Conference: It has been almost 20 years, but it is still relevant

The session was initiated by professor H.T. Waterbolk from Groningen, Netherlands and professor O. Olsen from Copenhagen, Denmark. This workshop took place in Århus, Denmark with 31 specialists from 13 countries attending. The 1980s was the beginning of a boom in the construction of archaeologically inspired buildings inside and outside archaeological open air centres.

In their proposal to the ESF, they wrote of the problems of constructing at a 1:1 size. Some of the problems addressed are still valid today.

Unfortunately, the proceedings of this workshop were not published. One of the editors retiring shortly after 1987 and as none of the texts were available electronically, in the decade when computerisation was beginning, were just a couple of the problems that hindered the manuscript from being published. In addition, when we rediscovered the manuscript, one of the editors, Dr Reynolds, had unfortunately already died.

Of course, some 20 years later, many of the texts had already been published in one form or the other. However, on inspection a reasonable amount of the material still deserved to be presented, as the ideas were still valid and haven’t been issued elsewhere. The progress of modern techniques, which at first hindered publication, has now been an advantage as the texts which were to be published were scanned. The original session organisers, Waterbolk and Olsen have also agreed to us publishing these articles, as long as the original authors agree.

Waterbolk & Olsen described the lack of exchange between those involved as a reason to set up the workshop. "Reconstructions have so far been isolated enterprises...". Which is exactly the same reason which started EXARC in 2001 and the Journal EuroREA which is also meant to foster a communication and to reach, as Waterbolk and Olsen put it for their workshop: "a joint national or international effort to make optimal use of the new data". It is with pleasure therefore that we can now offer the first two articles in the "ESF" series. Professor Coles has agreed to us publishing his article as did the relatives of the deceased Dr. Reynolds. We advise the readers not only to try and view the articles in the light of the 1980s, but to also see their relevance to the present.