Eduardo Herrera Malatesta
Guest researcher
- Name
- Dr. E.N. Herrera Malatesta
- e.n.herrera.malatesta@arch.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0001-5265-6296
Eduardo Herrera Malatesta is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Archaeology.
Current research
Eduardo is an archaeologist working at the intersection of computational modelling, digital humanities, and Indigenous landscape history. His research focuses on reconstructing long-term human–environmental dynamics in the Caribbean and northern South America by integrating archaeological, historical, linguistic, and ecological legacy data. Specifically, he specialises in the application of spatial statistics, GIS, and spatial network analysis to study settlement systems, mobility, and territorial organisation across multiple spatial and temporal scales. He is currently developing a large-scale, FAIR- and CARE-compliant data infrastructure for Venezuelan Indigenous histories, designed to support reproducible, uncertainty-aware modelling.
Within this frame, his methodological work advances on uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis, and geo-visualisation as core components of archaeological inference. Overall, through his work, he aims to bridge quantitative modelling with critical theory, heritage ethics, and community-oriented digital infrastructures for archaeology in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Teaching activities
As an Assistant Professor in Computational Archaeology, Eduardo contributes to both Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes by offering courses that bridge theory and practice in computational archaeology. His teaching profile places particular emphasis on developing students’ analytical and critical thinking skills, as well as their ability to design and implement reproducible research workflows. He also supervises theses and internships, supporting students in developing their own research trajectories within a collaborative and research-driven environment.
Curriculum vitae
Eduardo Herrera Malatesta is a Venezuelan archaeologist specialising in landscape research, regional analyses, and computational archaeology, specifically geographical information systems (GIS) and spatial statistics. He studied anthropology with a specialisation in archaeology at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (BA) and the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas (MA). He then specialised in GIS in archaeology at University College London (MSc), and later, he got his PhD in archaeology at Leiden University. He has held postdoctoral positions at Leiden University, at Aarhus University as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow, and at the University of Bonn as an Alexander von Humboldt Experienced Researcher. He is now an Assistant Professor in Computational Archaeology in the Department of Archaeological Sciences.
Guest researcher
- Faculty of Archaeology
- FdA World Archaeology
Universal Lecturer
- Faculty of Archaeology
- FdA Archaeological Sciences
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo (Ed.) (2026), Caribbean Digital Archaeology: Ethical challenges and best practices: University Press of Florida.
- Herrera Malatesta E., Fricke F.J., Waal M. de, Seferidou E., Cunningham A., Nägele K., Victorina A., Kok M., Chiappa O., Farmer K., Litsenburg Z. van, Aguasvivas M. & Ammerlaan L. (2025), Rethinking Caribbean archaeology: towards an ethical position for a truly decolonial practice, Peer Community Journal 5: e125.
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo (2025), Archaeological Perspectives on Contested and Political Landscapes. London: Routledge.
- Malatesta Eduardo Herrera (2025), Introduction: Contested and Political Landscapes: Routledge. 15-28.
- Malatesta Eduardo Herrera (2025), On Contested Taskscapes. In: Herrera Malatesta Eduardo (Ed.), Archaeological Perspectives on Contested and Political Landscapes: Routledge. 29-50.
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo (2025), Rodrigo Navarrete Sánchez (In Memoriam). Revista Latino-Americana De Arqueologia Historica. [other].
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo & de Valeriola Sébastien (2024), Ambiguous landscapes: A framework for assessing robustness and uncertainties in archaeological point pattern analysis, PLoS ONE 19: e0307743 (e125).
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo (2024), Arqueología histórica venezolana. Perspectivas actuales sobre el contacto, el colonialismo y la independencia. Sidestone Press. Leiden, 2024. 581 Págs., ISBN: 978 9464270969, Ciencia y Sociedad 49(3): 79-83.
- Jean Joseph Sony Herrera Malatesta Eduardo (2024), Local Voices, Global Debates: The Uses of Archaeological Heritage in the Caribbean. Leiden: BRILL.
- Jean Joseph Sony Malatesta Eduardo Herrera Jacobson Katarina (2024), Local Voices, the Uses of Archaeological Heritage in the Caribbean. In: Joseph SonyJean Eduardo Herrera Malatesta (Ed.), Local Voices. The uses of archaeological heritage in the Caribbean. Leiden: BRILL. 1-17.
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo Con Aguilar Eldris Álvarez Arlene (2024), Revising Biased Representations of Past Indigenous People in School Settings in the Dominican Republic. In: Joseph Sony Jean Eduardo Herrera Malatesta (Ed.), Local Voices, Global Debates. The uses of archaeological heritage in the Caribbean: BRILL. 32-55.
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo, Ulloa Hung Jorge & Hofman Corinne L. (2023), Looking at the Big Picture: Using Spatial Statistical Analyses to Study Indigenous Settlement Patterns in the North-Western Dominican Republic, Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology 6(1): 16-28.
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo Sony Jean Joseph (2023), Colonization, Indigenous Resilience, and Social Justice in Caribbean Archaeology. In: C. Smith D. Lippert S. May A. K. Kanungo K. Pollard and S. L. López Varela (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Global Indigenous Archaeologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. C21P1–C21P102.
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo (2022), The Transformation of Indigenous Landscape in the First Colonized Region of the Caribbean, Land 11(4): 509.
- Corcoran-Tadd N.E., Ulloa Hung J., Antczak A.T., Herrera Malatesta E.N. & Hofman C.L. (2021), Indigenous Routes and Resource Materialities in the Early Spanish Colonial World: Comparative Archaeological Approaches, Latin American Antiquity 32(3): 468-485.
- Castilla-Beltrán Alvaro Hooghiemstra Henry Hoogland Menno L.P. Donders Timme H. Pagán-Jiménez Jaime R. McMichael Crystal N.H. Rolefes Steven Marinus Francisco Olijhoek Thomas Herrera-Malatesta Eduardo Hung Jorge Ulloa Hofman Corinne L. (2020), Ecological responses to land use change in the face of European colonization of Haytí island, Quaternary Science Reviews 241: 106407 (106407).
- Herrera Malatesta E.N. & Hofman C.L. (2019), Indigenous Landscape Transformation on Northern Haytí: An Archaeological and Environmental Database of the Montecristi Coast, Journal of Open Archaeology Data 7(2): 1-5.
- Hofman C.L., Ulloa Hung J., Herrera Malatesta E.N., Jean J.S., Sonnemann T.F. & Hoogland M.L.P. (2018), Indigenous Caribbean perspectives: archaeologies and legacies of the first colonised region in the New World, Antiquity 92(361): 200-216.
- Herrera Malatesta E.N. (15 March 2018), Una isla, dos mundos : estudio arqueológico sobre el paisaje indígena de Haytí y su transformación al paisaje colonial de La Española (1200-1550) (Dissertatie, Archaeology, Leiden University). Leiden: Sidestone Press. Supervisor(s) and Co-supervisor(s): Hofman C.L. & Kolen J.C.A., Ulloa Hung J.
- Castilla-Beltrán A., Hooghiemstra H., Hoogland M.L.P., Pagan Jimenez J.R., Geel B. van, Field M.H., Prins M., Donders T., Herrera Malatesta E.N., Ulloa Hung J., McMichael C.H., Gosling W.D. & Hofman C.L. (2018), Columbus' Footprint in Hispaniola: A paleoenvironmental record of Indigenous and Colonial impacts on the landscape of the central Cibao Valley, northern Dominican Republic, Anthropocene 22: 66-80.
- Angelo D. & Herrera Malatesta E.N. (2018), Sobre la Posibilidad de Otros Paisajes: Convenciones, paisajes, humo, memorias y monumentos, Chungara 50(2): 269-271.
- Sonnemann T.F., Comer D.C., Patsolic J.L., Megarry W.P., Herrera Malatesta E.N. & Hofman C.L. (2017), Semi-Automatic Detection of Indigenous Settlement Features on Hispaniola through Remote Sensing Data, Geosciences 7(4): 1-15.
- Herrera Malatesta E.N. (2017), Indigenous Landscape Transformations in Colonial Times (data file and codebook). The Netherlands: DANS Easy. [dataset].
- Herrera Malatesta E.N. (2017), Understanding ancient patterns: Predictive Modeling for field research in Northern Dominican Republic. Velasquez Christopher B. & Haviser Jay B. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Congress of the IACA. International Association For Caribbean Archaeology (IACA) 19 July 2015 - 25 July 2015 no. 88-97. Sint Maarten: SIMARC Heritage Series.
- Sonnemann T.F., Herrera Malatesta E.N. & Hofman C.L. (2016), Applying UAS Photogrammetry To Analyse Spatial Patterns Of Indigenous Settlement Sites In The Northern Dominican Republic. In: Forte M. & Campana S. (Eds.), Digital Methods And Remote Sensing In Archaeology: Archaeology in the Age of Sensing. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. 71-87.
- Herrera Malatesta E.N. (21 November 2016), Invisible Landscapes: Colonialism And History In Montecristi. NEXUS 1492 Website. Leiden, The Netherlands: NEXUS 1492. [blog entry].
- Ulloa Hung J. & Herrera Malatesta E.N. (2015), Investigaciones arqueologicas en el norte de la Española. Entre viejos esquemas y nuevos datos, Boletín del Museo del Hombre Dominicano XLII(46): 75-107.
- Herrera Malatesta E.N. (2015), Workshop for the NEXUS 1492 exhibition in Montecristi. [other].
- Herrera Malatesta E.N., Survey In The Montecristi Province. Survey In The Montecristi Province: http://www.nexus1492.eu/. [blog entry].
- Herrera Maletesta E.N, Sonnemann T.F & Hofman C.L. (2014), Approaches to Amerindian landscapes in the Northern Dominican Republic. Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC), Rome. 17 September 2014 - 20 September 2014. [conference poster].
- Sonnemann T.F., Herrera Malatesta E.N., Ruiter S. de, Slayton E., Stancioff E., Vermeer J. & Hofman C.L. (2014), Digital Encounters in the Caribbean. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Paris. 22 April 2014 - 25 April 2014. [conference poster].
- Sonnemann T.F., Herrera Malatesta E. & Hofman C.L. (2014), Remote Sensing & Ground Survey Approach to Map and Interpret Amerindian & Colonial Landscapes. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Paris. 22 April 2014 - 25 April 2014. [conference poster].
- Herrera Malatesta Eduardo & Tommasino Claudia (2009), Arqueología de rescate e investigación osteoarqueológica en el Templo Santa Ana, Estado Nueva Esparta, Venezuela, Vestígios - Revista Latino-Americana de Arqueologia Histórica 3(2): 57-83.