Projects

MINERVA

The archaeology of the Roman Empire offers us a unique glimpse at how large integrated economies can evolve over centuries. However, understanding how centuries-long economic changes emerge from the day-to-day behaviour of individuals requires new methods and vast amounts of data. This project will combine for the first time state-of-the art computer simulation techniques from complexity economics, the integration of newly available large ceramics evidence from hundreds of sites across the Empire needed to test hypotheses, and the first highly detailed model of the Roman road network offering the medium for flows of goods and information.

https://projects.au.dk/minerva/

MINERVA co-developed Itiner-e, the gazetteer of Roman roads:

https://itiner-e.org/

Funded by the Independent Research Foundation Denmark (DFF) Sapere Aude research leadership grant (0163-00060B).

ERC The Model City. Drivers and Mechanisms of Long-term Urban Evolution and Resilience

Over ten thousand years ago, people began to settle close together, giving rise to the first cities. Since then, urban centers have emerged across all continents and throughout various historical periods. Yet, our understanding of how cities rise and fall—or why some flourish while others falter—remains limited.

The Model City Project harnesses cutting-edge computer technologies to simulate the intricate dynamics between city inhabitants, their built environments, and the economic and social flows that shape urban life. To achieve this, we draw on data meticulously gathered by generations of archaeologists who have studied some of the most significant ancient cities across the Roman Empire, Classical Mesoamerica, and Medieval Northern Europe.

By examining the past, we can uncover the paths cities took in response to challenges such as pandemics, climate crises, and conflicts, and apply these insights to address the complexities of our modern world.

Funded by the European Research Council (ERC).

The Past Social Networks Project

How do present-day social networks differ from those in the past, and how have these structures changed over centuries? The key to these important questions lies with archaeological and historical network research, offering the material and textual sources that document interactions between past individuals. But answering such questions is currently hampered by a number of challenges: past social network data are rarely being made open access and a methodological pipeline for comparative studies of centuries-long change in past social networks is missing. The Past Social Networks Project aims to address these challenges. It will establish the first open online repository to stimulate the practice of open publication, documentation and re-use of past social network data. Substantive case studies of social networks in the Roman Empire will inform the creation of this repository and of formal methods for comparing the structures of past social networks. It will organise networking activities to more firmly establish long-term change in past social networks on the network science research agenda.

Funded by The Carlsberg Foundation’s Young Researcher Fellowship (CF21-0382).

European City2. Computational Social Science Simulation for Democracy

European City2 aims to advance our understanding of collective decision-making by developing a state-of-the-art agent-based simulation (ABS) platform. This platform will serve as a virtual laboratory to experiment with and explore new dimensions of democratic processes. By integrating the latest breakthroughs in computer simulation technology, we are pioneering advanced social choice theory models, positioning our research at the cutting edge of computational social science (CSS).

The European City2 platform will incorporate powerful tools, such as large language models (LLMs), capable of generating and analysing synthetic data that mirrors real-world voter behaviour. It will also utilise Karl Friston’s Active Inference and Free Energy Principle and emerging quantum computation techniques to push the boundaries of what is possible in understanding and modelling complex social interactions.

By harnessing these advanced technologies, European City2 will offer deeper insights into how people make collective decisions, how different democratic processes unfold, and what factors influence voter behaviour. This project is not just about improving our simulation methodologies; it's about reimagining how we study and understand democracy itself. As we navigate the challenges of modern governance, European City2 will provide valuable perspectives that can inform and enhance democratic practices in real-world settings.

Funded by Horizon Europe.

AU co-PI: Kristoffer Nielbo.

MELICA

MELICA investigates the empirical basis of Cold-War preparedness in Aarhus. First by reconstructing the everyday experience of individuals living in Cold-War Aarhus through spatial analysis of shelter locations and text analysis of written sources to assess whether the evidence points towards a militarization of everyday life or ‘normalization’ of war. Second by identifying gaps between how Cold-War civil defense was conceptualized at the national level and delivered at the local level in Aarhus. Third by evaluating civil defense effectiveness by simulating a shelter drill, identifying weak points and stakeholders in civil defense.

Full title:
Modeling Everyday Life In Cold-War Aarhus: The Plan and the Reality of Civil Defense

Funded by The Augustinus Foundation.

PI: Adéla Sobotkova.

ROMNET

Social networks shape human behaviour and interactions. They are a medium through which beliefs, innovations, and diseases spread. An accurate reconstruction of past social networks using archaeological data is crucial for understanding cultural and disease transmissions in past and present human societies, but our empirical understanding of past social networks is in its infancy. How did social network structures change over centuries, and how did innovations and disease flow through them?

This data-driven project establishes interdisciplinary collaboration between archaeologists and network scientists to create the first integrated computational workflow for reconstructing past social networks from material culture data. It will enhance archaeological method and theory for network data representation of material culture data and for testing assumptions about how this data reflects past social networks. It will also enrich network science: archaeology provides network data with critical incompleteness issues but that is also rich in metadata. The project will enable studies on the diversity of social networks of our species, and how processes evolve over long time periods beyond the scope of current social network studies.

Full title:
Past social network reconstruction from material culture data

Funded by the Villum Foundation Synergy Programme (57402).

AU co-PI Tom Brughmans.

Agent-based modelling for archaeologists

The Agent Based Modelling for Archaeologists (ABMA) project was an international collaboration funded by Erasmus+. The collaboration involved Aarhus University, Leiden University, Landward Research, and Saxion University of Applied Sciences. This project has created open learning materials on ABM targeted at academic and professional archaeologists that can be integrated into training programmes, such as university curricula, employer continual professional development seminars, or used for self directed learning.

Funded by ERASMUS+

Dark Age Economics

The project tests key theories on the establishment of a monetary economy, the process of monetisation, during the Dark Ages in Northern Europe. By analyzing the silver content in early medieval coins, the project aims to identify the sources of the metal and shed light on whether monetary systems emerged through centralized power or among merchants crossing national borders.

Using cutting-edge archaeological scientific techniques, the determination of the origin of the silver 'sceattas' will shed light on the evolution of prehistoric economy, which may help predict the future of today's decentralized digital economies.

Full title:
Dark Age Economics: the rise of silver, monetisation and cashless currencies in Northern Europe and its relevance for today

Funded by the Independent Research Foundation Denmark (DFF).

PI: Tom Birch.