Direct radiocarbon dating of human remains is crucial for the accurate interpretation of prehistory. Yet given the scarcity of prehistoric human remains, direct dating is often too destructive for important fossils. The reduction of sample size necessary for dating bone is therefore of great interest…

‘Qasr Bshir is magnificent even in decline. It sits majestically in the landscape, master of all it surveys. On approaching the site, however, it is clear that the structure is damaged’, states the latest issue of the journal Current World Archaeology.

Archaeologist Araceli Rojas has been invited to participate in the award-winning festival Let’s Talk about Water. This festival combines academic seminars, movies, and panel discussions around water issues around the globe.

A comparative study of colonialism and rural settlement in first millennium BC west central Sardinia

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

Commagene in its Local, Regional and Global Hellenistic Context

Using object assemblages to reconstruct activities, modes of deposition and abandonment at the Late Bronze Age dunnu of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria.

The Municipality of Oss is a household name in the world of Dutch archaeology. For fifty years, Leiden archaeologists, in collaboration with residents of Oss, have been uncovering the history of the municipality. 2024 is the archaeological year of Oss! In a series of interviews we look back on fifty…

The ultimate goal of cosmologists is to find a cosmological model able to explain the current observational data.

Dr Bleda Düring deemed it was time for an archaeological approach on the imperialisation of Assyria. ‘While there are lot of archaeological studies of Assyrian sites, they are not really trying to address this broader picture of imperialism and how this imperialisation actually worked.’ These imperialisation…

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

Update : August 2017 Dr Harco Willems

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.

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…

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

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.

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…

How did local lifeways and crafting practices persist and develop in the diverse environments of the increasingly interconnected Gulf of Fonseca (AD 400-1521)?

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.

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.

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.

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.

How public service motivation and professionalism affect decision-making in dilemma situations. Individuals who work in the public sector see themselves confronted with conflicting values, contradictory demands, and the need to serve an at times difficult to define ‘public interest’.

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…

How does preschoolers’ play style relate to their aggressive impulses?

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.

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?

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…

This publication brings together two contributions born of different intentions but which are both dedicated to Hellenistic pottery of the Alexandria region.

Archaeologist Natalia Donner has been awarded a grant of €5,000 from the Bakels Fonds for her research Bridging the Gap: a historical ecological approach to human practices in the Darien Province, Panama. She will use this grant to conduct the first systematic archaeological survey in the region.