When Kiel University (CAU) opened its ship-resembling booth at the world’s biggest industry fair – the Hannover Messe (from April 24–28, 2017) – the Graduate School Human Development in Landscapes was on board to present the university’s research focus “Societal, Environmental, and Cultural Change” (SECC).
Two exhibition items were prepared by the public outreach team for the Kiel University stand in Hall 2/ C07 and the “German-Polish Evening of Cutting-edge Research” on April 26 contributed to the diverse programme on the stage of the booth. On April 25, SECC speaker Professor Lutz Käppel discussed “the Kiel way of cutting-edge research” with CAU President Professor Lutz Kipp and representatives of the other research foci.
The GSHDL exhibition items attracted quite some interest with their makeup: A bronze dagger replica and a pig skull were hanging from the ceiling above them – an unusual sight among all the robots and autonomous vehicles at the fair. One of the items exhibits the touch screen diary of a time-travelling archaeologist, who writes about her stay at the Bronze Age settlement of Bruszczewo, Greater Poland. The other item shows how applying high-end technology, namely ancient DNA analysis, can help researchers to investigate complex societal and economic processes in the past: Small bone fragments now provide sufficient information to decipher not only from what creature the fragments originate, but even what specifications an animal had (e.g. wild vs. domesticated pig).
On April 26, the research focus SECC presented the “German-Polish Evening of Cutting-edge Research” at the CAU stand. Poland is this year’s partner country of the Hanover Trade Fair, which connects well with Kiel University’s longstanding research cooperation with Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (AMU), including archaeology and further adjacent fields. After welcoming words by CAU President Kipp, AMU Vice President Professor Ryszard Naskręcki and the Vice Consul of the Polish Consulate General in Hamburg, Adam Borkowski, GSHDL Speaker Professor Johannes Müller offered an introduction to two short talks by Professor Ben Krause-Kyora and Dr. Jutta Kneisel. The latter had a special focus in the ongoing interdisciplinary research on the Bronze Age of North Central Europe, representing many years of cooperation between Kiel and Poznan. Afterwards, colleagues from Hanover joined the Polish and German researchers for a get-together.
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- The GSHDL/ SECC items at Kiel University’s Hannover Messe booth were framed by questioning birches. Photo: CAU
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- FAZ journalist Heike Schmoll (from left) discussed about “Cutting-edge research, the Kiel way” with Thomas Bosch (KLS), Rainer Adelung (KiNSIS), Martin Visbeck (Future Ocean), Lutz Käppel (SECC) and CAU president Lutz Kipp. Photo: CAU
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- CAU Vice President Ilka Parchmann and CAU President Lutz Kipp, GSHDL Exhibition Coordinator Walter Dörfler, Siegrid Hemming (Research department, Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Science and Equality Schleswig-Holstein) and State Secretary Rolf Fischer (from right) obviously enjoyed the introduction to the aDNA exhibition item by Ben Krause-Kyora. Photo: Nickel/CAU
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- Schleswig-Holstein’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Employment, Transport and Technology, Reinhard Meyer, and CAU President Lutz Kipp (from right) browsed through the digital diary from Bruszczewo, guided by GS representative Jirka Niklas Menke. Photo: Eulitz/CAU
Here you can find more information about the SECC/GSHDL exhibition items: www.gshdl.uni-kiel.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/GSHDL-exhibition-items-Hannover-Messe.pdf
More information and photos from the Hannover Messe are available here: www.uni-kiel.de/hannovermesse/en
Text: Jirka Niklas Menke