What is Experimental Archaeology?

[caiusbeerquitius]

Hi Chris!

I don't disagree with much of that, Chris. Here's where I do differ.

I care little for the attempt by academics to co-opt words and ideas that were originated for the use of non-academics. Experimental archaeology as a term may have been co-opted--that's not how I see it. And I refuse to play jargon.

. That´s not the point. The point is to use terms correctly. For what you describe on your hp there are terms as well, as I explained above.^^

I understand what you mean, though. Many reenactors are not conducting controlled experiments. reenactors come in many flavours, and as a hobbyist, I am prepared to play with all of them. But--some are also excellent historians--considerably more passionate and more skilled than many of the lack-lustre "professional academics" who have wrecked the field since 1970. I recceomend VD Hanson's comments on the subject in his epilogue to "The Other Greeks." Spot on.

So--some reenactors are real historians and they ought to enjoy credit for their efforts.

Well. I am an historian and do Living History e.g. so yes, some are.
However, noone is a "historian" if he never learned the methods of the subject, IMO. Robert (Vorti) recently wrote something very daft about this here in the forum, I just can´t find it at the moment.

It is not necessary, for instance, that a reenactor publish his findings in an academic journal to "count." It is necessary that he or she provide data points that somebody makes use of--and often the best use is made by academia, but not always. Many of us in North America have helped Christian Duffy and Brent Nosworthy, both of whom are well-known professional military historians. Neither one publishes "academic" works. But both have either commissioned experiments or listened at length to our experiences with battlefield communications in 18th c. warfare by drum, voice, and messenger.

I never said that the experimentor has to bublish in persona. The experiment and its results have to be published to make it archaeology. However, the "Experimental" Archaeologist" is the person whichputs up the question, works out the evaluation and publishes the results, not necessarily the people involved in the experiment. ^^

Sometimes, reenactors are asked to perform experiments by academics. Sometimes their work is even credited .

But be fair--much history these days is done outside the academic realm. Let's take archaeology--and I warn you that I come from a family of archaeologists...

Less than 5% of archaeological digs produce any useful academic publication. About 50% manage a site report. Vast mounds of uncatalogued finds sit in university warehouses or rot at find-sites or are simply sold to the black market. Right? But we continue to have digs--bigger, faster, wider, and deeper--because students and professors love to dig, and because the act of digging, not the boring act of classification and reporting, is what gets donations and dollars.

Yet no one threatens to tell these people that they are "not archaeologists." Am I being unfair?

No you´re not. We don´t have these numbers over here in Germany to that extent any longer, since a large part of the excavations is made by private companies since a while. These HAVE to publish within a certain time frame, and actually DO publish.^^
But yes, IMO an archaeologist who doesn´t publish is no archaeologist. He´s an excavator, when he does what you describe.

All over the world, there are groups with serious memberships who do serious work. Sometimes they also have fun and create historical pageants and even hit each other with weapons, but they are interested in, and capable, of doing serious stuff.

I'm more facile with my own group's work--so, for instance, a few years ago, we constructed about fifteen meters of historical earthworks with only period tools and sixty men working. We used a period engineering manual under the guidance of a trained history professional who had dug and reconstructed such earthworks. We used period tools. And we got the job done.

The experiment was to see how the works decayed, not how they were built. So every few months (still ongoing) a team goes and photographs the works. This is part of a publication on maintenance and decay in "real" earthworks for a professional audience.
I'm hard put to see how this is NOT experimental archaeology.

Well it IS experimental archaeology, but your group aren´t all experimental archaeologists through participating in an archaeological experiment. To make a maybe strong comparison:
Noone would call a Bunsen burner or a test tube a "chemist". :wink:

I'll go a step further and say that there's a growing body of academics prepared to turn reenactors into experimental archaeologists, just as relic hunters were harnessed in the 1990s, first in the UK and now all over the world. This is good.

Well they don´t make them Experimental Archaeologists, they encourage them to take part in archaeological experiments. Some reenactment groups in fact have members which really are experimental archaeologists as well.

Just for fun, I'm pretty sure that I was in the generation and perhaps even the group that coined the term "Experimental Archaeologist." (I'd be very surprised if that term was not coined by George Neuman, the weapons collector and historian, in 1975). I'm mystified how anyone can redefine it to exclude me! (LOL)

I'll close by sort of shooting back at the idea of academic history and archaeology being a discipline practiced like science by professionals. I'm currently reading a work called "the Hunt in Ancient Greece" by an avowed member of the "Paris School" who wants to use the hidden meanings in the accumulation of images on Greek vases to create meanings and sub-texts that were only understandable to a 5th C. Athenian audience. She wants to read complex meaning into scenes of hunting and war.

But it is clear to me that she has never hunted, nor made war. And to me, that makes her too ignorant to approach the subject she has undertaken.

Many reenactors could have helped her. And they could have taken her on a deer hunt with spears. And after that act of experimental archaeology, I dare say she'd have written a better book.

Not if she´s living in Europe, for such a type of hunt would be illegal all over the continent. ^^
But why necessarily a reenactor? Maybe people with experience in hunting would have been enough? Anyway, in my ears this sound like a quite weird project anyway. :roll:

What I and AFAIK the scientific world (at least in Europe) understands undeer the term "experimental archaeology" is this, e.g.:
[url:3nqr49xe]http://www.experimentarch.ch/1_wersindwir.php?lang=en&sid=otls4sc28o4r3p2adpkhpiuu51[/url]