Studies in Human Evolution is a series of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.

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

The Altai region has yielded a cluster of Middle and Upper Paleolithic stratified sites that have been recently excavated using a multidisciplinary approach.

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

Do humans and zebra finches share cognitive mechanisms that are important for speech perception?

This multidisciplinary minor provides students with knowledge on how and why humans became the way they are. The minor focuses on the evolution of the species Homo sapiens from other hominin lineages and animal ancestors, and on the various factors shaping this process. Not only is human evolution of…

Despite the field’s general agreement that pyrotechnology had a significant impact on the cultural evolution of humankind, our understanding of the origins and development of fire use and its role in humankind’s cultural evolution is very limited, blurred by strong disagreements over its chronology…

Are you interested in the neurocognitive and biological roots of learning, behaviour and emotions in children? If so, the programme in Applied Neuroscience in Human Development might be the specialisation you are looking for.

Digital media are everywhere and are therefore a major part of our lives and the lives of our children. The new specialisation in Digital Media in Human Development focuses on the opportunities and challenges of digital media in child rearing and education.

Get to know us through our online and in-person events for prospective students!

A new research line is the development of liquid biopsy fingerprints to predict early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) stage in human in readily accessible body fluids in human (in collaboration with: Dr. Geert-Jan Groeneveld, CHDR; Prof. Elga de Vries, Free University Medical Center; and others).

How did toxin genes evolve from harmless physiological genes?

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Co-promotor: O.E. Della Pasqua

Efficiently responding to others’ emotions has great survival value, especially for social species, such as primates, who establish close, long-term bonds with group members. The closest living relatives to humans are the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Studying these species, and comparing them on the exact…

Pericytes, the mural cells of blood microvessels, are important regulators of vascular morphogenesis and function that have been postulated to mechanically control microvascular diameter through as yet unknown mechanisms.

The Faculty of Archaeology produces several journals

This series provides a venue for scholarly work—research monographs and edited volumes—that advances our understanding of the history of slavery and post-slavery in any period and any geographical region. It fills an important gap in academic publishing and builds upon two relatively recent developments…

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme is to understand what are the key drivers of plant biodiversity during evolution with a focus on plant life history and resilience traits and develop tools to restore and maintain plant biodiversity.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets

A study by a Leiden-Wageningen group shows that present-day humans are biologically poorly equipped to deal with the toxins they are regularly exposed to in smoky environments: compared to earlier hominins, we modern humans are probably even worse off. The study appeared in Molecular Biology and Evolution.…

ASLU 14

Evolution & Biodiversity is one of the four research themes of the Institute of Biology Leiden.

Research into the evolutionary backgrounds of our diets can help us make the right choices in diet, health and lifestyle.

In this article, Tom Buitelaar proposes a systematic framework for analyzing the impact of individual characteristics of peacekeeping leaders on the behaviour of field-level personnel in UN peacekeeping operations.

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. H. Leirs (Univ. Antwerpen), Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

With Brill, LUCIS publishes a peer-reviewed book series, “Leiden Studies in Islam and Society” (LSIS), aimed at an international academic audience.

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

Clinical development of drugs for central nervous system (CNS) disorders has been particularly challenging and still suffers from high attrition rates.

Why do plants produces always produced so many slightly differing metabolites within a particular chemical class?

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme focuses on understanding how bacteria sense and respond to their environment, and how bacterial diversity and evolution is influenced by cooperative and antagonistic interactions taking place between microbes.

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme include evo-devo research, the evolution of cognitive and behavioural traits, and the evolutionary mechanisms of stress adaptation. This research involves both indoor and outdoor studies.

How has early development in R. ocellatus been modified as a result of its parasitic embryonic lifestyle?

Bachelor, Master, PhD

Lecture

Galaxies in the local Universe fall into two main categories of spirals and ellipticals. In this Thesis, we explore the structural evolution of galaxies into this bimodal distribution.

Negotiation can only really be an alternative to warfare, if the parties agree on a framework of rules and procedures. And if the confidence of the partners may increase in another. But negotiations continue to wage war by peaceful means.

Balsaminaceae is a diverse plant family characterized by a huge floral morphological diversity.

Female and male songbirds sing equally elaborate songs in some species, but in others, females do not sing like males or not at all. How did such pronounced differences in male and female communication evolve?

In order to compare languages, it is important to have a thorough knowledge of the specific languages you are studying. Gijsbert Rutten and his team are investigating the origin of Standard Dutch and the repression of ‘non-standard’ variants between 1750 and 1850.

The soil-dwelling, filamentous bacteria of the genus Streptomyces are renowned for their production of useful secondary metabolites including antibiotics. The work described in this thesis provides new insights on the role and regulation of antibiotic production and resistance in these bacteria.

Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

Promotores: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Prof.dr. L.B.F.M. Waters (UvA), Prof.dr. C. Dominik (UvA)

On the 12th of November, Xander Vertegaal successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Xander on this achievement!

From 1 August 2018, Alanna O'Malley was appointed as Chair of United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice, focusing on the ‘lesser-known actors’ of the UN: women, the youth, the agents of informal diplomatic networks within the UN and actors from the Global South. This Special Chair has been created…

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: O. van Gaans

This thesis attempts to establish a dialogue between the modern and the medieval traditions in logic, by means of ‘translations’ of the medieval logical theories into the modern framework of symbolic logic, i.e. formalizations.

Study information

Human trafficking is a very topical social problem, which because of both its social and legal complexity, can only be studied in an interdisciplinary way. Combating human trafficking currently features high on national and international policy agendas.

Sustainable energy from wind and solar is most readily available near the sea.