Manfred Eggert

Manfred KH Eggert (* 1941 ) is a German prehistorian .

Life

Since 1964 he has been studying Prehistory and Early History, Ethnology , German Antiquity and Folklore and Physical Anthropology at the University of Hamburg and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz . In 1973 Eggert received his doctorate in Mainz and then received a two-year scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation and the German Research Foundation (DFG) at Yale University . From 1976 to 1978 he worked as a research assistant at the University of Mainz , preparing an archaeological rainforest project in what was then Zaïre , during which he undertook five archaeological field researches until 1987. Since 1978 Eggert was assistant at the Archaeological Institute of the University of Hamburg, after the habilitation in 1983 private lecturer. In 1988 he took over a professorship for prehistory and early history at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg . From 1993 until his retirement in 2006 he was a full professor at the Institute for Prehistory and Early History and Archeology of the Middle Ages at the University of Tübingen .

Research priorities

Eggert has been conducting field research in Cameroon since 1997 and 1998 , most recently as part of a DFG research group “Ecological Change and Cultural Upheaval in West and Central Africa” together with scientists from the University of Frankfurt am Main. He also takes part in the DFG Priority Program 1171 “Early Centralization and Urbanization Processes: On the Genesis and Development of Early Celtic Princes' Seats and their Territorial Environment”, where he is responsible for a sub-project on the settlement of the Heuneburg , which is being worked on by Siegfried Kurz .

Eggert is also known to students in particular for his introduction to Prehistoric Archeology: Concepts and Methods (first in 2000). A research focus is on theoretical reflection and the foundation of the subject. In individual works, he has questioned the interpretation models of prehistoric archeology and thus initiated many controversial discussions, such as the German-language discussion about New Archeology . Eggert pleaded here for a more precise and critical, method-reflective approach and against positivistic interpretations. However, as the current discussion about the late Hallstatt prince seats, which Eggert took up several times, shows, his warnings were often not understood.

Publications (selection)

• Co-editor of Saeculum . Yearbook for Universal History (founded by Georg Stadtmüller ), appears in two half-volumes in 2006 in the 57th year in Böhlau Verlag Cologne, ISSN  0080-5319

Monographs

• The urn field culture in Rheinhessen (= historical regional studies. 13). Steiner, Wiesbaden 1976, ISBN 3-515-02103-5 (at the same time: Mainz, University, dissertation, 1973).
• Prehistoric archeology. Concepts and Methods (= UTB . 2092). A. Francke, Tübingen et al. 2001, ISBN 3-8252-2092-3 (4th, revised edition. Ibid 2012, ISBN 978-3-8252-3696-0 ).
• Archeology. Basics of a historical cultural science (= UTB. 2728). A. Francke, Tübingen et al. 2006, ISBN 3-8252-2728-6 .
• with Stefanie Samida: Pre- and Protohistoric Archeology (= UTB. 3254). A. Francke, Tübingen et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-8252-3254-2 (2nd, revised and updated edition. Ibid 2013).
• Retrospective. Archeology from a cultural-scientific point of view. Edited by Melanie Augstein and Stefanie Samida. Waxmann, Münster et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-8309-2493-7 .
• with Stefanie Samida: Archeology as a natural science? A pamphlet (= series of pamphlet literature. 5). Past Publishing, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86408-154-5 .

Important essays

• On the concept of culture in prehistoric archeology. In: Bonner Jahrbücher . 178, 1978, pp. 1-20.
• Prehistoric Archeology and Ethnology: Studies in American New Archeology. In: Prehistoric Journal . 53, 1978, pp. 6-164.
• with Friedrich Lüth : Mersin and the absolute chronology of the European Neolithic. In: Germania . Vol. 65, No. 1, 1987, pp. 17-28.
• Constructed reality: remarks on the problem of archaeological interpretation using the example of the late Hallstatt period. In: Hephaestus . 10, 1991, pp. 5-20.
• Prestige goods and social structure in the late Hallstatt period: a cultural anthropological perspective. In: Saeculum . Vol. 42, No. 1, 1991, pp. 1-28, doi : 10.7788 / saeculum.1991.42.1.1 .
• Past in the present? Reflections on the interpretative potential of ethno-archeology. In: Ethnographic-Archaeological Journal . 34, 1993, pp. 144-150.
• The dead from Hochdorf. Notes on the mode of archaeological interpretation. In: Archaeological correspondence sheet . Vol. 29, No. 2, 1999, pp. 211-222.
• The Material and the Immaterial: About Archaeological Knowledge. In: Ulrich Veit , Tobias L. Kienlin, Christoph Kümmel, Sascha Schmidt (eds.): Traces and messages. Interpretations of material culture (= Tübingen archaeological pocket books. 4). Waxmann, Münster et al. 2003, ISBN 3-8309-1229-3 , pp. 423-461.

Web links

• Literature by and about Manfred Eggert in the catalog of the German National Library
• Vita on the website of the University of Tübingen