Towards a Biological Understanding of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition

Current status and future prospects

The project Deconstructing Stability aims to improve reconstructions of late prehistoric landscapes and predictive models for the purpose of archaeological heritage management.

Exploitation of smaller game is rarely documented before the latest phases of the Pleistocene, which is often taken to imply narrow diets for earlier hominins. In a study now published in Scientific Reports, a team of German and Dutch archaeologists present new data that contradict this view of Lower…

Published by the Modderman Stichting / Faculty of Archaeology - Leiden University.

Stratigraphy, Palaeoenvironment and Archaeology of the Middle and Late Pleistocene Deposits.

The Botany Laboratory is part of the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden. Under the supervision of Dr Mike Field, research is carried out here on archaeo- and palaeo-botanical material including seeds and fruits, pollen and spores, and wood.

Understanding the formation and preservation of Pleistocene fire traces through laboratory-based experimental research

This study presents an agent-based simulation model exploring the patterns of presence and absence of Late Pleistocene Neanderthals in western Europe.

The Laboratory for Archaeozoological Studies is an advanced laboratory with advanced Leica stereomicroscopes and measuring instruments and an extensive reference collection which is used for research e.g. the identification of fossil remains. The collection is also used for teaching students the anatomy…

Morphometric and morphological differences have been used extensively in the past to study domestication of the wolf and the origin of dogs. Certainly before genetic testing was performed, these methods were the only means to diverge both groups. But still now, when aDNA cannot be extracted, morphometry…

Archaeozoology is the study of faunal remains that are recovered at archaeological sites.

Dirk Huyge (Director) & Wouter Claes (Vice-Director)

An integrated geo-archaeological research of the hominin site Trinil on Java

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of Europe, deepening your understanding of the continent’s long history.

Where did species survive the cold cycles of the current Ice Age?

Doctoral Thesis

ASLU (Archaeological Studies Leiden University) is a peer-reviewed book series produced by the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.

Recent studies of Neandertal body mass and skin surface indicate raised energetic requirements in this lineage compared to anatomically modern humans.

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

This collection of papers was compiled in celebration of the remarkable academic career of Professor Wil Roebroeks, who has established himself as one of Europe’s leading figures in Palaeolithic archaeology over the past three decades and founded the Human origins research group at Leiden University…

Insights in diet, climate and ecology

The aim of the research project is to get insight in the biostratigraphical age and the palaeoecological setting of the Schöningen sites and hominin behavior and subsistence during the late Lower Palaeolithic.

A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

The physical landscape is the setting in which human activities take place. Landscape and site context during human occupation is one of the areas of concern for the geoarchaeologist. A detailed stratigraphical study -both on- and off-site- clearly enhances the interpretation of the archaeologists,…

Band 69 | 2014

This study aims to provide a long time perspective of human landscape manipulation. Studying the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems is of great importance to establish the character of past 'natural' landscapes and to enhance the management of current ones.

PhD defence

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.

Les Cottés is one the rare site in western Europe with occupations in sequence by the very last Neandertals and the first anatomically modern humans.

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…

A fragment of a human skull discovered in sediments extracted from the bottom of the North Sea, 15 km off the coast off the Netherlands, has been identified as belonging to the extinct Neandertal group.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded dr. Roy van Beek a Veni grant. This grant offers young researchers the possibility to develop their innovative ideas for a period of three or four years.

Update : March 2020 A.J. Mills

With the unique programme in Global Archaeology at Leiden University you will explore the archaeological past of Europe, the Mediterranean and West Asia, or the Americas. You address the impact of global developments on the area of your choice. The courses prepare you for a career as a regional archaeologist…

To what extent is the image of the Taino settlements on Hispaniola representative for the whole island, or is it only related to a few large settlements of known caciques?

Nature News reported on the use of bow-and-arrow for hunting based on the research made on small points found in a 54,000-year-old cave site in southern France.

The Middle Paleolithic site of Neumark was first discovered in the 1980’s by German geologist Matthias Thomae.

This summer seven students from the Faculty of Archaeology crossed the North Sea to assist in the British Museum excavations at East Farm, Barnham, Suffolk, UK – a Middle Pleistocene site. Together with five students from the UK they went through many stages of fieldwork, from scooping the English weather…

One of the highlights during the fieldwork in Schoningen lead by Prof. dr. Thijs van Kolfschoten in 2013 was the opening of the museum and research center paläon on June 24. To the realisation of the museum, the Faculty of Archaeology made ​​a significant contribution. Many of the results of the research…

It is late June, and on a windy meadow north of Leiden known as the Vrouw Vennepolder a group of archaeology students just hit the last ice age. Considering this involves manually pushing a ground core to a depth of 10 meters, this is no small feat. Even so, the taking of ground samples in this, at…

For the following years, Dr Aitor Burguet-Coca will be a returning face at the Faculty of Archaeology. He will join Dr Amanda Henry’s team with his expertise on prehistoric fire use and the methodologies that studying ancient hearths requires.

A new study carried out by Leiden archaeologists Hadar Ahituv and Amanda Henry, together with international colleagues, reports the identification and analysis of 650 starch grains preserved on basalt percussive tools (anvils and hammerstones) found at an early Middle Pleistocene site in Israel. These…

Researchers from Leiden see hungry villagers in the north of Cameroon steal meat from the prey of lions. The researchers from Leiden University's Institute for Environmental Sciences (CML) reported on this kleptoparasitism in the online publication of the African Journal of Ecology in July.

In Nature researchers at Leiden University and Utrecht University show how 47 teeth from Southern China indicate that anatomically modern humans where present at least 80,000 years ago in the region. This is 40,000 years earlier than in Europe.

In the context of Panama’s independence month, the Panamanian Embassy in the Kingdom of The Netherlands decided to recognize Natalia Donner’s contributions to the study of Panamanian history and culture, as well as her role in a massive repatriation project.

Extinct hominin DNA extracted from >40,000 years old sediment