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

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

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

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

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

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’.