This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

In the eighties the Umhlatuzana rock shelter in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, was excavated. Results from this excavation led to an understanding when the Later Stone Age started in this area. This archaeological period is often associated with the structural presence of modern human behavior. Now a…

Leiden University archaeologists are reconstructing houses from the Stone Age, using only resources available during that period. This method offers surprising insights into the ingenuity of our distant ancestors, and challenges existing archaeological views.

Also including: Wateringen 4 & Acquiring a taste.

A study into the investment and impact of construction projects on Mycenaean communities in Late Bronze Age Greece

How did Anglo-Saxons reflect on the experience of growing old? Was it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested?

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers.

Current status and future prospects

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

The Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) record throughout Europe is characterized by major changes in human behaviour.

According to a number of British historians, the elderly had a particularly high status in the early Middle Ages. A new book by Leiden cultural historian Thijs Porck sheds a different light on the matter: elderly people had to earn that respect first, and old age was often described in negative terms…

ASLU 7 - A.E. de Hingh

Archaeologist Dr Gerrit Dusseldorp's research project was covered by a South African newspaper. Dusseldorp and his team investigate the evolution of human behaviour through artefacts dug up in South African caves.

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.

In comparing a selection of 18th-century histories to a representative sample of 19th-century histories of science, this project inquires: Which early modern vices persisted into the 19th century and to what extent were those vices embodied in anecdotes, conveyed through commonplaces, or symbolically…

The Case of the Painted Plaster

This project explored the role of material culture, in casu painted plaster and its technologies, in expressing dynamic social identities and in forging complex interwoven human relationships in the context of the Middle to Late Bronze Age of the Aegean and East Mediterranean.

Designed for high-achieving students, Leiden University's master's in Middle Eastern Studies (Research) offers you unmatched resources and expertise.

The subject of this thesis is Alverata, a twenty-first-century typeface whose design was inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals such as those found in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

From as early as classical antiquity there has been an interplay between literature and medicine.

The article investigates the origins of Indo-European languages in Asia by 65 coupling ancient genomics to archaeology and linguistics.

Lecture, What did you do last summer?

Tracing the residues of Neolithic activities through the study of stone artefacts

De Pagus Renensis van de 4de tot de 8ste eeuw na Chr.: Een archeologische synthese

This research programme seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which…

What kinds of vocal music were not typically transmitted in written musical notation? Can specific ‘lost’ song forms - siciliane, giustiniane, le Grechesche, gli stili “regionali“ nel canto del quattrocento - be more precisely identified than they have been until now, both in musicological research…

A modeling approach with applications to the Bau de l'Aubesier (Southeastern France)

PhD defence

A Study of Middle Palaeolithic Riverside Settlements at Maastricht-Belvédère (The Netherlands).

The Mid Upper Palaeolithic of Eurasia 30,000 - 20,000 BP

Generations of Leiden students and academics have done archaeological research into the early medieval history of Oegstgeest. This makes this old settlement one of the best-documented sites from that era. In a new book Leiden researchers take stock.

LiTechAe: Percussive stone tools related to stone masonry techniques seen through experimentation and use-wear analysis.

This thesis explores several aspects of these Early Old Babylonian Amorites.

The ability to create objects and structures with our hands has been essential to human development. This ability is something modern society is at risk of losing. Leiden archaeologists gather knowledge about ancient processes of ‘making and creating’ over the centuries, knowledge that helps our current…

The ‘Locke drawings’ collection and the representation of Brazilian native peoples in global perspective

Early cave paintings of hunting scenes may give the impression our Stone Age ancestors lived mainly on chunks of meat, but plants were just as key to their survival. Plants rich in starch helped early humans to thrive even at the height of the last Ice Age, Leiden archaeologist Amanda Henry tells Horizon…

An interdisciplinary and innovative research group combining History, underwater archaeology, GIS and wood provenancing methods.

Middle Paleolithic stone tool technology is one of the major sources of information about Neandertal behavior and adaptations. The Balkan Middle Paleolithic often remains outside of the major debates and interpretations of Neandertal behavior.

Joanita Vroom, Associate Professor Archaeology, regularly tries out old recipes, together with a group of Archaeology students. 'You really need to love garlic.'

On an excavation site in Oegstgeest Leiden University archaeologists discovered a very rare silver bowl from the first half of the seventh century. The bowl is decorated with gold-plated representations of animals and plants and inlaid with semi-precious stones. The discovery suggests the existence…

Three years ago, on 13 October 2017, the Leiden Medievalists Blog was established. In their blogs, Leiden researchers from all disciplines talk about the Middle Ages in a fun and interesting way. Editors Jip Barreveld, Marlisa den Hartog and Thijs Porck talk about the blog and why the Middle Ages are…

Princeton University has officially launched its website, MAFE: Middle Ages for Educators. MAFE is aimed at university and secondary students and educators and, more broadly, at anyone who is interested in studying, teaching, or learning more about Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.