KLINKENBERG VICTOR
I investigate social structures in the past through the analysis of the construction and use of domestic space. I specialize in techniques from digital archaeology (3D GIS, spatial analysis) and geoarchaeology (micromorphology). My PhD was on reconstructing activities at the LBA settlement at Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, part of the ERC project Consolidating Empire (dunnu.nl). Afterwards I held a post-doc position in the SETinSTONE research project (setinstone.eu), and I held a teaching position teaching in the BA and MA Archaeology at Leiden University.
As a post doctoral fellow at the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus, I use micromorphology to investigate changes in building technology in relation to societal change in Chalcolithic Cyprus. I focus mainly on buildings from the excavation at Chlorakas-Palloures, of which I am field director (palloures.eu). At the Archaeological Research Unit I am currently employed as researcher in the TRIQUETRA project, which focusses on the effect of climate change on cultural heritage sites around Europe.
My chief research interest lies in the interplay between material culture and social action in the past. How changing social structures were reproduced in the design and use of artefacts, architecture, and settlements. And how we can reconstruct this, explaining patterns in archaeological remains as social negotiations in the deep past. I investigate this mostly in the realm of the household, where material reflections of economic and social change are cogent of how large scale processes most pertinently affected 'ordinary' people in their daily life.
I am particularly excited by the contributions of geoarchaeology and 3D GIS applications to the field of household archaeology. (Geo)chemical, micromorphological and botanical studies can reveal otherwise invisible patterns within buildings and settlements. For my own research I employ micromorphological analysis of house floors, occupation deposits and architectural elements to understand how these were produced and used. I use 3D GIS to contextualize these findings and for the development of integrated documentation, analysis and presentation techniques. In this field I focus mostly on 3D spatial analysis of archaeological assemblages.
Selected publications
Articles
Düring, B.S., V. Klinkenberg, E. Souter, P. Croft & M. Gamble 2023: The 2015-2017 Excavations at the Chalcolithic Site of Chlorakas-Palloures on Cyprus. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 23, 1: 165-198.
Klinkenberg, V. & Düring, B.S. 2022: Inequalities Before the Bronze Age, the Case of Chalcolithic Cyprus. Oxford Journal of Archaeology.
Klinkenberg, V. 2022: Building Biographies of the Cypriot Chalcolithic. Levant. DOI: 10.1080/00758914.2022.2140975
Sifogeorgaki, E., V. Klinkenberg, I. Esteban; M. Murungi; A.S. Carr; V.B. van den Brink, G.L. Dusseldorp 2020: New excavations at Umhlatuzana rockshelter KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: A stratigraphical and taphonomical evaluation. African Archaeological Review 37, 551–578
Düring, B.S., V. Klinkenberg, C. Paraskeva, P. Croft, E. Souter & T. Sonnemann 2018. Excavations at Chlorakas-Palloures, new light on Chalcolithic Cyprus. Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus 2016
Düring, B.S., V. Klinkenberg, C. Paraskeva, V. Kassianidou, E. Souter, P. Croft & A. Charalambous 2018: Metal Artefacts in Chalcolithic Cyprus: New data from Western Cyprus. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 18
Bookchapters
Klinkenberg, V. 2021: Building Function through Micromorphology of Floors at Chalcolithic Chlorakas-Palloures, Cyprus. In: Amadio, M. (ed.) 2021. Archaeology in the Smallest Realm. Micro analyses and methods for the reconstruction of Cyprus early societies. Artemide Edizioni, Roma
Klinkenberg, V. 2020: Talking Trash, Reconstructing activities, discard and abandonment at LBA Tell Sabi Abyad (Syria). In: A. Blanco-González & T.L. Kienlin (eds.) Current approaches to tells in the prehistoric Old World. Oxbow, Oxford
Books
Klinkenberg, V., R. van Oosten & C. van Driel (eds.) 2020. A Human Environment, Studies in honour of 20 years of Analecta editorship by Prof. Dr. Corrie Bakels. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 50. Sidestone press, Leiden
Klinkenberg V. 2016: Reading Rubbish: using object assemblages to reconstruct activities, modes of deposition and abandonment at the Late Bronze Age Dunnu of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. PIHANS Volume 129