Lab Summary – Experimental Archaeology / Experiential History

Week 9: Groma Lab Summary

By: Amalia Pappa, Luisa Cichowski, and Soren Eversoll Featured image: sketch by Em Jahn Introduction In our Experimental Archeology lab last week, we learned how to use an ancient Roman measuring tool called a Groma to perform a variety of surveying tasks. The archeological record shows that ancient Romans were very adept at creating straight…

Lab Summary Week 8: Tactics

Introduction This week in Experimental Archaeology, we learned about ancient Greek and Roman military tactics by recreating ancient battle equipment and army formations on the Mini Bald Spot. Before lab, we read about the different tactics of the Greek hoplites, Greek phalanxes, and Roman maniples. In a hoplite, soldiers stood close together with interlocking shields…

Lab Reflection: Tactics

This past lab featured one of the more unconventional practices we have endeavored in (which is surprising to an extent). We marched throughout the mini-bald spot in three different formations ranging from the Greek Hoplite formation, the Greek Phalanx and the Roman legionary formation. This was perhaps the weirdest lab to approach as I could…

Tactics

I had an absolutely incredible time experimenting and testing out ancient tactics today on the Mini Bald Spot. Going into the exercise, I was unsure of the extent to which trying to “play-test” (an imperfect term) ancient tactics would help me understand them, but I am glad to say my suspicions were firmly off-base. After…

Lab Summary: Grain II

Reporters: Samantha Zimmerman, Rahim Hamid, Marta Kondratiuk. Data drawn from reports by: Ben Scott-Lewis (group A), Amelie Cook (B), Ann Beimers (D), Jake Oberg (E), and Eila Planinc (F). Introduction: This week in Experimental Archaeology, we continued our exploration into the making of bread in accordance with ancient texts such as Cato’s account of bread…

Libum, Simple Loaves, and Sourdough!

Making bread during today’s lab really brought to life everything we have been learning about grain in class over the past few days. Our group was tasked with making Libum, a sort of cheese-loaf of bread from Cato’s writings. As Jake explained to us at the beginning of the lab, Libum were used in ancient…

LAB SUMMARY WEEK 6: Tracta, Alica, and Catonian Breadstuffs

Morgan Dieschbourg, Dylan Fox-Arnold, and Em Jahn Introduction: This week, our class set about analyzing Cato’s description of traditional bread-making techniques in De Agricultura (a text from 165 BCE) through experimental archaeology on Carleton College’s Mai Fete Island. Specifically, we looked at six different bread-and-cheese-based recipes outlined in the text: placenta, spira, scriblita, erneum, globi,…

Lab Summary Week 5: Dyeing and Animals

Ruby Becker, Kenton Nagle, Maya Gabor Introduction: This lab took place at A Woolen Forest Farm & Studio, located on 15 acres in Lonsdale, Minnesota and owned by shepherdess and wool worker Alejandra Sanchez. In the week leading up to this lab, our experimental archeology class focused our learning towards ancient dyeing practices both in…

Week 3 Lab Summary: Ritual

by Bee, Ellie, and Will This week in Experimental Archaeology, we took a deep dive into Dr. Morton’s experimental research on rites done at the altar during ancient Greek religious sacrifices. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been found in the archaic cult images of a series of vase paintings. We burned bovine thigh bones…

For future archaeologists: bone burial

On April 20, 2023, our class burned 6 beef femurs and 5 tails in a single ritual event on Mai Fête Island. 5 of the femurs were fully wrapped in omentum (belly fat), while the sixth was left unwrapped as a control. All 6, however, fully broke apart in the middle, leaving the shaft of…

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