Subject Area
Borders: Formation, Structure and Shifts
Whether ethnic, social, cultural, political, economic or religious — borders are omnipresent in every sphere of life. They mark the peripheries of different entities. From an archaeological perspective, they often comprise a broad border region, one not always made tangible by a physical representation like the Roman līmes or the Berlin Wall. Rather, borders are indirectly present in archaeological material and thus seldom unambiguous. They reflect different groups living alongside and with each other, engaged in continuous exchange.
Border areas should thus be associated not just with dividing lines, control, defence and conflict, but also always with interaction and the ensuing change, innovation and transformation. This subject area illuminates these aspects across different sources, disciplines and epochs, making use of modern investigative methods from the natural sciences.
Research subjects
Archaeozoology of Kyivan Rus’
The project aims to fill the gaps in studies of animal remains from early medieval Rus’ (9th–13th centuries), especially from its southern areas such as Kyiv, Chernihiv and the surrounding regions.
Bio-graphy of a Border Region
Medieval land development led to the creation of border regions, in which the new (e.g. ethnic) substrate overlapped the old. Interdisciplinary investigations of the early history of the Polish-Old Russian border region aim to enable a bio-graphy of the Polish-Old Russian border region.
Byzantine amphorae from East-Central and Eastern Europe
The analysis of amphorae finds from the Polish-Rus’ borderland and other countries in 10th-13th century contexts will provide information about technology, organization of production and consumption, economic system and political contacts of the studied regions.
Late Antique Cemeteries on the Danube
The project focuses on bringing together and analysing both published and self-compiled archaeological and anthropological data from late antique cemeteries of the erstwhile Roman provinces Noricum and Pannonia to gain deeper insights into the lives of the people and their environment.