'Where are you going? Reconsidering migrations in the Metal Ages' - 9-10 November 2019

Population movements in the Metal Ages (from the Chalcolithic to the Late Iron Age) have become a major topic in the last years. Whereas human mobility – especially of elites and women – has long been assumed by archaeologists, it was the dawn of new bioarchaeological approaches that forced us to rethink scales of human mobility, their correlation with gender and their societal impact in the last decade. Genetic analyses have provided ample data for the movement of a large and predominantly male group of individuals from the Eurasian steppes to the west, while strontium isotope analyses have unfolded an extent and complexity of female mobility that has exceeded our expectations by far.

It is now time to rethink human mobility in the Metal Ages by integrating all possible archaeological data, from traditional typological analysis to new a-DNA approaches. How did large-distance migrations and gender-based mobilities interact? How was travel organised? What routes did they follow? And by what means did they travel? How did patterns of mobility change during the Metal Ages? How much are our “migrations” just the outcome of long-term institutionalised mobilities of individuals e.g. due to patrilocal residence rules? How can we link global and local perspectives on mobility?

This conference is organised by Manuel Fernández-Götz (University of Edinburgh) together with Philipp Stockhammer (Ludwig Maximilians Universität München), Courtney Nimura (University of Oxford), and Rachel Cartwright (University of Minnesota).

Image: Iron Age coins © Trustees of the British Museum