Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA)

Our mission is to continually develop archaeological methods within a broad interdisciplinary field (social, historical, natural, geological and life sciences as well as computer science), across various geographical areas (all Europe, North Africa, Central America, the Arctic, among others), and throughout all periods of human history (from the palaeolithic to contemporary history).

This mission features two unique aspects within the international field of archaeological sciences:

  1. A broad basis of research and teaching in all epochs of human history from the palaeolothic to the modern and contemporary periods.
  2. An internationally singular focus on non-invasive exploration of archaeological landscapes by using cutting-edge methods of archaeological prospection in interdisciplinary connection with the natural sciences.

The key research areas of the scientific staff cover a broad spectrum and are another unique feature of the Department. One focus is on the documentation of material sources and their interpretation in terms of Material Cultural Studies and as evidence for social history and economic history.

The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Katharina REBAY-SALISBURY

Management Board

Katharina Rebay-Salisbury is professor of Prehistory of Humanity at the University of Vienna and directs the research group ‘Prehistoric Identities’ at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Enthusiastic about the European Bronze and Iron Ages, her research focusses on combining interdisciplinary approaches for insights into people’s lives, identities and social relations in prehistory. Her current research explores themes such as sex and gender, motherhood, kinship, mobility and migration through ERC and FWF-funded projects analyzing burial contexts and human remains from Central Europe.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Members

Ana M. HERRERO CORRAL

Dr. Ana M. Herrero Corral is a Marie-Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Prehistory and WANA Archaeology, of the Austrian Archaeological Institute. She has a master's degree in Physical Anthropology and a PhD in Prehistory from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Her main research focuses on the social role that children of recent prehistory would have within their communities through the bioarchaeological analysis of the funerary record. During her Marie-Curie project she will explore biological and non-biological kinship relationships between children and adults buried together in multiple graves of recent prehistory Iberia. Since 2017 has been part of the Humanejos research project, one of the most important cemeteries of the III and II millennium BC in Iberia, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Out of an output of over 30 academic publications, those more relevant include: Herrero et al. 2019 The Inheritors: Bell Beaker Children’s Tombs in Iberia and their Social Context, Cintas and Herrero 2020 Missing prehistoric women? Sex ratio as an indicator for analyzing the population of Iberia from the 8th to the 3rd millennia B.C, or the recently published book (Herrero 2022) Bioarchaeological analysis of child burials from the III and II millennium BC in the upper and middle basins of the Tagus.

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Members

Tom MALTAS

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Archaeology on the 'Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World' (MIGMAG) project at the Institute for Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna. My research uses archaeobotany and stable isotope analysis to understand the roles of farming in societal change in the prehistoric Mediterranean. For MIGMAG, I am investigating changes in land use and agricultural production strategies that may have accompanied mobility, demographic change and urbanisation in the Iron Age Mediterranean. I recently completed a DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford, where I analysed archaeobotanical assemblages from Chalcolithic and Bronze Age western Anatolia.

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Michael DONEUS

Michael Doneus is professor for landscape archaeology and Head of the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology of the University of Vienna. He is specialized in archaeological prospection with a focus on methodological development of remote sensing techniques and integrated data interpretation. He was director of the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (2012-2013) and deputy director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (2010-2017).

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Maximilian PINIEL

Maximilian Piniel is a university assistant (Praedoc) at the University of Vienna. As a prehistorian and archaeobotanist, his research focuses on the material culture of the European metal ages and on the human-environment relationships of prehistoric societies. He completed his Bachelor and Master studies at the University of Vienna. In his doctorate, he is currently working on agriculture and plant-based diet during the Early and Middle Bronze Age on the Upper and Middle Danube.    

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Lukas WALTENBERGER

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology and at the Department of Prehistory and WANA Archaeology, of the Austrian Archaeological Institute. I am a biological and forensic anthropologist with a research focus on cremated human remains, trauma analyses, and palaeopathology. I have a master's degree in Forensic Osteology (Bournemouth University, UK) and a PhD in Life Sciences (University of Vienna) performed in the framework of the ERC-project »VAMOS – The value of mothers to society« (ÖAW, PI: Katharina Rebay-Salisbury). Currently, I am spokesman of the working group »Palaeoanthropology and Prehistoric Anthropology« of the Anthropological Society (GfA).

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Doris JETZINGER

I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology where I work as a PraeDoc University Assistant in Michael Doneus’s team. I am a landscape- and geoarchaeologist specialising in the interdisciplinary analysis of sediment archives as well as landscape analyses and reconstructions. My main research interests are the study of human-landscape interactions, formation processes, and chronostratigraphic landscape contexts by employing interdisciplinary methods and approaches. For my dissertation project “Life of a Landscape”, I am working on the creation of an archaeological landscape biography of the Kreuttal microregion in Lower Austria which focuses on the development of the landscape over the millennia and the formation processes involved. In the course of my dissertation project and associated research activities I am developing skills in (p)OSL profiling and dating, sedimentology, geochemistry, and Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) approaches.  

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Alexandra KRENN-LEEB

Since 1995 I have been teaching and researching as an archaeologist (assistant professor) at the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna on the Neolithic Period, Copper and especially the Bronze Age with a focus on social, environmental and landscape archaeological issues. As director of studies, I am responsible for the curricula and all study matters. My main research interests are identity, mobility & tradition of Bronze Age populations, human ecology of the Copper Age, deposits in the context of space and ritual, ritual violence, conflict archaeology.    

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Naoíse MAC SWEENEY

My research focuses on the ancient Greek world and Anatolia, and I am particularly interested in questions concerning migration, mobility, and cultural interaction. My current project (https://www.migmag-erc.eu/) investigates how multi-scalar mobilities contributed to the formation of ancient Greek communities in the first millennium BCE, comparing narrative of migration with evidence from landscape survey for population circulation and regional mobilities. I am working on a project to develop mew digital approaches to modelling regional mobilities using environmental, archaeological, and historical data. Since 2020 I have been a Professor of Classical Archaeology (Greek) at the University of Vienna.

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Philip R. NIGST

Philip R Nigst is a Palaeolithic archaeologist with an enthusiasm for fieldwork. His research covers the archaeology of human evolution and focuses currently on Neanderthal and modern human behaviour and adaptations in Central and Eastern Europe. Philip’s key research themes include the ecology of Neanderthal and modern human technological organisation, mobility, horizontal cultural transmission, lithic technology, chronostratigraphy, use of space and site formation processes at Neanderthal and modern human sites in western Eurasia. He is currently engaged in field projects focussing on Neanderthal and modern human adaptations in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology (IUHA) Team Leaders

Peter C. RAMSL

Peter C. Ramsl (Priv. Doz., Mag. Dr.) is university assistant specialising in the European Iron Age and is currently leading the FWF project ‘Celts Across The Alps’ (CATA). His research on the European Iron Ages focusses on the identities and social relationships of people, their mobility and possible migrations as well as dietary habits. This is achieved through a combination of interdisciplinary methodological approaches. Current research is also focussing on insights into social and biological gender and the effects of violence and war on societies. As part of the current FWF project, he and his research team are analysing the relationships between La Tène cemeteries from the Traisen valley in Lower Austria and those from northern Italy near Bologna and Mantova. Another interest is landscape archaeology, focussing on the use of the various landscapes of the Iron Age.  

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