MATRES – MATerial RESilience in Times of Environmental and Social Change

Project MATRES (MATerial RESilience in times of environmental and social change) is an interdisciplinary initiative aimed at addressing critical societal challenges arising from climate and social changes through study of material world. The project focuses on resilience, defined as societies' ability to withstand, adapt to, recover from, and even transform in response to external shocks, stresses, and challenges. It aims to bring together researchers from various University of Ljubljana (UL) faculties, namely Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Biotechnical Faculty and Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering, along with other Slovenian (e.g. Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia, National Museum of Slovenia, Jožef Stefan Institute) and international partners (e.g. Vrije Universiteit Brussels, University College London, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology), with a long history of collaboration on research projects infrastructure development (E-RIHS.si), and joint publications through well-established partnerships built over years. and joint publications through well-established partnerships built over years

As a lasting legacy, MATRES aims to formalize this collaboration through the establishment of the Slovenian Heritage Research Partnership, which will connect all interested UL faculties and extend to the wider research community. This long-term vision supports joint research, project applications, education, information sharing, and UL’s active role in international networks and initiatives.

The MATRES project (MATerial RESilience in times of environmental and social change) is an interdisciplinary research project dedicated to exploring the role of the material world in how societies adapt to and transform during times of environmental and social change. In today’s rapidly changing climate and social landscape, resilience—the ability of communities to withstand, adapt to, and recover from crises—is more important than ever. MATRES expands this concept by investigating the material and cultural dimensions that underpin resilience over long periods of time.

Unlike many studies that focus solely on ecological or economic aspects, MATRES examines resilience through a broad and integrated approach that includes landscapes, materials, human bodies, and digital technologies. These components form the tangible and intangible elements of human experience that have shaped societal responses to events such as climate fluctuations, natural disasters, pandemics, economic downturns, political upheavals, and social unrest throughout history.

A central aim of MATRES is to enhance our understanding of resilience by linking environmental data with archaeological and historical evidence. This allows the project to reconstruct past environments and reveal how human societies have interacted with, adapted to, or transformed their surroundings on local, regional, and supraregional scales. By treating landscapes as dynamic, interconnected human-environment systems, MATRES provides valuable insights into long-term social and environmental change.

Additionally, the project explores materials—ranging from natural resources to cultural artifacts—as carriers of social, cultural, and technological significance, tracing how they have been used, valued, and transformed across time. It also studies human bodies both as biological entities embedded in ecosystems and as cultural constructs that reflect resilience and adaptability.

One of the project’s innovative contributions is the development of a digital twin platform—a sophisticated virtual model combining databases, computational simulations, and visualizations. This infrastructure supports hypothesis testing, scenario planning, and decision-making for sustainable cultural heritage management and spatial planning, making the research outcomes practical and actionable.

Ultimately, MATRES seeks to position the University of Ljubljana as a global hub for interdisciplinary heritage research, foster collaboration across disciplines, and promote sustainable heritage tourism and education. By bridging science and society, MATRES helps build resilient communities capable of facing the complex environmental and social challenges of today and the future.

The MATRES project investigates material resilience—how human societies have interacted with and adapted their material worlds in response to natural and social challenges throughout history. It draws on a wide array of research traditions and methods to address the urgent questions of today’s society from a deep-time perspective.

1. Environment, Landscapes and Sites: This includes upgrading currently available environmental data for the Holocene period and comparing it with archaeological and historical sources. It represents a key starting point for illuminating climate dynamics, environmental changes, and social and cultural development at local, regional, and supraregional levels. Furthermore, considering the landscape as a transdisciplinary concept that allows us to study societies and the environment as a unified system and serves as an excellent resource and framework for understanding long-term changes in the relationships between people and their environment. Studying landscapes with all therein included sites through a resilience perspective is relevant to the wide range of social and environmental challenges they offer.

2. Materials: The entire material world is composed of materials that, based on their properties, are integrated into social life and thus become part of material culture, embedded in landscapes or incorporated into bodies. Studying materials enables us to understand their social and cultural meanings and to track technological changes throughout human history.

3. Bodies: Humans are biological entities, integrated into ecosystems through food chains, while simultaneously acting as fundamental social tools, building blocks of society, and cultural constructs. Biological data about humans provide a tangible, scientifically supported, deep temporal perspective on various interactions between humans and the environment, as well as forms of human resilience and adaptability.

4. Digital Twin: An open connectivity platform for databases, computational models, and visualizations of cultural heritage. It enables analyses, hypothesis testing, and scenario research, as well as the search for and development of sustainable and resilient solutions to environmental and social challenges. By modelling responses, it provides a basis for informing future decisions by experts and other decision-makers in the modern management of cultural heritage and spatial planning in general.

Assoc. Prof. Matija Črešnar is employed at the Department of Archaeology FF UL, heading the Archaeology of Metal Ages Cathedra as well as the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Archaeology (CIRA) and Archaeology research program group (ARIS). Between 2009 and 2023 he was (partly) employed at the IPCHS, primarily for collaboration in (inter)national heritage projects. 

He has completed several long-term residencies, namely in Bradford, Munich (LMU), Brussels (VUB) and Venice (CaʹFoscari). He is an elected corresponding member DAI and active member of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) (member of Nomination Comm.). 

He has acquired over €2.5M of project finances (until end of 2024) in various schemes (e.g. HERA, FWO-ARIS, FWO-NKFIH, ARIS, INTERREG). His research and publications range from landscape archaeology to scientific analyses of archaeological finds. His bibliographic register of Slovenia holds above 500 entries, he has a documented 950 citations and h-index 15 (Google Scholar). 

He curated several popular science exhibitions and publications and is also a co-founder of a certified Cultural Route of the Council of Europe: the Iron Age Danube Route. 

He received several awards and recognitions, including the ARIS Excellent in Science Award in 2019, the Slovenian Archaeological Society Awards in 2014 and 2021, and the Stele Award of the Slovenian Conservators’ Society in 2022 

 Prof. Dr. Matija Strlič is Professor of Analytical Chemistry at University of Ljubljana and Honourary Professor of Heritage Science at University College London, where he was active during 2007-2019. His main research interests are in modelling of heritage materials, environments, values and decision-making. He has published more than 190 peer-reviewed papers (HI 39; top 2% Stanford/Elsevier list) and is Editorial Board Member of Heritage Science, Polymer Degradation and Stability and Studies in Conservation. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and of the International Institute for Conservation and the Vice-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the ECCCH. His track record includes more than 60 national (Slovenia and UK) and international (EU and bilateral) projects, with total funding of more that €75M for heritage science. In 2003 he was awarded the national Zois award for achievements in chemistry and in 2015 the Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia Award. His full CV and bibliography are available online: https://www.science4heritage.org/CV_eng.pdf.

Prof. Dr. Miha Humar, earned his PhD at the University of Ljubljana and was awarded the Jesenko Prize for best doctoral thesis. He began teaching wood pests and protection, progressing to full lectureship, and in 2015 was appointed Full Professor in wood pathology and protection. 

Between 2010 and 2022, he held key leadership roles: head of the Department of Wood Science and Technology, ViceDean (2014–2020), and Dean (2016–2018), leading one of Slovenia’s largest technical faculties. In total, he supervised over 200 undergraduate and six PhD students. 

His research encompasses the development of classical and non-biocidal wood protection methods, wood degradation, and durability in outdoor applications, with special emphasis on heritage science, and large-scale field trials in partnership with industry.  

Internationally, he co-founded and chaired the “Forest and Wood” meetings with Hojka Kraigher for 14 years and organised the 2022 IRG/WP World Conference in Bled. He sits on multiple editorial boards (e.g., International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, Forests, SN Applied Sciences) and various scientific committees. He has authored over 240 scientific publications, holds two patents, and coordinated several ARRS, CRP and H2020 projects, including GROWTH and ONEforest. Since 2023 an assoc. member of SAZU. 

 Assoc. Prof. Nastja Rogan Šmuc is employed at the Department of Geology at NTF UL, lecturing on topics of environmental mineralogy, environmental geology and material analysis. Her scientific research area represents various scientific disciplines, including (1) mineralogical, geochemical, isotopic and environmental studies of rocks and sediments (river, lake and marine environment), (2) their provenance research and (3) archaeometric analyses of archaeological and other heritage materials. She is actively involved in interdisciplinary research in the field of heritage science, where she focuses on the analysis of sediments, soils, archaeological pottery and metals. She works worldwide in the field and in the laboratory, analysing geological and archaeological materials from the macro to the nanoscale, applying advanced methods. 

She was awarded the ARIS Excellent in Science Award in 2018 and received the ERC Complementary Scheme (ARIS) project in 2020. She is currently leading the Geoenvironment working group of the Geoenvironment and Geomaterials Research and Infrastructure Programme. 

Published publications thematically connected to MATRES, authored by project members (several others in print and in prep.) 

GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, PRIJATELJ, Agni, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, BURJA, Jaka, ŠETINA, Barbara, BRAJKOVIČ, Rok, TOŠKAN, Borut, TOLAR, Tjaša, GRČMAN, Helena and ČREŠNAR, Matija, 2024, Macro to micro stratigraphic and artefactual evidence from an Early Iron Age smithy at the Pungrt hillfort (Central Slovenia): the dataset. 

Zaključena znanstvena zbirka raziskovalnih podatkov, 2024:

 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/IzpisGradiva.php?lang=slv&id=164943

GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, TOLAR, Tjaša, PRIJATELJ, Agni, ŠETINA, Barbara, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, GRČMAN, Helena and ČREŠNAR, Matija, 2024, Carbonised plant remains and geochemical signals from an Early Iron Age smithy from Pungrt Hillfort: dataset. Zaključena znanstvena zbirka raziskovalnih podatkov, 2024. 

https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/IzpisGradiva.php?lang=slv&id=167014

GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, PRIJATELJ, Agni, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, BURJA, Jaka, ŠETINA, Barbara, BRAJKOVIČ, Rok, TOŠKAN, Borut, TOLAR, Tjaša, GRČMAN, Helena, ČREŠNAR, Matija, et al. From macro to micro approaches in settlement archaeology: a case study of an Early Iron Age smithy at the Pungrt hillfort (Central Slovenia). Documenta Praehistorica, 2025, 52, str. 2-35, ilustr. ISSN 1854-2492.

https://journals.uni-lj.si/DocumentaPraehistorica/article/view/20678/18094, Repozitorij Univerze v Ljubljani – RUL, dCOBISS, DOI: 10.4312/dp.52.5. [COBISS.SI-ID 229519363], [Odprti dostop, SNIP]

GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, PRIJATELJ, Agni, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, BURJA, Jaka, ŠETINA, Barbara, BRAJKOVIČ, Rok, TOŠKAN, Borut, TOLAR, Tjaša, GRČMAN, Helena, ČREŠNAR, Matija, et al. Macro to micro stratigraphic and artefactual evidence from an Early Iron Age smithy at the Pungrt hillfort (Central Slovenia). Journal of open archaeology data. 2025, vol. 13, str. 1-9, ilustr. ISSN 2049-1565. 

https://openarchaeologydata.metajnl.com/articles/145/files/67d2b9cd83e12.pdf, Repozitorij Univerze v Ljubljani – RUL, dCOBISS, DOI: 10.5334/joad.145. [COBISS.SI-ID 229597443], [Odprti dostop, SNIP, WoS]. 

GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, TOLAR, Tjaša, PRIJATELJ, Agni, ŠETINA BATIČ, Barbara, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, GRČMAN, Helena and ČREŠNAR, Matija, Tracing Invisible Hearths and Daily Routines Through Carbonized Plant Remains and Geochemical Signals in an Early Iron Age Smithy at Pungrt Hillfort, Slovenia. 

http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5141009

ŠMIT, Žiga, and MILAVEC, Tina. 2025. "Analysis of Late Antique and Medieval Glass from Koper (Capodistria, SI): Insights into Glass Consumption and Production at the Turn of the First Millennium CE" Materials 18, no. 9: 2135.

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/18/9/2135

RIJAVEC, Tjaša, BUJOK, Sonia, ANTROPOV, Sergii, NEWSOME, G. Asher, GRAU-BOVÉ, Josep, KRALJ CIGIĆ, Irena, KRUCZAŁA, Krzysztof, BRATASZ, Łukasz, STRLIČ, Matija, Heritage PVC objects: Understanding the diffusion-evaporation of plasticizers, Polymer Degradation and Stability, Volume 235, 2025, 111270, ISSN 0141-3910.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141391025001004

PAOLIN, Emma, BEMBIBRE, Cecilia, DI GIANVICENZO, Fabiana, TORRES-ELGUERA, Julio Cesar, DERAZ, Randa, KRAŠEVAC, Ida et al. (1753). Ancient Egyptian Mummified Bodies: Cross-Disciplinary Analysis of Their Smell. ACS Publications. Collection. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2025 147 (8), 6633-6643

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.4c15769

NOVAK, Mario, GRAU-BOVÉ, Josep, RIJAVEC, Tjaša. et al. A quantitative study of acetic acid emissions from historical cellulose acetate at room conditions. npj Herit. Sci. 13, 22 (2025)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s40494-025-01551-y

KRAŠEVEC, Ida, KRAVOS, Aleksander, RETKO, Klara, KRALJ CIGIĆ, Irena, STRLIČ, Matija, MAHGOUB, Hend, Impact of accumulation of organic acids on the degradation of cellulose in historic paper, Carbohydrate Polymers, Volume 352, 2025, 123163, ISSN 0144-8617

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144861724013894?via%3Dihub

SAAD, Marwa, BUCKI, Marek, BUJOK, Sonia, PAWCENIS, Dominika, RIJAVEC, Tjaša, GÓRECKI, Karol, BRATASZ, Łukasz, KRALJ CIGIĆ, Irena, STRLIČ, Matija, KRUCZAŁA, Krzysztof, The impact of heat and humidity on unplasticized poly(vinyl chloride), Polymer Degradation and Stability, Volume 238, 2025, 111334, ISSN 0141-3910, 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0141391025001648

As part of the MATRES project, we have consistently implemented comprehensive and strategically oriented communication activities, with a strong focus on disseminating information about key events, public lectures, and ongoing research outputs suitable for broader audiences. The overarching aim of these efforts has been to establish a clear and recognizable project identity, while enhancing both scientific credibility and societal relevance.

A detailed communication strategy was developed early in the project, resulting in the creation of over 50 tailored texts for various communication channels. These included formal invitations to lectures, press releases, and multimedia content specifically adapted for social media platforms - ranging from short videos and photographs to infographics and stories.

To date, five feature articles have been published in major national media outlets:

• Long Journeys of Young Women – Delo

• Teaching History Through Video Games – Nedeljski dnevnik

• Bronze Age: High Female Mobility in Southern Germany – MMC RTV Slovenia

• Inviting Prof. Stockhammer: New Approaches to Archaeological Heritage – STA

• You Are What You Eat: Diet and Geographic Origin Encoded in Bones – Frekvenca X, RTV Slovenia

Social media has played a crucial role in bringing the MATRES project closer to the public. From the very beginning, we focused on highlighting our guest lecturers, sharing their expertise and showing how their work connects to the project’s themes. Through a variety of post, ranging from videos and photo diaries to podcasts, we’ve aimed to make our research accessible and engaging for both general audiences and researchers alike.

Stay informed: Upcoming events and invitations

We regularly share announcements and invitations for lectures, workshops, and special events. These communications are aimed at keeping the public and professional communities informed and engaged, while also increasing the visibility and impact of the project.

• Lecture announcement videos, offering visually engaging previews of upcoming events: Lecture Announcement Video.

• Invitations to guest lectures, often accompanied by short interviews with speakers that provide context and highlight the relevance of the topic: 
  Today’s Guest Lecture Invitation.

• Image- and text-based event invitations, designed for dissemination via social media platforms and mailing lists: Guest Lecture , Invitation.

Post-Event Summaries: Sharing knowledge beyond the event

We create video highlights and summaries to share the essence of our events with those who cannot attend.

Event video highlights
We create concise video recaps to capture the essence of our lectures, discussions, and conferences. These highlights offer an easy way for those unable to attend to stay connected with the latest insights and discoveries.

Watch on Facebook

Experts in context: Relevance and contribution
Our video content goes beyond highlights to offer a closer introduction to guest speakers and their relevance to the MATRES project. These videos present extended segments of their lectures, background context, and key insights, helping audiences understand why their expertise matters for our research goals and themes.

 Watch on Facebook

Insights from project events
We regularly share curated quotes, insights, and key takeaways from project events. These posts distill complex discussions into accessible messages, offering the public and professional audiences a deeper understanding of the research’s scientific value and broader societal relevance.

Read on Facebook

From the field

Fieldwork and related research activities have been regularly documented and shared with the public. These posts offer insights into the scientific process, highlight key findings, and demonstrate how archaeological methods are applied in real-world contexts. 

• A short video capturing key moments from ongoing field investigations: Video Highlight – Facebook.

• A podcast episode exploring how modern archaeological science uses advanced techniques to uncover ancient lifestyles, diets, and mobility during the Bronze and Iron Ages: Listen to the excellent podcast – Facebook.

• We occasionally share visual and narrative reports from the field, offering insights into archaeological activities, team dynamics, and research developments. These updates provide a behind-the-scenes look at how fieldwork is conducted, highlight key discoveries, and bring the everyday reality of archaeological research closer to the public: March Fieldwork Diary – Facebook.

Supporting Students

We are dedicated to fostering student involvement and showcasing their work. That’s why we actively promoted student-led research presented at our inaugural student conference, helping young researchers gain visibility and share their findings with a wider audience.

View the announcement on Facebook. 

View the post-event summary on Facebook. 

Watch the video reel on Facebook.

International workshops

Project representatives also actively participated in the International Workshop on Cultural Heritage Policy and Management in South Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, organized under the auspices of UNESCO. This participation significantly strengthened MATRES’s international profile and its alignment with global cultural heritage and knowledge-sharing initiatives.

View the post-event summary on Facebook (📅 3. in 4. junija je na Univerzi v... - Oddelek za arheologijo FF UL | Facebook).