[Ura-list] CfP: a linguistics-archaeology workshop in Helsinki 17.04.2026

[Olesya Khanina]

Dear colleagues,

Kerkko Nordqvist and I are organising an informal workshop "What Do
You Mean by That? Methods, assumptions, and limits in archaeology and
linguistics" at the Helsinki Collegium of Advanced Studies (University
of Helsinki) on April 17.
It is aimed as an opportunity for a friendly methodological
conversation between archaeologists and linguists. You can find a full
description of the event at the end of the email.

The event is planned as a full-day in-person meeting in Helsinki.

We would be glad if you could contribute to the workshop as a
presenter or a discussant.
Please, let us know if you are interested by sending your preliminary
title or topic(s) of interest before January 31.
Unfortunately, there are no funds to cover anyone's travel expenses.

With kind regards,
Olesya Khanina


What Do You Mean by That?
Methods, assumptions, and limits in archaeology and linguistics

17 April 2026, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

Organisers: HCAS Core fellows Olesya Khanina & Kerkko Nordqvist

Both historical linguistics and archaeology are interested in the
human past. All of us aim at understanding past communities, their
transformations in time and space, their interactions with neighbours,
and the related mobilities of material, linguistic, as well as
biological components. However, our methodological toolkits are quite
distinct, which makes interpretation and integration of our results a
tough enterprise. The methodological challenges have recently started
being discussed more explicitly, e.g. introductory chapters to
Kristiansen & Kroonen (2023) and Robbeets & Hudson (2025).With this
workshop, we want to continue the conversation with a particular focus
on North-Western Eurasia.

What can each of us, as a scholar of the past, do to better understand
the other discipline, its methods, its results, and its limitations?

At big conferences and symposia, we are eager to present our
achievements, whether disciplinary or interdisciplinary, but we rarely
have an opportunity to talk about problems. For example, why is it so
difficult to compare findings of the two disciplines? To what extent
are they comparable at all? What do we expect from the other
discipline? Are these expectations realistic? Are we satisfied with
how representatives of the other discipline interpret our results? Or
are we upset that they fail to notice our work at all?

As a linguist and an archaeologist, we are organising this
methodological workshop to create an opportunity for all participants
to engage in an informal but critical dialogue. We believe that mutual
curiosity and a willingness both to share and to learn can open new
possibilities for collaboration and joint explorations of the human
past.

Rather than following the standard conference format of lengthy papers
followed by brief discussion, we propose a structure that gives equal
weight to problem-setting and subsequent conversation. Each concise
presentation is followed by an open discussion in which all
participants are encouraged not only to ask questions but also to
offer tentative answers to the issues raised. Preliminarily, the slots
are scheduled for 30 minutes, including 15 minutes for the
presentation and 15 minutes for discussion.

We invite presentations that reflect on the challenges and
opportunities of combining archaeological and linguistic data,
including but not limited to
- generalizations over current practices: both effective approaches
and those that prove more problematic,
- recurrent issues in how our results are perceived by the other discipline,
- assumptions and constraints within each discipline that may not be
evident to outsiders,
- the reliability of our findings and the information needed to
evaluate that reliability,
- the degree of comparability of our results,
- ways to improve dialogue between the two disciplines.

You can use the workshop as a platform to ask questions you have
always wanted to ask representatives of the other discipline, or you
can use it to provide answers to questions you have been waiting, so
far in vain, for representatives of the other discipline to ask you.
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