Neural networks have a wide range of applications. In Leiden, psychologists use them to build robot brains, whereas archaeologists use them to hunt for prehistoric graves.

The new Erfgoed Gezocht/Heritage Quest website means you can play armchair detective and hunt for undiscovered burial mounds in the Veluwe. This will help stop them being destroyed by construction projects. The website is the initiative of the Leiden University Faculty of Archaeology in collaboration…

In May-June 2014, the BA and MA students from Leiden University supervised by Rachel Schats and Frank van Spelde excavated over 90 single coffin burials in Kampen on a cemetery belonging to a Medieval infirmary.

We are a diverse collective with members from different faculties and organisations. Select a faculty or organisation in the left column to search and connect with members.

Changing burial rites in Early Medieval Northern Gaul, 450-600 CE

The community is growing rapidly, select a faculty in the left panel to search and connect with members.

In 2017 Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof defended her dissertation on Early Iron Age elite burials of the Low Countries at the Faculty of Archaeology. Out of 36 applications from ten different countries, her dissertation was awarded the Prix Européen D’Archéologie Joseph Déchelette on June 15th.

The Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition is a network that stimulates interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and expertise on topics related to brain and cognition and focuses on science valorisation and outreach. Its research members come from a broad and diverse spectrum of specialized academic…

These are the staff members of the Leiden - Latin America and the Caribbean Centre

Affiliated members

LUCIS affiliated members are researchers outside Leiden University who are actively involved in the study of Islam and/or Muslim societies and who regularly participate in LUCIS activities. LUCIS affiliate membership offers possibilities to cooperate with LUCIS as well as network opportunities. Contact…

Read all about YAL membership and the members of the Young Academy Leiden.

Archaeologists from Leiden University and the municipality of Apeldoorn have excavated two prehistoric ancestral mounds dating from 300 years BC at the 'Echoput' royal estate. The findings were presented to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix on Friday 2 November.

Modelling supra-regional communities in the early 3rd Millennium BC

What is the difference between highly visible and poorly visible monuments on the alignment? And is this difference reflected in the social position of the dead buried underneath these mounds.

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Organisations such as the EU are of enormous benefit to the member states, but the inhabitants of the member states are often unaware of this. Leiden researchers investigate whether international organisations such as the EU or ASEAN are able to influence global politics.

Meet our team

In this conversation-analytic study, the authors analyze conversations between researchers from different disciplines and community members to examine relationship building in real life. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons By license.

What development pathways support teaching faculty members in research-intensive universities in becoming informal educational leaders?

Case Studies in Etruscan Ritual Behaviour

Since 2012, thousands of individuals have traveled from Western countries to join jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq. While much has been written about these individuals, only sparse attention has been paid to the social environment of these jihadist travelers and, more specific, the role of family members…

A study of early medieval reopened graves

The goal of the ANASTASIS project is the analysis and publication of early medieval (Merovingian) cemeteries in the Netherlands (c. 500 – 750 AD).

Apps that can precisely identify shards, coins or heel bones: archaeology has embraced artificial intelligence. Alex Brandsen is working on a search engine that scans vast quantities of text from an archaeological viewpoint.

The Vrijthof excavations (1969-1970)

Death, fire and identity in North-West Europe

D. Fontijn, Quentin Bourgeois & Arjan Louwen (eds) (2012). This publication describes the history of “barrow landscape” near Echoput in Apeldoorn. Two burial mounds were examined and it became clear that our prehistoric predecessors carefully managed and maintained the open area for a long time, before…

Settlement burials in the pagus Texandrië and the transformation of Merovingian society c. 700 AD (Southern Netherlands)

High resolution altitude data created by airborne LiDAR allow the investigation of large areas and often inaccessible tracts of land and has the potential to reveal undiscovered archaeological heritage.

A number of scholars joint forces to analyse and re-analyse a number of Merovingian cemeteries and publish the results in the series Merovingian Archaeology in the Low Countries published by Habelt Verlag in Bonn (Germany). We call it the ANASTASIS project. This is the third volume in which the data…

What are the patterns and processes of human mobility in the pre-colonial circum-Caribbean as revealed by burial populations and what are the underlying motives and socio-cultural principles on both micro- and macro-scales?

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

On 10 January 2013, Quentin Bourgeois (Cum Laude) graduated with his thesis on the origin of barrow landscapes. Side Stone Press published his dissertation

Knowledge generated by development-led archaeology about the Late Neolithic, the Early Bronze Age and the start of the Middle Bronze Age (2850 - 1500 cal BC) in the Netherlands

In the summer of 2011, from June 14th until August 5th, the Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology conducted an excavation on the former cemetery of Middenbeemster in cooperation with archaeological company Hollandia. The cemetery, which is located next to the church of Middenbeemster can be dated between…

Update : August 2017 Dr Willem van Haarlem

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeoloy examines human remains and their burial context to address questions about the human past.

The application of compliance archaeology techniques such as mechanical large scale excavations where large quantities of data are gathered in relatively little time (and relatively inexpensively) and a firm post-excavation research phase yielded a whole new body of archaeological evidence.

Numerous beads and pendants of amber, jet and bone have been found in Dutch Neolithic and Bronze Age context, both in settlements and in graves. Because ornaments are personal items, they are closely linked with people’s identity.

The Institutes board and the board of Education of the Institute of Public Administration also include a student member. The student member attends the meetings of the board with and represent the interests of the students. In this message she briefly introduces herself.

Osteoarchaeology is a rich field for reconstructing past lives in that it can provide details on sex, age-at-death, stature, and pathology in conjunction with the cultural, social, and economic aspects of the person’s environment and burial conditions. While osteoarchaeological research is common in…