About UISPP
The International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques – UISPP) was founded on May 28th, 1931, in Bern, and groups together all the sciences related to prehistoric and protohistoric studies: archaeology, anthropology, palaeontology, geology, zoology, botany, environmental sciences, physics, chemistry, geography, history, numismatics, epigraphy, mathematics and other.
Research into the mechanisms of adaption and the dynamics of human societies lies at the heart of the IUPPS’s scientific interest. The IUPPS therefore periodically organises a world congress of prehistoric and protohistoric sciences. At these world congresses the progress made with regard to the state of knowledge is presented and common research objectives are defined. To this end, the IUPPS creates scientific commissions devoted to specific research issues.
The increasing specialisation of disciplines, of organisations and of scientific events requires a particular effort devoted to their incorporation and communication. The IUPPS shoulders this responsibility. It ensures the promotion of multidisciplinary and interinstitutional collaboration through the regional and thematic scientific commissions and affiliated organisations, that share similar objectives, as well as with other scientific institutions.
Since 29th September 1955, the IUPPS has been a member of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences, which is affiliated to UNESCO. As an international association of scholars, its aims included the collaboration of scholars from all countries through initiatives that may contribute to the progress of prehistoric and protohistoric sciences, fully accepting the principles of academic freedom and rejecting any kind of discrimination based on race, philosophical or ideological judgement, ethnic or geographic affiliation, nationality, sex, language or anything else, since discrimination is, by definition, the negation of the scientific approach. It also rejects any attempts at fictional rewriting of the past, or at historical revisionism, and it does not exclude any bona fide scholar from its scientific activities.