RHN 4/2026 | Call
Organisers: European Association of Archaeologists, Department of History and Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
26 – 29 August 2026, Athens, Greece and online
Deadline for Submissions: 5 February 2026
Call for Papers:
Interaction, Connectivity, & Mobility in the Balkans – Diachronic Perspectives on Land Use and Human–Landscape Relations
32nd EAA Annual Meeting
Situated between the Adriatic, Aegean, and Black Seas, the Balkan Peninsula has been a nexus for interaction, connectivity, and mobility across time. Characterized by a plethora of diverse geographies, including mountain chains, fertile valleys, and strategic corridors, the Balkans preserve a complex record of human land use whose resulting social and material landscapes are equally rich and dynamic.
Broadly defined, landscape archaeology is the study of how humans interacted with, perceived, and shaped the environments around them. It is then inherently interdisciplinary, drawing from a variety of disciplines in addition to being multiscalar—zooming out past the “site.” Thus, landscape archaeology provides a comprehensive framework for understanding human-environmental relations in the past.
This session aims to bring together and highlight the research being conducted by early-career scholars and archaeologists exploring land use, mobility, and human-landscape interaction across the Balkans from Prehistory through the Medieval period. By emphasizing landscape archaeology as both a theoretical and methodological bridge, this session aims to integrate diverse datasets and foster dialogue among scholars working across temporal, regional, and disciplinary boundaries.
Despite its widespread adoption in other parts of the world, landscape approaches are still uncommon in the Balkans, where the cultural history paradigm remains the dominant theoretical approach. Therefore, one of the goals of this session is to transcend the "Balkanization" of research traditions and emphasise the Balkans as a unified, interconnected domain of long-term human–environment interaction, a pivotal stage for the study of landscape transformation and cultural connectivity across Eurasia.
Session organisers: Samira Fischer (University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Germany), Gabriella Armstrong (Stanford University, United States), Andrea Pambuku (National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Albania), Erina Baci (University of Michigan, United States)
Further information: https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA2026/contributions
Source: H-Soz-Kult