Expo at Butser Ancient Farm

On Saturday, 15 August, the project held its first public expo at Butser Ancient Farm. Woodworkers ranged in age from 3 to 70, each successful in her or his own right! Using antler, bone, wood, and stone tools, we hollowed and split logs and demonstrated that with a little instruction and even less practice, anyone can work wood using Mesolithic-era tools. While we usually think of men as being the ones busy with tasks like cutting poles, shaping pikes, or even constructing logboats, folks of all ages and genders could certainly also have been responsible for carving and cutting wood.

Saturday's expo also produced a great variety of tool marks, which were recorded by University of Southampton PhD students specializing in RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging). This state-of-the-art method is quickly becoming acknowledged as the best way to preserve and study tool marks in wood for the long-term, although its imaging applications include hieroglyphic inscriptions, petroglyphs, illuminated manuscripts, and cuneiform tablets, and even criminal forensic analyses of faint fingerprints or indentations on paper from writing. The RTI files from the experimental woodworking samples can be used for comparison with those to be taken of the assemblage of worked wood from Bouldnor Cliff. Both datasets will be included in the Tool Marks Database.

Browse through this selection of photos, and you won't want to miss out on the second expo, on Saturday, 22 August, at Sunken Secrets on the Isle of Wight!

Sam and Lucy are working hard on splitting green oak with antler and bone
chisels and wooden mallets.

The first volunteers are busy,
and everyone is looking happy!

Woodworkers at work, experimenting with different Mesolithic-era tools to maximize efficiency.

Volunteers from Butser Ancient Farm, Maritime Archaeology Trust, and the Young Archaeologists' Club learn what
our ancestors went through to turn trees into shelters, transport, and trackways.

Members of the Young Archaeologists Club take turns splitting a tough piece of green oak
using holly-wood mallets and an antler chisel.

All ages from 3 and up had a go at Mesolithic woodworking, and from their expressions, the hard work was pretty gratifying!