Themes of the Annual Meeting

1. On artefacts and beyond

Material culture studies today rest on integrative ways of solving questions regarding objects made by human hands. Traditional and ever-current studies of style, shapes, colour, production process and decoration of vessels, tools, utensils, furniture, weapons, buildings, structures, architectural sculptures, etc. continue alongside investigations of consumption and consumerism, landscapes and communications, distribution, and trade/exchange. Here, the focus of the study includes a wider contextualization of artefacts, social class and identity, gender performativity, rituals, traditions, innovations, and more. By including methods from the natural sciences, the archaeological observation of artefacts has been deepened, especially in matters of technology and innovative procedures in the making of objects. The ways in which objects are made, and in which people use them, are crucial to understanding cultures and social communities in the past. This is why material culture is still the main source of information that provides archaeologists with a foundation in creating interpretations and conclusions about the past. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • Artefacts in context: contextualization, interpretation, and re-interpretation
  • Technology, operational sequence, and spatial organization of technological behaviour
  • Artefacts in systems: typology, classification, and seriation
  • Design, function and meaning of things
  • The art of artefacts – decorative and applied arts, media, and material culture
  • Material culture and cultural landscapes - mobile, rural, and urban
  • Consumption patterns, distribution of products, trade/exchange, gifts of power
  • Symbolic behaviour
  • Mortuary practices
  • Houses, housing, and households – structures and infrastructures
  • Gendered artefacts
  • Object biographies and itineraries

2. Intertwined Epistemologies: Transcending the Data – Theory Divide

The aim of archaeology is the comprehension of the co-creation of diverse forms of human lives and equally diverse cultural contexts. To this end, our field of research has been rooted in the twin domains of hard sciences and humanities, incorporating a plethora of theoretical approaches and perspectives. The periodic outbreak of theory wars has not brought us any closer to the conclusive answer as to which epistemic tradition is best suited for our particular purposes. Instead of striving for this answer, it may be more beneficial to look at our practices, that have always intertwined various strains of inquiry, and to embrace diversity/plurality/disunity/multi-scalar approaches when searching for epistemic improvements. This is especially the case at the moment of substantial advancements in the domain of data science, which necessitate critical reflection when transferred to archaeology. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • From human-animal relations to multi-species pasts
  • The Ontological Turn
  • Politics and late capitalism imprinted in archaeology
  • Evidential reasoning
  • The end of the world/ the study of social collapse
  • Digital humanities and data-driven archaeology
  • The revival of grand narratives
  • Human behaviour in pluralistic contexts
  • Gender, queer and transgressive archaeology
  • Social bonds and the viscosity of identity
  • The memory and sedimentation of time

3. Exploring methods in research, education and communication

Methodology has two principal meanings: a corpus of systematically and logically ordered knowledge for appropriate research conduct; and a study of research methods themselves. Method, then, is one of the cornerstones of each discipline, its theory and practice, and the legitimization of its scientific achievements. In its endeavours to interpret past people, their life, works and ideas from material remains, archaeology has succeeded in building complex systems of methods which span the humanities, the social and natural sciences and technology. It is of crucial importance not only for expanding its archaeological methodological arsenal but also reflecting and integrating heterogeneous methodological knowledge in research and other domains of archaeological practice. Despite the great heterogeneity of topics as well as the presence of methodological topics in other theme blocks, the guiding idea is the exploration of the potential of archaeological methodologies from a variety of perspectives. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • Advancing methods in studying materiality in archaeology from micro to macro-scales
  • Data Science in archaeology and heritage sciences
  • Patterns vs. contingencies in interpreting material culture
  • Sampling strategies in the Big Data era
  • Digital archaeology in research and communication
  • Methods for recording, maintaining and using retrieving large data sets
  • Learning archaeological methods and skills
  • Potentials of Artificial intelligence in archaeological research, heritage protection, and communication
  • Communicating through objects: perspectives of archaeological displays
  • Readjusting and contextualising scientific methods in archaeological research
  • Advances in field surveys, excavation, and field recording
  • Thinking through ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology

4. De nobis fabula narratur: archaeological practice and a profession in flux

Constant reflection on, and research into, the practical workings of archaeology in its disciplinary and wider social contexts are crucial for reinforcing archaeology's status as a scientific discipline and contributor of expert knowledge for protecting heritage and communicating scientific and heritage values to the public. Archaeology acts within different domains, legislative frameworks and numerous other conditions which, to a great extent, define and affect not only the knowledge it produces but also the archaeologists themselves, their economic and social status, motivation, social engagement, the institutions where they are employed and ultimately, the conditions of the production of archaeological knowledge. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • Academic and applied archaeology
  • What and how archaeology is taught at universities after the Bologna reform?
  • Social engagement, activism, and responsibility of archaeologists
  • Critical reflection and history of archaeology
  • Status and perception of the archaeological profession
  • Social inequalities and precarity in archaeological practice
  • Searching for balance between public and entrepreneurial archaeology
  • Biographies and autobiographies of archaeologists
  • Transnational mobility: experiences from work in foreign countries
  • Ethics, mission, and professionalism in archaeological research, education, and communication
  • Advances in co-design and participatory approaches for greater integration of archaeological practice with society and its needs

5. Finding the way! Archaeological sciences and opening new research perspectives

The participation of many diverse sciences and scientific disciplines has become woven into archaeological practice. The co-habitation of archaeology and science produces procedures that become a necessary and common practice in archaeology, but also guides us through new challenges, opens new avenues of exploration, and inspires future development in the study of past societies. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • Sciences in archaeology to archaeological sciences
  • Empowering bioarchaeology and geoarchaeology
  • Revealing individual and collective histories through biomolecular and isotopic studies
  • Layers of health, crisis, ageing, external influences, and life changes in organic tissues
  • Connecting computer science and artificial intelligence
  • Big and Open: research data and FAIR principles
  • Looking from the air and beneath the ground: remote sensing and geophysics
  • Archaeometry: measuring time, space, and matter
  • Environmental archaeology of the Anthropocene
  • Exploring water courses and fluvial landscapes
  • Technological studies and provenience analyses

6. Intertwining archaeology, heritage, and museums

Heritage can be understood as a sphere of interactions - of intertwined pasts and presents, cultures and natures, professionals and publics, individuals and collectives, ideals and pragmatics, economic and artistic interests, and local and global priorities. It is inherently contested and in constant flux, ever (re)negotiated by diverse agents and forces. By understanding heritage as the process by which these intertwined interactions are constructed and navigated in the present, we want to open avenues that explore the cyclical, spiralling, intertwined and layered nature of heritage. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • Archaeological heritage in a changing Europe and world
  • Decolonising, queering and enabling heritage, archaeology and museums
  • The cultural economics of museums, heritage, and archaeology: value, commercialisation, wellbeing, and public benefits
  • Contested, disputed, unwanted, destroyed: conflict and heritage
  • Education and cross-curricular learning in archaeology, heritage, and museums
  • Heritage and museum data, data sharing, data management models, data (re)use and data analysis
  • Archaeology, art, and heritage
  • Transcending the Eurocentric heritage
  • People at the centre and peripheries of heritage
  • Archaeology, heritage, popular media, and populism
  • Multilayered, multimedia, and intertwined narratives and storytelling in archaeology and heritage
  • Legislation and policy, including heritage crime and illicit antiquities

7. Climate Change in the Past and Present

Archaeological heritage is being damaged or destroyed by the many impacts of climate change, leading to a huge loss of archaeological information. The practice of archaeology is transforming in response to this reality as well is its relationship to the heritage management sector, museums, education, and policies. Archaeology is well placed to enhance the socio-ecological resilience of societies and their adaptive capacity to climate change through the study of past pathways to adaptation and mitigation. It is pivotal to translate fundamental archaeological research into actionable science to inform decision-making in the academy and in the public, as well as monitor climate change in relation to archaeological heritage. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • Resilience, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change in the past and present
  • Archaeological lifeways through the sustainability perspective
  • Communication of the archaeology of climate change in academia and the public
  • Education and training in the archaeology of climate change
  • Sustainable museums and collections in times of climate change
  • Protection of the archaeological heritage in times of climate change: best practices, policies, laws
  • Fieldwork adaptation, mitigation strategies, curation, in situ and digital preservation
  • Climate change action in inter-governmental panels, agencies, and associations
  • Heritage tourism and carbon mitigation
  • The Archaeology of Climate Change in the Anthropocene

8. Along and across the Danube!

The river Danube is the second longest European river, flowing through large areas of central and southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. The Danube was the border during the Roman Empire, and in later periods as well, up to present-day state borders. The Danube always had a great impact on human communities: it connects distant regions, provides resources, represents threats (e.g., floods), shapes the landscape and human interactions with the environment. Some of the most famous sites in southeastern Europe are located on the Danube shores, from the Palaeolithic up to early modern times. Potential themes include the exploration of the archaeology of the regions connected with the Danube River basin and its tributaries from different perspectives, the interpretation of material culture, culture contact, and culture change, subsistence strategies, exploitation of the environment and inter-disciplinary studies, with a special focus on interactions between human groups and the overall role of this area in European prehistory and history. We invite session proposals connected, but not limited, to:

  • History of research ideas and practices in archaeology in southeastern Europe
  • Recent research – field surveys, excavations (systematic or rescue), analyses of archaeological assemblages of artefacts and ecofacts
  • Interpreting material culture, applying theoretical approaches, exploring the latest scientific results in this region
  • Landscapes of the past and present
  • The Danube and its hinterlands – interactions between cultures and peoples
  • Centre and periphery, trade and exchange, population movements
  • The Roman Limes and the Danube as a border
  • Settlements, urban and trade centres from Roman to Early Modern times
  • Ottoman archaeology and heritage in Balkan countries
  • The Danube basin’s role in cultural reception, transformation, and transmission in Europe

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