INTERPRETING IDENTITY OUR CONSTRUCT OR THEIRS?
A two day symposium exploring prehistoric identity in Europe.
PROGRAMME
Friday 27th May
13.30 – 14.30: Registration in the Elmwood Building alongside tea and coffee
14.30 – 16.00: Session One: Material culture of the dead
The warriors and their brides – burial customs, gender roles and long-term cyclical change in
European Bronze Age societies (c. 2500 - 500 BC) - Dr Dirk Brandherm (Queen's University Belfast)
Origin is in the Eye of the Beholder: Analysis for in-grave “Eye-dentity” - Samantha Reiter (Aarhus
University, Denmark)
Broken mirrors? Archaeological reflections on identity - Nicole Taylor (Christian-AlbrechtsUniversität zu Kiel, Germany)
16.00 – 17.00: International keynote speaker: Prof. Helle Vandkilde, Aarhus University
“Travelling cultures” in theoretical and archaeological perspective.
Helle Vandkilde has been a Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark since 2004 and among
others coordinates the ‘Forging Identities: The mobility of culture in Bronze Age Europe’
research project. Her research interests include: material culture as carrier of culture and
memory; the relationship between archaeology and social anthropology; war and warriorhood;
Bronze Age social practice and social identification and global processes.
17.00 – 18.30:
Wine reception and posters
18.30 onwards: Speaker’s conference dinner
20.30 onwards: All delegates are invited to an evening pub quiz (venue to be confirmed)
Saturday 28th May
9.30 – 11.00:
Session Two: Material culture of the living
Human bone as material culture of the living in Bronze Age Ireland - Dr Kerri Cleary (Knowth
Excavation Publication)
Irish Iron Age identities - Dr Katharina Becker (University of Bradford)
Title TBA - Dr Eoin Grogan (Eoin Grogan is a pottery expert who specialises in landscape
archaeology and social analysis of Neolithic and Bronze Age societies)
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen’s University, Belfast on Friday 27th–28th May 2011.
INTERPRETING IDENTITY OUR CONSTRUCT OR THEIRS?
A two day symposium exploring prehistoric identity in Europe.
11.00 – 11.20: Tea, coffee and posters
11.20 – 12.50: Session Three: Architectural and ritual expressions
Under the same night sky - the architecture and meaning of Bronze Age stone circles in
mid-Ulster - Michael MacDonagh (NRA Senior Archaeologist)
Neolithic tombs in Ireland - Jessica Howe (University at Buffalo)
Contextualising Beakers: the role of Beaker objects in the construction of regional and
supra-regional social identities in Ireland - Neil Carlin (UCD School of Archaeology)
12.50 – 13.50: Lunch
13.50 – 15.20: Session Four: Our construct or theirs?
Reconstructing prehistoric identities on Achill Island. A case study in utter failure? - Stuart
Rathbone (Achill Field School)
The trowel as chisel. Shaping modern Romanian identity through the Iron Age - Catalin Popa
(University of Cambridge)
There is no identity: discuss - Dene Wright (University of Glasgow)
15.20 – 15.40: Tea, coffee and posters
15.40 – 16.10: Debate session
16.10 – 17.00: Guest closing speaker: Dr Joanna Brück, University College Dublin
Dr. Joanna Brück is a Senior Lecturer at University College Dublin who’s eminent research
focuses on the British Bronze Age, settlements and landscapes, ritual and ideology and
personhood.
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen’s University, Belfast on Friday 27th–28th May 2011.