HORSEPOWER
Interactions between China, Mongolia and the steppe 2000-0 BCE
Prof Ursula Brosseder
Principal Investigator
Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie
"I hope we can show with Horsepower that important innovations came from the steppes -and thus give the people of the past their rightful place in world history."
Ursula Brosseder is one of the few European archaeologists with more than two decades of experience in Monglia
After gaining her PhD in Berlin - on the Early Iron Age in Europe - she turned to Eurasia to focus on the stunning but harsh environments of the steppes. There she’s conducted many excavations at remote sites, always under the time pressure of a brief summer season, and spending a total of about one and a half years in a ger, a traditional Mongolian tent.
Ursula has built up an expertise in the Xiongnu Empire and the Bronze and Early Iron Age of Mongolia making her a perfect fit for Horsepower. A major theme of her work is to highlight the pivotal role of mobile societies, often overlooked in conventional histories. Now a researcher at LEIZA (the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie) in Mainz, she teaches at Bonn University. Awarded a series of fellowships in Russia, China and the United States, Ursula recently received the Friendship Medal of Mongolia for her work illuminating the country’s ancient history.
Ursula says her passion for the Horsepower project is to understand how introducing horses - and using them in different ways - changed societies and helped them to play a role that became globally significant.