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

De tentoonstelling 'Vrijheid, Vetes, Vagevuur' is tot en met 7 mei 2023 te zien in het Fries Museum. De tentoonstelling en de bijbehorende publicatie worden samengesteld door Diana Spiekhout, conservator terpencultuur en middeleeuwen. Spiekhout promoveerde in 2020 aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen…

What do you do with a museum collection full of individual white Nobel laureates at a time when diversity, inclusion and teamwork reign supreme? Ad Maas, professor by special appointment, and researcher Hilbrand Wouters have been awarded an NWO Museum grant to answer that question.

The Pioneer Years of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, 1818-1840

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.

Nine museums in eight days, and an average of 25,000 steps a day? You must be talking about a trip with the Leiden Art History Association! In July, 20 students and a lecturer travelled to New York to take in all the art, architecture and other high points the city has to offer. We spoke to Joëlle Daems,…

The researchers and students at the Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society at the Faculty of Archaeology study the role of the past in modern societies. They want to find out more about the relationships between the past and the present, and the role that heritage plays.

Would you like to do collection-oriented research, but do not have sufficient resources? Every year, the Museums, Collections and Society (MCS) research group makes several research scholarships available for this purpose. Researchers Elizabeth den Hartog and Marika Keblusek previously received an MCS…

With its iconic buildings, Leiden University has a strong presence throughout the city. The university has left its mark clearly on museum collections in the city.

Leiden is to have a new language museum in 2015, a public institute focusing on language in all its facets and where science and social developments come together for a broad public. It won't be in a building, but at different places in the city. Dynamic, contemporary, flexible and affordable. The details…

This dissertation explores matters of collectivity, drawing from the experience of working with the Amsterdam-based collective Hackers & Designers (H&D).

New publication reviews Dutch colonial sources on the Indigenous Brazilian Tapuia people: ‘For them the Dutch were another piece on the political chess board’

Leiden University opened its doors on Leiden Museum Night, with a whole host of things to see and do at the Academy Building, Hortus botanicus and Old Observatory. Take a look at the photos and see.

In the course of 2020 the Faculty of Archaeology was bolstered by some new staff members. Due to the coronavirus situation, sadly, this went for a large part unnoticed. In a series of interviews we are catching up, giving the floor to our new colleagues. We give the floor to Dr Martin Berger, who joined…

The modern-day Caribbean is a stunningly diverse but also intricately interconnected geo-cultural region, resulting partly from the islands’ shared colonial histories and an increasingly globalizing economy.

ERC Starting Grant: The Van Manen Project. This five year project (2023-2028) is made possible with an ERC Starting Grant. It aims to (digitally) reunite all parts of the Van Manen Collection. This enables us to study it as a whole, helping us to understand the process of collection formation. More…

Children are generally not drawn to abstract art, research shows. But how exactly does abstract art affect our emotions? Through empirical research, psychologists from Leiden University are investigating at the Josef Albers Museum in Germany how this form of art can be made more relatable to the world…

The Patriot behind the pot tells the story of pottery, people and politics in the Netherlands during a time of great revolutions -revolutions both in a political and industrial sense.

Anja Groten investigates matters of collectivity, drawing from the experience of working with the Amsterdam-based collective Hackers & Designers (H&D)*.

Descolonización, continuidad cultural y re-apropiación de los códices mixtecos en el Pueblo de la Lluvia

The project ‘Between the Holy Land and the World’ proposes a connected history of the Christian communities in the Near East (1900-1948) by means of a study of unpublished Franciscan and Dominican photographic collections.

Course

global challenges and possibilities

The ninth Museum Night in Leiden will take place on Friday 19 May 2017. This year's theme will be 'About time'. Nine museums are taking part and the city centre will be brightly lit.

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called

Book by Dr. Mariana Françozo resulting from her research into the collection of count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, governor of the Dutch colony in Northeastern Brazil between 1637 and 1644.

The strangest things come out at night. This is the motto of the Leiden Museum Night due to take place on 28 May. Leiden University is once again playing a key part.

‘Archeologists don’t dig up explanations, let alone certainties,’ says Joanita Vroom, Professor of Archaeology of Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia. ‘Their job is to bridge the gap between the sherds that they find and people’s everyday lives. What do ceramics from the past say about people’s eating…

The chief curator of the National Museum of Ethnology, Laura van Broekhoven, is participating in the Museum Leadership Institute at the Claremont Graduate University.

How has interreligious encounter in Ogbómòsó created multiple religious belongings and identities among individuals and groups?

Roderick Bouman is collection manager of the Leiden Hortus botanicus. He keeps track of which plants there are in the garden, where they come from and makes sure visitors can find the right information about them. ‘We are like a regular museum,’ says Bouman. ‘Except that our objects are alive. That…

On 21 November 2018, Lieke Kools defended her thesis 'Essays on wealth, health, and data collection'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. K.P. Goudswaard en Prof. dr. C.L.J. Caminada.

This project aims to improve understanding of, and responses to, the phenomenon of lone actors through analysis of comprehensive data on cases from across Europe.

Historians and experts in American studies from Leiden University are holding an online international conference about the arrival of the Pilgrims in America and the consequences for the indigenous societies. We asked four questions to two of its organisers, American Studies expert Joke Kardux and historian…

How did manioc, a poisonous root, become the staple of Amazonia and change the lives of prehistoric Amazonian peoples? Veni grant recipient, Konrad Rybka aims to unravel this mystery using a variety of research methods across different disciplines.

Leiden researchers have made an important contribution to the successful ‘Beyond the Nile’ exhibition in the American J. Paul Getty Museum. They also contributed to the exhibition volume that will be presented to Rector Magnificus Carel stolker on 5 September.

The research involves the application and combination of archaeological and archaeometrical methodologies. Petrographic analysis and isotopic provenance studies of raw materials and exotics, and the study of the distribution patterns of these materials are used to gain insight into the exchange of goods…

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.

In a significant step toward restoring cultural heritage, PhD candidate Marie Kolbenstetter has played a pivotal role in repatriating a collection of 133 archaeological artefacts from the prestigious Musée du quai Branly in Paris back to their place of origin in southern Honduras. Her efforts underscore…

Peter Pels, affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology of Leiden University, is one of the researchers. Together with Birgit Meyer (UU), he will lead the work package 'Heritage and the Question of Conversion'.

A rejuvenated Naturalis opens its doors to the public on Saturday 31 August. Many researchers from Leiden University also work at the Naturalis research centre. Their workplace has also undergone a major facelift, and museum visitors can now watch their every move.

This project investigates diversifying and democratizing heritage through practices of “home-making”. We propose to research ‘home-making’ as a non-binary practice of combining memories of roots and routes, dwelling in the present, and desires for the future.

We complete this thematic issue’s contribution on skill, food, and sustainability with a team report based on ethnographic research which focuses on reskilling for sustainability in multiple European locations and involving diverse social actors and stakeholders. The Food Citizens? project (2017-2024)…

A study concerning the collective memory in the region of the Bene lo Ya/ Ene lo I'ya, Sierra Norte, Oaxaca.

Authentication Processes in Ethnographic Museums

Although plant domestication has significantly altered crop genetics and phenotypes, its effects on the taxonomic and functional diversity of plant-associated microbiomes are not well understood.