(re)construction

Our understanding of the planning processes involved before any Neolithic structure was physically built, from the moment when it was conceived in a person’s mind up to the point of its construction requires further investigation for which experimental archaeology can provide some direction...

The lack of metal lorinery in the archaeological record of early medieval Ireland is addressed through a hypothesis that post-Iron Age bridles were made of straw and rushes, which did not survive deposition. Reconstruction and testing of a straw bridle show the material to be strong and quite suitable for vernacular use.

Cato The Elder (234-149 BC) wrote our oldest extant work of continuous Latin prose, On Farming (de agri cultura), a how-to guide for farming and life that also included many recipes. We were interested in the section on bread recipes in this text, particularly the recipe for the complex, layered placenta due to...

In 2019 a substantial building, based on archaeological evidence of early British Neolithic dwelllings, was constructed by site staff, volunteers, and staff of Wessex Archaeology at the Experimental Archaeology site, Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire, England. The archaeological feature on which our building was based was excavated in 2012 by Wessex Archaeology as part of a pre-extraction programme...

Introduction

The archaeological material for this period is scarce locally and does not give enough data for reconstruction. Thus, the decision was made to experiment on building techniques of the various types of habitats encountered in archaeological excavations throughout the south-eastern quarter of France in the regions near Ardèche such as Gard and Herault. The building material was chosen to fit the local climate and resources, and to provide reconstructions that would be compatible with the archaeological context of southern Ardèche.

This article gives a brief history of the context of the Book of Kells before summarising recent research into its material makeup. It then goes on to introduce a possible site of production that has been excavated in the Scottish Highlands, before introducing a project to recreate a folio from the manuscript as an experimental archaeology project.

In 1991, the sensational discovery of a male mummy, thawing from the ice, was made on the Tisenjoch in the Ötztal Alps, near the Austrian-Italian border. The deceased man lived about 5300 years ago at the end of the Neolithic Age and is commonly known as Ötzi in German-speaking countries. The site also contained many well-preserved accompanying items and equipment...

The stand and its previous representations

The ‘iron stand’ was excavated in 1939, one of the many objects discovered in the Sutton Hoo, Mound 1 ship burial. To date, the stand is unique in the archaeological record but due to adverse burial conditions it is incomplete (See Figure 1). This makes its appearance and function difficult to discern. Due to this difficulty, while the first description of the object was published in 1940 (Phillips, 1940, pp.

Introduction

Bone pipes dating from both the early and late medieval period have been found in the archaeological record from across central and Northern Europe such as in: The Netherlands (Tamboer, 2004), Denmark, Sweden (Lund, 1981a), Poland (Poplawska, 1998), Latvia (Urtan, 1970) and Estonia (Oras, 2015) (Tamboer and Rainio, 2020). One of the first comprehensive studies of these instruments as a whole is that by Brade, published in 1975.

Introduction

In Japan, experimental archaeology has thrived on many efforts to reconstruct prehistoric buildings. Since 1949, approximately one thousand buildings have been built at 360 sites (Ertl, 2021), making archaeological reconstruction something of a national pastime. In this article we compare approaches to making ancient pit houses at three sites located in the Central Highlands region of Japan: Togariishi-Yosukeone site (Chino City, Nagano Prefecture), Idojiri site (Fujimi Town, Nagano) and Umenoki site (Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture) (See Figures 1–3).