Our hut building weekend was a great success – we now have a robust domed structure made of hazel and tied with leather and rawhide strips. We have also started to cover the structure with hazel branches and living willow to provide some shade, and some sense of “inside” and “outside”. Experts, students and volunteers worked together for three days to collect materials from a nearby grove, lay out the dimensions and position of the hut and turning the structure of long and sturdy hazel branches into a domed round building. Replica of Mesolithic tools such as antler axes and flint blades were used for procuring and preparing the branches and leather and rawhide strips. During the Long Night of Sciences (Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften) on June 17, 2023, visitors were able to participate in the hut building by helping to integrate hazel branches into the structure. Additionally, they were given the opportunity to explore materials like birch bark (provided by Sagaan) for making containers and to try roasting hazelnuts in hot sand – this worked very well!
During those three days, we filmed many of these activities with the consent of participants and got very promising interactional data. We used three types of cameras to documents three different perspectives: a static camera to provide an external observer’s view, a mobile camera to provide an internal observer’s view, and bodycams to provide internal participants’ views.
What next? We plan to make the hut more durable – and potentially habitable – by applying a suitable cover. We are looking forward to cooperate with the Institute for Prehistoric Archaeology and our new colleague Prof. Dr. Henny Piezonka at the FU Berlin on all things Mesolithic, and in particular to discuss possible materials and techniques for covering the structure that we can assume were used in the Mesolithic on the North German Plain. If we can get the materials required, we will send out a call again for anyone interested in participating in the next building phase – hopefully sometime in the autumn, so stay tuned if you are interested!
Furthermore, work on the data has already begun. Together with our colleague Kenan Hochuli from the University of Zürich we currently work on our presentation for session #202 of the upcoming EAA conference in Belfast – the session brings together contributions on the social aspects of building in pre- and protohistoric times. We hope to be able to stimulate the discussion and get some valuable feedback on the relevance of interactional research for the investigation of past architectural spaces!