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“Archaeology Gone Astray: Forgeries, Misinterpretation, and Other Field Stories”. UISPP Commission on the History of Archaeology conference, 12-13 September 2025, Łódź (Poland)

The commission is organising the conference “Archaeology Gone Astray: Forgeries, Misinterpretation, and Other Field Stories” in Łódź (Poland), the 12-13 September 2025.

Conference website: https://archaeo-astray.sciencesconf.org

Call for paper

This conference, titled “Archaeology Gone Astray: Forgeries, Misinterpretations, and Other Field Stories”, is dedicated to the less glorious—but undeniably fascinating—chapters in the history of archaeology. We’ll delve into everything from notorious forgeries and spectacular blunders to interpretive dead ends and moments of… let’s say, excessive enthusiasm in the field.
The event offers a space for reflection, self-reflection, and a bit of humor—because, like any living science, archaeology sometimes takes a wrong turn. Yet, even when it goes astray, it always leads to something interesting.
While the main theme centers on the field’s twists, turns, and detours, the program will also feature an open session for participants who wish to present their current research projects.

Łódź

Conference venue

Institute of Archaeology, University of Lodz, Lodz (Poland). Established in 1945, the institute is one of Poland’s centers for archaeological research and education.

Łódź and the history of archaeology

For many years, Łódź has been one of the key centers for research into the history of archaeology in Poland. It was in this city that Andrzej Abramowicz (1926–2011) carried out his scholarly work. As one of the first archaeologists in the country to reflect deeply and systematically on the development of his discipline, Abramowicz left a significant intellectual legacy: 12 books (including a three-volume memoir), nearly 60 articles, and 28 reviews — which remain foundational for the study of Polish archaeology’s history. His major works include: The Age of Archaeology: Problems of 19th-Century Polish Archaeology (1967), Urns and Ceraunia (1978), the three-volume History of Antiquarian Interests in Poland (Vol. I – 1983, Vol. II – 1987), History of Polish Archaeology: 19th and 20th Century (1991), and History of Polish Archaeology: Beginnings (1992). Beyond his writings, Abramowicz also mentored a generation of scholars, helping to sustain and expand research on the history of archaeology both within and beyond the Łódź archaeological community.

Communication

The official language of the conference are English and French. Only one lecture can be accepted for each(registered) participant. However, the same participant may submit several posters. Please indicate their number precisely on the Registration Form.
The conference will be held in a hybrid format, allowing both in-person and online participation. However, please note that priority will be given to in-person presentation.

Abstraction submission

For abstract submission, please use the submission procedure on the conference website.

Oral presentations and posters are possible.

  • Oral presentations are expected to be 20 minutes in length, with an additional 5 minutes for discussion. Slides should be prepared in a common format (e.g., PPT, PPS, PDF).
  • Posters should be planned in standing (portrait) orientation, and their size must not exceed A0 (841 x 1189 mm).

Deadline for submissions: 31 July 2025

Organisation committee

  • Adrianna Szczerba (Institute of Archaeology, University of Lodz, member of the UISPP Commission on History of Archeology, adrianna.szczerba@uni.lodz.pl)
  • Marzena Woźny (Archaeological Museum in Cracow, Vice-president of the UISPP Commission on History of Archeology, marzenawozny@ma.krakow.pl)
  • Jakub Linetty (Museum of the First Piasts in Lednica, member of the UISPP Commission on History of Archeology, jakub.linetty@lednica.pl).

Publication

The papers will be published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Archaeologia Polona.

Excursion, 13th of September

Participants will have the opportunity to explore Lodz, often referred to as the “Polish Manchester” for its 19th- and 20th-century textile industry. The city’s history has been shaped by the coexistence of four cultures—Polish, Jewish, German, and Russian—each of which has left a lasting imprint on its architecture and heritage.
During Poland’s political and economic transformation in the 1990s, Lodz faced significant challenges. The city’s once-thriving textile industry, which had been the cornerstone of its economy, largely collapsed, leading to widespread economic and social struggles. Despite these setbacks, Lodz has gradually reinvented itself.
Today, the city’s post-industrial landscape seamlessly merges with its rich multicultural past, as former factories have been transformed into museums, galleries, and creative hubs, reflecting Lodz’s ongoing cultural revival. At the core of this revitalization are the city’s 21 higher education institutions, including 6 public universities, which have played a central role in driving innovation and shaping the city’s reinvention.

This call on Calenda.

Call for paper: Symposium “Past and future of archaeological collections. Field exploration, movements, preservation (19th-21st c.)”, at the “Asian Prehistory Today” conference, Indonesia, 27 Oct.-6 Nov. 2025

The UISPP Commission on the History of Archaeology, in collaboration with the UISPP Commission “Southeast Asia: Human Evolution, Dispersals and Adaptations” is organising a symposium “Past and future of archaeological collections. Field exploration, movements, preservation (19th-21st c.)” to be held at the “Asian Prehistory Today Bridging Science, Heritage and Development” conference, from October, 27 to 6 November, 6, 2025.

Call for papers (short version)

This symposium will concentrate on the creation, transmission and movements of prehistoric collections –including natural history specimens, human remains, and artefacts–, from the colonial era to the present day. Particular emphasis will be placed on collections from Southeast Asia, however, case studies drawn from other historical and geographical contexts are welcome too.

Read more: Call for paper: Symposium “Past and future of archaeological collections. Field exploration, movements, preservation (19th-21st c.)”, at the “Asian Prehistory Today” conference, Indonesia, 27 Oct.-6 Nov. 2025

It will concentrate on three interdependent topics:

  • Field explorations conducted in Southeast Asia during the colonial and post-colonial periods.
  • Movement of samples and collections in their diversity (museum, academic, private, and community-owned collections), exchanged, curated, and displayed in Asia and elsewhere in the world.
  • Archaeological collections today: narratives, accessibility, policies and regulation in local and international contexts.

We expect proposals that take into account:

  • The political, social, economic, religious and cultural dimensions of scientific practice;
  • the continuities and ruptures observed between the colonial and post-colonial periods;
  • the multi-scale realities involving actors, institutions, practices, networks, activism, specimens and artefacts;
  • the impact of places within scientific practices: between centres and peripheries; colonies and metropolises; rural and urban areas; shared and contested territories.

How to submit

Please send abstracts (2000 characters max) with title, the name(s) of the author(s) and
its/their affiliation(s), an email address to: history-of-archaeology@uispp.org

Deadline: 31 May 2025

Convenors

  • Maddalena Cataldi, Sapienza University of Roma, Italy
  • Adèle Chevalier, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, France
  • Géraldine Delley, Latenium museum & University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
  • Sébastien Plutniak, Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, lab. CITERES, Tours, France

This call on Calenda.

Call for papers (extended version)

Download PDF version

The theme “Field explorations” will concentrate on the scientific practices, methods and
techniques employed in the collect of archaeological artefacts, ecofacts, and human remains, surveys and excavations carried out by laymen and archaeologists (Blanckaert 1996; Kuklick & Kohler 1996; Kolher 2007; Latour 1993). It would include papers:

  • paying particular attention to the collaborative aspects of these scientific undertakings,
    in which the local population and knowledge possibly played important roles (Chambers
    & Gillespie 2000; Dubald & Madruga 2022; Podgorny 2015);
  • about forms of scientific validations and expertise between the field and institutions:
    international scientific commissions with interdisciplinary and international
    collaborations in European and Asian laboratories, etc. (Bossaert & Durand 2018; Reubi
    2015);
  • about the role of foreign financing or international institutions (UNESCO) and
    foundations (not restricted to American ones, but also referring to Dutch, Japanese,
    Australian institutions) during the colonial and postcolonial periods (Boylan 1997 [1979];
    Carruthers 2019; Delley et al. 2016; Kaeser 2002; Petitjean et al. 2006; Proctor 2003).

The theme “Movement of samples and collections” will examine the itineraries, exchanges,
cataloguing, description, and interpretation of the material collected as well as its dissemination to the public (Achim & Gänger 2021; Secord 2004). It will focus on the fate these collections have faced on site in Asia, and abroad (19th-21th c.). It would include papers:

  • identifying which specimens were retained in Asia and which ones were sent abroad,
    and for which reasons;
  • studying the making of copies: selection of models, methods to reproduce originals
    (drawing, casts, digital models and twins) and their different uses: pedagogical,
    scientific, for museums exhibitions, commercial, etc.;
  • examining the possible reconfiguration, division, reshaping of these collections, and the
    consequences on the narratives about them (Bennett et al. 2017);
  • determining how the political and cultural transition from colonial to post-colonial
    society has impacted the ways prehistory has been collected, exhibited, and
    communicated (Schlanger 2002; Schmalzer 2008).

The theme “Archaeological collections today” addresses current practices in local and
international contexts regarding the narratives about collections, their accessibility, their
scientific relevance and epistemic significance, and their related policies and regulation in Asia and abroad (Bloembergen & Eickhoff 2011; Drieënhuizen & Sysling, 2021). Collection managers and curators are especially welcome in this section, as well as scholars interested in collections provenance research. Papers could deal with

  • innovative experiences and current trends in museology, regarding display methods and
    narratives;
  • the interrelations between policies, regulations, and standards implemented by national
    and international institutions;
  • the diversity of governance forms of museal institutions: public and private, including
    community-owned institutions (Bezerra & Gomes Ferreira 2002; Clifford 1997);
  • the place of alternative narratives in current museographies, including discourses by
    local communities (biography of objects and collections) and historians of science and
    collections (Delley & Kaeser 2024).

We expect proposals that take into account:

  • The political, social, economic, religious and cultural dimensions of scientific practice;
  • the continuities and ruptures observed between the colonial and post-colonial periods;
  • the multi-scale realities involving actors, institutions, practices, networks, activism,
    specimens and artefacts;
  • the impact of places within scientific practices: between centres and peripheries;
    colonies and metropolises; rural and urban areas; shared and contested territories

Bibliographic orientations

  • Achim M., Gänger S. 2021, “Pas encore classiques. La fabrique des antiquités américaines au XIXe siècle”, in Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales 76, 2, pp. 341-376.
  • Bennett T. et al. 2017, Collecting, Ordering, Governing: Anthropology, Museums, and Liberal Government, Durham, London: Duke University Press.
  • Bezerra M., Gomes Ferreira L. 2022, “Affective Museums. The Practice of Collecting
  • Archaeological Artefacts in the Brazilian Amazon”, in Stevenson A. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Museum Archaeology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 98-114.
  • Blanckaert C. 1996, “Histoires du terrain. Entre savoir et savoir-faire”, in Blanckaert C. (ed.), Le terrain des sciences humaines. Instructions et Enquêtes (XVIIIe -XXe siècles), Paris: L’Harmattan.
  • Bloembergen M., Eickhoff M. 2011, “Conserving the Past, Mobilizing the Indonesian Future. Archaeological Sites, Regime Change and Heritage Politics in Indonesia in the 1950s”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 167, 4, pp. 405-36.
  • Bloembergen M., Eickhoff M. 2015, “The Colonial Archaeological Hero Reconsiderer. Post-Colonial Perspectives on the ‘Discovery’ of the Prehistoric Past of Indonesia”, in Eberhardt G. & Link F. (eds.), Historiographical Approaches to Past Archaeological Research, Berlin: Editions Topoi, pp. 133-164.
  • Boylan P. J. 1997 [1979], “The Controversy of the Moulin-Quignon Jaw: the Role of Hugh
  • Falconer”, in Jordanova L. & Porter R. (eds.), Images of the Earth. Essays in History of the Environmental Sciences, Oxford: British Society of the History of Science, pp. 171-199.
  • Bossaert M., Durand A. 2018, “Par-delà les confins de la science italienne. Relectures transnationales d’une science nationale”, in Mélanges de l’École française de Rome – Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines 130, 2, pp. 261-271.
  • Carruthers W. 2019, “Heritage, Preservation, and Decolonization: Entanglements, Consequences, Action?”, in Future Anterior 16, 2, pp. ii-xxiv.
  • Chambers, D.W., Gillespie, R. 2000, “Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge”, Osiris 15, pp. 221–40.
  • Cherry, H. 2002, “Digging up the Past: Prehistory and the Weight of the Present in Vietnam”, Journal of vietnamese studies 4, 1, pp. 84-144.
  • Clifford, J. 1997, “Museums as Contact Zones”, in Clifford, J. (ed.) 1997, Routes: Travel and Translations in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 188-219.
  • Delley G. et al. (eds.). 2016, History of Archaeology – international perspectives, Oxford: Archaeopress.
  • Delley, G., Kaeser, M.-A. 2024, “Collections patrimoniales et polysémie des objets archéologiques : L’apport heuristique et muséographique d’une réflexivité sur les trajectoires des objets”, in Lehoërff, A., Louboutin, C. (eds.), Archéologie en musée et identités nationales en Europe (1848-1914) : Un héritage en quête de nouveaux défis au 21e siècle, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, pp. 29-48.
  • Dias N. 2015, “From French Indochina to Paris and Back Again: the Circulation of Objects, People, and Information, 1900-1932”, Museum & Society 13, 1, pp. 7-21.
  • Dotte-Sarout É. et al. (eds.). 2020, Pour une histoire de la préhistoire océanienne. Approches historiographiques de l’archéologie francophone dans le Pacifique, Marseille: pacific-credo Publications, https://books.openedition.org/pacific/1103
  • Drieënhuizen C., Sysling F. 2021, “Java Man and the Politics of Natural History”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 177, pp. 290-311.
  • Dubald D., Madruga C. 2022, “Introduction: Situated Nature. Field Collecting and Local Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century”, Journal for the History of Knowledge 3, 1, pp. 1-11.
  • Kaeser M.-A. 2002, “On the international roots of prehistory”, Antiquity 76, pp. 170-177.
  • Kolher R.E. 2007, “Finders, Keepers; collecting sciences and collecting practice”, History of Science 45, 4, pp. 428-454.
  • Kuklick H., Kohler R. E. 1996, “Introduction”, Osiris 11, Science in the Field, pp. 1-14.
  • Latour B. 1993, “Le ‘pédofil’ de Boa-Vista – Montage photo-philosophique”, Petites leçons de sociologie des sciences, Paris: La Découverte, pp. 171-225.
  • Peleggi M. 2023, “Prehistory and ideology in Cold War Southeast Asia : the politics of wartime archaeology in Thailand and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1954-1975”, Histories 3, pp. 98-111.
  • Petitjean, P. et al. (eds.). 2006, Sixty Years of Science at UNESCO 1945–2005, Paris: UNESCO.
  • Podgorny I. 2015, “Towards a bureaucratic history of Archaeology. A preliminary essay”, in
  • Eberhardt G. & Link F. (eds.), Historiographical Approaches to Past Archaeological Research, Berlin: Editions Topoi, pp. 47-67.
  • Proctor R., 2003, “Three Roots of Human Recency”, Current Anthropology 44, 2, pp. 213-239.
  • Reubi S. 2015, “(Re)connaître l’homme primitif. Savoirs anthropologiques, préconceptions et situations locales à Sulawesi, 1892-1906”, Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines 27, pp. 65-87.
  • Schlanger N. 2002, “Making the past for South Africa’s future: the prehistory of Field-Marshal Smuts (1920s-1940s)”, Antiquity 76, pp. 200-209.
  • Schmalzer S. 2008, The People Pekin Man: popular science and human identity in twentieth-century China, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Secord J. 2004, “Knowledge in Transit”, Isis 95, pp. 654-672.
  • Theunissen B. 1989, Eugène Dubois and the ape-man from Java: the history of the first missing link and its discovery, Dordrecht, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

“Dialectiques pyrénéennes : espaces esthétiques, terrains scientifiques. Contrastes et mélanges en hommage à Georges Laplace”, 19-21 September 2024, Arudy (France)

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The conference Dialectiques pyrénéennes : espaces esthétiques, terrains scientifiques. Contrastes et mélanges en hommage à Georges Laplace (Pyrenean Dialectics: Aesthetic Spaces, Scientific Fields. Contrasts and Miscellanea in Honour of Georges Laplace) is organised twenty years after the French prehistoric archaeologist Georges Laplace passed away. The event takes place in Arudy, in the Pyrenees, where Laplace carried out his most significant research activities, namely organising yearly “typology seminars” (from 1969 to 1989), creating and managing a museum (the Maison d’Ossau – Musée d’Arudy) and publishing the Dialektikê journal.

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