The Human Origins group at Leiden University studies the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, from the earliest stone tools in East Africa, more than three million years old, to the origin of sedentary societies towards the end of the last ice age.

Disciplinary History and Epistemology

Correctly interpreting the patterns of fire evidence in the archaeological record will illuminate the origin of human fire use.

Despite the field’s general agreement that pyrotechnology had a significant impact on the cultural evolution of humankind, our understanding of the origins and development of fire use and its role in humankind’s cultural evolution is very limited, blurred by strong disagreements over its chronology…

The Western Mediterranean is a key region to understand human dispersal events within and out of the African continent as well as for the eventual replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans during the Pleistocene. Central to any conclusive interpretation of archaeological and palaeoclimatic…

Conference

The genetic material of currently living Europeans is partly of Neandertal origin. Were our ancestors successful because they were hybridising and interacting with the local populations they encountered when migrating into new places? Reconstructing our evolutionary trajectory is key for rethinking…

In this provocative study, Shumon T. Hussain engages with the long-standing issue of French-Anglophone research conflicts in Palaeolithic archaeology.

The central question of this thesis is: What drives late Middle Paleolithic stone artifact variability? In its attempt to answer this question, this thesis is a contribution to understanding variability within and between late Middle Paleolithic assemblages of the European Plain.

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.

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

The research contained in this dissertation explores the origins of fire making in prehistory, focusing primarily on the fire use practices and fire production capacities of Neandertals.

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

When do fire making tools appear in prehistory, and how might the use of these tools manifest in the archaeological record?

An experimental approach to organic palaeolithic technology

The routine assumption that Upper Palaeolithic early modern humans in Europe were regular fire users who produced fire at will has never been tested against the archaeological record. Utilizing literature, database and microwear analytical approaches, this project seeks to establish the role and forms…

In a letter initiated by Wil Roebroeks, among others, serious concerns were raised about three research papers claiming evidence for one of the earliest human occupations of Europe.

Leiden archaeologist Professor Wil Roebroeks receives the 2021 Gutenberg Research Award of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).

Leiden researchers have developed a new method of determining the geographic origin of humans. Archaeologist Jason Laffoon and his team used the technique to discover where precolonial pioneers in the Caribbean region came from.

Over the years, many spectacular archaeological finds have been washed ashore on the Dutch coast. Among these a large assemblage of barbed points made of bone and antler from the Mesolithic (11,000-8000 BC). The species used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to manufacture their barbed points remained…

Studies in Human Evolution is a series of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.

In the eighties the Umhlatuzana rock shelter in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, was excavated. Results from this excavation led to an understanding when the Later Stone Age started in this area. This archaeological period is often associated with the structural presence of modern human behavior. Now a…

Aetiologies seem to gratify the human desire to understand the origin of a phenomenon. However, as this book demonstrates, aetiologies do not exclusively explore origins.

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeoloy examines human remains and their burial context to address questions about the human past.

Scientists remain puzzled by the sudden extinction of Neanderthals, some 40,000 years ago. New research by scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology, Leiden University and Wageningen University now suggests we might have been too quick in attributing the demise of Neanderthals to invasions…

The genetic material of currently living Europeans is partly of Neandertal origin. Were our ancestors successful because they were hybridising and interacting with the local populations they encountered when migrating into new places? This subject takes centre stage in a beautiful documentary produced…

When and how commenced the use of fire by early humans? Armed with stones, peat moss, and fungi, archaeologist Andy Sorensen tries to answer that question. In the February edition of the Dutch language version of National Geographic Magazine his research features in the section The Discovery.

In her podcast Tea-Break Time Travel Matilda Siebrecht is joined by fire expert Femke Reidsma, to talk all about how this essential tool was made and used by our ancient human ancestors. How can you recognise an ancient hearth? Why is it so important to study the first use of fire? When was the first…

Our alumna Victoria van der Haas was interviewed by The Female Scientist. Read her interview on why she chose Archaeology, her biggest achievements and failures, and what her hopes are for the future.

British and Australian researchers have analysed the DNA in the dental tartar of several Spanish Neanderthals. One of the conclusions was that the Neanderthals had a mostly vegetarian diet.

Human trafficking is a very topical social problem, which because of both its social and legal complexity, can only be studied in an interdisciplinary way. Combating human trafficking currently features high on national and international policy agendas.

Recently, archaeologist Dr Wei Chu received a grant from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung for an excavation in the Carpathian Mountains. Originally planning for an excavation in Ukraine, his plans were disrupted by the war. ‘We had to change plans really quickly.’

At some point in the deep past the first known dwelling structures were built out of mammoth bones in a country we now know as Ukraine. Archaeologist Wei Chu would have visited the site in summer 2022, were it not for the war. Now he has received funding from SNMAP with the aim to better establish the…

The research article ‘Neanderthal fire-making technology inferred from microwear analysis’ received 7,053 article views in 2018, placing it as one of the top 100 read Scientific Reports articles in that year.