Experimental Archaeology: Making, Understanding, Story-telling
Edited by Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood & Aidan O’Sullivan
City: Oxford
Year: 2019
Publisher: Archaeopress
Description: Paperback, 105 p., numerous b/w and colour figures,21 x 29.7 cm
Abstract
Experimental Archaeology: Making, Understanding, Story-telling is based on the proceedings of a two-day workshop on experimental archaeology at the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens in 2017, in collaboration with UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture. Scholars, artists and craftspeople explore how people in the past made things, used and discarded them, from prehistory to the Middle Ages. The papers include discussions of the experimental archaeological reconstruction and likely past experience of medieval houses, and also about how people cast medieval bronze brooches, or sharpened Bronze Age swords, made gold ornaments, or produced fresco wall paintings using their knowledge, skills and practices. The production of ceramics is explored through a description of the links between Neolithic pottery and textiles, through the building and testing of a Bronze Age Cretan pottery kiln, and through the replication and experience of Minoan figurines. The papers in this volume show that experimental archaeology can be about making, understanding, and storytelling about the past, in the present.
Contents
List of Figures [ii]
The Contributors [v]
Introduction Defining Experimental Archaeology: Making, Understanding, Storytelling? [1-4]
Aidan O’Sullivan & Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood
Experimental archaeological reconstructions and the investigation of houses from the past [5-14]
Aidan O’Sullivan & Brendan O’Neill
Crafting prehistoric bronze tools and weapons: experimental and experiential perspectives [15-26]
Barry Molloy
“Cutting edge technology”: new evidence from the experimental simulation and use of Late Bronze Age woodworking cutting tools. The saw as “case study” [27-42]
Eleni Maragoudaki
Experimenting on Mycenaean goldworking techniques: the case of the granulated cone [43-52]
Eleni Konstantinidi-Syvridi, Nikolas Papadimitriou, Akis Goumas, Anna Philippa-Touchais & Romain Prevalet
Thinking through our hands: making and understanding Minoan female anthropomorphic figurines from the peak sanctuary of Prinias, Crete [53-62]
Christine Morris, Brendan O’Neill & Alan Peatfield
Reconstructing a Bronze Age Kiln from Priniatikos Pyrgos, Crete [63-72]
Jo Day & Maggie Kobik
Where have all the early medieval clay moulds gone? An experimental archaeological investigation of bi-valve clay moulds in Ireland, AD 400-1100 [73-82]
Brendan O’Neill
Recreating Neolithic textiles: an exercise on woven patterns [83-92]
Kalliope Sarri & Ulrikka Mokdad
Experimental archaeology and the investigation of the methods, materials and techniques of fresco wall-paintings [93-105]
Antonis Vlavogilakis