ARCH41370 Experimental Archaeology (By Distance Learning)

Academic Year 2021/2022

ARCH41370: Experimental Archaeology (By Distance Learning) (10 credits) explores how archaeologists can investigate past houses, buildings, agricultural and industrial technologies, pottery, lithics, metalworking, food and cooking, and other aspects of material culture, through experimental archaeological investigations. Experimental Archaeology can be defined as the reconstruction of past buildings, practices, technologies, and things, based on archaeological evidence, and their investigation as analogies through testing, recording, and experience, so as to create a better understanding of people and their material culture. In this introductory module, we will explore the history and development of experimental archaeology, and outline its key principles and achievements. We will discuss how experimental archaeology projects can investigate how prehistoric and medieval houses were built, used, and abandoned; how people produced, processed and prepared food and drink; how people used different raw materials, tacit knowledge and embodied skills and technologies to make things, such as pottery, iron tools, non-ferrous metals, organics and textiles. We will also explore the relationships and changing boundaries between experimental archaeology, experiential archaeology, Living History, and re-enactment, and explore how these all can help us to practically re-create things from the past, understand the past and the archaeological record, and to tell stories about them. This module will be taught through webinars, recorded illustrated lectures, lots of reading and discussion and an array of Online/Distance Learning resources.