Cross-disciplinary research

We have – in collaboration with the other archaeology departments, and the departments of social anthropology, religious studies, and history – investigated war & warriorhood, globalisation & identity, power & dominance, religion & rituals, as well as pre- and protohistoric landscape perception.

Collaborations with the natural sciences include investigations of prehistoric economies and daily life in the light of climatic changes and resource distributions.

Our archaeological practice is to have many points of contact with other subjects within the humanities as well as with the natural sciences.

Responsability

Research in prehistoric archaeology currently addresses a broad range of problems and questions and often manages to gain insight into a past very different from our present world. Today’s globalised world provides a new and challenging frame – and puts archaeologists in a position of responsibility – when the material heritage is used to reconstruct the past.

A link between the reconstructed past and current processes of identification is likely inevitable. Prehistoric society, however, rarely equates to modern nation states, diminishing the value of concepts such as, for instance, ‘Danish prehistory’.

There is a need to engage critically with the discipline’s own practice and its role in the present. In addition, we are actively promoting exploration of novel analytical methods (field and post-field), and we try to evaluate and develop theories regarding material culture and society.

Goals

• to maintain regional expertise in Danish and European prehistory from the ice age to the latest Viking period at the transition to the Middle Ages
• to emphasise the broad geographic and deep chronological links that exist among people in the past, and between them and us
• to revitalise the Departments tradition of work in places and regions other than Denmark and Europe. In particular, this should involve research that cuts across current national borders
• to engage with each and every kind of archaeology that is practiced at a high academic level
• not to be restricted by traditional disciplinary boundaries
• to seek out unorthodox approaches, and to push the boundaries of current knowledge and practice
• to provide solid basic research, both methodological and theoretical
• to present research results in such a way as to stimulate dialogue and debate with colleagues and society as a whole