Science in Archaeology Lunch Talks
Organised by Dr. Ann Brysbaert and Professor Annelou van Gijn
While many topical lecture series already existed concerning archaeological and related topics, it was our location in the Bioscience Park and the wish for more interaction between sciences and archaeology that inspired this lunch talk series. The purpose of the SALT series was to encourage and facilitate active interaction, collaborations and outreach between archaeology and the beta science faculties and institutes within Leiden University’s Bioscience Park and beyond. But also to demonstrate the Faculty’s internationally claimed reputation for its varied and high quality expertise which indicates the need for scientific approaches to archaeological materials in combination with theoretical approaches.
As such, the SALT series were open to everyone with an interest in how sciences (beta) and humanities (alpha) collaborate perfectly together in a wide variety of contexts. Archaeology is an ideal platform in which such alpha-beta collaborations can be forged. The talks concerned all possible topics of Science in Archaeology and sciences more generally, and varied from widely interdisciplinary scientific methodologies applied to archaeological materials, computer uses and applications, instrumental analyses for materials identification, human and animal skeletal studies, use wear analyses, geomorphological approaches to human phenomena, sampling and modelling strategies, etc. The talks were held once a month (30-40 min + 15 minutes questions/discussion).
5 March 2018
Prof. dr. Mark Pollard (University of Oxford)
The spread of alloying in the Eurasian Bronze Age
5 February 2018
Dr. Phillippe de Smedt (Ghent University)
Site, landscape, and beyond
4 December 2017
Prof. dr. Patrick Degryse (KU Leuven/Leiden University)
From precious stones to utilitarian wares: the value of geoscience in archaeology
24 April 2017
Dr. Panagiotis Karkanas (Malcolm H. Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Science/American School of Classical Studies at Athens)
Geoarchaeological Studies on a Bioarchaeological Context
20 February 2017
Dr. Amanda Henry (Leiden University)
Plant foods and foraging decisions in human evolution
21 November 2016
Prof. dr. Jan Boersema (Leiden University)
The Survival of Easter Island: Dwindling Resources and Cultural Resilience
24 October 2016
Dr. Karsten Lambers (Leiden University)
Recent advances in archaeological site detection in remote sensing data
12 May 2016
Dr. Sarah Inskip (University of Cambridge) and Dr. Young Hae Choi (Leiden University)
Metabolomics Applications in Archaeology: The Identification of Tobacco Exposure in the Past
7 April 2016
Prof. dr. Carel ten Cate (Leiden University)
Studying the linguistic abilities of birds as a window on the evolution of speech and language
10 March 2016
Prof. dr. Ann Brysbaert (Leiden University)
Portable Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) as a sample-reducing strategy in archaeology