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Svalbard Museum invites all interested members of the public to Svalbard Archaeology Symposium 2026, an international conference that will present current archaeological and cultural heritage research on Svalbard. The conference will contextualize Svalbard's past in a broader Arctic perspective with speakers from mainland Norway, Finland, Scotland, Iceland, and Canada.
While Svalbard's heritage is unique, it is not isolated. From whale hunting to German weather stations, much of what happened on Svalbard had parallels elsewhere in the Arctic and thus can only be understood through comparison with these other places.
The lectures will be held in English and are free and open to everyone.
WATCH THE RECORDINGS HERE:
Program October 6:
9:00 – 9:15 Coffee
9:15 – 9:30 Anatolijs Venovcevs Introduction
9:30 – 9:45 Trygve Sikveland Røysland Svalbard Museum – A Brief History of Its Inception and Collections
9:45 – 10:00 Unn Gelting Conservation of Archaeological Organic and Inorganic Materials at the Svalbard Museum
10:00 – 10:15 Frode Sekse Hilleren, Erki Markson, Torbjørn Opheim A Short Introduction to Svalbard's Built Cultural Heritage
10:15 – 10:30 Lise Loktu From Collections to Landscapes: New Approaches to Svalbard Archaeology
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11:15 Jørgen Hollesen Climate Change and Archaeological Heritage in the Arctic: From Greenland to Svalbard
11:15 – 11:30 Robyn S. Lacy Burial Landscapes & British Burials on Svalbard
11:30 – 11:45 Lisa K. Rankin Encounters in the Cold Land: Inuit Approaches to Early European Resources Extraction in Labrador, Canada
11:45 – 12:00 Kirstine Møller Gray When Igloolik Becomes the Northwest Passage
12:00 – 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 – 13:45 Ingar Moen Johnsen Relocating Heritage: A Relational Approach to Fragmentation and Cultural Heritage
13:45 – 14:00 Anatolijs Venovcevs Russia’s Only Svalbard Colony: An Archaeology of an Extraterritorial Periphery
14:00 – 14:15 Youri van den Hurk Big Bones, Big Business: Whales, Walruses, and the Exploitation of Svalbard
14:15 – 14:30 Aripekka Junno Archaeological Marine Mammal Bone Steroid Hormones as Indicators of Past Human-Ocean Interactions
14:30 – 15:00 Coffee break
15:00 – 15:15 Jen Harland Remnants of Industrial Whaling: The Forgotten Shore Stations of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries
15:15 – 15:30 Jørgen Johannessen Svalbard Submerged – Past, Present, and Future
15:30 – 15:45 Kevin Martin Searching for Svalbard’s Submerged Past: Lessons Learned from Two Seasons in the Field
15:45 – 16:00 Øyvind Ødegård ARCHEOROBOTICS - Finding and Investigating Shipwrecks in the High Arctic
16:00 – 16:15 Timmy Gambin Aviation Archaeology of a Small Mediterranean Island
16:15 – 16:30 Oula Seitsonen Archaeology and Heritage of Arctic Aviation in Svalbard
Program October 7:
9:00 – 9:30 Coffee
9:30 – 9:45 Turid Lie Vilkensen Svalbard Research Office
9:45 – 10:00 Line Bårdseng The Role of Riksantikvaren on Svalbard
10:00 – 10:15 Monika Serafinska Permits, Pitfalls, and Polar Bears: A Survival Guide to Svalbard’s Laws and Regulations
10:15 – 10:30 Solveig Roti Dahl Cultural Heritage Management at 79 Degrees North
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11:15 Erik Kjellman Archaeology at Jan Mayen – An Unstable Source of Unique Arctic Knowledge
11:15 – 11:30 Ashley Morris, Christiane Hübner, Rudolf Denkmann, Daan Kivits, Zoé Brasseur, Tessa Viglezio, Øystein Godøy, Heikki Lihavainen Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System and The Monitoring of Threats to the Archipelago’s Cultural Heritage
11:30 – 11:45 Timmy Gambin Xlendi Archaeological Park – Managing a Deepwater Archaeological Resource
11:45 – 12:00 Scott Neilsen Lessons Learned from Place-based Archaeological Research in Labrador, Canada
12:00 – 13:30 Lunch break
The symposium will also be streamed: https://youtube.com/live/Od-erc9NdD4?feature=share
Welcome!
Abstracts here: