Members of the ANTHEA team hosted a session as part of the Nordic Theoretical Archaeology Group conference in Oslo recently. Mark and Mette attended the conference in person, while Zac joined in virtually – the hybrid format proving successful despite the inevitable technical hitches!

Our session reflected on recent theoretical trends in the humanities highlighting the creative force of entities other than humans. Specifically, we wanted to discuss how these ideas change how we think about long-term landscape persistence or change. We were thrilled to be joined by a diverse range of speakers and contributors, allowing us to consider ideas and contexts ranging from Ukrainian prehistoric portable art to historical-period Iceland, via trees in the Swedish Mesolithic and the domestication of pigs! We really enjoyed the huge range of theoretical perspectives that were discussed and were particularly happy that Prof. emer. Mats Widgren joined us, both as discussant and to present his thoughts on the theory of field systems.

It was great to be back at a real-life conference and to connect with so many interesting scholars from across the Nordic countries and beyond.