My research interests include but are not limited to ancient agriculture, past human diets, and Chinese archaeology. With multiple research approaches in archaeobotany, my study focuses on revealing the potential interlinkage between population intensities, environmental conditions, social complexities, and agricultural patterns in Neolithic Northern China. My current research area of interest is widening from the east of the Eurasian continent to the west. Plant microfossil analysis is applied to archaeological artefacts to reveal plant diets, food preparation techniques, and eventually, the economic dynamics of Neolithic societies in Northern Germany. 

Keywords: Archaeobotany, Chinese archaeology, ancient agriculture, human diets, Neolithic

Photo: Tanja Reiser

I am an historian mainly interested in the investigation of social and economic processes in ancient societies. I conduct interdisciplinary research on topics such as mountain pastoralism, imperial resource management, institutional landscapes, and conflict transformation. The main geographical focus of my research encompasses ancient Iran, Anatolia, and Sicily.

Keywords: Ancient Near Eastern history, Mediterranean history, 1st millennium BCE, social changes and transformations, local-global interactions, ancient empires

My research focuses on plant ecology with an integrated historical view on how past human development might have shaped species traits over time. I am investigating the Neolithic Plant Invasion Hypothesis, which connects current patterns of plant invasions with the history of agropastoral development in Eurasia during the Neolithic. During my PhD, I plan to carry out several experiments involving plants from all the continents, so I do not have a particular geographical focus but rather aim at searching for a general pattern in plant performance.

Keywords: Agropastoralism, biological invasions, disturbance, Neolithic, plant ecology

Copyright:  Studio Photonord / Michael Stammwitz

photo: Roman Meier

Mirco Brunner (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0655-7603) studied prehistoric and Roman archaeology at the University of Bern. As part of a binational cotutelle de thèse project between the Universities of Bern and Kiel,he wrote his PhD thesis on mobility, networks and transformation processes of prehistoric societies in the central Alpine region. His main fields of interest are Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates, network analysis and multivariate statistics. Mirco Brunner is currently working as an SNSF Early Postdoc-Mobility Fellow at the Institute for Ecosystem Research, Geoarchaeology and Polar Research at Kiel University. He is an associated researcher in the Excellence Cluster ROOTS at Kiel University.

photo: © Artur Ribeiro

As Director of the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, I focus my scientific work on the 1st century AD in Central, Northern and Eastern Europe. The interrelations between the Roman Empire and the Barbarian period are as much the focus of my interest as the development of social elites in Northern Europe. Another research focus is the archaeology of the Iron Age of former East Prussia. My activities in the field of science communication are closely linked to the UNESCO World Heritage sites Danewerk and Haithabu, with the large museums in Schleswig representing central mediation units.

Keywords: Archaeology of the 1st millennium AD in Central, Northern and Eastern Europe, science communication

photo: Kinka Tadsen © Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen

I am an evolutionary biologist with interest in the origins and diversity of crops in historic Europe and their evolutionary histories. My work focuses on agricultural significant crops, such as Secale cereal, and their associated fungal pathogens from the Chalcolithic to the early modern period. Using modern molecular biology techniques as well as state of the art sequencing and computational methods, I am investigating samples of ancient DNA at the genomic level to learn more about how different factors, e.g., domestication and plant-pathogen interactions, influenced plant evolution.

My work is situated between applied geophysics and geoarchaeology with a focus on landscapes reconstructions. With an interdisciplinary collaboration, I have conducted several geophysical investigations in Northern Germany and Denmark to create 3D models in which the movement of former hunter-gatherer groups was reconstructed. In addition, I conducted different geophysical campaigns abroad, focusing on the application of different methods: GPR, ERT, Seismics and Magnetics. My interest also spans historical times in a collaboration project dealing with the reconstruction of different building phases at the Casa del Citarista in Pompeii.  

Keywords: Archaeology, applied geophysics, archaeological prospection, Mesolithic landscape reconstructions

I am an urban archaeologist that specialises in topography/urban morphology and how that can inform us about how urban settlements developed and functioned. My research is mostly focused on the Early Islamic era, particularly in the regions of Central Asia and Bilad al-Sham. I am especially interested in the variety and change in “Islamic cities” between regions and periods during the Early Islamic era. To carry out this research, I use a comprehensive landscape archaeological approach, which entails using a combination of remote sensing investigative methods as well as targeted excavations.

My main research field is German literature of the 12th to the 15th century. Thereby, I focus on the materiality and mediality of medieval manuscript culture, especially on the role of medieval scribes (DFG-project on subscriptions of medieval scribes in German vernacular manuscripts of the Middle Ages). Another main research topic is the investigation of urban topographies in narrative medieval texts (postdoctoral thesis). Here, I analyse written representations of cities in medieval epics, especially the depiction of urban space and architectures, and investigate their aesthetic impact and semantic contents.

Keywords: Urban topographies in medieval epics, materiality and mediality, medieval scribes

photo: studioline Kiel

Marta Dal Corso is a postdoctoral researcher in archaeobotany specialised in phytolith analysis and palynology. She explores plant uses and cultivation in the past and the relationships between human activities and natural environments. Her education at the University of Padua (Italy) was followed by her PhD on the environment in Bronze Age Northern Italy at the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’, Kiel University (Germany). In Kiel, she has been employed as an assistant to the chair of Environmental Archaeology and worked as a researcher in the CRC 1266 on Copper Age Eastern Europe and on the spread of millet in Europe. In 2021, she coordinated the 12th International Meeting for Phytolith Research at Kiel University and collaborates with the DEI-Amman to investigate environmental changes at Tall Zira’a (Jordan). Finally, she has focused on routine activities within ROOTS and within her forthcoming job in the ERC GEODAP in Padova (Italy).

Keywords: Archaeobotany, palaeoecology, prehistoric archaeology, palynology, pollen analysis, bioarchaeology, experimental archaeology, environmental archaeology, Bronze Age, vegetation

My responsibilities as an archaeobotanist (in the Technical/Botanical Platform) include the preparation, identification, and evaluation of botanical remains (e.g. wood and charcoal), macroremains (seeds and fruits in charred and uncharred states), and the analysis of pollen. I support several projects that are part of ROOTS. Thus, I come into contact with time periods from the Neolithic to modern times. Moreover, the various investigation sites range across Europe and sometimes further away. I also enjoy presenting our work at events for pupils and interested people. In addition, I have been organising experimental cereal cultivation in Albersdorf (AÖZA) and Kiel (Forschungswerkstatt) for many years.

photo: Doris Kramer

Geographically, my PhD project focuses on Samos in the Aegean Sea (Greece) with its archaeological significant Sanctuary for Hera (or Heraion) situated on a coastal plain. Although recognised as an important place of worship and cultural centre in the Aegean region from circa 3200 BCE to 400 CE, little is known about environmental conditions, potential for land use and human-environment-interactions within this timeframe. Therefore, my methods include the analysis of sediment cores, soil samples and geophysical data to complement existing archaeological results for the coastal plain.

Keywords: Aegean Sea, Bronze Age, coastal plain, geoarchaeology, Heraion, Samos

My research focuses on socio-environmental relations during the Holocene. I combine a wide spectrum of geoscientific methods of different disciplines (dating, geochemistry, geophysics, mineralogy, sedimentology, pedology, micromorphology) on varying sedimentary archives (soils and slope deposits, river deposits, lake sediments, archaeosediments). I am particularly interested in the impact of hazards on ancient societies, including flash floods, droughts, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. My main geographical work area is Europe. 

Keywords: Geo-Archaeology, socio-environmental dynamics, Holocene, Europe, hazards

I am an anthropological archaeologist focused on why, where and when human social inequalities emerged. My research investigates community hierarchy formation, and combines settlement pattern analysis, archaeological GIS, and funerary studies to understand variation in the social makeup of middle-range societies in prehistoric Europe. My work has centred mostly on Neolithic and Bronze Age groups, with a geographical focus in Hungary and Southeastern Europe.

Keywords: Comparative archaeology, social inequality, spatial analysis, mortuary theory, Bronze Age, Hungary

The focus of my research is on human environmental interaction in the past. How did people use resources and how did they transform the environment into a cultural landscape? I am dealing with natural as well as cultural archives in the form of soils, sediments and peat deposits. I use pollen, non-pollen-palynomorphs, micro-charcoal, and chemical and physical features of the deposits to reconstruct environmental change with high time resolution and precise dating. The combination of on-site, near-site and off-site studies enables adifferentiation between local, regional and supra-regional processes.

Postanschrift: Johanna-Mestorf-Str. 2-6,
24118 Kiel

My main research interest is the influence of long-term climatic and environmental changes on human cultural evolution. The geographical focus of my research is Europe, Southwestern Asia and Southern Africa, where I study Pleistocene and Holocene Palaeolithic/Stone Age sites. My interdisciplinary approach includes stable isotope techniques to reconstruct past environments. My current Emmy Noether Junior Research Group project is conducting fieldwork in the southern Kalahari to document the distribution of Middle Pleistocene archaeological sites in connection to local changes in hydrological conditions.

Keywords: Palaeolithic archaeology, stable isotope analysis, quaternary science, human evolution

My main research aim is to understand the development of soils and landscapes under the influence of human agency on different spatial and temporal scales. I am interested in the effects of land-use on the environment and apply pedological and geochemical methods to interpret changes in soil characteristics due to soil use or even soil degradation – an important environmental hazard concerning societies in the past and the present. In cooperation with colleagues from different disciplines, mainly from archaeology and prehistory, I conduct fieldwork in the Eurasian steppe areas and the Near East, but also in Northern Germany and the Alps.

My research is focused on plant-environment relationships against the background of global change. In my work, I am particularly interested in fundamental research on the mechanisms of the spread and distribution of plants and plant communities. My studies address effects of edaphic and climatic factors just as interactions with biotic factors including soil biota, pathogens, herbivores, and human impact. My research is related to questions of community ecology and evolutionary ecology. Most notably, I am interested in the role of biodiversity for ecosystem functions and mechanisms of biological invasions. To address research questions both from an ecological and an evolutionary perspective, I conduct experimental field studies, common garden and greenhouse experiments, lab studies just as observational studies in temperate and subtropical regions.
Keywords: Plant invasions, plant evolutionary ecology, plant-environment-relationships, biodiversity-ecosystem functioning

photo: Jolan Kieschke

I am Scientific Director of the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology in Schleswig. As a prehistorian, I specialise in the archaeology of Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. My multidisciplinary research addresses the intricate relationship between past hunter-gatherer groups and their natural environment. Moreover, I am a specialist in advanced lithic studies with a particular focus on aspects of innovation, cognition, and technology throughout prehistory. I especially focus on the use of flint and stone in early metal using societies, e.g. interfaces of technologies pertaining to different raw materials and manufacturing processes in Bronze Age Scandinavia.

Keywords: Central and Northern Europe, Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Bronze Age, crafts apprenticeship, material culture studies, lithic technology

With a background in botanical and archaeological studies, my research emphasis lies on palaeoenvironmental reconstructions in the context of archaeological investigations. This involves multi-disciplinary approaches of on- and off-site geoarchives including sedimentological, pollen and non-pollen palynomorph analyses. Of particular interest is the development of high-quality chronologies using annually laminated lake sediments and cryptotephra analyses for age-depth modelling and archive synchronisation. My current research activities focus on the reconstruction of anthropogenic and natural dynamics at different spatial scales, i.e. from local to regional and supra-regional patterns, with high temporal resolution for the Neolithic and Bronze Age of northern Central Europe.

Keywords: Human-environment interaction, environmental archaeology, land-use history, palynology, non-pollen-palynomorphs, tephrochronology

My research focuses on the German-language literature of the Middle Ages in its social and cultural-historical context. In an interdisciplinary collaboration, I am currently investigating, firstly, anxiety as a cause and effect of exchange processes between society and the environment, and secondly, the ancient and medieval roots of the perception and appreciation of the garden as an instrument toward the achievement and enjoyment of a ‘good life’.

Keywords: Literary medieval studies, social and cultural history of literature, ecocriticism, anxiety culture

photo: Jürgen Haacks, Pressestelle CAU

My research focuses on past human-environment interactions in semi-arid and arid environments, specifically in Southwest Asia. My approaches have been broad, from studying the impact of climate change on early farming societies throughout SW Asia using radiocarbon dates, remote sensing and ground survey of smaller areas, to isotope studies of specific sites. In ROOTS, I am part of the Archaeological Stable Isotope Laboratory, where I focus both methodologically on what variables affect plant and animal isotopes and on applying stable isotope analysis to Neolithic archaeological samples from the Southern Levant to understand past environments, agricultural practices, pastoralism, and mobility. I also direct a survey project in the Karak region in Jordan.

My research focus is on ancient human remains as a source of information about past life, specifically of health and disease as this field involves many aspects of life. In the Dietary ROOTS subcluster, this applies to aspects of nutrition, deficiencies, food consumption and subsistence reflected in the skeletal body. My greatest interest is in the early epochs of modern humans, such as the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, but the skeletons “on my desk” stem from different chronological periods across Europe.

Keywords: Human osteology, palaeopathology, bioarchaeology

My work concentrates on the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in Europe, and I am mainly interested in the political dimensions of social organization, structures of power, interaction and mobility in the anarchic and de-centralised societies of the prehistoric era, and what lessons such modes of self-organisation and decision-making hold for our own possibilities to survive current global crises. I currently conduct fieldwork in Slovakia and Serbia.

Keywords: European Neolithic, European Bronze Age, social organisation, politics

In my research, I am particularly investigating and interested in social archaeological topics involving multiple proxies and empirical data. With an interdisciplinary approach, I conduct research on human-environment dynamics during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, the emergence of social inequality, and demographic development during the Holocene. The main geographic focus of my research encompasses Central and Western Europe, primarily Central and Southern Germany.

Keywords: Social inequality, human-environment dynamics, demography, Neolithic, Bronze Age

My research focuses on the economic and social history of medieval small towns. In doing so, I examine both the role of the available writings and the various social formations in the economies of these small towns and their inhabitants. The most important sources for this are the intermingled town books of the towns. These are often the only surviving sources and offer a wide range of cases of voluntary jurisdiction. Through these entries, it is possible to examine both the perceptions of the town books themselves and of the townspeople among themselves. In a comparative approach, I evaluate the use of these books in Upper Lusatia, Lower Lusatia and other Central and Western German regions.

My academic foci have been concerned with modern and contemporary poetry, Renaissance fiction, Cervantes’ works, the Way of St James (cultural anthropology), and the city in literature. Within the subcluster Urban ROOTS, I study cultural and social dynamics in urban pilgrimage sites of medieval and early modern Christianity (esp. Santiago de Compostela, Rome, Paris – Saint-Denis, and Jerusalem). The geographical areas of my research are Europe and Latin America.

Keywords: Literature, city, urbanity, Middle Ages, early modernity, Renaissance, Cervantes, modern poetry, contemporary poetry, Way of St James, pilgrimage, perception, agency, imaginary

I situate my work at the intersection of the analysis of cities and images in antiquity. This includes studies on the processes of urbanisation and urban transformations as well as on urban agency and urban perception. With regard to images, I am interested in their semantic and aesthetic qualities which emerge in interrelation with their context. My most recent ERC Project ‘Decorative Principles in Late Republican and Early Imperial Italy’relates these two research approaches. The focus is on urban atmospheres and emotional spaces within the city. The geographical centre of my research is Greece and Italy, with a special focus on Pompeii.

Keywords: Urban transformation, urban agency, urban perception, ornamental and pictorial concepts, decorative principles, late republican and early imperial Italy

My research project provides insights into questions about the transmission, gain and decline of technological knowledge of bifacial flint production in times of cultural and technological change. The focus lies on Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age Danish flint daggers and sickles. Recognition of technological fingerprints is aimed for by means of attribute analysis of production debitage by modern knappers. These attributes carry information about technical choices during the reduction sequence and thus provide valuable details on personal preferences and taught behaviours. Differences in the sequences enable conclusions about the transmission and development of technological knowledge.

Keywords: Lithic bifacial technology, experimental archaeology, attribute analysis, chaîneopératoire, knowledge transmission

My research is focused on the origin and evolution of plant pathogens. We study populations of plant pathogens on wild and domesticated plant species in the Middle East. Our research, based on analyses of DNA sequence data from different pathogens of cereal crops, has shown that domestication and crop cultivation have been important drivers for the emergence and spread of plant pathogens. In ROOTS, we collaborate with the aDNAlaboratory and archaeobotanists to identify plant pathogens on ancient plant material and to characterise the genetic architecture of plant resistance genes in early domesticated species.

Keywords: Plant diseases, domestication, evolution, ancient DNA, genome analyses

Geographically, I focus on the area of former German Eastern Prussia, today divided between Lithuania, Russia and Poland. One focus of my work is the reconstruction of the pre-war state of knowledge of the region based on archival sources. After working on burial grounds of the 1st millennium and interdisciplinary settlement studies on the Viking settlement site of Wiskiauten/Mohovoe for many years, my current focus lies on the investigation of Baltic hillforts, which I date by drillings and 14C-datings.

Keywords: Archival archaeology, settlement archaeology, hillfort research, Kaliningrad Region/Russia, Baltic countries

My work focuses on sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and language contact for Slavic languages, mostly Russian. Within my PhD project, I trace the dispersal and internal diversity of the Russian language using quantitative methods to provide a quantitative classification of Russian dialects. This consists in further interdisciplinary research on ecological and sociological factors that influence the dynamic of language diversification and the formation of dialects – including language and cultural contact (also to neighbouring countries such as Finland, Belarus or Ukraine), migration, standardisation measures as well as transport of knowledge and information.
Keywords: Sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, language contact, dialectology, dialectometry

My research can be placed within medieval studies with a further specification on the social and economic history of the later Middle Ages. Drawing on a hermeneutic approach, I mainly work with administrative sources of ecclesiastical institutions (i.e. cathedrals) applying quantitative as well as qualitative methods. The respective questions are concerned with a broad range of financial and social aspects of medieval cathedral building as well as the development and transmission of the different forms of knowledge involved in the process. The geographical focus of my work is southern England and northern France.

Keywords: Social and economic history, knowledge transmission, palaeography, England, France, urban history, ecclesiastical institutions, medieval studies

My research covers a broad range of subjects in Ancient Greek literature, philosophy, and science: Archaic and Classical Greek poetry, especially Lyric poetry, Plato, ancient mathematics and astronomy, but also the reception of antiquity, especially the reception of ancient philosophy by Friedrich Schleiermacher. A special interest of mine, which connects me to the research agenda of ROOTS, is the interplay between ancient knowledge domains represented in written texts and the archaeological remains of material culture. A third field of interest is the modern theoretical grounding of Altertumswissenschaft, which both structures my disciplinary work and forms a distinct field of research of its own.

I am a prehistorian, working mostly on the European Neolithic but also on Kurdistan. In a diachronic perspective, I am particularly interested in economic and social practices and their evolutionary mechanisms. My group and I are currently working on the evolution of social inequalities. I am also interested in far-reaching exchange networks and their social and economic implications. I often collaborate with sociologists and economists but also with colleagues from statistics and computer science, as well as earth and life sciences. My work is theory-led, methodologically critical and empirical.

Keywords: European archaeology, quantitative archaeology, history, theory and method of archaeology, evolutionary and critical approach, Handlungstheorie

My work lies in the combination of Sociolinguistics and Historical linguistics. I work with languages of the Indian subcontinent, especially Indo-Aryan languages, with a focus on the social and historical aspects of language use. Associated with the subcluster of Inequality, I focus on questions of how social inequalities and hierarchies interact/affect (have interacted/affected) the languages in use and vice versa. Linguistic identity, multilingualism, power dynamics, migration, language management, politics and linguistic justice are some of the other details situated at the centre of my work.

Keywords: Linguistic inequality, identity, language variation and change, language contact, multilingualism

My research focuses on the Early-Mid Holocene hunter-fisher-gatherer communities in the Eurasian forest zone. In particular, I am interested in enhancing our understanding of how transformations in the mortuary realm are connected with environmental and socio-cultural changes that occurred in the hunter-fisher-gatherer world. As a part of the Ethnographisch-Archaeologische Zeitschrift Team, I oversee and coordinate the publication's editorial activities, and communicate with the authors, the reviewers, and the editorial board. 
Keywords: Mesolithic, Neolithic, burial archaeology, East European Plain, Hunter-gatherer-fishers, behavioural archaeology, stone-knapping technology, exchange networks

Lorenz Kienle is Professor for Synthesis and Real Structure at the Department of Engineering of Kiel University, Germany. He is the head of the Center for Transmission Electron Microscopy at the Department of Engineering. His research focuses on the synthesis of novel bulk- and nanomaterials by chemical approaches and thin film deposition techniques as well as their characterisation by state of the art nanoanalytical methods, including transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and others. Since 2015, he has been working on the nanoscale characterisation of artefacts as principle investigator of the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ and the Excellence Cluster ROOTS.

photo: Agentur purpur

My research interest is the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age in Northern and Central Europe. The focus of my research in Roots addresses fortified settlements that indicate conflict, but also measures against conflict such as possible territorialisation. Linear structures, such as rows of palisades or cooking stone pits, can also be interpreted as evidence of conflict avoidance strategies. Another aspect of investigation is the transfer of knowledge and the routes it took in the Bronze Age, which can be demonstrated, for example, by chains of burial mounds. Do technical innovations or ideological changes follow these routes? 

Keywords: Path systems, fortifications, linear systems

Philipp Kobusch is on parental leave until April 2023 and will be replaced by Florian Weber during this time. Contact: +49 431 880-2476 / fweber@romanistik.uni-kiel.de

A main focus of my work is the study of human agency in ancient societies and its association with specific spaces (housing, sanctuaries, necropolises) as one of the driving factors for shaping the built environment. Of particular interest is the way in which different cultural roots were dealt with in special contact zones of the Mediterranean (Iberian Peninsula, Cyprus, etc.) and the significant processes of exchange and change in this context. These questions are currently being pursued by means of an exemplary study of residential buildings in Roman times on the Iberian Peninsula. It is also the basis for the investigation of an archaic to Hellenistic sanctuary of Apollo on Cyprus (Frangissa, cooperation project with Dr. M. Recke, University of Frankfurt).

Keywords: Ancient living spaces, ancient sacred spaces, action and perception of human agents, Roman western provinces, especially the Iberian Peninsula, Greece and Asia Minor, Cyprus

My primary field is visual computing (Computer Vision and Visualisation). This means 3D scene reconstruction from different image modalities, using stereo and multiview rigs, structure from motion, time-of-flight cameras and plenoptic imaging systems, looking at geometric and photometric 3D surface reconstruction and application of this research for augmented and mixed reality applications and visual tracking. Another important research area is underwater imaging using camera models with physical underwater light propagation, and more recently, large-scale plankton classification from underwater images and semi- and self-supervised deep learning for medical diagnosis and prognosis.

As a Classical Archaeologist by education (with a minor in Archaeology of the Roman Provinces), I have developed a special interest in the archaeology of Classical Antiquity beyond its core areas and renowned centres like Rome or Athens. Especially the contact zones of the northern Black Sea region and the Hellenistic-Roman Near East (Syria, Jordan) keep fascinating me and influence my research agenda. Focusing on architecture and urbanism, I seek to approach regional urban cultures and lifestyles in these regions and their long-term dynamics.

Keywords: Classical antiquity, urban archaeology, ancient architecture and urbanism, Hellenistic-Roman Near East, northern Black Sea region in antiquity

photo: Michelle van Dijk 2018

My work mainly deals with the organisation of excavations, prospections, post-processing of data, equipment and samples for members of ROOTS and associated partners in the countries we are working in. Testing new equipment and methods is also part of the fieldwork as well as project management and technical support on site. 
My personal research focus, however, is medieval and early modern house building crafts, urban resource flows, forest and wood management as well as workforce estimations for these contexts mainly in Northern Germany.

My research focuses on processes of conflict and conciliation in the first millennium BC in the south-western region of the Baltic Sea. I employ methods of computative, theoretical and general archaeology in order to answer questions of landscape archaeology, e.g., how are specific sites embedded into their physical and social surroundings? In particular, I am interested in different fortifications of the time as material reactions to perceived conflict potentials of the past.

My research is focused on the settlement dynamics and socio-environmental relations in the North Sea area during the first millennium AD and the Middle Ages. I conduct landscape archaeology with a bundle of geophysical prospection, remote sensing and archaeological methods. I am particularly interested in settlement and cultivation, adaptations within and the abandonment of the coastal areas, interactions with the sea in terms of coastal protection as well as communication and trade connections. My main work area is the German Wadden Sea area and in particular the islands and “Halligen” of North Frisia.

Keywords: Landscape archaeology, coastal communities, geophysics, Early to Late Middle Ages, trade

I am a doctoral researcher on Chiara Thumiger’s DFG funded project ‘Mental Health in Late Antique Medicine: Caelius Aurelianus on Mental Disorders’. We focus on the development of medical ideas regarding mental health in Caelius’ monumental nosological work: On Acute Diseases and On Chronic Diseases. We aim to examine his stance on the nature of mental and bodily health by highlighting his rich accounts of the nosology, causation, and therapeutics of diseases. Additionally, I am preparing my dissertation that will investigate how psychopathology and emotions are framed by Caelius.

Keywords: Caelius Aurelianus, ancient medicine, late antiquity, North Africa, mental health, history of psychology and psychiatry

I am a scholar in classical languages and literature, combining a rigorous philological reading of the texts with modern theoretical approaches, particularly from gender, posthumanism, medical humanities, and ecocriticism studies. With this interdisciplinary approach, I conduct research on Latin literature, particularly imperial poetry and Medieval Latin philology, with a particular interest in texts focusing on the relationship between humans and animals, such as fables. My current research explores the relationship between human and natural ‘disease’ in the works of three Latin poets, Lucretius, Vergil, and Seneca.

Photo: Roberto Martorana

My research in the Excellence Cluster ROOTS takes place at the intersection of economics and archaeology and focuses on the measurement of wealth inequality in pre-Christian Central Europe. In collaboration with colleagues from other disciplines, I apply statistical and economic tools to archaeological datasets to explore the origins of wealth inequality in human societies. In addition to ROOTS, I work as a PhD student in the research cluster ‘International Finance and Macroeconomics’ at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. My main fields of interest are economic history, infrastructure investments, and geopolitics.

Keywords: Measuring inequality, Central Europe, prehistory economics, statistics

I am an environmental archaeologist specialising in the use of radiocarbon and dietary stable isotopes. I work for the ZBSA (Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie) but my office is in the Leibniz Laboratory for AMS Dating and Stable Isotope Research, Kiel University. As a member of the sub-cluster Dietary ROOTS, I contribute to research on the chronology, economy, health and population genomics of hunter-gatherers and early farmers in Northeastern Europe, and to the interpretation of isotopic proxies for human behaviour.

Keywords: Radiocarbon, stable isotopes, Bayesian chronological modelling, hunter-gatherer-fisher, palaeodiet

photo: Robert Hofmann

With a particular focus on the imaginary and on the materiality of emotions, my research moves at the crossroads of corporeality and caring attitudes through historical periods and across Eurasian regions. The main geographical focus of my research agenda concentrates primarily on China. 

Keywords: History and anthropology of science, technology and medicine, emotions, China

My task is the development and production of new devices and auxiliary equipment. Currently, this is, for example, a small scale Direct-Push crawler equipped with a colour probe device to easen the valuation of geophysical measurements.

photo: Sara Jagiolla

My research in the cluster concentrates on the Middle Ages (500-1500 CE). Urbanisation in Central and Northern Europe is an essential topic, as well as work on castles with a focus on questions of cultural theory. In addition to the Middle Ages, I specialise in the archaeology of modernity (especially the 20th century) and contemporary archaeology (e.g. protest). What is most challenging in all these epochs are the dense and parallel traditions of the different historical materials.

Keywords: Medieval archaeology, urbanisation, castle, contemporary archaeology, theory

I am interested in the many means and meanings of the disposal of the dead, be it Neolithic, Bronze Age or Iron Age practices in Central or Southeast Europe, in landscape archaeology, the possibilities of remote sensing, as well as quantitative methods. As a scientific editor, I am a decisive advocator of Golden Open Access and always look for new forms and workflows of digital publishing.

Keywords: Burial practices, landscape archaeology, quantitative archaeology, digital publishing

I graduated as a biologist, majoring in human genetics and physical anthropology. Since my student days, I have focused on research topics at the interface of these two disciplines. My main interests have been in human disease and population/evolutionary genetics as well as in ancient DNA analysis. In my current research, I primarily investigate the molecular basis of human longevity and the role of genetic variation in health and disease, with an emphasis on host-pathogen and human diet co-evolutionary processes (http://www.ikmb.uni-kiel.de/research/longevity-ancient-DNA-research).

My research focuses on comparative linguistics for Slavic languages, mostly Russian, Polish and Czech. In my work, I specialise on synchronic topics such as dependency syntax and aspect morphology. From a diachronic perspective, I investigate mostly sociolinguistic questions, e.g., the development of standardised languages in Eastern Europe. Additionally, I am interested in Slavic toponyms in Northern Germany and the question of language shift in this area.

I am an archaeologist trained in European prehistory, settlement archaeology, and geophysical prospection. My geographical focus lies on Southeastern and Eastern European archaeology and a global approach to early agglomeration processes. Currently, I am developing middle range theories in order to detect social levelling mechanisms in the archaeological record. In additional research, I work on Ukrainian Trypillia ‘mega-site’ palaeodemography and the emergence of pristine urbanism.

Keywords: Settlement archaeology, social archaeology, early urbanism, geophysical prospection, household archaeology, scaling, palaeodemography, Trypillia

Prof. Dr. Konrad Ott is a member of the philosophical department at Kiel University. His research focuses on environmental philosophy and ethics. In 1990, Konrad Ott wrote a PhD thesis about the discursive logic of history as it originated in the 19th century. Since then, epistemology of history has been a field of interest. In ROOTS, Konrad Ott is a PI in the Reflective Turn Forum which deals with conceptual and theoretical topics within archaic history and archaeology. Konrad Ott is also a member of the Hazards subcluster.

Specific current topics of research are a) origins of the Anthropocene, b) archaic economic life, c) ancient gardening, d) past-present connectivities, and e) adaptation to climatic change.

My research focuses on the languages of South Asia, from all major language families and isolates. In my work,I employ methods from different fields of linguistics – including language typology, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and language contact, as well as data from my own fieldwork in language description – to delve into the prehistory of the subcontinent. As social contact between speakers of different languages usually leavestraces in these languages, an examination of the distribution of different structural traits throughout the languages of this region can often provide us with detailed information both on earlier settlement patterns of the region as well as these groups’ societies.

My work is situated at the interface of archaeology and cultural anthropology and focusses on hunter-gatherer and pastoralist studies across North Eurasia. Research areas include the development and dispersal of Neolithic traits as seen from a hunter-gatherer perspective, Holocene hunter-gatherer socio-economic complexity in Europe and North Asia, contemporary hunter-fisher-herder lifeways in the Siberian taiga, and the roles and perception of Early Modern urbanism in nomadic Mongolia. My work brings together field-based archaeological research with ethnoarchaeological studies amongst contemporary hunter-fisher and herder communities in order to reach diversified, ontologically informed understandings of people and their material world.

Within my PhD project, I analyse the developmental and cultural history and influence of fortified landscapes in Scandinavia by means of selected examples. My primary research region is located in the western part of the Baltic Sea, which covers today’s states of Denmark, Germany and Sweden, in the time frame between the 17th and the 20th century. The primary empirical base of the project is dedicated to the former Danish fortress Christianspries / Friedrichsort, which is located on the western shore of the Kiel Fjord. Furthermore, the fortress is considered to be one of the most important post medieval heritage sights in Schleswig-Holstein.

Keywords: Historical archaeology, archaeology of conflicts and battlefields, landscape archaeology, fortifications, historical geography

My main research is in the field of Data Science with a special focus on big data, data mining, artificial intelligence and knowledge discovery. My research environment is highly interdisciplinary with a particular focus in applications from archaeology as well as geo-, climate, and marine science. The main objective of my research is to develop scalable methods for the discovery of patterns and knowledge from raw data sources with a particular interest in spatial and spatio-temporal data.

My research field is mainly concerned with environmental and resource economics. I am also interested in defining and measuring social inequality. Within ROOTS, I am involved in measuring inequality in Northern-Central Europe. The time period ranges between the Young Neolithic (YN) and the La Tène Iron Age (LTIA). I am also interested in modelling the emergence of inequality based on changes in access to resources.

Keywords: Inequality measures, Gini-Index, general entropy measures, social inequality, (young) Neolithic, Iron Age, resource access, exhaustible resources

I situate my work at the intersection of digital humanities, landscape archaeology, and the archaeology of Southwestern Asia. With an interdisciplinary approach, I conduct advanced scholarship on Holocene human-environmental dynamics, the process of Neolithization, and the emergence of the first forms of social and economic complexity. The main geographical focus of my research agenda comprises the Zagros Mountains of southwestern Iran, the southern Caucasus, and Northern Mesopotamia.

Keywords: Landscape Archaeology; Digital archaeology; Southwestern Asia; Neolithic; Social Complexity; Mobility

My research focuses on human behaviour in landscapes in Neolithic societies. Within the last decades, inhumation practices have played a major role, often related to collective burials in Central and Northern Germany. Due to comprehensive work experience in archaeological heritage – from rescue excavations up to large linear projects – an additional interest focuses on computational archaeology. This second focus includes digital documentation strategies, databases as well as current developments related to reproducible research.

photo: Sara Jagiolla

My work involves the development of advanced methodology for the structural, functional and chemical analysis of archaeological materials within ROOTS. This involves a broad methodological spectrum and synergistic combinations of complementary analytical methods, including advanced X‐ray diffraction, spectroscopic methods and scanning as well as transmission electron microscopy. The materials for this investigation are available from different regions of Europe and time periods, including the southern Baltic Sea region between 2200 BC and AD 1300.

In my work, I connect ancient Greek philology with a philosophical perspective. I examine the ideas of ancient Greek writers on the tradition of knowledge as a typical human characteristic which enables humankind to surpass and control nature and natural hazards. Although the term Anthropocene is alien to them, it can be compared to their ideas about human nature. I concentrate on literature of the classical Greek era and geographically on the Greek-speaking world.

Keywords: Ancient philology, Greece, antiquity, knowledge tradition, Anthropocene

Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie, Schloss Gottorf

As an archaeologist, I have combined active fieldwork with scientific analysis and evaluation in my research activities from the very beginning. Through my professional career, I have various research focuses. Most important are the research foci on settlement research and rural archaeology in early history and the Middle Ages, which I have been working on for two decades in Germany and abroad, and my research on the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Siberia, with which I started my academic career. I have always been particularly interested in cross-border issues, both in a geographical and a disciplinary sense. My academic education includes both humanities and natural sciences. I therefore consider archaeological research originally interdisciplinary.

Keywords: Archaeology of North-Eastern Europe and Siberia, conflict resolution strategies in pre-industrial societies,  mobility, sedentariness and perception of space,  methodology of settlement and landscape archaeology with a focus on the 1st millennium AD,  pottery analysis,  “Zeitgeist” and cultural transfer,  physical and statistical dating methods, chronology and time; archaeological taphonomy and reconstruction of subsistence economy, genesis of cultural strata

photo: Andreas Klinge

My work is situated between the fields of archaeology and anthropology, with a focus on social-, quantitative- and collaborative archaeology. My current project has a broad chronological and geographical scope, covering the last eight millennia of hunter-gatherer settlement on the West Siberian Plain. It places particular emphasis on the interdependence between different forms of inequality, conflict, and social and environmental assets. Dealing with forager fortifications and associated transformations of the natural and social landscape, I am especially concerned with the question how socio-environmental inequalities affect societies and what resilience strategies people develop to counteract them.

Keywords: Social archaeology, quantitative archaeology, collaborative archaeology, hunter-gatherer research, West Siberia, socio-environmental inequality, conflict, social resilience

My main research projects are concerned with Ancient Greek literature and the production and transfer of knowledge from early Greek philosophy and wisdom to late antique theology. Together with colleagues from various disciplines, I work on the Histories of Herodotus which offer an extraordinary interdisciplinary field and laboratory for Ancient Greek and literary studies, ancient history, archaeology, ancient Near Eastern studies and Egyptology. In combination with the new open-access Journal “Syllogos: A Collaborative Online Journal dedicated to the Study of Herodotus and his World”, I am also part of the Herodotus Helpline team (https://herodotushelpline.org/).
The main geographical areas of my research focus on Ancient Greece, Turkey and Egypt during Graeco-Roman times.

Keywords: Knowledge studies, history of transmission and reception, ancient Greece andEgypt, Greek philosophy, ethnography, religion and theologie

My field of research aims at the reconstruction of former environmental states of past ecosystems using a combination of geological, organic geochemical and isotope techniques. The reconstruction of palaeoenvironments includes their climatic evolution, development of palaeovegetation in subrecent but also deep geological time, occurence and role of vegetation fires in shaping past ecosystems and the role of microbial activity in past ecosystems. In addition to ecosystem reconstruction, I also apply organic geochemical and isotopic techniques to the study of human diets or farming practises.

My research interests lie within the field of history in the Middle Ages. I focus on political, economic and social developments in medieval Europe as well as cultural history especially of the late Middle Ages. My current project deals with the interlinkage between political and religious spheres. A good example of this is the question, why and how the enormous churches and cathedrals of Europe were built and financed.

As a coordinator for the TEM Center at the Faculty of Engineering, Kiel University, I am responsible for our Transmission Electron Microscopes. By means of these microscopes, we can analyse the structure, morphology and chemical composition of a wide variety of materials down to the nano scale. With this technique, we try to determine the composition of archaeological artefacts and thus their origin and purpose.

Keywords: Materials science, material analysis, electron microscopy, nano science

I am an archaeological methodologist exploring new methods and ways in the digital analysis of archaeological data focussing on spatial distribution and network analysis. The main sources for these analyses are sites, finds and different other archaeological objects which are investigated with the help of Geografic Information Systems (GIS) and statistical programming tools like Python and R. With more and more available digital data, this data science offers a new way of understanding the past. I think these methods can help us as archaeologists to uncover aspects of the (pre-)historic societies which were invisible beforehand and can be used to re-evaluate theories and concepts from a new perspective.

My research focuses on the relationship between humans and forests in the western Mediterranean over the long term. I study the wood heritage and old forest stands, both in the mountains and on the plains, in order to determine the history of human occupation, the circulation of wood between forests and urban sites, and the human impact on the environment. For this purpose, I use dendrochronology, history, archaeology and palaeo-environmental sciences in an interdisciplinary approach.

Keywords: Alps, dendrochronology, wood heritage, silvicultural practices, forests, chronology, trade, human impact

photo: Anthony Rety

Photo Henry Skorna: Tine Pape for Cluster ROOTS, 2021

My research area focuses on the Bronze Age in Central Europe, whereas my particular field of interest is the archaeology of identities as seen through the lens of mortuary archaeology.This is carried out using traditional archaeological artefact analyses, theories of identities (also from other social sciences) and materiality, strontium isotope analyses, plus statistical and spatial analyses. I have also been involved in local and (micro-)regional landscape archaeological studies on Middle Bronze Age sites in Hungary, including fortified settlements.

My research is focused in the reconstruction of former landscapes and its relationship to settlements. In my work, I apply standard geophysical prospection methods such as active seismics and geoelectrical measurements. Additionally, I develop and improve new measuring approaches, for example, passive seismics and in situ measurements. The aim is to derive the structure and the properties of the upper most 10 m of the subsurface.

Chiara Thumiger is a classicist and a science historian. In particular, her current interests focus on ancient medicine and mental health, patient history, history of psychiatry, (ancient) disability studies, and the history of the body. She has also worked on other areas of ancient literatures and culture (Greek tragedy, ancient animals, ancient emotions). Her present research project within ROOTS, Ancient Guts, focuses on a key, but comparatively underrated aspect of ancient medicine and anatomy: the gastric area of the body and the process of food ingestion and assimilation. The aim is to explore medical traditions as well as other cultural products to scrutinise ancient and modern understandings of the human body and their social variables.

Keywords: Graeco-Roman medicine, history of psychiatry, Greek and Latin literature, history of emotions, ancient disability

Kiel University
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 12
24105 Kiel, Germany
 

My research focuses on the study of complex traits and metabolic adaptation using comparative genomics, molecular evolution and the development of bioinformatics approaches that integrate and analyse heterogeneous data. At Kiel, I am part of the Ancient DNA group and the “Dietary Roots” subgroup. Here, I analyse the dynamics of human genomic mutations and human-associated microbiome to better understand how environmental changes (especially diet), induced and experienced by our ancestors since the Neolithic, have shaped our modern gene pool and our susceptibility to certain metabolic diseases today. 

Keywords: Complex traits, metabolic adaptation, genomics, microbiome, bioinformatics

• Human-climate interaction, with special focus on the development during the last 10,000 years and with a regional focus on the Eastern Mediterranean and South America

• Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction as a basis for modeling future climate development

•  Environmental reconstruction based on sedimentary analyses, radiocarbon dating and faunal assemblages

• Carbon cycle and hydrological cycle, groundwater renewal

Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie, Schloss Gottorf

My research interests focus on the Upper and Late Palaeolithic of Northwest Europe and prehistoric technology in general. Following the palethnographic approach, which integrates different sub-systems of human societies into one research perspective, I particularly apply the technological method to lithic artefacts and combine the results with data obtained by other archaeological as well as by palaeoenvironmental methods. The focus of my studies lies on the techno-economic trajectories and interregional relationships of hunter-gatherer groups in the context of profound environmental changes during the Lateglacial and the Early Holocene, with special emphasis on Northern Germany and the Paris Basin.

photo: Ulrich Simon

Florian Weber replaces Philipp Kobusch during his parental leave until April 2023

Taking up approaches of space and urban theory, my PhD project analyses the perception of cities in Romance literature of the early modern period. Currently, I study the case of Santiago de Compostela on the basis of a vast corpus of French, Spanish, Italian and Latin text sources, such as pilgrimage guides and reports, diaries, and other literary and non-literary writings. The geographical focus of my research is on Romance Europe (esp. Spain and France).

Keywords: Literature, city, urbanity, early modernity, Spain, France, Santiago de Compostela, St James cult,pilgrimage, perception, agency, imaginary

My research focuses on late prehistoric societies and the development of fortification. Currently, my work is part of the ‘Forschungskontinuität und Kontinuitätsforschung’ project under the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz. This project aims to integrate legacy research from former East Prussia into modern scholarly research. Along with using historic catalogues of fortification, the research also uses remote sensing data to derive metric data on hillforts for statistical analysis. My qualifications and experience include excavation, field survey, and archaeological geophysics. I am currently contributing to the ROOTS projects ‘Lost Cities’ and ‘INHILLDAUGAR’.

My work focuses on how languages emerge, change, and interact, and how these processes relate to external factors like human agency and ecology. I usually draw upon quantitative methods, and, when observations are not available, computer simulations. Often, I find myself at the intersection of linguistics, archaeology, and genetics. Early in my career, I specialised in Mesoamerican studies, but have since then conducted studies pertaining to many other areas of the world. 

Keywords: Language dynamics, historical linguistics, linguistic typology