Prehistory of Amazonia seen from the kitchen

European product safety law is one of the focal points of internal market legislation.

In 1974 Professor Modderman (founder of the Institute for Prehistory Leiden; predecessor of the present Faculty of Archaeology) executed a small excavation in the city of Oss. The Middle Iron Age cemetery, built over by Roman Period farmhouses, proved to be the start of a unique archaeological regional…

During the Dies Natalis for alumni, February 11 2017, the annual university thesis awards ceremony was held. The winner of 2017 is Erik Kroon, of the Faculty of Archaeology. His thesis featured innovative research on changes in the technology of Neolithic ceramics.

The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration provides a complete exploration of the prominent themes, events, and theoretical underpinnings of the movements of human populations from prehistory to the present day.

The team consists of

This study offers a comprehensive but balanced grammatical analysis of Ik (Icetod), Northeast Uganda’s last thriving Kuliak language.

The wide-ranging interests of the Dutch archeologist Maurits van Loon -prehistory, art history, and ancient history - are reflected in these papers, which commemorate his 30 years of archeological research in the Near East

Monday, 3 April, the yearly field school for all first-year students at the Faculty of Archaeology will start. The municipality of Oss is welcoming our 120 students and provides an excellent practical learning stage for the basic skills they will need to master for their professional careers.

Valerio Gentile received the award during the Reuvensdagen for his master's thesis 'Martiality in Practice'. He is the first international student who wins this prestigious award. The W.A. van Es Prize is annually awarded by the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency.

In this unique master’s programme you will first deepen your knowledge on specific areas of the world and then learn to reflect upon this in a global context.

Nietzsche's most famous and infamous book Thus Spoke Zarathustra is perhaps the most read, but probably also the least understood, book in Nietzsche's oeuvre. Nietzsche considered it his highlight. He called it a symphony, a holy book, a fifth gospel and even the greatest gift ever given to humanity.…

The researchers in the World Archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology concentrate on a range of different periods and regions: from humanity’s origins to the Middle Ages and the modern age, and from Asia to South America.

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

A linguistic prehistory of the Tarim Basin in Northwest China

PhD defence

Direct radiocarbon dating of human remains is crucial for the accurate interpretation of prehistory. Yet given the scarcity of prehistoric human remains, direct dating is often too destructive for important fossils. The reduction of sample size necessary for dating bone is therefore of great interest…

Dr Quentin Bourgeois and a group of students are currently exploring the Veluwe. In 2019 and 2020 volunteers looked at altitude maps of the Veluwe and indicated potential burial mound locations. Now the team from Leiden is 'ground-truthing', checking on the spot whether we are dealing with an actual…

In a New York Times report on a bitter archaeological feud over the Nebra sky disk, Maikel Kuijpers reflects on its importance. 'It’s really unfortunate if we put all our focus on one exceptional status object. I think that’s not helping our discipline.'

The circular economy is typically seen as the progressive alternative to our wasteful linear economy, where raw materials are used to make the products that feed today’s rampant consumerist hunger, which are then thrown away. In a fascinating article, archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers reflects on the recycling…

The Schengen Agreement has resulted in systematic border controls between EU Member States largely ceasing to apply. Solutions for the associated security risks are often sought in information technology. Tim Dekkers investigated how such technology is applied in this context and will defend his PhD…

Monica den Boer, who has decades of experience within police and defence and was also active as a Member of Parliament (D66), has been appointed extraordinary professor of Police Studies.

On Monday, 27 November 2017 the report 'Pre-trial detention of juveniles in practice' has been published. The report is compiled by researchers from the departments of Child Law and Criminology of the Leiden University.

Museum Jan Cunen in Oss presents the very first retrospective exhibition of the richest graves from the early Iron Age (800-500 BC), including the one of the iconic Lord of Oss. Leiden archaeologist Richard Jansen was guest curator and the exhibition tells the story of the funeral rituals of the local…

On 27 September 2017 a new book by Prof. Luuk van Middelaar appeared, entitled The new politics of Europe. The book is at the same time a front line account of Europe’s recent crisis years – from monetary turmoil to tensions around Ukraine, from refugee crisis to Brexit – and an analysis of the Union’s…

Investigating the emergence of complex societies in Chalcolithic Cyprus.

This new handbook by Frits Naerebout and Henk Singor places the history of the Greeks and Romans within the larger context of the contemporary Eurasian world.

The project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space’ investigates the histories of various LGBT+ archives in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The department of World Archaeology combines research and education about regions all over the world, from Human Origins to the Middle Ages, and from Europe, to Asia, Africa and the America’s. That broad range in time and space makes the department a dynamic pluriform community with many different approaches,…

The handbook is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterise the period, and of the specific developments that took…

This dissertation provides a detailed description of the interaction between verb semantics and the two grammatical voice categories in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda.

On the 13th of April, Federico Dragoni successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Federico on this achievement!

Almost all languages of Europe and of a large part of western Asia belong to a single language family, which is called Indo-European, and which includes modern languages like English, Dutch, Russian, Farsi, but also ancient ones like Ancient Greek, Latin, Hittite and Sanskrit.

The Faculty of Humanities in Leiden is unique in its research, education, valorisation and breadth of languages, cultures, arts and societies of the world, in their historic context, from prehistory to the present. Humanities’ research and education at Leiden are among the top 30 in the world (THE).

The study of language in change.

On May 2nd, Petr Kocharov succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Petr on this great result.

Kralen spreken tot de verbeelding. Ze zijn aantrekkelijk en persoonlijk vanwege hun kleuren, materialen, patronen en associaties. Je draagt ze op je lichaam, waar je ze voelt en anderen ze zien. Kralen zijn waardevol en verplaatsbaar, tegelijkertijd reizigers en souvenirs.

The Faculty of Humanities

How an initially valueless object becomes worth hundreds of millions. And vice versa.

The topic of Historical Linguistics and Philology at LUCL is language change in its broadest sense.

The research contained in this dissertation explores the origins of fire making in prehistory, focusing primarily on the fire use practices and fire production capacities of Neandertals.

Karmaşık Avcı-Toplayıcılardan Erken Kentsel Toplumlara

Back in June, the annual Leiden Archaeology Field School took place in Oss. For a month, every week, a group of 25 first year students gets to learn the ins and outs of a professional excavation. This is what they have been prepared for in the past year. ‘It is very exciting to put all the theory into…

Heritage Quest is a large-scale citizen science project in the field of archaeology that allows anyone to contribute to scientific research. It is the first large-scale archaeological citizen science project in The Netherlands and one of the few of its kind in the world. As part of the Cultural Heritage…

Two years ago, Amanda Henry joined the Faculty of Archaeology’s Archaeological Sciences department. She investigates diet and human evolution, with a specific focus on plant foods. ‘Most of the studies on the prehistoric diet focus on meat and hunting. This just didn’t make sense to me.’

When do fire making tools appear in prehistory, and how might the use of these tools manifest in the archaeological record?

There is a linguistic hypothesis that states that all languages from Europe to India originate from a single mother language: Proto-Indo-European. This language is thought to have been spoken thousands of years ago. Researcher Alwin Kloekhorst plans to use linguistic genealogy to study the very first…

Humanities, Institute for Area Studies

Lecture, Language & the Human Past Lecture Series