PhD studies topics starting in 2024, the exact date of the admission procedure will be specified. It will probably take place in June 2024.
Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, 3 years
Historical sciences, study programme: Archaeology
For further information, you can contact us at: nrausekr@savba.sk or here: https://ff.ukf.sk/studium/doktorandske-studium/
1. FF UKF Nitra
Topic: Human-river interaction in the past from the perspective of archaeology on the example of the rivers Váh and Hron
Supervisor: PhDr. Klaudia Daňová, PhD.
Consultant:
Date of admission: June 2024
Annotation:
Rivers are not only important landscape features, but also, from the perspective of past populations, features that greatly influenced their communication, settlement strategies, or religious practices. Evidence of these events is primarily the traces of human activities directly in the river course or its immediate surroundings. The content of the work represents the first attempt in Slovak conditions to comprehensively treat the topic of the river as an object of archaeological research. Geographically, the work focuses on a pair of important Slovak rivers, the Váh and the Hron. These are rivers from which a large number of finds come from the past and whose use in younger periods is relatively well documented in historiography. The names of the rivers already appear in ancient sources, which proves their economic and military importance at the turn of the centuries.
The methodology of the thesis will consist of two parts, namely heuristic (focused on the analysis of historical and contemporary map documents, historical reports, archival searches of discovery reports, available literature) and empirical part (actual field research focused on the survey of selected sections of river beds and their surroundings).
Chronologically, the work will focus on the period of human history up to 1918. Such a broadly conceived temporal classification of the work provides an opportunity to distinguish or compare the nature or intensity of the findings in the individual periods.
2. FF UKF Nitra
Topic: Early medieval settlement (6th–11th c.) of the Middle Nitra Basin from the perspective of archaeology
Supervisor: Mgr. Zbigniew Robak, PhD.
Consultant: doc. PhDr. Matej Ruttkay, DrSc.
Date of admission: June 2024
Annotation:
The aim of the thesis is to collect and evaluate archaeological sources from the given chronological period from the central Nitra area and from the adjacent mountains – Vtáčnik, Strážovské Vrchy, Považský Inovec and Tribeč. The work will include documentation and processing of findings deposited in several institutions, as well as work in the GIS environment and with the use of LIDAR data.
Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava – 4 years
Historical sciences, study programme: general history
For further information, you can contact us at: nrausekr@savba.sk or here: https://fphil.uniba.sk/pk/doktorandske-studium/prijimacie-konanie-na-ar-20242025/
1.
FF UK BA
Topic: Central hillfort of the Púchov culture on Havránok hill in Liptovská Sielnica-Liptovská Mara. Development, function, and heritage presentation
Supervisor: PhDr. Karol Pieta, DrSc.
Consultant: Mgr. Lucia Benediková, PhD.
Date of admission: June 2024
Annotation:
The topic includes the development of the use and interpretation of the importance of the dominant site of the Liptovská basin – the hill Liptovská Mara – Havránok in the protohistoric period based on the rich materials from the long-term excavations of the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV). The hill was fortified and used as an important sacrificial place from the Middle La Téne to the beginning of the Roman period. The topic will also include reconsideration of the reconstructions of selected archaeological features and the use of the site for cultural tourism.
2.
FF UK BA
Topic: Early Medieval burial mounds in the Middle Danube region
Supervisor: Mgr. Zbigniew Robak, PhD.
Date of admission: jún 2024
Annotation:
Critical elaboration of early medieval mound burials in Central Europe. Complex processing of well-known archeological sites, so-called Slavic burial mound zone with division into chronological phases, regions and categories (if necessary). Regional differences. Revision of dating sites. Special emphasis on Western Slovak groups (Upper Nitra, Turiec group).
3.
FF UK BA
Topic: Development of the cultural historical landscape in mountain areas with a focus on landscape transformations in the Middle Ages and early modern times (comparison of landscape transformations in Western and Central Europe in the castle estates of Laroche in Burgundy, Brtnice in Moravia and Krásna Hôrka in Slovakia)
Supervisor: PhDr. Peter Bednár, CSc.
Consultant: Mgr. Jana Mazáčková, Ph.D., Ústav archeologie a muzeologie, FF Masarykovej univerzity v Brne)
Date of admission: June 2024
Annotation:
A comparison of the economic use the highlands regions in the three castle domains, the first in the Western Europe (Laroche Castle domain, Burgundy, France) and two domains in the Central Europe, Brtnice Castle domain (Brtnice domain, Moravia) and Krásna Hôrka Castle domain (Krásna Hôrka Castle estate, Slovakia). These are aristocratic castles that played an important role in the settlement of mountainous regions. The thesis should compare the current state of the cultural-historical landscape. Retrospective method of modelation of the landuse, using archaeological, written and cartographic sources, reconstructs and compares models of medieval and early modern landscape, forms of its settlement, economic use. The work should include field survey using as much as possible non-destructive and low-destructive methods of historical landscape research (geophysical prospecting methods, surface collections, metal detector surveys, verification and pedological microprobe surveys, the use of 3D and DEM landscape modelling).
The aim is to compare the development and changes in cultural landscape following the ancient legal and economic traditions (Burgundy) with culture landscape in which there are strong Western European influences in the legal system (Moravia) and at last the Hungarian cultural landscape, where these influences were less intensive. It is assumed that the legal norms and normative cultural landscape only arrived here during the period of the settlement of the country in the period of medieval colonisation.
The aim of this dissertation will be to compare anthropogenic influences and attempt to establish models of the development and transformations of the normative landscape in the regions under study.
The dissertation will be based on and build on the results of the previous prospection of Masaryk University in Brno (J. Mazáčková) in Burgundy and Moravia and the initial results of the prospection in the area of The Krásná Hôrka castle.
4.
FF UK BA
Topic: The colonization of the south and middle Morava-river region during the La Tène period and the settlements in Bratislava-Dúbravka and Zohor
Supervisor: PhDr. Kristian Elschek, CSc.
Consultant:
Date of admission: June 2024
Annotation:
The main aim of the dissertation thesis will be the catalogue and analysis of finds from large-scale La Tène settlements from the early, older and middle La Tène period from Bratislava-Dúbravka and Zohor in the settlement context of Morava-river region in Slovakia and Lower Austria. In Bratislava-Dúbravka will be worked up the settlement from the middle La Tène period. The settlement from Zohor belongs to the most extensive excavated La Tène settlements in the Middle Danube area with a long chronological development. In the dissertation work will be worked up also the structure and chronology of the occupancy of settlement activity during the La Tène period in the marked territory.