The Neolithic (ca. 10,000-5,300 BC) is one of the most crucial periods in the history of West Asia (i.e., the Near East), associated with major social, economic and material innovations and important changes in the archaeological record.
It is also a period that has emerged as a major research topic over the past two decades.

In this course we will study the current archaeological views on this period of early village formation. Attention will be given to:

• Epipalaeolithic forager communities;

• Neolithic origins;

• Neolithic expansion and food production;

• Transitions and transformations;

• Pots-and-people associations in the late Neolithic;

• Regional mega-centres;

• Pastoralism and mobility;

• Neolithic monuments and ritual;

• Neolithic administration and (in)equality;

• Burial practices in the Neolithic.

Lecturer: Prof.dr. Bleda Düring

'My research focuses on the emergence of social complexity in Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from Neolithic up to the Iron Age. I am interested in how the first large communities were constituted, how societies without institutionalized social inequalities functioned, and how empires were created and reproduced trough the activities of commoners and elites. My research has thus ranged from Çatalhöyük to the Assyrian Empire, and is currently focused on the nature of prestige based societies in Cyprus and how they became part of long distance trade networks.

I aim to train students to investigate key topics in history through the investigation of the material remains of past activities. The power of archaeology is that through the systematic investigation of things such as pot sherds, chipped stone, or buildings, one can reach profound insights into how past societies were constituted. These material remains were a key element in the articulation of social aspirations and reproduction of the social order, and their study provides clues to the reconstruction of past societies – and help us to better understand societies of the present.

Thesis subjects I could supervise are for example:

• Burials And Social Aspirations in the Cypriot Chalcolithic
• Comparing Iron Age Columned Halls In Oman and Iran: Proto-Palaces or Communal Buildings'

Organised around ongoing research by Leiden University’s Faculty of Archaeology, this course will combine a student-led research project using remote sensing imagery and the development of a plan for a research project with lectures by teaching staff and guest lecturers that delve into recent archaeological investigation programmes in the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia, and their historical and methodological roots.

The programme will consist of alternating guest lectures and more hands-on seminars in which the students’ own research will be the focus.

Guest lectures will provide an introduction to the aims and results of a series of modern field projects led by Faculty of Archaeology staff and will discuss the practicalities of their field research, such as data collection, selection of methodology, interpretation of the available archaeological record, and the preparation of publications.

This course will focus on the archaeology of the Assyrian Empire (ca. 1350 – 600 BCE). We will investigate how archaeology can inform us about ancient imperialism and how Assyria managed to become the predominant empire in the Ancient Near East.

Assyria has been investigated mainly on the basis of its textual sources and art rather than sherds, buildings, and graves. In this course we will therefore foreground material culture and landscape data on Assyria.
In particular we will discuss:

• The archaeology of empire and how the Assyrian Empire has been modelled;

• The archaeology of Assur before the empire;

• Practices of social engineering in the Assyrian Empire;

• Practices of landscape engineering in the Assyrian Empire;

• Capital creation in the Assyrian Empire;

• Kingship and ideology;

• Borderlands in the Assyrian Empire.

This course will explore various aspects of the manifestation of the Crusades in the Mediterranean and in the Near East: ranging from the conquest of Sicily and southern Italy by the Normans (1000-1130 C.E.) to the fall of Akko in the Holy Land (1291 C.E.).

The aim is to address how we can study the Crusades from an archaeological perspective, and what the archaeological data can tell us about the nature of these events.