Environmental archaeology is an implicitly interdisciplinary field, incorporating theories and methods from the humanities and natural sciences. It encompasses a variety of research frameworks and methods, but almost always orientated towards studying past people and their relationships with environments. This breadth of competences and approaches allows us to interact with researchers from numerous other fields, on a potentially infinite number of research questions.
Research hosted at, or in partnership with, MAL ranges from the development of new mobile methods for using spectroskopy to investigate sediments and archaeological materials, to the use of fossil beetles for reconstructing past environments and climates. We also lead the development of two research database infrastructures (SEAD and BugsCEP) and are involved in related work internationally (primarily Neotoma and CyberNABO). See the project websites or Umeå University project database for more information.
