Carl,

Oh, don't get me wrong, I loved Last of the Mohicans, Blackrobe, etc.  As a
little anecdote, when I saw Last of the Mohicans in 1992, I was 16, and I took
a date (the event was memorable also because it was the first date I went on
after getting my drivers lisence) and she got quite miffed at me because I
didn't pay any attention to her.  Apparently, I  just stared at the screen with
my jaw hanging slack, then I wouldn't shut up about the movie on the drive
home.  It definetely created a believable atmosphere, in no small part due to
the reenactors and historical trekkers they hired as extras and consultants.

And I totally agree that reenactment, or in my case, historical trekking
(spending time living in the woods using the clothes and tools of the era)
teaches lessons that one does not learn from books, or from excavation.
There's plenty of little things that one wouldn't normally think about--for
example, here in Alaska during the summer, we get clouds of mosquitoes and
gnats.  Being out in the woods and using only historical gear, I can't use
modern repellents, so I constantly burn smudge fires of a kind of fungus that
grows on birch trees.  I've found over the years that the presence or absence
of this fungus in a stretch of forest has a profound impact on where I choose
to camp for the night, because I need to have it close at hand.  The real
problem I've always encountered when trying to use this sort of experamental
archaeology in an academic way, is trying to find a way to produce meaningful
quantitative data from it.

Anyway, food for thought.


Kris Farmen
Northern Land Use Research, Inc.
Fairbanks, Alaska