Deep history perspective
The research of the AU STAR network addresses topical themes in environmental and sustainability debates, focusing on the integrated effects of physical and vegetational landscape transformations on human spatial organization. It pursues novel research avenues by emphasizing the long-term perspective and by considering human spatial organization as directed towards and conditioned by continued processes of landscape transformation. In this way, it aims to contribute a deep history dimension to ongoing debates on, for example, the Anthropocene, challenging and extending concepts of sustainability.
The past as a single common empirical record
The rationale of the AU STAR network is to consider material traces of the past as part of a single common empirical record, the detailed study of which requires collaboration to bridge interdisciplinary gaps.
The archaeological record consists, on the one hand, of organic and inorganic remains often contained in or retrieved from geological contexts. On the other hand, the archaeological record is a rich source of information (in the form of artefacts, buildings, and contextual traces) on how humans shaped local, regional and indeed global environments. Hence, there are numerous natural interfaces between biology, chemistry, physics and geoscience, and investigations on the human material past.
Strong interdisciplinary relations
The AU STAR network is based upon strong existing relations between the Departments of Archaeology, Geoscience and Physics & Astronomy (Aarhus AMS Centre) at Aarhus University, as well as with the Department of Archaeological Science & Conservation at Moesgaard Museum. The joint educational and research activities undertaken across these Faculty and Departmental boundaries include a range of successful projects (Army and post- war rituals in the Iron Age (Alken Enge), Nørre Vosborg, C3NET, GF Center for Urban Network Evolutions, Centre for Biocultural History, ARC), which underline the many points of interdisciplinary contact.
