EUR ArChal Training Week

During the last decades there has been a renew of interest for the study of ancient conflicts but also the development of new feeds of investigation, about more recent conflicts, namely war archaeology and archaeology of terror. The training week will focus on the theoretical conceptualisation of conflicts in the past and present and case studies. Insight into current conflict theory will serve to contextualise the various case studies presented from Egyptology, the Archaeology of Western Asia, Classical and Prehistoric Archaeology. The case studies deal with the many facets of conflicts and thus present contributions from military/battlefield archaeology, social and symbolic dimensions of conflicts, archaeology of terror and war archaeology. They are based on various sources of material culture, visual and written evidence. In a concluding round table, the theoretical concepts and the archaeological case studies will be brought together in a synthesis.

Monday 26th – Friday 30th May 2025

Freie Universität Berlin
Seminarzentrum, Otto-von-Simson-Straße 26, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem

Challenge 3: Conflicts, mobility and migrations

Pascal Butterlin (Professor, Paris 1)
Elke Kaiser & Dominik Bonatz (Professors, FU Berlin)

Program

Monday 26th May

9:30-10:00 – Welcome notes.
10:00-11:00 – Jannis Grimm (FU Berlin, Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Friedens und Konfliktforschung), Studying Hot Conflicts without Burning Yourself: Academic Integrity in the Context of Gaza.
11:30-12:30 – Rafael Millán (Institute of Heritage Sciences – CSIC, Madrid), Beyond Words: What archaeology reveals about conflict, social repression and resistance.
14:00-15:00 – Jörg Orschiedt (FU Berlin, Museum Halle), Evidence of violent behaviour in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic.

Migrations as driving forces of conflicts?

15:00-16:00 – Agathe Reingruber (FU Berlin), Colonisation or collaboration? Conflicting views on the Neolithisation of the Aegean sphere.
16:30-17:30 – Wolfram Schier (FU Berlin), Farmers with a migration background?

Archaeological case studies

17:30-18:30 – Sabine Reinhold (DAI Berlin), Bronze Age wheeled vehicles in the Caucasus - A matter of prestige or warfare?

Tuesday 27th May

Migrations as driving forces of conflicts?

9:30-10:30 –Elke Kaiser (FU Berlin), Threat from the Eastern European Steppe around 3000 BCE?

Archaeological case studies

10:30-11:30 – Judith Thomalsky (DAI Berlin), Science as a tool of peaceability. Perspectives from Persia.
12:00-13:00 – Andrea Gaucci & Claudio Cavazzuti (UNIBO), Weapons and Conflicts in Northern Italy. Societies between Bronze and Iron Ages: archaeological evidence, models and related issues.

14:00-15:30 – Guided tour to the Ihnestrasse Memorial, Dahlem, by Susan Pollock.
16:30-18:00 – Panorama of the Pergamon altar on the museum’s island (Y. Asisi).

Wednesday 28th May

9:30-10:30 – Ana Sofia de Carvalho Gomes (FU Berlin), History for Sale: Looters, Collectors, and the Fate of Egyptian Antiquities.
10:30-11:30 – Regine Hunziker-Rodenwald (FU Berlin), Broken Icons: Statue Mutilation as Counter-Memorial Practice.

Battlefield Archaeology

12:00-13:00 – T. Schatte (FU Berlin), The Late Roman Battle field at the Harzhorn, Germany.

Archaeology of the 20th century

14:00-15:00 – Reinhard Bernbeck & Susan Pollock (FU Berlin), Archaeology of a Muslim Prisoner-of-War Camp near Berlin.
15:00-16:00 – Mathilde Mura (University Aix-Marseille), Scars of war, an archaeology of military trenching in Iraq from World War I to the present day.
16:30-17:30 – Barbara Helwing (Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin), Digging the museum: learning about museum concepts from dismantling the Pergamon Museum

Thursday 29th May

10:15-12:00 – Guided tour at ‘Topografie des Terrors’.
15:00-17:00 – Guided tour by Reinhard Bernbeck at the Tempelhofer Feld.

Friday 30th May

Archaeology of the 20th century

9:30-12:00 – Archaeological excavations at Sobibor and Auschwitz-Birkenau: new historical, museographic and filmic perspectives, with Arnaud Sauli (filmmaker) and Ania Szczepanska (University of Paris 1).
Screening of ‘La terre s'ouvrit une dernière fois’ (2022, 52') and excerpts from “Sous la terre” (2025, 63'), English subtitles.
12:00-13:00 – Pascal Butterlin (University of Paris 1), How do you kill a city and its people, The destruction of Mari, CA 2300 BC.
14:00-15:00 – Dominik Bonatz (FU Berlin), The Monumental Response to Conflicts: Fortifications in the Early Iron Age Southern Levant.
15:30 – Presentations of the collaborative groups of M1 and M2 students and Closing discussion: Synthesis of the training week.