The EXARC Show (Archive)

The use of metal has transformed almost every aspect of life, helping us to clothe ourselves, create cars, trains and planes, get to the bottom of the ocean and out into space. On this month’s episode of Finally Friday, we take a look at how experimental archaeology helps us to understand metal in the past, with guests Fergus Milton and Giovanna Fregni. Fergus Milton is a long-standing prehistoric metalworking demonstrator at Butser Ancient Farm in the UK. He works closely with the public, giving frequent demonstrations of his work. Giovanna Fregni is an experienced jeweller and archaeologist with particular interests in non-ferrous metals and replicating ancient metalworking techniques from the Bronze Age to Medieval period. Similarly to Fergus, she now offers demonstration and teaching on these ancient techniques.

Fergus Milton is a long-standing prehistoric metalworking demonstrator at Butser Ancient Farm in the UK. Having been involved in experimental metalworking since the early 2000s, Fergus has developed particular interests in smelting, principally of copper ores (although also delving into other metals such as tin, lead, brass and occasionally, iron). In his demonstrator role at Butser, Fergus works closely with the public, offering demonstrations and occasional teaching, of these fascinating skills.

Giovanna Fregni is an experienced jeweller and archaeologist with particular interests in non-ferrous metals and replicating ancient metalworking techniques from the Bronze Age to Medieval period. She particularly enjoys reconstructing hammers, anvils and other tools to understand metalworking technologies. She has also contributed to research on the preservation and reconstruction of archaeological metal. Currently, Giovanna travels significantly, offering demonstration and teaching on these ancient metalworking techniques. 

Support the show

We all enjoy visiting museums and other archaeological areas, but what are the implications of sustainability when maintaining and rebuilding these sites? This month we consider open-air museums and cultural heritage sites from the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals, as Matilda chats with guests Amy Stewart and Silje Evjenth Bentsen. 

Amy Stewart is the curator at the Crannog Centre Open Air Museum in Scotland. Since the unfortunate destruction of the central Crannog several years ago, Amy has become involved in planning the new build, and part of this job involves considering the implications of sustainability at the museum site.

Dr Silje Evjenth Bentsen is the project manager of “Fotefar mot nord” (“Traces towards the North”) in Norway. This project aims to promote cultural heritage as a resource for both the local community and the tourism industry, and one of the main themes of developing it further is that of sustainability.

Together, they discuss issues of social, material, and environmental sustainability when rebuilding cultural heritage sites. 

Support the show

The 2023/3 EXARC Journal is bringing you four reviewed and eight mixed matter articles. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of information and further development of our knowledge of the past.

The reviewed articles come from Denmark, United Kingdom and two from Italy. Two of them concern metal production – Henriette Lyngstrøm’s article on drawing wire from bog ore iron and Mauro Fiorentini’s article on casting a copper axe. Another article by Francesca Tomei and Juan Ignacio Jimenez Rivero deals with pottery production. The last article by a collective of Italian researchers is dedicated to garum, one of the most famous sauce in Roman cuisine.

In the mixed matters section you can find reports on conferences and events including the EAC 13, which took place in Torun Poland in May 2023, the RETOLD meeting in Sibiu, Romania and Archaeology Days in Kernave, Lithuania. You can also find there reviews of Rethinking Heritage for Sustainable development and Draft animals in the Past, Present and Future.

Support the show

In this month’s episode of Finally Friday we are talking sustainable and natural buildings! Most of us live in and around buildings every day, but could going back to historic or natural building techniques add new dimension to our architecture? This month Phoebe is joined by two experts from our EXARC community, Caroline Nicolay and Daniel Postma. 

Caroline Nicolay is an archaeologist and heritage specialist who focusses on the public’s interaction, interpretation and experience of archaeology. She has worked in a number of open-air museums across England and France but has since established her own living history and experiential archaeology company, Pario Gallico. With Pario Gallico, Caroline particularly likes to focus on recreating Iron Age wall paintings, but she also works on other areas of history up until the Tudor period. More recently, to complement her research in wall painting, she has begun training in the conservation and maintenance of traditional earth buildings.

Daniel Postma is a natural builder and archaeologist based in Scotland. His first involvement in experimental archaeology began in the research and eventual reconstruction of an early medieval turf building located in the north of the Netherlands and he is now a specialist in this material. Since then, Daniel has trained in contemporary natural and sustainable building techniques, which help contribute to a more holistic idea of how buildings in the past may have been constructed. His company Archaeo Build, takes this idea further, focussing on the interaction between past and present forms of natural building.

Tune in from Friday 7th July to hear Caroline and Daniel chat everything from floors made with blood to the effects of the Industrial Revolution.

Support the show

The 2023/2 EXARC Journal is bringing you six reviewed and eight mixed matter articles. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of information and further development of our knowledge of the past.

As usual the articles vary widely. Among the reviewed articles we have for example articles on Reconstructing Ötzi’s shoes by Eva IJsveld (NL), production of Roma screws by David Sim and Chris Legg (UK) and Tannūr ovens by Carmen Ramírez Cañas, Penélope I. Martínez de los Reyes and Antonio M. Sáez Romero (ES).

In the mixed matters section you can find continuation of the discussion with Ukrainians archaeologists on the topic Heritage in Times of War, review of the book Archaeological Open-Air Museums: Reconstruction and Reenactment – Reality or Fiction? containing contributions from the 2018 conference of the same name and reports on a number of events.

Support the show

Beans, beans! They’re good for the heart! In this month’s episode we are joined by two specialists from the EXARC Experimental Archaeology Award winning project Investigating the Origin of the Common Bean in the New World. We hear about the difficulties identifying beans in the archaeological record and how using organic residue analysis might begin to spill the beans… on beans.

Timothy Baumann is the lead investigator on the project. His research interests in experimental archaeology focus mainly on prehistoric and historic foodways, pottery and tools from the south-eastern United States, which is where the idea for the project came from. Tim is also the former director the University of Tennessee’s Laboratory of Environmental Archaeology and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Tennessee’s McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture.

Eleanora Reber is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Interim Chair of the International Studies Department. She is also a specialist in organic residue analysis and her lab, the UNCW Pottery Residue Lab is a dedicated facility for gas chromatography – mass spectrometry analysis of absorbed and visible pottery residue analysis. Nora has research interests in plant  domestication and agriculture, and she plays an important role in the project as lead in absorbed residue analysis.

Tune in from Friday 9 th June to hear Tim and Nora chat everything beans!

Support the show

Only one month to go until our 2023 EXARC conference, and to celebrate we chatted with Linda Hurcombe, organiser of EAC12, and Grzegorz Osipowicz, organiser of the upcoming EAC13. Together, they shared their experience in what it takes to organise an international archaeology conference and how conferences have changed since the start of the COVID pandemic. We also chatted with them about their own experiences in experimental archaeology, and how the research field has changed since its first explorations.

Professor Grzegorz Osipowicz is the head of the Department of Prehistory at the Institute of Archaeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. His research focuses on traceology and residue studies, and he is particularly interested in the Mesolithic period and spatial studies. 

Professor Linda Hurcombe is the founder and director of the MSC in Experimental Archaeology at Exeter University and President of the Prehistoric Society. Her research is wide-ranging, but was originally also based in use-wear studies and has since expanded to include ethnographies of craft traditions, perishable material culture, and the sensory experiences of prehistory.

Support the show

The 2023/1 EXARC Journal is bringing you seven reviewed and five mixed matter articles. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of information and further development of our knowledge of the past. There are some very interesting themes being discussed in this issue.

Among others we have the first three contributions from the Sustainable Revolution for Open-Air Museums Session from the ICOM conference in Prague 2022. These come from AOZA in Germany, Twah Longwar in India and an experiment testing the potential of a shared project in a ‘virtual’ open-air museum. More will follow.

The other reviewed articles tackle various topics: we have articles on experimental weaving with ceramic crescents, making peat charcoal, reconstruction of scarab stamp seals production chain and last but not least there is Hard Fun, an overlap between a pedagogic case study and an archaeological experiment.

From the mixed matter section, we would like to highlight two articles: the first part of the discussion with Ukrainians archaeologists on the topic Heritage in Times of War, and John Conyard’s experience from the 2,500th Anniversary of the Battle of Plataea, which took place on the 26-31 July 2022.

Support the show

Why do people wear shoes? What kind of materials can you make shoes out of? How can we recreate shoes from the past? On this month’s episode we are joined by two specialists in ancient footwear to think about all these questions and more…

Markus Klek is an independent researcher focussing on indigenous and prehistoric skin processing technologies, as well as related work in bone, antler and ivory tools. He has published three books on leather and leather related technologies, and has run a successful business centring on prehistoric leatherworking, Palaeotechnik, since 1996. Markus has recreated a range of Palaeolithic and contemporary leather-based clothing and shoes.

Doug Meyer has explored ancient technologies for more than 30 years after finding inspiration at a primitive technology demonstration at a summer college. Doug has since explored many aspects of early cultures, including flint knapping, archery and blowgun technology, and has considerable experience in brain tanning and leather work. He also has experience creating replicas and in teaching his skills to others. 

Support the show

In this February episode of Finally Friday we're talking all about flint! This material is one of the most commonly found throughout prehistory, and so this month Matilda chatted about flint and flint-knapping with two experts from our EXARC community, Morten Kutschera and Prof. Javier Baena Preysler. What are the implications of different ways to learn and teach flint-knapping? How much do flint tools change throughout human history, and why? Can you knap flint with a pen? To find out the answers to these questions and more, make sure to tune in to this month's episode!

Morten Kutschera is an experimental archaeologist with experience in many different kinds of technology, although he is particularly well known for his flint knapping expertise. He is currently working as a county archaeologist in Agder, Norway, where his responsibilities range between fieldwork, public archaeology, and everything relating to the stone age.

 Professor Javier Baena Preysler is professor of prehistory and archaeology at the Universidad Autóma de Madrid, and director of the university’s laboratory of experimental archaeology. Although his research covers many different topics, he is especially esteemed for his flint knapping knowledge and expertise, and is one of the leaders of experimental archaeological research in Spain. 

Support the show