The global crisis of the diminishing forest cover has made the study of the past wood utilisation particularly
topical. For premodern communities living in the subarctic region wood was a ubiquitous material,
providing an insight into the ways of life depended on woodlands. Despite its omnipresence, the research on
ancient wood is scattered into several disciplines leading into fragmented understanding. To overcome these
disciplinary divisions, our project Carving out Transformations – Wood Use in North-Eastern Europe,
1100–1600 brings together scholars across the academia, and develops theoretical as well as methodological
tools for the study of ancient wood. The core question of the project is how wood and wooden objects
moved and transformed in North-Eastern Europe during the long Middle Ages, and how these movements
entangled with different ways of life and interactions between humans, animals, the environment, and the
divine.