Pieter Rodts

PROJECT TITLE

Beastly Traces and Shared Spaces: encountering human-animal communities in the Sonian Forest 

PROJECT SUMMARY

How do past human–more-than-human relationships continue to shape the landscapes we inhabit today? My PhD research investigates this question by studying the Sonian Forest, a forest located in the center of Belgium, combining landscape archaeology, historical ecology and multispecies approaches to explore how humans, animals, plants, soils, and infrastructures have shaped one another over the long term. Rather than treating the forest simply as a backdrop to human history, the project approaches it as a more-than-human landscape in which different species, material structures and ecological processes have continually interacted. Particular attention is given to the material and ecological afterlives of past land-use practices and human–animal relationships: paths and other infrastructures, former grazing areas, vegetation patterns, archaeological remains and other traces through which past landscape configurations continue to influence the present. The research combines archaeological and historical sources with landscape evidence, archival research, vegetation patterns and ecological observations. It asks not only what these traces can tell us about past landscapes, but also how past actions and relationships remain active within contemporary ones. A central aim of the project is therefore to develop archaeological approaches for identifying and interpreting these material and ecological continuities. Recent work includes a citizen-science project, The Past is Flowering All Around Us, which uses observations of spring-flowering plants to investigate hidden historical layers of the Sonian Forest and explore how public observations can contribute to historical-ecological research. The project also has an applied dimension. By reconstructing the long-term interactions between people, animals and their environments, it seeks to contribute to contemporary forest management, heritage management and the challenge of reconciling recreation, biodiversity and human–wildlife coexistence. The project is a collaboration between the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Leefmilieu Brussel/Bruxelles Environnement, funded by the Brussels-Capital - Innoviris (2024–2028).

EDUCATION

• Master of Arts in Art History and Archaeology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2022
• Research Master of Arts in Ancient History, Leiden University, 2018
• Master of Arts in History, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2015
• Bachelor of Arts in History, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2014

KEYWORDS

• Landscape archaeology
• Historical ecology
• Multispecies archaeology
• Human–more-than-human relations
• Landscape change
• Material and ecological traces
• Historical infrastructures
• Vegetation history
• Citizen science
• Human–animal relations

SUPERVISORS

Prof. dr. Marc De Bie (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Ir. Frederik Vaes (Leefmilieu Brussel/Bruxelles Environment)