Origin of the Term
The concept of Arkeopolitics was coined by Erdem Denk to establish an analytical bridge between archaeology and political science. While “arkeo” refers to archaeology (in Turkish), the term “politics” draws on the designation used in the institutional web address of the Faculty of Political Sciences (Mülkiye) at Ankara University, where the initiative was first developed, and which encompasses the Faculty’s full range of academic fields.
What is Arkeopolitics?
Arkeopolitics is a transdisciplinary approach that seeks to establish a new intellectual interface between archaeology and political science. By bringing together archaeological evidence on past societies with the conceptual and analytical tools of political science, it aims to examine forms of social organization, power relations, and the long-term transformations of political structures.
The combined consideration of archaeology, which studies past societies, and political science, which has traditionally focused on modern state-based societies, contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the political dimension of human history. Arkeopolitics develops a research perspective that approaches archaeological findings and political analysis in a comparative framework, with the aim of understanding the long-term political development of humanity.
History
Arkeopolitics emerged as an extension of Prof. Dr. Erdem Denk’s research, which since 2015 has focused on the historical development of social orders from the Stone Age to the present. In early 2022, Denk formalized this line of inquiry under the title “Arkeopolitics Studies.” The initiative was publicly introduced in October 2022 with an افتتاح conference held at the Faculty of Political Sciences (Mülkiye) at Ankara University, with the support and participation of Prof. Dr. Mehmet Özdoğan, one of Turkey’s and the world’s leading archaeologists.
Since then, Arkeopolitics has continued its activities through monthly meetings, publications, public talks, social media content, and cultural events, while also developing international collaborations and educational programs. Beginning in 2024, the Arkeopolitics Summer School in Bodrum has brought together students from different countries. In the Fall semester of 2025–2026, the course “History of Civilizations through Arkeopolitics,” offered at TOBB University of Economics and Technology (TOBB ETÜ), marked the first time this approach was incorporated into an undergraduate curriculum.
Arkeopolitics Presentation
Why Arkeopolitics?
Today, the world is undergoing a multi-layered transformation that simultaneously affects politics, the economy, technology, the environment, and the international order. This exceptional condition, which may be described as a “polycrisis,” calls for new conceptual approaches capable of making sense of its complexity.
Modern social sciences have largely focused on state-based societies of the last few centuries. Yet the political organization of human communities is the outcome of a much longer historical trajectory. Arkeopolitics seeks to address this gap by bringing together archaeological evidence and the analytical tools of political science, with the aim of examining the political dimension of human history from a long-term perspective.
What is the Aim of Arkeopolitics?
Arkeopolitics aims to examine the political dimension of human history from a long-term perspective by bringing together archaeological evidence with the conceptual and analytical tools of political science. Through this approach, it seeks to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the historical evolution of political orders by comparatively analyzing the organizational forms of past societies alongside contemporary political structures.
At the same time, Arkeopolitics aspires to establish a new intellectual interface between archaeology, political science, and related fields in the natural and social sciences, fostering a genuinely transdisciplinary space for research and debate.