Projects

The research centre Roots of Europe – Language, Culture and Migrations serves as a coordinating unit for a range of externally funded research projects concerning the linguistic, cultural and ethnic prehistory of Europe in a cross-disciplinary co-operation between, above all, Indo-European comparative linguistics, archaeology, comparative mythology and population genetics.

A list of current and previous projects at the Roots of Europe centre is presented below.

Current projects

• The Indo-European Dark Ages Illuminated (2025–2028). Research project funded by VELUX FONDEN and headed by Thomas Olander.
• Pre-Hellenic Loanwords in Greek: Lexicon of the Substrate Analysed (2023–2025). Postdoc project funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme and led by Matthew Scarborough.
• Language and Myth in Prehistory: Unravelling the Speech and Beliefs of the Unwritten Past (2020–2025). Research project headed by Jenny Larsson (Stockholm) and funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden). Includes Birgit A. Olsen and Thomas Olander from Roots of Europe.
  
• Towards a New European Prehistory. Research project funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden). Includes Guus Kroonen.
  

Previous projects

• The Linguistic Relationship between Indo-Iranian and Greek" (2020–2025). Simon Poulsen's PhD project funded by the Faculty of Humanities.
• Connecting the Dots: Reconfiguring the Family Tree (2019–2024). Research project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark and led by Thomas Olander.
• Epithets of Gods and Heroes in Old Germanic and beyond – A Comparative Study on their Conceptualization, Memorization and Tradition. Research project by Corinna Scheungraber and funded by the EU Skłodowska-Curie programme.
• IE CLIMATE – Climate and weather in Indo-European (2021–2023). Postdoc project funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme and led by Julia Sturm.
• Of Beasts and Men – The Animals of the Proto‑Indo‑Europeans (2019–2021). Postdoc project funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska Curie programme and led by Stefan Höfler.
• SunSHINE – The Sun-chariot’s Journey Towards the Nordic Sky: on the (Pre‑)History of Ideas on Sky, Sun, and Sunlight in Northern Europe. Postdoc project funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska Curie programme and headed by Riccardo Ginevra.
• Family Myths: Phraseology and Inherited Indo-European Thematic Structures in Greek Myth. Postdoc project funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme and headed by Laura Massetti.
• The Homeland: In the Footprints of the Early Indo-Europeans. Funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and headed by
• Thomas Olander.
• The Linguistic Origins of Europe: Word-formation and Lexicon in Anatolian and Core Indo-European. Postdoc project funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme and headed by Matilde Serangeli.
• Talking Neolithic – Recovering the Language of the First European Farmers. Postdoc project funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research Sapere Aude career programme DFF-Ung Eliteforsker and headed by Guus Kroonen.
• Individual, Kin and Family in Prehistoric Europe – What Words Can Tell (2013–2017). Funded by the Velux Foundation and headed by Birgit Anette Olsen.
• The research project Roots of Europe – Language, Culture and Migrations (2008–2013) . Funded by UCPH's Programme of Excellence and headed by Jens Elmegård Rasmussen and Birgit Anette Olsen.