The EXARC Show

Films set in prehistory are few and far between and often by no means based on scientific insights. In this episode of the EXARC Show our new host Noah Melton chats with filmmaker Maarten Peels about what he deems essential for a truthful depiction of life in the upper Paleolithic. In Maarten's short film De Poten van de Bison ( The Bison’s Legs ), released in 2024, he introduces his characte...

In the second episode of EXARC Extracts in 2026, Matilda Siebrecht talks you through the content of EXARC Journal 2026/2. This issue includes six reviewed articles 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. Go to the issue Support the show

What if a once shared territory can foster a sense of belonging today and thus help to heal problems of the present? Geza Frank, our guest in this episode of the EXARC Show, certainly thinks it can. This conviction lies at the heart of his upcoming project to circumnavigate the frontiers of the entire Roman Empire in historic outfit and equipment and by historic means of transport. Host Phoebe Bak...

In this episode of the EXARC Show, host Jess Shaw discusses heritage interpretation with Caroline Nicolay from Pario Gallico. What does the term cover? What forms can it take? How accurate should it be? What is the role of buildings and why are they important?  Caroline addresses the challenges for open-air museums to find and hire the right type of living historians for their particular events or...

In this first episode of EXARC Extracts in 2026, Matilda Siebrecht talks you through the content of EXARC Journal 2026/1. This issue includes four reviewed articles and six 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.  Support the show

Have you ever wondered what a drastic change in your diet could do to your system? In the summer of 2025 Ilse Donker ate only wild foraged food for three months. She did this in the context of the Wildbiome Project. This project, set up by Monica Wilde in the UK, investigates the effects on the gut microbiome of eating exclusively foraged food for an extended period.  The official results of the p...

In this episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2025/3, the third and last episode of the EXARC Journal in 2025, sharing her insights and reactions to the surprising range of research shared within. This year's third issue of the EXARC Journal includes eight reviewed articles and three mixed matters articles. As always, the articles cover a very wide r...

In this episode of the EXARC Show host Phoebe Baker chats with Markus Klek about his exciting - and sometime scary - hike up to the location where Ötzi the Iceman was found in 1991. The hike required a good deal of strenuous climbing and brought challenges Markus had not encountered before. It was another opportunity to test his equipment and to gain more understanding of what it means to be trekk...

In this episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2025/2 of the EXARC Journal, sharing her insights and reactions to the amazing range of research shared within. This year's second issue of the EXARC Journal includes ten reviewed articles and three mixed matters articles. As always, the articles cover a very wide range of topics. All the articles are ope...

Trekking with Stone Age equipment through snow and icy winds in Sweden last February, Markus Klek - a self-proclaimed 'north nerd' - discovered that nature is a factor that can only be ignored at one's own peril. Nevertheless, this challenging experience offered him another opportunity to test his tools and equipment and find out how they can be tweaked to better withstand the eleme...

Listen in this month to hear all about archaeology in Brazil, as we get ready for the upcoming EAC14 conference, which will be held later this month at the Federal University of Paraná from the 12th – 16th May. We are joined by a very special guest, João Carlos Moreno de Sousa. João, also known as JuCa, is an Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Federal University of Rio Grande, and at the Fe...

In this episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2025/1 of the EXARC Journal, sharing her insights and reactions to the amazing range of research shared within. This year's first issue of the EXARC Journal includes thirteen reviewed articles and four matters articles. As always, the articles cover a very wide range of topics. All the articles are open a...

This episode of EXARC Showcase highlights not one but two projects EXARC members are currently involved in. Matilda Siebrecht presents this varied episode. The first project is NFDI4Objects , a multidisciplinary consortium within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). Its aim is to create an easy template to help experimenters structure their experiments and to ensure consistency...

In this episode of EXARC Showcase John Kiernan shares his wide range of experience, knowledge and interests, hopscotching across various engaging topics. He shares how he became an experimental archaeologist, explores the differences between experimental and experiential archaeology, his reason for starting The EXARC Experimental Archaeology Award, the pros and cons of re-enactment and how failure...

In this #FinallyFriday episode, host Matilda Siebrecht dives into the world of folklore with guests Colleen Deatherage and Ieva Pīgozne. Colleen, from the University of Alberta, combines her background in healthcare and social work with her expertise as a folklorist to explore how folklore aids in meaning-making, especially through material culture like textiles. Ieva, based at the Institute of La...

This year's final issue of the EXARC Journal includes eight reviewed articles and six unreviewed mixed matters articles. The research topics range from ethnographic approaches to studying Iron Age bread ovens, reconstructions of Victorian clothing, and Neanderthal fire technology.  In this special extended episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2024/4...

Blingy, fashionable or personal. Jewellery has been an integral element of identity for thousands of years. Despite this, historic and archaeological examples of these items of adornment have often been understudied and misunderstood. This month we are joined by two guests who are intent on changing this, aiming to highlight the true beauty of jewellery in a wider context. Listen in to hear all ab...

When we talk about documentation, digitalisation and restoration we usually assume that the sites where this takes place are accessible and safe, like in an open-air museum. However, there is a category of conservation specialists who, on a daily basis, are dealing with a range of challenges when they work in remote and/or dangerous areas. In this episode two heritage preservation experts talk abo...

The 2024/3 EXARC Journal brings you five 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. This time two of the reviewed articles come from the UK and one a piece from Greece, Norway and the United States. Each of the articles tackles a different topic. John Whittaker and Mary Ja...

In this month's episode of Finally Friday, Matilda chats with two specialists in nalbinding to find out all the details of the development, origins, and variety of this unique craft.  Niina-Hannele Nuutinen (Nele) is the co-ordinator of the EXARC textiles working group and a masters student in Crafting Science at the University of Eastern Finland, where she looks at identifying structure vs t...

Like many things in the modern world, digitalisation has transformed the way we interact with the past and opened opportunities for visualisation, curation and sharing. But how do we actually use these digital tools? How do we use them to engage the public? And how do we ensure our digital data is a fair representation of the past? Henk Alkemade was originally trained as a physical geographer but...

The 2024/2 EXARC Journal brings you eight 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. The majority of the articles come from Europe with two from the United States. Luc Bordes’ article is dedicated to the evolution of throwing s...

In this month's episode of #FinallyFriday, we're discussing how experimental archaeology projects can help in developing well-being! Megan Russell is a PhD student leading the Experimental Health Project. After working in commercial archaeology, Megan saw the potential of experimental archaeology being used as a tool to increase mental health. She is exploring how other aspects of archae...

This episode we're having a bit of fun and looking at an alternative kind of living history with two guests from the Middle Earth Re-enactment society. Eric Meulemans is based in the USA with an academic background in history and historic preservation. He has worked at various open-air museums, predominantly using his crafting skills in wood and metal, which he has honed through his company,...

So you’ve dug up an object… but how do you know what it was used for? Microwear and use-wear analysis is a growing sub-field within archaeology looking for microscopic traces on artefacts which might give us clues on how they were used in the past – or what might have happened to them once they were abandoned. Join us on this month’s episode of #FinallyFriday for a deep dive into the world of micr...