center for
experimental
archaeology
experimental
archaeology
The project and workshops were organized within the science popularization programme carried out in cooperation with the Institute of Archaeology and the Department of Archaeology of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb, and funded by the Ministry of Science and Education in the year 2017/2018. The aim is to consider the products of basic archaeological research or artefacts in a different way, and case studies are based on the most numerous and most common archaeological artefacts – pottery. The aim is to comprehend the entire process of pottery production in the past through several scientific disciplines and through erasing the boundaries between them, i.e. through the synergy of knowledge in archaeology, geology, and ethnology. The programme is primarily intended for students of archaeology and is designed as a set of theoretical lectures and practical workshops.
The first part of the programme consists of lectures for undergraduate archaeology students. Through a series of multidisciplinary lectures, students will gain theoretical knowledge that will enable them to engage in much more complex elaboration and shaping of scientific issues within the theme of prehistoric pottery. The second part of the programme is practical work with archaeological ceramics and replicated samples, which is an introduction to the formation of complex hypotheses that students and mentors will test through an archaeological experiment under controlled conditions. A series of experiments will be aimed at comprehending particular segments of the chain of operations, such as the preparation and principles of clay paste recipe selection, the technique of vessel construction and the vessel firing methods. The third part of the programme is represented by an archaeological experiment carried out under real conditions, which relates in particular to the firing methods. Subsequently, the results of the scientific experiments will be presented in the form of customized, popular lectures within elementary and secondary schools in the Zlatar and Mače municipalities. The results of the scientific experiment will be presented by the students in a customized way with the aim of popularizing both archaeology and the pottery tradition, which is still present in the region of Hrvatsko Zagorje. In this way, the humanistic science research aims to strengthen fundamental research, to enhance archaeological interpretation, and to encourage the elimination of boundaries between disciplines.
Head of programme: Andreja Kudelić, Ph.D
Financed by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia
