1. The Value and Scale of the Experimental
Archaeology Approach - The dialogue
with science
Dr Linda Hurcombe
University of Exeter

2. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
2
Why a dialogue with science ?
Sir Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery stressed that
ideas could come from anywhere but ideas had to become
hypotheses that could be tested.
The test could disprove or confirm the hypothesis and also
generate further ideas for testing.
Experiments are at the heart of all scientific investigation.
Experiments test ideas and also generate them.
The experiments and ideas are the dynamic conversation that
makes science.

3. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
3
Why a dialogue with science within Openarch?
Why Work Package 5?
Experimental archaeology is an active experience.
Archaeological Open Air Museums both present archaeological
knowledge to the public and can also generate archaeological
knowledge. The visitors, schoolchildren, staff, students and
researchers can all have a place.
University archaeology departments generate new knowledge and
communicate that knowledge to other researchers and to students,
and nowadays often also to the public.
Both museums and universities communicate knowledge.

4. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
4
The value of the experimental archaeology approach
Both museums and universities communicate science as an active
process.
Visitors and students can
•learn about archaeology as a subject
•learn about the past
•learn the process of knowledge creation
and all in a personally dynamic way because they are allowed to
make the discoveries for themselves via experiences and
experiments that are new to them.

5. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
5
Where does experimental archaeology happen?
The lab
The field
The archaeological open air museum

6. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
6
Experiment - a scientific investigation
contributes to archaeological research issues or the means of
communicating these issues
Experience - participation in an action or within an
environment
can contribute to research and to effective public engagement and
education
Demonstration - showing a process
Usually contributes to communication, public engagement and
education

7. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
7
Experimental Archaeology:
an interacting range of approaches
Highly controlled experiment: intensive record
keeping giving detailed results
Combinations and phases
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: may have less intensive records but
broadscale results

8. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
8
Authenticity and the dialogue with science in AOAMs
The dialogue can be:
In the foreground and explicitly part of the story
hidden or in the background of the immersive experience
It may be a mixture of these approaches but it can be
separated in space via themed areas
separated in time via a talk before entering the museum
The dialogue with science can contribute to understanding not just
the knowledge presented but the scientific process behind the
knowledge.
Authenticity can be strengthened by presenting the dialogue with
science

9. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
9
The value and the scale of experimental archaeology
Different kinds of experiments
The tightly focussed experiment
The longer term or multi-aspect experiment
The generic experiments
The whole is more than the sum of the parts

10. The Missing Majority
• Plants and animals as material culture: existing traditions,
ethnographic data, experimental archaeology and archaeological
evidence
• Sensory engagement: experimental work and digital technologies
• Object biographies
– beginning in the field, wood, pond, mud of research experiments
- ending in the museum communication of objects and digital
technologies

11. Experimental Actions: strengths
• Space: inside and outside
• Time: longevity; many days per annum and multi-year projects
• Diversity: each has different climate, soils, ‘time periods’
• People: staff researchers/presenters/volunteers
public of all kinds - families and children!
• Living settings: interactions between
tasks/spaces/people/seasons/crops/animals
• Tools/structures – performance and maintenance until exhaustion
• Depositional processes and formation/survival of archaeological
evidence
• Sustainability and climate change agendas
11

12. Experimental Actions: weaknesses
• Use of Space: needs to be in keeping with period and safe for public
• Time: –long term commitments need to cope with many people or change in
personnel
• Diversity: no clear patterns
• Staff /volunteers – need to do their job not make records
• public - difficult to keep records comparable and record the diversity of
participants
• Living settings: interactions between
tasks/spaces/people/seasons/crops/animals – reasoned guess
• Tools/structures – performance and maintenance until exhaustion – may not
be truly comparable to past practices
• Depositional processes and formation/survival of archaeological evidence –
changes can be exponential and influenced by sporadic events
12

13. An object biography approach to structures in experimental
archaeology
The Lifecycles of structures as opportunities
Stage
• Planning
• Materials
• Construction
• Lived in/used
• Maintenance
• Revisions, additions
• Shift in function
• Rebuild
• Recycle
• Dismantle , decay, destroy
opportunities
• Announcements, choices
• Connecting to crafts
• Skilled vs unskilled labour
• Purposes, spaces
• Longevity, durability
• Flexibility
• Alternative purposes
• What elements endure, or are
recyclable
• Processes of decay,
destruction, events

14. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
14
3rd Exeter Dialogue with Science workshop
Touching the Past, National Museums Scotland,
Edinburgh 6-7th December 2013
Hosted by Dr Alison Sheridan, National Museum of Scotland
Featuring work from
AHRC project ‘Touching the past’, PI Dr Linda Hurcombe
‘Creative Spirit’ exhibition, National Museum of Scotland
Dog Rose Trust (heritage interactions for the visually impaired)
Focussed on
Using traditional craft replicas and modern technologies for engaging the
sense of touch in traditional museums
3D prints and interactives
Authenticity and identity
A small travelling exhibition related to this work is available in Kierikki
Museum during the conference

15. Touching the past:
investigating sensory engagement and authenticity
in the provision of touch experiences in museums
across a range of media
Linda Hurcombe (Archaeology, Exeter),
Mark Wright (Informatics, Edinburgh),
Alison Sheridan (National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh)
Ian Summers (Physics, Exeter)
With thanks to
National Museums Scotland
Orkney Museum, Kirkwall, Orkney
Bute Museum, Island of Bute

16. The touching the past exhibition
in Kierikki Museum, Finland,
during the conference
16

17. Experimental Archaeology:
interacting range of approaches
Realistic experiment with many interacting
variables: less intensive records but
broadscale results
Intermediate
Highly controlled experiment: intensive
record keeping giving detailed results
17
Collaborative projects:
the whole is more than the sum of the parts
•Lipid residue analysis
•Usewear on tools (stone, bone, antler.....)
•Storage
•Cordage (including bow strings)
•Wood working and crafts from tree materials
•Plant and tree management
•Boats and moving around
•Heat
•Air qualities in structures

18. 18
Kierikki Stone Age Village June 2014