Hannah Leonard

Education

B.A (Hons), History, Royal Holloway, University of London 2018 

M.A, Ancient History (research), Utrecht University, 2023

I obtained my masters at Utrecht University where I specialised in the use of scientific methods alongside traditional archaeology to help understand complex periods of history, and through my internship at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam gained practical experience conducting strontium analysis on inhumated and cremated remains as part of the Constructing the Limes Project.

RESEARCH SUMMARY

The Final Neolithic and Bronze Age in Belgium saw changes in social structure, technological transformations as well as in increase in contact between areas. The LEAP project aims to see to the impact of Rapid Climate Change (RCC) events by focussing on the 9.3, 4.3 and the 3.2 ka cal BP events. Through doing this, we hope to evaluate the effects and impact of these events on ecosystems and human populations in what is modern-day Belgium, as well as add this information to existing databases to help mitigate current climate extremes and take preventative measures. The timespan of this project will cover the Mesolithic to the Bronze-Iron transition, assessing on a local and regional scale variations in temperature and the impact of that specifically within the Meuse basin. This will be done by incorporating high-resolution paleoclimatic, paleoenvironmental and palaeomobility data. In my research as a PhD candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, I will use isotope analysis to reconstruct demographic changes and track human mobility in relation to these climate events through the use of Oxygen, Strontium and Sulphur on radiocarbon dated inhumated and cremated remains. By measuring before and after these events, I hope to show the impact of climate fluctuations on past local/regional societies.

Project: LEAP - Learning from the past: The impact of abrupt climate changes on society and environment in Belgium.

PhD Supervisors: Prof. Christophe Snoeck