One of the highlights of the year was the hybrid EAC13 conference in Toruń, Poland, in early May. Sixty participants attended in person while we had 300 online conference registrations and more than 18,000 views for the over one hundred online presentations.
The EXARC Journal remains our flagship, both the online version and the annual printed Digest. We are working to get the journal into the Web of Science, a bibliographic database of scholarly articles from 22,000 peer-reviewed journals worldwide.
In 2023 the Support Ukraine Network (SUN) has established itself firmly as an independent collaborative structure.
The EU project RETOLD has made a lot of progress this year and we’re looking forward to seeing it completed with the launch of a documentation app in 2024. A second project, Putting Life in Late Neolithic Houses, has made great strides and is also scheduled to finish in 2024.
Besides memberships of ICOM and NEMO, EXARC joined the European Heritage Alliance in 2023. This is an informal European sectoral platform composed of 52 European or international networks and organisations active in the wider field of cultural heritage.
Our podcast, the EXARC Show, has been going strong again in 2023 with eight new episodes. The last one of these, Mirrors and Window 2023, is a particularly engaging conversation between Roeland Paardekooper (outgoing long-time director) and Matilda Siebrecht (incoming new director) reviewing what EXARC was and is all about and what we should be focussing on in the future.
We were sad to see some of our members go this year but do hope to see them back again at some point. Fortunately, EXARC’s overall membership grew over the past year.
In 2024 we will renew our efforts to offer our members a user-friendly, interesting and accessible platform to exchange knowledge and expertise and build connections. A welcoming place where we can share our passion for experimental archaeology, ancient technology, archaeological open-air museums and interpretation.
We want to wish you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
