Events

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

  • Talks of the Past open seminar: From Phonology to Phylogeny: Inferring Language Trees from Cognate Word Forms

    Blåsenhus, seminar room 13:027 (ground floor) von Kraemers allé 1, Uppsala, Sweden

    Abstract Linguistic phylogenies are commonly inferred from abstract cognate classifications that encode relationships among lexemes. Although widespread, this practice has well-recognised limitations: it discards phylogenetic signal contained in segmental word forms, restricts the range of evolutionary questions that can be addressed, and treats cognacy judgments, which are hypotheses in their own right, as observed data. […]

  • Human Past Journal Club

    Villa Lugnet von Kraemers allé 8, Uppsala, Sweden, Sweden

    Paper to discuss: Colleter, R., Jaouen, K., Garcia, D., & Richards, M.P. (2026). Dietary inequality marker reveals 10,000 years of gender and cultural disparity in Europe, PNAS Nexus, vol. 5 (4), pgag033, https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/4/pgag033/8586686 Discussion moderators: Mattias Sjölander & Daniel Brown, CHP postdoctoral researchers Abstract Diet is a key to evaluating social and health inequalities over […]

  • SCAS Seminar: Echoes of Preliterate Voices on the Shores of the Baltic Sea, with Anthony Jakob

    Thunberg Hall, Linneanum Thunbergsvägen 2, Uppsala, Sweden

    Abstract When people think of their ancestry, they are often just as concerned with the origins of their linguistic and cultural identity as they are with their genetic history. And while modern advances in ancient DNA have dramatically improved our understanding of prehistoric population movements, genes do not themselves carry language. The fields of population […]

  • Mini-Seminar: Biomolecular perspectives on Corded Ware subsistence: integrating isotopic, proteomic and lipid evidence in the context of steppe-derived economies, with Łukasz Pospieszny

    Villa Lugnet von Kraemers allé 8, Uppsala, Sweden, Sweden

    Abstract Recent advances in biomolecular archaeology have transformed our understanding of prehistoric subsistence strategies, yet their implications for broader questions of mobility, environment and language dispersal remain insufficiently integrated. This presentation explores dietary practices among Corded Ware populations through a combination of stable isotope analysis, palaeoproteomics and organic residue analysis of ceramics. Stable isotope data […]

  • Talks of the Past Open Seminar: The Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe 5000 Years Ago, speaker Volker Heyd

    Blåsenhus, seminar room 13:027 (ground floor) von Kraemers allé 1, Uppsala, Sweden

    Abstract This lecture examines the westward migration of Yamnaya populations from the Pontic-Caspian steppes into southeastern Europe around 3100–3000 BCE, reaching as far as the Tisza region in present-day Hungary. Archaeological evidence, particularly distinctive kurgan burials with standardised funerary practices, marks their presence across regions such as Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary. Despite the apparent […]

  • Mini-Seminar: An agenda for palaeosociolinguistics. Using ethnographic models to interpret patterns in historical linguistics, with Roger Blench

    Villa Lugnet von Kraemers allé 8, Uppsala, Sweden, Sweden

    Abstract One major problem for dating the origin and dispersal of language phyla, or indeed their individual branches, is that they do not  diversify at a standard rate. Once the great hope for dating language families, and regularly invented with ‘new’ mathematical methods and improved algorithms, glottochronology continues to fail to convince all but small […]

  • Talks of the Past Open Seminar: Archaeology, Genetics and Language, with examples from Germanic and Celtic

    Blåsenhus, seminar room 13:027 (ground floor) von Kraemers allé 1, Uppsala, Sweden

    Invited seminar speaker: Kristian Kristiansen Kristian Kristiansen – an interdisciplinary researcher, professor of archaeology at the Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, and an affiliate professor at Globe Institute, Lundbeck Centre for Geogenetics, Copenhagen University.

  • Mini-Seminar: Politicised prehistories: How Archaeologists Can Counter the Far-Right Appropriation of Prehistory

    Villa Lugnet von Kraemers allé 8, Uppsala, Sweden, Sweden

    Abstract Over the last few decades, increasing numbers of researchers who study the past have noticed their research being appropriated by bad-faith far-right actors. Selective archaeological motifs and data/interpretations from our papers are being spread across far-right online spaces to justify racist, misogynistic and homophobic views. This has become so prevalent that it is even […]

  • Talks of the Past Open Seminar: Hunter-gatherer ancestry in Zambian BaTwa populations – Genetics, archaeology and discussion of results with study participants

    Blåsenhus, seminar room 13:027 (ground floor) von Kraemers allé 1, Uppsala, Sweden

    Abstract Sub-equatorial Africa is today inhabited predominantly by Bantu-speaking groups of Western African descent, whose ancestors, in many cases, replaced, displaced, or assimilated local hunter-gatherer groups. In eastern Zambia, there is evidence of Bantu-speaking agriculturalists from circa 2000 years ago. Little is known about the genetic affinities of the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the area before […]

  • Mini-Seminar: Plant gatherers, plant managers or agriculturalists? Investigating people-plant relationships in early prehistory.

    Villa Lugnet von Kraemers allé 8, Uppsala, Sweden, Sweden

    Abstract What plant foods did hunter-gatherers in N-W Europe eat? Was the way hunter-gatherers and farmers used and interacted with plants fundamentally different? How did prehistoric farmers grow their crops? The scale and nature of human-plant interactions and plant subsistence strategies in early prehistory have been rigorously debated. Although past understandings of prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies […]

  • Talks of the Past Open Seminar: Cultural Creolization in Ostrobothnia, Finland: An Interdisciplinary View on Burials, Exchange, and Social Identity

    Blåsenhus, seminar room 12:010 von Kraemers allé 1, Uppsala, Sweden

    Abstract This talk explores a remarkable Iron Age burial from Pukkila in western Finland, dating to around AD 700, where a cremated individual was laid to rest in a boat alongside weapons, ritual objects, and artefacts from across Scandinavia, eastern Europe, and the north. Rather than fitting neatly into a single cultural or ethnic category, […]