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.

Conference

Over the past few years, citizen scientists from the Heritage Quest project have scoured the entire Veluwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug areas for unknown archaeological heritage. One of the results of this research is that the number of known burial mounds in this area has doubled.

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…

At the end of the 7th century something curious occurs in Northwestern Europe. Suddenly, people start burying the dead next to their dwellings instead of in communal cemeteries. Professor Frans Theuws recently published a book on this phenomenon. ‘We wanted to know if the study of these farmyard burials…

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.

Quentin Bourgeois and Luc Amrkeutz were interviewed for an National Geographic Historia article about the burial mound research in the Veluwe.

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

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.

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.

During the Faculty of Archaeology’s 2018 Field School excavation, in Leiden, two Early Medieval burials were encountered, as well as some house plans. One of the burials was found by Beatriz, an international student from Mexico. “When I found the pelvis bone it was clear that I had found a human sk…

From 6-8 April 2026 the conference

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.

During the 2019 Reuvensdagen, PhD candidate Femke Lippok was awarded the prestigious W.A. van Es-prize for her research master’s thesis The Pyre and the Grave, written in 2017. The jury lauded Femke for her pioneering work and making use of big data analysis, while adding an admirably expansive and…

A team of three students affiliated with Leiden University is shedding new light on the lives, diets, health, and mobility of individuals buried at the historic church site in Koudekerke, Zeeland. The project, a collaboration with the Walcherse Archeologische Dienst and funded by the Municipality of…

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

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

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology specialises in the macroscopic and microscopic analysis of human remains. We use cutting edge scientific approaches to address archaeological, historical, and anthropological research questions. In addition to paleopathological, histological, and 3D scanning…

Within the space of a few months, the Heritage Quest citizen science project, whereby volunteers scan elevation maps of the Veluwe area for burial mounds and other prehistoric remains, has already led to groundbreaking new insights. Hundreds of burial mounds have been found, as have a huge number of…

Case Studies in Etruscan Ritual Behaviour

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…

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).

Update : August 2017 Dr Willem van Haarlem

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)

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…

Death, fire and identity in North-West Europe

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…

We will use Artificial Intelligence to make an intelligent, multilingual search engine for archaeological texts, which will enable new discoveries about the human past.

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?

The results of the investigations by citizens are used in an innovative research project that investigates the potential of machine learning and automated detection in archaeology.

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

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

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

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…

Archaeologist Quentin Bourgeois received an NWO Vidi grant to investigate the emergence of a pan-European culture in the third millennium BC. ‘We see ideas being shared across the entire continent in pre-literate societies. And not only that, for a thousand years, the same cultural ideas persist.’

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

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 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.

Some 5000 years ago the people of the corded ware culture exchanged ideas about death on a continental scale. There were strong gender differences in these ideas: men were buried in an international style, and women in a local style. This discovery was made by archaeologist Quentin Bourgeois.

The Western Mediterranean is a key region to understand human dispersal events within and out of the African continent as well as for the eventual replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans during the Pleistocene. Central to any conclusive interpretation of archaeological and palaeoclimatic…

It is with great pleasure that we present to you the second volume of Inter-Section, published in 2016.

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…

NTER-SECTION is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal focusing on contributions from junior archaeological researchers at Leiden University. The journal offers an accessible platform for the publication of individual research by undergraduate and graduate students. The Editorial Board consists of PhD…