Archaeologists Connected

Archaeologists Connected is a network of young researchers from across the world, who work together on projects and publications and exchange expertise. On this website, we share our experiences from the field and the lab. Our team was first started by Dr. Marike van Aerde from Leiden University in 2017, and has over the years grown into a diverse and interdisciplinary network that includes archaeological sciences, heritage preservation, and the impact of global history.

Our research is all about connections. By analyzing a wide range of archaeological data, we aim to reconstruct the routes and means of exchange that were part of global trade networks connecting East Africa, the ancient Indian Subcontinent, and the Mediterranean/Levant regions from ca. 300 BCE to the early first millennium CE . While our project is rooted in archaeological evidence, we actively seek out multi-disciplinary collaborations (incl. archaeometry, digital archaeology, heritage). Open Access knowledge sharing is an important part of our output. We use our combined findings to ask bigger questions about connectivity and culture contact in the ancient past. What can we learn about such complex processes from so long ago? How did such connections come into being between different cultures? How did this affect these places and the people who lived there? 

Through this site, we regularly update our news items by means of Vlogs, Blogs and news updates. We also welcome you to follow our progress and adventures on Instagram. All our Open Access publications are available via this site (Bibliography).