The Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in society, and how heritage can contribute to the improving quality of life and our (future) environment.

Lecture

The fourth volume of Ex Novo has the pleasure to host Heleen van Londen, Marjo J. Schlaman, and Andrea Travaglia as guest editors of the special issue titled The Natural and The Cultural. Integrating Approaches in Landscape Heritage Management. This timely collection of peer-reviewed papers and short…

Isotopic and zooarchaeological investigations in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica

This pilot project will initiate research on how heritage has been and can be mobilized to address climate change governance in Himalayan Asia. Climate adaptation strategies frequently include the sourcing of heritage, encompassing landscapes, built environments 4 and cultural practices. However, effective…

Archaeological and Anthropological perspectives

The Centre for Indigenous America Studies (CIAS) at Leiden University is designed to coordinate and promote the teaching and research of Indigenous languages, literatures, cultures and cultural heritage. Our aim is to contribute to an increased acknowledgement, recognition and understanding of Indigenous…

Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability showcases how the eco-geological creativity of the earth is integrally woven into the landforms, cultures, and cosmovisions of modern Himalayan communities.

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

This project investigates diversifying and democratizing heritage through practices of “home-making”. We propose to research ‘home-making’ as a non-binary practice of combining memories of roots and routes, dwelling in the present, and desires for the future.

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

In Europe a number of production and communication strategies have long tried to establish local products as resources for local development. At the foot of the Alps, this scenario appears in all its contradictions, especially in relation to cheese production. The Heritage Arena focuses on the saga…

Much attention has been paid to the exchange of objects, ideas, and people in the Caribbean. Networks of interaction connected local communities across pan-regional scales, shaping indigenous socio-political integrations and their responses in colonial situations. This work examines the poorly understood…

In Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes Jana Pešoutová presents new interpretations of current healing practices in Cuba and the Dominican Republic juxtaposed against the European colonization of the Caribbean after 1492.

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

The Heritage Quest project is a citizen science project in which volunteers participate in archaeological research. Discover the aims and methodology of the project, the sub-projects and how to participate yourself.

The Darién region of Panama is the only land bridge connecting North, Central and South America. Nowadays home to descendants of African enslaved peoples, Indigenous peoples (Emberá, Wounaan, and Guna), and mestizos, Darién has been and still is fundamental to connectivity, cultural interchange, and…

This project investigates ancient water management of streams, springs and runoffs on the archaeological site of Monte Albán, Mexico, as a means to contribute with different stakeholders in the development of sustainable solutions to water problems today such as floods and scarcity.

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…

Contemporary Maya Calendars

This catalogue is the result of the EU_CUL project (2018-2021), which explores the use of cultural heritage in Europe for fostering academic teaching and social responsibility in higher education.

global challenges and possibilities

In the specialisation Heritage and Society you explore the role of heritage in society. With our combination of education and research you lay a strong foundation for an (inter)national carreer in heritage management and policy.

On 11 April 2024, Sophie Starrenburg, Assistant Professor at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, organised a workshop on ‘Climate Change and Cultural Heritage: Moving from Heritage Loss to Reparation’ at Tilburg Law School.

Archaeological heritage management is concerned with the identification, protection, management and preservation of the material remains of human activity in the past (of whatever period and in whichever region of the world) and with the interaction that this involves with all kinds of stakeholders.

Platform for research about heritage languages spoken in the Netherlands

Museums are powerful and influential institutions in their ability to shape knowledge and contribute to our identity. What we preserve and how we present our collections and heritage is closely connected to our identity and culture. In the multidisciplinary Museums, Heritage and Collections, you'll…

This project introduces primary school children (8-12 years) to science and archaeology.

Master

Research framework CIAS

Heritage Quest has featured in several media. Read and watch the items made by others about the project.

Read all papers and other types of publication created by the project.

The production, use, and exchange of bodily ornaments through the lenses of the microscope

North, Middle and South America together constitute the single largest area in World Archaeology that is taught as a single focus. It is also the only major world area that saw societies develop from hunter-gatherers to early empires entirely independent from developments in Eurasia & Africa. It is,…

Leiden archaeologists reveal the function of specific locations and buildings in order to protect indigenous heritage and lifestyle.

Promotor: Prof.dr. L.J. Slikkerveer

This research combines archaeological, archaeometric and ethnohistorical research to study the organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino Indians during the Late Ceramic Age (AD 1000-1492).

In this dissertation Itandehui Jansen examines the ‘Voice’ of the filmmaker from a political and aesthetic perspective.

How is it possible to play a song that is part of the rituals of other people? How to transpose an idea to the stage while maintaining respect for indigenous communities? Are these performances a way of throwing light on these indigenous communities looking for a strategy of decolonization? How is it…

The different kinds of cultural perspectives on health and disease of the participants are related to their knowledge, beliefs, values and practices manifested in various forms of lifestyle in Indonesia. The cultural diversity of the population is also related to differences in health behaviour.

This project aims to identify, quantify and map the exposure of Dutch national monuments to four climate change effects: flooding, waterlogging, drought and heat.

A study of Dutch Fort at Galle, Sri Lanka

This project aims at recording and safeguarding parts of the intangible cultural heritage of the Dogon in central Mali. A major song cycle, the baja ni, forms an integral part of Dogon funeral traditions. The song cycle is attributed to Abirè, a blind Dogon poet/prophet, probably from the 19th c., who…

The fifth volume of Ex Novo has the pleasure to host Flaminia Bartolini as guest editor for the special issue titled Heritage in the Making. Dealing with Legacies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. This collection of peer-reviewed papers stems in part from the successful workshop held at McDonald Institute…

Researchers have the whole world as their work area. Dutch researchers collaborate with Chinese, Australians give lectures in Lithuania, Koreans move to America and back. Who can contribute to academic knowledge, who benefits from it and who pays for it? A fair and effective system for this has not…

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called

Research on the global field of museums, heritage, commemoration, consumption and material culture

Objects and framings of heritage, archives, and academic knowledge production generate worldwide, fierce societal debates on the legacies of colonial violence, past injustice and present-day institutional racism. Whether bronzes from Benin, daggers from Bali, fossils from Java, photo-albums from…

As part of the state visit to Mexico a theme lunch on indigenous cultures was organised.