Newer Era

For many years, actualistic studies have been used largely as a bridging link between archaeological data describing how people use objects with the human behaviours or natural processes associated with this use...

There must be hundreds of wooden ship replicas across the world, not only the ‘Viking ships’ in Scandinavia, but – as the book Sailing into the past shows, there are many medieval and more recent ones...

It may appear odd or redundant to reprint a book that was published in 1979. The subject will have moved on, more will have been discovered, new techniques will have been developed. But this is partly the point: Experimental Archaeology by John Coles is a foundation text for the subject as a whole...

A wide range of conferences on experimental archaeology and open air museums took place in 2010 and 2011, both in Europe and the Americas. This brief summary is based on the conference reviews from our contributors which can all be accessed freely on EXARC JOURNAL website from early 2012 on...

Building and operating a small bloomery iron furnace is certainly a wonderful public demonstration for any museum or living history site. It is however a complex technical process, with many individual factors combining for success. Over the last decade in North America, small teams of blacksmiths have developed predictable working methods through trial and much error. This direct practical experience can provide some insights into questions that even the best researched theories may not be able to solve.