30th July 2011, 10:39 PM
Hi Archie, I think it is not so much what you do but how you do it. Are the sessions only practical or can you build in some theoretical / methodological introduction? What do you expect your students to learn from it? If you can be more specific about required outcomes (and age of the students to name just something), I can help. We are EXARC, the international ICOM Affiliated Organisation for archaeological open air museums and experimental archaeology, mainly but not only active in Europe. I can bring you in contact with other professionals, or with museums or with key literature. Check for example http://www.publicarchaeology.eu for a listing of almost 10,000 references to experimental and similar literature. There you'll also find description sin English of 275 archaeological open air museums. I know several colleagues who have given longer or shorter introduction sessions on experimental archaeology - I myself have worked for example with iron smelting (which is a great project even with pupils of age 8 - 12) and with ship reconstructions. A very good contact person in the UK is David Freeman, currently working at Butser Ancient farm - but with a vast experience. Phone him and within 30 minutes you are so much more clever that you hop over the most common beginner's mistakes.