Newsletter - June 2026 𝗨𝗿𝗯𝗮𝗻 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 New & Forthcoming Titles Go to: bit.ly/3QCvZcX #UrbanHistory #UrbanStudies #EAUH2026 #History

Genetic analyses of human bones from megalithic tombs provide new insights into how people lived together and their mobility during the Neolithic period. The results have been published @science.org Read more 👇 🏺 #archaeology #aDNA #neolithic @leizarchaeology.bsky.social

European governments are choosing European digital tools — and some universities and researchers are doing the same. go.nature.com/4ukEiIm

CFP: workshop on "Mineral Expertise: The Rules of Knowing Earthly Matter in the Early Modern World”. 4–6 February 2027 at the University of Bologna. scarce.univie.ac.at/news/singlev... #histmed #histstm

The infrasound and low-frequency noise associated with wind turbines has raised health concerns, but a study allays those fears. Data from 75,000 turbines installed between 1981 and 2024 show negligible evidence of adverse health outcomes. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/uqBA50Z6hpU

Feudalizm i zepsucie w akademii, brak perspektyw zawodowych, ilość pracy niewspółmierna do korzyści – to główne powody, dla których obecni doktoranci nie podjęliby ponownie kształcenia na tym poziomie. Wyniki badań zespołu naukowców z UMK ⬇️ forumakademickie.pl/doktoranci-o...

Check out Katherine Harvey's (@katherineharvey.bsky.social) recently published 'The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living' which explores the way that medieval people looked over their physical and mental health. reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/the-med... #histmed #histstm #medievalsky

This viral trend of satirical journals is highlighting the intense competition in Chinese academia go.nature.com/4tYTbjh

Herzliche Glückwünsche an @sarahbockmeyer.bsky.social und Marie Ullrich! Die beiden ehemaligen ROOTS-Doktorandinnen wurden gestern mit dem Fakultätspreis der Philosophischen Fakultät @uni-kiel.de ausgezeichnet 🏆 . Links zu ausführlichen Interviews mit beiden findet Ihr hier 👇

So happy to see my new book "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" published today with @hopkinspress.bsky.social! #histmed #histsci #plague #rats #pandemic www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/... The book is also available Open Access via Project MUSE: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_mon...

New article by our G. Geltner! "(Under)mining Preindustrial Europe: Ecology, Society, and Cultural Change, 1180–1550,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 56.3 (2026), 223–49 direct.mit.edu/jinh/article... #histmed #histstm #medievalsky #historiansky

🏺If you are into #archaeology of power in Middle Ages and you miss there a bit of theory and network analyses (with published datasets and R code!) check the amazing paper of one of my PhD students (Vít Kozák) in Praehistoriche Zeitschrift. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Friday in Vienna www.oeaw.ac.at/en/oeai/even...

📣Now Available📣 Take a look at some of the beautiful images inside our newest Open Access book Luxury, Living Standards and Poverty in the Cities of East-Central Europe in the 15th-18th centuries. The book is now available to read or download here: doi.org/10.30861/978...

Ministerialna lista czasopism nie ma żadnego znaczenia i wpływu na rozwój nauki. Ale ma znaczenie dla polskich instytucji – a wtórnie dla ich pracowników – które poprzez zdobywanie punktów uczestniczą w mechanizmie zarządzania prestiżem – pisze prof. Przemysław Wiszewski. ⬇️

We are offering two postdoctoral fellowships for conducting high-quality interdisciplinary research as part of the new ARCWorlds research platform. Applications can be submitted until May 15. You can find all the details here: www.uni-kiel.de/en/cluster-r... #academicjobs #postdocs #scholarship

What makes author @digkabri.bsky.social want to head for the hills? Encountering an AI-authored version of his popular book, 1177 B.C. Andrew Lawler writes about it for @theamscho.bsky.social. Read more here:

Rethinking #earlymedieval urbanism at Ipswich, Brandon Fathy uses New Materialism in this new article to show how cities emerged not from top-down planning but through dynamic “distributed agency” between people, materials, and landscapes shaping everyday life. doi.org/10.1080/0029...

Apart from everything else, the election results in Hungary are great news for science as well. I hope - with structural changes in place - all Hungarian scientists will again have access to EU research funding and cooperation! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

New paper alert: This was a great collaboration that I enjoyed very much and is an important paper for anyone interested in luminescence dating methods, early MSA, plant biomarkers or geoarchaeology! A truly interdisciplinary effort. #openaccess

OUT NOW! Mapping Medieval Merv An Exploration into the Application of Cartographic Analysis and Urban Morphological Theory to an Urban Archaeological Site by Loren V. Cowin 📚 Read online for free or purchase a printed copy at www.sidestone.com/books/mappin... #ROOTS #Islamicurbanism #CentralAsia

🚨Out today in Science Advances! It is more important than ever to understand the roots and historical breadth of the core features of democratic institutions and autocratic alternatives, what these practices are associated with, and their effects and consequences. 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Czy brak habilitacji oznacza brak samodzielności badawczej? W polskim środowisku naukowym funkcjonuje osobliwy, choć powszechnie akceptowany, podział naukowców na samodzielnych i niesamodzielnych. Czy wkład tych drugich w rozwój nauki jest mniej istotny? Pisze o tym dr inż. Przemysław Kopeć ⬇️

Polscy archeolodzy odkryli jedne z najstarszych zabudowań w Pafos. Fragmenty amfory do transportu wina z II w. p.n.e. potwierdzają, że badany dom pochodzi z epoki hellenistycznej. archeologia.com.pl/polscy-arche...

ROOTS alumnus @pawelcembrzynski.bsky.social has been granted funding for a five-year research project from the @ncn.gov.pl. He will investigate how mining and metallurgy changed settlement patterns and the natural environment, and what role capitalism played in these changes. Congratulations! 🎉

In June, the conference “Knowing and Doing Care” will bring together different approaches and ways of understanding and examining care practices in the past and present, in the East and West. If you are interested in the topic, you can submit your own contributions until 17 March 👇 #CallForPapers

New #jobs at @uni-kiel.de within the @clusterroots.bsky.social advertised: one doctoral & two postdoctoral positions. The postdoc positions are for any projects relating to archaeological science and are explicitely looking for for applicants from Africa and Asia: www.uni-kiel.de/en/cluster-r...

On 17 + 18 July, a conference organised by our "Urban ROOTS" subcluster will focus on "Dynamics of urbanity. Configurations of boundaries in pre-modern cities". If you are conducting research in this area and would like to submit your own contribution, you can do so until 28 February! #CallForPapers

Please join me on 24 February at 6 pm Polish time (5 pm British time) for the Gender and History hybrid seminar. I will be talking about my latest book project @ncn.gov.pl , 'Prodigal Wives: Women, Alcohol and Legal Incapacitation in Nineteenth-century Poland'. @drinkingstudies.bsky.social 1/2

📣Today @sebastianfelten.bsky.social speaks at the Nouveaux chantiers en histoire moderne (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): "Thinking of the Descendants": Time and Temporality in Early Modern Mining”⛏️✨ 🕧When? 5 pm 📍Salle Perroy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne 🔗More info: bit.ly/4rk4wK9

On 22 January, Tanja Schreiber (pictured between ROOTS speaker Martin Furholt and her supervisor @hpiezonka.bsky.social a.bsky.social from @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social niversitaet.bsky.social) successfully defended her dissertation on Hunter-Gatherer Fortifications in NW Siberia. Congratulations!

NEW STUDY from Hana Brzobohatá, Filip Velímský, and Jan Frolík which investigates the skeletal remains at Kutná Hora-Sedlec in Czechia. The study highlights that adverse living conditions during growth could lead to a shorter adult lifespan and reduced resistance to famine and pathogens. #histmed

NEW BOOK: the e-book for “Public Health in the Premodern World” ed. by our G. Geltner with Janna Coomans & Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (@yoelitlalim.bsky.social) is out! Illustrating the rich history of public health, it shows how communities across the globe defined and pursued health #histmed #medhst

📣 Work with us! 📣 The McDonald Institute invites applications for the eighth Renfrew Fellowship in archaeology. Named in honour of the Institute's founding Director, Professor Colin Renfrew. 📅 Closing date: 27 February 2026 👉 More info here: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/renfrew...

New paper out 🥳 In "#Urban #resilience in Ancient #Mesopotamia: insights into the socioeconomic system of the Bronze and Iron Age Khabur Valley", we are mapping network metrics of urban dynamics onto #Holling's adaptive cycle. Full open-access paper here: doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

My lab has a PhD position open! www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

We're hosting a hybrid conference in July! "Health and the Environment in the Preindustrial World: Multidisciplinary Approaches" will explore traditional and recent themes converging on public health history. To be notified when registration opens, fill out this form: forms.gle/5dMU4rNd8d5q...

Now out: a re-examination of the discovery of one of the world’s most important ancient cities. doi.org/10.1080/0093...

Nuclear fusion. People on Mars. Artificial general intelligence. These are just some of the advances that could come by the mid-century mark. go.nature.com/4qobRaA

How were English cathedrals organised, financed and managed in the late #MiddleAges? Marie Ullrich investigated this question in her doctoral thesis, which she successfully defended on 5 November. Congratulations! More about her and her work: www.uni-kiel.de/en/cluster-r... 🗃️ #history

Today, we are publishing our World Inequality Report, which reviews the most recent #inequalitydata and exposes the magnitude of #inequality across time, space and all its dimensions. 👇Share this thread, share the report! www.youtube.com/watch?v=R67u...

The results of the ERC Consolidator Grant call have been announced! 📣 349 researchers have been selected for funding. Congratulations to all! #ERCCogG! 👉 buff.ly/uu62uFV #FrontierResearch #EUfunded #HorizonEurope @scienceinnovation.ec.europa.eu

We are thrilled to share this! 🎉 Our PhD student & Santorio Fellow @sarahseinitzer.bsky.social has a new post on @csmbr-pisa.bsky.social blog Forma Fluens: “Bergsucht and Miner’s Chest” ⛏️🫁—about miners’ health, morbi metallici, & early social care. Go give it a read! #HistMed #Mining

New issue just landed on our website!

Nature research paper: No meta-analytical effect of economic inequality on well-being or mental health go.nature.com/4psQk0a

The Roman Empire needed wood for building and burning. Tree-ring analysis of over 20,000 samples reveals how Roman expansion drove intensive logging across Central-Western Europe, eventually leading to overexploitation of old-growth forests. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/tWR150XAhVA

Opie and Atkinson conduct a global phylogenetic analysis of 868 cultures and find evidence indicating that cereal grain cultivation, not agricultural surplus, drove state formation. Their findings also link taxation and writing to state emergence.

Germany is one of the most popular destinations for students and scholars worldwide, but those pursuing academic careers face significant hurdles to success www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Medieval agricultural and trade practices in southwestern Germany boosted plant diversity for centuries, with biodiversity peaking around 1000 CE and declining only when human activity contracted during the Black Death. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Q6ca50XxIvC

An interesting ecological analysis of wood-pasture paintings link.springer.com/article/10.1...