experiment

Introduction

Although a long list of publications has been dedicated over the last several decades to the questions concerning early metallurgy, the achievements and the potential contributions of experimental archaeology in this area of interest still remain quite underestimated by a consistent part of academia, at least in Italy. At some official occasions the debate between the theoretical knowledge-holders and the technical skill-holders strongly emerges, but very few come back home with a true increased respect and acceptance for the counterpart's work. 

To test whether or not the form of the discovered quartz was a result of prehistoric technological choices, a fracture analysis on collected vein quartz from Aust-Agder County was conducted1 .

In the summer of 2009 I was engaged in the preliminary preparations for extensive experiments to manufacture fish sauces for my MA dissertation in Archaeology at Reading University. In my previous research into Roman food, it was clear that it was not going to be possible to truly understand ancient cuisine without...

Between 1947 and 2006, nearly forty expeditions set out in recreated maritime drift vessels to demonstrate hypotheses with varying levels of relevance to archaeology and cultural diffusion. This paper divides the motivations of these expeditions into four major categories...

Who are the contributors?

First of all it is interesting to see who the participants in the discussion of the archaeological experiment are. Certainly, the articles I have selected and read are only representative of a fraction of the contributions, but it is clear that it is primarily those who work with experimental archaeology in their research. Participants from outside this group are rare. This is regrettable as the archaeological experiment is an important method in archaeological research in general.