Doctoral student in Historical Osteology within the ERC-Synergy grant project "FORAGER" (PA2026/771)

Lund University was founded in 1666 and is repeatedly ranked among the world’s top universities. The University has around 46 000 students and 8 500 staff based in Lund, Helsingborg and Malmö. We are united in our efforts to understand, explain and improve our world and the human condition.

After the end of the last Ice Age, warmer, more stable Holocene climates led to the development of entirely new food systems, which in turn triggered population booms across mid-latitude environments worldwide. These momentous changes are often reduced to simple linear narratives that trace a progression from mobile foraging to settled farming and from there to urbanisation and state formation. This ‘agri-centric’ narrative is problematic because, in many cases, behaviours typically attributed to farming societies, e.g., storage, sedentism, and social complexity, developed well before agriculture and remained the dominant social-ecological system for much of the Holocene. Moreover, such forager systems were capable of triggering population booms of a similar magnitude to those observed amongst early farming societies. The FORAGER project will bring together paleo-demographers, climate scientists, lab-based bioarchaeologists, and cultural anthropologists to understand the drivers and consequences of population expansion and decline in Holocene hunter-gatherer societies. Working at unprecedented scale and leveraging the rich legacy data already available, these issues will be addressed systematically and synergistically across four temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The team will generate comparative insights into major patterns of cultural diversity that progressive, linear narratives of cultural change have long overlooked. The project will also co-create new knowledge with Indigenous partners to elucidate existential possibilities long eclipsed by the recent historical penetration of industrialised farming into much of the temperate world. The team will aim to shed new light on a ‘lost chapter’ of demographic change, periods of great upheaval and resilience, highlighting the potential of alternative, and perhaps more sustainable, social-ecological systems.

Understanding spatiotemporal variation in the exploitation of faunal resources in the landscape is a key aspect of hunter-gatherer behaviour, especially when populations are undergoing major demographic transitions. The spatial scale at which hunter-gatherers move and interact is also relevant to the dynamics of social inquality and cultural inheritance. Demographic increase can result in population packing, stronger territoriality and greater cultural diversification, while population collapse triggered by resource depletion can expand harvesting areas and create more open social networks. Human remains offer direct evidence of mobility, though this is complicated by dietary variation and limited availability. To circumvent this, the project will examine the scale of research catchment areas by investigating variation in the isotope composition of faunal remains brought to foraging sites. Sequential strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) in the tooth enamel will be measured in game species, primarily deer species and wild boar, to track their movements across different landscapes, allowing a general estimation of hunting territories in relation to settlement locations. This will be accomplished by correlating animal Sr isotope data against known bioavailable Sr isotope variation in the landscape, obtained from existing data. Furthermore, by using proteomic-based sexing of enamel proteins to examine the sexual composition of, e.g. aurochs and deer species, in combination with applying crude age-of-death estimations on each analysed tooth, we will obtain data to inform understanding of hunting and animal management strategies. These proxy datasets will be used to examine spatiotemporal patterning in the geographic range of hunting activities across major demographic transitions, generating data that will be fed into the other parts of FORAGER.

Information about doctoral studies at the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology – ht.lu.se .

The education is carried out in Lund.

Doctoral studies. Departmental work, such as teaching and administrative tasks, can be assigned. The maximum amount of such work is 20 %.

Entry requirements for doctoral studies in Historical Osteology are specified in the general syllabus – ht.lu.se . 

The selection process will primarily take into account the applicants’ ability to benefit from doctoral studies. This is assessed against the criteria quality, quantity, progression and relevance.

Previous work with zooarchaeology, laser ablation for Sr isotope analyses and experience in acid demineralisation for amelogenin protein isoform analyses for sex determination is considered a merit.

Instructions for applying for a doctoral position can be found in Instructions for applying for a doctoral position (pdf) .

• CV / list of qualifications
• cover letter
• records of previous studies
• documentation of language skills
• academic papers / degree projects
• any scholarly publications
• project plan.

Please note that you need to upload all documents with your application in PDF format.

Limit of tenure, four years according to 5 kap. 7 § HF.