Since 2013, the National Natural History Museum of the Netherlands, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, is unearthing the largest bonebed of the horned dinosaur Triceratops discovered so far. In order to answer questions about sedimentology, taphonomy and palaeobiology, palaeontologists and geologists collaborated…

A GIS-based study for the reconstruction and interpretation of the archaeological datasets of ancient Boeotia

In this thesis we present several methods to automate tomographic reconstruction algorithms and several novel tomographic reconstruction algorithms with the focus on being easily applicable and efficient to use.

HomininSpace is an agent based modelling and simulation system in which fluctuating carrying capacity is the key attractor for hominin dispersal. A parameterized and spatially explicit reconstructed palaeo-environment models available energy in the form of secondary biomass using reconstructed climate…

Bronze Age settlement sites in the Dutch river area (c. 2000-800 BC)

The project Deconstructing Stability aims to improve reconstructions of late prehistoric landscapes and predictive models for the purpose of archaeological heritage management.

Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan’s Black Desert (200 BC to 800 AD)

Amy Strecker assesses the institutional framework for landscape protection, analyses the interplay between landscape and human rights, and links the etymology and theory of landscape with its articulation in law.

This PhD project develops and applies a GIS procedure to use legacy survey data in settlement pattern analysis. As part of the research by the LERC project (NWO, Leiden University, KNIR), legacy data produced by surveys in central and southern Italy are examined in a comparative framework to investigate…

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

Promotor: K.J. Batenburg

ASLU 16

An experimental approach to organic palaeolithic technology

What invertebrates are available to feed nestlings in an agricultural landscape of varied complexity?

Connecting Agriculture, Crafts, Construction, Transport, and Resilience Strategies

The project seeks to come to an understanding of the archaeology of the desert and the ways in which its inhabitants engaged with their constraint, marginal environments through time. It compares and interprets site distribution and community organisation over a long time scale and across several different…

The Aesernia Colonial Landscape project investigates ancient settlement patterns and dynamics around modern Isernia in Molise (Italy), the Latin colony of Aesernia (founded 263 BC). It consists of intensive systematic field survey in the territory of the colony, combined with remote sensing and geoprospection…

The research in this thesis is focused on tomographic reconstruction based on two imaging modalities in electron microscopy.

This project investigates the well-preserved agricultural terraces of the Inn valley and the evolution of resource use in the inner Alps.

With tomography it is possible to reconstruct the interior of an object without destroying.

This dissertation presents a comprehensive description of Xinka, an indigenous language from southeastern Guatemala. The description is based on a missionary grammar that is titled Arte de la lengua szinca and was written by the priest Manuel Maldonado de Matos around 1773.

We live in a world of things and people in the past must have been as closely entangled with their material surroundings as we are now. In the Laboratory for Artefact Studies Van Gijn takes a close look at the biographies of objects: what kind of raw material an object is made off and what is its provenience,…

The Cide Archaeological Project: Surveying the Turkish Western Black Sea Region

Dorothea Schulz & Martin Hense

Religion in the ancient world, and ancient Egyptian religion in particular, is often perceived as static, hierarchically organised, and centred on priests, tombs, and temples. Engagement with archaeological and textual evidence dispels these beguiling if superficial narratives, however. Individuals…

Cultural biographies of persons, objects and 'natural' places in the Bronze Age of the Southern Netherlands, c. 2300-600 BC.

Non-urban settlement organization and Roman expansion in the Roman Republic (4th-1st centuries BC)

In the contemporary myriad of definitions and approaches of landscape, the starting points and limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested in this thesis. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute of? Is landscape biography just a narration of…

Promotor: Prof.dr. K.J. Batenburg

This study aims to provide a long time perspective of human landscape manipulation. Studying the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems is of great importance to establish the character of past 'natural' landscapes and to enhance the management of current ones.

In Mapping the Pāśupata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the Śaiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India, Elizabeth A. Cecil explores the sacred geography of the earliest community of Śiva devotees called the Pāśupatas.

The chaotic years after the Civil War are often seen as a time of uniquely American idealism—a revolutionary attempt to rebuild the nation that paved the way for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. But Adam Fairclough rejects this prevailing view, challenging prominent historians such…

Modelling supra-regional communities in the early 3rd Millennium BC

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

Landscapes of mobility in the northern Chilean altiplano: from chiefly networks to colonial markets (AD 1100-1800).

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond

Leiden University archaeologists are reconstructing houses from the Stone Age, using only resources available during that period. This method offers surprising insights into the ingenuity of our distant ancestors, and challenges existing archaeological views.

An assessment of Libyan legislation

In Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes Jana Pešoutová presents new interpretations of current healing practices in Cuba and the Dominican Republic juxtaposed against the European colonization of the Caribbean after 1492.

The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes examines the transformation of rural landscapes and societies that formed the backbone of ancient empires in the Near East and Mediterranean. Through a comparative approach to archaeological data, it analyses the patterns of transformation in widely differing imperial…

Assessing the effects of landscape and land-use changes on the visibility of archaeological landscapes in Central-Southern Italy.

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…

Celebrating 20 years of Environmental Research and Education in Northern Cameroon

Annually, the Dutch Palynologische Kring invites nominations for the Florschütz Award for best MSc thesis in Palynology and Palaeobotany. This year, the thesis of Archaeology alumna Oda Nuij was deemed to be the best one. Oda was surprised to hear she won, since she was not sure that the thesis would…

On the 28th of September Go Hirasawa successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Tomography is a powerful technique to non-destructively determine the interior structure of an object.Usually, a series of projection images (e.g.\ X-ray images) is acquired from a range of different positions.

How has landscape and land use changed in these two case studies since independence? What has caused these changes, whether anthropogenic or natural? How do local communities in the areas of study perceive these changes? How can community knowledge be integrated with mapping tools (GIS) to contribute…

Promotor: J.P. Abrahams, Co-promotor: T. Grüne

Radiography is an important technique to inspect objects, with applications in airports and hospitals. X-ray imaging is also essential in industry, for instance in food safety checks for the presence of foreign objects.

In several Mediterranean regions archaeological sites have been mapped by fieldwalking surveys, producing large amounts of data. These legacy site-based survey data represent an important resource to study ancient settlement organization. Methodological procedures are necessary to cope with the limits…