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Paper short abstract

This paper examines plants as storytellers in reimagining prehistoric narratives. Through ecofeminist, multispecies perspectives and artist-led sensory workshops as case studies, it argues for vegetal agency in reshaping identity, heritage, and our idea of “the natural.”

Paper long abstract

This paper explores how plants can serve as storytellers in the reimagining of prehistoric narratives, particularly those associated with the Bandkeramik (linear pottery) culture and the broader process of neolithization. By adopting an ecofeminist and multispecies perspective, plants are not understood as passive background but as active witnesses and carriers of heritage. Their sensory qualities—such as scent, flavour, and texture—open up alternative ways of engaging with the past and challenge the anthropocentric and colonial framing of dominant archives.

To investigate these ideas in practice, a series of multisensorial workshops was conceived and realized in collaboration with contemporary artists. These workshops, which have already taken place, provide concrete case studies that demonstrate how artistic methods can foreground vegetal agency and invite participants to experience history through embodied, sensory encounters. By placing emphasis on touch, taste, and smell, the workshops created spaces where prehistoric narratives could be reimagined beyond purely visual or textual modes of knowledge.

The paper argues that such approaches not only expand the possibilities of heritage-making but also intervene in wider debates on identity, ecology, and cultural memory. Plants, understood as more-than-human agents, open pathways for reconsidering what counts as “the natural” within narrative practices and for challenging the boundaries between past and present, human and nonhuman, culture and nature.