ups must be replicated exactly by others who come to the same conclusion to consider the information gleaned from them to be valid. This has become the accepted practice for most...

The Mother of All Bead Furnaces: Testing a Hypothesis about a Natural Draft Bead Furnace

Author(s)
Neil Peterson 1
Publication Date
As a part of the ongoing exploration of Viking Era glass bead production, the Dark Ages Re-creation Company (DARC) team perform new pilot experiments on a regular basis. These experiments provide a preliminary understanding of a specific construct or research question, allowing us to judge the validity of further experiments, as well as what equipment or additional questions may be necessary as a part of...

Wilfrid Laurier University (CA)

Member of EXARC
No

Laurier traces its roots to the opening of the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary in Waterloo more than 100 years ago in 1911. We’ve gone through several changes since then, and in 1973 our name changed from Waterloo Lutheran University to Wilfrid Laurier University. A Laurier education is about building the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. We believe that your university career must lead to more than just a job to be considered a success; Laurier creates engaged and aware citizens in a culture that inspires lives of leadership and purpose.

Archaeology at WLU

Our Archaeology and Heritage Studies program explores areas of faculty research expertise in the archaeology of the New World and the Ancient Mediterranean World. The program focuses on the cultures of North America, in both the pre-contact and post-contact periods after the arrival of Europeans, and the ancient societies of Greece, Rome and the Near East.