Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan’s Black Desert (200 BC to 800 AD)

Abstract submission is now open for the international conference of the ELS Academy, in Amsterdam on September 1 and 2.

How did local lifeways and crafting practices persist and develop in the diverse environments of the increasingly interconnected Gulf of Fonseca (AD 400-1521)?

Cátia Antunes received the prestigious ERC Grant for her Research Project

Catalysis is of extreme relevance in the production of everyday materials and plays a central role in many aspects of our life.

Apps that can precisely identify shards, coins or heel bones: archaeology has embraced artificial intelligence. Alex Brandsen is working on a search engine that scans vast quantities of text from an archaeological viewpoint.

Managing Diversity: Supervising Functions in Managing Colonial Workplaces

With the departure of Tesse Stek to the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome for three years, Andrzej Antczak will take over the role of Departmental Head for World Archaeology in September 2018. We spoke with him to learn more about his background, ideas, and plans for the future.

This handbook provides a resource for those already familiar with some kinds of micro-particles who wish to learn more about others, or for those just starting out in the study of microremains who wish to have a broad understanding about microscopic archaeology.

200 years ago, in 1818, Caspar Reuvens was appointed Professor in Archaeology at Leiden University. This was effectively the start of the academic study of archaeology in the Netherlands. To celebrate this occasion, the faculty organises events related to the future of archaeology throughout the yea…

How do we explain the fact that certain areas had many large cities, while other areas were studded with large numbers of small towns and yet other areas had very few urban agglomerations of any kind?

This is a research project on the implementation of national mathematics curriculum reform in Chinese junior high school. The research is expected to provide insight into the ways and reasons of mathematics teachers in Chinese junior high school for implementing national curriculum reform.

The goal is to establish an intuitive search and querying service that allows researchers to quickly retrieve the most valuable digital resources, in order to allow them to integrate and synthesise the results into a coherent narrative of the past. The current focus of the project is to implement…

At the Faculty of Archaeology, three new professors are appointed with effect from February 1, 2018. They are Ann Brysbaert, Marie Soressi, and Joanita Vroom. How do they react to their appointments, and what will be their foci in the following years?

This dissertation investigates the rural communities of the Cananefates in the period of 50 to 300 AD.

‘Archeologists don’t dig up explanations, let alone certainties,’ says Joanita Vroom, Professor of Archaeology of Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia. ‘Their job is to bridge the gap between the sherds that they find and people’s everyday lives. What do ceramics from the past say about people’s eating…

ELS lab member Helen Pluut concluded this year’s lecture series on Empirical Methods in Legal Research. Helen discussed diary studies as an example of multilevel research designs.

This publication brings together two contributions born of different intentions but which are both dedicated to Hellenistic pottery of the Alexandria region.

Niek Strohmaier and Gitta Veldt will start as assistant professors within the project Empirical Legal Studies (ELS). Their appointments are part of the sector plan of Leiden Law School.

The Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University is a partner in the new university-wide Data Science research programme that advocates the use of data science in various fields of research.

From painted pottery to tattooed mummies, art has always been essential in human culture. Exploring the human past, archaeologists study art in the widest sense; from the technical aspects, to decrypting meaning. The new exhibition ‘Art-chaeology’, however, turns the tables and gives the pencil and…

Archaeologist Natalia Donner has been awarded a grant of €5,000 from the Bakels Fonds for her research Bridging the Gap: a historical ecological approach to human practices in the Darien Province, Panama. She will use this grant to conduct the first systematic archaeological survey in the region.

Edgar Pereira is one of the four PhDs in Cátia Antunes’ ERC Research Project 'Fighting Monopolies'.

What triggers archaeology in you? Over 300 people show their answer in the travelling, pop-up exhibition ‘Archaeology&ME’, which can be visited at Leiden Central station on May 5th and 6th 2018.

Lecture

Een scheepswrak, zijn bemanning en het leven in de 18de eeuw

The research article ‘Anatomy of a notch. An in-depth experimental investigation and interpretation of combat traces on Bronze Age swords’ is one of the most downloaded articles on the Journal of Archaeological Science website. This journal is one of the best for impact factor in the field. The article,…

In the course of 2020 the Faculty of Archaeology was bolstered by some new staff members. Due to the coronavirus situation, sadly, this went for a large part unnoticed. In a series of interviews we are catching up, giving the floor to our new colleagues. We kick off with Dr Tuna Kalayci, who joined…

For the bachelor's course Past and Future, Archaeology students visited Castellum Hoge Woerd (Utrecht), a modern interpretation of the Roman fort that stood on that exact spot. It features an archaeological museum, the remains of a Roman river ship, a theater, and a restaurant. Students were tasked…

The main research question of this PhD project focus on how educational policies and practices can contribute to the promotion and understanding of archaeological indigenous heritage among teachers and students in the Caribbean?

Embracing the Provinces is a collection of essays focused on people and their daily lives living in the Roman provinces, c. 27 BC-AD 476. It offers an overview of current research on Roman provinces and frontiers, deconstructing some long-held preconceptions and providing refreshing insights into unexplored…

The archaeology of food is in all sorts of ways ‘hot’. To illustrate this, recently the book Medieval MasterChef was published, focusing on cuisine and foodways in the Mediterranean and north-western Europe during Medieval and Post-Medieval times.

Two hundred years ago Caspar Reuvens was appointed as the first professor of archaeology in the Netherlands. He was to lay the basis for both the National Museum of Antiquities and the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University. To mark the occasion, the faculty is organising an anniversary lecture…

In a creative assignment as a part of the bachelor's course Visual Culture, students explored the impact and complexity of visual culture by means of visual culture. The resulting artworks were of such a high quality that it was decided to present these in an exhibition.

Matilda Siebrecht has found the perfect combination of her interests, namely experimental archaeology, and journalism. She was asked by EXARC, a foundation that aims at connecting experimental archaeology professionals, to host a monthly podcast on this topic. ‘It is called Finally Friday, airing every…

The Iraqi archaeological site of Nimrud was recently recaptured from IS. The site has been severely damaged. The question now is, what to do with it? Should it be restored? Bleda Düring spoke with Trouw about this complex issue.

‘We’ve come because our granddaughter started studying archaeology here this year. But I’m really interested in archaeology too.’ The Open Day at the Faculty of Archaeology on 12 October was a field day for archaeology fans: workshops, lectures, activities for children and a pub quiz that covered the…

Archaeology can help us reflect critically on our European identity. This is what David Fontijn will claim in his inaugural lecture on 18 March.

Lecture, What did you do last summer?

This coming June and July, excavations will continue at the Aguas Buenas archaeological site.

The Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) accepted the request for subsidy to digitise the archive of the archaeological fieldwork at Tell Deir Alla in the eastern Jordan Valley. The subsidy comes from its KDP-program (Small Data Project) and is meant to promote digitisation of important datasets.…

In the contemporary myriad of definitions and approaches of landscape, the starting points and limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested in this thesis. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute of? Is landscape biography just a narration of…

The 10th Experimental Archaeology Conference of EXARC took place in Leiden, Netherlands, over three days; 20th to the 22nd April 2017, in Leiden University’s Faculty of Archaeology. A conference report was published on the website of EXARC.

On February 4th standing before his doctoral committee at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology, St. Kitts-born Cameron Gill, successfully defended and received his Doctorate.

New name of the Computer Applications group

Through extensive archaeological and documentary research, this study aims to provide a detailed analysis of the maritime cultural landscape of St. Eustatius over the past four centuries. It focuses on bridging the gap between the marine and terrestrial worlds and demonstrates that in order to truly…

Conference