This dissertation contains a detailed description of the Carib language, including the most extensive dictionary of the language to date. This knowledge is based on work from earlier sources and field work which was carried out by the author over a ten-year period, particularly in Galibi, a Carib village…

What does site patterning reveal about the social landscape dynamics across the historical divide?

What socio-cultural transformations did indigenous communities in the Lesser Antilles undergo from the late precolonial to the early colonial period in response to Amerindian­ European-African cultural encounters? How did Amerindian populations realign themselves in response to the colonisation…

The focus of this programme is the inter-community social relationships and transformations of island networks in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide.

In January 2008 a small team from the Caribbean Research Group, Leiden University, in collaboration with Dr. Lennox Honychurch of the Dominica Museum, Roseau, surveyed part of northeast Dominica in order to identify settlement sites of the Cayo complex.

Long Island, an islet of Antigua in the northern Lesser Antilles forms the major source for flint in the Lesser Antilles. A survey by Hofman, Hoogland and van Gijn in 1989 has indicated the presence of various raw material sources. Test-excavations at the major flintknapping site of Flinty Bay show…

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology provides an overview of archaeological investigations in the insular Caribbean, understood here as the islands whose shores surround the Caribbean Sea.

The Caribbean Research Group has recently been involved in fieldwork on two sites on St Vincent. Firstly Brighton Beach, and secondly Argyle.

On the 14th of June, Yliana Rodriquez successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Yliana on this achievement!

The main aim of Eva's research is to create a frame of reference in which these animals as symbols must be understood, be they depicted on pottery, as amulets, as floor plans or in any other way. This frame of reference can then be used to interpret the various animal images encountered by Caribbean…

A cultural sequence of western coastal French Guiana from 5000 BP to present

This dissertation investigates ikat from the eastern Indonesian islands from a uniquely technical perspective, including design analysis of asymmetry and microscopy.

How has landscape and land use changed in these two case studies since independence? What has caused these changes, whether anthropogenic or natural? How do local communities in the areas of study perceive these changes? How can community knowledge be integrated with mapping tools (GIS) to contribute…

On 26 and 27 September 2016, the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University hosted the closing symposium of the HERA-CARIB project “Caribbean Connections: Cultural encounters in a New World setting”.

On 19 May 2020, Xuechan Ma defended her thesis 'Moving towards Coexistence and Cooperation: The Spratly Islands and International Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.J. Schrijver.

What are the capabilities or limitations of traveling between islands and how does this reflect seasonal variation? Is it possible to show higher levels of connectivity between islands based on generated pathways between several sites on two separate islands?

ASLU 28 Michalis Karambinis (2015)

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…

What can languages spoken in the Lesser Sunda Islands today tell us about the histories of its various population groups?

How do women and men living in logging concessions in Solomon Islands experience the impacts of logging during and after logging operations? This project assesses how and why industrial logging affects men and women differently. Using insights from an ethnographic case-study of the logging industry…

Amerindian intra- and inter-insular relationships and social organization in the pre-colonial Windward Islands.

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

Concrete Islands in Alphaville A Photo Gallery of Responses to two Seminal Artistic Explorations of Urban Technocracy and its Monstrous Highways

The tenth International Conference on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the Pacific will be a special edition with a focus on reconciliation. The fatal shooting in 1722 will be remembered, when the Dutch shot and killed ten Easter Islanders. The conference will be held in Leiden from 19 to 24 June.

Yliana Rodríguez was in the middle of a second fieldtrip in the Falklands researching Spanish-English language contact, when global lockdown measures were announced. Sit back, relax and enjoy reading about Yliana's research into a unique speech community.

The Caribbean before Columbus is a new synthesis of the region’s insular history. It combines the results of the authors’ 55 years of archaeological research on almost every island in the three archipelagoes with that of their numerous colleagues and collaborators.

What is the impact of humans on nature? In Science an article appeared in which researchers try to give an answer to that question. Biogeographer and postdoc at LUCL Sietze Norder is one of its authors.

The Robben Island field school in January and February 2011 investigated and documented the tangible and intangible heritage of Robben Island, encompassing the remains associated with various political prisoners, the Muslim exiles, the lepers and lunatics, the WWII soldiers and Navy personnel, the prison…

The precolonial inhabitants of the Caribbean islands communicated, travelled, and exchanged objects and ideas along an expansive inter-island network. New methods of computer modeling shed light on these networks. Emma Slayton is set to discuss her work on this topic at her Defense on the 12th of Se…

A mere day after setting foot ashore in the Bahamas on October 13th 1492, Christopher Columbus notes the broad foreheads of the inhabitants of the Americas. These permanently altered cranial shapes are deliberately created through the application of pressure to the head of the infant in the first years…

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.

The number of insect species is plummeting, which is why the University is creating a more biodiverse environment around its buildings. Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, planted the first bee-friendly plants in the front garden of Oude UB on 20 September.

Leiden has one of the most petrified inner-cities of The Netherlands. This is not beneficial for the biodiversity crisis and Leiden University, with a significant number of buildings within the Singels. The priority should be to make a positive impact on the matter.

Biologist Marcel Schaaf is one of four science faculty members who achieved the Senior Teaching Qualification in Leiden last year. How was that and what drives him? ‘Students receive way too often feedback that they cannot put into practice.’

Despite repeated warnings, John Chau visited the remote Indian island of North Sentinel. His goal: to convert the North Sentinelese to Christianity. These islanders, however, aren't in for outsiders and killed the missionary upon his arrival. Anthropologists Erik de Maaker, Tessa Minter and professor…

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

Promotor: E.F. Smets Co-promotor: J. Geml

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…

Fieldwork

There is little evidence of the routes connecting Amerindian communities in the Caribbean prior to and just after 1492. Uncovering possible canoe routes between these communities can help to explain the structure, capabilities, and limitations of the physical links in their social and material networks.…

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…

Bob van Grieken and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz published an article in the journal Geopolitics which explores the determinants of China's official financing of Pacific Island states.

The central question in this study is: ‘What can the Netherlands learn from the way in which these countries have organized law enforcement and the rule of law in their overseas territories?’

Caribbean archaeological heritage is threatened by natural impacts but also increasingly by economic developments, often resulting from the tourist industry. The continuous construction of specific projects for tourists, accompanied by illegal practices such as looting and sand mining, have major impacts…

Excavations on Saba took place between 1987 and 1992, and then in 2001 and 2002.

Tom Breukel analysed some 250 stone axes from the Caribbean and reconstructed their biographies. This increases our knowledge of production and trade in the period around the arrival of Columbus. PhD defence on 18 April.

The historical archaeology of the Port of Sandy Point and its anchorage, St. Kitts, West Indies

ASLU 13

The research involves the application and combination of archaeological and archaeometrical methodologies. Petrographic analysis and isotopic provenance studies of raw materials and exotics, and the study of the distribution patterns of these materials are used to gain insight into the exchange of goods…