Marco Langbroek

Expertise

Marco Langbroek specializes in Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) archaeology, with a focus on the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic of Europe and Africa (30 000 years bp to 2.5 million years bp).

He obtained his PhD at Leiden University on an in-depth, critical study of the chronology and eco-climatological context of the earliest hominine dispersals into Eurasia (published as BAR International Series S-1244, 2004). In 2001 he initiated and directed (together with Alexander Verpoorte and Boudewijn Voormolen) a field project investigating the Middle Palaeolithic site of Colmont-Ponderosa (Dutch Limburg) and its surroundings, on the edge of the "Eiland van Ubachsberg" plateau.

His specific topics of interest include: Neanderthal spatial behaviour and cognition; hominine approaches to their surrounding spatial environment; hominine adaptations to variable ecology; movement of lithics through the landscape; the 'chaine operatoire' of artifact production, use and discard, including their spatial aspects; hominine mobility and resource exploitation systems; the relation between hominine behavioural evolution and climate change; the chronology of hominine dispersal. In addition to his main period of interest he has a strong interest in Neolithic megalithic structures.

In August 2008, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid (183294) Langbroek in his honour.

Personal website: www.palaeolithic.nl

Recent Projects

Marco's current research project is the NWO-Veni funded individual post-doc project "Neanderthal Living Space: the organisation of living space and the use of landscapes in Neanderthal society". In this research, he explores explicitly Neanderthal-specific aspects of spatial behaviour on various scales in time and space. This includes the formulation of novel low-level theory which is distinctly independent from modern ethnographic and primatologic frames of reference. His research has cross-ties with the research program ‘Early Human Environments’ of the interfaculty research institute CLUE.

Selected publications

• Langbroek M.  :  ‘Out of Africa’. An investigation into the earliest occupation of the Old World. BAR International Series no. 1244 (2004), Archaeopress, Oxford.
• Langbroek M.:  The trouble with Neandertals. Archaeological Dialogues 8 (2001), 123-151.
• Langbroek M. and Roebroeks W.: ‘Extraterrestrial’ evidence on the age of the hominids from Java. Journal of Human Evolution 38 (2000), 595-600.
• Verpoorte A., Langbroek M. and Voormolen B.: Het Midden-Paleolithicum van het Heuvelland. Resultaten van veldwerk te Colmont (gemeente Voerendaal). Historische en Heemkundige Studies in en rond het Geuldal 12 (2002), 133-152.