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This paper examines the form, function and practicality of the clothing worn by late nineteenth century railway guards in Britain. It does so by taking a re-enactment approach, involving the commissioning, wearing, and reporting of replica garments in an appropriate workplace. It demonstrates that whilst such uniforms were smart and created an impression of authority in the wearer and potential viewer, they were not practical, and in fact, elements such as bandoliers and pouches could have been dangerous to the wearer.

With the help of experimental reproduction of archaeological artefacts, it is possible to study how and from which materials that objects might have been made in the Iron Age. Reproductions are carried out with items such as weapons, accessories, jewellery, buildings, food, ceramics, tools, working methods, and many others. This reproduction aimed to determine the smithing methods of one iron fibula from the 12-piece collection in the Salme II Ship Burial on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. Fibula no SM10602:325 from the distal end of the right femur of skeleton IV (F) was selected for the work (See Figures 1 and 2). Various fibulas were made in the Iron Age using various techniques, mainly from bronze alloys and precious metals. At the beginning of the Viking Age, iron fibulas were forged mainly from bloomery iron. These type 7th and 8th century fibulas have been found in archaeological excavations in Nordic countries, south-western Finland in Ostrobothnia, and Häme provinces (See Figure 4). One fibula was found in Latvia, but none in Estonia, before the archaeological excavations of the Salme ship burials.

The ethnohistoric record from the American Great Plains indicates that dried pumpkin (Cucurbita spp.) strips were often woven into mats as a form of food storage. This form of food storage was likely employed over large geographical areas and deep in time, but archaeological methods for identifying their production and use have been wanting. This experiment used ethnohistoric records to re-create pumpkin mats using bone and stone tools, with special attention to the types of residue and by-products created. We found that while formal bone tools could be used with pumpkin, simple flake stone tools were more efficient. Two pumpkin mats were produced, one in which the rind had been charred and removed prior to processing and one with a raw rind; the raw rind mat succumbed to mould while the charred pumpkin mat was temperature stable for more than two years. Residues were documented on the tools, but the gourd did not contain starch granules, and only the rind (which was removed in this experiment) contains the diagnostic phytoliths. The chaîne opératoire of pumpkin mat manufacture in this experiment explains why microfossil evidence (starch, phytoliths) of the practice has not been recovered in the Great Plains. Without a chemical biomarker, proteomic or ancient DNA approach, the recognition of pumpkin leather mats may remain elusive, which greatly limits archaeological understandings of this important foodway that is closely associated with women’s work.

The article demonstrates that the building or megaron on the Toumba hill at Lefkandi (Euboea), dating from c.950 BC, was a timber-framed structure, in contrast to the common view of it as a building with loadbearing walls. This raises the possibility that the walls, perhaps even parts of the frame and the roof, were still under construction, rather than fully completed as previously assumed, when the building was buried under a mound. The reconstruction of the timber frame of the building, as well as an analysis of the manner of its production, give us valuable insights into ancient wooden architecture. Even more, a structural analysis intended to test the integrity of the frame sheds light on the complex rationale behind the adoption of such designs as prototypes of later large-scale temples in Greece. Additionally, there is no evidence that the timber frame suffered any significant structural failure, but if such failure ever occurred, it would most likely be a partial uplift of the thatched roof due to high winds.

This year between September 1-3, EXARC held a conference specifically focused on the topic of Digitalisation in Open-Air Museums and the cultural sector. Co-organised by the Batavialand Museum in Lelystad (the Netherlands), the event brought together the RETOLD partners and several professionals from around the world. RETOLD is a four-year project coordinated by EXARC and supported by the European Commission that aims to develop a documentation system designed for archaeological and ethnographic open-air museums.

Recent archaeological and experimental work suggests that Neanderthals may have been purposefully gathering manganese dioxide to aid in their fire lighting. Given the evidence for complex Neanderthal pyro-technology, this appears to be a plausible hypothesis. In this paper, we add to the experimental testing of this hypothesis by adding manganese to horse hoof tinder fungus and then generating embers using a flint tool and an iron sulphide strike-a-light. However, our results show that adding manganese dioxide in this way did not improve spark capture or confer any perceptible advantage in fire lighting.

Cultural heritage documentation is the process of systematically recording and preserving information about historical artifacts, monuments, traditions, and other intangible cultural expressions. One of the primary aims of the RETOLD project was to create a prototype for immersive digital storytelling that communicates cultural information to diverse audiences, museum professionals and museum workers in an understandable and engaging way. We aimed to co-design with the museum partners a piece of technology that would address the most pressing aspects of digital storytelling relevant to open-air museums.

We live in a time when advances in science and technology can quickly outpace our ability to understand its impact on our past, present, and future. Interpreting Science at Museums and Historic Sites provides insights into how museums and historic sites can bridge this gap so that we can better understand the past and perhaps influence future social directions for the better.

I am honoured to write a review of the book Eksperimentinė archeologija, Lietuvos materialaus paveldo rekonstrukcija, I tomas or Experimental archaeology, Reconstruction of Material Heritage of Lithuania, volume I; compiled by Daiva Luchtanienė. I have to admit that I know very little about Lithuania and their experimental archaeology and I was looking forward to learning more. I was told the book was bilingual so that I, who can not read a word of Lithuanian to safe my life, would be able to read it.

In the years 2014 to 2015, an Ethnoarchaeological study of the architecture of Makhunik village (Doreh Rural District, in the Central District of Sarbisheh County, South Khorasan Province, Iran) was done (Rahimkhani 2015). After that, this architecture was studied in different points of view. One of these views was the influence of religion on the architecture of the traditional phase (ca. 1660-1960) to explore the impact of immaterial issues, such as religion in a very religious village, on material issues such as architecture. Both the Islamic writings and Quran was used to develop expectations of what a religiously-influenced architecture would look like, then it was compared to architecture as documented in the field, also taking into account additional factors that influenced the construction of the houses (e.g., landscape affordances and historical context). I concluded that despite the strong influence of religion in all aspects of people's lives, it probably has had a very limited impact on village architecture and layout.

On 13 July 2024 the village of Daugailiai celebrated the 770th year of its founding on with a festival that included demonstrations and experiments in bronze casting. Daugailiai is a village in Utena County in Northeast Lithuania. The village features a hillfort, which is dated to 1st millennium BC-beginning of 1st Millenium AD, upon which a castle was built in 1254 and a church and cemetery that were built in 1685. The hillfort is 10-12 metres high and has a 46x30 metre oval shape. A set of stairs leads to the summit and at the base there are signboards with QR codes that provide visitors with information about the site.

After 28 years in the director's chair, Bloch Ravn tells vividly and in detail about the many years of work in running and developing the museum Den Gamle By (or in English: The Old Town) towards becoming the great flagship for culture and tourism in East Jutland, Denmark.

Harvesting tools have seldom been found during excavations at Neolithic sites in North-Western Europe but cereal consumption was widely practiced in that region, as grain discovered in settlements showed. Several researchers have, over the last 50 years, highlighted this discrepancy between missing harvesting tools and the presence of cereal grains. They have tried to explain that cereals had therefore to be collected either with the help of bare hands or with tools made from other materials than flint. The aim of this paper is to present, through experimental archaeology and the analysis of use-wear traces, that tools made from organic material such as shell, wood and bone could have been used to harvest cereal plants. To achieve this aim, a large variety of experimental tools have been created and tested on fields of typical cereal types of the Neolithic, such as Triticum monococcum or einkorn wheat, Triticum dicoccum or emmer wheat, Triticum aestivum or naked wheat, and Hordeum vulgare or barley. The result of these experiments has been analysed quantitatively with regards to the achieved harvested surface, grain yield, and harvesting speed. Also, the use-wear traces on these tools as polish, striations, edge rounding, and edge damages created by these different cereal plants have been studied. The results could serve as reference to interpret unusual archaeological material differently in the future.

We present the result of our fieldwork conducted in the Riff area (Morocco), where, through the participant observation technique, we have analysed the characteristics and functioning of several bread-baking traditional ovens that are still working in the region. We were able to observe the chaîne opératoire of the process of baking bread, where women are the main actors. This approach has proved to be a useful tool to analyse the uses and functions of similar culinary structures in the past; in our case, we will apply the information provided by these observations to study the ovens attested to Iron Age settlements in different areas of the western Mediterranean. The combination of experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology can provide valuable information for studying ovens and domestic activities in these societies, such as practical aspects like the oven’s construction techniques or the bread-baking knowledge (fuel used, the different steps of the process and their duration, etc.). Other valuable information we collected is related to the social sphere and community.

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. During the British Neolithic period, circa 4000-2500 BC, we witness the building of numerous ceremonial, domestic and funerary structures which dominated the landscape. The exact number of structures created is unknown, although it is possible that we could be looking at a figure in the thousands (Hill, 2024). If we accept that the architectural form of these structures was so designed that their appearance alone indicated the specific types of rituals or domestic usages that could be legitimately held there (see Fleming, 1973, p.189; Bradley, 2007, pp. 46-50), then accordingly, their respective designs would have been well thought out: their architecture had to meet the visual and experiential expectations of the people. Overall, one is led to consider the possibility that any form of construction was the result of deliberate thinking and that the Neolithic builders were working to specific plans or blueprints in advance of any building work. Furthermore, moving from design to physical form required setting out, a technique which implied measuring of some description. This is where we hit the major drawback to this assertion, which experimental archaeology can offer insight. The British Neolithic communities were preliterate, and they have left behind no written records or any sculptured, pictorial reliefs at their building works which could be interpreted as evidence of “architectural” schematics. Nor do we find surveyor marks or hints of measuring-notches scratched on the surfaces of those orthostats used to build their monuments. We have yet to recover any material evidence of a British Neolithic numeracy system that could have supported those prehistoric surveying and setting out techniques that must have been needed to build complex monuments such as Stonehenge. Such a difficult subject should not be ignored and experimental archaeology may offer a solution for consideration.

The Museumsdorf Düppel – a medieval archaeological open-air museum in Berlin – is a good example a bottom-up museum project from the 1970’s. The idea to create an open-air museum was born after the excavation of a medieval settlement had brought to light several house features, wells and objects ranging from pottery sherds to iron artefacts, in south-western Berlin. However, the museum institutions as well as the city council were not interested, paving the way for the foundation of a volunteer society. Founded in 1975, the friend’s society for the Museumsdorf Düppel began building houses, making pottery, and rediscovering the different techniques of medieval textile production amongst other crafts, with volunteers coming from a variety of backgrounds. Although the city council eventually began to fund the museum project, the hard work was carried out by amateur enthusiasts with a strong passion for learning and presenting medieval building techniques and crafts to the public. Without these idealists, the Museumsdorf Düppel would not exist today.

EXARC was featured at a session at the 2023 conference of the European Association of Archaeologists in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The theme of the conference was Weaving Narratives. With this in mind the session considered how EXARC weaves multiple narratives among its members, through events, conferences, fellowships, and how the organisation connects people all over the world.

The periodical is published by Gunter Schöbel and the European Association for the Advancement of Archaeology by Experiment e.V. (Europäische Vereinigung zur Förderung der Experimentellen Archäologie) EXAR, in collaboration with the Pfahlbaummuseum Unteruhldingen.

On 13 March 2024, Lejre Land of Legends and the SAXO Institute at the University of Copenhagen organised a seminar: The Future of Experimentation – from experiment to new archaeological knowledge.

Soap is a substance now taken for granted, but there is uncertainty, myth and misinformation about its development, and little scholarly attention has been paid to the likely circumstances surrounding its discovery. As part of a MSc in Experimental Archaeology, a project collated the earliest mentions of proto-soaps, reassessed previous experimental conclusions, and developed testable scenarios to explore how soap was first discovered, suggesting that the degreasing of fatty cloths after straining perfumed fats and oils may provide the conditions under which soap was first reliably and repeatedly observed. This paper offers a condensed version of this work.

Back in 2020, I wrote an article entitled The Shroud of Turin and the Extra Sheds of Warping Threads (Olsen, 2020). When I was studying the weaving theory, I realised that it might be possible to weave 8-end satin with five rods on the warp-weighted loom. To date, I have not encountered any historical find showing satin woven on a warp-weighted loom eighter, nor have I heard or read about anybody else undertaking this, so I decided to try to test it.

Perforations observed in artefacts, such as heavy tools, made from red deer antler indicate that Mesolithic people possessed various means for making holes in osseous materials. Nevertheless, prehistoric perforation technologies are relatively poorly understood. This study argues that a lack of systematic experimental-traceological work, compounded by the inadequacy of traditional modes of traceological data presentation, has deprived the literature of a robust empirical basis on which to interpret archaeological perforations. To help address this perceived gap in the literature, a series of experiments was undertaken in which different techniques were used to drill holes in red deer antler. The experimental material was then subjected to traceological analysis and photogrammetric modelling. Technologically diagnostic traces were identified by which two flint-based perforation techniques - hand boring and bow drilling - can be distinguished from one another. Relationships between the form of a flint tool and the morphology of the hole that it produces were also identified. Photogrammetry was evaluated as a method for the analysis and the presentation of osseous technological traces, and was found to have significant potential in this application.

This study assesses the impact of firing on burnished ceramic surfaces. For this task, two main factors related to burnishing were examined and evaluated, the reflection of the ceramics and pottery surface sheen. Macroscopic observations on the burnished surface were made with the naked eye. A series of experiments was conducted to explore the ways in which traditional firing conditions affect pottery surfaces. Data was gathered from four different firings, including three open-air dung firings and one wood-firing in an updraft kiln. Additional testing was carried out under controlled conditions in the laboratory. The aim was to further investigate and determine the specific thermal characteristics that influenced the burnished pottery and use the feedback to approach burnishing disturbance in traditional conditions. The data showed that certain thermal profiles and characteristics cause a reduction in burnishing on ceramic surfaces, with the rise in temperature, among others, being a significant one. The type of clay also proved to be an important factor regarding the way in which the reduction in burnishing progresses. The present inquiry constitutes the first part of an ongoing research project that will be completed with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis of the microstructure and surface micromorphology of the ceramics.

Informal experiential experimentation is often helpful for understanding a technology and raising interpretive questions and testable hypotheses. Here, a simple experiment in manufacturing microlithic flakes by bipolar percussion and using them as teeth in a wooden grater, helped us understand archaeological evidence of such teeth and the ‘manioc complex’ on San Salvador, Bahamas. A simple technology may not be unskilled, and the resulting products may appear crude yet function effectively. The lack of evidence of small stone tools may be the result of taphonomic or recovery processes, but if grater tooth manufacture was common at excavated sites, more evidence should survive.

Within textile Archaeology several key Etruscan sites provide experimental archaeologists with ample evidence for research and recreation. This project aims to look a the textile patterns themselves, and how these weavers might have created the images found on famous Etruscan paintings. Through looking at the Italic images of their own clothing alongside surviving textile fragments modern archaeologists can try to understand ancient weavers and their process of tablet weaving. Five tablet-woven patterns were chosen from Etruscan paintings with this approach in mind. These patterns were based off of the images from the Tomb of the Triclinium and the surviving textile fragments from Verucchio, providing a possible guide for future research and speculative pattern reconstruction.

On March 13, 2023, my long-time friend Andy Kurzweil, fellow researcher and co-founder of AG Teerschwele (Working Group on Tar) at the Museumsdorf Düppel (Berlin-West Germany), died at home at the age of 78. I met him on my first visit to the Museumsdorf Düppel in 1977 at the tar production area, when I offered him my help. From that time on, we did many things together, including cutting wood for firewood, undertaking our own experiments, as well as sitting by the fire to smoulder wood or discussing experimental results.

RETOLD is a project implemented through the Creative Europe program of the European Union, whose main purpose is the creation of standard documentation tools to be used in open-air museums. Along with creating documentation, craft documentation is an important component of the project that is the subject of this article.

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 its choice of ingredients and cooking techniques. We were especially interested in the use of farro paste, an ingredient we had never seen used in ancient or modern cooking.

Prehistoric wooden projectiles likely have a complex evolutionary story in a similar way to stone tools, depending on their functions, and the cognitive and physical capabilities of hominins who used them. The technologies of some ancient projectiles (e.g., spears, arrows) can be studied more directly because they were equipped with stone points which survive archaeologically, but other implements made entirely of wood are extremely rare archaeological finds and need an indirect study of their ethnological diversity to try to shed light on their evolution. The evolution of throwing sticks is often restricted to the invention of boomerangs which, as returning objects, have fascinated Europeans, particularly since the early 19th century colonisation of Australia. However, the innovation of returning boomerangs is probably relatively recent, compared to their entire technological evolution. The resulting technological diversity of forms through time is reflected in the different morphological types of ethnological throwing sticks found on the Australian continent but is also present in other parts of the world. A scheme of evolution for throwing sticks is proposed here, according to the technology that can be observed on numerous ethnological objects studied in museum collections, and experience gained from throwing replicas, which allow us to distinguish different development phases for these projectiles.

The pathogenic environment has been a constant shaping presence in human evolution. Despite its importance, this factor has been given little consideration and research. Here, we use experimental archaeology and microscopic analysis to present and support a novel hypothesis on the pathogenic properties of bifacial butchery tools during the Middle Pleistocene. Use-wear evidence from the Acheulean site of Boxgrove, Sussex suggests that a sample of flint bifaces were used for butchery tasks for a remarkably limited duration. Circumstantial evidence from other Acheulean sites, such as the apparent discard of bifaces at single-episode butchery sites, and biface caching sites, also suggest limited-use, and extend this interpretation beyond Boxgrove. There is no current utilitarian explanation for why such an apparently over-engineered tool would be discarded after such a limited duration of use. This pilot study demonstrates, via experimental investigation, that residual animal tissue from performing butchery tasks cannot be completely removed from the flake scars of flint bifaces using prehistorically available cleaning methods. It is argued that the animal tissue is likely to begin spoiling within hours of butchery, which poses a significant risk of introducing pathogens into foodstuffs if the biface is reused, resulting in foodborne illness. Subsequently, hominins likely learned to minimise this risk by discarding each flint bifacial tool after a single episode of butchery.

Archaeological Open-Air Museums (AOAMs) are well established in the international museum landscape, and today more than 350 of these sites can be counted in Europe alone. These museums differ considerably from one another, and each of them presents specific and unique features. Their identity strongly depends on several occurrences, such as the period in which they were founded, the stakeholders who conceived them (private, public, entrepreneurs, academics, amateurs, et cetera), and the cultural paradigms on which they rely. Given the different circumstances that shape them, it is not easy to draw a prototype of an AOAM, and many typologies of sites can easily follow under this name. Starting from these premises, this contribution intends to introduce the first AOAM's classification, based on two main attributes, such as the chronological periods displayed and the location of the AOAM. The article aims to propose a shared terminology to easily describe the AOAMs and refer to their main characteristics with a short and straightforward formula.

Experimental Archaeology: Reconstruction of Material Heritage of Lithuania, Volume II, is an interesting journey back into the past by means of practical experimentations. An insightful volume that contains a collection of well-written and well-crafted essays exploring different facets of ancient life in Lithuania – such as flint tool manufacturing, leatherwork intricacies or colouring dye on clothes. There are some portions of the English translation which may need further editorial reviews.

Since prehistory, human populations have developed specific knowledge related to the excavating and exploitation of underground resources. These abilities are reflected in the tools used to extract and process raw materials and the use of specific architectural expressions such as rock-cut tombs. As part of these practices, Neolithic human groups used a range of techniques that were closely connected to the environmental constraints of the subterranean sphere. As part of a study of both mining and burial structures in the Madrid region during the Neolithic period, we are investigating the technical gestures used in extracting flint from shafts by means of experimentation. The case study we have chosen is the Casa Montero mining site. With more than 4,000 extraction pits over a period of use of several hundred years, Casa Montero is one of the oldest flint extraction sites on the Iberian Peninsula. This study, therefore, focuses on the excavation of an experimental flint extraction pit like the structures found at Casa Montero.

In this article, we share our enriching experiences during internships at two prominent Archaeological Open-Air Museums in Europe: preHistorisch Dorp in the Netherlands and Butser Ancient Farm in the UK. Motivated by our passion for experimental archaeology, we embarked on this journey to contribute to the development of this field in Romania. At preHistorisch Dorp, we immersed ourselves in various historical periods, participating in activities ranging from exploring exhibits to restoring Roman walls. Our hands-on tasks, including working with clay, allowed us to connect with the museum's history and engage with visitors. Accommodated within the museum, we explored not only the exhibits but also the surrounding areas, fostering an informal and enjoyable atmosphere. The adventure continued at Butser Ancient Farm in the UK, where we were exposed to diverse activities aligned with the museum's focus on experimental archaeology. From administering medicine to animals to participating in house dismantling and bronze casting, we gained practical insights into ancient technologies and agricultural practices. We also experienced the educational aspect of the museum by interacting with school groups. Our article concludes with our expression of eagerness to contribute to the establishment of an Open-Air Museum/Experimental Archaeology Park in Romania. The immersive experiences at preHistorisch Dorp and Butser Ancient Farm not only deepened our understanding of experimental archaeology and museum education but also inspired us to bring these best practices to our home country. The journey, funded by the Erasmus+ program, expanded our academic horizons and laid the foundation for future collaborations and knowledge sharing.

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. It also raises questions as to the agency of using straw instead of leather, and what this may tell us of the techno-cultural transitions each side of Ireland's Iron Age.

During the Roman period, small metal screw threads were used both as fastenings and to impart motion. This paper, which is an extended version of my previous article, will show that it is possible to produce metal screw threads using very simple technology. The tools and expertise to carry out this work is well within the skills of any competent metal worker. Small metal screw threads can be produced by semi- and unskilled labour, in a time frame that makes their production economically viable.

The Stone Age Park Dithmarschen in Albersdorf (Germany) is an archaeological open-air museum focussing on the Stone Age. It consists of an outdoor park area of about 40 hectares. This includes archaeological monuments, reconstructed Mesolithic and Neolithic buildings and a recently opened museum building with an exhibition of original artifacts. Like in any other museum, our challenge is to save and document information, especially information relating to practical work techniques and craft skills, in a sustainable way for future museum generations. Because of the evolving situation regarding these concerns the Stone Age Park joined Retold in 2020.

Hair colours, as a daily cosmetic used in ancient Chinese life, often appear in ancient Chinese medical books, according to types, and can be classified into herbal hair colours and mineral hair colours. Experimental reconstruction of herbal hair colours and mineral hair colours was carried out to explore the influence of factors such as the type and material of hair colours on the colouring effect. Meanwhile, the experiments were recorded and analysed using a stereo microscope. The experimental results show that the ancient hair colours are authentic and it is feasible that mineral hair colours and herbal hair colours are capable of colouring hair. Mineral hair colours have better colour fastness and colouring effects than herbal hair colours.

Open-air archaeological museums are one of the promising directions in museum activities in Ukraine that is rapidly developing. Their main feature is the interactive nature of the exposition, which allows engaging visitors in the historical atmosphere of a certain period. One might use a non-scientific comparison as a portal in time and space.

In Estonia the method of Time Travel has been used for more than 10 years. While the first time travels were conducted in a rather casual and modest way, a change took place in 2016 with the first nationwide project. By today more than 23 000 students have participated in the nationwide time travel events and it has become an important way of cooperation for museums and schools.

Traditionally, studies on Viking Age pigmentation have focused on the minerals used to produce colours. The research conducted in this article concerns other factors, that might have influenced painted wood such as surface treatments, outlines, and paint components. With an experimental archaeological approach, it investigates material interactions prevalent during the Viking Age. The study, conducted as part of the "Experiments with Painting Viking Age Woodwork" course in 2023 at the University of Copenhagen, aimed to unravel the choices made by craftsmen during the Viking era regarding wood treatments prior to painting. By examining painted woodwork artifacts from notable sites like Grimstrup, Horning, Jelling, Ladby and Trelleborg, this research offers valuable insights to Viking society: more precisely the skilled craftsmen producing art for the elite. Rather than attempting to replicate these ancient artworks, the study focuses on the potential, experiences, and capabilities inherent in Viking-Age color usage, which laid the foundation for the vibrant Middle Ages.

Indus Valley Civilization flourished in India and Pakistan owing to its technological advancements dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. The present paper aims to trace the emergence of pyrotechnology through documenting the industrial settlements that have been excavated in recent years, as well as locating the potential trading network for the craft items being produced at these small settlements on the outskirts of major Harappan cities such as Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and others. The paper focuses on the excavated Harappan sites with special reference to the site of Binjor - 4MSR in India's Ghaggar riverbed region. The reconstruction of kilns and furnaces based on the excavated remains was considered through the experimental study, such as wheel motion and the quantification of fuel consumption in the production of pottery, including terracotta figurines, bead and metal objects. During the research, the author has documented more than 50 furnaces, attempting to find parallels between Harappan heat treatment and modern potters and smiths located on ancient mounds. The ethnographic similarities between Harappans and the contemporary villagers who continue to inhabit the archaeological mound have been emphasised. The research also examines whether the technology utilised by the Harappans has changed or not, ranging from pottery manufacture to metal smelting, and what can be deduced from these experimental approaches to comprehend the technological prowess of their artisans.

Neolithic scrapers from the Vlaardingen Culture (3400-2500 BC) display a variety of hide-working traces, amongst which traces interpreted as being the result of contact with dry hide. It has been suggested that, potentially, some of these implements were used to scrape fatty hides with mineral additives. Therefore, a series of experiments were set up to better understand the use-wear traces resulting from scraping fatty hides with mineral additives. For these experiments two skins of common seals (Phoca vitulina) were scraped using either sand or clay. The use-wear traces on the scrapers were well developed and easy to distinguish. The ‘dry hide’ scrapers from the Vlaardingen Culture site Hekelingen III were reanalysed. It was suggested that the use-wear traces on these scrapers might be related to the scraping of fatty hides with additives. We concluded that the wear-traces on these scrapers did not match the experimentally observed traces. They most closely resemble traces resulting from the softening of dry hides. In one instance the traces resembled those of previously conducted dehairing experiments. Although the traces from these experiments could not be matched to those found on Vlaardingen Culture scrapers, the traces resembled those found on a retouched blade from the Middle Neolithic site of Schipluiden (3600-3400 BC). We concluded that the traces resulting from scraping fatty hides with mineral additives are distinctive enough to be recognised archaeologically. Nevertheless, the experiments should be extended to terrestrial animals with fatty hides, to fully understand the variation in traces resulting from the scraping of fatty hides with mineral additives.

The NEMO European Museum Conference 2023: and… ACTION! Museums in the climate crisis took place in Lahti, Finland from 19-21 November. Almost 300 museum professionals from all over Europe took part, listening, discussing, and being inspired by a variety of formats and speakers. EXARC's Vice-Chair, Dr Julia Heeb from Stadtmuseum Berlin, was present.

The Netherlands have an abundance of heritage locations: museums, monuments, windmills. A favorite pastime of many senior citizens is to take responsibility for this heritage as volunteer guides, amateur historians, and so on. Their traditional contribution to the Dutch heritage sector is tremendous. But at the same time there is a trend of aging in this kind of volunteering. The provincial ‘Heritage Houses’ – a professional platform for archives, museums, windmills etc. – are alarmed at the potential threat of a shortage of volunteers.

Roman ink pen nibs have been made from different materials such as bone, horn, reed, iron, and copper alloys. This article deals with experiments to reproduce Roman ink pen nibs made from copper alloy and iron.

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 of investigation at the Kingsmead Quarry, Horton, in Berkshire England. Structures with very similar ground plans have also been recorded in Ireland. Such specific morphological similarities, their sudden appearance and disappearance over a very narrow chronology suggests a ‘type’, of unusual form and unknown origin. This article explores issues that were faced during the design and construction of the building and the light those issues shed upon the peculiarities of these structures. This paper seeks to question the straightforward interpretation of this class of building ‘simply’ as a ‘house' and explores, tentatively, alternate interpretations of structure and usage.

In order to celebrate International Museum Day 2023, I strived to make a change in a personal format to mark the occasion as being as international as possible. Back in the day, when I was working at Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, we marked the day as near as possible. Given that May was going to be too hot for comfort, we usually celebrated a month earlier. I was happy with that, but even then, despite the splendours of the al-Sabah collection that have travelled to so many museums (the Louvre, The Met, the British Museum, the Prado and many others), IMD seemed to end up a very local affair, because while we put on a great show, with a great childrens’ programme as well as other artistic and ecological functions, nobody came to us from around the world.

In June 2022, the first onsite RETOLD project meeting took place in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), hosted, and organised by the Prehistory department. This was the first time that all partners met face-to-face. The Prehistory department coordinates an MA in digital humanities as well as manages the archaeological research of different archaeological sites, some of which are actual archaeological open-air museums like “Campus d’Arqueologia de La Noguera” and “Campus d’Arqueologia de La Draga”, both in Catalonia.

Archaeological excavations have revealed important sites from the prehistoric sites, with the cultural achievements of the early lithic tools of hunters-gatherers in the Palaeolithic, to the emergence of the farmer-village societies in the Neolithic, reaching on to urbanisation and the complex societies of the Chalcolithic. On the other hand, natural landscapes reveal the distribution of prehistoric sites near resources related to open-air lands or in caves. The biggest asset of presenting prehistoric sites is in not only boosting tourism and local economy, but also diversifying cultural activities. This covers not only the preserving and restoration work on the original sites, but also a "Discovery Centre" by creating sites like "Open-air Stand" with a permanent exhibition, as well as indoor and outdoor spaces. These can be dedicated to workshops, conferences and temporary exhibitions, and allows visitors to learn and practice "Early Human Lifestyle" activities. Attracting visitors to prehistoric sites and museums complements the sites with new job opportunities via restaurants, gift shops and bookstores, in order to achieve prosperity and welfare within the partnerships. This paper comes into three directions and depends on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals "SDGs"; first, analysing the problem and challenges, second a more dynamic design of prehistoric sites, while the third is for the strategy's feasibility, refreshing and possible benchmarks.