Give peace a chance

How is it possible that people kill each other? And above all: how is it possible that people who are able to peacefully live with each other at one moment, can kill each other at another one? These are fundamental questions about the human condition – questions that religions, philosophers and scientists have been wanting to solve since times immemorial and that continue to fascinate us today (Browning 1998; Harrison 1995; Morris 2015). So you may perhaps be wondering why I am posing such deep and essential questions at the start of a lecture that is meant to tell you something about our prehistory

Give peace a chance

How is it possible that people kill each other? And above all: how is it possible that people who are able to peacefully live with each other at one moment, can kill each other at another one? These are fundamental questions about the human condition – questions that religions, philosophers and scientists have been wanting to solve since times immemorial and that continue to fascinate us today (Browning 1998; Harrison 1995; Morris 2015). So you may perhaps be wondering why I am posing such deep and essential questions at the start of a lecture that is meant to tell you something about our prehistory

Review of Bosschung, D.; Kreuz, P.-A.; Kienlin, T. (2015) Biography of objects: Aspekte eines kulturhistorisches Konzepts

NWO277-60-001European Prehistor

Give peace a chance: on violence and warfare in prehistory and why it matters

NWO277-60-001European Prehistor

Power requires others: "institutional realities" and the significance if individual power in Late Prehistoric Europe

This paper argues that most applications of political economies risk focusing too one-sidedly on individual power. However, political economies are also about collectively accepted notions on order, symbols and positions that can only exist by virtue of them being socially recognized (Searle 1995). Two examples from Europe's deep past are used to illustrate this. The first is on the role of 'commons' in Bronze Age and Iron Age landscape use. The second is on how collective conventions shape elite burials from the Early Iron Age. Both demonstrate that, in a way, 'power' may come 'from below' (cf. Searle 1995)NWO277-60-001European Prehistor

Un)familiar and (un)comfortable – the Deep History of Europe

Oratie uitgesproken door Prof.dr. D.R. Fontijn bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar op het gebied van Archaeology of Early Europe aan de Universiteit Leiden op vrijdag 18 maart 2016 The answer to the question why Europe has become so important in world history, is often looked for in its past. One epoch that is often seen as quintessential for that development is the Bronze Age (c. 2300-800 BC), the period that in which Pan-European contact networks emerged and that saw the rise of an admirable and efficient economy based on large-scale bronze circulation and recycling. It is also the time that cultural landscapes came into existence that have some ‘familiarity’ to those of later periods. Ancient DNA research also seems to indicate that modern ‘Europeans’ are genetically linked to the people who came to inhabit Europe in the Bronze Age. But archaeology at the same time also shows us that this ‘familiar’ past has several ‘unfamiliar’ aspects, and that it does not lend itself to self-glorification of modern Europe. Rather, it seems to be past that can be unpleasant, uncomfortable, but nevertheless still a past that informs us about human societies as they were in the past – and thus – about us living in the present.    Economies of Destructio

Ancient Egypt: do things matter?

The deep influence Ancient Egypt has on the modern world is a well-rehearsed topic. The Bible, Greek and Roman sources, and in general a particular modern conceptualizations of the so-called 'western world' have all been identified as key to this. But could it also be that the agency of ancient Egyptian objects themselves played a decisive role? Reflecting on a new book on this theme, attention is given to the question what we actually mean by stating that 'things have agency'. Is this a useful subject at all, and if so, how could it be studied?NWO277-60-001Classical & Mediterranean Archaeolog

Oneindig landschap? Onderzoek en erfgoed van grafheuvellandschappen

Economies of DestructionEuropean Prehistor

Markerwaardweg: het Bronsdepot

NWO277-60-001European Prehistor

De gietmal van Oss-Horzak en de inheemse bronsproductie in de Midden-bronstijd Enkele voorlopige resultaten

Wetensch. publicatieFaculty of Archeolog