The time travellers’ tools of the trade: some trends at Lejre

Abstract

This paper is about how the emphasis of the archaeological open-air museum at Lejre, Denmark, has been shifting from a research institution towards an archaeological theme park. I am discussing how material culture and associated skills and perceptions have been facilitating time-travel experiences at Lejre from 1964 until today. My main focus is on the prehistoric families who each summer have been inhabiting the full-size model of the Iron Age village known as Lethra. In 2011, I conducted participant observation in the village. This paper presents some of my observations and insights. I am also asking what the discernible trends and transformations over time, imply for how we are to understand contemporary forms of living history and related genres. The discussion explores some implications of my study regarding the nature of authenticity and how the past ‘comes to life’ at Lethra. I conclude by exploring some important trends for cultural heritage and heritage tourism in our age that arise from my study.

Keywords:

• experimental archaeology
• archaeological theme park
• public archaeology
• authenticity
• presence of the past

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for being invited to this selection of papers and the conference session in 2012 on which it is based. I am also very grateful for the week in 2011, which I was able to spend in Lethra as ‘prehistoric family’, and to Tom, the other prehistoric families and the staff for making it so enjoyable. I would like to thank especially Lars Holten, Director and Henrik Schilling, then Head of Communication, at Land of Legends Lejre for their interest and active support of this research by offering their time for advice and making internal documents available. Mads Daugbjerg sent me detailed comments at an early stage and allowed me to cite from his unpublished paper. Erika Cederholm Andersson, Michaela Fenske, David Lowenthal, Bodil Petersson, Marianne Rasmussen, Stefanie Samida and one prehistoric family all sent me valuable comments and suggestions after reading a first draft. Some of them also made important unpublished work available to me. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the constructive criticism received during the editing process from the issue’s editors, two anonymous referees and Laurajane Smith.