Research Position in Computational and Climate Archaeology
80 %

University of Bern, Institute of Archaeological Science, Prehistory Department
Start of employment: 01.03.2025 or by agreement
Example: Employment is fixed term until or for 3 years

The Prehistory Department of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences, associated at the Oeschger Centre of Climate Change (OCCR) at the University of Bern, Switzerland, is searching for an outstanding and motivated Computational Archaeologists to explore the response of prehistoric communities to climate-driven hazards and environmental changes. The aim is to research how cultural, economic and social diversities in space and time led to specific vulnerabilities and resilience strategies, from foragers to farming communities. The position provides an excellent opportunity to specialize in the dynamically evolving and impactful field of climate archaeology, computational archaeology, archaeological and paleoclimatic data modelling as well as time series statistics in an international and interdisciplinary research environment in the scope of the HORIZON-project “Past-to-Future: Towards fully Paleo-informed Future Climate Projections” of the Cluster 5 “Climate, Energy, Mobility” funding programme. The Swiss part of the project is funded by the SERI (State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation).

Tasks and responsibilities
  • Data base development, data compilation, and treatment of archaeological, paleoenvironmental, and paleoclimatic data.
  • Development of a conceptual framework/model for the impact of climate on past societies: Build a risk and resilience framework for identifying climate driven risks to societies in the spatiotemporal frames.
  • Quantitative analysis of human response to climate events: Combination of quantitative archaeological data to spatiotemporal patterning of site frequency and other proxies in association with climate change scenarios and relative sea level rise models.
  • Qualitative analysis of climate change vulnerabilities and resilience strategies of prehistoric communities: Examination of societal responses to climate and environmental change based on case studies on the Late Glacial and Early Holocene.
  • The role includes interacting with leading scientists in the Horizon Europe 'Past-To-Future project', direct collaboration on method development and data exchange with project members from the Archaeology Department of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, as well as within the Institute of Archaeological Sciences and the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) at the University of Bern and further research teams across Europe.
Requirements
  • Excellent PhD preferably (or Master's) in archaeology, or related fields, like geography, data science, computer science, climate science.
  • Demonstrated proficiency in GIS, R, Python or other programming/scripting languages widely used for data base programming and data processing.
  • Experience with archaeological finds, and documentation systems.
  • Experience in theoretical archaeology, computational archaeology, or climate archaeology is preferred, experience in climate science is beneficial.
  • Experience and interest in teaching is highly desirable.
  • Proficiency in English, both written and spoken, is essential, German, French, Italian and other European Languages are beneficial.
Offered research environement
The successful candidate will actively contribute to research at the Prehistory Department of Archaeological Sciences that has an internationally renowned expertise in wetland archaeology, alpine archaeology and the archaeology of climate change (Prof. Dr. Albert Hafner EXPLO + Link; Dr. Caroline Heitz, SNSF-Ambizione Project RISE). Employment conditions and remuneration are following the standards of the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Application and contact
For subject-specific questions and information about the position, please contact
Dr. Caroline Heitz or Prof. Dr. Albert Hafner
Interested candidates submit a
single pdf file
containing a motivation letter, a CV, Master/Diploma or PhD certificates, and contact details for two references. The review of applications will begin as soon as they are received and continue until the position is filled.

Applications should be sent to Prof. Dr. Albert Hafner (albert.hafner@unibe.ch) and Dr. Caroline Heitz (caroline.heitz@unibe.ch).


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