Pilot fires: Preliminary Report from Interdisciplinary Actualistic Fire Experiments

Hearth formation processes are complex. They involve multiple actions, reactions, and activities before, during, and after an active fire and can also impact a wide range of materials and sediments at an archaeological site. Archaeologists approach combustion features and formation processes from multiple analytical perspectives. However, many experimental studies are limited to a strict analytical focus on a single or very few fire-related aspects to allow for careful control of specific variables. Six researchers report here on a multi-focus experimental approach in order to understand complex fire practices and heat-induced alteration of micromammals, ostrich eggshell fragments, mineral pigments, shellfish, and sediments. We designed and conducted five experiments with a state-of-the-art 3D documentation setup, active fires, and excavation through photogrammetry and spatial recording. We provide a brief general account of the experiments and an overview of the experimental design before comparing single-focus and multifaceted experiments and pointing to some of the benefits of our approach and potential areas for improvement. Multifaceted experiments are complex and resource-demanding, and proto-experiments should ideally be part of the experimental design. Our 3D recording and collaboration on documentation strategies provided a wide range of data that can further our understanding of prehistoric combustion features.publishedVersio

This Time for Africa: African Conference on Experimental Archaeology (ACE) 2018

Good news: The first African Conference on Experimental Archaeology (ACE) will be held in Johannesburg on the 20th to the 22nd of March 2018. Join us for presentations, posters, mini-workshops, demonstrations and round-table discussions of experiments in an African context

Individet og ildstedet: Sosial struktur i seinpaleolitikum

Ildstedet kan være sentrum for ulike aktiviteter, utført av individer som kan inneha flere roller. Aktiviteter, funntomme områder og sosiale roller rundt ildstedet kan gi innblikk i samfunnets sosiale struktur, definert med bakgrunn i Anthony Giddens’ (1984) strukturasjonsteori som regler og ressurser. Dette har vært utgangspunkt for en analyse av Pincevent og Étiolles, to franske lokaliteter fra magdalénien-perioden. Aktivitetene ved lokalitetene samlet seg i hovedsak ved bestemte ildsteder, som blant annet kan forstås som aktivitetssentre og et kollektivt rom hvor flere roller aktualiseres. Andre ildsteder lå i funntomme områder, og disse kan forstås som telttomter tilknyttet familier eller være tilknyttet spesielle funksjoner eller roller. Dette åpner for flere forståelser av den sosiale struktur i seinpaleolitikum. Samfunnet og de sosiale roller kan for det første ha vært grunnlagt i individers ferdigheter. En annen mulighet er at slektsforhold hadde stor betydning for roller og sosial struktur. Disse to forståelsene utelukker imidlertid ikke hverandre, og samfunnslivets regler, begrensninger og muligheter kan ha vært basert på en kombinasjon av slekt og ferdigheter. den ulike kombinasjoner av slektsforhold og ferdigheter kan ha vært grunnlagt i en kombinasjon av individers ferdigheter og slektsforhold

Book Review: The Archaeology of Time Travel. Experiencing the Past in the 21st Century, edited by Bodil Petersson and Cornelius Holtorf

Archaeological time travel, or experiencing the past through re-enactment, virtual reality, popular culture or other means, is presented from multiple perspectives in The Archaeology of Time Travel. Experiencing the Past in the 21st Century, edited by Bodil Petersson and Cornelius Holtorf. The book is freely available in pdf format

Book Review: Aurignacian Clay Hearths from Klissoura Cave 1: an Experimental Approach by Malgorzata Kot

About 90 concave, clay-lined hearths were identified during excavations of Aurignacian layers (ca. 35000BC in Klissoura Cave 1, Greece (e.g., Karkanas et al. 2004; Koumouzelis et al. 2001). Only two similar combustion features, identified at the Czech site Dolni Věstonice and defined as kilns (Vandiver et al. 1989), were known from Palaeolithic contexts before the excavations at Klissoura..

Towards a better understanding of cooking techniques in the African Middle Stone Age

In the first part of this paper, we present the first review of cooking techniques in the African Middle Stone Age. We show that the current knowledge is based on a restricted number of studies and on zooarchaeology and archaeobotany and that the research implies that MSA cooking consisted of roasting meat, shellfish, fish, and perhaps plant food on or by the fire. Nevertheless, potentially heated quartzite was found during recent excavation at Klasies River main site, and cooking could have been one reason for heating the rocks. We designed a series of experimental studies to examine the formation of these rocks and report on two pilot experiments in the second part of the paper. Experimental fires were conducted to heat locally sourced quartzite. One sample group was heated on an open fire, while the second sample group was heated on an open fire and subsequently dropped into water. Both groups were heated three times and the colours of the rock samples recorded before the experiments and between each heating episode. After the experimental fires, both sample groups displayed colours that were similar to the ones found in the archaeological sample. The heated quartzite sample also displayed cracks and breaks that were similar to the archaeological sample, but the water-exposed sample did not. The results from the experiments points to intentional heating of the archaeological sample, but not to the use of hot-rock boiling in the MSA

Pilot fires: Preliminary Report from Interdisciplinary Actualistic Fire Experiments

Hearth formation processes are complex. They involve multiple actions, reactions, and activities before, during, and after an active fire and can also impact a wide range of materials and sediments at an archaeological site. Archaeologists approach combustion features and formation processes from multiple analytical perspectives. However, many experimental studies are limited to a strict analytical focus on a single or very few fire-related aspects to allow for careful control of specific variables. Six researchers report here on a multi-focus experimental approach in order to understand complex fire practices and heat-induced alteration of micromammals, ostrich eggshell fragments, mineral pigments, shellfish, and sediments. We designed and conducted five experiments with a state-of-the-art 3D documentation setup, active fires, and excavation through photogrammetry and spatial recording. We provide a brief general account of the experiments and an overview of the experimental design before comparing single-focus and multifaceted experiments and pointing to some of the benefits of our approach and potential areas for improvement. Multifaceted experiments are complex and resource-demanding, and proto-experiments should ideally be part of the experimental design. Our 3D recording and collaboration on documentation strategies provided a wide range of data that can further our understanding of prehistoric combustion features