Andrej Pleterski

Biography

Prof Andrej Pleterski, PhD, works at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute of Archaeology, where he is responsible for the archaeology of the Early Middle Ages. As an Associate Professor, he teaches Early Medieval Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana.

Topography, excavations, museums: From 1979 to 2009, he led numerous archaeological excavations in Slovenia. In the period from 1983 to 1990, he focused on the archaeological topography of Slovenia. Since 1989, he has directed field research into the mythical landscapes of Scotland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria and Slovenia, as well as in Croatia, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia. He documents archaeological material in museums in Graz, Ljubljana, Munich, Regensburg, Linz, Salzburg, Ohrid, Celje, Maribor and Kranj.

Digital databases: He works with information technologies in archaeology. He developed an intelligent system for computer data entry and the description of objects, graves, sites and folk customs. He systematically builds the information infrastructure for archaeology: LIBERA — an indexed bibliography of the archaeology of the Early Middle Ages in Europe, and ZBIVA — core topographic and bibliographic data of the Early Middle Ages in the Eastern Alps and the surrounding area. As an editor and producer, he organised the international online database Merowingerzeitliche Grabfunde Mitteleuropas.

Analyses: He conducts interdisciplinary research (archaeology, history, ethnology) focusing primarily on the Middle Ages, but also on later periods, the Slavs, group identity, ways of life and mythology. He works on developing new analytical methods, expanding archaeological research into spatial structures, and supplements all of this with experimental archaeology. He studied mirila in the area of southern Velebit, publishing his findings in 2010 under the title Mirila: A Cultural Phenomenon.