The Department of Archaeological Sciences seeks to achieve the highest standards of excellence in science-driven education and archaeological research across the globe and across all periods.

Current status and future prospects

The project seeks to come to an understanding of the archaeology of the desert and the ways in which its inhabitants engaged with their constraint, marginal environments through time. It compares and interprets site distribution and community organisation over a long time scale and across several different…

The department of World Archaeology combines research and education about regions all over the world, from Human Origins to the Middle Ages, and from Europe, to Asia, Africa and the America’s. That broad range in time and space makes the department a dynamic pluriform community with many different approaches,…

As Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS-KNAW) fellow, Tesse Stek will explore the intricate relationship between the history of ideas about Roman imperialism and contemporary archaeological interpretation.

New insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute organizes every year its unique "Egyptology in the Field " study programme for MA students of Egyptology and Archaeology at Leiden University and KU Leuven. This two month programme takes place in January and February and aims to broaden the study of Egyptology with…

This project aims to excavate and date the setting of the east gate of the Roman fortress of Udhruḥ. This will be compared with other Diocletianic military installations from the region. We also hope to retrieve another gate inscription which can shed light on the function and political embedding of…

Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 2

The master’s specialisation in Applied Archaeology offers you the best start to your professional career in archaeology. This unique specialisation is a collaboration of Leiden University and Saxion University of Applied Sciences.

Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 3

Studying archaeology at Leiden University is all about studying societies and cultures from the past, trying to reconstruct them and bring them back to life. You will apply your interest in the past to make a meaningful contribution to resolving present-day societal issues, such as migration, globalisation…

Archaeological Science at Leiden University is an MSc specialisation that delves into the specifics of archaeological methods and techniques. The combination of hands-on field experience and laboratory work offers a challenging and rewarding research environment.

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…

As a former (PhD) student of the Faculty of Archaeology, your relationship with the Faculty doesn’t end when you graduate. You will join an international community of Archaeology Alumni, working in a wide range of careers including academia, commercial archaeology, heritage policy, museums, the media,…

The project entails research by international comparison into the effects of commercialisation in heritage management on the academic relevance and quality of the results of work that is essentially applied research. The research is carried out by Prof. dr. W.J.H. Willems and dr. M.H. van den Dries…

The Digital Archaeology research group manages two computer laboratories with different purposes: the teaching lab (F1.01) and the research lab (A1.13a).

In this publication the results of the analyses of the Roman harbour of Voorburg-Arentsburg (NL) are presented. This fully inclusive and integrated study of more than 1000 pages is published in two volumes. The publication is written in Dutch, but has got an extensive synthesis/summary in English.

The archaeology domain produces large amounts of texts, too much to effectively read or manually search through for research. To alleviate this problem, we created a search system (called AGNES), which combines full text search with entity and geographical search.

The Villa Son Sard archaeological project aims to determine the boundaries of the Roman and post-Roman villa at Son Sard on Mallorca. While the team was excavating in the summer of 2023, several news outlets covered the findings.

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of West Asia, deepening your understanding of this region’s fascinating past.

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 12 February 2026 at 6:00 pm.

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of the Americas, deepening your understanding of this large region.

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 research develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective.

The research master’s programme in Archaeology is the most diverse in the Netherlands. Benefit from our extensive experience and international reputation in archaeological research, and lay the best foundation for a career in academia.

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,…

The researchers and students at the Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society at the Faculty of Archaeology study the role of the past in modern societies. They want to find out more about the relationships between the past and the present, and the role that heritage plays.

This research project analyses the use of different, often competing, stereotypical images of Rome in Humanist Latin Poetry, by considering it as strategic appropriation of the classical heritage.

Today’s socio-economic challenges aren’t new. In the centuries after the retreat of the Roman state people with different backgrounds and with different ways of life somehow managed to build and maintain a complex economic system in northern Gaul that would produce the ruling dynasties of Europe. By…

The Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in society, and how heritage can contribute to the improving quality of life and our (future) environment.

The Faculty of Archaeology offers a dynamic research environment for PhD candidates. Their projects at the Faculty span all fields in archaeological research, from fieldwork to lab work and heritage issues, from prehistoric to modern times, worldwide.

This third issue of Ex Novo gathers multidisciplinary contributions addressing mobility to understand patterns of change and continuity in past worlds; reconsider the movement of people, objects, and ideas alongside mobile epistemologies, such as intellectual, scholarly or educative traditions, rituals,…

For the past 2 years, Dr Letty ten Harkel has been jointly running an excavation project of a suspected Roman villa site on the Balearic island of Mallorca with colleagues Dr Antoni Puig Palerm and Ritchie Kolvers, MA. The project was recently awarded a LUF Chastelain-Nobach fund to explore the extend…

The Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University is home to many experts on human evolution. The following staff members are part of the Leiden Human Evolution Collective.

The ancient Roman province of Lusitania, more or less contemporary Portugal, has been the focus of a joint research project by Leiden University, Évora University and the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome. The research project has now been provided with a new boost by a large Regato grant managed…

Study information

The goal of the ANASTASIS project is the analysis and publication of early medieval (Merovingian) cemeteries in the Netherlands (c. 500 – 750 AD).

The Wadi al Jizzi Archaeological Project is a systematic and long term archaeological surface survey project, investigating the rich archaeological heritage of the Wadi al Jizzi region (Oman) from the Paleolithic until the early Modern period.

Ineke Smit defended her thesis on 17 September 2019

This project investigates ancient water management of streams, springs and runoffs on the archaeological site of Monte Albán, Mexico, as a means to contribute with different stakeholders in the development of sustainable solutions to water problems today such as floods and scarcity.