Techno and the Teufelsberg: Excavating Berlin's Cold War

This public lecture is associated with the Centre for Urban Research (CURB).

Having lived there as a child, John has always been drawn to Berlin, more so recently with several research projects focusing on a variety of its sites, buildings and communities.

These may seem rather disconnected projects at first glance, but they have common threads which are also key themes in his approach to both cultural heritage and to archaeology. With the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall recently passed, this talk will review these projects and ask what they tell us about the city and its people, and what they contribute to current thinking on the meaning of heritage and on the definition and reach of archaeology.

About the speaker

Originally trained as an archaeologist, and with a PhD in prehistoric archaeology, John's transition to archaeologies of the recent and contemporary past came during his 21 years with English Heritage, during which time he had research and policy responsibilities in what was then a highly novel area of activity. He was appointed to York in 2010 and became Head of Department in 2012, remaining in that post until December 2018. John has published extensively in a diversity of areas including music and place, cultural heritage, recent conflict archaeology, contemporary archaeology and the use of material culture to help address marine plastic pollution. Berlin probably features in more of his publications than any other place.