Bronze Age

How elitist attitudes shape archaeological interpretations. A curious misunderstanding arose while writing about Bronze Age metalworking hearths and smiths. I stated that no tools are found at metalworking sites after the work was completed as the tools and materials would have been taken away. The reader took the statement to infer that I was arguing for the idea that metalsmiths were itinerant, as described by Gordon Childe (Childe, 1940, p.176); that they packed up and left for another settlement...

This study aims to understand the manufacturing process of glass ingots, particularly blue glass, through the use of different furnace types, including electrical and wood-fired furnaces in varying locations. The study also investigates the use of a separator in the manufacturing process, which would allow for the glass ingots to be easily separated from the crucibles. Various materials such as oil, pure lime, and crushed oyster shells are used as a parting layer in the glass crucibles; both the lime and oyster shell layers are successful in separating the ingots from the crucibles after firing...

Two distinct types of plaster were produced in prehistoric Cyprus: the lime plaster and the havara plaster. The latter was obtained by mixing the local secondary limestone (havara) with water, with no pyrotechnological process involved. Because lime plaster and havara plaster have very similar characteristics, archaeologists often struggle to distinguish them in the field. An experimental study was undertaken to produce new data that could aid in examining the manufacturing techniques of prehistoric plaster materials in Cyprus...

This paper investigates the potential for experimental archaeology and X-radiography to improve our understanding of the manufacture and use of two categories of prehistoric Cretan administrative clay objects: clay tablets and hanging nodules. The results are encouraging: the simple and three-fold tablet shaping techniques can be distinguished confidently, incised writing that was erased can, potentially, be made visible again and...

On 13 July 2024 the village of Daugailiai celebrated the 770th year of its founding on with a festival that included demonstrations and experiments in bronze casting. Daugailiai is a village in Utena County in Northeast Lithuania. The village features a hillfort, which is dated to 1st millennium BC-beginning of 1st Millenium AD, upon which a castle was built in 1254 and...

The lack of metal lorinery in the archaeological record of early medieval Ireland is addressed through a hypothesis that post-Iron Age bridles were made of straw and rushes, which did not survive deposition. Reconstruction and testing of a straw bridle show the material to be strong and quite suitable for vernacular use...

Indus Valley Civilization flourished in India and Pakistan owing to its technological advancements dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. The present paper aims to trace the emergence of pyrotechnology through documenting the industrial settlements that have been excavated in recent years, as well as locating the potential trading network for the craft items being produced at these small settlements on...

Archaeological excavations have revealed important sites from the prehistoric sites, with the cultural achievements of the early lithic tools of hunters-gatherers in the Palaeolithic, to the emergence of the farmer-village societies in the Neolithic, reaching on to urbanisation and the complex societies of the Chalcolithic...

Annual Proceedings of the EXAR Tagung
***The periodical is published by Gunter Schöbel and the European Association for the Advancement of Archaeology by Experiment e. V. (Europäische Vereinigung zur Förderung der Experimentellen Archäologie) in collaboration with the Pfahlbaummuseum Unterhuldingen...

In this book, Matthew Knight examines fragmentation of metal objects from hoards dating to the Bronze Age of South-West Britain, and uses experimental archaeology to better assess fragmentation and destruction. Fragmentation is the deliberate destruction of metal objects. Other forms of destruction can include bending, folding, or crushing objects so that they are no longer useable.