Prehistoric Wetland Sites of Southern Europe. Archaeology, Chronology, Palaeoecology and Bioarchaeology
Bern, 29 April–1 May 2021
>>> Please note that the workshop will take place online as a closed event from 29 to 30 April 2021. Later this year, synthetic lectures and discussions will be open to interested professionals and students, as well as the general public. <<<
From 29 April to 1 May 2021, leading experts from all over the world from the fields of wetland archaeology, dendrochronology, paleoecology and bioarchaeology will discuss the latest results on the wetland settlements of Southern Europe (from Spain to Bulgaria – the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, the Apennines, the southeastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula) at the University of Bern.
The workshop aims at filling a research gap, on the one hand with basic research, and on the other hand with a strong interdisciplinary orientation: in addition to establishing an inventory of southern European wetland sites and their archaeological specifics, the objective of a southern European tree-ring calendar for the absolute dating of the relevant time periods will be tackled for the first time in a coordinated manner by means of contributions from dendrochronology. Furthermore, the potential of the southern European features for palaeoecological and bioarchaeological research will be explored, considered to be enormous due to the outstanding preservation conditions. This will ultimately allow a differentiated discussion on prehistoric land-use practices and their connections to earlier climate changes, vegetation and other natural resources, and thus permit the reconstruction of the living conditions of the first farming communities in Europe from the 7th/6th millennium BC onwards.
Dr Ariane BALLMER and Prof Dr Albert HAFNER (both Institute of Archaeological Sciences of the University of Bern and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research OCCR), as well as Prof Dr Willy TINNER (Institute of Plant Sciences of the University of Bern and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research OCCR) are responsible for the scientific programme.
The event is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Cogito Foundation, the Max & Elsa Beer-Brawand Foundation, the University of Bern’s Commission for the Promotion of Young Researchers and the Burgergemeinde Bern.
The proceedings will be published open access by Springer Nature in the book series ‘Natural Science in Archaeology’.
For further information please contact: ariane.ballmer@iaw.unibe.ch