ABSTRACT
One of the perceived weaknesses of sensory archaeology has been its lack of a well-defined methodology—a ‘toolkit’ and accompanying ‘how to manual’, if you like. We do not wish to provide a definitive check-list here, and so what follows is by no means prescriptive nor final; rather, as the title above suggests, sensory archaeology should be thought of as a work in progress. We do think it helpful, however, to revisit some of the challenges and possibilities of ‘doing sensory archaeology’ discussed by Ruth Tringham and Annie Danis (Chapter 4), combining their proposals with the diverse approaches to sensuous scholarship employed by all of the contributors to this volume, as well as in some other recently published studies, in order to offer further encouragement to archaeologists considering undertaking their own sensory studies. We present these methods under the headings of critique, reflexivity, incorporation, ethnographic insights and analogies, direct experience, experimentation and reconstruction, imagination and artistic creativity, evocation, and empathy.
