EXARC Meetings

This is an open call for abstracts, relevant to the conference theme. The conference language is English. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words including title, author name(s), possible references and any other information provided. These should be in MS Word or .rtf format (not in PDF). Please do not include images.

On submitting your abstract, you need to tell us whether you like to present in person at Butser (UK) or will join with an online presentation, or both. 

As we face further uncertainty concerning travel - with continued restrictions between countries and the surge in cases of new variants of COVID emerging across the world, the organising committee for the forthcoming Communication the Past (ComPast) Conference in Athens this October has taken the unanimous decision to postpone this event to sometime in late Spring/ early Summer of 2022. 

The Committee did not take this decision lightly and feel that this is the best decision in view of the circumstances.  We wish to acknowledge and thank everyone who has given their time to, submitted abstracts and shown interest in participating in this event...

EXARC cannot have an Annual General Meeting (AGM) as usual. We therefore will do the AGM by e-mail.

The opening of the AGM will be on Monday, April 12, with all members receiving a newsletter and documentation about the past year and the plans for the current year. Your feedback is needed before April 25.

The Board will then look at all the comments, and reply soon after that. This will be followed by a request to vote by all the members...

The #EAC12 Experimental Archaeology Conference 2021 has just come to an end. EXARC celebrated an online feast of over 167 presentations from all over the world, published open access on #EXARC Youtube Channel, with a lot of interaction with participants from around the world in our Discord server with its 1,200 members.

We broadcasted over four days, and had 30,000 views (till April 1st). We had close to 1,900 conference registrations from over 72 countries. It is impossible to estimate how many people we reached and will still reach in the future. The video presentations remain online for all those who like to watch back.

We have a live conference going right now, on “Archaeological Approaches to the Study of the Potter’s Wheel”, #potterycon. In case you missed yesterday, we heard papers concerned with modes of research for potting practices. Our inaugural speaker Professor Sander Van der Leeuw, the speakers and discussant Professor Carl Knappett brought forth a variety of approaches to the study of the wheel, generating much discussion.

On November 25, we begin with Theme 2, the evolution and spread of the potter’s wheel, and which will continue into Thursday. This theme will discuss the potter’s wheel in a range of geographical contexts, from Mesopotamia and the Uruk to the Aegean, Sudan and Southern Italy...

EXARC has over 75 volunteers worldwide. A good part of these live in the Netherlands, where we have our office. Our team works on the EXARC Journal, our website, social media, conferences - almost all the work EXARC does is in the hands of volunteers.

When we got the chance to organise a volunteer day for our Dutch volunteers, we of course did not say no! We could only achieve this with some help (see below). A location was found in Archeon where those volunteers of us who are no EXARC members learned what an archaeological open-air museum is about...

Early May, Lauresham Open-Air Laboratory hosted its Days of Experimental Archaeology online. It showed a choice of the work on experimental archaeology done in Lauresham, an early medieval (Carolingian) monastic site in Hessen, Germany. Over 10 presentations were shown on YouTube (prepared by the Lauresham crew), with a live discussion between the speakers and the audience via Discord, powered by EXARC. 

The virtual days of experimental archaeology were divided between lectures by an international group of speakers, insight "behind the scenes" of the daily in Lauresham and added to that Virtual Information Stands by cooperation partners of the open-air laboratory...

EXARC had originally planned a conference in Berlin (DE) in March 2020, with Museumsdorf Düppel as our co-host, on Documentation Strategies for Archaeological Open-Air Museums. About 75 people were already registered when, two weeks before it should happen, reality caught up on us, and we had to cancel going to Berlin and decided to go digital instead.

This meant for every speaker to record their presentation, which led to very different approaches. Truth is, they had to step (far) out of their comfort zone to change format under challenging circumstances. A call for volunteers (“all hands on deck”) led to about 15 people volunteering to spend about 500 hours in only two weeks time...

With the FU University in Berlin closed its doors for all conferences (Read more), the #EXARCBerlin conference cannot proceed as planned. Instead, the Conference will go live on the internet. We will broadcast live, open access, on 26 and 27 March.

The decision to not meet in Berlin and go instead online is based on decisions beyond our control. Do join us online on 26 & 27 March, it will be freely accessible to all! Read the full program and abstracts at: https://exarc.net/meetings/berlin, and tune in during the live conference!

EXARC cannot have an Annual General Meeting (AGM) as usual. We therefore will do the AGM by e-mail.

The opening of the AGM will be on Monday, March 30, with all members receiving a newsletter and documentation about the past year and the plans for the current year. Your feedback is needed before April 11.

The Board will then look at all the comments, and reply soon after that. This will be followed by a request to vote by all the members...