By Jacob Sanders, Parker Johnson Introduction Last week, we built the timber frame of our Anglo-Saxon mortuary house. In this week’s lab, we finished construction by adding walls and a roof. Our overall goal was to experimentally reconstruct a four-post mortuary house, based on the outline of post holes discovered around cremation deposits at Apple…

By Elie Lewin, Hazel Wright, Shemsy Lewis-Mussa Introduction This week, we built the foundation and support structure for a mortuary house. Austin has theories about the way mortuary houses would have been constructed, and this lab was designed to test a few of those theories. The archaeological evidence provided was a rectangular house foundation with…

Introduction This lab was focused on the process of making iron ship-nails and roves in the historical Anglo-Saxon tradition. Blacksmithing, in some form or another, has been used for millennia to shape raw metal into useful tools. In the viking age, a common use for blacksmithing was the creation of clench nails and roves. These…

By Sam Much, Jacob Forster Rothbart, Patrick Assali “Before setting forth on that inevitable journey, none is wiser than the man who considers—before his soul departs hence—what good or evil he has done, and what judgement his soul will receive after its passing.” Bede’s Death Song, translated by Leo Shirley-Price, our farewell to Two Sixteen…

Noah Laitala, Bella Crum, Sasha Rapacz In the beginning there was the Loom, and the Loom was with warp, and the Loom was warp. The same was with the tapestry and the cards. All things were made by yarn; and without yarn was not any thing made that was made. (The Book of Archeology, 1:1-3).…

By: Sophia Jazaeri, Annie Wiener, and Talia Loevy-Reyes This week we were lucky enough to go to Get Bentz Farm, where we received a warm welcome from Theresa and Maddy and the farm’s three enthusiastic dogs, Ranch, Pepper, and Theo. The goal was to take a more ethnoarchaeological approach and see local scale fiber production…

Ugo Anyaegbunam, Violet Wright, Eva Mazzola Introduction This week, the class learned about ceramics in Anglo-Saxon England. Our readings for the week included explanation to chaîne opératoire or “Chain of Operations” in making Anglo-Saxon pinch pots, the shift from the pottery wheel to hand-made pottery once the Romans left England, and the importance of tempering…

By: Ezra Kucur, Daniel O’Connor, and Ian Rock-Jones Introduction Experimental archaeology has been instrumental in deepening our understanding of Paleolithic food-ways and technologies, for example; fire control for cooking. While hearth-remains provide material evidence of fire use, experimental methods allow researchers to recreate fire-starting techniques, cooking practices, and heat management using only the materials available…