WELCOME TO ARCHIVE NEWS: Scroll down for more information
JUNE, 2009: Learning Journeys to liveARCH Partners in Hungary & Netherlands NETHERLANDS: Staff from the Scottish Crannog Centre visited the Historische OpenluchtMuseum Eindhoven from 25-28th June to observe how they present and interpret information to their visitors and to school children in particular; to gain a better understanding of Iron Age textile-making and clothing; and to discuss marketing and management issues as an Archaeological Open Air Museum. Located within the well-known public greenbelt of Genneper Parken, the museum has several reconstructions from the Iron Age and from the early Medieval period based on evidence of finds in Eindhoven and elsewhere in the Netherlands, and there is a Medieval Inn which serves as a restaurant for visitors and special groups. Guides and volunteers wear period clothing and the buildings contain replica artefacts as there is no indoor exhibition or museum collection. The museum has initiated several innovative and interactive educational programmes for youngsters and adults alike and holds several events each year. One of the high points this year is Eindhoven 777, a celebration of the founding of the city in 1232. See also www.HOMEindhoven.nl Both trips generated many ideas and provided information that will be used to develop new programmes at the Scottish Crannog Centre. We appreciated meeting and networking with like-minded colleagues and we are very grateful to the liveARCH project for making possible such valuable and enjoyable experiences. MAY, 2009: Crannog Crew back from Living History Event GERMANY: Five members of the Scottish Crannog Centre participated in an international conference and outdoor living history festival at Lake Constance from the 21st until 24th May 2009. The event was organised within the European project liveARCH by the Pfahlbaumuseum at Unteruhldingen with participants from 11 countries. The theme of the conference was “Archaeological Open Air Museums: Bringing the Past to Life without Compromising Authenticity”. The historical festival “H8 – Eight countries present Living History” completed the conference with participants of the museums of the liveARCH project. Groups from Latvia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, and Italy joined the Scottish Crannog Centre in presenting history from the Stone Age to Medieval times in a lively manner. More than 5000 visitors attended this time travel through 6000 years of European history. Each partner museum had an exhibition area and presented different themes. There were also displays of Roman gladiators, Alamanns, Celts and knights to entertain the visitors. On the Lake Constance a reed-ship reconstruction from Southern America and a reconstructed Viking ship gave an idea of how people managed to sail across the ocean thousands of years ago. More information on www.livearch.eu. Pictures of the event on www.pfahlbauten.de/impressionen/2009-h8-living-history.html.
March, 2009: Crannog Crew back from Bronze Age Italy - LiveARCH Directors and staff from the Scottish Crannog Centre have just returned from a 5 day learning journey to Modena, Italy as one of the eight European museums involved with the liveARCH project (www.livearch.eu). The meeting included a two-day conference as the First Forum of European Archaeological Open Air Museums, launched a new dvd on living history and experimental archaeology, and a new Guide to Archaeological Open Air Museums in Europe, listing over 200 centres, parks, and site museums all containing archaeological reconstructions from prehistory to the early Medieval period. Limited numbers of the guide and the dvd will be available from the Scottish Crannog Centre later this year. Meanwhile, visitors to the Centre will be able to view the short video presentation at their base in Kenmore. The visit also included an excursion to the Terramara Montale Archaeology Park and Open-air Museum south of Modena. Opening in 2004, the museum gained instant recognition and success, proving the appeal for living and experimental archaeology to a wide-ranging public interested in high-quality cultural tourism. The Park’s strong interactive bias enhances the emotional impact it has on its visitors, who are attracted by the experience of a genuine journey back in time. The museum features two reconstructions of Bronze Age rectangular houses built on short stilts over what once would have been boggy ground. Demonstrations of bronze casting took place, while the delegates were able to inspect the houses and visit the purpose built educational centre. The facilities for schools are impressive, with a reconstruction of the archaeological remains as first uncovered and with pits for children to learn about the association between artefacts and layers of earth. The visit provided the Crannog crew with a great networking opportunity with the promise of many exchanges to other museums to come. The next liveARCH meeting will take place at the Pfahlbau Museum in Unteruhldingen in Germany in May which will feature a big living history event involving re-enactors from all the partner countries. Oct. 2008: Crannog Crew Hosts Skills Exchange with liveARCH
The Scottish Crannog Centre hosted two colleagues from the Foteviken Viking Reserve in Sweden (www.foteviken.se) and 5 colleagues from the Eindhoven Historisch OpenLucht Museum (www.historisch-openluchtmuseum-eindhoven.nl) in the Netherlands in a series of skills workshops ranging from archery crafts and fire-making to visitor engagement and marketing. Skills concentrated on making longbows, glues, and fletching arrows, as well as learning more about firemaking and the preparation of natural tinders. All participants assisted the crannog team with their Primitive Pyrotechnia Event on 12/10/08 which also featured iron Age Bread baking, butter making, and bronze jewellery casting. The visit exceeded all expectations of the particpants and forged new friendships which will long outlast the skills exchange programme of liveARCH, which ends in November, 2009. September 2008: Crannog Crew Visits Latvia: www.liveARCH.eu
The Scottish Crannog Centre sent several of its team to Latvia in late September for another learning journey organised through the Culture 2000 project, liveARCH (www.livearch.eu) Several of the Crannog Crew visited the Araisi Lake Fortress (www.history-museum.lv/english), in the Araisi Archaeological Museum Park at the Latvian National History Museum. The Lake Fortress is located outside of Riga and features reconstuctions of a 9th century AD village situated on a picturesque islet in the Araiši lake. Their constructions are based on remains of a well preserved complex of timber buildings uncovered during archaeological excavation from 1965 – 1975, andthe results of long term research work on lifestyle and building traditions of ancient inhabitants of Latvia in the Viking Age. The open air archaeological museum also has a Medieval castle ruin and reconstructed Stone Age and Bronze Age dwellings. The museum runs several events each year including bees’ Festivals, Viking Days, and renactments.Excursions outside the museum included tours of Riga and Cessis, and the 76-acre Latvian Ethnographic Open Air Museum. The team from Scotland’s Iron Age crannog attended a conference focusing on practical issues of collaboration, networking and managment of crafts people and the methodologies being applied for archaeological reconstructions open to the public. The highpoint of the visit was a day filled with emonstrations by skilled craft workers and textile experts who gave sessions in spinning, weaving, and dying, metalworking, and pottery firing. In all there were 96 participants from 11 countries. We hope the training and networking will result in many more exchanges in the future! Evidence of Ancient Beaver Activity Discovered in Loch Tay: August 2008 Underwater archaeologists working in Loch Tay, Perthshire have just discovered the remains of wood gnawed by beavers up to 8,000 years ago during their investigations of an area of drowned woodland. The remains of ancient oak, pine, and alder trees embedded in the shallows of the loch below Ben Lawers were first discovered in 2005 during work carried out by the Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology (STUA) for the National Trust for Scotland’s Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project. Initial radiocarbon-dated samples placed the submerged tree remains in the Neolithic period more than 4,000 years ago, but further dating has revealed the timbers range between 1,500 and 8,000 years old. With support from Historic Scotland, underwater archaeologists from the STUA and the Scottish Crannog Centre at Kenmore have returned to the area to try to determine the origins of the tree remains, possible causes for their inundation, and any evidence of human activity. Last year charred grain was found in a sample collected from deposits one metre below the lochbed. Given previous discoveries of Neolithic stone axes nearby on land and the proximity of Scotland’s only known stone axe factory near Killin, it is possible that further evidence will be preserved in the loch. Now, in the course of searching for the root systems of one of the most upright stumps, the archaeologists have discovered upright and jumbled sticks buried up to one metre below the lochbed which have been gnawed and cut by beaver. Dr Nicholas Dixon, Chairman of the STUA and Research Fellow at Edinburgh niversity said “We were hoping to find timbers cut by early farmers using prehistoric tools; we never expected to find evidence of beaver activity. It will be exciting to date these finds – many of which have well-preserved teethmarks - and to try to establish if they represent the remains of a dam or lodge.” Scientists believe that beavers were extinct in Scotland by the 16th century. In May this year the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland were granted a licence by the Scottish Government to reintroduce up to four families of European beaver (Castor fiber) on a time-limited trial basis to Mid-Argyll next spring. Simon Jones of the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Project Manager for the Scottish Beaver Trial said “This is a rare and exciting find. Despite historical records showing that beavers were commercially exploited in Scotland for their pelt and medicinal qualities, beaver remains and related artefacts can be difficult to find because of the conditions for preservation. This adds to the evidence that beavers were present in many arts of Scotland and were a key part of the Scottish landscape until they became extinct as a direct result of human actions.” Evidence of beaver activity has been found in most parts of Scotland, but it is rare to find so much gnawed wood all in one place which is also a first for Loch Tay. While so far there is no evidence to link the finds with human activity in the area, the forthcoming radiocarbon dates may indicate co-existence with crannog-dwellers or earlier settlements. 9th-13th July, 2008: Visiting archaeologists from Poland Colleagues from the archaeological open air museum of Biskupin near Bydgoszcz visited the Scottish Crannog Centre towards developing a new collaborative project. Biskupin (www.biskupin.pl) features timber reconstructions of an early Iron Age lake settlement first discovered in the 1930's. The team there has learned aluable skills in timber building and preservation techniques and we hope to involve them in the restoration and maintenance work of our crannog reconstruction. LOGBOAT PROJECT - throughout 2008-9 The first trees have been felled for a new experimental archaeology project to recreate as closely as possible two Bronze Age logboats - one discovered in Loch Tay and one in the River Tay, Perthshire. Compliments of Dunkeld Hilton House Hotel estates, Arboretum International, Forestry Commission Scotland, and the Perth & Kinross Countryside Trust, the Crannog Crew has taken delivery of long sections of Douglas Fir and Larch that were rotten and needed to be removed in the interests of public safety. These trees will provide the 'blanks' to practice on before using replica Bronze Age tools to create an authentic Bronze Age logboat.
LiveARCH 2008: Skills Exchange Programme The directors of the Scottish Crannog Centre travelled to Pfahlbaumuseum Unteruhldingen (www.pfahlbauten.de) in Germany at the end of March for a specialist workshop in bronze working. The aim was to learn how to produce replicas of middle Bronze Age tools found in Scotland, which will be used in the creation of logboats based on discoveries in Loch Tay and in the River Tay. LiveARCH 2008: Conference 3-7 March Four members of the Crannog Crew travelled to the Lofoten Islands and the Vikingmuseum at Borg, Norway (www.lofotr.no) for the 4th liveARCH congress. The theme of this learning journey was marketing for archaeological open air museums. In addition, the 8 liveARCH partners exchanged information and updated each other on their project work which will culminate in: a new European Directory of Open Air Archaeological Museums; guidelines for the registration of such museums including quality standards; guidelines for live interpretation; recommendations for skills training; and maximising the links between research and public dissemination of information.
The Crew at Svolvaer, and the Chieftain's longhouse at the Lofotr Museum. EXARC 16th-18th March, 2007 EXARC is a European network of Open Air Museums and other facilities involved in Experimental Archaeology. It aims to establish a high standard of both scientific research and public presentation. The Scottish Crannog Centre was proud to host the 12th Annual EXARC meeting. Please see www.exarc.net for further details or email us at info@crannog.co.uk. LiveARCH (Culture 2000) 13th-18th March, 2007 LiveARCH is a Culture 2000 project and one of EXARC's major programmes involving eight EXARC members including The Scottish Crannog Centre. Funded by the European Union, the project aims to exchange ideas, skills, and best practice between 8 centres featuring open air museums, living history and experimental archaeology parks. The other partners come from organisations in Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden representing prehistoric to post-Medieval times. The project will run from 2007 - 2009. See also www.livearch.eu
Back from the first training session in the Netherlands at Eindhoven, the Crannog Crew were delighted to welcome their new partners from 13th - 18th March, and to host a series of events that culminated in a symposium on Cultural Heritage Interpretation on Saturday, 17th March in Pitlochry, Perthshire. Back to What's New or Back to Home or Top of Page site maintained by the Scottish Crannog Centre. All material copyright © the scottish crannog centre 1998-2010 |
