The use of fire can tell us a lot about human evolution. Archaeologist Femke Reidsma has developed a more accurate technique to identify how our ancestors used fire. Existing archaeological studies will need to be revised. Reidsma’s study was published in Nature Scientific Reports on 2 November.

Conference

Exploitation of smaller game is rarely documented before the latest phases of the Pleistocene, which is often taken to imply narrow diets for earlier hominins. In a study now published in Scientific Reports, a team of German and Dutch archaeologists present new data that contradict this view of Lower…

Different groups of hominins probably learned from one another much earlier than was previously thought, and that knowledge was also distributed much further. A study by archaeologists at Leiden University on the use of fire shows that 400,000 years ago knowledge and skills must already have been exchanged…

Having received a European Research Centre grant in 2025 the Connected Communities in Early Medieval Europe (COCO) project kicked off with a three-day long programme last month. From the 28th to the 30th of April the National Museum of Antiquities and the Faculty of Archaeology hosted the meetings bringing…

As of 1 September, archaeologist Amanda Henry has been appointed Full Professor at the Faculty of Archaeology, where she will hold the chair in Evolution in Hominin Diets. The appointment marks a new chapter in her academic journey, building on her longstanding research into ancient human diets and…

Researcher Femke Reidsma has been awarded a prestigious Rubicon grant. With this fellowship, she will spend two years conducting research at Harvard University, where she will join a leading paleoecology laboratory.

Astronomers have measured the mass of a dormant, supermassive black hole in the early universe for the first time. Thanks to a combination of the James Webb Space Telescope and a natural cosmic magnifying glass, researchers were able to weigh the black hole directly based on its gravity.

Research

Over hundreds of thousands of years, our region witnessed the comings and goings of various types of hominin. This depended on the temperature as ice ages alternated with warmer periods. In ‘De eerste mensen in de Lage Landen’ (‘The First Humans in the Low Countries’) Leiden archaeologists Yannick Raczynski-Henk…

Dr. Lukas Verburgt, guest researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, has received an Early Career Award from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He received this award for his innovative research into changes in the way scientists and philosophers define the nature and boundaries…

A large research group involving Leiden University as corresponding Host Institution has been awarded a major European grant, the ERC Synergy Grant. This for research on how Europe developed after the fall of the Roman Empire with special attention to the yet underexplored but undoubtedly important…

Dr Amanda Henry has secured a prestigious Vici grant for her groundbreaking research project, Hominin FoodWays: Changing Diet and Food Processing Across Climate Frontiers. This five-year study, set to begin in September, aims to unravel the dietary adaptations of Eurasian hominins between 1.8 and 0.9…

From Persia and Arabia to North Africa: as early as the nineteenth century, there were Dutch people who used the camera themselves in various regions of the Middle East.

Last week, Kaya Peerdeman received the SIPS Early Career Award at the fourth international conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies in Duisburg, Germany.

Dr. Rafal Matuszewski, assistant professor at the ancient history department of the Institute for History, has been awarded an Early Career Partnership by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

Young Leiden researchers Alisa van de Haar and Marleen Kunneman have received a KNAW Early Career Award. The prize, awarded annually for outstanding achievements, consists of 15,000 euros and a unique work of art.

As a professor, Natasha Appelman-Dijkstra understands better than anyone how important it is to recognise bone and mineral conditions at an early stage. She emphasises the importance of flexibility and collaboration for better care, groundbreaking research and strong education.

Children in the Netherlands develop prejudices based on ethnicity at an early age. Ymke de Bruijn (27) came to this conclusion in her dissertation ‘Child Interethnic Prejudice in the Netherlands: Social Learning from Parents and Picture Books’. For her PhD project she took a closer look at the behaviours…

The first settlers of the Caribbean have long been regarded as bands of highly mobile groups who subsisted exclusively by hunting, gathering, and fishing. In recent years, however, there has been increasing evidence for the cultivation of domesticated plants by early groups and a lower degree of mobility…

Dr. Sarah Cramsey, University Lecturer Judaism & Diaspora Studies, has been awarded an Early Career Partnership by the KNAW.

A new study reveals how ancient Chinese farmers managed soil fertility and water resources over thousands of years. By analyzing carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in millet crops, the research provides long-term isotopic evidence of farmland management practices in the Guanzhong Basin—the political…