Quentin Bourgeois is Professor in European Prehistory at the Faculty of Archaeology. He also serves as Vice-Dean of the Faculty Board.

More information about Quentin Bourgeois

Office days

Monday to Friday

Research

My research focuses on later prehistoric Europe, with a particular emphasis on the 3rd millennium BC. At the centre of this work is a deceptively simple archaeological problem: how could people living far apart, and often without direct contact, maintain highly similar cultural practices over long periods of time? This question has shaped my work on burial practices, barrow landscapes, the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker phenomena, and the wider cultural transformations that marked later prehistoric Europe.

Methodologically, my work combines archaeological interpretation with comparative and quantitative approaches. I use large datasets, network analysis, spatio-temporal modelling, and archaeogenetics to study cultural change, from individual burial landscapes to patterns across Europe. My PhD on barrow landscapes laid the foundation for this work, which later expanded to Corded Ware networks, burial rituals, and the Bell Beaker phenomenon. Together, these projects explore how cultural practices spread, persisted, and changed over time.

Another strand of my research focuses on the public role of archaeology. Through Heritage Quest, I have worked with archaeologists, heritage specialists, computer scientists, public authorities, and more than 6,000 volunteers to identify and protect archaeological remains. The project showed that citizen science can produce valuable archaeological data and contribute directly to heritage management and spatial planning. More broadly, it reflects my interest in making archaeological research accessible to wider audiences.

Teaching activities

I actively teach on topics in European Prehistory with a focus on the later Holocene (ca. 5000-1BC) in north-western Europe in both the BA and MA. I currently supervise BA and MA theses on topics ranging from the Neolithic to the Iron Age across Europe.

Curriculum vitae

Quentin Bourgeois is Professor of European Prehistory at Leiden University, Faculty of Archaeology, and currently serves as Vice-Dean of Education. His research focuses on later prehistoric Europe, especially the 3rd millennium BC, and examines how cultural practices, ideas, and social identities spread across large parts of prehistoric Europe. His work is situated at the intersection of funerary archaeology, landscape archaeology, network analysis, cultural transmission studies, and interdisciplinary collaboration with the natural sciences.

Bourgeois completed his PhD on the formation of barrow landscapes in later prehistoric Europe, for which he received a cum laude distinction and the W.A. van Es Award. Building on this foundation, he obtained Rubicon (At Aarhus University, Denmark), VENI, and VIDI funding from NWO, allowing him to develop his research line that moved from regional mortuary landscapes towards large-scale comparative analyses of cultural change. His publications include work on Corded Ware networks, the spatio-temporal dynamics of burial ritual, and the formation of Bell Beaker groups in the Lower Rhine–Meuse region. Across these studies, he has helped demonstrate how formal modelling, large datasets, and archaeogenetic collaboration can generate new insight into prehistoric cultural dynamics while remaining grounded in archaeological interpretation.

He is also one of the project leaders of Heritage Quest, a large citizen science project that brought together heritage institutions, computer scientists, archaeologists, public authorities, and thousands of volunteers to identify previously unknown archaeological remains using remote-sensing data. The project contributed directly to heritage protection and municipal planning and was recognised with a Europa Nostra Award in 2024. His wider public engagement includes contributions to national media, to Het Verhaal van Nederland, and the Bronstijd exhibition at the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) which brought archaeological research to a broad public audience.

From 2017-2022 he was elected as a member of De Jonge Akademie, as well as chair of the education committee at the faculty of archaeology. From 2023-2026 he was head of the department of World Archaeology. He currently holds the position of Vice-Dean of Education at the Faculty of Archaeology.

Publications

Activities