documentary about a group of people living in the iron age for one year (1978)

(if you fear boobies you might want to skip this one)

Interesting bit about washing clothes without detergent.

And then washing hair with clay.

A bit of information about a thatch roof.

Some stuff about the issues of a group of people all living under one roof.

Cutting hay with a koma and trying to make hay stacks.

LOTS and LOTS of wattles.

Interesting attempts at fishing.

Interesting notes about vegetarianism.

Some discussion of making charcoal. And some about the use of flint.

Interesting notes after they get back to "the modern world": The one guy mentioned the satisfaction of living in the experiment, and has never regained that sense of satisfaction back in "the real world".

This kind of thing fascinates me.

Gosh I vaguely remember seeing this as a child! At the time it seemed like EVERYONE in the UK was watching it - talk of the day!

Now that was an enjoyable experience. Thank Paul. Interesting dynamic. The bond of family sure lasted for the most part. It was good to see black smithing and using ancient building techniques were retained by some members of the group. Cool stuff.......

Wonderful little documentary. Thank you for posting!

If anybody can find more detailed videos - like the originals, that would be great.

Maddy Harland sent me an email saying that she lives about two miles from there.

Fun to see.
Such a difference when they use archaeological advice and try to set themselves up for stability instead of conflict! Still no elders in the re-enactment, but it's a lot closer to a viable experiment than the 'primitive' lifestyle shows I've seen on TV lately. So nice to see people learning, and acknowledging what they've learnt both in the moment, and on reflection 30 years later. Without some kind of practical experience or experiment, it's sooo easy to make incorrect assumptions about how other cultures lived. This kind of practical re-enactment doesn't necessarily make a more accurate replica than the archaeologists' other guesses, it just opens up a whole lot more awareness of just how much we don't know for certain, or hadn't noticed, in our armchair fieldwork.
The vegetarian and parenting difficulties sounded very similar to discussions we've seen in other intentional communities today. Nice to see the older participants have realized some of their intolerance came from ignorance. I would have loved to hear what those little tykes had to say once grown-up, if they remembered the experience at all. Definitely equal-opportunity boobies and buttocks of all genders.

Thanks, Paul!

Very enjoyable all except watching them suffer with the wrong tool for cutting hay. Here is what cutting hay by hand is supposed to look like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL2_chKPWjE&feature=related
If they had been given the correct tools, the job should have taken only a few days. The people in this video are Peter Vido and his daughters. Peter sells scythes which he imports from Austria. I feel a good scythe is one of the most important tools you can obtain for a homestead, even if you are a vegetarian and don't cut hay for animals. It is a whole new perspective on weed control and land prep. In the beginning of the vid, the girl is sharpening the blade. This is done every 15 minutes or so. The blade is very sharp, but as you can tell from the bare feet, scything is not a dangerous activity. Here is a slightly different version with sound:
http://www.scytheconnection.com/adp/video/oil.html and here is the Scythe Connection site: http://www.scytheconnection.com/

Interesting that the Iron Age community still gets together after all these years. Something is really missing from our society!

An interesting video that has popped up time after time throughout the years. Although it is a good display of how to "begin" to survive it doesn't come close to thriving in an iron age setting.
I would be willing to wager that if iron age man did things they way they did them in the video that mankind never would have survived the iron age.

The internet has been bombarded with singular ideas of how to survive in those conditions. A good example is that most primitive living websites have been "wattle and daubed" and thatched to death! Lots of discussion about the same old ideas that have been around for years. The bottom line is that you do what is tried and tested and avoid a lot of costly mistakes and conjecture.

I feel that although the way people lived in this video is "do-able" to a certain degree it is quite telling that, although there is an instance of crude blacksmithing, there is not attempt to produce the very thing the "Iron Age" is named after. It is one thing to feel you can survive if all you have is an anvil and hammer but if you don't know how to identify iron ore in the ground and produce an iron bloom from it in a primitive fashoin it is all just window dressing.