The EXARC Show

What if a once shared territory can foster a sense of belonging today and thus help to heal problems of the present? Geza Frank, our guest in this episode of the EXARC Show, certainly thinks it can. This conviction lies at the heart of his upcoming project to circumnavigate the frontiers of the entire Roman Empire in historic outfit and equipment and by historic means of transport. Host Phoebe Baker talks with Geza, aka Gaius Flavi...

In this episode of the EXARC Show, host Jess Shaw discusses heritage interpretation with Caroline Nicolay from Pario Gallico. What does the term cover? What forms can it take? How accurate should it be? What is the role of buildings and why are they important? 

Caroline addresses the challenges for open-air museums to find and hire the right type of living historians for their particular events or activities. She notes that students...

Have you ever wondered what a drastic change in your diet could do to your system? In the summer of 2025 Ilse Donker ate only wild foraged food for three months. She did this in the context of the Wildbiome Project. This project, set up by Monica Wilde in the UK, investigates the effects on the gut microbiome of eating exclusively foraged food for an extended period. 

The official results of the project are still being processed, bu...

In this episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2025/3, the third and last episode of the EXARC Journal in 2025, sharing her insights and reactions to the surprising range of research shared within.

This year's third issue of the EXARC Journal includes eight reviewed articles and three mixed matters articles. As always, the articles cover a very wide range of topics. All the articles are...

In this episode of the EXARC Show host Phoebe Baker chats with Markus Klek about his exciting - and sometime scary - hike up to the location where Ötzi the Iceman was found in 1991. The hike required a good deal of strenuous climbing and brought challenges Markus had not encountered before. It was another opportunity to test his equipment and to gain more understanding of what it means to be trekking in a mountainous environment in...

In this episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2025/2 of the EXARC Journal, sharing her insights and reactions to the amazing range of research shared within.

This year's second issue of the EXARC Journal includes ten reviewed articles and three mixed matters articles. As always, the articles cover a very wide range of topics. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange ...

Trekking with Stone Age equipment through snow and icy winds in Sweden last February, Markus Klek - a self-proclaimed 'north nerd' - discovered that nature is a factor that can only be ignored at one's own peril. Nevertheless, this challenging experience offered him another opportunity to test his tools and equipment and find out how they can be tweaked to better withstand the elements on future trips. Jess Shaw is y...

Listen in this month to hear all about archaeology in Brazil, as we get ready for the upcoming EAC14 conference, which will be held later this month at the Federal University of Paraná from the 12th – 16th May.

We are joined by a very special guest, João Carlos Moreno de Sousa. João, also known as JuCa, is an Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Federal University of Rio Grande, and at the Federal University of Paraná...

In this episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2025/1 of the EXARC Journal, sharing her insights and reactions to the amazing range of research shared within.

This year's first issue of the EXARC Journal includes thirteen reviewed articles and four matters articles. As always, the articles cover a very wide range of topics. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of ...

This episode of EXARC Showcase highlights not one but two projects EXARC members are currently involved in. Matilda Siebrecht presents this varied episode.

The first project is NFDI4Objects, a multidisciplinary consortium within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). Its aim is to create an easy template to help experimenters structure their experiments and to ensure consistency and comparability between different ...

In this #FinallyFriday episode, host Matilda Siebrecht dives into the world of folklore with guests Colleen Deatherage and Ieva Pīgozne. Colleen, from the University of Alberta, combines her background in healthcare and social work with her expertise as a folklorist to explore how folklore aids in meaning-making, especially through material culture like textiles. Ieva, based at the Institute of Latvian History, is a dress historian...

This year's final issue of the EXARC Journal includes eight reviewed articles and six unreviewed mixed matters articles. The research topics range from ethnographic approaches to studying Iron Age bread ovens, reconstructions of Victorian clothing, and Neanderthal fire technology. 

In this special extended episode of EXARC Extracts, Matilda Siebrecht reads through the articles in issue 2024/4 of the journal, sharing h...

Blingy, fashionable or personal. Jewellery has been an integral element of identity for thousands of years. Despite this, historic and archaeological examples of these items of adornment have often been understudied and misunderstood. This month we are joined by two guests who are intent on changing this, aiming to highlight the true beauty of jewellery in a wider context. Listen in to hear all about the similarities and difference...

When we talk about documentation, digitalisation and restoration we usually assume that the sites where this takes place are accessible and safe, like in an open-air museum. However, there is a category of conservation specialists who, on a daily basis, are dealing with a range of challenges when they work in remote and/or dangerous areas. In this episode two heritage preservation experts talk about what drives them and how they ad...

The 2024/3 EXARC Journal brings you five reviewed and five mixed matter articles. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of information and further development of our knowledge of the past.

This time two of the reviewed articles come from the UK and one a piece from Greece, Norway and the United States. Each of the articles tackles a different topic. John Whittaker and Mary Jane Berman used microlithic flakes as...

In this month's episode of Finally Friday, Matilda chats with two specialists in nalbinding to find out all the details of the development, origins, and variety of this unique craft. 

Niina-Hannele Nuutinen (Nele) is the co-ordinator of the EXARC textiles working group and a masters student in Crafting Science at the University of Eastern Finland, where she looks at identifying structure vs technique in different kinds of non-w...

Like many things in the modern world, digitalisation has transformed the way we interact with the past and opened opportunities for visualisation, curation and sharing. But how do we actually use these digital tools? How do we use them to engage the public? And how do we ensure our digital data is a fair representation of the past?

Henk Alkemade was originally trained as a physical geographer but went into a career in IT following h...