Rethinking Migrations in Late Prehistoric Eurasia

Migrations constitute one of the most defining features of human history from the very beginning to the present. In recent years, the increasing application of ancient DNA and isotope studies has been revolutionising our understanding of past population movements, although the interpretation of the results is often still controversial. Rethinking Migrations in Late Prehistoric Eurasia provides an insight into cutting-edge research on late prehistoric migrations in Eurasia, integrating different strands of evidence and emphasising the need for combining bioarchaeological analyses with a solid theoretical and methodological background. The 15 chapters within the book range from the 3rd to the 1st millennia BC, with a geographical scope extending from Atlantic Europe to Central Asia. Case studies include a reassessment of large-scale migrations, but also high-resolution studies from micro-regions. Overall, the results offered in the volume reveal the extraordinary diversity of migrations in ancient Eurasia and the ways in which archaeology can contribute to wider discussions on past and present mobility.

Manuel Fernández-Götz is Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. His main research interests are Iron Age and Roman societies in Europe, the archaeology of identities, and conflict archaeology. He has authored over 200 publications and directed fieldwork projects in Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Croatia. His research has been recognised with the award of the Philip Leverhulme Prize and the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Thomas Reid Medal. He is currently directing the Leverhulme-funded project 'Beyond Walls: Reassessing Iron Age and Roman Encounters in Northern Britain'.

Courtney Nimura is the Curator of Later European Prehistory at the Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology and Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. She completed her PhD at the University of Reading in 2013, and since then has worked on and led several research projects on topics such as Bronze Age Northern European rock art, Iron Age art and coins, and later prehistoric rivers in Britain. Her research focuses on rock art and portable art in Europe; Bronze Age and Iron Age archaeology in Northern, Central, and Western Europe; coastal and intertidal archaeology; effects of environmental change on art production; and the intersections of archaeological and anthropological theory in prehistoric art studies.

Philipp W. Stockhammer is Professor for prehistoric archaeology with a focus on the Eastern Mediterranean at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich and Co-director of the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig. After his PhD in Heidelberg in 2008, he worked as a Post-doctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Universities of Heidelberg and Basel. He leads several collaborative research projects on the Bronze and Early Iron Ages in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, among them an ERC Starting Grant (2015) and an ERC Consolidator Grant (2020). His research focuses on intercultural encounter, social practices, bioarchaeology, mobility, food, and health.


Rachel Cartwright is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. Previously, she studied Archaeology, History, and Classics at the University of Texas at Austin and Durham University. Her research is centred on the Viking Age migrations in the North Atlantic, with a particular focus on Iceland and northern Scotland. She has carried out fieldwork in the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, and Croatia.