EVENTS

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Inequality in the Ancient Greek World conference – 30 April 2026

The aim of this KNAW Early Career Partnership Event is to integrate evidence that is often studied in isolation to build a more holistic understanding of how social divisions (gender, wealth, status, occupation, kinship, ethnicity, and locality) shaped social status, identity, health and lived experiences, with a particular interest in marginalised groups. By combining these approaches, this should enable clearer insights into the causes and consequences of health inequality in the past and to highlight its relevance for understanding persistent social problems today. The temporal and geographic scope of this meeting is flexible in taking a broad definition of the ancient Greek world.

More information >>

Publishing for Early Career Researchers – 11 May 2026

Though publishing your work is very appealing, it can seem a daunting process. Where to start? How to approach this? Do I publish part of my work now or all of it later? And what are the implications for me of open access publications instead of traditional publishing?

This workshop on publishing and publication strategies is aimed at RMA and (starting) PhD students and attempts to address some of these issues.

More information >>

Workshop New DNA and Bioarchaeological Approaches to Settler Colonialism in First-Millennium BCE Italy – 22 May 2026

This workshop examines whether the concept of settler colonialism offers a useful lens for analyzing colonialism and migration in ancient Italy during the first millennium BCE. In particular, it considers whether these processes might be understood as a “logic of elimination,” as proposed by Wolfe for the modern period. A key focus will be a critical discussion of the possibilities, limitations, and ethical considerations of using these datasets to explore questions of colonial impact, migration, and population dynamics in the ancient Mediterranean.

More information >>

How to Become a PhD – 26 May 2026

ARCHON is organizing a workshop meant especially for RMA students: How to become a PhD student. This day will be organized with the aim to offer RMA students information about what you can expect from a PhD position and how to get one. Topics such as different kinds of PhD-positions, how to apply for PhD-positions and how to write an application will be discussed. We will also discuss what you can expect from a PhD-position and what’s necessary to make it. The workshop will be given by Prof. Jan Paul Crielaard and dr. Philip Verhagen, with the help of guest speakers.

More information >>

Continuous online courses

ARCHON has selected some skills courses that can be followed online at your own pace:

ARCHON members can obtain credits by submitting a report afterwards.

NEWS

A WARM GOODBYE TO OUR CO-CHAIR PROF. JAN PAUL CRIELAARD

Our board’s co-chair, Prof. Jan Paul Crielaard, has been appointed as director of the Netherlands Institute in Athens, as of the 1st of March this year. Because of this, he will step down as ARCHON board member. We want to express our sincere gratitude to Jan Paul for his time and commitment. As co-chair of the board, he has been instrumental in developing ARCHON’s course and positioning it as a platform for debate and collaboration within the Dutch archaeological research community. We wish him every success in his new job and hope he will remain involved in ARCHON! Jan Paul will be replaced by Dr. Sjoerd Kluiving as VU Amsterdam representative to the board. We want to extend a warm welcome to him!

NEW CCvD REPRESENTATIVE

As of January 2026, Dr Maaike de Waal (University of Leiden) will join Dr Rien Polak (Radboud University Nijmegen) as ARCHON representative in the Centraal College van Deskundigen (CCvD) of SIKB. In this position, they will advocate the interests of academic archaeological research within Dutch archaeological heritage management, in collaboration with Femke Tomas (Saxion University), who holds the seat for education.

NEW BOARD MEMBER

As of May 2024, Dr. Heleen van Londen is taking the place of Prof. Vladimir Stissi in the ARCHON Board on behalf of the University of Amsterdam. We are looking forward to have her on board, and extend our thanks to Vladimir for his long service in the ARCHON Board.

NEW ARCHON COORDINATOR

We are happy to announce that from 1 January onward Myrthe Sassen will be the new coordinator of ARCHON. Myrthe is a former RMA student from the University of Leiden, and will take over from Yannic Rabou who has chosen a new direction in her career. We want to thank Yannic for her commitment and enthusiasm over the past two years, and are looking forward to having Myrthe on board.

TRAVEL TO AND FROM GRONINGEN

In order to facilitate student mobility, ARCHON reimburses up to 60 euros per year (per student) for traveling to and from Groningen for attending educational activities. Travel is only reimbursed for students who send in an evaluation report in order to claim ECTs. Contact our secretary for more information.

ARCHON NEWSLETTER AND MAILINGS

Do you want to stay up to date on ARCHON supported events, funding opportunities and calls for poster/papers/abstracts? Both ARCHON members and non-members can subscribe to out mailinglist. Her you can find the sign up form to the ARCHON mailing list. 

MEMBERSHIP

RMA students, PhD students and staff members of the participating institutions can all become members of ARCHON. Membership of ARCHON will give you access to its educational activities, bring you into contact with fellow students and researchers and will provide opportunities to present your work. Read more >>

EVENT FUNDING

Are you a staff member, PhD researcher or RMA student and are you considering organizing an event on your research topic? Did you know that Archon can help you organize and host such events? Read more >>

CONFERENCE SUBSIDY

ARCHON encourages PhD and RMA students to attend and speak at conferences abroad. Therefore we annually award a limited number of conference subsidies to RMA and PhD students for presenting a paper or poster at an international conference. Read more >>

PUBLISH YOUR RESEARCH

ARCHON wants to motivate PhD and RMA students to publish their research! To help you get started, we organize a workshop Publishing for Early Career Researchers, and we have listed a number of online journals that are are open to, or especially meant for, publishing research from Graduate and PhD students. Read more>>

JOBS ETC.

VACANCIES:

The Early Career Archaeologist community created an extensive resource including vacancies, upcoming conferences, data archives and more! More information >>

CONFERENCES:

This index offers an extensive list of upcoming conferences about archaeology. More information >>

PRIZES AND AWARDS:

A number of prizes and awards are available for RMA and PhD students in the Netherlands. We keep track of them in a spreadsheet that you access here.

PHD AND POSTDOC POSITIONS:

Check out Erik Rossenberg’s blog postgraduate opportunities in Archaeology for an up-to-date list of PhD and postdoc positions in archaeology.

John’s Hopkins University has set up a continuously updated repository of federal and private funding opportunities that are intended for postdoctoral investigators. The opportunities are pre-sorted chronologically and alphabetically, and can be searched by funding amount and subject matter.

Arches project (open source software platform) job opportunities.

Fund┋it collects and presents on a single website all research grants and fellowships (post-PhD) available for scholars in the social sciences and humanities in France.

ABOUT ARCHON

ARCHON is the interuniversity research school of archeology in the Netherlands. It is a research network that brings together junior and senior researchers and promotes excellent research within the field of archaeology. It unites staff members, PhD researchers and research master students of its participating institutions.

  • the University of Amsterdam (UvA)
  • VU University Amsterdam (VU)
  • the University of Groningen (RUG)
  • the University of Leiden (UL)
  • the University of Utrecht (UU)
  • Radboud University Nijmegen (RU)
  • the Agency for Cultural Heritage (RCE) in Amersfoort
  • Saxion University of Applied Sciences

ARCHON’s mission is to consolidate and expand the position of academic archaeology within Dutch academia and society. This is achieved by means of five strategic aims: 

  1. to teach and train early career researchers (Research Masters and PhD students) from the participating universities;
  2. to promote collaboration and strengthen the cohesion within the community of academic archaeologists in the Netherlands;
  3. to strengthen the academic and societal position of archaeology;
  4. to strengthen the societal position of academic archaeology within the setting of the Dutch commercial archaeology;
  5. to strengthen the international position of Dutch academic archaeology, maintain and expand relations with the international scholarly field, and highlight the breadth and diversity of archaeological research in the Netherlands;

The Archon bureau is based at the Faculty of Humanities at the VU University Amsterdam. Contact can be made through email (Myrthe Sassen).

If you want to stay updated on upcoming ARCHON events, calls for proposals and academic job opportunities, you can sign up to our mailinglist.

 

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