Recently, Tobias Torfing’s dissertation entitled “Northern Networks. An Analysis of Three Neolithic Enclosures from the Jutland Peninsula” was published. Amongst other things, he found out that the idea of enclosures spread far earlier to this northern area as we assumed hitherto.
During his PhD investigations from 2013–2016, Tobias Torfing was financed by the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ (link), the forerunner of ROOTS. He finished his PhD in 2018. Now he works as a museum curator for the Museum of Southwest Jutland (link). His book is the 19^th volume of a series that has been published as part of the DFG Priority Programme 1400 ‘Early Monumentality and Social Differentiation’, which has been based at Kiel University since 2008. The series includes final theses and conference proceedings, whose topics are closely linked to the priority programme and therefore deal primarily with topics on Funnel Beaker societies in Europe.
His book offers comprehensive analyses of three causewayed enclosures in Northern Denmark. The enclosures were introduced around 3700 BC, a time when the landscape and society of Northern Europe changed significantly. These massive sites, encircled with ditches and palisades, seem to have only been intended for short-lived or periodic usage, but they changed society for the centuries to follow. Each site is studied in relation to its history, chronology, and its impact on social development. It is argued that they – although not central places in a traditional sense – still created centres and an ordered landscape with clearings and pathway networks. They facilitated interaction for a scattered population and solidified connections to other networks around Northwestern Europe.
To explore these venues, this book also reworks the chronology of the Jutlandic part of the Funnel Beaker complex through the systematic use of typology and the modelling of radiocarbon dates.
We congratulate Tobias upon the completion of this extremely good study!

--------------------------
Torfing, Tobias, 2021. Northern Networks. An Analysis of Three Neolithic Enclosures from the Jutland Peninsula. Frühe Monumentalität und soziale Differenzierung 19. Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH (Bonn 2021).

Find further information about T. Torfing here