ancient technology

This study is based on plaiting materials from Abu Tbeirah, Iraq, with a particular attention to baskets and reed mats. The study focuses on the various raw materials used, on diverse plating techniques and tries to understand possible uses of these artefacts in their context. The research has been developed with an experimental approach, based on archaeological and ethnographic sources...

In this paper, details are presented for three technical approaches that can be employed in the reproduction of Celtic coins from Britain: 1) the use of pellet trays to produce coin blanks of standardised weight; 2) the use of successive iterations of clay moulds to shrink coin design images while retaining clarity; and 3) the use of a low-carbon steel die that was heated to a plastic state and struck with a cast bronze slug to...

The Archäologisches Landesmuseum in Brandenburg hosted the annual Archäotechnika living history event, during the weekend of 11 to the 13 August 2018. Participants were attired in clothing appropriate to the period and worked in a variety of crafts including metalwork, stone tool production, textiles, salt production, fishnets and traps, textiles and dying, and demonstrations in horsemanship...

The Rapa Nui civilization once thrived on Easter Island, and produced unique statues which became a parable for collapse around the world (Hunt and Lipo, 2011). Several experiments have been conducted to better understand this collapse, specifically surrounding the movement of the islands’ largest inhabitants, the moai – the large monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people...

A new longhouse model in Hitzacker

The town of Hitzacker is situated adjacent to the river Elbe in the district Lüchow-Dannenberg, east of Lower Saxony. The discovery of wide Bronze Age settlement structures in Hitzacker in the 1980s led to the founding of a Bronze Age open air museum called AZH - Archaeological Center Hitzacker. Along with other archaeological models of Bronze Age architecture, three Longhouses were the main attractions of the institution and were also focal points of the educational programs. The destruction of one Longhouse by arson in 2008 was a great loss.

This bow was a concept, commissioned from Ulrich Velthuysen, a Swedish archer. This horn bow could be classified as a post-conquest design from early 14th century AD Mongolia. In this article, I will describe, step-by-step, the gathering and processing of materials, and the construction of this design of horn bow...

Over the past few years, beekeeping has been a media focal point. Nevertheless There is a paucity of knowledge surrounding the prehistory of beekeeping outside of the information from the east and south Mediterranean regions...

Experimental Archaeology in Latvia, during the past years has acquired a new direction. Although it has a long history of experimental reconstruction, best known for the excavation and rebuilding of the Late Iron Age Latgallian settlement in Āraiši by Dr. Jānis Apals, in last years, after the initiative of the current author...

I first met Steve in the summer of 1990. I was a student at University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) following a summer course in anthropology called Southeastern Indians. The course included several field trips, one of which was to the Schiele Museum where we visited the Catawba Village and listened to a presentation by Steve Watts...

Baskets are among the most ancient of human artefacts. Everyone is familiar with their most common functions as containers for transport and storage. When told that baskets have also served as cooking vessels, most people will be unable to conceive of how this is possible, yet this was a primary function of baskets for many cultures of the past, and some until the present...