Every once in a rare while, it holds it's annual conference in Canada. Over June 8 - 12 in 2019, the location is Sainte-Marie-among-the-Hurons, Pennetanguishine, ON. (So - about 45 minutes from home base in Wareham!).
This is the paper / presentation I have submitted to deliver at the conference :
Experiencing Experiment
Using Experimental Archaeology in public demonstration
As Historic Interpreters, we daily demonstrate What was done in the past. Increasingly, the How becomes more difficult for us to learn, and further removed from the daily lives of our visitors. The Why we know these things also seems more and more mysterious to visitors. All of this is compounded for sites further back in history.
Eventually written documents become vague (if even existing at all). The chain of ‘traditional’ skills is fractured. The object itself becomes artifact, and even with careful examination may only yield hints to how it was produced.
Experimental Archaeology seeks to fill this gap. Presented as public demonstration, this exercise can not only enrich visitor experience, but illustrate the problems of accurately envisioning the distant past. These elements in combination forge a new connection between the visitors and the subject matter.
Examples will be drawn from demonstrations and experimentation based on Parks Canada’s L’Anse aux Meadows NHSC, and two effectively ‘lost’ skill sets represented there : glass bead making and bloomery iron smelting.
Along with DARC, I will be mounting a Viking Age living history demonstration at Upper Canada Village, Morrisburg ON - over June 7 - 10. My contribution (above a huge logistical element) will be Norse metalworking (either blacksmithing or bronze casting). I have asked that should the paper be accepted for ALHFAM, the delivery be on the last day of the conference (Wednesday 12th).
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