Draft:Detlef Gronenborn

Detlef Gronenborn

Detlef Gronenborn (* 5. Februar 1962).. is a German prehistoric archaeologist, adjunct university professor, and writer. His research focuses on the Neolithic in Europe, but also on the time-span between the Iron Age and the early European Expansion in West- and Southern Africa. His methodological areas of interest include palaeoclimatology-informed archaeology, social archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and ethnohistory.

Academic Education

Gronenborn studied the subjects of Prehistory and Early History, Historical Ethnology and Provincial Roman Archaeology at Albertus Magnus University, Cologne, and at Goethe University,  Frankfurt, from 1982 to 1989. He graduated in 1990 with a Master thesis (“The Lithic Material of the Linear Pottery Settlement Site at Friedberg-Bruchenbrücken, Wetteraukreis” (1989) (Germ. “Das Steinmaterial des bandkeramischen Siedlungsplatzes Friedberg-Bruchenbrücken, Wetteraukreis”) in Frankfurt am Main .

n 1992, Gronenborn completed his doctoral dissertation on lithic artifacts of the Earliest Linear Pottery Culture (Germ. “Silexartefakte der ältestbandkeramischen Kultur“), and was awarded the degree of Dr. phil. (Doctor of Philosophy) in 1993, also at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. In 2001, Gronenborn received his habilitation, again at Goethe University, with the thesis “mai mbauji – A Study of the Emergence and Transformation of Iron Age Principalities in the Southern Chad Basin (7th/8th century AD to c. 1925)”.

Academic Career

Between 1992 and 1997, Gronenborn held a position of researcher with the Collaborative Research Centre (Sonderforschungsbereich) 268, ‘Cultural Development and Linguistic History in the West African Savannah’, at Goethe University, directing large-scale excavations at settlement mounds in north-eastern Nigeria. From 1997 to 1998 he was adjunct assistant professor at the University of Florida. Returning to Germany, he wrote his postdoctoral thesis (Germ. Habilitation) between 1998 and 2000, supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 2001, he was granted the German academic teaching permission (venia legendi). He taught as adjunct lecturer (Germ. Privatdozent) at Goethe University from 2001 to 2003, and in 2001 also held a teaching post at the University of Göttingen.

This was followed by a position as lecturer at Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg from 2001 to 2002, followed by a tenured research position at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), formerly the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, in Mainz from 2002 to 2003. In 2004 Gronenborn became research curator, in 2014 senior research curator, and in 2019 deputy head of the Prehistory Department.

In 2003 he was appointed senior lecturer at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, and in 2007, adjunct professor. Since 2007, he has taught continuously on the Neolithic in Central Europe and has supervised numerous Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations.

Between 2009 and 2014, Gronenborn was Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since 2014, he has been a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).

Research

Gronenborn’s research focuses on Europe, West and Southern Africa. He began in the late 1980s with studies of flint artefacts from the Earliest Linear Pottery culture. In the 1990s, he broadened his interests including more recent periods in Africa. Following research on the expansion of the Islamic Borno Empire in north-eastern Nigeria, Gronenborn was involved in a joint project between the University of the Witwatersrand and the Institut Français d’Afrique du Sud between 2004 and 2006. The objective was to document Khoekhoe sites in South Africa drawing on both historical and archaeological sources.

Between 2007 and 2014, Gronenborn directed a LEIZA restoration project on the early historic site of Durbi Takusheyi in Katsina State, northern Nigeria. Since 2013, he has been involved in several archaeological and ethnohistorical projects in Zimbabwe.

Parallel to his research in Africa, Gronenborn has continued to work on the Neolithic in Europe. Between 2001 and 2003 he was involved as principal investigator in an INTAS project on early farming in north-western Russia and between 2004 and 2006 as principle investigator in an ESF project on early agricultural technologies in western Eurasia.

Since 2008, Gronenborn has been conducting excavations at the Neolithic fortified hilltop settlement of Kapellenberg near Frankfurt/Main, Germany. In collaboration with the Hessian State Heritage Authority and the City of Hofheim, he carries out annual excavations as part of field schools based at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz.

Simplified basic pattern of the cyclical sequence of social states (after Gronenborn 2016; Gronenborn et al. 2017; Gronenborn et al. 2020)

Since 2009, Gronenborn has been studying Neolithic long-term social processes, applying cycle-based theoretical concepts such as the so-called adaptive cycles, the Dual Processual Theory — developed, among others, by Richard Blanton — and, in collaboration with Peter Turchin, aspects of the Structural Demographic Theory.

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Gronenborn’s model is adapted to simple farming societies, and focuses on successive states of social cohesion. Gronenborn’s model is adapted to simple farming societies, and focuses on successive states of social cohesion. ] Data on population dynamics can also be used to identify cycles. However, at high temporal resolution social sequences and population dynamics do not always overlap. The basic model should be understood as a highly simplified and generalized approximation, the specific form of which may vary in individual cases: A cycle begins with a phase of internal conflicts during the negotiation of social identities, which determine the formation of social cohesion. This is followed by periods of prosperity and internal peace. However, the increasing diversity of social identities leads to internal conflicts of interest and a breakdown of social cohesion, culminating in escalating violence. Accordingly, early agrarian societies terminate in an inherent process of decline (‘Inherent Collapse’). Towards the end of a cycle, social conflicts and violence increase, accompanied by economic collapse, as for example documented archaeologically for the final phases of the Early Neolithic Linear Pottery culture

Expansion of Farming in Western Eurasia, 9600-4000 v. Chr. Vers. 2023.1

Subsequent studies on population dynamics at the continental level – including the use of mathematical simulations – show that this cycle-based approach provides a robust explanatory framework for both large geographical areas and long time series (the Middle Holocene) in Europe. Recurring processes of social decline, accompanied by increasing violence within and between groups, evidently shaped the dynamics of post-glacial Europe over long periods. A recent study with Kai Wirtz supported these results and shifted them to the continental level. The authors were able to demonstrate a link between solar activity, climate stability and regional population growth cycles worldwide

Publications

Monographies and Edited Books (selected)

• Silexartefakte der ältestbandkeramischen Kultur. Mit einem Beitrag von Jean-Paul Caspar (= Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie. Band 37). R. Habelt, Bonn 1997, ISBN 978-3-7749-2726-1.
• As Editor:1Klimaveränderungen und Kulturwandel in neolithischen Gesellschaften Mitteleuropas 6700–2200 v. Chr. Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-88467-096-4 epic.awi.de
• Editor with Jörg Petrasch: Die Neolithisierung Mitteleuropas. Internationale Tagung, Mainz 24. bis 26. Juni 2005. Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-88467-159-7.
• Editor with Plan Shenjere-Nyabezi, und Gilbert Pwiti The Past in the Present. The archaeology of North-Western Zimbabwe and the Nambya state. Weaver Press, Harare 2023.

Book chapters and Journal articles (selected)

• A Variation on a Basic Theme: The Transition to Farming in Southern Central Europe. In: Journal of World Prehistory. Band 13, Nr. 2, 1999, S. 123–210.
• Transregional Culture Contacts and the Neolithization Process in Northern Central Europe. In: Peter Jordan, Marek Zvelebil (Hrsg.): Ceramics before farming: the dispersal of pottery among prehistoric Eurasian hunter-gatherers. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek CA 2009, ISBN 978-1-59874-245-9, S. 527–550 (englisch; academia.edu).
• Climate, Crises, and the »Neolithisation« of Central Europe between IRD-events 6 and 4. In: Die Neolithisierung Mitteleuropas. The Spread of the Neolithic to Central Europe. Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz, Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-88467-159-7, S. 61–81 (englisch; academia.edu).
• Gronenborn, D., Strien, H.-C., Dietrich, S. & Sirocko, F. (2014) ‘Adaptive cycles’ and climate fluctuations: A case study from Linear Pottery Culture in western Central Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science, 51(November), 73–83. Available from doi:10.1016/j.jas.2013.03.015.
• Migrations before the Neolithic? The Late Mesolithic blade-and-trapeze horizon in Central Europe and beyond. In: Harald Meller/Falko Daim/Johannes Krause et al. (Eds.). Migration und Integration von der Urgeschichte bis zum Mittelalter. 9. Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 20. bis 22. Oktober 2016 in Halle (Saale) = Migration and integration from prehistory to the Middle Ages; 9th Archaeological Conference of Central Germany October 20-22, 2016 in Halle (Saale). Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte, Halle (Saale) 2017, 113–127.
• Du Kanem-Bornou aux cités Haussa. Empires, Islam et commerce au Sahel Central. In: François-Xavier Fauvelle (Ed.). L'Afrique ancienne. De l’Acacus au Zimbabwe. 20 000 avant notre ère - XVIIe siècle. Belin / Humensis; Editions Belin, Paris 2018, 203–223.
• Polities and trade in Medieval Northern Nigeria. In: Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Ed.). Caravans of gold, fragments in time. Art, culture, and exchange across medieval Saharan Africa. Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University; In association with Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2019, 161–171.

Exhibition Catalogs and Popular Science publications (selected)

• Faszination Jungsteinzeit. Verlag des RGZM, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-88467-111-5 (online).
• As Editor: Gold, Slaves, and Ivory. Medieval Empires in Northern Nigeria. Mainz, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2541-8.
• With Thomas Terberger: Vom Jäger und Sammler zum Bauern: Die Neolithische Revolution. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-8062-2189-3.
• With Wolfgang Haak, Als Europa (zu) Europa wurde. Die großen Migrationen im Neolithikum. In: Matthias Wemhoff/Michael M. Rind (Eds.). Bewegte Zeiten. Archäologie in Deutschland. Petersberg, Michael Imhof Verlag, 72–77.
• With Plan Nyabezi, Frühe Globalisierung in Afrika. Archäologie in Deutschland (3), 2020, 14–19.

Weblinks

• ORCID: 0000-0002-6467-5643
• Publications for download (leiza.academia.edu)
• Detlef Gronenborn at LEIZA
• Detlef Gronenborn at google scholar

Einzelnachweise

Category:1962 births Category:German writers Category:Academic staff of the University of Mainz Category:German prehistorians