Experimental Archaeology

This article deals with the daily technology of ceramic oil lamps from the period of the 1st century AD until the first half of the 7th century AD. The questions underlying in this article include the following: How long did combustion take and what was its intensity? Were wicks pulled and when? Was the oil poured into an already-burning lamp to increase the burning time, as Dr. Amar Zohar, of Bar Ilan University suggests?...

Bone fishhooks have occasionally been retrieved from bone assemblages at coastal sites dating to the Middle Mesolithic phase (8300-6300 cal. BC) in Southern Norway and Western Sweden. Several studies of fishhooks from these sites have been undertaken in recent years. Fishhooks can be manufactured from different osseous materials, including antler, ribs and shafts of different long bones...

11th EAC Trento 2019
***The supposition that an unusually perforated femur of a juvenile cave bear found at the Divje babe I Palaeolithic cave site in Slovenia could be a musical instrument led to heated debates. According to its archaeological context and chronostratigraphic position, if made by humans, it could only be attributed to Neanderthals...

11th EAC Trento 2019
***Experimental archaeology and use-wear analysis are methods used together to understand aspects of an object’s life, such as manufacture and use. This paper demonstrates the benefits of analysing use-wear through experiments. It presents the results of experiments which were carried out to test the use of battle-axes and axe-hammers...

The question of who made peak sanctuary figurines has frequently been raised but seldom deeply examined. The assumption that the aesthetically refined pieces were carefully made by skilled ‘artists’ while the less visually pleasing ones were rapidly made by low-skilled ‘artisans’ has consequently endured. Revisiting these conclusions from a materially inclusive perspective that...

11th EAC Trento 2019
***The Perfume Theme Park Museum of Cyprus’ research protocol of Experimental Archaeology (https://www.perfumecypark.org), aims at verifying hypotheses of ancient perfume manufacturing processes, to formulate a possible comparison with modern realities derived from the island’s ancient cultural heritage. What has recently emerged...

The material record for bloomery furnaces in Iron Age and Roman Britain is fragmentary and, because of this paucity of evidence, the reconstruction of the ceramic structures used in iron production is difficult. Experiments have nevertheless been carried out to ...

11th EAC Trento 2019
***In 1962, the remains of five late Viking Age ships were excavated from Roskilde Fjord, near Skuldelev on the Danish island of Zealand. Twenty years later, the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde began the process of building its first full-scale Viking ship reconstruction, the 14 m long coastal transport and trading vessel, Skuldelev 3...

11th EAC Trento 2019
***Apart from human-made retouch, stone tools can also exhibit traces of damage caused by several post depositional processes, one of which is trampling. Edge damage provoked by trampling, be it of animal or human origin, is sometimes interpreted as human-made retouch ...

This study explores the possibility that the internal rib commonly recognised inside bronze socketed axes may suggest an entirely different step in the casting process than previously thought. The internal rib, more commonly referred to as a ‘hafting rib’, has always been regarded as a functional addition to help tighten the grip of the haft once fitted into the socket. However, many of the internal ribs...