The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a prestigious Starting Grant to Leiden archaeologist Dr Nathalie Brusgaard. With this €1.5 million grant, Brusgaard will investigate how the transition to farming in Western Europe affected the relationship between humans and wild animals. A theme that,…

Our dear colleague and friend Kathy MacDonald passed away unexpectedly on August 9th, 2022, a few days after her 46th birthday. Her sudden passing came as a tremendous shock to her colleagues and friends at the Faculty of Archaeology and to colleagues and former students both in The Netherlands and…

An enormous number of monumental buildings, such as burial tombs, appeared in Mycenaean Greece after 1600 BC. Why did this urge to build come to an abrupt end 400 years later? Archaeologist Ann Brysbaert investigates the possible causes thanks to her ERC Consolidator Grant.

The Vrouw Vennepolder near Oud Ade has been transformed into the Polderlab. Scientists and students from Leiden University, together with farmers and citizens, investigate how to manage peatland in a sustainable and profitable manner. A great opportunity for students to experience how scientific knowledge…

How did people move and form communities when human societies first shifted from hunting and gathering to farming? A new study of the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, the birthplace of agriculture, offers fresh insights.

The Greater Angkor Region in contemporary Cambodia was dramatically more urbanized in the 13th century than previously thought, and home to 700.000 to 900.000 people. These discoveries were made by a research team led by Sarah Klassen. Their findings are published in Science Advances.

Food production in the Netherlands is an economic success but has led to many environmental issues, including nitrogen pollution. Recently, the policy to allow economic growth while reducing nitrogen losses was disapproved by the highest court in the Netherlands, casting the country into a nitrogen…

War and terrorism overshadow interest in the pre-Islamic heritage of the Arabic peninsula. The new Leiden Centre for the Study of Ancient Arabia aims to make the general public more aware of the ancient history of this region.

The exhibition Unity and Diversity in the Amerindian Caribbean: The El Cabo San Rafael Archaeological Site has been officially opened by Prof. dr. Corinne Hofman on Tuesday evening in Santo Domingo.

The symposium “Human-Wildlife conflicst in Africa” was held on the 27th October in the Academie gebouw of Leiden University in honor of the retirement of Prof.dr.ir. Hans H. de Iongh

With the sowing of the last experimental plot, new research platform TERRA-Dunes was officially opened on 29 June 2018. The experiment has a fundamental scientific character, but has important practical applications in nature restoration.

The new minor in 'Creative strategies for a society in change' will start in September. The Leiden Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) has entered into a partnership with the The Hague Film House and will be letting students experience what it is like to work as an artist. ‘We want to teach…

Leiden is proud to announce that the city has been selected to host the 33rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), scheduled for 25-28 August 2027.

China is actively attempting to silence critical voices about the country, including in the Netherlands. This is the main conclusion of a report on Chinese interference and intimidation within the Dutch media landscape. The media are often not well prepared for this.

On Thursday, May 16, Leiden University Libraries is organizing a workshop on early photography of the Middle East. In the workshop, curator Maartje van den Heuvel shows photos of three adventurous Dutch nineteenth-century travel and photography pioneers. They created beautiful photos and photo albums…

It is the fifth 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. Dean Jan Kolen is pleased with this news: 'In recent years, the Faculty…

Neanderthals used careful techniques to hunt their prey at close range. This is the conclusion of an international team of archaeologists, including researchers, in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Publication 25 June.

Finds uncovered in the east of Germany show that Neanderthals stored and preserved vast amounts of meat and/or temporarily aggregated in larger groups to exploit the spoils

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…

More than 40 years ago, a wrecked merchant ship was found in the Wadden Sea. PhD student Geke Burger looked at this archaeological find from a historical perspective.

Over the past year, historian Fenna IJtsma delved into 'four centuries of historical greenery'. As part of the Heritage Deal, with input from biologists at Naturalis and others, she looked for inspiration and examples from the past to contribute to a future climate-proof city centre.

In a recent article published on PLOS, Drs. Briana Pobiner and Ryan McRae of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History discuss the top 13 discoveries in human evolution in 2023.

With the exposition and lecture series Dissident Gardens, Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam explores the classic contrast between nature and culture and the changing role of design. In this context, the garden stands for the site where human desire to control his environment collides with the forces…

Hans de Iongh, associate professor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), was named 'Officier in de Orde van Oranje Nassau' on Thursday 27 October. His work on the prevention of lion extinction in Africa was one of the reasons for this award.

The Skandapurāṇa Project considers fieldwork to be essential to the study of purāṇic religious topography and the understanding of the socio-political milieu in which the Skandapurāṇa was composed and disseminated.

On 30 January 2024, the Maastricht Centre for European Law, in collaboration with the Globalization and Law Network at Maastricht University Faculty of Law, hosted a seminar featuring Simona Demková from the Europa Institute of Leiden University.

Luuk van Middelaar, Professor of Foundations and Practice of the European Union and its Institutions, recently wrote an op-ed in Dutch daily newspaper NRC.

Erik de Maaker and Radhika Gupta received a Seed Grant to initiate research on how heritage has been and can be mobilised to address climate change governance in Himalayan Asia. This project will address a significant knowledge gap on the potentials and pitfalls of climate governance, with an initial…

‘Qasr Bshir is magnificent even in decline. It sits majestically in the landscape, master of all it surveys. On approaching the site, however, it is clear that the structure is damaged’, states the latest issue of the journal Current World Archaeology.

On Friday 11 November, GTGC, L-PEG, and LUCIR organized a workshop on Emerging powers and Development Finance across the world.

Dr Amy Strecker has recently been awarded a LGI BREED grant to develop her project on property and spatial justice in international law. Building on her previous research into landscape protection from cultural heritage, environmental and human rights perspectives, Amy will combine legal analysis with…

Prof. Dr. Wil Roebroeks has been elected as recipient of a Humboldt Research Award after having been nominated for this award by the German scientist Prof. Dr. Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Universität Mainz / Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz.

Corrie Bakels would have given this year's Kroon lecture on Friday March 20, but the event was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak. Her colleagues had planned to present to her the 50th edition of the Analecta journal on this festive occassion, so these plans had to be changed as well.

From 12 – 16 May, prof. Fokkens and five RMA students (Kiki de Bondt, Jordy Aal, Mette Langbroek, Gwendolynn de Groote and Bastiaan Steffens) visited Cambridge for a two-day workshop with prof. Marie Louise Sørensen, staff and students of Cambridge University, and a number of the members of the Cambridge…

We deeply cherish our natural and cultural World Heritage, so it seems; when historical monuments and sites are destroyed by war or natural disaster, we are mourning collectively. But what if this World Heritage status is not just a preservation label, but a smokescreen for social and political conflicts…

Monday June 18th the department of European Prehistory of the Faculty of Archaeology started a five-year research (2018-2022) of two newly discovered barrow groups: Baarlo-De Bong and Venlo-Zaarderheiken (northern Limburg).

The Fryske Akademy, the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, the Professorship Multilingualism and Literacy of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, the department of Frisian Studies of the University of Groningen, and the department Language, Technology…

The Heritage Quest archaeology project has been nominated for the Heritage Volunteer Prize. In the project volunteers are looking for archaeological remains such as burial mounds, Celtic fields and cart tracks. The project leaders are Leiden University, Landscape Heritage Utrecht and Gelderland Heritage.…

Chiara Piccoli has been awarded a scholarship by the Italian Research Council to work at the Virtual Heritage Lab of the Institute of Technologies applied to Cultural Heritage (ITABC-CNR) in Rome.

A delegation of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) of the Faculty of Science of Leiden University, led by the Dean of the Faculty of Science: Prof.dr. Geert de Snoo, visited the Kenyan ambassador Mr. Lawrence Lenayapa and his staff on Monday 29 of October in The Hague.

Professor Steven Truxal was invited to address the 15th European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) Forum of Directors General in Paris on 6 December 2022.

In the article “Neanderthals and Us: We’re More Alike Than Once Thought”, we are reminded that many negative traits, from unintelligent to unsophisticated, have long been attributed to Neanderthals in popular culture. However, recent studies bring to light an ever-increasing amount of evidence contradicting…

The Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia (LeiCenSAA) announces a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the epigraphy of Arabia and its cultural and linguistic context: Arabian Epigraphic Notes

Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal. The breakthrough takes…

Guy Livingston’s five-episode sound-art podcast UNDER/CITY/SOUND brings together people with different backgrounds from all over The Hague to share their listening experiences under quarantine.

Arco Timmermans Public Affairs

Professor Petra Sijpesteijn has been elected as an International Fellow of the British Academy, a prestigious recognition that highlights her exceptional contributions to the study of early Islamic history.

The metabolomics facility is proud to be featured on the NWO website which reflects the landscape analysis of large-scale research infrastructure in the Netherlands implemented by the Permanent Committee for Large-Scale Scientific Infrastructure.

Space is becoming increasingly busier due to the launching of satellites and tourists. But no binding international agreements have been made since 1979. This is problematic, warns space lawyer Tanja Masson-Zwaan. ‘Everyone’s putting their own interests first.’

On 23 February 2011, Hans de Iongh gave a Skype lecture for a group of 15 students of the Duke University of North Carolina, USA on the invitation of Dr Andrew Jacobson.