At the Faculty of Archaeology, three new professors are appointed with effect from February 1, 2018. They are Ann Brysbaert, Marie Soressi, and Joanita Vroom. How do they react to their appointments, and what will be their foci in the following years?

How did interests outside the scope of the Dutch chartered trading companies influence the career-paths of Dutch colonial governors?

What is the role of local Caribbean individuals and communities in creating and perpetuating archaeological heritage? How has archaeological knowledge been integrated into education plans in different countries?

The archaeological heritage of South America is facing increasing threats due to the expansion of agricultural activities, infrastructure expansion, illegal wood harvesting, and the current fire emergency plaguing the Amazon and other biomes of the continent.

An environmental and palaeo-economic reconstruction.

Generally the data from remote sensing surveys - the scanning of the earth by satellite or aircraft in order to obtain information about it - is screened manually in archaeology. However, constant monitoring of the earth's surface causes a huge influx of data of high complexity and high quality. To…

Caribbean archaeological heritage is threatened by natural impacts but also increasingly by economic developments, often resulting from the tourist industry. The continuous construction of specific projects for tourists, accompanied by illegal practices such as looting and sand mining, have major impacts…

Studies on the Disappearance of the Amphora Phenomenon

What is vegetation structure and composition in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non certified) in comparison to primary forest? What is avian guild diversity in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non…

This handbook provides a resource for those already familiar with some kinds of micro-particles who wish to learn more about others, or for those just starting out in the study of microremains who wish to have a broad understanding about microscopic archaeology.

The Jordan Times has interviewed Peter Akkermans about the damage done to the Early Islamic archaeological site of Khirbet Al Umari, Jordan.

Researchers using remote sensing technologies have characterized pre-Columbian regularly-shaped earthworks in forests in Central America and the Amazon. In tropical forested mountains in South America, two challenges arise when identifying archaeological sites through remote sensing. Firstly, sites…

Sarah van der Kwast

Apps that can precisely identify shards, coins or heel bones: archaeology has embraced artificial intelligence. Alex Brandsen is working on a search engine that scans vast quantities of text from an archaeological viewpoint.

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. Karel Kuipers and Tullio Abruzzese contributed to the new volume.

Just off the coast of Libya, aid organisations try to rescue boat migrants. The confiscation of one of the rescue ships shows how important but difficult it is for aid organisations to remain neutral, independent and impartial, says Eugenio Cusumano.

Professor of Archaeometry Patrick Degryse analyses archaeological finds using techniques from chemistry, physics and biology. He will give his inaugural lecture on 19 February. He reflects on three interesting propositions from his lecture.

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

How did free agents oppose the monopolies held by the VOC and WIC in court?

In Leiden University's video series on Leiden and The Hague as student cities, students interview each other at their favorite spots. In the fifth video of this series, archaeology student Julia spoke with Anthropology student Daria in Trianon, on Leiden's cinemas.

Olivier Nieuwenhuijse, project leader of the project Focus Raqqa, was hosted by the NOS Radio 1 news broadcast on February 16, 2017.

This volume sees the publication of fifty-six early Old Babylonian letters from ca. 1880 BCE. They were found by legendary Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir in 1941 at the site of Tell ed-Dēr, ancient Sippar-Amnānum, in central Iraq.

The archaeology of food is in all sorts of ways ‘hot’. To illustrate this, recently the book Medieval MasterChef was published, focusing on cuisine and foodways in the Mediterranean and north-western Europe during Medieval and Post-Medieval times.

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

Physicists, including Dorothea Samtleben from Leiden University, are building a giant underwater telescope to unravel the origin of neutrinos and to solve the mystery surrounding dark matter. The first detector has now been installed. Once it is finished, the telescope will be three cubic kilometres…

When following a course on archaeology of the Crusaders, five archaeology students were presented the unique opportunity to create a small exhibition at the National Museum of Antiquities. The coronavirus situation made a complex task even more challenging. ‘We had to work through the lockdown with…

The goal is to establish an intuitive search and querying service that allows researchers to quickly retrieve the most valuable digital resources, in order to allow them to integrate and synthesise the results into a coherent narrative of the past. The current focus of the project is to implement…

The Caribbean before Columbus is a new synthesis of the region’s insular history. It combines the results of the authors’ 55 years of archaeological research on almost every island in the three archipelagoes with that of their numerous colleagues and collaborators.

Recently Professor Joanita Vroom’s book Feeding the Byzantine City was published by the prominent academic publishing house Brepols. This volume is the fifth in a series called Medieval and Post-Medieval Mediterranean Archaeology, of which she is the editor. ‘This series aims to offer new perspectives…

HOME will search for a diversity of Palaeolithic shelters during the Late Pleistocene through informed systematic surveys and excavations of archaeological sites in East-Central Europe.

In this unique master’s programme you will first deepen your knowledge on specific areas of the world and then learn to reflect upon this in a global context.

‘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…

This afternoon workshop on 26 November (15.00-17.00) hosted by Radboud University aims to explore the role of charitable institutions in the social history of the late antique and early medieval Mediterranean. Programme: 15:00-15:30 Joost Snaterse (Radboud University) Welcome and introduction; 15:30-16:15…

Elizabeth Hicks won first runner-up in the Netherlands Institute of the Near East (NINO) MA thesis 2021 competition at the end of January.

With the departure of Tesse Stek to the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome for three years, Andrzej Antczak will take over the role of Departmental Head for World Archaeology in September 2018. We spoke with him to learn more about his background, ideas, and plans for the future.

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

Archaeology can help us reflect critically on our European identity. This is what David Fontijn will claim in his inaugural lecture on 18 March.

The Van Loon project sets out to safeguard the archives of Dutch archaeologist Maurits van Loon (Amsterdam, September 22, 1923 - Montpellier, October 12, 2006) and make them accessible for further study.

From 26 to 29 September 2017 the International Conference on Microplastic Pollution in the Mediterranean Sea was held.

Dutch archaeologists are making three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of archaeological objects lost in the Syrian civil war.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

200 years ago, in 1818, Caspar Reuvens was appointed Professor in Archaeology at Leiden University. This was effectively the start of the academic study of archaeology in the Netherlands. To celebrate this occasion, the faculty organises events related to the future of archaeology throughout the yea…