2 April 2025

'Hej hej, my name is Thomas Meier and I have the honour to stay at your faculty as a guest researcher until end of May. I am from Heidelberg University, Germany, where I hold a professorship in prehistoric and early medieval archaeology.

But, as life goes, I’ve touched upon several fields over the years: starting in early and high medieval archaeology of central Europe, I’ve moved on to environmental and landscape archaeology in a long-term perspective, to cultural collapse and – finally – to the (post-)anthropocene and the far future. On this journey I fell into the rabbit hole of theory, entangled especially with radical constructivism and some versions of post-structuralism -- and never recovered again. I’ve researched on medieval royal burials, on rural settlements and the economic system of the Carolingian period, on palaeoclimate and on historical water management. For some time I’ve chaired the Heidelberg Center for the Environment and then – until very recently – acted as director of the Center for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies …

And what I’m gonna do in Leiden? Research and some teaching, of course. But most of all, I hope to establish new and inspiring contacts with many of you, learn from your research, be irritated by new perspectives and questions, explore new ideas together with you and – in the best of worlds – settle on new fields of mutual interest in the near, middle and far future of our planet. And what archaeology has to contribute to it!?

If you are interested in a chat over a coffee or want to contact me, please reach out to room C0.10 or to thomas.meier@zaw.uni-heidelberg.de. You are very welcome!

If you feel better to check first, you’ll find many of my publications on https://uni-heidelberg.academia.edu/ThomasMeier.'