I am a computational archaeologist and assistant professor in Near Eastern archaeology at the University of Copenhagen. My research uses data science and ecological modelling to investigate the world’s first farming societies in prehistoric Southwest Asia. I also develop research software and open data that supports open science in archaeology. I have active field projects in eastern Jordan, focusing on desert archaeological survey, and have previously worked in Iran, Oman, Ukraine, and Bulgaria.
I am currently working on sampling early cropping systems as part of the Ancient Environment Genomics Initiative for Sustainability (AEGIS) and as one of the lead maintainers of XRONOS, an open data infrastructure for archaeological chronology.
Recent activity
2025-10-30
Abstract XRONOS (https://xronos.ch) is an open data infrastructure for the backbone of the archaeological record – chronology. It provides open access to published radiocarbon dates and other chronometric data from any period, anywhere in the world. By collating a large number of existing regional and global compilations of dates, XRONOS offers the most comprehensive radiocarbon database yet published, with over 350,000 radiocarbon and 75,000...
2025-10-17
Abstract This paper presents the first continuous, spatially-explicit reconstructions of the palaeodistributions of 65 plant species found regularly in association with early agricultural archaeological sites in West Asia, including the progenitors of the first crops. We used machine learning to train an ecological niche model of each species based on its present-day distribution in relation to climate and environmental variables. Predictions of the potential...
2025-08-24
Ancient Mesopotamian depiction of an ox-drawn plough (after Potts in Jursa, 2021, all rights reserved) The invention of the ox-drawn plough was a turning point in the prehistory of agriculture because it was the first time food production was decoupled from human labour. This is why, from Medieval Europe to the ancient Near East farms were measured by the number of oxen (later horses...
2025-06-06
Abstract In 2024, the Danish Novo Nordisk Foundation and the United Kingdom’s Leverhulme Trust made €78 million available to investigate the evolution of agro-ecosystems using ancient environmental DNA, with a view to creating more sustainable and resilient crops and agriculture for the future. The project, led by Professor Eske Willerslev, includes a work package that will investigate the development of agro-ecosystems in southwest Asia...
