The way that traditional hunter-gatherers roasted tubers can shed new light on how people prepared food in prehistoric times. Archaeologist Stephanie Schnorr has studied the food preparation culture of the Hadza in Tanzania.

Estudio arqueológico de la primera ciudad española en la Tierra Firme de América: Santa María de la Antigua del Darién

The Heritage Quest project is a citizen science project in which volunteers participate in archaeological research.

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond

All first-year bachelor’s and master’s students at the Faculty of Archaeology have been assigned a student as a mentor to help them find their way around their new city and degree programme. These mentor groups, with ten to fifteen students, will also give students the chance to get to know one another.…

Bronze Age settlement sites in the Dutch river area (c. 2000-800 BC)

The material and intellectual presence of Egypt is at the heart of Western culture, religion and art from Antiquity to the present. This volume aims to provide a long term and interdisciplinary perspective on Egypt and its mnemohistory, taking theories on objects and their agency as its main point of…

This research develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective.

The Centre for Digital Heritage undertakes collaborative international research in the field of Digital Heritage. It is an initiative of the University of York.

As part of Mariana Françozo’s BRASILAE project, a group of representatives of the Ka’apor people was invited to visit Leiden. The Ka’apor, an indigenous people from Brazil, are some of the present-day relatives of the Tupi-speaking peoples who used to live in the northeastern region of Brazil, claimed…

In Bronze Age Europe many bronze objects such as axes, swords and jewels were deliberately left at specific spots in the landscape. PhD research by Leiden archaeologist Marieke Visser shows that these practices were expressions of people’s relationship with the world around them. ‘It was a completely…

1) How natural cycles and activities are interconnected for building the time in one community? 2) What perceptions of Ñuu Dzaui peoples about their landscape can be connected with precolonial times?

How have human-environmental entanglements changed in the Gulf of San Miguel, Darien, Panama, from the first traces human practices through to the present?

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.

Une étude archéo-anthropologique de la céramique des sociétés caribéennes multiculturelles de la période précoloniale à nos jours

This publication brings together two contributions born of different intentions but which are both dedicated to Hellenistic pottery of the Alexandria region.

Surveying Indigenous Peoples’ culinary practices prior to the advent of European invasions in the Greater Caribbean

This dissertation investigates the impressive prehistoric cultivated landscape of the eastern part of West Frisia.

The project’s main aim was to build a reconstruction of a prehistoric house plan, without using any metal tools. How effective are tools made of stone, flint, bone, antler and wood? What are the constraints imposed by the various building materials? How much labour do we need and how much knowledge…

Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan’s Black Desert (200 BC to 800 AD)

Lecture, What did you do last summer?

Joanita Vroom's term as Head of the Department for World Archaeology runs out on March 1, 2023. Quentin Bourgeois will succeed her. In this interview, we look both back on the turbulent last three years and ahead at what the future has in store for the department. ‘I am very proud of the World Archaeology…

The Faculty of Archaeology is running a funding scheme to assist small-scale projects that contribute to diversifying archaeological practice in all domains, including classrooms, laboratories, museums, and the field. We discuss the grant with two representatives from the Diversity Committee: Tuna Kalaycı…

Niels Laurens recently started as the new Director of Operations at the Faculty of Archaeology as well as the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. We sat down with him for an interview on his background, his drive, and his take on archaeology. ‘My main drive is to enable researchers and lecturers…

Mediterranean archaeologist Dr Anita Casarotto has been awarded a grant of € 5,800 from the Byvanck Fonds for her research on unlocking important data for regional archaeological investigations in the Mediterranean. In collaboration with Leiden University and the KNIR (Royal Netherlands Institute in…

William Pestle and Jason Laffoon recently published a new article entitled 'Quantitative paleodietary reconstruction with complex foodwebs: An isotopic case study from the Caribbean' in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Four bachelor’s students in archaeology have embarked on a month-long field school in Aruba. They will work with Harold Kelly, a local archaeologist at the National archaeological museum of Aruba, and with the research team of Island(er)s at the Helm.

As part of Nexus 1492 Subproject 4: A Future for Diverse Caribbean Heritages, which seeks to shed light on how local communities interpret and engage with heritage in the present day, this doctoral study aims to gain insight into how indigenous heritage is represented in the school curriculum for social…

Mesoamerican Manuscripts: New Scientific Approaches and Interpretations brings together a wide range of modern approaches to the study of pre-colonial and early colonial Mesoamerican manuscripts. This includes innovative studies of materiality through the application of non-invasive spectroscopy and…

From Caspar Reuvens to the royal grave in Oss, and from ancient images in the Hortus to a table from Naturalis. The National Museum of Antiquities is 200 years old, and throughout this whole period there have been close contacts between museum and university. Curator Annemarieke Willemsen explains this…

The Villa Son Sard archaeological project aims to determine the boundaries of the Roman and post-Roman villa at Son Sard on Mallorca. While the team was excavating in the summer of 2023, several news outlets covered the findings.

The Van Loon project sets out to safeguard the archives of Dutch archaeologist Maurits van Loon (Amsterdam, September 22, 1923 - Montpellier, October 12, 2006) and make them accessible for further study.

What workflow of non-destructive techniques provides accurate, valuable data to improve our understanding of Caribbean archaeological landscapes? How were Amerindian settlements configured?

During the Faculty Staff Meeting of August 28th, Corinne Hofman spoke about her time on the Faculty Board. “I look back on a rich decade in which I have seen the Faculty, and the University as a whole, change at a rapid pace.”

What can continuity and change in the manufacturing of locally made ceramics from the early colonials Spanish towns of Concepción de la Vega, Cotuí and Nueva Cádiz (1492-1600) tell us about the choices people made in ceramic production as a reaction the the changing social environment?

This work focuses on the interpretation of the archaeological remains of the Mixtec culture in Southern Mexico on the basis of the knowledge, perceptions, economy and worldview of contemporary descendant communities.

Archaeolandscapes International is an educational and scientific not-for-profit organisation with the objective to promote non-destructive prospecting methods for archaeological investigations.

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

This volume sees the publication of fifty-six early Old Babylonian letters from ca. 1880 BCE. They were found by legendary Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir in 1941 at the site of Tell ed-Dēr, ancient Sippar-Amnānum, in central Iraq.

Context and contents of the Izcatqui manuscript in the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam

This study links up the concept of place with memory, with the idea of transience and the transition from life to death.

Dutch archaeologists are making three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of archaeological objects lost in the Syrian civil war.

Large-scale forest fires started by prehistoric hunter-gatherers are probably the reason why Europe is not more densely forested. This is the finding of an international team, including climate researcher Professor Jed Kaplan of the University of Lausanne and archaeologist Professor Jan Kolen of Leiden…