Projects
Integrated Approach in Management of Coastal Cultural Heritage KU Leuven
Humans have had a long history of interconnectedness with the sea and ocean due to the use of natural resources available in the coastal areas. These interactions have influenced the natural landscape and play a crucial role in the formation of coastal cultural heritage. Coastal cultural heritage, a continuum of land and sea, is an important part of our cultural resources in the coastal areas. Presently, coastal cultural heritage has not been ...
Unraveling past urbanisation: geoarchaeology brings to light the invisible record of towns in Northwestern Europe Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The palaeodemographic and palaeopathological study of the St.Rombout's cemetery, Mechelen KU Leuven
Contextual archaeo-anthropological studies – whereby skeletal and archaeological analyses are treated as one whole – are still uncommon. The detailed study of a sub-sample of 400 individuals from the excavation of St. Rombout’s cemetery in Mechelen, Belgium (10th-18th centuries AD) nevertheless demonstrates its enormous potential. A macroscopic study of mortality patterns and age and sex composition (palaeodemography) and the investigation of ...
Out of Clay, laid in Bond. Building with the Brick in the County of Flanders, 1200-1400 KU Leuven
This doctoral thesis examines the introduction and spread of brick architecture in the county of Flanders in the 13th and 14th centuries. By use of building archaeology of existing buildings, supplemented with archaeological and iconographical information about no longer extant monuments, the thesis lifts medieval brick architecture from the determinist view of brick as a cheap substitute for stone, the common explanation for the rise of ...
A Philosophy of Radical Politics: Revolutionary Gnosticism and the Case of Salafi-Jihadism KU Leuven
Many philosophers and sociologists have used the category of revolutionary Gnosticism to frame different modern and contemporary ideologies and social movements. Revolutionary, or political, Gnosticism is a category introduced in the academic debate by the political philosopher Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) in order to investigate the two main ideologies of the 20th-century, Nazism and Communism. After Voegelin, many other scholars started to use ...
Development of non-destructive analysis protocols for the chemical and isotopic analysis of archaeological materials KU Leuven
New analysis protocols for the non-destructive chemical analysis of ancient materials will be developed. Micro - X-ray fluorescence (µXRF) will be used to look at major to trace element compositions. Laser ablation – multi collector - inductively coupled plasma - mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) will be used to perform isotopic analysis, focusing on Pb-Sb-Sr-Nd isotope ratios. Protocols will be developed, for both methods, custom-made to the ...
Stones on the move: a biographical approach towards the role of stone axes in the neolithisation process of the Lower Rhine Area KU Leuven
The process of neolithisation in the wetlands of the Lower Rhine Area (LRA) is a long-term and gradual transition from a fully Mesolithic to a fully Neolithic subsistence strategy, which starkly contrasts contemporaneous developments in Scandinavia and Great Britain. This makes the LRA well suited to study the contact between the Bandkeramik farmers and their successors and the extended broad spectrum hunter-gatherer societies north of the ...