Within the broader research theme Town and Country which unites the Classical, Mediterranean and Near Eastern Archaeology Department, the Classical-Mediterranean staff and PhDs are active in a wide number of regions and periods of the Circum-Mediterranean lands.

This PhD project develops and applies a GIS procedure to use legacy survey data in settlement pattern analysis. As part of the research by the LERC project (NWO, Leiden University, KNIR), legacy data produced by surveys in central and southern Italy are examined in a comparative framework to investigate…

In several Mediterranean regions archaeological sites have been mapped by fieldwalking surveys, producing large amounts of data. These legacy site-based survey data represent an important resource to study ancient settlement organization. Methodological procedures are necessary to cope with the limits…

The role of domestic and wild resource exploitation in Bronze Age subsistence

The project seeks to come to an understanding of the archaeology of the desert and the ways in which its inhabitants engaged with their constraint, marginal environments through time. It compares and interprets site distribution and community organisation over a long time scale and across several different…

This project aims to contribute to the improvement of documentation and archiving standards (conform the FAIR principles) for systematic Mediterranean archaeological field survey.

What workflow of non-destructive techniques provides accurate, valuable data to improve our understanding of Caribbean archaeological landscapes? How were Amerindian settlements configured?

This five year research project aimed to investigate the role of minor central places in the economy of Roman Central Italy.

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

A project to explore the configuration of different types of settlement and its role in the evolution of landscape, both in pre-Roman times and in the so-called Colonial landscape. We used several techniques of field survey, pottery classification and other non-invasive approaches to the archaeological…

This project aims to integrate three of the largest survey databases in the Mediterranean to study the impact of the megalopolis Rome on its direct hinterland.

Non-urban settlement organization and Roman expansion in the Roman Republic (4th-1st centuries BC)

"Landscape archaeologists often face similar research questions across regions, whether working in the Mediterranean with its long history of studies or in other areas. Understanding settlement systems, connectivity or the role of identity formation as linked to places and place-making, such as ritual…

The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes examines the transformation of rural landscapes and societies that formed the backbone of ancient empires in the Near East and Mediterranean. Through a comparative approach to archaeological data, it analyses the patterns of transformation in widely differing imperial…

Since 2013, the National Natural History Museum of the Netherlands, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, is unearthing the largest bonebed of the horned dinosaur Triceratops discovered so far. In order to answer questions about sedimentology, taphonomy and palaeobiology, palaeontologists and geologists collaborated…

Large-scale forest fires started by prehistoric hunter-gatherers are probably the reason why Europe is not more densely forested. This is the finding of an international team, including climate researcher Professor Jed Kaplan of the University of Lausanne and archaeologist Professor Jan Kolen of Leiden…

The Wadi al Jizzi Archaeological Project is a systematic and long term archaeological surface survey project, investigating the rich archaeological heritage of the Wadi al Jizzi region (Oman) from the Paleolithic until the early Modern period.

1) How natural cycles and activities are interconnected for building the time in one community? 2) What perceptions of Ñuu Dzaui peoples about their landscape can be connected with precolonial times?

Staff and students from the Faculty of Archaeology are just back from a newly started Field School in the inland of Portugal.

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

The project Deconstructing Stability aims to improve reconstructions of late prehistoric landscapes and predictive models for the purpose of archaeological heritage management.

Through the Chastelain-Nobach LUF fund, Classical and Mediterranean archaeologist Tymon de Haas has received a grant for his research on the ecological impact of Roman expansion. He will use this grant to further expand on the case-study that was made possible by the Byvanck LUF fund earlier this ye…

PhD Defence

Lecture, Faculty Lecture

Prehistoric burial mounds are still ubiquitous in the Northwest European landscape, but not much is known on the landscape they were part of, nor on what preceded them.

Lecture

Lecture, Book presentation

The Faculty of Archaeology proudly presents the research brochure Perspectives on the Past, featuring passionate, dedicated researchers introducing a dazzling scala of research topics: from present-day traditional knowledge in Africa to the power of glue in Palaeolithic Europe. In addition to these…

Lecture

Lecture

ASLU 16

Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan

Bronze Age settlement sites in the Dutch river area (c. 2000-800 BC)

ASLU 11

Alternatives to current practice

The Heritage Quest project begins on Monday 6 April. Heritage Quest is the first large-scale citizen science archaeology project in the Netherlands: anyone can help find archaeological remains at Utrechtse Heuvelrug, a heavily forested region in the Netherlands. Citizens can thus get involved in scientific…

Built Environment and Domestic Material Culture in the Medieval and Post-Medieval Cyclades, Greece (13th – 20th Centuries AD)

In the first half of the 20th century, hundreds of burial mounds in the Netherlands have been investigated. Many questions, however, are still unanswered. The barrow landscapes project tackles a number of these questions by re-investigating finds from excavations stored in museums with new methods and…

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.