What is Experimental Archaeology?

[Cheyenne]

Like in natural sciences experimental archaeology needs some premises to actually be experimental archaeology.

1. Hypothesis / Question
3. Breadboard
4. Experiment with a) active change (dependent & independent variable)
b) extermination of distorting variables
5. Repeatability, quantification
6. Analysis and Discussion of "Generalizability",
7. Publication in a scientific medium

If one of the above is not undertaken it is not experimental archaeology. (Though some of the above is sometimes disputable in detail e.g. #4).
Please son´t see this as a personal critique or something, it is just often the case that the term is used out of its actual semantic field. ^^
Cheers! Christian

I gave a paper on experimental archaeology at the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference in December @ Southampton university. The session papers are being published by BAR Series this summer - I tackle some of the problems inherent with the above rhetoric in my expanded submission. What we have been doing is trying to deconstruct some of the problematic reliances on Culture/Nature dichotomies relating to foundational laws when disseminating such definitions. My particular example has been with experimental Neolithic Archaeoacoustics - but the themes are also a much broader reflection of the desire to marry both theory and practice in the 'experiment' of archaeological discourse

Claire

I'll le you know when