Erika Weiberg

erika.weiberg@antiken.uu.se

My speciality is Aegean prehistory, with focus on landscape- and settlement archaeology and human-environment dynamics.

My research is characterized by explorations into theories, methods and thematic that may serve to highlight the human experiences of life on different levels.  I combine micro level and macro level analyses, focusing on agents as well as process, to understand local and regional variations and sequences of events. The goal is to emphasize in a meaningful and well-informed way the potentials and limitations in the available material, in order to place the (pre)historic individuals in a multidimensional reality, shaped by people in active interaction with their surroundings. 

During the last ten years, my research has primarily been focused on issues of human-environment dynamics through collaborations paleoenvironmental specialists, studying the couplings between societal change, environmental change and climate variability. The study of transitional periods especially put emphasis on the causes and essence of change, considering what changed and what did not and thus the variable resilience of different societal structures. As a product of this interest, I am also involved in projects to increase the number of paleoenvironmental records from the Peloponnese (Greece), stemming from wetlands and caves in the region.

Key words: Greek prehistory, with emphasis on the Bronze Age of the Greek mainland (ca. 3200-1050 BCE): human-environment interaction, climate reconstruction, landscape archaeology, spatial analysis, societal processes, resilience, vulnerability, interdisciplinary methods. 

Project in progress

Climate and ancient societies in Bronze Age Peloponnese (CASE)

completed Projects

Domesticated landscapes of the Peloponnese (2015-2020)

The project Domesticated Landscapes of the Peloponnese (DoLP) started in October 2015 and ran for four years with funding from the Swedish Research Council (project no. 421-2014-1181). The project integrated archaeological, historical, environmental and climatological perspectives in a comparative study of the variegated landscapes of the Peloponnesian peninsula (Greece) from the Neolithic to the Roman era. The project also involved intra-disciplinary perspectives in the comparative and contrasting use of archaeology and historical records on the side of the humanities, and climatological and environmental data on the side of the natural sciences. As such the project spanned a number of traditionally separate research areas and university subjects.

Societies in transition (2012-2014)

The project studied societal transformations in the Greek Bronze Age from a resilience perspective, i.e.through analysis of different systems’ ability to cope with change and continue to evolve. This ability is central for current studies of sustainable development and a growing focus in archaeological studies, with studies of the multidimensional dynamics of change, of human flexibility and resolve, and of continuity through change. One potential key in this context is the resilience based theory on adaptive cycles. In the light of this model of hierarchically arranged processes of varying length and speed, it is clear that continuity and change always works in parallel, albeit on different temporal and spatial scales.

The project was organized around two case studies, made up from two chronological periods for which contemporary societal ups and downs are available to be contrasted. The cognitive essence of these changes was sought through analyses of their practical appearance in settlement dynamics and material culture. The main objectives were: (1) to evaluate the potential of the resilience perspective for archaeological interpretations, and thus expand the traditionally employed theoretical framework; (2) to thereby seek nuanced and more comprehensive understandings of four societal transformations in the Greek Bronze Age, and (3) to bring the results to bear on the study of societies in transition today and in all times.

This project was 2011 awarded three years research funds from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) and The Swedish Research Council.

Collaborative projects
 

Svunna landskap / Past landscapes

Urban Mind