Archaeology in the Anthropocene: Long-term perspectives on cultural collapse and archaeology’s relevance for post-anthropocene worlds

Date: 10, 11, & 13 February 2026

Location: Van Steenis Building room E0.03B, Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC Leiden

Credits: 3 EC

The breakdown of cultures and its explanations are a key topic of archaeology, as it mostly investigates cultures that no longer exist. But the fascination with collapse goes back much further to the earliest written records and persists in religious beliefs, artistic fiction and scientific research. However, explanations of collapse – although always claiming now to reveal the “real” reason – have changed over time. For long, moral failure or an assumed law of history/nature seemed to explain the course of empires. In the era of imperialism and the Cold War, conflict and/or migration seemed suitable reasons for civilisational collapse; with growing environmental awareness they were superseded by over-exploitation of resources, catastrophes and, finally, climate change. All in all, it’s in the eye of the beholder and a reflection of the Zeitgeist, what caused a society to fail – and what kind of (hi)story we tell about it. This is the narratological core of all history, including archaeology.

Today, as the societies of the Global North, we consider ourselves to be living in the endtimes of our world as we know it, for good reasons. This endtime has already been given a name: the anthropocene. And the narrative about the dooming end of our world typically is dark, dystopian, apocalyptic. In this workshop, we will explore what we as archaeologists, as experts of societal collapse and civilisational breakdown, have to say to the farewell of our own societies and what we can contribute to the wellfare of the planet in a future that we don’t know yet.

To this end the workshop aims to untangle the opaque package called “the future”. We will explore the narrative connections and psychological interactions between the pasts, presents, and futures and back from the futures to the presents and the pasts. We will sort out different kinds of futures – the determined and the open futures, the certain and the unknown, the near, middle and far futures – and will have a look at the methods by which we can approach them. Finally, we will explore alternative narratives about futures and participants will join to develop their own narratives about the times to come – not the least drawing on our capacity as archaeologists. Feel invited to contribute to a better world…

Organiser: Prof. Dr. Thomas Meier (thomas.meier@zaw.uni-heidelberg.de), VU Amsterdam and Heidelberg University in collaboration with the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University & Dr. Valerie Palmowski, University of Bonn.

Programme: The course will cover three full days. A detailed schedule will be posted soon!

About credits: Each participant will prepare and teach one slot of the workshop. Further details and guidance are provided during the course.

Registration: You can register for this course until the 3rd of February.

For questions please contact Myrthe Sassen (secretary@archonline.nl).