The Conderton Construct

Summary

The opportunity to build a construct of a prehistoric house given to me by Nicholas Thomas in 1969 has proved to be one of the most significant moments in the development of this type of empiricism in archaeology (Reynolds 1999). Prior to this time, scaled down 'reconstructions' had been attempted, notably the building of the Little Woodbury house (Bersu 1940) and generalised 'reconstructions' of Iron Age huts (Reynolds 1965). The fundamental difference of this occasion was that the archaeological data of a specific house were made available along with the thoughts of the excavator himself. There was to hand all the information, unfiltered by the constraints of publication, the ability to see the excavation and the house data in context, as recorded and as rebuilt. Such was the quality of the data that the excavator had actually carried out preliminary trials on site with the material evidence.

Coincidentally Michael Thomas, the Director of Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, had offered the writer an area within the museum grounds to create a simple open-air research facility for Iron Age studies together with some limited funding. This gesture was made and most gratefully accepted after the original site on top of Bredon HilI (Worcs), made available by the landowner, Thurstan Holland-Martin, had been totally vandalised (Reynolds 1967 and 1969).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Butser Ancient Farm Archive 1973-2007

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): EXARC Experimental Archaeology Collection Manager

Notes

Rights & Attribution: Christine Shaw contributed a copy of this document to the collection. EXARC thanks her for her dedication to preserving the Butser Ancient Farm Archive.

General Note: More information about the Butser Ancient Farm Archive and this document can be found at butser.org.uk.

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