Annelou van Gijn is professor of Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies at Leiden University and studied anthropology and archaeology at Washington State University Pullman (US) and the University of Groningen. She obtained her PhD at Leiden University. Her teaching and research focus on prehistoric technology, ancient crafts, experimentation and the reconstruction of the cultural biography of objects, topics on which she published widely.
She is a specialist in microwear and residue analysis, focusing on the interconnectivities of different materials and toolkits. She is leading an extensive experimental house building project at Horsterwold and the Vlaardingen-Broekpolder. Van Gijn has established and is directing the Leiden Laboratory for Artefacts Studies.
Janine Fries-Knoblach studied prehistory, ancient history, classical and provincial-Roman archaology in Munich and Oxford and worked for heritage authorities and as a lecturer at the universities of Erlangen, Würzburg, and Freiburg. She spent much time editing and translating and was project coordinator of BEFIM at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich from 2016-2018. Her research focuses on technical aspects (agriculture, metalworking, textiles, salt production, architecture) and human handedness. She published monographs on pre- and protohistoric agricultural technique on the British Isles and the Continent, on tools, methods, and significance of Iron Age salt production in Central and North-Western Europe and on the Celts, and many papers.
Philipp W. Stockhammer is professor for prehistoric archaeology with a focus on the Eastern Mediterranean at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich and co-director of Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, Jena. His research focuses on the transformative power of intercultural encounters, human-thing-entanglements, social practices and the integration of archaeological and scientific interpretation. From 2015-2018, he acted as Speaker of the Collaborative Research Project “BEFIM”. He published monographs on Urnfield swords, pottery of the post-palace period in the lower city of Tiryns, the appropriation of foreign pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age, and countless papers.
