Introduction

Twenty permanent staff members teach courses in such diverse areas as Science-based Archaeology, European Prehistory, Classical Archaeology, Archaeology of the Near East, Asia and Ancient Americas.

Archaeology students in Leiden will experience an international community of top researchers. Scholars who have won prestigious awards and grants, such as the Spinoza award (Prof. Roebroeks) and the vici-grant (Prof. Hofman), are not ‘out there somewhere’, but teach classes to all archaeology students, and the students participate in their research and fieldwork projects.

In 1818 in Leiden, Caspar Jacob Christiaan Reuvens (1793-1835) became the first professor of archaeology in the world and since then archaeology in Leiden has grown into the largest archaeological institute in the country. Leiden Archaeology is not only the largest in numbers of students (each year around 80 new students start in the undergraduate phase and around 40 in the graduate phase), but in the number of specialisations as well.