A Place for the Heathlands

Oscar Aldred is an archaeologist. His research focus is on landscape archaeology, excavation, post-excavation analysis, and archaeological methodology and theory in the setting of the North Atlantic and the UK. Aldred is particularly interested in the dynamics of past movement (both human and nonhuman), seasonal settlements, landscapes, and multispecies approaches to understanding the past.

Stijn Arnoldussen is associate professor in later prehistory at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research focuses on the fabric of the (agri)cultural landscape in the Bronze Age and Iron Age, exploring the ways in which agricultural plots, settled areas, and zones of deposition and burial were interrelated in the past. He has excavated many Dutch prehistoric field systems and settlement sites, but also has a weak spot for the analysis of pottery and prehistoric bronzes. Rumour has it that he is even drawn to monastic archaeology, which he generally denies.

Hermann Behling is professor in botany and head of the department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics at the University of Göttingen, Germany. His research focuses on pollen analysis and palaeoecology, tracing environmental indicators such as pollen, spores, and charcoal to explore how climate, fire, and humans have changed the environment in the past.

Helle Bovbjerg is a ceramic artist, with an often site-specific practice. Working with locally sourced clay, her pieces explore the tactile connection between material and place. Bovbjerg is co-director of the artist-run space Driftskontoret at the Bruunshaab Gamle Papfabrik museum in Viborg, west Jutland, and co-founder of GenJord, an initiative dedicated to integrating sustainability in the ceramic profession.

M. Jane Bunting’s research focuses on the dynamics of cultural landscapes. She is interested in how environments and ecosystems “work” and evolve over the long term, and in how palaeoecological information can be better translated to enable more effective collaboration between archaeologists, conservation scientists, ecologists, environmental historians, and earth-system scientists. Her main analytical technique is pollen analysis, and her current research is focused around better understanding of how the pollen signal reflects land cover around a sampled site.

Jens-Henrik Bech has worked as a prehistoric archaeologist in Thy, northwest Denmark, for more than forty years. His research focuses on Bronze Age landscape, settlement, and land use.

Emilie Bregendahl has a MA in archaeology. Her area of interest is prehistoric human–animal relations, specifically burial contexts, and her work applies osteological analysis to address the understanding of interspecies relationships in the Danish Single Grave Culture. Her fascination with bones and archaeological oddities extends to the shelves of her workspace, where she has a collection of horse tibiae.

Althea Davies is a palaeoecologist and environmental geographer. Her research is interdisciplinary and focuses on long-term human–environment interactions. Her specialisms are the contribution of palaeoecology to conservation, and environmental history and biocultural heritage.

Rasmus Ejrnæs is professor in biodiversity in the department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University. His research focuses on conservation planning and ecological restoration, with an emphasis on protected areas. Ejrnæs played a key role in Denmark’s red data book of threatened species and in its national biodiversity map, as well as the design of the National Monitoring Programme for Terrestrial Biodiversity in Denmark (NOVANA) and the reporting of conservation status of habitats to the EU.

Emmy Laura P. Fjalland is a writer and cultural geographer. She works on the intersection of landscapes, human–environment relationships, and socioenvironmental worldmaking, with an emphasis on care, reparation, and ecological literacy. Her work highlights the integration of cultural narratives with environmental change, contributing to a deeper understanding of regenerative and sustainable practices. She specializes in studying the dynamics of commons and ecocultural responses, examining how these frameworks foster resilience and transformation in both social and ecological systems.

Estella Fabian is a master’s student at the University of Göttingen, Germany, studying biodiversity, ecology, and evolution. Her work has focused on the pollen analysis of podzol samples, and she works as student assistant in the department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics, Göttingen.

Michelle Farrell is a palaeoecologist. Her primary research interest is the complex and dynamic relationships between prehistoric societies and the natural environment, particularly how cultural responses to environmental change can act to limit or exacerbate its effects on socioecological systems. Her research integrates long-term perspectives on nature–culture relationships with contemporary environmental challenges, aiming to show how a deeper understanding of the past can contribute to environmental management in the present. Her work is interdisciplinary, collaborating with archaeologists, ecologists, and local communities to link (pre)historical insights with modern conservation efforts. Her work underscores the relevance of ancient knowledge for today’s dialogue on land use and sustainability.

Bo Fritzbøger is an environmental historian researching the complex relations between human societies and their physical environments from the Middle Ages until today. In recent years, his focus has increasingly been upon the interdependencies of knowledge production and circulation on the one hand, and land use and nature perception on the other. He specializes in forests and forestry.

Gudrun Gormsen is an ethnologist specializing in Danish agricultural history, with a particular focus on west Jutland and the Jutland heath districts. Her research explores the interplay between landscape and farming practices so as to offer insights into living conditions and everyday life in rural communities. Gormsen’s work examines patterns of practice, shedding light on the economic and social organization that shaped these environments.

Kirstine S. Gregersen is an archaeologist working on the archaeobotanical analysis of preserved plant remains from archaeological excavations, especially in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age agro-pastoral landscapes. Her research explores the connections between social organization and land use, particularly how collective management may have been utilized by prehistoric communities to sustainably manage vast areas of fields, grassland, and heathlands.

Karen Grønneberg is a designer and editor whose practice centres on publishing. With a focus on interdisciplinary approaches and fostering social sustainability, she facilitates collaborations between cultural institutions, artists, and communities.

Mark Haughton is an archaeologist. His research explores the social lives and experiences of people living in the prehistoric past and how they became entangled with plants, animals, landscapes, and other forces. His work has addressed how various aspects of human identity, such as gender, age, and social structure, are co-created with the material world and other beings. He is currently working on a European Union funded project assessing how newly arrived wool transformed societies in Britain in later prehistory.

Ellen Martine Heuser is a visual artist specializing in sculpture that explores intersections between landscapes, architecture, and commemorative practice. Her artistic research delves into the dynamic tension between prehistoric memorials and contemporary sculpture. Currently, she is engaged in collaborative rural projects in Denmark and Spain, intertwining art, education, and pastoral traditions.

Shumon Hussain is a deep-time archaeologist working on mutual dependence between human and nonhuman lifeways in the Pleistocene and early Holocene periods, often with an emphasis on how other animals contributed to or took advantage of human cultures. Their research integrates multispecies theory and approaches with archaeological material culture studies and palaeoecology, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of more-than-human systems of past livelihood.

Marie K. Iversen is a visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans installation, video, and performance, often engaging with themes of temporality, memory, and ecological interconnectedness. Her work draws on scientific and mythological frameworks to explore the relationships between human and nonhuman entities. Through examinations of material phenomena such as colours, light, minerals, and patterns, Iversen probes the boundaries between the visible and the invisible, the real and the imaginative. Her research-based projects often involve collaboration with scientists, musicians, and other cultural practitioners, resulting in artworks that offer multilayered perspectives on both natural and cultural systems.

Lotte Isager is an anthropologist and curator and project leader at the Cultural History Museums, Holstebro. Since 2019, Isager has worked in collaboration with Line V. Knudsen on the development of the Multispecies Museum project, in which plants and animals are incorporated into cultural history research and museum exhibitions.

Jan Jansen is a vegetation ecologist. He is currently a visiting scholar at the department of Ecology, Radboud University, the Netherlands. He obtained his PhD on flora, vegetation, and ecological problems related to socioeconomic developments in the interior of Portugal.

Peter M. Jensen is an archaeologist whose practice focuses on the archaeobotanical analysis of preserved plant remains from archaeological excavations, with a broad emphasis on Danish material from both prehistoric and early historic times. His research highlights the integration of archaeological finds with plant material, contributing to a deeper understanding of human plant exploitation in the past.

Thea M. Jensen is an art historian at the University of Copenhagen, where she is currently pursuing a PhD entitled “In the metamorphic zone: unfolding nature–culture phenomena in sixteenth-century Europe.” Drawing on ecocritical and new materialist theories, her research investigates artistic interpretations of materiality and its relationship to perceptions of landscapes and the environment in early modern Europe. Her studies explore the intersections of art and natural science, and their manifestation in artisan workshops, garden designs, Wunderkammer collections, and artificial grottoes.

Line V. Knudsen is an ethnologist and associate professor in Studies of Cultural Heritage at the University of Aalborg, Denmark. Since 2019, Vestergaard Knudsen has worked in collaboration with Lotte Isager at the Cultural History Museums, Holstebro, on the development of the Multispecies Museum project, in which plants and animals are incorporated into cultural history research and museum exhibitions.

Johanna Krug is a master’s student of biodiversity, ecology, evolution, and conservation at the University of Göttingen, Germany. Her work in the department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics focuses on vegetation history and human influence on the landscape of the Totenstatt, a Neolithic burial ground located in the Lüneburg Heath in northwest Germany.

Jannie K. Larsen is an anthracologist or research specialist in prehistoric charcoal. Her work focuses on charred plant remains, specializing in species identification and plant use. Her research aims to highlight how environmental science can contribute to a deeper understanding of prehistoric activities.

Mette Løvschal is professor in Archaeology working on human–nature dynamics in a deep-time perspective, with emphasis on changes in the uses and perceptions of cultural landscapes. She is PI in the ANTHEA Anthropogenic Heathlands project at Aarhus University, Denmark, investigating the earliest emergence of heathlands in northern Europe and their unique capacity to persist or re-establish. Her research has contributed to a deeper understanding of the social and ecological dynamics, and the consequences, of the fencing and enclosure of landscapes in late prehistoric times as well as in contemporary landscapes.

David T. Mehlsen is an anthropologist working on the dynamic relationships between human societies and landscapes. His research highlights the integration of environmental studies with humanist perspectives, contributing to a deeper understanding of how power and politics influence our current ecological crises. He specializes in contemporary heath preservation, examining how different actors relate to the history of the rapidly disappearing dry inland heaths of Denmark.

Morten F. Mortensen is a biologist specializing in environmental archaeology. His research, grounded in pollen analysis, focuses on landscape development over the past 15,000 years, with an emphasis on human impact and the utilization of natural resources.

Julia Menne is an archaeologist at the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage, Lüneburg, Germany. She is currently researching the Neolithic period in Lower Saxony, specifically the Lüneburg Heath and the Oldendorfer Totenstatt site. Her specializations include the Neolithic period, human–environmental interactions, megalithic monuments, and the analysis of ceramics. Her work is interdisciplinary and aims to integrate scientific disciplines with archaeological inquiry.

Birgitte Munk is a visual artist whose practice combines textiles, photography, and printmaking in site-specific installations. Her work explores the interplay of texture and narrative, delving into the relationship between the ordinary and the profound through studies of materials and locations. Munk is curator and co-director of Enter ArtSpace in Aarhus, where she presents contemporary art by Danish and international artists.

Marianne Noer is a weaving artist whose practice explores intangible cultural heritage through material and rural craft traditions. Her work stems from site-specific narratives and reflects on shifting weather patterns, biodiversity loss, and the decline of traditional crafts. Inspired by the landscapes of western Jutland – from the windswept west coast to the expansive heathlands – Noer investigates the intersections of past, present, and future in the “making” of objects on the loom, blending craft traditions with contemporary perspectives.

Kenneth Olwig is a cultural geographer and philologist. His work focuses on landscape, with an emphasis on disciplinary cooperation between geography, archaeology, anthropology, and philology. His research highlights the integration of nature with culture, contributing to a deeper understanding of their synergy. He specializes in studying what he calls the “substantive landscape,” examining how law (both natural and cultural) has shaped the meaning and pragmatic reality of landscape.

Susan Oosthuizen is a landscape historian/archaeologist whose practice focuses on early medieval rural landscapes, with an emphasis on commons. Oosthuizen’s research contributes to deeper understanding of social-environmental resilience by highlighting the influence of long-term traditions of collective governance on evolution, adaptation, and innovation in productive landscapes across the longue durée.

Reidar Pritzel is a graphic designer working with web development. With an interest in the web from a historical and a political perspective, he works to create direct and accessible websites. This involves investigating tools and methods that can implement solutions that meet both functional and design requirements.

Mans Schepers is assistant professor in archaeobotany at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research explores human–environment interaction through the analysis of plant remains from archaeological contexts. He aims to question, and sometimes correct, classical ideas about ecosystems that are currently considered hostile, threatening, and/or unproductive. This explains his odd fascination for reconstruction drawings.

Lucy Seton-Watson is a former editor of International Affairs journal, London. She worked on medieval urban architecture in Cairo, Egypt, and now lives in Aarhus, studying the nineteenth-century English novel and helping researchers with their writing.

Mads Sandholm is a graphic designer and art director based in Copenhagen. His practice is centred around visual identities and editorial design, with an emphasis on typography and image making. He takes an exploratory approach and engages in ongoing collaborations, often within the fields of culture, music, and art.

Michael Vinter is an archaeologist whose work explores the interplay between human societies and their environments, with a particular focus on the material culture and landscapes of prehistoric Denmark. His research integrates traditional archaeological methods with technologies like aerial photography to examine how past societies adapted to and shaped their surroundings. Vinter specializes in the study of settlement patterns and land-use systems, focusing on how these practices resonate with contemporary questions of sustainability and heritage preservation.