ArchaeoTech 2021: Meet the team from ASE

Each year, archaeologists from Archaeology South-East are involved in ArchaeoTech, an experimental archaeology course for first year students from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL.

ArchaeoTech, or 'Archaeology and Technology in Society' to give it its full name, has been part of our student experience at the Institute of Archaeology since 1982, making next year its 40th anniversary. This experimental archaeology course takes place at Butser Ancient Farm in the first week of the students’ first term at university.

The course takes a huge amount of organisation. Bill Sillar and Charlotte Frearson liaise with the students and IoA contributors from Gordon Square, while Matt Pope, Letty Ingrey and Alice Dowsett from ASE organise the set up at Butser. Once the teaching materials, welfare facilities and field kitchen are in place, along with Clare Wood who has the job of keeping everyone fed, the stage is set for four days of impactful and unique teaching.

ArchaeoTech not only gives our students hands-on experience of working with materials and techniques they will soon learn about in class, but also is a great context for bonding as a cohort. Life-time friendships are made at ArchaeoTech and we have former staff and students from its entire history still coming back to contribute today.

The past two years have seen a big barrier to offering the full ArchaeoTech experience as our students haven’t been able to travel to Butser to take part in the course due to the pandemic. But ArchaeoTech still happened! We’ve been experimenting in a different way and adapting to circumstances, as people always have, by providing live classes broadcast from the site and standalone videos of some of the activities.

Meet ASE’s ArchaeoTech team below!

Matt Pope

My name is Matt and I’m a researcher in Prehistoric archaeology at ASE. Since 1999 I’ve taught at ArchaeoTech and for the last 7 years I’ve helped run the course.

Originally, I used to teach the students how to make simple stone tools and then butcher a deer with them, learning how to skin, dismember and then joint the deer in a really simple and careful way. Recently I’ve been more focused on running the course logistically, making sure everyone has what they need to provide a great teaching experience as well as ensuring the students are well fed, safe and happy.

Three years ago, ArchaeoTech started a new phase in its history by moving to a new home at Butser Ancient Farm, an open-air museum focusing on experimental archaeology from early prehistory through to the early medieval period. In partnership with Maureen Page and Simon Jay, the Directors of Butser, and their amazing staff including their new archaeologist Dr Therese Kearns, an IoA Alumni, we are able to offer the students a more immersive and educational experience than ever before.

We’re now all looking forward to, and planning for, next year, happier times and welcoming our students back to a live, hands on ArchaeoTech experience.

Wiki Krzoska

My name is Wiki, my role at ASE as part of the field staff is to primarily excavate and record archaeological features. I have always been interested in experimental archaeology and have worked at the Archaeological Museum in Biskupin, Poland where we specialise in this.

This was my first ArchaeoTech, for which I chose to run a workshop in weaving. It’s such an essential part of life and I often think people overlook the huge amounts of work and hours that weaving needs and just how many parts of life use weaving. The workshop was to include spinning our own wool, making a heddle and then weaving belts.
 
Although lacking students, I think my first experience of ArchaeoTech was a nice gentle step into the world of experimental archaeology in England. It was definitely good practice and as a result I will hopefully be more relaxed and even better prepared for next year.

It was really nice to meet lots of great people who are interested in similar things and to spend time at Buster Ancient Farm. Dropping yourself into that unique sort of environment makes you feel like you are part of the ancient world and I look forward to sharing that with the students next year!

Alice Dowsett

I'm Alice, a geoarchaeologist at Archaeology South-East, so I usually work on reconstructing past environments and study human-environment interactions.

I've been helping at ArchaeoTech for 9 years and it gives me a chance to get back in touch with the raw materials and processes that people used for subsisting in the past. In 2013 I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on pottery manufacturing techniques with Bill Sillar, and I have been helping out on the pottery activity at ArchaeoTech ever since.

Working on the pottery activity makes you appreciate the burdensome weight of the clay, the sheer volume of wood that is needed to fire the pots, and the specialist knowledge needed to choose the right temper for the type of pot you want to make. It's time consuming to manufacture a pot and there's no guarantee that it won't explode during the firing. It's wonderful to imagine all the superstitions and traditions that may arise from trying to ensure a successful firing.

This year I helped out on the Dunch Hill Bronze Age house build at Butser Ancient Farm and it was great to work on a community project alongside the lovely staff, veterans, and volunteers at Butser.

Charli Mansfield

Hi, I'm Charli and I'm a member of field staff at Archaeology South-East. For a number of years, my days have involved excavating archaeological sites all over England.

A few years ago, I completed a Masters degree in Experimental Archaeology to improve my understanding of site formation processes. Experimentation with the recreation of structures and replication of tools can add an extra dimension to how sites and artefacts can be interpreted.

This year was my first year at ArchaeoTech, where I was showcasing the manufacture of Neolithic scapula shovels to the students, with the hopes of testing the implements the students had created on some of the chalk geology present at Buster Farm. This would mimic the environments the artefacts were used in in the past, as this tool type is usually associated with British flint mines.

There was a great variety of activities on offer at ArchaeoTech this year, including clamp-firing pottery, weaving, flint-knapping and much more. Despite the live-streamed nature of this year’s ArchaeoTech I hope it was engaging for the students, and allowed them to start off their academic year in an interesting way!

 

Letty Ingrey

My name is Letty and I’m a Geoarchaeologist at ASE, specialising in the Pleistocene and Palaeolithic.

Usually for ArchaeoTech I run an activity with Chloe Ward on Palaeolithic Art. We look at natural pigments and pigment processing, do some “cave” painting, and look at various forms of portable Palaeolithic art such as clay figurines and jewellery. We try to look at the different artistic expressions in different parts of the world, think about the reasons for making art, and what the significance is in relation to human evolution. We also have a lot of fun with ochre paints.

However, this year I helped out filming other activities and following Matt and Bill around with a camera as they talked about Butser and ArchaeoTech online to the students. I also made myself useful in other ways, raking up thatch around the new roundhouse, checking equipment for next year, and most importantly lagging the goat house with turf aided by Matt, Bill, and several friendly goats!
 
I love Butser Ancient Farm. It’s absolutely the perfect place for ArchaeoTech to happen. A place where you can knap flint by a Neolithic longhouse, try your hand at Bronze Age construction, or have a sociable evening by a warm fire inside an Iron Age roundhouse. Hopefully we’ll be back there soon running in-person events for the students!

Find out more about this new era of ArchaeoTech at Butser Ancient Farm in this news article.

Images provided by the authors.

 

 

---