Viking Age

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...

Recent years have shown an upsurge of activities related to experimental archaeology in Norway. The time was therefore ripe to arrange a meeting (7 May 2011) and there was talk of forming a formal network for experimental archaeology in Norway. The previous meeting of the sort was in 2005, and the idea of a seminar was well received...

In November 2009, the idea for launching a network on adult education in EXARC was picked up. The first step was a preparation meeting in Oerlinghausen, Germany where we met with about 20 EXARC members from almost all corners of Europe. By mid 2010, 15 organisations, including EXARC itself joined in two so called Grundtvig Learning Partnerships, funded by the European Union...

The summer of 2010 saw the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Viking Era site at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland Canada. To celebrate this milestone Parks Canada arranged a number of special events, including an August visit from the Dark Ages Re-creation Company (DARC)...

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.