The Experiment and the Umbrella - 10 Years of Experimental Archaeology

Abstract

When reading articles about experimental archaeology written within the last 10 years or so, I find that they often take their point of departure in a brief explanation of the history of the experiment; the birth of the experiment within the positivistic research tradition in the processual archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s, and subsequently, the development and discussions during the postprocessual archaeology of the 1980s. Thereafter, they continue with the matter at hand. This made me wonder about what the main discussions of the late 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium have been. We might not be able to name and define this period more specifically as yet, but it is possible to distinguish overall themes.

Keywords

• experimental archaeology
• experiment
• education
• methodology
• newest era
• denmark