Reinhard Bernbeck is currently professor of Ancient Western Asian Archaeology at the Freie Universität Berlin, and Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University. His research in Topoi focuses on the implementation of Late Neolithic technological innovations in societies of southern Turkmenistan (Area A II). He has pursued similar research questions through excavations in Iran and Turkey. He is also interested in the ideological dimensions of archaeology and is concerned with the often divisive political fallout of archaeological research. These latter interests have led him to engage in Topoi’s Cross Sectional Group V.

Research Group B-II-1 explores various factors relating to the implementation and organization of political spaces. The research focuses on places in the Near East (Upper Mesopotamia) and, by way of comparison and contrast, on locations in the Roman province of Judaea. The category of space is examined here from two points of view: first, research is conducted into the ways in which political power and control manifest themselves spatially (contiguous, disparate and isolated, or reticulate) and second, how the physical constitution of the land being ruled influences the structure and mechanisms of political power.