Dr Philos. Knut Paasche is an archaeologist and researcher; he is also head of the Archaeological department and the department of Digital Documentation, Cultural Heritage and Landscape at NIKU.

Paasche has worked as an archaeologist for more than 25 years, four of these as county archaeologist in Buskerud County. He has led many archaeological excavation- and registration-projects all around Norway. He has archaeological experience of all periods from the Stone Age, through the medieval period and up to modern times. His specialities are primarily the Viking period and the Middle Ages with a main focus surveying heavily stratified cultural heritage sites and the excavation of medieval towns. In addition, he spent four years working on ship archaeology and deputized as collections manager at The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. Later, Paasche, in addition to creating and proposing a new reconstruction of the Tune ship, led a research project on a new documentation and reconstruction of the Oseberg ship.

His current research focus is primarily on methodological approaches to archaeology and includes new opportunities and technical innovations for improved field documentation: satellite recording, electronic scanning and geophysical methods. Paasche is furthermore head of the Norwegian part of the “Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological prospection and Virtual Archaeology”, and several project funded by the Norwegian Research Council. Paasche holds a Master degree in Nordic Archaeology with focus on the Middle Ages. In his doctoral thesis he wrote about the documentation and reconstruction of archaeological objects, using a reconstruction of the Tune ship as an example.