Are there other planets like the earth, and will there also be life? Astronomers study planets around stars other than the sun, with the aim to find out what kind of gasses their atmospheres are made up with.

Agrian History, 5300 BC - AD 1000; C.C. Bakels

Insights in diet, climate and ecology

Archaeological heritage management is concerned with the identification, protection, management and preservation of the material remains of human activity in the past (of whatever period and in whichever region of the world) and with the interaction that this involves with all kinds of stakeholders.

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

ASLU 16

This book investigates how the rulers of the Habsburg world empire developed and implemented a central maritime policy for the Netherlands and appointed an admiral of the sea or admiral-general for that purpose.

This 25th volume in the series 'Islam in Africa', edited by Annachiara Raia, is a pioneering collection of poetry by the outstanding Kenyan poet, intellectual and imam Ustadh Mahmmoud Mau (born 1952) from Lamu island, once an Indian Ocean hub, now on the edge of the nation state.

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

A study of Dutch Fort at Galle, Sri Lanka

This research combines archaeological, archaeometric and ethnohistorical research to study the organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino Indians during the Late Ceramic Age (AD 1000-1492).

During the Slavery Memorial Year, from 1 July 2023 to 1 July 2024, the Kingdom of the Netherlands reflected on its colonial and slavery history.

The Telders Moot Court is an important part of the legal education of a next generation of international lawyers.

Through language and culture, history, anthropology, and sociology, we delve into the countries, populations, and societies of South and Southeast Asia. From this perspective, we address global issues such as migration, heritage, and colonialism.

PhD defence

This research project focuses on the extended documentation and investigation of these non-Austronesian (‘Papuan’) languages.

This book is the first grammar on Ternate Malay, a local variety of Malay spoken on the island of Ternate, North-Moluccas, Indonesia.

Much attention has been paid to the exchange of objects, ideas, and people in the Caribbean. Networks of interaction connected local communities across pan-regional scales, shaping indigenous socio-political integrations and their responses in colonial situations. This work examines the poorly understood…

On the 23rd of September, George Saad successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates George on this achievement!

On 18 March 2020, Hoko Horii defended her thesis ‘Child Marriage as a Choice. Rethinking agency in international human rights’. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. A.W. Bedner and prof. G.A. van Klinken.

On the 13th of November, Hanna Fricke successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Hanna on this achievement.

Forgotten Lineages explores the paths through which generations of formally enslaved and their descendants gradually forgot their past of enslavement under Dutch and British imperial rule and became local subjects in Sri Lanka and South Africa. It explores why and how forgetting rather than memory became…

In this paper, Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio and Myfel D. Paluga recast new light on the historical tattooing of the “Pintados,” or the the name by which the inhabitants of the Visayas Islands (in the central Philippines) were called by Spanish documenters in the sixteenth century. This is one of their…

This grammar presents an in-depth linguistic description of one Papuan Malay variety, based on fifteen hours of recordings of spontaneous narratives and conversations between Papuan Malay speakers.

The modern-day Caribbean is a stunningly diverse but also intricately interconnected geo-cultural region, resulting partly from the islands’ shared colonial histories and an increasingly globalizing economy.

Promotores: G.A. Persoon, H.H. de Iongh

Situated at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Spanish Philippines offer historians an intriguing middle ground of connected histories that raises fundamental new questions about conventional ethnic, regional and religious identities.

What socio-cultural transformations did indigenous communities in the Lesser Antilles undergo from the late precolonial to the early colonial period in response to Amerindian­ European-African cultural encounters? How did Amerindian populations realign themselves in response to the colonisation…

This project aims to answer the following questions: how did the landscape and geography of the local surroundings of Chalcis impact medieval to early modern productivity, habitation, mobility and interaction in a wider sense? And where are such changes and continuations still visible in the landsca…

How do the starchy botanical foodways reflect upon previous archaeological understandings in the northern and circum-Caribbean?

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

People in Asia increasingly feel the need for a strong identity. This is the consequence of developments such as globalisation and the realisation that Asian countries such as China and India are becoming new world powers. Professor Hilde De Weerdt studies how political ideas and national identity spread…

Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan

Leiden University has a rich history in the domain of Papyrology. Papyrology+, founded in 2014, is a collaboration of Leiden scholars studying (Abnormal) Hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Arabic papyri from a socio-historical, economic and linguistic perspective.

This article discusses the coevolution of several species of the tribe Phyllantheae and moths of the genus Epicephala.

Since the emergence of humankind people have maintained social contacts and traveled widely, establishing interaction networks in which goods are traded and ideas are transmitted, increasingly on a global scale.

Papers written on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the institute of Prehistory, Volume II.

1000 Years of World History in 100 Old Maps.

What is movements and corridors of the Bornean pygmy elephant in Sebuku forest? What is the nature of human-elephant conflict in Nunukan District in time and space? What are the diets of the Bornean elephants related to crop raiding?

This study, Calypso, The Trinidadian Experience, has sought to establish links between calypso music and the construction and maintenance of identities, and to locate the genre as a mechanism (or as part of a broader mechanism) that has exerted on-going social influence within Trinidadian society…

Making sense of the world around us depends on the fundamental ability to parse the world into distinct objects and keep track of them. This process is defined as object individuation. Research indicates that it is not always easy for infants.

YAL stimulates interdisciplinary collaboration.

Practical applications for the reconstruction of the past

North, Middle and South America together constitute the single largest area in World Archaeology that is taught as a single focus. It is also the only major world area that saw societies develop from hunter-gatherers to early empires entirely independent from developments in Eurasia & Africa. It is,…

A mere day after setting foot ashore in the Bahamas on October 13th 1492, Christopher Columbus notes the broad foreheads of the inhabitants of the Americas. These permanently altered cranial shapes are deliberately created through the application of pressure to the head of the infant in the first years…

This project will explore how Chinese digital networks are grounded in real-world institutions, and how interest groups and individuals use digital infrastructures to shape public discourse on national history.