The precolonial inhabitants of the Caribbean islands communicated, travelled, and exchanged objects and ideas along an expansive inter-island network. New methods of computer modeling shed light on these networks. Emma Slayton is set to discuss her work on this topic at her Defense on the 12th of Se…

A sense of security plays an important role in the decision to contribute to nature conservation. Stacey Mac Donald conducted four years of research on the influence of social and political changes and the (post) colonial context on nature conservation in the Dutch Caribbean. On 17 May she will defend…

What are the immediate and lasting effects of the colonial encounters on indigenous Caribbean cultures and societies and what were the intercultural dynamics that took place during the colonisation processes? How can the study of indigenous Caribbean histories contribute to a more sophisticated awareness…

Mariana de Campos Françoso and Amy Strecker published a new article in the International Journal of Cultural Property last week entitled 'Caribbean Collections in European Museums and the Question of Returns'.

The 4th Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) meeting was held at the Faculty of Archaeology on 20 November. Ambassadors and representatives from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region met with the Leiden LAC region group to strengthen academic cooperation and discuss the internationalisation…

From March 11th to 14th, the workshop

In the coming five years, Professor Corinne Hofman and her group will be conducting research at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW), located on the Leiden campus. Her research into the deep history and indigenous heritage of the Caribbean fits well with…

There is little evidence of the routes connecting Amerindian communities in the Caribbean prior to and just after 1492. Uncovering possible canoe routes between these communities can help to explain the structure, capabilities, and limitations of the physical links in their social and material networks.…

Prof. Ton Liefaard and Chrisje Sandelowsky-Bosman visited Curaçao to launch de Caribbean Center for Children’s Rights and present research.

This research investigates the changing landscape and land use in two case studies of the coastal villages of St. Kitts and the Kalinago Territory of Dominica. By integrating human and ecological aspects of agrarian landscapes, this research analyzes how land degradation or land change impacts cultural…

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 historical archaeology of the Port of Sandy Point and its anchorage, St. Kitts, West Indies

The arrival of Columbus to the Caribbean in 1492 marked a milestone in world history. In both the European and the indigenous world, a set of economic, political and hierarchical networks and relations were defined, structured and changed. These changes affected the indigenous population at different…

William Pestle and Jason Laffoon recently published a new article entitled 'Quantitative paleodietary reconstruction with complex foodwebs: An isotopic case study from the Caribbean' in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Archaeologist Hayley Mickleburgh studies how bodies decompose. This helps with the reconstruction of changes in the burial rituals of Caribbean Indians.

The overlapping of intergovernmental organizations sharing Member States is one of the key challenges for achieving effective regional integration.

According to a new study by an international team of researchers from the Caribbean, Europe and North America, the Caribbean was settled by several successive population dispersals that originated on the American mainland.

This dissertation presents a legal geographical analysis of the heritage laws of the independent English-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles.

The main aim of this research is to understand the dynamics of identity within indigenous Caribbean communities as expressed through the practice of intentional cranial modification. A multidisciplinary approach will be applied to achieve this aim, combining current anthropological and sociological…

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

Archaeologist Jason Laffoon was awarded an NWO Vidi grant for an innovative investigation into ancient migrations in the western Caribbean. The innovative character of this research project lies in the wide-scale application of isotope analysis and isotope mapping. ‘We aim at further developing methods…

On 23 November 2023, the Caribbean Forum, a subgroup of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, joined forces with the EU to launch the Food Security Programme in Guyana. The implementation of this project started in December 2023 and is expected to last for four years.

Recently, in the midst of coronavirus situation, Professor Corinne Hofman and her team became part of the NWO project Island(er)s at the Helm. Both the application process as well as the start of the project were challenged by the limitations set by Covid-19. ‘As a preparation we travelled through the…

From 5 to 9 March 2018, the Child Law Department and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden Law School and the School of Law of the University of Curaçao Dr. Moises Da Costa Gomez hosted a Spring School on Children’s Rights in the Caribbean Region in Curaçao.

Corinne Hofman, Leiden Professor of the Archaeology of the Caribbean Region has been awarded the 2013 KNAW Merian Prize for women in science. Her aim with her research is to broaden the history of the colonisation of the Americas to include the perspective of the indigenous Indian population.

In 2019 UNICEF published the situation analysis of children and adolescents in the Caribbean Netherlands, commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations. It is a follow-up to the first round of situation analysis on children’s rights in the Caribbean Netherlands, which was completed…

The Department of Child Law and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden University are now accepting applications for the Frontiers of Children’s Rights in the Caribbean Region Spring School.

Ben Van Rompuy, assistant professor of EU competition law, was an invited expert at the 23th Latin American and Caribbean Competition Forum (LACCF) organised in Quito, Ecuador on 28-29 September 2023.

Surveying Indigenous Peoples’ culinary practices prior to the advent of European invasions in the Greater Caribbean

People from the Dutch islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius say that violence (mainly verbal) is fairly common in families. This is according to research by Leiden University, the University of Curaçao and UNICEF Netherlands. The researchers make recommendations for preventing such violence over…

Une étude archéo-anthropologique de la céramique des sociétés caribéennes multiculturelles de la période précoloniale à nos jours

Dynamics of material, social and ideological relationships in the pre-Columbian insular Caribbean

A multiple isotope approach to human-animal dynamics in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide

Jessica Vance Roitman and Wouter Veenendaal, researchers at the KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, investigate the origins, development, and consolidation of political oligarchy in the Caribbean island nation of St. Maarten.

Unravelling networks of human mobility and exchange of goods and ideas from a pre-colonial, pan-Caribbean perspective

Isotopic and zooarchaeological investigations in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica

Last week, Ajay Gandhi, Assistant Professor at the Leiden University College, wrote an article about how spider's webs can explain the dynamics of social beings.

Provenance and distribution of raw materials