Michael Lindblom

Professor at Department of Archaeology, Ancient History and Conservation; Classical archaeology and ancient history

Telephone:
+46 18 471 75 53
Mobile phone:
+46 70 942 92 34
E-mail:
Michael.Lindblom@antiken.uu.se
Visiting address:
Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3H
Postal address:
Box 626
751 26 UPPSALA

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Professor Ombudsman for grading issues at University Administration; Division for Quality Enhancement; Academic Teaching and Learning

Mobile phone:
+46 70 942 92 34
E-mail:
michael.lindblom@antiken.uu.se
Visiting address:
Dag Hammarskjöldsväg 7
75237 Uppsala
Postal address:
Box 256
75105 Uppsala

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CV:
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Short presentation

I am Professor of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, specialising in Aegean prehistory. My research concerns social developments on the Greek mainland during the Bronze Age, particularly social and political organisation, material practices, pottery, mortuary practices, and ritual. Much of my work focuses on Lerna and Asine in the Argolid and Malthi in Messenia.

Keywords

  • Aegean prehistory
  • Greek Bronze Age
  • Mycenaean archaeology
  • social organisation
  • political organisation
  • material culture
  • pottery
  • mortuary practices
  • ritual
  • settlement archaeology
  • Lerna
  • Asine
  • Malthi

Biography

I was a doctoral student in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University and received my PhD in 2001 with the dissertation Marks and Makers: Appearance, Distribution and Function of Middle and Late Helladic Manufacturers’ Marks on Aeginetan Pottery. After holding research and teaching positions at the department, I became Associate Professor (Docent) in 2011, Senior Lecturer in 2013, and Professor of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, specialising in Aegean prehistory, in 2023. I have also held several positions in academic leadership and have served as Director of Doctoral Studies at the department since 2021. In 2025, I was elected a member of the Historical and Antiquarian Class of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. In 2026, I received the Archaeological Institute of America’s Anna Marguerite McCann Award for Fieldwork Reports for the monograph Lerna X: The Shaft Graves and Other Late Helladic I and II Remains.

Research

My research focuses primarily on the Greek mainland during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and on the social transformations that preceded and accompanied the emergence of the Mycenaean world. I am particularly interested in how local communities were organised, how social distinctions and political authority developed, and how people negotiated their relationships with one another and with their surroundings through material and spatial practices.

Ceramic analysis has been an important part of my research since my doctoral dissertation on makers’ marks on Aeginetan pottery. Over time, my research has developed a broader focus in which pottery is considered alongside settlement, mortuary practices, ritual, landscape, and scientific analyses.

One long-standing focus of my research is Lerna in the Argolid. My work there has primarily concerned the site’s history during the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age, a period in which new forms of social and political organisation developed on the Greek mainland. This research resulted in the monograph Lerna X: The Shaft Graves and Other Late Helladic I and II Remains.

In Messenia, I have co-directed the Malthi Archaeological Project with Rebecca Worsham. The project resumed investigations of the fortified Bronze Age settlement of Malthi following the Swedish excavations conducted by Natan Valmin in the 1920s and 1930s. My research on Malthi also addresses the broader question of local and regional communities in Messenia before and during the emergence of the political landscape that was later dominated by the Palace of Pylos.

Asine in the Argolid constitutes another long-term focus of my research. Here I combine studies of earlier Swedish excavations with new archaeological and scientific investigations. The research examines long-term changes in settlement, social organisation, and human relationships with landscape and environment. One particular interest concerns how decisions and changes in the built environment can be understood in relation to both individual leadership and collective action.

A common thread running through these areas of research is an interest in how societies change through practices that often leave only indirect traces in the archaeological record: how people organised labour, formed social groups, marked difference and belonging, and made decisions collectively or through processes of negotiation and contestation.

Michael Lindblom

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