Deep Histories of Migration: The early Neolithic around the North Sea

Seminar with Postdoctoral researcher Mathias Bjørnevad-Ahlqvist and PhD fellow Mikkel Nørtoft from University of Copenhagen.

The Deep Histories of Migration project seeks to study the processes of migration, mobility, and cultural change at the start of the Neolithic in Denmark, Britain, and Ireland. This period saw one of the most dramatic changes in prehistory, as agriculture, new cultural practices and technologies spread through the migration of people across Europe, as shown by recent aDNA analysis. The current big-picture aDNA-produced narratives often do not take into account the archaeological evidence nor the nuance of migration as a social process. Thus, as a counterpoint, we will present the results of this project that focus on identifying and assessing potential cultural connections by combining statistical analysis of ritual practices across the North Sea with the re-analysis of published aDNA data, all the while critically contextualizing and grounding these results in qualitative archaeological observations of specific sites and artefacts.

Part of the Archaeology Research Seminar Series - Spring 2024