review
Conference Review: The Metalworker and his Tools: QUB Belfast Conference
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A recent conference, funded partially by UISPP, was held in Queens University Belfast. While its main focus was on Bronze Age metalsmithing tools and assemblages, the MeTools conference (23-25 June at Queen’s University, Belfast) had several presentations that focussed on experimental archaeology as a means of exploring metalworking craft...
Book Review: ZurĂĽck zu unserem Cheruskerhof! by Sylvia Crumbach
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Experimental archaeology in its various manifestations is a transnational historical practice that, for almost one and a half centuries, has managed to fascinate both academic practitioners and laypeople. Although it has many ideological connections – ranging from anti-modernism, nationalism, the life-reform movement, racism, National Socialism...
Conference Review: European Textile Forum 2015
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The European Textile Forum (Textilforum) was held between the 2nd and 9th November 2015, at the Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology (LEA) in Mayen, Germany. LEA kindly hosted the European Textile Forum as part of their inaugural event in 2012 and since then the Director Michael Herdick has invited the conference to return annually...
Book Review: Egyptology in the Present: Experiential and Experimental Methods in Archaeology by C. Graves-Brown (Ed)
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The eye-catching and colourful cover illustration of the Egyptian creator-God Ptah, fully-equipped with modern toolkit, promises an informative journey into experiential and experimental archaeology in Egyptology...
Book Review: Archaeology and Crafts edited by RĂĽdiger Kelm
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The book “Archaeology and Crafts” is a transcript of the proceedings of the VI OpenArch-Conference held in Albersdorf, Germany, on the 23-27 September 2013. The conference was an activity of the OpenArch project –a cooperation of Archaeological Open-Air Museums across Europe of which the AOZA...
Event Review: Paleofestival: 10 Years of Spreading Archaeology in Evolution
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At the age of thirty Edoardo started to study Archaeology for pleasure at the University of Genoa (Italy) while working as a computer programmer. Since then has taken part in archaeological excavations of prehistoric sites. Here he met many enthusiastic students, who dreamed of a future as prehistoric archaeologists in Italy, a country much more structured for classical archaeology...
Film Review: The Great Human Race by National Geographic
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National Geographic offers some of the most beautiful film material, of nature and culture, one can imagine. When I heard that Dr Bill Schindler would co-star together with Cat Bigney in a series recreating humankind’s ancestral journey, I was thrilled...
Book Review: Recent Publications: Experimental Archaeology in the November 2015 Issue of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal (Volume 25, Issue 4)
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In the last quarter of the 1900s, John Coles (1979) and Peter Reynolds (1999) introduced the subject of experimental archaeology, which has gained significant momentumin the past few years. The discipline has become essential for reconstructing past technologies, in addition to supporting archaeological theory.
Book Review: Geschichtstheater. Formen der "Living History" by Wolfgang Hochbruck
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National interest in re-production of history started when the Ethnological Commission of Westphalia called together with Freilichtmuseum Cloppenburg, one of the oldest German open-air museums, a conference on the topic of “Living history in the Museum” in 2007 in Cloppenburg, Niedersachsen. Subsequent conferences made it clear that - apart from predictable doubts about the reliability and quality of the reconstructions of historical life-worlds and events - there was a significant dissonance regarding terminologies.
Book Review: From Rome to Las Vegas. Reconstructions of Ancient Roman Architecture by Anita Rieche
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For more than 200 years ancient buildings have been reconstructed. Reasons for the reconstruction of Roman architecture in particular are many. People enjoy being surrounded by fully realised reconstructions of ancient ruins where they can be taught in a manner reflecting a museum-like academic rigour...