This project focuses on the study of Neanderthal and early modern human behavior, primarily on the basis of stone tools, fauna and spatial patterns

This study presents an agent-based simulation model exploring the patterns of presence and absence of Late Pleistocene Neanderthals in western Europe.

Neanderthals and modern humans in Belgium, a bone story

In Nature researchers at Leiden University and Utrecht University show how 47 teeth from Southern China indicate that anatomically modern humans where present at least 80,000 years ago in the region. This is 40,000 years earlier than in Europe.

Neanderthals in cold regions probably ate a lot more vegetable food than was previously thought. This is what archaeologist Robert Power has discovered based on new research on ancient Neanderthal dental plaque. PhD defence 1 November.

This volume discusses practices of memory in early modern Europe.

The genetic material of currently living Europeans is partly of Neandertal origin. Were our ancestors successful because they were hybridising and interacting with the local populations they encountered when migrating into new places? Reconstructing our evolutionary trajectory is key for rethinking…

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.

Towards a Biological Understanding of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition

According to Thomson Reuters’ 2014 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) and the Washington & Lee University School of Law 2014 Journal Rankings, 22 journals published by the University of Chicago Press rank at the top of their subject categories.

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

Scientist looked for the genetic footprint of fire use in our genes, but found that our prehistoric cousins - the Neanderthals - and even the great apes seem better at dealing with the toxins in smoke than modern humans.

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…

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…

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

How did we come into existence? Are we alone? These questions have driven humans for centuries.

An experimental approach to organic palaeolithic technology

How does speculative literature respond to or incorporate the aural, sonic, or noisy? How are sonic technologies co-opted into practices of worldbuilding? How does the speculative mode of artistic and literary enquiry generate new possibilities of listening?

This study aims to provide a long time perspective of human landscape manipulation. Studying the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems is of great importance to establish the character of past 'natural' landscapes and to enhance the management of current ones.

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…

Every year The Young Academy (a sub-group of KNAW) nominates ten talented researchers to join their ranks. This year two of the nominees are from Leiden University: Quentin Bourgeois and Frans Snik.

Drawing on a broad array of sources, this project examines modern retrievals of Bacon’s idols, thereby testing Justus von Liebig’s intriguing observation, back in 1863, that Bacon’s name lived on mainly in mottos or stereotypical phrases. More importantly, it examines the rhetorical purposes served…

Essays dedicated to Frans Wiggermann

Imagining Urban Complexity introduces passionate and critical perspectives on the link between the humanities and urban studies.

This collection of papers was compiled in celebration of the remarkable academic career of Professor Wil Roebroeks, who has established himself as one of Europe’s leading figures in Palaeolithic archaeology over the past three decades and founded the Human origins research group at Leiden University…

A source of inspiration for readers who are curious to understand how people move and convince each other

The factors that dynamically sculpt the inter-regional correlation of brain patterns are poorly understood. Here, we test the hypothesis that they are shaped by the catecholaminergic neuromodulators norepinephrine and dopamine.

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

Nicolaes Tulp (1593-1674) studied medicine in Leiden. He attended lectures in the Academy Building and was taught anatomy in the former Faliede Begijn church, now the ‘Old Library’ (Oude UB) building, for a long time the location of the anatomical theatre. Shortly after his move from Leiden to Amsterdam,…

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day…

In a new study published in PLOS One, Leiden archaeologist Anastasia Nikulina, together with an international team from France, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, challenges the long-held belief that early humans had minimal impact on their environment before the rise of farming.

Seven large reproductions of works by Rembrandt on seven University buildings in the centre of Leiden reveal the relationship between the painter and the University. Rembrandt van Rijn enrolled in the University in 1620 and painted the portraits of various alumni of the University. The exhibition runs…

The Australian Research Council funded a truly ‘global archaeology’ project comparing the archaeologies of southwest Tasmania and southwest France during the last Ice Age.

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…

On January 8 and 9, a conference will take place at Leiden University, titled: "The Plurality of Early Modern Media: 21st-Century Perspectives on Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities". This conference marks the 25 years anniversary of the Intersections series (published by Brill) and reflects…

Single-celled organisms have stiffer DNA than multicellular lifeforms like humans and rice. Theoretical physicists managed to simulate the folding in full genomes for the first time to reach this conclusion. Publication in Biophysical Journal on February 7.

Les Cottés is one the rare site in western Europe with occupations in sequence by the very last Neandertals and the first anatomically modern humans.