Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden

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

The Western Mediterranean is a key region to understand human dispersal events within and out of the African continent as well as for the eventual replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans during the Pleistocene. Central to any conclusive interpretation of archaeological and palaeoclimatic…

This summer seven students from the Faculty of Archaeology crossed the North Sea to assist in the British Museum excavations at East Farm, Barnham, Suffolk, UK – a Middle Pleistocene site. Together with five students from the UK they went through many stages of fieldwork, from scooping the English weather…

The Palaeolithic period extends from the earliest stone tools (and in Europe, earliest occupation) to the beginning of the current warm period.

In this provocative study, Shumon T. Hussain engages with the long-standing issue of French-Anglophone research conflicts in Palaeolithic archaeology.

The central question of this thesis is: What drives late Middle Paleolithic stone artifact variability? In its attempt to answer this question, this thesis is a contribution to understanding variability within and between late Middle Paleolithic assemblages of the European Plain.

La Grande Roche is one of the rare archaeological sites that preserved a long sequence of deposits formed at the time of contact between late Neandertals and early Homo sapiens.

The Saalian archaeological record at Maastricht-Belvédère (the Netherlands).

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

The aim of the research project is to get insight in the biostratigraphical age and the palaeoecological setting of the Schöningen sites and hominin behavior and subsistence during the late Lower Palaeolithic.

Volume 20 contains eight articles based on research of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.

When do fire making tools appear in prehistory, and how might the use of these tools manifest in the archaeological record?

Papers written on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Institute of Prehistory, Volume I.

For the following years, Dr Aitor Burguet-Coca will be a returning face at the Faculty of Archaeology. He will join Dr Amanda Henry’s team with his expertise on prehistoric fire use and the methodologies that studying ancient hearths requires.

The transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic is a major biological and cultural threshold in the construction of our common humanity. Technological and behavioral changes happened simultaneously to a major climatic cooling, forcing human populations to develop new strategies for the exploitation…

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

Towards a Biological Understanding of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition

An experimental approach to organic palaeolithic technology

The routine assumption that Upper Palaeolithic early modern humans in Europe were regular fire users who produced fire at will has never been tested against the archaeological record. Utilizing literature, database and microwear analytical approaches, this project seeks to establish the role and forms…

Recently, archaeologist Dr Wei Chu received a grant from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung for an excavation in the Carpathian Mountains. Originally planning for an excavation in Ukraine, his plans were disrupted by the war. ‘We had to change plans really quickly.’

The research contained in this dissertation explores the origins of fire making in prehistory, focusing primarily on the fire use practices and fire production capacities of Neandertals.

A contextual approach to anthropomorphic figurines in the Pavlovian (Central Europe, 29-24 kyr BP) (2001)

And its application in deciphering hominin diets in palaeolithic eurasia

Current status and future prospects

Band 69 | 2014

The Human Origins group at Leiden University studies the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, from the earliest stone tools in East Africa, more than three million years old, to the origin of sedentary societies towards the end of the last ice age.

PhD defence

PhD defence

Eyserheide. A Magdalenian Open-Air Site In The Loess Area Of The Netherlands And Its Archaeological Context.

The Leiden archaeologist Wil Roebroeks has been awarded the Spinoza prize for his original observations about early hominins and the development of human society, NWO (Netherlands organisation for Scientific Research) announced on Monday 4 June.

Large-scale excavations at Neumark-Nord 2 (Germany), a very rich Middle Palaeolithic site with excellent preservation of organic (faunal and floral) remains and lithics in fine-grained lake deposits, dating to about 125,000 years ago.

Direct radiocarbon dating of human remains is crucial for the accurate interpretation of prehistory. Yet given the scarcity of prehistoric human remains, direct dating is often too destructive for important fossils. The reduction of sample size necessary for dating bone is therefore of great interest…

Excerpta archaeologica leidensia: Corrie Bakels & Hans Kamermans (eds) (2015)

The Faculty of Archaeology produces several journals

Over the years, many spectacular archaeological finds have been washed ashore on the Dutch coast. Among these a large assemblage of barbed points made of bone and antler from the Mesolithic (11,000-8000 BC). The species used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to manufacture their barbed points remained…

PhD defence

PhD defence