The Summer School History of the Book, organized by the Allard Pierson Museum, introduces a new course in English: Introduction to the Archaeology of the Book, taught by Prof. Malcolm Walsby (2-6 September 2024).

A mosaic is the only image which can do justice to museums in the Caribbean. They are as diverse and plentiful as the many communities which form the cores of their organizations and the hearts of their missions. These profoundly social museums adopt participatory practices and embark on community engagement…

Another year's end draws near. And what a year it has been! On December 12th staff and students of the Faculty of Archaeology came together to celebrate and reminisce. Professor Joanita Vroom got us in a festive mood by telling tales of Byzantine banquets, while a chef served historical dishes to sa…

Luc Amkreutz, curator of prehistory at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and professor of Public Archaeology at Leiden University, has a mission: to make the past accessible and relevant to a broad audience. He is the new Eugène Dubois Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering…

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

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?

It is the eighth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios.

It is the ninth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios.

In 2018 the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) was launched in the UK. The aim of this programme was to help laboratories work more sustainably and efficiently. The initiative got a Dutch spin-off in 2021. Since then, a couple of the laboratories at the Leiden Faculty of Science have…

BA 3 student Dasha Derzhavets is one of the first students to be back in the lab at the Faculty of Archaeology. She is conducting experiments in the ceramic and experimental lab for her thesis. ‘It is different in the labs, a lot quieter, I can better concentrate on my work however.’

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)

On December 5th, Matthias Pache succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthias on this great result.

We are happy to introduce our new Assistant Director for Egyptology & Archaeology: Dr Ariel Singer

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

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. The new volume focuses on the materials that shape our world.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

On October 21st, 2019, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, handed out the National Prize for the Youth in the academic achievement category to our PhD candidate Omar Aguilar Sánchez. He received this honour for his work on Mixtec pictorial manuscripts.

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?

Time, Agency and Memory in Ancient Mexico.

Osteoarchaeology is a rich field for reconstructing past lives in that it can provide details on sex, age-at-death, stature, and pathology in conjunction with the cultural, social, and economic aspects of the person’s environment and burial conditions. While osteoarchaeological research is common in…

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.

A project to explore the configuration of different types of settlement and its role in the evolution of landscape, both in pre-Roman times and in the so-called Colonial landscape. We used several techniques of field survey, pottery classification and other non-invasive approaches to the archaeological…

Many an archaeologist, at some point in their career, is asked what type of dinosaur they discovered. Instead of once again patiently explaining that we do not do dinosaurs, the Faculty Board has now decided to listen to society’s call. ‘It is clear that the general public feels that dinosaurs are relevant…

A project aimed at understanding the complicated process of religious transformation in one of the centres of the early Muslim world.

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

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?

This project aims to integrate three of the largest survey databases in the Mediterranean to study the impact of the megalopolis Rome on its direct hinterland.

Archaeometric analysis of glazed pottery assemblages from the Early Byzantine to the Early Modern periods in the Aegean.

Local settlement system and social structure in the roman period at Oss (the Netherlands).

The School for Advanced Research organised an onlne conversation between Dr Bleda Düring and his co-editors of the publication Archaeologies of Empire and the editors of the publication Imperial Formations. Watch the resulting video.

The annual Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) conference is the most important scientific event in the field of digital archaeology.

This project aims to contribute to the improvement of documentation and archiving standards (conform the FAIR principles) for systematic Mediterranean archaeological field survey.

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

In the framework of the “Culture” programme, the European Commission has selected for funding the project “NEARCH – New scenarios for a community-involved archaeology”. Proposed by the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap, Paris) and 15 academic and research organizations…

The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of daily life, diet, mobility and health in late medieval Zeeland, as well as to test the potential of multi-isotopic analyses on a Dutch assemblage.

The aim of the project is two-fold: first, to further scholarly understanding of the human dynamics that shaped the growth of Dorestad in a broader, international context; and second, to test the potential of multi-isotopic analyses on an early medieval Dutch assemblage.

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. Karel Kuipers and Tullio Abruzzese contributed to the new volume.