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Standing on hillfort wall in Wales – 2017

About Me

Bettina Arnold’s area of expertise is the pre-Roman European Iron Age, but in the course of her career she has participated in archaeological projects ranging from the Middle Bronze Age through the early medieval period in western Europe. Since 1999 she has co-directed a research project in southwest-Germany focused on the burial record of the early Iron Age Heuneburg hillfort and its environs.

Early in her career, Dr. Arnold published a ground-breaking article on the use and abuse of archaeology for political purposes in Nazi Germany in Antiquity in 1990 that has been reprinted repeatedly. In addition to being the founding Editor of the online peer-reviewed journal e-Keltoi, she is a member of numerous editorial boards, and is the co-editor of the Cambridge University Press/European Association of Archaeologists series Elements in the Archaeology of Europe. She is also a member of the History of Archaeology Commission of the UISPP.

Current Research

Her research interests follow three major topical strands:

Iron Age European mortuary analysis (“Landscape of Ancestors”),
the archaeology of gender, and
the history of archaeology.

A fourth project, “Excavating Prehistoric Europe in American Museums”, is an outgrowth of the history of archaeology research focus as well as several Masters theses haveshe has supervised since 2004 ...

Initially mainly concerned with tracking down dispersed collections from the famous Neolithic/Bronze Age Swiss lake dwelling site of Robenhausen, the project has expanded to include material from other iconic sites such as La Tène (also in Switzerland) as well as the Austrian/Italian Alpine region.

Future Research

As I gradually approach retirement, I will continue to focus on the following research projects:

collections of European prehistoric and early historic archaeological materials in U.S. museums;
the symbiotic relationship between archaeology and society, including gender and identity politics;
the mortuary archaeology of Iron Age Celtic Europe;
and the archaeology of ancient alcohol and the role of experimental archaeology as a pedagogical tool.

Several publications on these topics are either in press or in progress. I will continue to collaborate with colleagues at museums in the U.S. and Europe on projects such as the upcoming exhibits on the archaeology of food (Penn Museum) and the many faces of Celtic art (Harvard Art Museums) as well as editing projects (Cambridge University Press series Elements in the Archaeology of Europe) and committee activities (European Association of Archaeologists).