Two years after the publication of “Past Landscapes”, the sequel “Past Societies” has now been published. This book presents research projects mainly by former PhD students of the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ at Kiel University. The authors conducted research in different disciplines within the humanities and natural sciences. Their common research interest focuses on past societies.
The Kiel Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ has conducted research on socio-environmental issues of past societies during the last years. From the North Atlantic to the Persian Gulf and from Peru to the Near East, different attempts on the interfluve of environments and societies in landscapes describe certain historical moments and processes in which the interplay of ecological and societal factors is entangled. Events, processes and structures are described on local, regional and global scales as well as methodological developments on ecological and societal archives.
The selected case studies are linked by the general idea of the ability to integrate discovery, documentation, description and interpretation within the scope of analyses and synthesis. Thus, the interdisciplinary framework of the Kiel Graduate School formed the agenda for a holistic approach. ‘Landscapes of power’, transitions during neolithisation processes, maritime and other networks, site formation dynamics, ‘landscapes of identities’ and the ‘making of heritage’ are only a few topics included in this book.

The Kiel Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ constituted the major pioneering institution of the interdisciplinary research focus at Kiel University, from which the CRC 1266 – Scales of Transformation – Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies, the Johanna Mestorf Academy and the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS – Social, Environmental, and Cultural Connectivity in Past Societies, emerged. Hence, several members of the CRC 1266 and ROOTS also contributed to this volume.

Müller, Johannes; Ricci, Andrea (eds.) 2020: Past societies. Human development in landscapes. Leiden: Sidestone Press. ISBN: 9789088909245

To the publisher: Sidestone Press