Prof. dr. Claudia Theune

Claudia Theune is Professor of Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna with a focus on contemporary archaeology, on medieval and post-medieval marginal landscapes and on early medieval funeral and social archaeology.

She studied Prehistoric and Early Medieval Archaeology, Social Anthropology, Christian Archaeology and Geology at the Universities in Marburg and Bonn, Germany (1979-1988). In 1988 she received her PhD at the University of Marburg for her thesis on Early Medieval graves in the western part of the lake Constance published in 1999: Frühmittelalterliche Grabfunde im Hegau (Habelt: Bonn). She did her Habilitation in 2001 on the Changes of structures in the Alamannia on the basis of archaeological sources, published in 2004: Germanen und Romanen in der Alamannia (de Gruyter: Berlin, New York).

In 1994 she became Assistant Professor at the Department of Prehistoric and Medieval Archaeology at the Humboldt-University, Berlin. Since 2007 she is Full Professor of Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna, Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology. She retired in autumn 2024.

• Archaeology of the contemporary past: research projects in the former concentration camps, and sub-camps in Germany and Austria, extermination centres in present-day Poland (Sobibor, Belzec) and the NS-Euthanasia-institution Hartheim in Upper Austria, the material culture of internment camps and extermination sites.
• Medieval and post-medieval remote landscapes.
• Early medieval funeral and social archaeology.

• President of the European Association: RURALIA The Jean-Marie Pesez Conferences on Medieval Rural Archaeology (2014-2025) and National Representative of Austria (since 2010).
• President of the Austrian Association for Medieval Archaeology (2012-2022).
• Dean of the Faculty Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna (2021-2018).

• Czech Science Foundation / Grantová Agentura České Republiky; National Science Center Poland / Narodowe Centrum Nauki; Croatian Science Foundation / Hrvatska zaklada za znanost; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; Wissenschaftliche Kommission des Landes Niedersachsen; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Berlin; Österreichische Nationalbank; National Geographic Society.
• Peer reviewer for several national and international journals.

• M. Ødegaard / K. Loftsgarden / Cl. Theune (eds), Farmers‘ trade and markets. Social and economic interaction in the Medieval and early morder European countryside (Sidestone Press, Leiden 2025)
• Cl. Theune, U. Scholz, Market places in small towns, the case study of Langenlois, Lower Austria. In: M. Ødegaard, K. Loftsgarden, Cl. Theune (eds), Farmers’ trade and markets. Social and economic interaction in the medieval and early modern European countryside. Ruralia XV (Sidestone Press, Leiden 2025)137-148.
• Cl. Theune / K. Grömer / A. Wahl (eds.), Resistance – Deat – Survival. The Archaeological excavation of the Gusen Concentration Camp. Bewusstseinsregion Mauthausen-Gusen-St.Georgen, Mauthausen 2025 (also translations in German and Polish).
• Cl. Theune, Commentary. In: Randy McGuire and Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal (eds), Archaeology, Heritage and Reactionary Populism. (University Press of Florida 2025), 242-254.
• Cl. Theune / B. Hausmair / Chr. Schmid (Hrsg.), Das 19. und 20. Jahrhundert im Fokus der Historischen Archäologie / The Historical Archaeology of the 19th and 20th centuries. BMÖ Beiheft 15 (Wien 2024).
• Cl. Theune, … ‚as goods are permitted…’ Deported from Vienna and murdered in Malyj Trostenez. Objects from a last journey. In: Cl. Theune / B. Hausmair / Chr. Schmid, Das 19. und 20. Jahrhundert im Fokus der Historischen Archäologie / The Historical Archaeology of the 19th and 20th centuries. BMÖ Beiheft 15 (Wien 2024) Wien, 460-468.
• Cl. Theune, Sobibor and other Nazi Extermination sites: a contextualisation of the objects. In: M. Eickhoff/ E. Somers/J. Take, The scientific volume Excavating Sobibor. Holocaust Archaeology between Heritage, History and Memory. W Books, Zwolle 2024, 77-96.
• Cl. Theune / Th. Kühtreiber (eds.), Die Tagung „Burgen- und Siedlungsarchäologie des Mittelalters in Wien 1969 – Ein Meilenstein in der Genese der Mittelalterarchäologie als Fachzweig in Europa. Beiträge zur Mittelalterarchäologie in Österreich – Beiheft 14 (Wien 2023)
• Cl. Theune, Allgemeine Tendenzen und Entwicklungen in der Mittelalter- und Neuzeitarchäologie seit 1969. In: Cl. Theune / Th. Kühtreiber (eds.), Die Tagung „Burgen- und Siedlungsarchäologie des Mittelalters in Wien 1969 – Ein Meilenstein in der Genese der Mittelalterarchäologie als Fachzweig in Europa. Beiträge zur Mittelalterarchäologie in Österreich – Beiheft 14 (Wien 2023) 53-62.
• S. Loistl / Cl. Theune / P. Eigelsberger / Fl. Schwanninger (Redaktion), Fundstücke 1 (Alkoven 2023).
• Cl. Theune, Archäologie und Ethik. In: Archäologie und Ethik: Internationales Fachgespräch. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege 76, 2022/2, 8-14.
• C. Tente / Cl. Theune (eds.), Ruralia XIV; Household goods in the European medieval and early modern countryside. Sidestone Press (Sidestone Press, Leiden 2023)
• P. Dixon / Cl. Theune, Seasonal Settlement in the medieval and early modern countryside. Ruralia XIII (Sidestone Press, Leiden 2021)
• Cl. Theune, Spuren von Krieg und Terror. Archäologische Forschungen an Tatorten des 20. Jahrhunderts (Böhlau: Wien 2020)
• J. Haubold-Stolle, Th. Kersting , Cl. Theune, Chr. Glauning, A. Riedle, Fr. Schopper, K. Wagner, A. Drecoll (eds), Exclusion. Archaeology of the Nazi internment camps (be.bra Verlag: Berlin 2020).
• Cl. Theune, Transformations in the Roman West. The case of the Alamanni. In: S. James / St. Kmnicek (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Roman Germany (Oxford University Press: Oxford 2020)

External link: Claudia Theune's Academia.edu profile