Newest Era

The origins of the European RETOLD project, led by the international association EXARC, lie in a concern to preserve the heritage generated by archaeological open-air museums through the creation of a standardised system for collecting, digitising and disseminating knowledge (memories) of the processes of building reconstruction and handcrafted objects. The project has a duration of four years ...

Experimental archaeologists often seek similar ethnographic studies when designing and preparing experiments. Observing how contemporary traditional artisans work, along with the materials and tools they use, provides invaluable insights to those who want to understand crafts and tools used in the ancient past. While contemporary artisans’ tools may have been modernised...

This edited volume by Dupré et al. explores the rising prominence of performative methodologies known as Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Replication, and Reworking (RRR). Resulting from a meeting of the NIAS-Lorentz Program in Leiden, Netherlands in 2015, this collection of papers by academics and practitioners ranges across chronological time (Bronze Age to 19th century) and disciplines...

The book Vejen til Vikingerne – broen mellem to verdener is about the Viking Bridge Project, which was run by Kroppedal Museum in Høje Taastrup, Denmark, and Vikingelandsbyen in Albertslund from 2017-2019. The book describes the project from thought to action and subsequent dissemination. The Viking Bridge Haraldsbro is now a reality and this publication is the final part of the project...

Europe is celebrating Archaeology, everybody is invited! Mr Pascal Ratier, who is in charge of events and colloquia for the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), is the coordinator of the European Archaeology Days. Since his arrival at the INRAP in 2014, he has been organizing the event, at first at a national level and, since 2019, at the European scale...

The ReConference 2018 took place from 2nd to 4th of November at the National Museum in Copenhagen and attracted interested people from all over the world. It was the successor to the first ReConference in 2017 in Moscow, organised by the group Ratobor, which was again involved in the organisation of the new event together with "Hands on History"...

The seminar was divided into two parts. One group professionally documented the long-term experiment “House 1” in the Museums Village Düppel for the first time. The house was built in the 1970s and left to decay in 1990. The area was freed from vegetation and photographed at regular intervals. The second group reflected on the continuous documentation of reconstructed houses in archaeological...

Background: The State of an Art?

Over the last three decades, bloomery iron smelting has moved from the largely theoretical to the practical. Although there were certainly earlier attempts via experimental process to build workable furnaces, most of these attempts were basically unsuccessful, at least in terms of actual iron production. Early researchers too often undertook (or at least only formally reported on) limited test series (one or two attempts) and many concentrated far too much on slag, not on the production of metallic iron itself.