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Johan Ling

Professor

Department of Historical Studies
Telephone
+46 31-786 29 74
+46 702-49 45 74
Mail
johan.ling@archaeology.gu.se

Director

Department of Historical Studies
Telephone
+46 31-786 29 74
+46 702-49 45 74
Mail
johan.ling@archaeology.gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Johan Ling

Johan Ling is a professor, director and lecturer at the Department of Historical studies, at the University of Gothenburg. Professor Ling is a specialist in the Bronze Age archaeology with experience in leading large international research teams. His interdisciplinary publication profile includes provenancing of ancient metal, dating and interpreting Scandinavian Rock art, and Bronze Age maritime trade.

Ling’s main internationally-recognized contribution is in the field of provenance studies of ancient metals, with a second established record of expertise in the dating and interpreting Scandinavian Rock Art. Ling has built up the first major platform and a team of researchers for provenancing ancient copper alloys in Scandinavia. Hitherto, 400 artefacts have been analyzed (Ling et. al 2013; 2014; Melheim et al. 2018, Ling et. al 2019).

Ling’s contributions to our understanding of the sources and trade of copper during the Bronze Age has set a new research agenda, through his research focusing on the maritime dimensions of Bronze Age trade (Ling et al. 2017, Ling et al. 2018). His contributions in this field of research move significantly beyond the state of the art.

Prof Ling is project leader for the new program “Maritime Encounters” financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. This programs central aim is to fill persistent gaps, opened by recent studies based on archaeology and aDNA, to understand maritime dimensions of migration, mobility and exchange along the Atlantic façade from Norway to Iberia

Ling is also director of the Rock Art Research Archives (SHFA)(www.shfa.se) connected to the Dep of Historical studies, university of Gothenburg. SHFA's activities span several different areas and can be summarized according to the following layout:

  • SHFA is the only national research infrastructure that is responsible for research, documentation and training of rock carvings in Sweden.
  • SHFA aims to digitize, present and archive the rock carvings for researchers and the general public. At present there are about 120,000 files with images and documents scanned in SHFA's image and archive databases on rock carvings from all over Sweden but also Denmark, Italy and Norway. (see also www.shfa.se).

In collaboration with the Center for Digital Humanities and Chalmers, SHFA has a rather advanced project that focuses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning of rock carving documentation.

SHFA collaborates with a number of national and international infrastructures, research groups and non-academic organizations. In summary, Professor Lings profile is exemplary in combining methodological mastery of the most recent and advanced techniques in both rock art 3D documentation and cutting-edge metallurgical analyses of bronzes and through years of collaborative research on metals provenance and rock art, he has assembled an outstanding international team of specialists and consultants.

Johan Ling is also involved in the following projects:

ResearchGate and Academia