Pieter Rodts

Pieter Rodts is a researcher at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), specializing in archaeology and environmental history. His work centers on human-animal communities within the Sonian Forest ecosystem and controversial heritage discourse in urban contexts.

His research interests bridge archaeology and environmental change, with focused expertise in cultural landscape evolution, interspecies coexistence, and heritage management. Rodts investigates how animals shaped historical landscapes through material traces, while critically examining contested heritage like antisemitic narratives in Brussels' Miracle Sacrament tradition.

Recent publications reveal trends in zooarchaeology and critical heritage studies, emphasizing community-engaged approaches to forest management and historical accountability. His work consistently addresses human-environment entanglement across temporal scales.

• Professor dr. Renée De Bock-Doehaerd Prize 2014-2015 (awarded June 14, 2016)

Rodts supervises PhD candidate De Bie, M. on the project 'Beastly Traces and Shared Spaces' (2024-2028). His public engagement includes 5 recent activities like the 'Paw prints from the past' lecture (Nov 2024) and media contributions for the Sonian Forest Research Day. Current grants support policy-based heritage and forest management research at 100% Brussels institutional level.

His work integrates community-engaged research (CERL) with archaeological fieldwork in the Sonian Forest, examining how human-animal interactions shaped cultural landscapes through coexistence practices spanning centuries.