Bodily Biographies of the Bronze Age

This Augustinus Foundation funded project aims to activate an untapped branch of Danish cultural heritage. By combining new theoretical approaches with cutting-edge scientific technology, we aim to answer the central question: “What can we learn about the relationship of objects and individual bodies c. 1700 - 500 BC based on analyses of the archeological record?” Due to issues with preservation of Nordic Bronze Age (NBA) bodies, much research has been almost exclusively centred around the impressive metal artefacts. This constitutes an epistemological issue for the study of the period, which potentially disconnects these artefacts from human bodies. To make up for these shortcomings, we seek innovative ways to examine these invisible and fragmented bodies of the NBA and their material entanglements.

BODYBIO is interdisciplinary at its core and takes its point of departure from the intersection of body, society and material culture. Advances in scientific methods now allow detailed studies of objects and poorly preserved human remains. We combine pioneering scientific studies of human remains with osteological analyses and insights stemming from sociology with perspectives from New Materialism and the ontological turn. The juxtaposition between the body as a universal human precondition yet culturally constructed and therefore situated, creates an inherent tension, which is the driver of the project.

In search of bodily biographies of the Bronze Age, BODYBIO poses the following research questions: “Can new and improved scientific methods make the invisible NBA bodies and their object entanglements visible? And can a multi-proxy approach demonstrate unnoticed patterns of gender, sex, age, pathology, mobility and diet in the archaeological assemblage?”