The European Commission’s FP7 PEOPLE PROGRAMME

FORGING IDENTITIES: The Mobility
of Culture in Bronze Age Europe

Initial Training Network ITN 2009-2012

The ITN Forging Identities1 will explore intercultural interaction in Bronze Age Europe – a golden epoch between 3000 and 500 BC with new patterns of social identification, specialised production, complex polities and wide-reaching networks across Europe.

 

  • How did cultural mobility impact on the social life of settlements?

  • How did the movement of people, animals, plants, things, ideas, and knowledge take place and on what scale?

  • How were European and regional identities forged through interaction?

 

These and other questions will be researched by building on European networking and by using a cross-disciplinary methodology combining archaeology, natural science and sociology. This shared platform shall create knowledge of the mobility of people and culture – including the new metal bronze – and insight into the forging of European and regional identities that shaped this remarkable period.


Detailed project description (95 kb)

Backed up by an overall economic framework of almost 3 million € over four years Forging Identities is expected to change current archaeological perspectives from national traditionalism towards transnational and cross-disciplinary engagements.

 

It consists of 7 network partners and 11 associated partners from universities, museums and specific research institutions across Europe. The network partners have considerable capacities in research training and will provide supervision and facilities for 10 ESRs (PhD stipends) and 4 ERs (postdoc stipends) to be employed soonest possible.


Description of training (84 kb)

Network partners will cooperate with each other in organising workshops, training courses, and summer schools.

 

Associated partners will provide extra supervision, field sites, data, and secondments offering specific training facilities in archaeology and front-line sciences. Field schools will take place each summer.




Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics | Aarhus University | Moesgård Allé 20 | DK-8270 Højbjerg | Denmark | Email: aal@au.dk | Tel: +45 8942 1111