The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Tinde van Andel, extraordinary professor of History of botany and gardens, studies these collections.

Erik de Maaker wrote a monograph on how Garo, an indigenous community of the extended eastern Himalayas, experience and negotiate such disparities. The book shows how relatedness is reinterpreted as religious practices change, and communally held land ends up being privately controlled. Erik de Maaker…

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

Visualizing the internal structure is a crucial step in acquiring knowledge about the origin, state, and composition of cultural heritage artifacts. Among the most powerful techniques for exposing the interior of cultural heritage objects is computed tomography (CT), a technique that computationally…

Leiden's Boerhaave Museum and Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have discovered parts of a skeleton in an 18th-century manikin. The manikin was once used as a teaching aid for midwives. As far as we know, this is the only one of its kind in the world.

The ‘Locke drawings’ collection and the representation of Brazilian native peoples in global perspective

This research project is an integral part of its mother-programme NEXUS1492 ERC Synergy Project directed by Prof. Corinne Hofman. Overarchingly, it aims at understanding and bridging from the archaeological perspective the late pre-colonial and early colonial history of the Southeastern Caribbean macroregion…

On 29 September 2020, Tom van Ham defended his thesis 'Collective violence offenders and offending. The role of individual characteristics'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.A.J. Blokland, Prof. O.M.J. Adang (RUG) and Prof. Th.A.H. Doreleijers (VUMC).

A biographical approach to material cultural interactions between Caribbean communities and Europeans across the historical divide (AD 1000-1800)

European labour law has an unmistakable influence on national law. This applies even more to the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as it has implications for the application of European law in the Member States and with it the interpretation of national law. Collected Cases…

Museum Night on Saturday 28 May is a good opportunity to discover the unique museums in Leiden. Thirteen museums will open their doors and give visitors the chance to experience these locations in a different light.

PhD candidate Magda Pucci studied indigenous music in Brazil. She and her group Mawaca travelled through the Amazon and played with peoples there such as the Paiter Suruí, Kayapó, Ikolen-Gavião and the Huni-Kuin. PhD defence on 19 March.

Our research focuses on a number of subthemes, such as the history of collecting, the agency of museum collections, the ethics of collecting (including legal aspects), and the integration of humanities and technical research in exploring the collections.

One of the highlights during the fieldwork in Schoningen lead by Prof. dr. Thijs van Kolfschoten in 2013 was the opening of the museum and research center paläon on June 24. To the realisation of the museum, the Faculty of Archaeology made ​​a significant contribution. Many of the results of the research…

A cultural delegation from Taiwan has presented 175 books and journals to Leiden University. The gift is meant as thanks for all the research carried out by the university on the subject of the indigenous peoples of Formosa, as Taiwan was called in the past.

Natural history collections provide invaluable sources for researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds, aspiring to study the geographical distribution of flora and fauna across the globe as well as other evolutionary processes.

How can innovative collective action methods restore biodiversity in socio-ecological lifescapes across livestock-dominated regions?

Cristina Grasseni’s project

Terracotta pottery, precious ikat fabrics and the bazaars where these goods are sold: all these can be seen in a new Louvre film premiering on Friday 9 December. University lecturer Elena Paskaleva collaborated on the film Uzbekistan a timeless journey in Central Asia about Uzbek artefacts.

Volume 20 contains eight articles based on research of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.

In this article, Ben S. Kuipers and Joanne Murphy review recent critiques of leadership theory and practice.

Investigating the relations between Tupi Indigenous Knowledge, Museum Collections and the Dutch Colonization of Brazil

In 2010, the remnants of a 16th century indigenous village were discovered in St. Vincent, on the construction terrain of the new International Argyle Airport.

The artefacts that still remain from the traditional culture of the indigenous Yukon, Canada, are spread over dozens of museums throughout the world. Yukon Indian Ukjese van Kampen carried out research to bring this culture to light. This is the subject of his dissertation entitled ‘The history of Yukon…

Museum Boerhaave amplifies its collection with original letters and pictures from Einstein and Lorentz. Professor by special appointment Dirk van Delft, also director of Boerhaave, accepted the documents on 12 March.

Launched at Leiden University Libraries in 2025, the Leiden Chinese Queer Collection aims to collect, preserve, and make accessible primary source material and scholarship on the Chinese queer experience. The LCQC steering committee is delighted to announce the annual LCQC Engagement Award (EUR 250).…

Under the title “New insights from old collections”, the archaeological research was introduced on the Museum’s news page.

The past, present, and future for local people and archaeologists in Sudanese Nubia

Conference

On the occasion of the Workshop organized last July to officially launch the Leiden Chinese Queer Collection (LCQC), the National Museum of Taiwan Literature (NMTL) donated 30 titles of Taiwanese LGBTQ+ literature to support this initiative. These works where published between 1971 and 2022 by authors…

The spectacular “density” of artworks and architecture in Florence, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site (1982, 2015), reflects a nucleus of some of the most important collecting histories and museums in the world, ranging from the unparalleled Renaissance acquisitions of the Medici dynasty to the…

Maartje van den Heuvel, researcher and curator of photography at Leiden University, will be giving a tutorial next semester to master students of Film & Photographic Studies. A great opportunity for them to work with an exceptional collection from the Leiden University Library. Van den Heuvel explains…

The research focuses on the understanding of symbolic stratigraphy of the land (through time) from the worldview of the People of the Rain (one of the Indigenous Peoples of southern Mexico), by studying contemporary cultural heritage in communities of the Mixtec Highlands.

Material Culture Studies revolves around the analysis of the cultural biographies of all sorts of material objects from flint axes, to pottery, to houses and monumental structures.

During a workshop held in Bandung, Indonesia, on March 27, 2015, current and future research projects were presented by Prof.Dr. Ade Kramadibrata, Director of the Indonesian Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge (INRIK).

There are as good as no clear rules for the return of stolen art. This means that rather than in court, many cases are decided in the political arena instead. In her PhD research Evelien Campfens suggests how this could change. PhD defence on 11 November.

Trajectories of social life in the yucayeque (community) of El Cabo, Higüey, Dominican Republic, AD 800 to 1504

Alumnus Jelte Liemburg, aged 29, aims to visit every single one of the 500 museums in the Netherlands that take part in the national museum pass scheme.

Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia is the annual journal of the Faculty of Archaeology (formerly the Institute of Prehistory), Leiden University.

Published by the Modderman Stichting / Faculty of Archaeology - Leiden University.

Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia is the annual journal of the Faculty of Archaeology (formerly the Institute of Prehistory), Leiden University.

Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia is the annual journal of the Faculty of Archaeology (formerly the Institute of Prehistory), Leiden University.

Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia is the annual journal of the Faculty of Archaeology (formerly the Institute of Prehistory), Leiden University.

Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia is the annual journal of the Faculty of Archaeology (formerly the Institute of Prehistory), Leiden University.

Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia is the annual journal of the Faculty of Archaeology (formerly the Institute of Prehistory), Leiden University.