During pre-Columbian times, the Central American isthmus was marked by dynamic exchange and human mobility. Despite this, indigenous communities were archaeologically stable between AD 300 and the 16th-century Spanish colonisation, contrasting with the cycles of florescence and decline of neighbouring…

Spatial humanities are developing fast at the moment. This international expert meeting intends to bring together specialists from different disciplines in order to discuss possibilities, challenges, and next steps for spatial humanities that are concerned with late-medieval and early modern urban history…

During the Late Pleistocene, Europe was a cold and unforgiving place to live. Even so, groups of early modern humans roamed around, just like their Neanderthal counterparts. It is unclear what kind of dwellings these people inhabited to shelter them against the elements, especially in regions without…

Neanderthals and modern humans in Belgium, a bone story

The deadline for abstract submissions for the Conference on Frisian Humantities has been extended: you can submit your research abstract until 15 March 2022.

Comprehensive, scholarly compilation of legal studies of substantive and procedural children’s rights, breaking new ground by analysing a wide range of international children's rights issues.

Mariana Gkliati participates as a PhD representative and member of the Steering Committee to the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR), the development of the long-existing Netherlands School of Human Rights Research.

The history of the LGTBI+ collective, deeply marked by episodes of violence, repression, and discrimination, is also the history of the struggle for social change and the conquest of civil rights, advances without which contemporary Western democracies could not be explained. More recently, the implementation…

Thomas Vorisek is a video coordinator. He picked up a new hobby in his student days, entirely by coincidence, and now he makes a living out of it. Thomas likes to spend his free time on the beach.

Ruurd Halbertsma combines his work as a curator and professor by special appointment with writing thrillers. 'I'd rather respond to the discussion on looted art this way than by joining talk shows.'

The analysis of protein residues extracted from the storage containers of circa 50,000 year old bone-tools reveals Neandertal strategic selection of bovid ribs to make some of their “lissoirs”.

The deadline for the earlier announced Moving Humanities conference has been extended to August 12. See the original news message for the call for papers.

Stellar feedback is a crucial ingredient in the evolution of galaxies.

This monograph, written by dr. Dennie Oude Nijhuis and published by Cambridge University Press, discusses the postwar development of the welfare state.

Clara ten Hacken defended her thesis on 16 December 2015

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists.

Power and Legitimacy in Kingship, Religion, and the Arts Volume 87 in the series Religion and Society

The times between the Neolithic and Urban revolutions in Mesopotamia have for a long time been interpreted as a period of stagnation. This volume is part of an emerging discourse that challenges such assumptions.

On the 12th of November, Xander Vertegaal successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Xander on this achievement!

Patterns of paleomobility in the Caribbean were studied through an inter-disciplinary approach using a combination of archaeological, osteological, mortuary, and isotopic data.

Newly published: ‘Background to Beakers’; inquiries into regional cultural backgrounds of the Bell Beaker Complex. Harry Fokkens / Franco Nicolis (eds.).

This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations.

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.

This collection of seventeen essays takes its inspiration from the scholarly achievements of the Dutch historian Jan Lucassen. They reflect a central theme in his research: the history of labor.

Promotor: E. F. van Dishoeck, Co-promotor: C. Walsh

Human vocal communication and music perception represent advanced cognitive skills, seemingly innate and universal. These faculties encompass a range of perceptual and cognitive abilities. Cross-species research sheds light on the origins of musicality by investigating whether these traits are shared…

Lecture, Part of a series

The Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) record throughout Europe is characterized by major changes in human behaviour.

On 3 and 4 March, the 2nd Doctoral Seminar on International Criminal Law, International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law was held at the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights in Sicily. Ida Asscher and Anna Smulders, both PhD Candidates at the Grotius…

On January 8 and 9, a conference will take place at Leiden University, titled: "The Plurality of Early Modern Media: 21st-Century Perspectives on Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities". This conference marks the 25 years anniversary of the Intersections series (published by Brill) and reflects…

Citizens underestimate their role, but they really can make a difference, says legal specialist Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen. Combatting injustice is still the mission of this former National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking and Sexual Violence against Children. She will deliver the Cleveringa lecture…

Three programmes at the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded medals by EW and ResearchNed. The bachelor’s in German Language and Culture took gold, and the bachelor's in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and the master's in Middle Eastern Studies each earned a bronze medal.

Three scholars of the Faculty of Humanities, Ahmad Al-Jallad, Thomas Fossen, and Tsolin Nalbantian, have received a Veni grant to implement their research plans over the coming years.

In this policy paper, Joachim Koops and Christian Patz are discussing Germany’s comprehensive assessment of Protection of Civilians readiness at the national level.

Alumnus Petri Freundlich received the first prize for his LL.M. thesis in the category Master’s theses and academic articles of the Max van der Stoel Human Rights awards 2017

PhD candidate Alex Brandsen, working in the Digital Archaeology research group has recently received a grant from the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities. This grant will be used to further develop and improve AGNES, the search engine for excavation reports that Brandsen is building.

Four bachelor courses are rewarded as Top courses.

This dissertation examines how we can reconstruct physical activity by looking at variations in the shape of muscle attachment sites ( ‘entheses’) on the human skeleton. It evaluates two post-medieval contexts; rural Middenbeemster and urban Aalst.

Alumna Nadeshda Jayakody (25) from Australia graduated cum laude in Human Rights Law. What did she learn in Leiden that has been most useful? ‘I had to pretend that I already worked for an NGO.’

Over the past few months, Urban Studies students have been helping to think about the realisation of the Humanities Campus. To test their knowledge in practice, the future urban specialists gave advice on several different aspects, including thermal energy storage and the new central campus building…

Various guests with a background in human rights, law, politics and international relations will be taking part in the ‘Human Rights and the World Cup Qatar’ debate on Friday 30 September. Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) Secretary-General and Leiden alumnus Gijs de Jong will be there to provide…

An Ancient Egyptian System of Workmen’s Identity Marks

What is the impact of humans on nature? In Science an article appeared in which researchers try to give an answer to that question. Biogeographer and postdoc at LUCL Sietze Norder is one of its authors.

Prof. dr. mr. Maartje van der Woude (Van Vollenhoven Institute) has received funding from the National Police to carry out a phenomenon research on the extent to which, and how, human trafficking and human smuggling are intertwined phenomena in intra-Schengen border areas.

The Altai region has yielded a cluster of Middle and Upper Paleolithic stratified sites that have been recently excavated using a multidisciplinary approach.

On 27-28 January 2022, Leiden University’s interdisciplinary seed grant programme ‘Beyond Anthropocentric Interests and Values? Human Rights and Climate Change’ hosted a conference on human rights and climate change.

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.

Rob Goedemans (52) is an information manager at the department Information Management and Facilities (IFZ) and member of the crisis team. He is involved in facilitating and providing information about distance learning. We asked Rob how he is helping our faculty through this hectic period.