Week 10 -- via Vlog and Blog

Tuesday - atlatls and bow and arrows

We began this mini-lab with just throwing spears without the atlatl, which caused us to reconsider our hunting skills as a group. But then we were introduced to the atlatls which led to spears landing both very short of and well past the targets, depending on whether you decided to use Drew’s running technique. I can honestly say that we would have starved as a prehistoric group since we didn't even come close to the target with the atlatls. It wasn't until Andrew clipped the metal frame of the target that we gained any hope or excitement. It was when we got the chance to use the bow and arrow (when Sabrina was teaching correct form) that we started to see some results. Each one of us was able to hit the target or the toes of the deer which made us want to stick with the bows rather than the atlatls. We then got some special arrows tipped with obsidian shards or bone points that we had made in the previous labs. To use our own creations and put them to the test was exciting. I was using a bone tip which worked amazingly and stuck right in the center of the target. Amber had a flint piece and had some success using it, but the only problem was retrieving the tip from the target. When we would try and prize the arrow out we ended up losing some of the tips. In the vlog that I made, you can see that Sabrina and Elijah were very persistent in getting the technique of the spears and atlatls down and ended up being able to hit or get near the target relatively constantly. This experiment was more experiential than scientific since we tested the different technologies for hunting in prehistoric times and we didn’t have a hypothesis to follow or try to prove. This allowed us to just test our skills and see what we liked and how we would match up as a group surviving.  It also gave us insights into the skills that prehistoric people needed to hunt for food, and I can assure you we would not be living long with our skillset.

Thursday - Dyeing Fabrics I 

            The articles we read for class helped prepare us for the real dyeing station we held outside on the quad on campus. Our reading touched at the end on the importance of knowing dyestuff to water ratios, especially when it came to identifying local plants that might have been used as dyestuffs in prehistory. We would use similar plants and materials to create colors to dye certain fabrics and people's belongings. Dyeing with natural dyes is a good reflection of what experimental archeology can tell us about the past.  The article authors ended by saying that their investigation is a first step in understanding the colors produced by more than 30 local plants. We also talked about the importance of a new recipe for “Mayan Blue,” and how – in the past – it temporarily replaced the expensive lapis lazuli.  Now our mission for next week’s lab is to recreate this color and to see if we can use it.  The background came from the other article we read, one by Devon Van Houten Maldonado.  This was interesting to read because it opened a new thought process on plants, in my opinion. It talked about how Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Rubens painted their famous masterworks with ultramarine blue pigment they used from the semi-precious lapis lazuli stone, which cost more than its weight in gold. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution in the 19th Century that a synthetic alternative was invented, and true ultramarine blue finally became widely available. But Mayans had a more durable and cost-effective blue color several hundred years earlier. The article talks about the influence and the history behind some of the most vibrant colors in art history and how they can show us the history in which they were created and why. Coming into the lab knowing all this from the article made this lab even more interesting because it allowed us to test our skills in making the color that ultimately is the most famous color in art. I enjoyed reading these two articles because the first one gave a detailed description of why researching dyes or colors in historical pieces is so important. Knowing all this on Thursday we did a little test run before we brought it out to the people on campus; we used different techniques like triple soaking, heat variation, and skills in mixing colors to better educate ourselves come the real dyeing day for the students. 

Friday - Field Trip to the Frontier Culture Museum

We met early Friday morning for a long and quiet 4-hour drive during which most of us tried to catch up on missing sleep. Upon arrival at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, VA, we were greeted with school children laughing and yelling, so we knew if they were amused then we were in for a good tour. The purpose of the Frontier Culture Museum was to educate and interpret the early history of the Shenandoah Valley and its surrounding regions, with a focus on the cultural heritage and lifestyle of the diverse groups of people who settled and lived in the area during the 18th and 19th centuries. Our tour guide provided us with an immersive experience to learn about the challenges, innovations, and ways of life of the early settlers, including Native Americans, African Americans, English, German, Irish, and Scots-Irish immigrants. His job was to foster an understanding and appreciation of the rich cultural and historical heritage of the Shenandoah Valley and to promote a broader understanding of American history and culture. And he did an amazing job referenced by my vlog. But we also got a very valuable “behind the scenes” tour in which we learned more about the choices made by museum staff.  He took us all around the site and taught us the importance and the why for each “project.” This gave us so much insight into the rich cultural valley that formed in this region. I know that most of us were just excited to see Sunshine, the biggest pig I’ve ever seen, but going from building to building questions arose and we started to become immersed in the cultures we were learning about. The exhibits, living history demonstrations, and educational programs showcase the material culture, architecture, farming practices, crafts, and traditions of the various groups that shaped the region's history, providing a hands-on and interactive learning experience. I know that we all found our favorite part of the tour, like Sabrina seeing the clothing design, Elijah showing interest in the blacksmith, Andrew and Drew liking the English Farm and house, Justin loving every building we went into with an array of questions that benefited all of us, and Amber and I seeing Sunshine. But I know we all enjoyed riding around on the golf carts and seeing the amazing work they have done and the amount of work that went into their projects. At the end of the tour, it was easy to see the purpose of the path he took us on because we started off seeing the earliest of projects and then went on to more of the modern projects, and then we tied it up by going to the behind-the-scenes action. This is where we saw the costume design for the workers who are stationed through the park and for the major events staged alongside other local historical parks. And then we got to go and see the real artifacts that were collected and preserved in the storage area depicted in the last picture of the vlog. We got a full learning experience, and overall everyone took something away from the trip.  It was well worth it for all of us.

Kyle W.

Week 8

Humans require food to live. Our ancestors' diets and the methods by which they prepared their meals can provide more significant insights into how past societies functioned than the golden death mask of some long-nameless king. This week, in our ExArc course, we had the privilege of delving into this fascinating topic from scientific and practical perspectives. 

On Tuesday, we discussed our class’s “groundbreaking” discoveries at the Deputy Center the week prior. Drawing on last week’s stratigraphy class, we discussed the four layers we could identify and drew a simple Harris matrix depicting the layers. We had two assigned readings that day, Sarah Wisseman’s 2010 piece “Chenopodium For Breakfast” in Illinois Antiquity and Richard Evershed’s creatively-titled “Experimental Approaches To The Interpretation Of Absorbed Organic Residues In Archaeological Ceramics,” published in 2008 by World Archaeology. Wisseman focuses on dietary change in Illinois, as evidenced by residues left behind from hot rock and direct heat cooking methods. Wisseman reminded us of Hurcombe’s organics from inorganics research, as she studied the shape and composition of potsherds to make inferences about past diets. The findings may be relevant to our analysis of the sherds from the Deputy Center. She noted that boiling over caused food residue to collect around the rim and that direct heat cooking left soot on the bottom of pots. In contrast, pots used for hot rock cooking remained clean. Evershed, in a more detailed and scientific study, analyzed lipid, or fat, residues left on cooking vessels. The benefit of lipid analysis is that lipid residues are common in sherds, persist in the archaeological record, and provide a history of the lifetime use of the pot, not just the last meal cooked. By performing a chemical analysis of the residues, we can better understand what our ancestors ate and how they prepared their meals, providing valuable insights into pre-modern societies' social, cultural, and economic aspects. In contrast, Evershed’s article is both global and scope and immensely technical,  drawing on published work and presenting previously unreported findings to provide new insights into the complex chemistries of residues. 

Our assigned reading on Thursday was Clare Harper, Faith Macdonald, and Kevin Braun’s article entitled “Lipid Residue Analysis of Archaeological Pottery: An Introductory Laboratory Experiment in Archaeological Chemistry" that appeared in the Journal of Chemical Education in 2017. In contrast to the former readings, Thursday’s was pedagogical, that is it is intended to inform other educators about how chemistry and archaeology can be combined in an interdisciplinary lab. The article describes an experiment in chemical archaeology for students to understand the archaeological process and the materiality of ceramic sherds. The investigation involves recording information about the sherds, handling them with gloves and tweezers washed with methanol, crushing them into small pieces, mixing them with a solution, and analyzing the components using a gas chromatograph. The experiment described emphasizes the importance of record keeping and creating an archaeological narrative from the data. 

We then divided into four, small groups to write scripts for a video requesting Dr. Holliday’s chemistry class to analyze our potsherds. Each group was assigned a different portion of the video. Amber and Sabrina provided an introduction to the Deputy Center. Also, they cautioned the chemistry class about factors, such as diagenesis and the presence of multiple ingredients, that could complicate their findings. Elijah and Kyle explained how the instructors made a mock archaeological site, described the stratigraphy, and what we discovered there. Drew, Andrew, and I discussed pre-contact and colonial diets, focusing on the lipids one might expect to find in each period. We also wrote a script for the concluding remarks and a request to please analyze the potsherds and let us know what was cooked in them. This week’s readings helped explain to the chemistry class about searching for lipids and the factors that might complicate the results. We will make the video during Friday’s lab.

On Friday, we made a video to ask chemistry students to apply their knowledge of lipid residue analysis to the “Home Depot culture” - a joking reference to the origins of the pots - sherds collected at the Deputy Center in keeping with Harper, Macdonald, and Braun’s article). Each group filmed their segment and shared them with Drs. Bardsley and Paxton to assemble into a coherent whole.  We aimed to demonstrate the importance of this work and inspire our fellow students to join us in this endeavor. Andrew, Drew, and I wrote a shooting script with cutaways for stock imagery. Unfortunately, around two in the afternoon, we had to leave our filming location on the third floor of Memorial Hall because a drama class was being held there. Additionally, someone should have remembered to send Dr. Bardsley and Dr. Paxton the stock images and footage. Hence, our video portion contained the raw footage in sequence. 

As to the film as a whole, it is a movie. It has a script. It has cinematography. It has light and sound. Overall, this week was a testament to the value of interdisciplinary learning and hands-on experience. We gained a deeper understanding of pre-modern societies and their diets. We were able to inspire others to join us in this exciting and essential work. The analysis of lipid residues in ceramics and the production of pre-modern cuisine seem like niche topics. Still, they can illuminate humanity's rich and complex history and inform our understanding of society today. The pedagogical article on Thursday was also valuable since many in this class plan on entering academia or teaching.

Justin W.

For Thursday's class, we read articles on trampling which is the movement of artifacts in ground which has been walked upon. We studied this because we wanted to see how trampling affects the position of objects in the ground and potentially how far down an object can go. While going over an article by Marwick et al on artifact locations, we realized that trampling sometimes has little to no effect on objects in the ground. This article does an experiment in Australia that was set up to see if trampling does affect objects and the land around them. This experiment was meant to give more insight into when Australian Aboriginals first came into Australia, how human migration affects the Earth, and what is left behind. Then we went over what we were going to do for the lab the next day which was held at the Deputy Center.

Friday's class centered on excavation. The class met outside of the cafeteria to get on a van to go to the Deputy Center. At the center there was a site where we had to dig layer by layer and pull out different artifacts. One group dug and another labeled the finds.  Mostly we found pot sherds, but we also encountered other objects at different levels.  We dug down to about four layers deep and found and labeled over 50 different artifacts. We also noticed the difference in appearance of layers. There was a modern layer, which was the youngest, followed by a second layer that was mostly dirt. The third layer was darker soil, simulating a fire. The fourth layer, being the oldest, had a soil that was mostly clay and did not contain any metal at all. From this experiment we found different artifacts at different levels:  mostly clay sherds but also iron nails, and burnt wood,  The top layer included a McDonalds toy, a Covid mask, and various CD fragments.

The dig site at the Deputy Center was just like what we read in the stratigraphy articles but on a simpler scale due to the stratigraphy only being four layers. I found it interesting to see what we read in class correlating to what we were doing in class on Friday at the Deputy Center.

Week 6

This week was a bit different for us, as we did not cover any material in our Tuesday class because of our midterm. 

We began Thursday’s class by discussing where the articles we have read for class fell on the spectrum of experimental vs experiential. For example, we placed Reynolds very far left on the experimental side as opposed to Hurcombe who was near the middle of the line, and Lorblanchet who was closer to the experiential side. Additionally, we discussed where the schools that have graduate experimental archaeology programs would fall on the spectrum. The University of Leiden is more experimental with a full lab, while the University of Dublin is more experiential.

Thursday’s article was by Linda Hurcombe on her organics from inorganics research program. Hurcombe, while she does serious experimental research, also sees the value of play. Experiences can provide insights that inform the experiment. In her article, Hurcombe covers four different strands of research, the plant chaîne opératoire, stone tool wear traces, ceramic impressions of cordage, and the study of skeuomorphs. Each strand seeks to use inorganic materials to shed light on organic materials. The chaîne opératoire is basically a step-by-step guide to produce a product. A skeuomorph is a decorative object that mimics the appearance of another object but not its function. This would be like the phone logo on an iPhone. Phones are no longer shaped that way, but we still associate the shape of an old phone with a phone today. Hurcombe also focuses on the missing majority, or rather the aspects of an archaeological record that has been lost to decomposition or decay, including wood, fiber, food. As a class we discussed the limits of experimental archaeology. For example, you cannot gain knowledge on the social world of people in the past or about the missing majority of materials that do not survive in the archaeological record. However, by using the inorganics you are able to connect the lines and make inferences about the organics that have existed. 

We also discussed the differences between British and American authors. Whereas American authors write thesis-driven papers by restating the argument throughout the paper, British authors place the thesis at the end. This was applicable in Hurcombe’s article, as the main argument about acquiring knowledge of organics was located at the end of the article. We finished class by breaking off into groups and coming up with at least three experiments that use inorganics to learn more about the organics that have long been decomposed and lost.

Our lab was based on cordage and yarn making. We all found this lab challenging as cordage making and spinning didn't come easily to anyone. I would argue that this was the first lab that we struggled with as a class. The lab began with a lecture about processing fiber, and we created a chaîne opératoire for making cloth starting from the very beginning. The first steps did not apply to us because, as we were not starting from the beginning, but it was beneficial for us to learn all the tasks if we had time to do it completely. We went through the steps for processing both protein fibers (wool, silk) and cellulose fibers (flax, cotton). For flax, you soak, ret, dry, comb or card, and spin the fibers into thread that can be used in cordage, for knitting, nalbinding, or weaving. Most of the process for cellulose fiber was applicable to protein fibers. For wool, you would shear the sheep, wash and soak the wool, comb and card it. For our lab we began by watching a video by a former student about how to make cordage. It was very much trial and error. However, we did see the importance of play in experimental archaeology. Humans learn by playing, so by playing with the different types of fibers we were able to see which worked best for making cordage. Therefore, on the spectrum of experimental opposed to experiential that we discussed on Thursday, this lab would fall heavily on the experiential side of the spectrum. We then used a variety of fibers to make yarn using the spindle. Again, we watched a video to follow along to. Some of us picked up on it more easily than others, but it would be fair to say that the class experienced confusion and difficulty. In addition to playing the video twice, Dr. Bardsley demonstrated it for us. We struggled with linking the fiber to the spindle, as well as having the fiber break. Some of the fibers were harder to use than others, and towards the end of our lab, we were given a piece of yarn to try to make the process easier. While it was one of our more challenging labs, I feel confident in saying that we each had some idea of what we were doing by the time we finished. 

Amber C.

Week 5

This week in Experimental Archaeology, we began on Tuesday by discussing and reflecting on our cave painting experiments and experiences the past Friday. We discovered we made different choices in mixing pigment create paint. Among materials used as binders were the whites of eggs, the yolks, water, and hand soap. Interestingly, we found that many of us had very different experiences with the same materials. We then continued, beginning to brainstorm ideas for the experiment that we will test when we go on our camping trip toward the end of the semester. 

We read up on some other experiments that have been done, in order to spark some ideas for our own project or projects. These example experiments included cooking in baskets using heated rocks, the creation of Roman and medieval era pottery, and the creation of Viking-age bead kilns. It was around this class on Tuesday that we also discussed the upcoming midterm exam. 

On Thursday, we discussed ceramics in greater detail, discussing the steps required to turn pottery into ceramic. The first article was by Anthonio Akkerman and laid out a detailed step-by-step of the techniques and methods one could use to create pottery. We discussed these steps in class in preparation for our experiment on Friday, as well as the methods of creating pottery that he explained in the article. These methods included pinch pots, and coil pots, both of which we would go on to test ourselves. He also presented a third way to create clay pots, which involves a pottery wheel, something we did not use, as paleolithic peoples would not have used them. 

The second article, written by Karen G. Harry, looked at previous experiments on the processes of ceramic manufacturing. She noted the shift beginning in the 1980s regarding the focus of ceramic experimentation. Prior to that time, many approached ceramic experimentation with the goal of simply trying to find out how they were manufactured and for what use, whereas since the 1980s, the focus has shifted to “functional issues.” Harry also distinguishes between laboratory experiments and those done in the field, as lab experiments offer greater control over variables.   

The kind of experiment we conducted on Friday sat somewhere in between. While we were working in a classroom with modern clay that had been deeply refined by machines, the methods with which we were working with were more akin to a field experiment. Our creations will become a field experiment when we reach the step of firing them toward the end of the semester. We discussed this in class on Thursday as well. We will decide what type of kiln we will construct – such as Roman, Medieval, Viking, etc. – and construct it outside. We then will use it to fire our pottery to turn it into ceramics, or attempt to anyway. 

An ongoing discussion theme this week, also present in earlier classes, centered on the differences between experiment and experience. Primarily, what elements of the past are best learnt through formal scientifically based experimentation, and what elements are best learnt through simply experiencing the techniques and what they meant in everyday life? Harry mentioned this in her article when she described a distinction between experimental archaeology as a field and a single archaeological experiment. Additionally, we reviewed the concept of the chaîne opératoire, a methodological tool used in archaeology in which one depicts the step-by-step processes of technology used to produce artifacts such as pottery/ceramics, their use, and their eventual disuse/disposal. These discussions continued on Friday.

On Friday’s lab we had guests join us, invited by Amber! (pictured below)

After we each made an initial pinch pot, following the instructions laid out in Akkerman’s article, several of us went on to create a number of other items, such as a little owl I made. There are some who call him… Tim (totally not a Monty Python reference.) We will fire our creations in a few months and see how many were made well enough to survive the heat and become ceramics.

Sabrina M.

Week 3

This week was a bonus, as we had a mini lab session on Thursday.  Instead of reading and discussing articles that day, as we would normally do, we spent the 70-minute class exploring how we can shape bone.  That was followed by a full lab session on Friday afternoon in which we returned to our obsidian flakes of the previous week and tested out the method of wear-use analysis.  This gave us the chance to compare and contrast stone and bone as materials.  While some of us expressed a preference for one over the other, most of us agreed that context was all-important.  A piece of obsidian will never make a flute, for instance, while various attempts to create bone knives reminded us that the hard and sharp nature of obsidian makes it a better cutting tool.

Our exploration of bone began with a scholarly article on diagenesis and pig bone.  We read Anne Juul Jensen’s 2016 write up in the EXARC journal of an experiment begun in 1992 in which a cremated pig was buried.  A decade later, analysis showed that some elements (especially strontium) leeched from the bone into the surrounding soil, while others (aluminum, manganese, iron, and barium) moved from the soil into the bone.  Others still, especially calcium, seemed unaffected by the burial process.  This was a useful reminder that what is excavated is not necessarily exactly the same as what is buried, since chemical processes are not inert while artifacts are under the ground.  From the academic article by Jensen, we pivoted to a descriptive summary of the uses of bone by Native Americans and to one individual’s log of his efforts to create a flute from a turkey bone.  We appreciated the way in which the latter, Andy Letke, chronicled his thought processes about how much anachronism was appropriate in his project.  Indeed, his decision-making process throughout his construction of the flute, including his efforts to gain appropriate skills by testing on other media (like PVC pipe) was deemed worthy by the class.  Peter Reynolds might not have approved, we figured, but this experiential project nonetheless fit several of Saraydar’s criteria for a good project.  

We perhaps appreciated Letke’s efforts even more as we saw on Thursday just how hard it is to work with bone.  As we shaped coyote and deer bones, we were glad that there was no class in the room below to be irritated by the banging of hammers on chisels, scraping of saws, and buzzing of drills.  This lab was quite experiential rather than experimental, so everyone was allowed to decide what they wanted to make.  Several of us went for arrow heads, which will be attached to arrow shafts for our archery lab in a few weeks.  Others produced bone knives, flutes, and various other lethal-looking sharp things.  Working with modern metal tools, we developed more sympathy for Letke’s efforts to create a flute using stone flakes.  

Friday’s lab saw us switching back to the obsidian flakes we made last week for an assessment of edge-wear analysis.  We cut carrots for 15 minutes (a percussive motion – the carrots themselves didn’t matter as much as the perpendicular chopping action), then – with a new flake – sawed leather for 15 minutes, then – with a third flake – carved wood for 15 minutes.  This meant that each student had made themselves an “index” set of 3 flakes.  We then pushed through our muscle fatigue and boredom to work a fourth flake (some did carrots, some leather, some wood).  This fourth set of flakes became the focus of our analysis in the bio lab.  Having made a right mess of carrot slices and wood shavings in the classroom, we took ourselves over to the bio lab and examined the edges of each flake under the high-powered microscopes there.  We summarized the characteristics of the carrot, wood, and leather flakes in turn.  Then we looked at the fourth set of flakes (since numbered and cleaned off by faculty) to see if we could identify their uses without knowing these in advance.  We recorded everyone’s guesses and redistributed the flakes to different observers for two more rounds.  We found that we were particularly good at identifying flakes that had been used to cut carrots (5 out of 6 correct guesses, or 83%).  With flakes used to cut leather, we did less well (4/9 or 44%), and with wood we managed no better than a random guess (2/6 or 33%).  We will discuss the implications of these findings and critique our experiment in class next week.  In the interim, we are adding these results to those of other students in other years, so that the total results are starting to build towards statistical significance (see table below).

All in all, this was a fun week.  Juxtaposing two different materials – stone and bone – enabled us to think more about the properties and uses of each.  We also got to practice further our analysis of what makes a viable experimental archaeology experiment, something we’ll continue to explore in subsequent weeks.

Submitted by Sandy B.

Week 2

This week’s classes built neatly on each other to culminate in a successful flintknapping lab.  On Tuesday, students began to settle into the routine by reading brief summaries of experiments presented in Stephen Saraydar’s (2008) Replicating the Past and evaluating them using Reynolds’ typology and Saraydar’s eight criteria for a good experiment. After reviewing the eight criteria, we collectively evaluated an experiment that sought to understand the workings of ancient Egyptian drills. Though students believed the experiment generated useful insights into the function of the drill, they gave it low grades for failing to use appropriate materials and for introducing anachronisms that skewed the results. Students then worked in twos and threes  to evaluate a number of experiments ranging from Paleolithic lamps to brain removal during the mummification process to a variety of lithics experiments. It was gratifying to see the class engage with the experiments and put a good faith effort into evaluating them critically and fairly. We were struck by how experiments could fit under more than one of Reynolds’ categories. While we generally agreed that an experiment was mainly one type or another, the categories seem less clearly defined than Reynolds typology suggested.  

Tuesday’s class primed students to discuss a full-length lithics experiment on Thursday. Beforehand, we talked about how to read scientific articles, beginning with the introduction, discussion, and conclusion and then reading the article in its entirety. A. Fischer, P. V.  Hansen, and P. Rasmussen’s 1984 article “Macro and Micro Wear Traces on Lithic Projectile Points,” provides an excellent example of a lithic experiment that uses the concepts we want to employ in next week’s lab. The authors shot a large number of stone arrow points into carcasses  in order to determine if macro and micro wear could be diagnostic of use. Macro wear refers to damage that is visible to the naked eye, while micro wear are the striations and polish that can be seen only through a microscope. They concluded that macro and micro wear studies together are 60% likely to detect use, though used points do not alway exhibit wear. Students gave the experiment a solid A. This, they said, was an experiment Reynolds would approve. They decided this was a simulation experiment, but that a case could be made for it also being a construct and perhaps also a technological innovation experiment. Students dug into certain aspects of the authors’ methods, such as whether using a modern bow was okay. Two students who had archery experience discussed the differences between ancient and modern bows, and ultimately agreed the anachronism did not affect the results. It was obvious that we have a good group of students this year, and it is great to see them developing the confidence to evaluate experiments, especially when none are science majors. 

Friday’s flintknapping lab is one of my personal favorites. It is also the students’ first introduction to hands-on, experimental archaeology. Perhaps I should say it is an introduction to experiential archaeology since we are not yet at the stage of conducting an experiment. Friday was mostly about developing technique and to see how rock fractures under different circumstances. It was also about creating usable flakes for next week’s experiment. More on that in the next blog post. We began by talking about and practicing the proper technique for using a billet, or bopper, to strike flakes from a core. Starting with obsidian because it is easier to work, students quickly got the hang of the basics – thinning the core by removing ridges. To be sure many of us turned big rocks into small rocks, but by the end we could all be proud that we had contributed to the box filling up with obsidian flakes. We then switched to cherts, which are harder to work but hold a more durable edge than obsidian. We had West Texas chert, a dull gray rock, and Keokuk chert, which is a beautiful creamy color striped with pink bands. Many students preferred working with the Keokuk and produced a large number of high quality flakes. The West Texas chert, however, proved to be more challenging to work. 

The three hour lab flew by and, while we mostly remained focused on the task at hand, the conversations suggested that the class had learned valuable lessons. I’ll list three, though there were no doubt many more. First, our distant ancestors were not unsophisticated brutes. Past people possessed important knowledge, skills, and insights that would take us many years of practice to acquire. Second, a corollary to the first, was that it is okay to fail. The volume of rock we threw away was many times greater than the box of usable flakes. Nor are teachers immune to failure. My demonstration rock broke in two. Mistakes help us refine our craft. Third, similar materials possess different properties and knowing what those are allows us to make better choices as we plan projects and experiments. We would all prefer to make tools out of Keokuk than West Texas chert. Overall, the students, despite receiving some nicks and cuts, seem to have had fun. Next week they will have an opportunity to use their flakes in an experiment. 

Submitted by Jamie P.

Week 1

A new semester of Experimental Archaeology!  We have a nice, small group this year, and already it's clear that everyone is engaged and is taking up the challenge of thinking about Experimental Archaeology.  This brings joy to the souls of the faculty!

We dove into our subject matter fairly quickly, starting with EXARC's definition of Experimental Archaeology (link) and providing students with multiple examples of what experimental archaeological work might look like.  Dr Paxton and I had the chance to reminisce about the many interesting and varied papers we have heard at EXARC and REARC conferences.  A quick round-up of skills among our students showed that we have several folks who have done archery before (this is always a relief to me, since I have trouble remembering how to maximise the chances of arrow propulsion) and several who have been camping.  It was also nice to note that we have several students who appreciated the incorporation of experiments and experiences in 100-level courses (e.g., atlatls in Dr. P's classes, material Middle Ages project in mine).

Thursday started out with a review of the history of the historical discipline and parallels with the history of archaeology.  We noted how the (i) cultural-historical, (ii) processualist, and (iii) post-processualist phases in archaeology map quite neatly onto history's (i) quest for objectivity and emphasis on political history, (ii) emphasis on structures by Marxists and Annalistes and interest in social science 'big data' history, and (iii) fracturing of the field into social history, cultural history, post-modern history, and greater emphasis on race, class, gender, and more.  We watched a short video of Peter Reynolds talking about the foundations of Butser Ancient Farm and linked it to the processualist -- indeed, rigidly scientific -- approach he demonstrates in the article of his we read for class.  We reviewed the 5 main types of experiments he discusses, a typology to which we will return repeatedly during the semester.  Students critiqued his resistance to people wearing period costumes and gave some useful examples of occasions on which the costumes provide useful data about the experiences of people in the past. We also began to discuss a chapter by Saraydar, and we will pick up more of that next week.  I got a bit carried away with the connections between the development of the disciplines and we ran out of time to do justice to Saraydar.  Fortunately, we'll be reading more from him next week and will catch up then.

Friday was our "wander around the Deputy Center" lab.  We enjoyed the chance to be outside and poke about in a fairly unstructured way.  Everyone seemed to get into the spirit of exploring potential resources.  We found clay in the roots of a tree that had blown over, and Justin briefly acquired a walking stick made from hacking a smaller tree.  We examined lichen and bark and speculated about the uses of each.  We sighed at some of the ways that the Deputy Center land is not kept as pristine as we might like -- every year it seems to acquire more hunting hides and to accumulate more dumped junk.  While the weather was warmer than in some recent years, it was boggy after Thursday's unrelenting rain.  Sabrina identified Sassafras trees and promised to make tea from them in the spring.  Ruby, Dr P's dog, was especially delighted to be outdoors and exploring.  Clovis, my dog, was whiny because of the brambles, and made me carry him much of the way.  We visited the remains of the burdei made by previous classes.  The roof is now completely collapsed, and it was hard even to find it.  We imagined how future archaeologists might interpret it and settled on the old joke that anything archaeologists don't understand is considered to have religious functions.  The creek was up after all the rain, so we decided not to visit our Roman kiln remains -- those can wait until we are at the site again later in the semester.

All in all, this was a good first week!

Submitted by Sandy B.