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Prehistoric Map

An interactive map of prehistory

12-04-2018: New interactive time atlas of ancient DNA, wool, and wheels

Mikkel Nørtoft (owner of this site) has made a map visualizing prehistoric migrations through ancient DNA samples for the Carlsberg-funded project ”The Homeland: in the footprints of the early Indo-Europeans” at the Institute for Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. The research project is headed by historical linguist Thomas Olander. The online atlas also features prehistoric finds (and secondary indications) of wool and wheels, and new functionalities and data will be added continuously.

Check it out at homeland.ku.dk



2018: New prehistoric loanword blog!

Rasmus Gudmundsen Bjørn has now got his own corner of Prehistoric Map writing about his studies on some of the earliest prehistoric loanwords in Indo-European. It's a true treasure chest! So far, most of the articles are taken from Bjørn's Prize paper / Master's thesis about Proto-Indo-European loanwords from 2017, which won him a gold medal. Bjørn even takes requests for loanword subjects to be studied. When working with several large language families, it can get confusing trying to keep track of the many languages involved. Therefore, Bjørn also has sections for language trees involved in his studies, including discussions about their structures.

Check it out at loanwords.prehistoricmap.com or in the top menu on this page.



2017: New textile timemap!

Check out the brand new timemap of prehistoric textiles, which is a pilot project of the future Prehistoric Map (see below). This map features C14 dated textiles in Eurasia, with Danish textile data from Mannering et al. 2010, international textile data from textile-dates.info (University of Bonn), and some manually added data from the Pontic-Caspian steppes, and England (see references on map).

The map is still in development, and will get more pictures, more data and more functionalities soon.

The technical functionalities of the timemap have been made with the generous help of Lê Nguyên Phương Thanh.

Pictures of the Danish textiles have been provided by the National Museum of Denmark.

The Textile Map is made in close collaboration with Centre for Textile Research (CTR), University of Copenhagen.


Textiles missing? Contribute with your research data. These guidelines will show you how to most effectively submit data to the Textile Map to be most quickly and correctly featured on the map with direct links to your own publications.