> In terms of the results themselves, the boats are extremely seaworthy crafts. When you get in them for the first time, you don't think that, because they're very, very light. They feel very flimsy, and they're very low in the water compared to a modern sailing boat. So you feel really in touch with the wave, which is kind of scary. But because they're so flexible and because of the way they're rigged, they're actually really stable, even in big waves.
> "We kept going out thinking, 'Oh, this is maybe the limit of what this boat can tolerate,' and then it would be fine, and we'd be, 'Okay, let's go a little bit in slightly bigger waves with slightly stronger wind,'" Jarrett continued. "So I think our comfort zones definitely visibly expanded during that period. And I had the chance to work with the same crews over three years. By the end of those three years, we were doing stuff that we would never have been able to do at the beginning."
Sounds like they had fun.
They should mention Helge/Anne Ingstad who did the original thinking and sailing like a viking to help find https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows in Newfoundland!
I can't help but be remembered of the discovery of the HMS Terror, one of John Franklin's missing ships. It was announced that it was discovered conveniently located in what was already called Terror Bay, and that the ship's masts were even sticking out of the water. The local Inuit of course knew it was there.
> You are able to ask very different questions the minute you walk away from your desk and get on a boat
Indeed. Read this as I am heading out to sail my Skerry.
a true scientist: He even fashioned rudimentary blades out of his own frozen feces to test whether they could cut through pig hide, muscle, and tendon ... it did not work.
bored and shored? board boats of boards o'er fjords. might strike a chord, see a fnord, expand your gourd
There’s an old NOVA episode “This Old Pyramid” that applied experimental archaeology to the Egyptian pyramids: exploring how the pyramids were built by actually building one.
So not really like Vikings, but like Jekt traders. It looks like there is little written about the Jekt trade in English.
> Others have tried to cook like the Neanderthals, concluding that flint flakes were surprisingly effective for butchering birds, and that roasting the birds damages the bones to such an extent that it's unlikely they would be preserved in the archaeological record.
I found this statement a bit alarming, as flint flakes being quite effective in butchering is quite well known — anyone who has practiced or studied “primitive living” ( that term doesn’t feel right…) would know.
However, that was not an explicit conclusion in the referenced paper, just by arstechnica. Not even a gripe, though, very interesting article!
Watch out for fulings on the plains!
Much respect to this man as a fundraiser. He convinced people to pay him to play Viking and go sailing as his job. Could be grants or private fundraising or both.
It illustrates how one monetizes a PhD in a subject overtly noncommercial like archaeology. Plenty of people have sailed in these waters, maybe even played at being Vikings. But with a doctorate in the field, one is able to make the case that doing so will be Real Science because you have developed expertise in that knowledge domain, and research skills to fit whatever you find into the broader scientific context.
I’m not being dismissive, by the way, it’s a fantastic idea to explore for new archaeological finds. And it is absolutely true that academics need to have as much hustle as entrepreneurs to find funding.