The EXARC Show

The 2024/1 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. The reviewed articles come from far and wide. This time round we have four articles coming from Europe (Estonia, Denmark, Netherlands and UK) while the other two are from China and In...

Lather, rinse, and repeat – an insight into early chemistry. In this month’s episode of #FinallyFriday we dive into the history of soap, debunking soap origin myths and breaking down the science of making soap. From sourcing specific wood ash to hunting down ancient recipes, our two experts explore all the factors that are needed to create a good bar of soap.   Sally Pointer is an archaeologist an...

It's getting closer to the end of the year, which means that it's time for our next episode of Mirrors and Windows. This year, founding member and current director Roeland Paardekooper chats with Matilda Siebrecht, who will be taking over the role of director in January. Together, they talk about what's happened in 2023 - from the conference in Turun to this year's EXARC award...

The 2023/4 EXARC Journal presents seven reviewed and eleven mixed matters 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 Europe, Canada, Australia and Syria. As usual they cover wide variety of topics. Can Experimental Archaeology Confirm Ethnographic Evidence? Presents an ex...

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...

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...

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...

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 heritag...

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 a...

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...

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 ow...

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 f...

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...

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 f...

After 20 times putting together a year report, we decided it was time to do things differently: we did the year report as a podcast. EXARC Chair Dr Peter Inker leads our director Roeland Paardekooper through the year that passed. Of course we also comment on the future! For our more than 400 members around the world, 2022 has been a difficult year, where the ones who could respond quickest to the...

The EXARC Journal 2022-4 is published now, this issue includes 5 reviewed articles and 5 unreviewed mixed matter articles.  As usual the articles vary widely. From the process of designing and running a new course on Experimental Archaeology and Experiential History at a small liberal arts college in central Minnesota, through working with gems and research of Early British glass beads to a study...

In this very special edition of #FinallyFriday, we chatted with two of the main instigators of the new Support Ukraine Network (SUN). The aim of this network is to provide support for open-air museums as well as individual experimental archaeologists and traditional craft practitioners, many of whom are currently struggling to access resources or profit from research networks due to the ongoing wa...

This month #FinallyFriday travels all the way back into the deep past, as we discuss the trials and joys of experimenting with Neanderthal glue. Dr Paul Kozowyk is a post-doctoral researcher at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. His work focuses on the investigation of ancient adhesives from Neanderthal and early human archaeological contexts, specifically looking at the materi...

How can archaeological examples of cremation help us understand the past? How do we even identify a cremation?  Tim Thompson is a professor of applied biological anthropology and Dean of the School of Health & Life Sciences at Teesside university in the UK. Tim has research interests in a number of areas, but has a primary focus on the archaeology of cremation. As part of this, he has advocate...

The 2022-3 EXARC Journal is now published, bringing you 8 reviewed and seven mixed matters articles. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of information and further development of our knowledge of the past. Two of the reviewed articles introduce different aspects of RETOLD, the project ensuring that open-air museums can continue telling important cultural heritage stories by...

It’s the first Friday of the month! And that means it’s time to listen in to the latest episode of Finally Friday, where this month we’re joined by two partners in the RETOLD Project to talk about the importance of digitisation, documentation and sharing. Julia Heeb is one of the key figures in the RETOLD Project and also works as the exhibition and research manager at the Open-Air Museum, Museumd...

Seeing objects from the past in museum exhibition cases is one thing, but seeing how those objects would have been handled by the ancient people who made them is even better! In this month's episode of #FinallyFriday, Matilda is joined by two experts focusing on different ways that we can visualise the past. Dr Yvonne Lammers-Keijsers is a keen re-enactor and an experienced archaeologist spec...

With a delay, the 2022-2 EXARC Journal is now published. This issue contains four reviewed articles and whooping nine mixed matters articles. As always, all articles are open access. From the articles we would like to highlighted the article on the results of EXARC Twinning project by Lauresham, at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Lorsch Abbey, and CEAMC at University College Dublin (UCD) (Re)constr...

To celebrate both the European Archaeology Days and the release of our 20th episode, #FinallyFriday went live to record a special behind-the-scenes chat with our hosts.  Matilda Siebrecht is currently doing her PhD at the University of Groningen, using microwear analysis to investigate the manufacture and use of Paleo-Inuit bone and ivory tools from Arctic Canada. She pairs her experience in archa...

It's the first Friday of the month! And that means it's time to listen in to the latest episode of Finally Friday, where this month we look at a really fascinating topic of experimental research - ancient tattooing. Aaron Deter-Wolf is the prehistoric archaeologist for the Tennessee Division of Archaeology in Nashville, Tennessee in the USA. While his work in this role encompasses a wide...