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Department of

Archaeology and Heritage Studies

  • #18 on QS World University Rankings

About the department

At the department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies we are concerned with people and the environment and culture and society from the earliest times, examining the connection between the past and the present – and exploring how real and imagined pasts can inform the future. With a focus on studies of material culture and heritage practice, the department pays strong attention to dissemination and engagement with a wide range of publics and policy makers. Drawing on fieldwork and excavation, laboratory, archival and ethnographic investigation, the department’s interdisciplinarity is at the core of its research and teaching activities, investigating and challenging our understanding of past, present and future societies seen in a long-term perspective.

Research environment

The department has an international profile and strong research networks. A dynamic research environment provides the framework for large research projects, international conferences and a variety of visiting researchers. The environment is versatile and cross-disciplinary, and the academic staff’s research competences span a broad range of topics; from war and power, mobility and globalisation, family and individual, religion and rituals, landscape, settlement and architecture, colonial and decolonial relations, geopolitics and community development, paleo-demography and evolution, trade and networks, technology and knowledge exchange. We hereby apply quantitative analysis methods, field methodology and digital representation. As a research environment we cooperate with international partners across the globe, as well as the Danish heritage and museum sector, not least Moesgård Museum.

Affiliated degree programmes

The archaeology programme at Aarhus University offers a bachelor’s and a master’s degree programme in archaeology, together with an MA Programme in Sustainable Heritage Management (taught in English). We hereby cooperate with the Department of History and Classical Studies as well as the Institut for Geoscience, both at AU. In addition, a variety of elective subjects and events are offered, including Viking age Scandinavia at the Aarhus University Summer University.


Academic staff

Frida Aagesen

Research Assistant

Peter Moe Astrup

Honorary Associate Professor

Andres Minos Dobat

Associate Professor, Head of Department

Renée Enevold

Part-time Lecturer

Niels Nørkjær Johannsen

Associate Professor, Research Programme Director

Jan Kock

Associate Professor Emeritus/Emerita

Hans Krongaard Kristensen

Associate Professor Emeritus/Emerita

Johan Sandvang Larsen

Teaching Associate Professor

Jette Linaa

Honorary Associate Professor

Archaeological IT

 Archaeological IT website

Latest publications

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Marras, G. B., Marzullo, M., Schmidt, F., French, C., Sheldrake, M., Motta, L., Garzulino, A., Tentori, D., Zerboni, A., stoddart, S. & Trentacoste, A. (2026). Beneath the city: micromorphological insights into Etruscan urban life, infrastructure, and ritual spaces from Tarquinia, Central Italy. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 18(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-025-02373-6
Kaas, M. H. (2026). Da pengene kom til. SKALK Junior, (2), 6-7.
Johnson, K. M. & Johannsen, N. N. (Accepted/In press). Designing a Next-generation Approach to Archaeogenetics, Social Organization and Identity. Ethnographisch-Archaeologische Zeitschrift.
Marsh, W. A., Scarsbrook, L., Yüncü, E., Hodgson, L., Lin, A. T., De Iorio, M., Thalmann, O., Thomas, M. G., Goor, M., Bergström, A., Noseda, A., Amiri, S., Biglari, F., Borić, D., Bougiouri, K., Carmagnini, A., Giannì, M., Higham, T., Lebrasseur, O. ... Frantz, L. A. F. (2026). Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic. Nature, 651(8107), 995-1003. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10170-x
Hounsvad, P. R., Kaas, M. H. & Søgaard, R. (2026). Et grotesk næb! Fund & Fortid, (1), 32-33.
Ehrich, S. C., Calvez, C., Loeben, C. E., Dubiel, U., Terp Laursen, S. & Huber, B. (2026). From biomolecular traces to multisensory experiences: bringing scent reproductions to museums and cultural heritage. Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, 4, Article 1736875. https://doi.org/10.3389/fearc.2025.1736875
Harvey, D. (2026). Future Relations of Textual Heritage. In E. Gerlini & A. Giolai (Eds.), Textual Heritage: Locating Textual Heritage Practices Across Heritage and the Humanities (pp. 258-276). Berghahn Books.
Mozaffari, A. & Harvey, D. (2026). Heritage-Border Complexes: Parallels, Possibilities and Consequences of Border-Straddling Heritage. In A. Mozaffari & D. Harvey (Eds.), Border-Straddling Heritages: Containment, Contestation and Appreciation of Shared Pasts (pp. 1-32). Berghahn Books.

Publications

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Sindbæk, S. M. (2022). Handelsbyer og markeder: vikingetidens ’lille verden’. In Rus: vikinger i øst (pp. 63-70). Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab.
Sindbæk, S. M. & Feveile, C. (2022). The excavation at SJM 3 Posthustorvet. In S. M. Sindbæk (Ed.), Northern Emporium : Vol I. The making of Viking-age Ribe (pp. 25-48). Aarhus Universitetsforlag.
Wild, M., Mortensen, M. F., Andreasen, N. H., Borup, P., Casati, C., Eriksen, B. V., Frost, L., Gregersen, K. M., Henriksen, M. B., Kanstrup, M., Olsen, J., Pedersen, K. B., Petersen, P. V., Ramskov, C., Sørensen, L., Sørensen, M. & Wåhlin, S. (2020). Paläolithische Knochen- und Geweihartefakte des Spätglazials und Frühholozäns Dänemarks: Technologie und Datierung. Quartar International Yearbook for Ice Age and Stone Age Research, 67, 105-180. https://doi.org/10.7485/qu.2020.67.88925
Kristiansen, S. M., Stott, D. & Sindbæk, S. M. (2019). Har kunstig intelligens og maskinlæring en plads i arkæologien?. Abstract from Organisationen af Danske Museer (ODM), Vejle, Denmark.
Mannino, M. (2019). Invertebrate Zooarchaeology. In M. P. Richards & K. Britton (Eds.), Archaeological science: an introduction (pp. 233-275). Cambridge University Press.
Jensen, P. (2018). Evaluating Authenticity: Authenticity of 3D Models in Archaeological Field Documentation. In P. Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco, F. Galeazzi & V. Vassallo (Eds.), Authenticity and Cultural Heritage in the Age of 3D Digital Reproductions (pp. 59-74). Mcdonald Institute for Archaeological Research. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.27029
Guyomarc'h, P., Velemínský, P., Brůžek, J., Lynnerup, N., Horák, M., Kučera, J., Rasmussen, K. L., Podliska, J., Dragoun, Z., Smolík, J. & Vellev, J. (2018). Facial approximation of Tycho Brahe's partial skull based on estimated data with TIVMI-AFA3D. Forensic Science International, 292, 131-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.08.002
Sindbæk, S. M. & Imer, L. M. (2018). Kæm, kam! Skalk, 2018(1), 16.
McAtackney, L. (2018). Prison-Issue Artefacts, Documentary Insights and the Negotiated Realities of Political Imprisonment: The case of Long Kesh / Maze, Northern Ireland. . In B. Hausmair, B. Jervis, R. Nugent & E. Williams (Eds.), Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation: Between text and practice (pp. 212-230). Berghahn Books.
Kershaw, J., Williams, G., Sindbæk, S. M. & Graham-Campbell, J. (Eds.) (2018). Silver, butter, cloth: Monetary and social economies in the Viking Age. Oxford University Press.
Christensen, J., Holm, N., Schultz, M. K., Sindbæk, S. M. & Ulriksen, J. (2018). The Borgring Project 2016-2018. In J. Hansen & M. Bruus (Eds.), The Fortified Viking Age: 36th Interdisciplinary Viking Symposium (pp. 60-68). Syddansk Universitetsforlag.
Løvschal, M. (2017). Aadfærdsdesign i byrumsarkitektur - siden jernalderen. In N. Holm Jensen, A. Lieberoth & T. Dalsgaard (Eds.), Adfærdsdesign (pp. 87-89). Plurafutura Publishing.
Johannsen, N. N. (2017). Appropriating draught cattle technology in southern Scandinavia: roles, context and consequences. In J. Maran & P. Stockhammer (Eds.), Appropriating Innovations: Entangled Knowledge in Eurasia, 5000-1500 BCE (pp. 122-135). Oxbow Books.
McAtackney, L. (2017). Connecting the global with the local through the prism of imprisonment: the case of Kilmainham Gaol, Ireland. In T. Hodos (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization (pp. 580-594). Routledge.
Riede, F., Oetelaar, G. A. & VanderHoek, R. (2017). From Crisis to Collapse in Hunter-Gatherer Societies: A Comparative Investigation of the Cultural Impacts of three Large Volcanic Eruptions on Past Hunter-Gatherers. In T. Cunningham & J. Driessen (Eds.), Crisis to Collapse. The Archaeology of Social Breakdown (pp. 23-39). UCL Presses Universitaires de Louvain.
Dobat, A. (2017). From Torksey to Füsing and Hedeby: gambling warriors on the move? In B. V. Eriksen, A. Abegg-Wigg, R. Bleile & U. Ickerodt (Eds.), Interaktion ohne Grenzen: Beispiele archäologischer Forschungen am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts (Vol. 2, pp. 597-606). Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen.
McAtackney, L. & Ryzewski, K. (2017). Introduction. In L. McAtackney & K. Ryzewski (Eds.), Contemporary Archaeology and the City: Creativity, ruination, and political action (pp. 1-30). Oxford University Press.
Philippsen, B. (2017). Keramik-Datierungen: Reservoireffekte und die Keramik von Friesack. Abstract from Speisekrusten an Keramik, Brandenburg, Germany.
Løvschal, M. & Brink, K. (2017). New currents in Scandinavian Bronze Age settlement and landscape archaeology. In S. Bergerbrant & A. Wessman (Eds.), New Perspectives on the Bronze Age: Proceedings of the 13th Nordic Bronze Age Symposium held in Gothenburg 9th to 13th June 2015 (pp. 169-176). Archaeopress.
McAtackney, L. (2017). Repercussions of differential deindustrialization in the City: Memory and identity in contemporary East Belfast. In L. McAtackney & K. Ryzewski (Eds.), Contemporary Archaeology and the City: Creativity, ruination, and political action (pp. 190-210). Oxford University Press.
Kristiansen, K., Allentoft, M., Frei, K. M., Iversen, R., Johannsen, N. N., Kroonen, G., Pospieszny, L., Price, T. D., Rasmussen, S., Sjögren, K.-G., Sikora, M. & Willerslev, E. (2017). Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe. Antiquity, 91(356), 334–347. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2017.17
Persson, P., Riede, F., Skar, B., Breivik, H. & Jonsson, L. (Eds.) (2017). The Ecology of Early Settlement in Northern Europe: Conditions for Subsistence and Survival. Equinox Publishing.
Høegsberg, M. S. (2017). The soapstone of Norse Greenland. In G. Hansen & P. Storemyr (Eds.), Soapstone in the North : quarries, products and people 7000 BC – AD 1700 (pp. 207-224). University of Bergen. http://bora.uib.no/bitstream/handle/1956/16589/12.%20H%C3%B8egsberg.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y
Vellev, J. (2016). Ampullen fra Grathe. Skalk, 3(juni), 22-24.
Naum, M. E. (2016). Between Utopia and Dystopia: Colonial Ambivalence and Early Modern Perception of Sápmi. Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction, 40(3), 489–521. https://doi.org/10.1017/S016511531600067X

Recent Publications (2016 onwards)

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Linaa, J. (2020). Aarhus historie: vikingetid og middelalder. In C. R. Melin (Ed.), Trap Danmark : Aarhus (6 ed., Vol. 12, pp. 10-20). TRAP Danmark. https://trap.lex.dk/Aarhus'_historie
Cultural and Historical Geography Research Group (CHGRG), University of Exeter (2020). Academic Life in Lockdown: Activity Book. Blurb Books. https://www.blurb.com/b/10088947-academic-life-in-lockdown
Sindbæk, S. M. (2020). A complex beadwork: bead trade and trade beads in Scandinavia ca. 800-1000 AD Revisited. In L. Donnellan (Ed.), Archaeological Networks and Social Interaction (pp. 146-172). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351003063
Carter, T., Harvey, D., Jones, R. & Robertson, I. (2020). Afterword. In T. Carter, D. Harvey, R. Jones & I. Robertson (Eds.), Creating Heritage: Unrecognised Pasts and Rejected Futures (pp. 224-232). Routledge.
Shepherd, N. (2020). A Grammar of Decoloniality. In A. Scorch, A. Deumert & N. Shepherd (Eds.), Colonial and Decolonial Linguistics: Knowledges and Epistemes Oxford University Press.
Richter, J., Litt, T., Lehmkuhl, F., Hense, A., Hauck, T., Leder, D. F., Miebach, A., Parow-Souchon, H., Sauer, F., Schoenenberg, J., Al-Nahaar, M. & Hussain, S. T. (2020). Al-Ansab and the Dead Sea: Mid-MIS 3 archaeology and environment of the early Ahmarian population of the Levantine corridor. PLoS One, 15(10), Article e0239968. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239968
Vandkilde, H. (2020). Amber, Weapons and Circulating Ideas about Leadership at the Threshold to the Middle Bronze Age in Europe. In J. Maran, R. Băjenaru, S.-C. Ailincăi, A.-D. Popescu & S. Hansen (Eds.), Objects, Ideas and Travelers. Contacts between the Balkans, the Aegean and Western Anatolia during the Bronze and Early Iron Age: Volume to the memory of Alexandru Vulpe. Proceedings of the Conference in Tulcea, 10–13 November, 2017 (pp. 31-42). Dr. Rudolf Habelt.
Sindbæk, S. M. (2020). Anmeldelse af Jeanette Varberg, Viking. Ild, Ran og Sværd. Kuml: Årbog for Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, 2020, 370-373.
Larsen, J. S., Frederiksen Madsen, C., Knudsen Møller, K. & Lindorf Jakobsen, T. (Eds.) (2020). Anno Domini 20. Middelalderarkæologisk Forum. Anno Domini No. 20
Kock, J. & Hansen, V. (2020). Ardagh Glass Holmegaard: - emballageglas. Glasposten, 2020(4), 6-7.
Dobat, A. S. & Dobat, A. S. (2020). Arkæologi som terapi: Metaldetektor hobbyen og mental sundhed i Danmark. Arkæologisk Forum, 43, 11-24.
Shepherd, N. (2020). A slow catastrophe: Anthropocene futures and Cape Town's "Day Zero". In F. Riede & P. Sheets (Eds.), Going Forward by Looking Back: Archaeological Perspectives on Socio-Ecological Crisis, Response, and Collapse (pp. 397-424). Berghahn Books.
Høegsberg, M. S., Kristiansen, D. H., Larsen, L. K., Linaa, J. & Vinter, M. (2020). Bebyggelse på Samsø i vikingetid og middelalder. Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab. Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter Vol. 110
Sindbæk, S. M. (2020). Borgring and Harald Bluetooth's Burgenpolitik. In A. Pedersen & S. M. Sindbæk (Eds.), Viking encounters: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Viking Congress (pp. 529-543). Aarhus Universitetsforlag.
Atzbach, R. (2020). Burg und Straße: Überlegungen zur Topographie der Macht. In Burgenlandschaft Mittelrhein: Burg und Verkehr in Europa (pp. 175-184). Michael Imhof Verlag.
Atzbach, R., Ottersbach, C., Sørensen, C., Koch, J. & Wille-Jørgensen, D. (Eds.) (2020). Castles and Fortifications of the Reformation Period: Burgen und Befestigungen der Reformationszeit. Dr. Rudolf Habelt.
Nowell, A., Langley, M. C. & Riede, F. (2020). Children and innovation: A Wenner-Gren workshop. Evolutionary Anthropology, 29(1), 6-8. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21816
Sindbæk, S. M. (2020). Communities on the Edge: Retracing the Northern Emporia. In A. Gautier & L. Malbos (Eds.), Communautés maritimes et insulaires du premier Moyen Âge (Vol. 12, pp. 127-141). Brepols Publishers. https://doi.org/10.3390/D12040148
McAtackney, L. (2020). Contemporary Archaeology. In The Routledge Handbook of Global Historical Archaeology (pp. 215-230). Routledge.
McAtackney, L. (2020). Contemporary walls and Public Archaeology: An Interview with Laura McAtackney. In K. Gleave, H. Williams & P. Clarke (Eds.), Public Archaeologies of Frontiers and Borderlands (pp. 238-253). Archaeopress.
Reinig, F., Cherubini, P., Engels, S., Esper, J., Guidobaldi, G., Jöris, O., Lane, C., Nievergelt, D., Oppenheimer, C., Park, C., Pfanz, H., Riede, F., Schmincke, H. U., Street, M., Wacker, L. & Büntgen, U. (2020). Corrigendum to “Towards a dendrochronologically refined date of the Laacher See eruption around 13,000 years ago” (Quaternary Science Reviews (2020) 229, (S0277379119304159), (10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106128)). Quaternary Science Reviews, 232, Article 106215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106215
Carter, T., Harvey, D., Jones, R. & Robertson, I. (Eds.) (2020). Creating Heritage: Unrecognised Pasts and Rejected Futures. Routledge.
Riede, F., Araujo, A. G. M., Barton, M. C., Bergsvik, K. A., Groucutt, H. S., Hussain, S. T., Fernandez-Lopez de Pablo, J., Maier, A., Marwick, B., Pyne, L., Ranhorn, K., Reynolds, N., Riel-Salvatore, J., Sauer, F., Serwatka, K. & Zander, A. (2020). Cultural taxonomies in the Paleolithic—Old questions, novel perspectives. Evolutionary Anthropology, 29(2), 49-52. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21819
Atzbach, R. (2020). Das Palatium in Seligenstadt am Main. In C. Ehlers & H. Grewe (Eds.), Mittelalterliche Paläste und die Reisewege der Kaiser: Neue Entdeckungen in den Orten der Macht an Rhein und Main (pp. 146-163). Nünnerich-Asmus Verlag & Media.
Linaa, J. (2020). Days of wrath, days of friendship: the materiality of anger and love in early modern Denmark. In D. Hacke, C. Jarzebowski & H. Ziegler (Eds.), Matters of engagement: Emotions, Identity and Cultural Contact in the Premodern World (pp. 172-194). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429488689-11
Jørkov, M. L. S., Østergaard, S., Villa, C., Kanstrup, M., Mannino, M., Bergmann Møller, S., Olsen, J., Talamo, S. & Enggard Jørgensen, E. K. (2020). De døde fra massegraven i Tiendeladen, Aalborg. In M. Pedersen (Ed.), Oprør i Nordjylland (pp. 133-172). Aalborg Universitetsforlag.
Riede, F. & Jackson, R. C. (2020). Do deep-time disasters hold lessons for contemporary understandings of resilience and vulnerability? the case of the Laacher See volcanic eruption. In F. Riede & P. Sheets (Eds.), Going forward by looking back: archaeological perspectives on socio-ecological crisis, response, and collapse (pp. 19-53). Berghahn Books.
Sheng, P., Hu, Y., Sun, Z., Yang, L., Hu, S., Fuller, B. T. & Shang, X. (2020). Early commensal interaction between humans and hares in Neolithic northern China. Antiquity, 94(375), 622-636. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.36
Kristiansen, M. S., Iversen, R., Sørensen, L. & Grane, T. (2020). Editorial. Danish Journal of Archaeology, 9, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.7146/dja.v9i0.123479
Courel, B., Robson, H. K., Lucquin, A., Dolbunova, E., Oras, E., Adamczak, K., Andersen, S. H., Astrup, P. M., Charniauski, M., Czekaj-Zastawny, A., Ezepenko, I., Hartz, S., Kabaciński, J., Kabaciński, J., Kotula, A., Kukawka, S., Loze, I., Mazurkevich, A., Piezonka, H. ... Craig, O. E. (2020). Erratum: Organic residue analysis shows sub-regional patterns in the use of pottery by Northern European hunter-gatherers (Royal Society Open Science (2020) 7 (192016) Doi: 10.1098/rsos.192016). Royal Society Open Science, 7(7), Article 201168. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201168
Riede, F. (2020). Felix Riede. In L. Timbrell (Ed.), Conversations in Human Evolution (Vol. 1, pp. 9-14). Archaeopress. https://www.archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={9EC3227C-1A17-48FB-A713-98E8CDB7BCE1}
Fuller, B. T., Van Neer, W., Linseele, V., De Cupere, B., Chahoud, J. & Richards, M. P. (2020). Fish δ13C and δ15N results from two Bronze/Iron Age sites (Tell Tweini & Sidon) along the Levantine coast. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 29, Article 102066. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.102066
Kristensen, H. K. (2020). Frauenklöster im Mittelalterlichen Dänemark: Architektur und Archäologie. In F. Biermann, K. Frey & G. Gleba (Eds.), Mittelalterliche Zisterzienserinnenklöster im südwestlichen Ostseeraum: materielles Gut zwischen Alltag und Spiritualität : Beiträge einer Fachtagung im Dominikanerkloster Prenzlau vom 25.-28. September 2019 (Vol. 35, pp. 156-174). Brandenburgisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologisches Landesmuseum . https://katalog.ub.tu-braunschweig.de/vufind/Search2Record/1753389739