Eileen Eckmeier gives the first talk in the new ROOTS seminar series (Photo: Jan Steffen, ROOTS)

The new ROOTS Seminar series started this week with a presentation by Eileen Eckmeier on "Soil use and Overuse: resource and hazard for (pre)historic communities". In a 20-minute presentation, she provided an overview of her research questions, the methods she employs in her work, and discussed the challenges she is currently facing. She also explained how her research contributes to the "big picture" of past socio-environmental dynamics and thus to the major topic of ROOTS. Following the lecture, an engaging and dynamic discussion unfolded among the attendees, touching upon various topics including inquiries about the potential of soil science and exchanging suggestions and ideas on how to foster further collaborations between this discipline and other groups and projects in the framework of ROOTS.

Eileen Eckmeier is professor for Geoarchaeology and Environmental Hazards at the Institute for Ecosystem Research of Kiel University. She joined ROOTS in April 2021. Her research focus is to understand the development of soils and landscapes under the influence of human agency on different spatial and temporal scales. She investigates the effects of land-use on the environment, mainly by applying 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, she conducts fieldwork in the Eurasian steppe areas and southwestern Asia, as well as in Northern Germany and the Alpine region.

The new ROOTS seminar series has been launched to create a regular, interactive communication of research taking place within the ROOTS community. This seminar provides a platform for all ROOTS members to present their ongoing research, share ideas, engage in constructive discussions, and build collaborations across disciplines that enrich the joint interdisciplinary work within ROOTS.

The next lecture in the ROOTS seminar series will take place on 13 June with a talk by Fynn Wilkes and Henry Skorna on “House Sizes in European Prehistory. Investigating material and relational wealth inequality”.

The lecture series takes place in the conference room of the Centre for Molecular Biosciences (ZMB), Am Botanischen Garten 11. All ROOTS members are cordially invited to attend and participate in the joint discussions.