EXARC Extracts 2023/4

The 2023/4 EXARC Journal presents seven reviewed and eleven mixed matters articles. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of information and further development of our knowledge of the past.

The reviewed articles come from Europe, Canada, Australia and Syria. As usual they cover wide variety of topics. Can Experimental Archaeology Confirm Ethnographic Evidence? Presents an experimental programme used to examine how boomerangs may be used to retouch stone tools. Testing Roman Glass in the Flame explains the importance of glass properties such as viscosity, temperature working range and softening point when studying ancient techniques of glass working. How Open-air Museums Can Create Programmes for People Affected by Dementia presents special programmes for elderly people with dementia, run by the open-air museum Den Gamble By, in Denmark. “Look at The Bones!” describes an experiment testing the idea presented in the popular press that “Vikings unwittingly made their swords stronger” by using bones in the chain of production from iron ore through to finished swords. Strategy of Presenting Prehistoric Sites Like an Open-air Stand analyses the problems and challenges of preserving and at the same time attracting visitors to prehistoric sites, while engaging local communities in Syria. In Italy, in the middle of the Baroque age, the fashion for drinking chocolate rapidly spread through the courts, nobles, clergy and convents. Experimental Archaeology and the Sustainability of Dental Calculus Research introduces a project that explored the potential of a new methodological approach to investigate the history of chocolate. by combining experimental archaeology with micromorphological and chemical analysis of dental calculus. How were Half-Moons on Shells Made in the Upper Palaeolithic? Presents a study, the aim of which was to reconstruct the chaîne opératoire required to create half-moon-shaped objects from mollusc shell valva, common objects in Italian burials from the Upper Paleolithic onward.

The mixed matters section contains 11 articles, including an article on utilising experimental archaeological elements within primary education in China., six book reviews and four conference and event reports.

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