Contact Information
Archaeologist
Les Chevalets 6
CH-1653 Châtel-sur-Montsalvens FR
Switzerland
++41 26 921 01 18
reto.blumer@postmail.ch
Research Projects
International Archaeological Research in Chukotka (northeastern Siberia)
From 1995 to 2000, I participated to the first international archaeological
collaboration in Chukotka (northeastern Siberia). The expedition's research
focused on the Ekven settlement, located about 25 km south of Uelen along the
western Bering Strait shore. Among participating countries: Canada, Denmark,
Germany, Russia, and Switzerland.
1995
I acted as Swiss partner of the field expedition and began the excavation
and detailed documentation of a well preserved subterranean house ruin (EH18)
in collaboration with Danish and German colleagues.
1996
I collegially led further extensive excavation of EH18 with the Russian
expedition leader Kirill Dneprovsky and Prof. Hansjürgen Müller-Beck, head
of the German team.
1997
Accompanied by ethnoarchaeologist Dr. Yvon Csonka, we shifted our attention
from well advanced excavation of EH18 and focused our work on remaining
settlement parts of Ekven and its vicinity.
1998
An experienced French sedimentologist, Bernard Moulin, joined Dr. Csonka
and myself. During this last field season, we successfully tested different
spots of the Ekven site and documented large stretches of the massive erosion
bank of the site.
1998-2000
I participated to the elaboration of the dataset gained by the Swiss team
in Chukotka.
First archaeological excavation
in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan
In 1999 and 2000, while employed by the Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation
for Archaeological Research Abroad SLFA (Zurich, Switzerland, I was able
to set up the first archaeological investigation ever carried out in Bhutan, a
small Himalayan kingdom located between occupied Tibet and India. This
mandatory project was a realized by a small SLFA team in collaboration with
the NGO Helvetas (Zurich, Switzerland), the Bhutanese Ministry of Agriculture,
and the Bhutanese National Commission for Cultural Affairs.
Results of this project can be found at the following address:
http://bhutan-project.tripod.com
The full preliminary report for the investigations of 1999 was published in
the SLFA Annual Report and can be found online at:
http://bhutan-project-1999.tripod.com
The first part of our final report, which is
soon published in
the SLFA Annual Report for 2000, is already accessible online:
http://bhutan1999-2000.tripod.com
New Archaeological Intervention Service
In the coming months and years, I plan to set up specialized
teams able to implement fast and reliable salvage interventions on threatened
archaeological sites worldwide. In this endeavor, I develop a new service
called:
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