One of the UK’s few professional flint knappers, Dr James Dilly, speaks about the importance of replica making for modern museums, tells us what we can learn from objects of the ancient past, and introduces the team to the ‘sexy hand axe’ theory!
Dr James Dilley is an experimental archaeologist and flintknapper, specialising in the British Stone Age & Bronze Age. James founded the company AncientCraft in 2009, through which he and Emma Jones aim to engage individuals and communities in prehistory through the creation and delivery of interactive experiences, using quality replicas and experienced specialists. James’ work is displayed at The British Museum and Stonehenge and he has worked with several high-profile media companies such as the BBC, National Geographic, New Scientist and Dorling Kindersley Publishing.
He is working with the Making the Museum project to inform our knowledge of making practices for the Museum’s collection of stone tools. In September 2024, he delivered a flint knapping workshop for museum staff and other object history experts as part of a workshop titled ‘Makers and fakers: How copies, replicas, casts and fakes ‘make’ the museum’.
In this episode, James speaks to us about connecting with human ancestors through the frustration of making, what we can learn from knobbly lumps of stone in the museum, and how he is going about making archaeology and pre-history more accessible through costumes and demonstrations. Join us to learn some flabbergasting facts about deep time and find out what the ‘sexy hand axe’ theory is!
See more about the work James does with AncientCraft at: www.ancientcraft.co.uk
Find out about AncientCraft’s upcoming events via their social media pages:
https://x.com/ancientcraftUK
https://www.youtube.com/user/ancientcraftUK
https://www.facebook.com/AncientCraftUK
https://www.instagram.com/ancientcraftuk/?hl=en
Want to follow along when we’re talking about collections items? For examples of the kinds of items we’re talking about in this episode, take a look at:
Example of a stone hand axe (1947.6.29): https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-120008
Example of a scraper (1884.140.1277): https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-245839
Forged stone hand axe by Edward Simpson (aka Flint Jack) (1884.122.598): https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-152997
See some of the objects that we examined as part of the ‘Makers and fakers’ workshop, discussed in this episode, here: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-objectgroup-86017
You can see video footage from our ‘Makers and fakers’ workshop on the Making the Museum playlist on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Y01FKCfEs&list=PLRD32d5F72a1LM-AtxvFQScpehl_EOIFq&index=9
This episode features sounds recorded during the flint knapping session, run by Dr Dilley, at this workshop.
You will hear from (in order of appearance):
Dr. Rebecca (Becky) Martin (she/her) – Research Project Officer, Making the Museum project
Dr. James Dilley (he/him) – Experimental archaeologist and flint knapper, AncientCraft
Dr. Beth Hodgett (they/them) – Postdoctoral Researcher, Making the Museum project
