This is the Curriculum Vitae (= resumé or bio) page for Dr Marco Langbroek, a Dutch archaeologist

Click here to get to my main private website or  here to get to my research related webpage

| High school & MA | PhD | Work | Post-doc | Special honours| other projects/activities | Astronomy |
| other interests | HOME |

Education (1) - I went to highschool on the now no longer existing Rembrandt Scholengemeenschap in Leiden in 1983, obtaining my HAVO- and then VWO diploma’s in respectively 1989 and 1991.

I then enrolled in the first year-studies in Archaeology at Leiden University in September of 1991. I continued my archaeological studies with a specialization in Prehistory, at what was then still the Faculty of Pre- and Protohistory (now merged into the Faculty of Archaeology) in 1992. Soon the focus of my archaeological interest became the Palaeolithic (although I in addition developed a craze for megaliths).

In September of 1998, I obtained my M.A. degree cum laude with a 9.5 as my thesis mark (for the Dutch grading system, see here). In November of 1998, the SNA (Foundation for Dutch Archaeology) awarded me the bi-yearly W.A. van Es-prize for my thesis.

Work - Following my graduation, I worked as a field archaeologist (mainly archaeological prospection work) at the Municipal Archaeological Service of Rotterdam (BOOR) from February to August of 1999 (and again from August 2002 to February 2003), and at the Municipal Archaeological Service of Rijswijk from August to October 1999. Late 1999, I came back to Leiden University again to start in a PhD position, completed mid-2002. Since March 2008, I am employed in a 4-year post-doc research at the Geo- and Bio-Archaeological Institute of the Vrije Universiteit (VU University) in Amsterdam, faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, on an NWO-Veni grant.

Education (2): PhD - Initial attempts to secure an individual NWO-grant for a PhD research in 1999 failed. In November of 1999, I nevertheless started in an AIO (PhD) position at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University, courtesy of Prof. Dr. Wil Roebroeks. Initially, there were funds available for only one year (left-over funds from the former PIONIER-project “Changing Views on Ice Age Foragers”). Following a renewed grant application, NWO awarded me an individual OIO-grant to continue my PhD for another 1.5 years in the early summer of 2000. In total, I thus had 2.5 years, instead of the regular 4 years, available to write my PhD dissertation.

I obtained my PhD on 9 October 2003. The trade edition of my dissertation appeared in June 2004 as BAR International Series no. 1244 with Archaeopress, Oxford.

Post-doc - Mid-December 2007 NWO awarded me a VENI-grant for a 4-year post-doc at the Geo- and Bio-Archaeological Institute (faculty of Earth & Life Sciences) of the VU University (Vrije Universiteit) in Amsterdam, in which I started in March 2008. The title of the research project is: 

"Neanderthal Living Space: the organisation of living space and the use of landscapes in Neanderthal society"

More on my current research project can be found on my dedicated website www.palaeolithic.nl

Special honours

- Cum Laude MA degree, 1998

- W.A. van Es Prize for Dutch Archaeology, 1998

- Individual NWO PhD grant, 1999

- NWO VENI grant, 2007

- naming of the asteroid (183294) Langbroek by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)

Other projects/activities - During my 2.5 year PhD appointment, I did a good deal of teaching at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology and discovered, with the aid of an inspiring group of Palaeolithic students, that my heart lies with the combination of research and teaching. With the help of Alexander Verpoorte and Boudewijn Voormolen, an old dream to initiate renewed fieldwork on the Middle Palaeolithic of Dutch Limburg (the last instance of fieldwork by the Faculty on the Dutch Middle Palaeolithic had been in 1990) came true only a few months after I enrolled at the Faculty. Following the launch of our plans in the early summer of 2000, running a teaching programm related to it in the second and third semester of 2001, and the securement of funds from both the faculty and Limburg Province in early 2001, one month of fieldwork (a small excavation and a survey) took place at the site of Colmont-Ponderosa in September of 2001 (see the photogallery, and my publications list). This was followed by a continuation of the related teaching programm. The site excavated concerned a site situated on the “clay with flints”, on the slope of the Vrakelberg. Discovered as a surface site by an amateur in 1989, it turned out that a scatter of flint artefacts continued underneath a loessic cover upslope. An important research question was, what the potential value of sites in this kind of settings might be.

During my PhD contract, but like the Colmont project outside the context of my PhD research, I wrote and published a paper (M. Langbroek: The trouble with Neandertals. Archaeological Dialogues 8 (2001), 123-151) on the Neandertal-Modern transition, as part of a discussion with Eric Trinkaus and Joao Zilhao.

Astronomy - In addition to my work in archaeology, I have conducted research as a semi-professional amateur astronomer, resulting in authorship or co-authorship to a number of scientific publications in amongst others the Astrophysical Journal, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Meteoritics & Planetary Science, and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (see my publications list). My focus of interest is in meteor astronomy, more specific meteor outburst phenomena. Over the years, most notably as part of a multi-year effort to cover a rare series of often spectacular meteor storms by the Leonid meteor stream, I made several observational trips around to world, to locations as remote as the high desert of Qinghai Province in Northwest China, on the borders of Tibet and Mongolia (see map).

Asteroids - While volunteering in the Spacewatch FMO program, I discovered (with Jim Scotti and Tim Bressi) the Near Earth Asteroid 2005 GG81, a small Amor asteroid, in April 2005. I also discovered over 50 new main-belt asteroids in NEAT archive imagery between 2004 and 2009.

In August of 2008, the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided to officially name asteroid (183294) Langbroek in my honour (see here)

Other interests - Apart from archaeology and astronomy, I have an interest in geology and planetary geology, military history, and historic aircraft. I collect meteorites, books on the early exploration of New-Guinea, and the books of Captain W.E. Johns. I paint, make sculptures, and photograph.

Below: me and the original Homo erectus holotype fossils in Leiden