Sophie Bergerbrant

Short presentation

I’m a lecturer and researcher specializing in textile production and mortuary archaeology. My main area of expertise is in northern and central Europe from the Bronze Age to the end of the Early Iron Age. I am especially interested in gender relations, appearance, health, migration and wool production. My ongoing research projects integrate a variety of biomolecular analyses with traditional archaeological approaches.

Keywords

• adna
• gender
• health
• early iron age
• bronze age
• burial archaeology
• sheep hearding
• wetland

Biography

I joined the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University in 2024 as a lecturer and researcher.

I participate in the international research project (Axes of Diversification, Sustainability and Coherence (ADSC), led by Magdolna Vicze at the Hungarian National Museum. The project investigates households, subsistence strategies, and social sustainability in Bronze Age communities through research at the tell settlement of Százhalombatta-Földvár, Hungary. The contribution to the project draws on expertise in Bronze Age societies, textile production, sheep management, and gender studies, with a particular focus on the role of animal husbandry in household economies, changing resource use, and the development of wool production. The project is a development from my earlier work as part of the Százhalombatta Archaeological Expedition (SAX) specialist team.

I also work on a number of smaller ongoing research projects which deal with the Nordic Bronze Age and the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

I am one of the co-founders of the network Engendering the Nordic Bronze Age, a group that meet c. every second year and disucss different topics from a gender perspective.

From 2013 to 2022 I was employed at Gothenburg University as a researcherand fixed-term lecturer. There I taught a wide range of courses including on archaeological theory and method, essay writing and Bronze Age Europe. I supervised over 80 essays for first-year students and some MA dissertations. I achieved my docentur (Habilitation) in 2017.

From 2016 to 2018 I led the RJ-funded project Bronze Age wool economy: production, trade, environment, husbandry and society (THESP), which established the importance of textile production and sheep husbandry practices at some settlements in Europe. The project also emphasised the importance of woollen textiles in exchange during the period. From 2013 to 2015 I was a member of The Rise: Travels, transmissions and transformations in temperate northern Europe during the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC: the rise of Bronze Age societies, and from 2019 to 2022 of the research project The Rise II - Towards a new European Prehistory, both lead by professor Kristian Kristiansen. In both projects I worked in collaboration with archaeological sciences on material from the Late Neolithic to the Early Iron Age from Scandinavian countries. In The RISE, I also conducted research on textile production in Hungary.

From 2010 to 2013 I was a postdoctoral researcher in the HERA-funded research project Creativity and Craft Production in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Europe (CinBA) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In this project I was part of the team focusing on textiles, and worked on remains from the Bronze Age in Scandinavia, Hungary and textile tools at the Százhalombatta site.

I earned my PhD (Bronze Age Identities: Costume, Conflict and Contact in Northern Europe 1600-1300 BC) from Stockholm University in 2007. Prior to this, I studied at the University of Cambridge (M.Phil. in Archaeology, 1996) and earned my undergraduate degree in Archaeology from Stockholm University in 1995.

In 2023 I helped to launch a Nordic Bronze Age gender research network. The network includes researchers from Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden. I am a permanent member of European Association of Archaeologists.

From 2018 to 2022 I was a Co-editor of Current Swedish Archaeology with Alison Klevnäs.