Experimental Archaeology and Ancient Arts, Martial and Domestic
500 BC to 1815 AD

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Glossary

Authenticity: A measure of how close an item, prop, action, weapon, or custom is to what would actually have been used or done in the time period being depicted.

Experimental Archaeology: Experimental archaeology is a process where living history is utilized to investigate historical events.

In order for this to be a viable methodology of historical research, certain conditions must be met:

• The size and scope must be appropriate. For example, a pair of living historians might utilize reproduction tools, heirloom seeds, historic breed animals, and historically researched agricultural techniques to determine how many acres could be planted in a single day. However, attempting to use experimental archaeology techniques to ascertain the distance that a Civil War division wagon train would require, and how fast it could move over certain terrain, would not be appropriate. Obtaining sufficient wagons, draft animals, and trained teamsters to replicate a division train would not be possible, as would be obtaining several miles of historic dirt roads.
  
  
• A clearly-defined research question must be identified. Determining how much firewood and time it would take to create a certain quantity of charcoal would be appropriate; or placing targets at certain distances to determine the accuracy of military weapons would be suitable. However, attempting to determine the quantity of materials and time needed to operate a Civil War era blast furnace would be impractical, simply through the size of operation required, and the attendant dangers with operating an open furnace producing molten iron.

Hoplite: (Classical Greek) A Greek soldier, the heavy infantry who carry an aspis (the big round shield) and fight in the phalanx. They represent the middle class of free men in most cities, and while sometimes they seem like medieval knights in their outlook, they are also like town militia, and made up of craftsmen and small farmers. In the early Classical period, a man with as little as twelve acres under cultivation could be expected to own the aspis and serve as a hoplite.

Immersion: The process by which reenactors and living historians attempt to surround themselves so successfully with the sights and sounds, the culture, and the physical reality of the past that the experience becomes deep enough to give the reenactor insight into the past. It is almost impossible to imagine a recreation of 3rd c. Rome so accurate that a Roman reenactor could “immerse” herself in the city, but it is not so difficult to imagine a group of 18th c. reenactors venturing into the Adirondack wilderness for a week to immerse themselves in the life of an 18th c. patrol. (We do it every year.)

Intellectual Culture: Intellectual history refers to the study of the contextual development of social, philosophical, scientific, political, and economic ideas, ideologies, and discourses. This definition can be broadened to include the histories of cultures, communities, and social movements based on shared ideas. In modern academia, the term has come to be used to discuss the history of post-secondary education including analyses of teaching, research, professorial and administrative activity, resource allocation, political and intellectual milieus, and department and discipline construction.

At Hoplologia we use the terms “intellectual history” and “intellectual culture” to refer to the history of ideas and the way they affect society.

Material Culture: Material culture refers both to the psychological role, the meaning, that all physical objects in any given cultural environment have, and to the range of manufactured objects (sometimes called in anthropological jargon the “techno-complex”) that are typical within a socioculture and which form an essential part of cultural identity.

Panoply: A complete set of weaponry. The word is the modern form of the Classical Greek πανοπλια. The word παν means "all," and όπλον, "tools, or weapons." Thus "panoply" refers to the full armour of a hoplite or heavy-armed soldier, i.e. the shield, spear, and helmet (at minimum) and possibly the sword, greaves, and armour.

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