Cornelius Holtorf - short bio:

I was born on 24 January 1968 in Sieglar, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany — together with my identical twin brother Christian. My parents later moved us to Berlin but only for one year. Between 1976 and 1990 I spent most of my childhood, youth and early adulthood in Tübingen, attending the Uhlandgymnasium. For twelve months in 1987-88 I was a conscript in the (West-)German army as member of the Fernmeldebataillon 220 in Donauwörth, Bavaria.

Between 1988 and 1993 I studied Prehistoric Archaeology, Social Anthropology, and Physical Anthropology at the Universities of Tübingen, Reading, and Hamburg. I completed my first degree (M.A.) at Hamburg with a thesis on the contemporary meanings of megalithic monuments. I then moved on to the Department of Archaeology at the (then) University of Wales, Lampeter, first for an M.A. in Archaeological Theory and then for a Ph.D. entitled "Monumental Past: Interpreting the meanings of ancient monuments in later prehistoric Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany)", defended in 1998. I felt very much at home in Lampeter, Llanwnnen, and Llanybydder, but it was time to move on...

In 1998-99 I was a STINT Visiting Scholar at the (then) Institute of Archaeology at Göteborg. During that year, I started my field project at Monte da Igreja in southern Portugal and also participated in the field project on Monte Polizzo in Sicily. From 1999 until 2002 I conducted research and taught in the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, two years of which I was replacing Ian Hodder while he was on leave at the University of Stanford.

In 2002, I moved back to Sweden where I was awarded a European Commission funded Marie-Curie Fellowship for a 2-year research project on "The portrayal of archaeology in popular culture", based at the National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) in Stockholm. From 2005 until 2008 I was employed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Lund.

Since 2008, I have been working as Associate Professor (Lektor) in Archaeology at Linnaeus University in Kalmar (before 2010 it was known as University College Kalmar). In 2011, I was promoted to Professor at the same University. Since 2017, I have been holding the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University.

I live in Kalmar, with my two children.