Experimental Archaeology

Experimental archaeologists explore the past by actually trying the technologies used by people at different periods of history and archaeology; no cheating with matches to start fires or electric ovens to bake bread!

Experimental archaeologists specialise in different skills and periods. Some work with textiles, leather, metals, wood or bone, others may be experts in cooking or weaving.

Will Lord is an experimental archaeologist who specialises in flint knapping. He explains more…

A flint knapper makes a range of stone tools out of flint… I recreate the flint industry across archaeology from the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age), Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and Neolithic (New Stone Age) making stone tools, right up to the 15th century, creating the flint firing mechanism on musket guns.

I think experimental archaeology is important because it gives us a clear route to examine the skills that were actually applied, helping us in the present to understand what it was really like to live in the past.