Research Projects in the Department of Archaeology

The bioarchaeological characterization of disabled individuals from the past is particularly challenging because it pushes the boundaries of the interpretation of pathologies recognisable on human remains. With my project, namely B-CARED, I will investigate the bioarchaeological approaches for recreating “Past to life”. In so doing, the osteobiographical approach offers a possible framework, in which human remains are used to understand not only the embodied experience during life but also seeing people as playing diverse social roles (e.g.

‘BODIES MATTER’ focuses on the material culture of bodies (and the self) in colonial borderlands by comparing three frontiers at various periods and geographies: the Spanish Empire’s southern borderland in the Americas in the AD 16th-19th century, the Punic western Mediterranean in the 6th-2nd century BC, and the Islamic-Christian Ethiopian frontier between the AD 10th and 15th century.

Research into global connections, which formed the basis for the spread of objects, ideas, innovations, religions and empires, continues to fundamentally shape our understanding of the development of contemporary society. While the historiography of global connections is dominated by a European perspective, new research into overlooked vantage points combined with innovative methodological and theoretical approaches provide important opportunities to challenge and enrich perspectives of global history. 

As part of the international campaign to salvage sites threatened by construction of the second Aswan High Dam in southern Egypt, coordinated by UNESCO, researchers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland collaborated on a series of archaeological campaigns between 1960 and 1964. Known as the Scandinavian Joint Expedition to Nubia, or SJE, this work generated a wealth of data and prompt publication of nine major excavation reports.