Newest Era

It was during a field trip to the National Archives with a group of college students that I first became aware of the problem. We had traveled to Washington D.C. to view the exhibit titled, What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam? The Government’s Effect on the American Diet. It was on our way home when I posed this simple question to the students, “What are your reactions to the exhibit?”...

For a BBC program in 1954, Sir Mortimer Wheeler tasted a reconstruction of the Tollund Man’s last supper, which turned out to be a tasteless mush. This led him to announce: "I believe that the poor chap of Tollund committed suicide because he could stand his...

Claidhbh Ó Gibne has devoted himself to building traditional currachs and researching their history. His new volume, The Boyne Currach: From beneath the shadows of Newgrange, puts the currach in the context of the history of...

Saturday 1 September dawns gloriously, and is unseasonably sunny. Our fingers are crossed that this is the Indian Summer we'd been praying for all August since we intend to do a lot of walking in the next three weeks...

Annual Proceedings of the EXAR Tagung
***Bilanz 2011 once again supplies an exciting, diverse and interesting view into the world of experimental archaeology. Published by EXAR in cooperation with the Pfahlbaumuseum Unteruhldingen, Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 2011, 270 pp, ISBN 978-3-89995-794-5

How do we know something is real? We say something exists when it is tangible and we can touch it; it is factual when we can compare it to other known variables, and historic when it fulfils our expectation of the past. There are objects and activities that blur these categories and cause people to accept alternative histories...

Both in Europe and in the US there is a multitude of archaeological sites which are shown to the general public either partially or completely rebuilt. This pattern, which is standard practice in many countries, is sternly contested and rejected in others, giving rise to a 200 year old international debate...

REARC Conferences
***The third annual Reconstructive & Experimental Archaeology (Re-Arc) Conference was hosted by the Schiele Museum of Natural History at Gastonia North Carolina, USA, 19-21 October 2012. Although the cost of the conference itself was minimal ($35 pre-registered, $20 for students) the large travel distances within North America always...

As a long-standing member of IMTAL (International Museums Theatre Alliance – www.imtal-europe.org) I have always enjoyed their conferences. The workshops and participatory events are held in fantastic venues with theatrics to entertain and inform. However, this conference was...

This interview with Dr. Errett Callahan began in the fall of 2010 during an 8-hour car ride from his home, Cliffside, in Lynchburg, Virginia to Gastonia, North Carolina where we both attended the first annual Reconstructive and Experimental Archaeology Conference (REARC)...