#  In memoriam Malcolm H. Wiener (1935-2026) 

 





Along with the broader scholarly community of which he was an integral part, we have lost in Malcolm H. Wiener a generous friend and a wise companion on Ocotber 12, 2026. On multiple levels, Malcolm has been one of the important supporters of The Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean (MHAAM) and its Harvard platform, the Science of the Human Past.



 

October 20, 2026

 

 

Along with the broader scholarly community of which he was an integral part, we have lost in Malcolm H. Wiener a generous friend and a wise companion. On multiple levels, Malcolm has been one of the important supporters of The Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean (MHAAM) and its Harvard platform, the Science of the Human Past. Without Malcolm, the Center would never have come into being. It is thanks to him that MHAAM celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. For a decade, it has brought together rising scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to learn daring new methods and, with them, explore with new eyes the prehistoric and early historic Mediterranean world.

We first met Malcolm in June 2016 in Athens, at the inauguration of the new Malcolm H. Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Science at the American School of Classical Studies. It was a day of celebration, and Malcolm shared it with his wife and children. We will always remember the conversations we had with the whole family about the interests we shared. His warmth was as striking as his intellect. So was the joy he took in scholarship, in science, and in bioarchaeology above all.

A year later, in 2017, Malcolm joined us in Boston for the inaugural workshop of our new Center. Fascinated by archaeogenetics, paleoclimate science and what they could reveal, Malcolm engaged closely with our work. During that meeting he quietly handed us a handwritten sheet of paper. On it he had listed the questions he believed we should tackle first. His questions were spot on. We kept that sheet, and it guided our research for years to come. We are proud to say that we were able to provide answers, or at least new insights, into several of his questions, such as “was there a Mycenaean conquest of Crete associated with a migration from the Mainland” or “can you provide evidence for the plague and other diseases in the Bronze Age Aegean”.

Malcolm was a true scholar in the fullest sense of the word. Over the years, he sent us his publications as a basis for further discussions within MHAAM and was always happy to provide feedback on our manuscripts. Only a few weeks before his passing, he asked us for another update on our ongoing research, clearly demonstrating his endless passion for the topic. His enthusiasm for Aegean prehistory was no less present at our conferences and workshops, enriching the discussions with his visionary way of thinking. Long before many other archaeologists and historians, he understood that crucial questions of Aegean prehistory, such as the interplay of cultural exchange and migration, as well as the impact of epidemic diseases and climate change, could not be answered from conventional archaeological fieldwork and texts alone. They required careful scientific study of everyday material like soil sediments, clay, wood, bone and seeds. With characteristic curiosity and discipline, he taught himself volcanology, dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating so that he could take part in these debates himself. Through his support for archaeological science at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, he made the Wiener Laboratory a leader in the field and a firm basis for much scientific work conducted within MHAAM. The Wiener Laboratory has marvelously fostered for all of us the bioanthropological study of the skeletal material, workshops, and sampling for DNA analysis in cleanrooms established by the laboratory’s outstanding team. The continuing scholarly advances of MHAAM, including the training of a new generation of archaeoscientists, would have never been possible without the support and guidance which Malcolm provided for us over the past decade.

Malcolm’s legacy lives on in MHAAM, in the Wiener Laboratory and in the many other institutions his astute vision made possible. We will miss his curiosity, his kindness, his generosity and his sharp scientific judgement and, above all, his remarkable originality of mind. We are deeply grateful for the time we shared with him. Our heartfelt thoughts are with his wife Carolyn and his children Kate, Elizabeth, Thomas and Jonathan.

Johannes Krause, Michael McCormick and Philipp Stockhammer  
on behalf of the entire Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Initiative for the Science of the Human Past



 

 

 



 

 

 Share on:- [     Facebook ](#)
- [     Twitter ](#)
- [     Linkedin ](#)