The ability to create objects and structures with our hands has been essential to human development. This ability is something modern society is at risk of losing. Leiden archaeologists gather knowledge about ancient processes of ‘making and creating’ over the centuries, knowledge that helps our current…

Nine Archaeology students have built a reconstruction of an early medieval house in Vlaardingen. The house, built according to a houseplan discovered during excavations at Rotta, has already played an important role as the backdrop of the re-enactment of the battle of Vlaardingen of 1018.

SAILS Workshop III on AI, Decision Making & Law: Roadblocks for AI, Decision Making & Law and how to overcome them

On the 6th of July, wood specialists, members of the canoe club Natsec, a professional boat builder, volunteers of the Vlaardingen Broekpolder and students and staff of the Faculty of Archaeology of the Leiden University gathered on the waterfront in Vlaardingen. Two reconstructions of prehistoric canoes…

There’s a Stone Age house at Broekpolder, near the city of Vlaardingen. It wasn’t built by prehistoric people but by modern archaeologists from Leiden University and volunteers from a local initiative known as Broekpolder Federation. They used replicas of Stone Age tools, such as stone axes and chisels…

Materials like concrete, steel, plastic and fertiliser shape the world around us, but they’re also extremely polluting. If we want to build a more sustainable society, we can learn a lot from archeologists. How do we relate to these materials? And are there alternatives? Maikel Kuijpers is writing a…

Maikel Kuijpers was invited to join a session on material rights, resource use, and craftsmanship during the Carnegie Peacebuilding Conversations held in The Hague’s Peace Palace in September. Organised by Major Alliance the session brought together a diverse panel to discuss “The Universal Declaration…

Leiden archaeologists have set fire to a reconstructed Neolithic house in Horsterwold: all in the name of science. Studying the remains will help them understand present and future finds.

At the Faculty of Archaeology, three new professors are appointed with effect from February 1, 2018. They are Ann Brysbaert, Marie Soressi, and Joanita Vroom. How do they react to their appointments, and what will be their foci in the following years?

In 2005 Leiden's municipal archaeologists excavated a 2,700-year-old canoe dug out from a tree trunk. Researchers from Material Culture Studies are now building a reproduction of this vessel using replicas of Iron Age tools. The researchers are hoping to gain a better understanding of the building p…

After 30 days of work, the experimental reconstruction of the iron age canoe of Vlaardingen Vergulde Hand is finished! Its maiden voyage will take place on Friday the 16th of February when it will be paddled for the first time by schoolchildren from Vlaardingen.

What is the iconography of propaganda specifically as it relates to the historical development of political ideologies in modern Egypt and how was/is this propaganda disseminated among creative fields such as cinema, art, monuments, architecture, and literature?

During the development of the Humanities Campus, as many 'green choices' as possibile are being made. This concerns the buildings as well as the surrounding area. Making the campus more sustainable is measured using the BREAAM.NL method.

Craft your own empirical research in workshops of the ELS lab @Leiden!

The rationale, construction, and function of the imperial capitals of Assyria

Johannes Boer's research intends to question the way explicit knowledge is applied in order to restore and perform music from the past with the intention to get as close as possible to its original meaning.

Authentication Processes in Ethnographic Museums

Researchers have been working for centuries in mapping the human brain. But in the year 2017 some brain structures remain still not well mapped, especially those located at the brainstem. In this paper, we quantified the test–retest reliability of imaging the brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus in vivo…

As a research project between four Jean Monnet Chairs - two located in Europe, one in Canada and one in the U.S. -- the project DEUBAL has been approved in 2010 for co-financing by the European Commission. DEUBAL aims to study changes in European decision-making due to the Lisbon Treaty, by a combination…

... examines how different motives stemming from people’s interdependencies and social identities influence decision making in social contexts.

The NWO-funded research project Critical Making engages with practices that cross the disciplinary boundaries of art, design, engineering and technological making, and (artistic) social intervention.

Think tanks have proliferated in most Western democracies over the past three decades and are often considered to be increasingly important actors in public policy. Still, their precise contribution to public policy remains contested.

In this dissertation the author digs into the constituent elements of River Plate tango in order to decode how specific musical materials were organized and combined by four outstanding musicians: Pugliese, Salgán, Piazzolla and Beytelmann.

A study of the technology, form, function, and use of pottery from the settlements Uitgeest-Groot Dorregeest and Schagen-Muggenburg 1, Roman Period, North-Holland, the Netherlands

Both play and politics have the potential to create worlds in which new rules apply, meanings are created, and possibilities emerge for collaboration, strategy and creative solutions. In this sense, play and politics have always been very much alike. But what happens to this kinship in a post-digital…

The Mycenaean civilization of ancient Greek times offers enormous potential for useful information: from innovative construction methods to ways of handling crisis situations as a society. Archaeologist Ann Brysbaert and her team analyse Mycenaean construction processes in the ERC Consolidator project…

Bahar Şimşek defended her thesis on 4 May 2021.

To limit the effects of climate change, global average temperature since pre-industrial measurements are to be kept well below 2 °C preferably even at 1.5 °C.

How can the concept of Critical Making be expanded into a general approach that ties the critical methodology of artistic research, and the established concepts of artistic autonomy, together with contemporary creative-technological development?

This dissertation looks into the role of discretion granted by EU directives (Article 288 Treaty on Functioning of the European Union) in legislative decision-making and national transposition processes of these directives.

The rise and fall of Dutch Brazil (1624-1654) was a major news story in early modern Europe, and marked the emergence of a

How can teachers be motivated by their students’ data in making stepwise changes to their teaching practices?

How do individuals make decisions? What determines the quality of group decisions? When and why do people cooperate with others? How does intergroup competition evolve?

This thesis focuses on the question: What is the content of mentor teachers’ practical knowledge of adaptive response to their mentee teachers’ learning?

On 1 July 2020, Niek Strohmaier defended his thesis 'Making Sense of Business Failure'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.A.A. Adriaanse en dr. H. Pluut.

Lezing

The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

How to make educational innovations practical for teachers

Congres/symposium

Piecing together the urnfield mortuary process in the Lower-Rhine-Basin, ca. 1300 - 400 BC

Rutsel Martha, former Minister of Justice of the Dutch Antilles, former General Counsel of Interpol and alumnus of Universiteit Leiden, elaborated on the position of states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in international financial law.

Didactiek

Plants could be regarded as small chemical factories, which produce chemical substances via photosynthesis. If we can imitate photosynthesis in an artificial system, we can make clean fuels and materials out of sunlight and CO2. Huub de Groot is very close to designing a system of this kind.

Advanced biotechnology allows us to select or alter the genetic makeup of human embryos. What limits do we impose on biotechnological intervention in nature and the human body? And whose call is that?

Müller, Braun & Fraussen examine the conditions under which commissioners appear in the news and which communication strategies they pursue.

This book argues that Armenians around the world – in the face of the Genocide, and despite the absence of an independent nation-state after World War I – developed dynamic socio-political, cultural, ideological and ecclesiastical centres. And it focuses on one such centre, Beirut, in the postcolonial…