Dr. René Ohlrau

Dr. René Ohlrau is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Excellence Cluster ROOTS at Kiel University. He obtained his Master of Arts in 2014 at Kiel University for analysing the renewed geomagnetic survey of Trypillia ‘mega-sites’. During his PhD-studies between 2014 and 2018 at the Graduate School ‘Human development in landscapes’, he was involved in the excavations at the ‘mega-site’ near Maidanets’ke conducted by the CRC1266 ‘Scales of Transformation’.

For his thesis on ‘Maidanets’ke: Development and Decline of a Trypillia ‘Mega-site’ in Central Ukraine” he conducted extensive surveys in the main distribution area of the ‘mega-site’ phenomenon. Being interested in settlement archaeology, demographics and the emergence of early urbanism, he combines cutting-edge methodology with material data to describe how people start living together in ever larger settlements. René Ohlrau obtained his doctoral degree (Dr. phil) in 2019.