MERC election 2025

 

MERC Committee Member Position 1

Axel Christophersen

I am writing to express my strong interest in joining the MERC Committee. Throughout my professional career, I have been deeply committed to advancing medieval archaeology as a vibrant academic field within the broader landscape of European archaeology.

Since my doctoral studies in Lund in the late 1970s, my core motivation has been to establish medieval and historical archaeology as a recognised academic discipline in Norway and the wider Nordic region. At a time when medieval archaeology in Norway lacked institutional anchoring and suffered from minimal recruitment, I have used successive professional roles—project leader (1985–1990, 2017–2021), Head of Department (1998– 2001), Museum Director (2001–2012), and Professor of Historical Archaeology (1998– 2023)—to build academic infrastructure, create study programs, and foster student recruitment. This has included not only research and teaching, but also significant public engagement through lectures, publications, media, and exhibitions.

My research interests centre on medieval urbanization, with a particular focus on urban social practice, urbanity, identity formation, and urban ecological systems. I am especially interested in expanding our understanding of “urbanism” from a narrow functionalist definition towards a broader exploration of urban lifeways and social dynamics. A turning point in my research was the introduction of social practice theory in 2014, which has since informed my work on medieval health and welfare. This culminated in the interdisciplinary project Medieval Urban Health: From Private to Public Responsibility (AD 1000–1600), funded by the Norwegian Research Council (FRIPRO-HUMSAM). See: https://www.ntnu.edu/museum/medieval-urban-health-from-individual-to-publicresponsibility- ad-1000- My broader academic engagement also includes cultural heritage in conflict zones. I have worked with heritage protection and awareness in Afghanistan, Myanmar, China, and Tibet, and developed university courses on the role of museums in safeguarding local heritage during times of social disruption.

If elected, I will actively contribute my academic experience, international networks, and strategic insight to the MERC Committee. My goal is to strengthen the visibility of medieval archaeology across Europe and promote it as a dynamic, interdisciplinary field of research with contemporary relevance.

I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to MERC’s important work.

CV Axel Christophersen

Marte Spangen

I am an archaeologist specialised in Saami archaeology and the historical archaeology of northern Fennoscandia with a particular interest in Saami religion and rituals and the transcultural exchange and meetings in northern Fennoscandia in the Viking and Middle Ages. My career has been varied, working in Saami and Norwegian cultural heritage management, museum dissemination, fieldwork and research (see CV). After receiving my PhD at Stockholm University in 2016, I took up a permanent position as Associate Professor of historical archaeology at UiT – the Arctic University of Norway in 2017, where I, among other things, was head and co-head of the multidisciplinary research group Creating the New North.

In 2023, I transferred to my current position as Associate Professor of Nordic Archaeology at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, where I have a particular responsibility for projects associated with private metal detecting finds and citizen science and knowledge cocreation. Since 2023 I have led the development of a national digital registration system for metal detecting finds. In 2024–2025 I led a national network project for citizen science in Norwegian museums funded by the Norwegian Research Council. I am also on the main board of the Museum of Cultural History as an elected representative for the scientific staff.

I have always found the political side of archaeology intriguing and important, in terms of how our views on the past shape our present and future perceptions of ourselves and our society, and how archaeology can contribute to a wider political debate with substantiated facts that may go against popular ideas or narratives about the past shaped by other disciplines or specific ideological agendas. 

On the other hand, based on my 25 years of experience with archaeological work and research in Saami contexts (the Indigenous people of Fennoscandia), my experience with museum work and university teaching, and my more recent involvement with citizen science and knowledge co-creation, I am mindful that archaeological knowledge production happens reciprocally across the whole continuum between scientific studies, dissemination, (media) popularisation and response from the public audiences we engage with. I am committed to promoting an inclusive and ethical archaeology that acknowledges and embraces the political and social role and influence of our discipline. This has also set the tone for the MERC EAA sessions I have organised since first joining the committee in 2019.

I believe MERC must continue to work to create awareness in Europe and beyond about the meaning, use, and significance of the medieval archaeology and cultural heritage that people here are surrounded by in landscapes and built environments (re: the MERC manifesto). Particularly in the current political situation, it is crucial that archaeologists organise to oppose misguided understandings of the past and distorted narratives about European histories and identities, while also stubbornly maintaining open and democratic dialogues about the past and the future across professional, political and ideological boundaries.

My motivation to run for a third term on the MERC committee is the chance to contribute to this continued work within an organisation that is becoming increasingly structured and fitted to shoulder these tasks and exert influence on important topics, discourses and decision-making bodies.

CV Marte Spangen

Nancy L. Wicker

With this letter, I put my name forward to be considered to stand for election as a committee member of Medieval Europe Research Community (MERC). I have spent my career researching and teaching about medieval Europe, and I have been a member of the EAA since 1993. I have excavated at Iron Age and Viking sites in Germany and Scandinavia (primarily the UNESCO World Heritage site of Birka), besides in the U.S. I can offer my knowledge of and acquaintance with EAA Communities gained from my involvement with the AGE (Archaeology and Gender in Europe) Community, where I was elected to serve as a Co-Chair, which entailed increasing levels of responsibilities through three years of that position to the presiding officer in the final year. Additionally, I have served several societies that support medieval archaeology in various roles.

My research has focused on metalwork of the Scandinavian Migration Period of the fifth and sixth centuries plus Viking-Age material culture. In addition, I have carried out experimental archaeology with skilled smiths to reconstruct metal jewelry techniques. I have published on Viking-Age female infanticide in Scandinavia and have worked with many EAA colleagues editing three volumes on archaeology and gender.

I carried out my Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in an interdisciplinary Ancient Studies program, and I continue to teach interdisciplinary art history and archaeology at the University of Mississippi. My courses (modules) on Viking Art and Archaeology and on Early Medieval Art and Archaeology are “cross-listed” for credit in both the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Art and Art History. My teaching responsibilities are broad at the undergraduate level, including Early Christian, Byzantine, and Islamic art and archaeology, as well as Romanesque and Gothic architecture and archaeology. My research specialties in Early Medieval Scandinavian archaeology have been recognized by invitations to serve on PhD committees across the U.S. at the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Rice University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Arizona State University.

My studies have been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Kress Foundation, and the Getty Foundation, along with Scandinavian funds. Most recently, I have been consulting as a member of the international Andvari Project to create a vocabulary to describe the Swedish Gotlandic Picture Stones. 

I currently serve on the Board of Directors of the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) and previously was an elected Councillor of the Medieval Academy of America. I have been on the editorial board of Gesta (the journal of the ICMA) and was an Associate Editor of Medieval Archaeology. In addition, I am an elected member of the Internationales Sachsensymposion (the International Saxon Symposium) and of the Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala, Filosofisk-historiska avdelningen (Royal Society of Humanities at Uppsala, Philosophical-Historical Section). 

I believe that my experience with service to scholarly societies, including AGE in the EAA, and my broad familiarity with medieval archaeology from early through late would allow me to support the varied membership of MERC. I would like to offer my abilities to aid the work of MERC, and I would be thrilled to help shape the future of this group.

CV Nancy L. Wicker