How Students and Researchers Can Access Publications and Images in the Butser Ancient Farm Archive

Updated

The Butser Ancient Farm Archive at butser.org.uk is a research archive covering the experimental work carried out at Butser Ancient Farm between 1973 and 2007, founded and directed by the late Dr Peter Reynolds (1939–2001). If you are a student or researcher looking for the project's publications, images, or a way to contact the archivist, the site is organised around a small set of top-level sections: History of the Project, Research, Publications, and Image Archive. The site states that its purpose is to give students and researchers access to Peter Reynolds' methods and results, and that the full publications, together with the website, give a complete picture of the experiments behind his published synopsis.

What each section gives you

Section What it is for
History of the Project Background on the project's history and development
Research The research themes and experiments documented in the archive
Publications The full publications that complete the picture of the experiments
Image Archive Visual material from the archive
Contact the Archivist The route given for getting in touch with the archivist

The archive also links to three papers by Peter Reynolds: one outlining the history and development of Butser Ancient Farm, the philosophy and methodology of the research, its employment in education, and its relationship to the general public; one summarising his views on what constituted Experimental Archaeology; and a 1990s seminar list he called "Golden Nuggets," an impromptu summary of the main themes of his work and its outcomes.

Research topics documented in the archive

The Research section is broad. The listed areas include:

  • Project sites and concepts: Little Butser, the Demonstration Site, Fishbourne, Wroughton, Bascomb, and Outstations
  • Cereal and arable work: Cereal Yields, Climate, Grain Storage, Grain Dryer, Plough Zone, Carbonised Seed, Ploughing, Hoeing, Sowing, Manuring, Soil, Arable Plant Communities
  • Structures and buildings: Earthworks, Roundhouses, Turf House, Roman Villa Construct, and reconstructions at Maiden Castle, Balkesbury, Moel y Gaer, Pimperne, Longbridge Deverill Cowdown, and Moel y Gerddi
  • Materials and metals: Metals I, Geophysics Testbed, and the Metals, Iron, and Tin monographs
  • Site publications and structures experiments

This list is useful as a finding aid: if your interest is, for example, grain storage or roundhouse reconstruction, you can go straight to the matching topic rather than reading the archive end to end.

How to work through the archive

  1. Start with the History of the Project paper if you need the project's development and the philosophy and methodology behind the experiments.
  2. Read the paper summarising Peter Reynolds' views on Experimental Archaeology if your work depends on how he defined the field.
  3. Use the "Golden Nuggets" list as a quick map of the main themes and outcomes before diving into detail.
  4. Go to Research for the specific experiment or site you need.
  5. Use Publications for the full write-ups — the site notes that the website and the full publications together give the complete picture.
  6. Use the Image Archive for visual material.
  7. Use Contact the Archivist if you need to ask about material not covered on the site.

Points to note before you cite or reuse anything

The name Butser Ancient Farm and the logo representing a roundhouse are registered trade marks of Christine Shaw. Treat them as protected marks rather than free-to-use archive assets.

The final site created by Peter Reynolds at Bascomb is now run by Butser Education CIC — a separate body from the archive website, so enquiries about the current site and enquiries about the 1973–2007 archive go to different places.

The archive covers the period 1973–2007 and is presented as a record of Reynolds' methods and results. For current work at the farm, the archive itself is not the source.