Rosalie Hermans

I studied Art studies and Archaeology at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) from 2015-2019. In 2019 I started my PhD ‘The Archaeology of Coastal Communities: An Archaeobotanical Perspective (phytoliths analysis) of Space and Landscape of Coastal Landing Places’. This PhD-project is part of the VUB-funded Strategic Research Programme 64 (SRP64): ‘The Archaeology of Coastal Communities: social resilience, innovation and adaptation in landscape, settlement and material culture driven by migration and globalization, climate and environment’.

This PhD-research focuses on phytolith research on the archaeological sites from medieval Antwerp (Belgium) and Brussels (Belgium) and late Bronze Age Cyprus. The focus on archaeobotany is well-grounded, since new plants were introduced via trade connections and migrating people. Over the last decades archaeobotany has shown to be an extremely valuable source to study vegetal food production, preparation and consumption patterns, to detect trading patterns, the introduction of new plants in the framework of new connections, and obtain ideas about the status of the inhabitants through their dietary habits.

While my PhD-research is based on phytolith analysis, it is executed in close concertation with Sara Lo Russo, the other SRP64 PhD-researcher, who focuses on the micromorphological research (the microscopic study of soils and sediments in thin section).

Besides my PhD-research, I am also a working Graduate student in Management at the VUB. I have been taking Management courses during the evenings since 2017. Currently, my research in Management focuses on ‘Services related to commercial archeological research in Flanders (Belgium): a stakeholder- based analysis’. The research aims to identify the stakeholders in the commercial archaeological industry, map the relationships between these stakeholders, and look for solutions that can enhance these stakeholder relationships. For this project I collaborate with Freija Bornauw, fellow working Graduate student in Management at the VUB and student learning path counselor for Undergraduate students in Archaeology and History at the Catholic University of Leuven (KULeuven).