Humans and Communities I: Archaeology and Prehistory
- Date
- 29–30 October 2026
- Venue
- Latvian National Museum of History, Riga Castle, Pils laukums 3, Riga
- Organised by
- Latvian National Museum of History together with The Beginnings of Latvia
- Working language
- English
On 29–30 October 2026 the Latvian National Museum of History, together with the University of Latvia Interdisciplinary Research Incubator “The Beginnings of Latvia”, holds the international conference “Humans and Communities I: Archaeology and Prehistory” at Riga Castle. It opens an international conference series devoted to community as an enduring yet changing phenomenon in the course of history, with a focus on the experience of historical communities, the strategies by which they were formed, their forms of identity and the imprints they have left in Latvia and the Baltic Sea region.
25 researchers from eight European countries take part, combining insights from archaeology, history, linguistics, genetics and other sciences to examine how human communities formed, developed and changed in prehistory.
Communities in prehistory
The study of communities in prehistory is a complex undertaking, shaped by the particular character of the available sources and requiring the integration of insights from many disciplines. An ongoing debate concerns what material culture can tell us about social relationships and identities, and views differ substantially on the social, military and political structures of the Baltic Sea region before the Crusades. At the same time, results obtained with natural-science methods increasingly help to refine our understanding of kinship, ethnicity and migration. Questions of community and social structure also matter beyond academia, as ideas about ethnic groups and early statehood remain important elements of national and regional identities.
Conference themes
- archaeological evidence and the interpretation of cultural and social phenomena;
- ethnicity, power and social hierarchies: interaction and coexistence;
- natural-science methods in the study of cultures, kinship and migration: possibilities, limitations and new findings;
- early forms of political organisation and social structure: interpreting written sources and material culture;
- linguistic, archaeological and genetic (aDNA) data in the study of ethnic history and migration;
- material culture as an expression of community identity;
- specialised and professional communities (e.g. traders, artisans, warrior retinues) and their traces in the archaeological record.
The “Humans and Communities” series
Four conferences are planned for 2026–2029, each devoted to a different period: archaeology and prehistory; the medieval and early modern periods (13th–18th centuries); modernisation and state formation (19th century–1939); and occupation, resilience and restored independence (1940–present). The conferences share a common analytical perspective while each focuses on questions current in the study of its period. The series is inspired by the Latvian National Museum of History’s new core exhibition “Streaming Time” (Straumējot laiku).
Further information: Latvian National Museum of History, info@lnvm.gov.lv, and The Beginnings of Latvia, liv@lu.lv.