Annelou van Gijn is professor of Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies at Leiden University and studied anthropology and archaeology at Washington State University Pullman (US) and the University of Groningen. She obtained her PhD at Leiden University. Her teaching and research focus on prehistoric technology, ancient crafts, experimentation and the reconstruction of the cultural biography of objects, topics on which she published widely. Janine Fries-Knoblach studied prehistory, ancient history, classical and provincial-Roman archaology in Munich and Oxford and worked for heritage authorities and as a lecturer at the universities of Erlangen, Würzburg, and Freiburg. She spent much time editing and translating and was project coordinator of BEFIM at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich from 2016-2018. Her research focuses on technical aspects (agriculture, metalworking, textiles, salt production, architecture) and human handedness. Philipp W. Stockhammer is professor for prehistoric archaeology with a focus on the Eastern Mediterranean at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich and co-director of Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, Jena. His research focuses on the transformative power of intercultural encounters, human-thing-entanglements, social practices and the integration of archaeological and scientific interpretation.