BIO

Yuval Goren is an expert in microarhaeology and especially the study of composition and origin of archaeological ceramic techniques using optical mineralogy (petrography). He began his studies in archaeology in 1981 at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In 1991 he received a doctorate from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dissertation topic was the beginning of pottery production in Israel and around according to petrographic analyzes of pottery from the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. Dissertation instructors were Profs. Paul Goldberg and Isaac Gilead. With Prof. Goldberg he studied and was trained in the field of micromorphology. Between 1989 and 1996 he worked as a petrography researcher at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and between 1991 and 1996 has also served as Chairman of the IAA workers' union. From 1996 he was appointed senior lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University, became associate professor (2000) and full professor (2005). In 2002-6 he served as Chairman of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University, and in 2009-11 as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. In Tel Aviv University he founded the Laboratory for Comparative Microarchaeology and was the originator and chair of the MA-PhD Program in Archaeology and Archaeomaterials. This program was based on the advanced training of archaeology students research methods from the natural sciences and material engineering and their application in the study of archaeological materials. Since 2014 he is an Honerary Professor of Archaeology at the University College London. In 2016 Goren was invited to join the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, where he is working since 2016.
Goren specialized in technology research and locating the origin of pottery and other archaeological finds using to mineralogical analyzes (mostly microscopic methods) and chemical methods. Currently he holds over 200 scientific publications in these topics.