DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tamaspolanyi

Academia: https://northwestern.academia.edu/TamasPolanyi

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tamas-Polanyi

Polányi is an anthropological archaeologist with experience in anthropological archaeology and cultural resources management. He is specialized in mortuary practice and social change in central European Bronze Age. He founded Sandbox Archaeology in 2020 to create an innovation sandbox aimed at developing novel approaches and technologically enhanced procedures in cultural heritage management for more effective detection, protection, and preservation of finite resources of the past.

Funded by the Arizona Army National Guard, Polányi has participated in a long-term research program to develop, test, and implement a comprehensive survey protocol capable of integrating state-of-the-art remote sensing (RS) technologies, including sUAS-based geophysical, LiDAR, and optical survey systems, conventional archaeological survey methods, and computational data processing and analytics. To demonstrate the efficiency and reliability of the protocol, his project—Integrating Remote Sensing Survey Technologies in DoD Cultural Resource Compliance (IntReST)—was recently selected for funding by the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) of the Department of Defense.

As a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Polányi is involved in the NSF-funded project to study the cultural and ecological consequences of colonialism in Dominica (PI: Prof. Diane Wallman, University of South Florida; Co-PI: Prof. Mark Hauser, NU). His role included archaeological remote sensing to identify potential locations of cultural deposits, more specifically structural remains. Polányi is also involved in the Colonial Tarangambadi Archaeological Survey (PI: Prof. Mark Hauser) set out to study the intersection of class and environmental vulnerability in SE-India. Besides its delineated goals and anthropological interests, this project materializes the anthropological significance of the methodology-focused InReST Project regarding the complementary capabilities of conventional and instrumental survey methods to detect disturbed and better preserved materialities of past human-material interactions. Moving beyond understanding the effects of natural formation processes, Polányi plans to explore the ways in which cultural formation processes and hierarchical materialities can lead to different modes of preservation that would necessitate different modes of detection, mapping, and protection.

As a research affiliate at University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, Polányi is involved in Prof. Saltini Semerari’s project on prehistoric population dynamics, mobility, and interactions across the Adriatic Sea. His work includes designing and executing large-scale geophysical and multi-sensor optical surveys to locate materialities of life and death in Bronze Age and Iron Age SE-Italy and Albania. As a research affiliate at University of California, Davis, Polányi works on an ethnoarchaeological project—funded by the Templeton Foundation (PIs: Prof. Cristina Moya)—examining the materialities and processes of adopting new religious and ritual behaviors in the Peruvian Altiplano. Polányi also serves on the advisory board of Colorado State University Drone Center for the design and development of an archaeological site for the Subsurface Imaging Technology Test Site (SITTS) at Christman Airfield, Fort Collins, CO. 

Selected publications

Polányi 2025 Circuits of reproduction: The opportunities and power to change. In: Beyond heterogeneities: New perspectives on social and cultural diversity from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin, edited by K. Furholt, M.L.C. Depaermentier, M. Kempf, and M. Furholt, pp. 209-234. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13356433

Polányi 2023 Integrated remote sensing approaches for large-scale assessment of cultural heritage. A case study from central Arizona (with S.A. Manney). To appear in Proceedings of the 50^th Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8310600

 2022 The rise of idiôtês: Micro-politics of death and community reproduction in Bronze Age Hungary. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 68:101445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101445