Activities

Authors: Thomas Beard, Valentina Laaha, Doris Jetzinger   At the beginning of this year, from the 11th to the 12th of January 2024, the first ‘Geoarchaeology in Vienna’ workshop took place at the University of Vienna, generously funded by HEAS. Born out of the wish to connect and create a nexus between geoarchaeologists based in Vienna, the workshop was conceived and organised by Valentina Laaha, Doris Jetzinger and Thomas Beard, all students within the University of Vienna. The vision for this kickoff-event was to get to know each other, establish connections, and lay the foundation for a network of geoarchaeologists in Vienna. Concerning Geoarchaeology It may have been noticed that, while there are a multitude of institutes of archaeological studies all over Vienna, there is no “Geoarchaeology” department per se. So, what is geoarchaeology then? Every geoarchaeologist has most likely been confronted with this question at some point - by members of the public, colleagues from other disciplines, colleagues from within geoarchaeology, or even by themselves. This may be closely tied to the inherently great diversity within the discipline, including many different specialisations that may, or may not decide to carry the label of 'geoarchaeology'. This often leads to 'missing out on each other' by attending vastly different conferences and different sessions within those conferences, but also being housed in quite diverse…

By: Dominik Hagmann As part of the University of Vienna's course “AI and Interdisciplinary Research” held at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology in the summer term of 2025, students from diverse academic fields participated in a hands-on robotics workshop and explored cutting-edge robotics at General Laser in Vienna. From humanoid robotic agents to agile robot dogs, the hands-on workshop illustrated vividly how artificial intelligence (AI) and automation shape both tomorrow’s industry and future research. Setting the Scene: From Myth to Machine Long before AI emerged as a formal scientific discipline, the idea of creating artificial beings fascinated the human imagination. For instance, Greek mythology introduced automata—self-moving devices—already during the first half of the 1st millennium BCE. According to some myths, the smithing god Hephaistos, for example, provided King Alcinoos with “robotic watchdogs” crafted from gold and silver. Furthermore, the deity created Talos, a humanoid “lethal autonomous weapon system” made from bronze, for King Midas to guard the island of Crete. Aside from several further examples, these two cases already comprehensively illustrate how deeply rooted complex visions of intelligent, artificial beings are in human thought. The term robot itself originates from the Czech word robota ("forced labor"), first coined in Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), foreseeing a world where artificial workers ultimately rise against their human creators. Today,…