Landscape Archaeology Conference 2016
The 4th international Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC2016) meeting organized by the Department of Archaeology & Ancient History (DAAH),
Uppsala University 23-25 August 2016 in Sweden was a big success; it was the largest LAC meeting yet. It drew a record number of 323 registered participants from 36 countries originating from multiple disciplines ranging from geology, geography to archaeology, landscape history and anthropology.
The nature of presentations, discussions and interactions during the conference illustrated the progress that has been made in interdisciplinary research between the sciences and humanities in the current decade. Compared to the first meeting of the international Landscape Archaeology Conference in Amsterdam in 2010, the academic community of researchers in archaeology, geology and related sciences has evidently matured and grown in interdisciplinary interaction. This was clearly illustrated by the lively debates in virtually all of the 26 oral and poster sessions. LAC2016 was preceded on 22 August 2016 by a one-day event organized by IHOPE around the theme ‘If the Past Teaches, What Does the Future Learn?’.
At the end of the conference two prizes for best student posters were awarded to Leanne Phelps (Lausanne University, Switzerland, 1st prize) and Ricarda Braun (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany). During the conference information on the aims, agenda and concept statutes of the International Association of Landscape Archaeology (IALA) was provided. Participants also had the chance to visit the site of Gamla Uppsala in glorious sunshine during the afternoon of the second day of the conference, where volunteers from DAAH gave a series of guided tours and showed off a new digital reconstruction app about the site, specially launched in time for LAC2016.
Those who stayed for the conference dinner were treated to a spectacular fire-breathing and dancing show by the Trix group of performance artists, as dusk turned to night. The 5th international Landscape Archaeology Conference, LAC2018, will be organized by Dan Lawrence and Graham Fairclough of the universities of Durham and Newcastle in the United Kingdom.