To what extent is the image of the Taino settlements on Hispaniola representative for the whole island, or is it only related to a few large settlements of known caciques?

The research aims to understand how did Cuban and Dominican landscape encapsulate historical conceptual transformations about human –nature spiritual interaction after the Spanish conquest? More specifically, what are the present day cultural associations with Cuban and Dominican natural landscape?…

The summer has flown by and the Nexus 1492 team in Valverde, Dominican Republic, has once again had an exciting and successful season!

Organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino, the indigenous people of the Caribbean encountered by Columbus

In July 2004, a cooperation started between the Faculty of Archaeology and the Museo del Hombre Dominicano and the (University College London, England, Dr. José Oliver), to explore the possibilities to jointly undertake archaeological investigations in the Dominican Republic.

Trajectories of social life in the yucayeque (community) of El Cabo, Higüey, Dominican Republic, AD 800 to 1504

This project aims at documenting the Haitian Creole varieties spoken by Haitian migrants in Cuba and the Dominican Republic’s Samaná Peninsula.

In Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes Jana Pešoutová presents new interpretations of current healing practices in Cuba and the Dominican Republic juxtaposed against the European colonization of the Caribbean after 1492.

Bringing Dominican indigenous collections back to the community

This research combines archaeological, archaeometric and ethnohistorical research to study the organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino Indians during the Late Ceramic Age (AD 1000-1492).

This volume brings together experts on the history of the various revolutionary Sister Republics.

PhD Defence

How do Central African refugees navigate through uncertainty in a new and hostile environment in the DR Congo?

New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the Caribbean.

The arrival of Columbus to the Caribbean in 1492 marked a milestone in world history. In both the European and the indigenous world, a set of economic, political and hierarchical networks and relations were defined, structured and changed. These changes affected the indigenous population at different…

The role of material culture in early colonial encounters in the Caribbean

A biographical approach to material cultural interactions between Caribbean communities and Europeans across the historical divide (AD 1000-1800)

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?

The results of this research project demonstrate the generous contribution that the Dutch Republic has made to the genre of basso continuo, including a survey of twenty-six Dutch sources from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Much attention has been paid to the exchange of objects, ideas, and people in the Caribbean. Networks of interaction connected local communities across pan-regional scales, shaping indigenous socio-political integrations and their responses in colonial situations. This work examines the poorly understood…

Alumni Event, Lecture

Between 1600 and 1800 countless manuals appeared on the subject: the improvised bass part on the harpsichord, pianoforte or organ. Musician and researcher Kathryn Cok unravels the secrets of the Dutch basso continuo accompaniment for modern-day musicians.

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

This thesis presents a detailed description of the phonology, the tone system and the grammar of Liko, a Bantu language spoken by about 70,000 people in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It provides numerous examples.

Arts and Culture, Book launch

How do the starchy botanical foodways reflect upon previous archaeological understandings in the northern and circum-Caribbean?

The main research areas are the development of Amerindian societies and the impacts of colonial encounters in the regions around the Caribbean Sea. These are the nexus of the first interactions between the New and the Old World. The focus is on rewriting a crucial and neglected chapter in global history…

Since its inception, a central preoccupation of and for the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been the nature of its relationship to national jurisdictions. Complementarity—the idea that the Court is intended to supplement, not supplant, national jurisdictions—has been the dominant juridical logic…

In the logic and aesthetics of a republican baroque the existing world is the result of a moment in which for a split second two or more realities are equally real and after which only a singular one becomes actualized.

A multi-disciplinary approach to past lifestyles and cultural practices

After Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the farming culture of the indigenous people quickly disappeared. This has been demonstrated by Leiden archaeologists and colleagues from other universities on the basis of soil research. Publication in…

The exhibition Unity and Diversity in the Amerindian Caribbean: The El Cabo San Rafael Archaeological Site has been officially opened by Prof. dr. Corinne Hofman on Tuesday evening in Santo Domingo.

What are the immediate and lasting effects of the colonial encounters on indigenous Caribbean cultures and societies and what were the intercultural dynamics that took place during the colonisation processes? How can the study of indigenous Caribbean histories contribute to a more sophisticated awareness…

The significance of indigenous Amerindian knowledge has been marginalised in the history of the colonisation of the Americas. Wrongly, according to research by Leiden archaeologists. Indigenous knowledge and infrastructure were essential for the 'success' of the Spanish colonisers. Publication in the…

Two short documentaries by Till F. Sonnemann highlight the work conducted by Leiden archaeologists on Hispaniola as part of the Nexus1492 project.

La naissance d’une thalassocratie considers the contribution of the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands to the rise of the Dutch Republic as a maritime power. In Braudelian fashion, its chapters follow three lines of research.

the production, use and exchange of bodily accoutrements through the lenses of the microscope

Archaeologist Eduardo Herrera Malatesta reflects on the unfamiliarity with the pre-Columbian past that he encountered during fieldwork in the Montecristi province in the Dominican Republic.

On Thursday, the 4th of November 2010, a joint celebration took place in the Great Hall of the Gorleaus Laboratoria of the Faculty of Science of Leiden University on the occasion of the 65th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Indonesia on invitation by H.E. Dr. Umar Hadi, Vice-Ambassador…

On Friday, the 24th of November 1995, a joint celebration took place in the Great Auditorium of the Academy of Leiden University on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Indonesia on invitation by H.E. Drs. J.B. Soedarmanto Kadarisman, Ambassador of the Republic…

The Catholics were by no means pitiable victims over the two centuries that they had to practise their religion underground, Caroline Lenarduzzi writes in her PhD dissertation. They managed to keep their faith alive from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. PhD defence 25 October.

During the summer, staff of the Faculty of Archaeology congregate in all parts of the world, initiating or joining fieldwork projects. Read some of their stories here!

Drones are proving to be a good means of mapping man-made changes in the landscape. Geophysicist Till Sonneman and his colleagues (archaeology) are experimenting with drones in inaccessible areas of the Caribbean.

In the beginning of December 2016 PhD candidate Catarina Guzzo Falci was awarded a scholarship for a collections study by Musée du quai Branly. The Musée du quai Branly has implemented this scholarship programme to document its collections.

In the second and final round of the French elections this Sunday, the French will vote for who is going to become their next president. In an article for the Washington Post, Alexandre Afonso, assistant professor at Leiden University, has tried to project the votes in order to predict whether Marine…

‘Seated behind her desk, she initiated and influenced embassies, conventions, ambassadorial meetings, sieges, and skirmishes that had kept a war-torn early modern Europe in its grip.’ This is how Nadine Akkerman, researcher as the Leiden Institute for Cultural Disciplines and author of The Correspondence…