2. Guidelines and models to date are too limiting and exclusionary - Science, experience, and simulation are not above or below one another, they are simply different. Guidelines and models shouldn't be used to stifle the field or individuals, but better define where on the matrix you happen to be involved (by choice). No one should be able to criticize where anyone else chooses to participate, so long as we all understand the model.
Theory without practice is empty; Practice without theory is blind. Immanual Kant
A Proposal
I would like to propose the following as a model for how our field can proceed to define itself, and technologists can participate at a chosen level of commitment compatible with their skill, knowledge and interest.
1. As a body we accept the levels of experimentation (Callahan, Coles) as: Simulation, Experiential, and Scientific. These levels can also be applied to the educational overlay of affective (coming to an appreciation of), psycho-motor (coming to a higher mental/physical ability), and cognitive (coming to a higher understanding and application).
2. In order to provide a broad and level playing field, we avoid a hierarchal model in favor of a spectral view of our field, based on a matrix of options rather than a pyramid (pyramids have limited space at the top, and invite a “king of the hill” attitude). The foundation for classification is based on materials, tools, techniques, templates and objectives of the experiment.
3. We establish guidelines, definitions and models clearly enough that participants can "judge" themselves against criteria, and progress along a continuum as they feel the need, thus avoiding personality clashes and judgmental posturing.
Developmental Technology
** Levels l-IIIbased on a generalized model or experimental design that may be part of or derived from the prehistoric/ethnographic record.
** Levels l-III use applicable materials and procedures. The process of manufacture (the tool) is not important. The application of the design is as important as the product.
** Objective is to produce a functional replication/reconstruction/ reenactment of the original template or new design.
** Level III requires the application of the scientific method, as well as documentation and reporting of the process, and provides theoretical insight into direct applications to the fields of experimental archaeology and primitive technology.
Primitive Technology-
** Levels I-III based on an artifact or generalized model that may be part of or derived from the prehistoric/ethnographic record.
** Level II uses appropriate materials and procedures, may use modern tools during learning stages. Level III stresses accurately researched material, tools, and procedures.
** Objective is to produce a plausible replication/reconstruction/ reenactment of the original artifact/template, and gain insights and make inferences to related fields.
** Level III requires the application of the scientific method, as well as documentation and reporting of the process, and provides insight into possible applications to the many fields of social and applied sciences including: archaeology, anthropology, sociology, living history, recreation and others.
Experimental Archaeology -
** Levels l-III based on a specific "artifact", features or evidence from the prehistoric/ethnographic record. The weakness of Level I is in poor research or interpretation of the record.
** Level II uses appropriate materials and procedures, may use modern tools during learning stages. Level III limited to accurately researched material, tools, and procedures .
** Objective is to produce a precise (Level II and III) replication/ reconstruction of the original artifact/evidence. Level II and III imply a broader understanding of the field.
“Controlled creativity” can be applied “only in the absence of archeological fact”.
** Level III requires the application of the scientific method, as well as documentation and monitoring /reporting of the process, and relates directly to the field of anthropology.
Using the numbered boxes on the matrix (Table 1), levels of commitment can better be explained individually. The model not only strongly supports the efforts of experimental archaeology and allows for precision, but also provides an opportunity for involvement of technologists practicing at a variety of levels without getting caught up in politics and science.
1. Developmental Simulation - the spirit of what we do...the starting point for most people, especially kids. I see a picture of an atlatl in a book. So, I run out into the garage and build one. Since I have no wood or tools, or by choice, I make one from scraps of any material that may be on hand. I am interested enough to try it out and attempt to come to a better appreciation of what the thing is.
2. Primitive Simulation - the point where many of us are now. I want my new thing to look a little more like the “real thing”, so I read more, find more pictures and a simple diagram on how the thing works. I gather some wood and a saw, and try again.
3. Archaeological Simulation - the place where most displays and educational programs are now. I go to my local museum and see an atlatl that was discovered in a cave just up the road from where I live. I go home and whip one out on the band saw.
4. Developmental Experience - the motivational point for many of us. I want better performance from my atlatl, so I can set a world distance record. I do some research to get a better understanding of the mechanical workings of the system, obtain materials that are best suited for the job, practice, and then call Guinness.
5. Primitive Experience - the heart of what we do...where most of us want to be. I want to live for awhile like the prehistoric residents of my backyard. I want to do it the way they did it. Total “primitive”. I have to learn about wood, tool making and use, hunting, and more. If I choose to follow a specific culture, everything I do is based on what I can learn about them. I train myself to "think" and perform just like they did.
6. Archaeological Experience - the beginning of scientific experimentation. I want to know more about what I find in the field or behind museum glass. ...what's it made of, how is it made, and what does it take for me to reproduce it. I can really do it the way I think it must have been done before.
7. Developmental Experimentation - the realm of the thinker. I have an understanding of scientific process and a calculator, and I want to know the engineering and theory of what makes an atlatl propel its missile (Developmental Experimentation must have a subject and foundation that are directly related to Primitive Technology and Experimental Archaeology, otherwise, it has shifted into the realm of modern technology).
8. Primitive Experimentation - where wise men fear to tread. I want to explain to the academic that his diagram and explanation of how an atlatl works is incorrect, but just showing him doesn't always cut it. I have to accurately record the results. Of course, while I was jotting down notes and tables, my dinner got away.
9. Archaeological Experimentation - the soul of the process. I want to reproduce enough tangible evidence that I've got a real good foundation from which to venture into the implications that suggest that “how to fling a stick with a board” is only part of the question.
*ln the broad sense, an experience and a simulation can be a experiment. In the narrow sense, there can be no true experiment without science (structured, monitored, reported).
If I would study any old, lost art, let us say, I must make myself the artisan of it - must, by examining its product, learn both to see and to feel as much as may be the conditions under which they were produced and the needs they supplied or satisfied; then, rigidly adhering to those conditions and constrained by their resources alone, as ignorantly and anxiously strive with my own hands to reproduce, not to imitate, these things as ever strove primitive man to produce them. I have virtually the same hands he had, the same physique, generally or fundamentally the same actival and mental functions too, that men had in ages gone by, no matter how remote. If, then, I dominate myself with their needs, surround myself wi
th their material conditions, aim to do as they did, the chances are that I shall restore their acts and their arts, however lost or hidden; shall learn precisely as they learned, rediscovering what they discovered precisely as they discovered it. Thus may I reproduce an art in all its stages; see how it began, grew, developed into and affected other arts and things — all because, under the circumstances I limit myself to the like of, — it became and grew and differentiated in other days.
Frank Hamilton Cushing
The American Anthropologist, 1895
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IN DEFENSE OF LEVEL II
Errett Callahan
It seems a lot of people have misunderstood what I was trying to say about the three levels of investment in experimental archeology (PT Newsletter #1). It's not a hierarchical progression starting at Level I and moving up to Level III. What level you are on usually has little to do with your learning or skill level. It's Level II, not Level I that the vast majority of our membership practices, and I've never thought otherwise. If you start out as a beginner and try to make an authentic reproduction in an authentic way, you're starting out in Level II. Hopefully, your results will keep you there. When you start out this way, your work automatically has integrity, even if it is fun and playful as well. And remember this — you can “play” or have “fun” in all three levels. When I said “play” before I was referring to such things as shelter reconstructions I've seen made with plywood and plastic sheeting, covered with branches or mats to make them look authentic. This is what you used to see in tourist traps around the country. That's what I mean by “play”. I don't think a single one of our members is doing that. From what I've seen, most of our members are active in Level II learning and practice—authentic and proud of it. That's what our Society is all about. I just say, let's call it primitive technology, not scientific experimental archeology. It's not scientific experimental archeology unless you make science and that entails a lot of paperwork. If you're not up to this then do primitive technology and don't make any excuses. But don't give us plastic sheeting or copper billets and call it authentic.
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Some Suggested Definitions*
simulation - honest, failed attempts to blatant forgeries.
experiential - focus on training and insight more than experimentation.
scientific - meets Kelterborns 7 criteria. Don't just make things, test things.
intangible - never a physical object...understanding of mankind.
tangible - actual evidence is present; measurable. Replicas can be made.
non-tangible - formerly tangible, but disintegrated. Reconstructions can be made.
template - mental image created by tangible, nontangible and intangible information,
model - design generalized or created from a template.
evidence - tangible information
artifact - complete is tangible, incomplete is nontangible.
feature - non-artifactual material evidence - post molds, hearths, etc.
reconstruction - dictionary- from given or available information.; falls within what is the inferred range of variation of the original, based on non- tangible materials; does not imply complete accuracy..one of many ways it could have been done.
replication/replica - dictionary- close to or exact copy or reproduction; falls within what is the range of variation of the original, based on tangible materials.
simulation - only approximates attributes of the original, does not fall within the range of variation of the original.
reproduction - dictionary - to make a copy duplicate, or representation; through reconstruction, replication or simulation.
recreate - cannot be done; anything beyond actual/ tangible evidence is speculation.
*Many of the term definitions and explanations of the levels are from 5 different Callahan papers on experimental archaeology (see Living Archeology: Projects in Subsistence Living, 1975, and The Maturation of Experimental Archeology: A Critical View, 1981). In writing this paper, much of my attempt has been to align Errett's thinking about experimental archaeology (using excerpts and quotes from these papers) with what I feel to be the broader scope of the entire field. I take no credit for anything that sounds intelligent. I feel that we should embrace experimental archaeology as a major aspect of what we do, and work toward moving the entire field in new and exciting directions.
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The construction crew in front of the completed Lower Catawba River Aboriginal House at the Schiele Museum of Natural History in Gastonia, North Carolina, 1988
SHELTERED IN PREHISTORY
By Steve Watts
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The peaks of the conical skin tents
of Lapps and Lakotas
The thatching of wattled and daubed
homes from Guatemala, to Africa, to
Korea...
The domed roofs of barks, mats and
ice arching over Iroquois, Kickapoo
and Inuit...
The layers of leaves shingled and
sloped to shed rains blown in from
the Pacific and Carribean...
And the painted ceilings—dancing
in the flickering light deep in
caves from California to the
Mediterranean...
All these and more have sheltered the Family of Man through millenia of dark nights and through generations of times good and bad. All these and more we see now as we look up, back, and within to that ancient architectural heritage which covers us all.
From the expedient use of an existing rock shelter for an overnight bivouac, to the scientific reconstruction of an entire Neolithic village—primitive technologists explore the wide variety of solutions to the age-old problem of protection from the elements. Aboriginal responses to the need for shelter are as different as the cultures and environments from which they come. The exercise of recreating these hearths and homes may thereby open new doors of perception into those peoples and places of the then and there, and ultimately, into we of the here and now.
Primitive house building projects may be undertaken for the sake of research, educational interpretation, sheer utility, or the pleasurable satisfaction of curiosity. All of these motives are valid in their own sphere and all require that many aspects of aboriginal technology be brought to
application. Tools, techniques, use and availability of natural resources, seasonal considerations, and group/family/ social structure all figure into the mix when planning, building and maintaining such reconstructions. It is an area of primitive technology which often calls for monumental effort
and a drive to persevere against odds and the unknown.
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Primitive house building projects may be undertaken for the sake of research, educational interpretation, sheer utility, or the pleasurable satisfaction of curiosity. All of these motives are valid in their own sphere an all require that many aspects of aboriginal technology be brought to application.
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Hans-Ole Hansen began his house building experiences in Denmark alone in the 1950's which ultimately led to the Historical-Archaeological Research Center at Lejre. Here reconstructed prehistoric houses set the stage for a variety of primitive living experiments. The Butser Ancient Farm Research Project in England under the direction of Peter Reynolds likewise features housing projects in its research. And, in Holland, R. Horreus de Haas’ Polder Project (done with such quality and lack of pretense) involved group living in houses built in the late Prehistoric style.
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“Any particular reconstruction may be almost right, or totally wrong, or any degree inbetween. This applies to the reconstruction of a structure, a tool, or a process. It may be proven right or wrong to a greater or lesser extent by evidence from the past, or functionally so, or not so by experimental use. In all cases it must be constantly re-evaluated.” Steve Watts, 1988
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Though n
ot nearly as well funded, publicized or long-lived as their European cousins, primitive house building endeavors in North America have produced important sets of data and experiences. From Errett Callahan in the east with more than fifty house reconstuctions to his credit, to John White in the Midwest with his emphasis on Woodland and Mississippian housing, to John Fagan's northwest coast plank house project (built completely with aboriginal -style tools), to the countless lesser known and unknown individuals and institutions across the country involved on many levels and in many ways—the desire to reconstruct the architectural past is fleshed out.
Within these pages you will meet some of these people and learn more of their efforts. Efforts which for the most part go unnoticed. Sitting with them beneath the roofs and within the walls they have constructed, we can rediscover the roofs and walls of our own lineages. Shelters— designed to hold back the wind, the rain and the intruders, and to house the fire, the knowledge and the sharing.
Come on in.
The Catawba Indian Village mat and hide covered house was made with stone age tools.
EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA
“House reconstruction - the physical realization of one possible interpretation.” Peter Reynolds, Butser Ancient f a rm Research Project, England
Primitive Technology Page 3