Heleen van Londen specializes in landscape archaeology, heritage, archaeological heritage management, archaeological fieldwork and Roman archaeology.
Van Londen teaches both Bachelor and Master courses relating to theory, heritage issues and research skills. Recently, she initiated a cross-over minor combining heritage, communication and media studies, The Public Presentation of the Past
She is coordinator of the MA track Landscape and Heritage.
Van Londen participates in several externally funded research and teaching projects:
NWO HERA JPICH Grant; three year grant, awarded per December 2018
Community Archaeological in Rural Environments Meeting Social Challenges (CARE MSoC) aims to build capacity in the heritage sector to help meet social challenges that are particular to rural communities through exploring the impact of specific contextualized participatory practices. Rural populations everywhere are affected by urbanisation, migration and technological innovation, often while the local subaltern heritage is overlooked as development pressures encounter dwindling resources for heritage protection. Community Archaeology has a uniquely distinctive quality for social binding and the co-creation of localized narratives using methodologies from archaeology, historical geography, social psychology, digital humanities and medieval studies.
CARE MSoC involves local people working with archaeologists to make new discoveries about the village they live in, using finds from multiple one-metre square 'test pit' excavations they themselves plan and carry out throughout the village. These methods were pioneered in the UK where volunteers involved as co-producing partners in community test pit excavation programmes have gained new skills, interests, connections and aspirations. Simultaneously, the improved knowledge of buried tangible heritage helps protect heritage assets while the new historical narratives enhance empathetic heritage-based place-branding adding value to rural communities as places to inhabit and visit. These outcomes raise educational aspirations, improve social mobility and community self-esteem, strengthen social cohesion and increase opportunities for fulfilling locally-based post-work activity, mitigating the impact of public sector funding cuts while also protecting heritage. CARE-MSoC aims to explore the feasibility and impact of extending this programme to other European countries and disseminate its methodologies and outcomes transnationally, in the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland and UK with varying social issues, cultural differences and historical contexts.
CARE MSoC will take cultural heritage practice beyond the state of the art within a broad international setting, delivering knowledge exchange in a transdisciplinary context, supporting interactions and partnerships, maximizing the value of the research outcomes.
https://www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/research-projects/i/95/32495.html
Erasmus plus grant (2018-1-UK01-KA202-047943), Two year grant awarded november 2018.
This project will develop a partnership aimed at promoting work-based learning by producing new training content in terms of innovative VET learning materials that are substantial in quality and quantity. The partnership will engage in the intensive dissemination of those materials which will tackle skills gaps and mismatches be addressing work-based learning, embedded in real-life practical situations that will support the workplace learning of early-career and experienced professional archaeologists. It will embed international experience and transnational mobility throughout.
This project is commissioned by the Agency for Dutch Cultural Heritage (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed) as part of the Oogst voor Malta programme (May 2018-August 2019). Researchers are Heleen van Londen (applicant), Annika Blonk, Anja Fischer, Chiara Cavallo, James Symonds and Hans Renes.
De laatste ca. 15 jaar zijn in de Nederlandse steden veel archeologische opgravingen uitgevoerd die veel nieuwe gegevens hebben opgeleverd over de relatie tussen stad en platteland. Veel steden hebben niet alleen fasen van ontwikkeling gekend (verstedelijking), maar ook van teruggang. Als gevolg van deze teruggang verdwenen de stedelijke bebouwing en stedelijke functies. Daarvoor in de plaats kwamen rurale activiteiten. Dit proces noemen we ‘ruralisering’.
Ook als zelfstandig verschijnsel, is de rurale component van stedelijke nederzettingen tot dusver sterk onderbelicht gebleven. Veel steden behielden een sterk ruraal karakter. Zelfs in ‘echte’ steden, speelden rurale activiteiten nog steeds een rol. We hebben het dus over zowel een constante (voedselproductie binnen en net buiten steden: stadslandbouw) als een ontwikkeling die zich onder bepaalde omstandigheden kan voordoen (ruralisering). Ruralisering komt tot uitdrukking in een toenemend belang van stadslandbouw, ruimtelijk en sociaaleconomisch.
Om tot de beoogde analyse te komen wordt een selectie gemaakt van tien steden waarvan voldoende archeologisch relevante gegevens beschikbaar zijn, om een gedegen onderzoek uit te kunnen voeren. Doel van het onderzoek is onder meer om inzicht te verwerven in de rurale component in steden vanwege voedselproductie enerzijds en toenemende ruralisering in perioden van terugval in de stedelijke ontwikkeling anderzijds.
This project is commissioned by the Agency for Dutch Cultural Heritage (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed) as part of the Oogst voor Malta programme (Feb 2017 - May 2019). Researchers are Heleen van Londen (applicant), Annika Blonk, Mirjam Lobbes, Arno Verhoeven, Jan Willem Oudhof.
This project is commissioned by the Agency for Dutch Cultural Heritage (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed) as part of the Oogst voor Malta programme ( Jan. 2016 - May 2017). Researchers are Heleen van Londen (applicant), Johan Verspay, James Symonds, Hans Renes.
Voor dit onderzoek zijn resultaten van archeologische opgravingen tussen 2005 en 2015 vergeleken en geanalyseerd. Deze studie laat zien dat aan de middeleeuwse ontwikkeling van deze dorpen vergelijkbare processen ten grondslag liggen en dat de beschikbare modellen wat dat betreft kloppen. Tegelijkertijd komen grote regionale verschillen aan het licht. Ten slotte wordt een aantal aanbevelingen gedaan om het onderzoek naar middeleeuwse dorpsvorming verder te brengen. Allereerst bieden de archeologische gegevens op zichzelf niet genoeg informatie. Aanvullend historisch-geografisch onderzoek is noodzakelijk, gecombineerd met studie van het middeleeuwse landbezit. Verder zou het onderzoek naar dorpsvorming enorm gebaat zijn bij specifieke onderzoekskaders op gemeentelijk niveau en bij continuïteit in het onderzoek.
Erasmus+ grant.
The problematic separation of nature and culture in Western ontologies has contributed to instrumental relationships to the natural and culture world alike. The nature-culture divide has narrowed the scope of landscapes to the technical management of either natural or cultural sites. Within heritage policy, this binary is reproduced in the separation of “natural” and “cultural” landscapes in national and international legal and administrative frameworks resulting in the problematic separation of natural and cultural resources in the practice of planning and development. More recent developments aim to broaden discussions of sustainability to encompass human and non-human actors and environments.
http://www.uva.nl/discipline/archeologie/onderzoek/anher/anher.html
Leonardo da Vinci programme Lifelong Learning programme.
Discovering the Archaeologists of Europe 2014 is a transnational project, examining archaeological employment and barriers to transnational mobility within archaeology across twenty-one European countries. It is undertaken with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union. It is a successor to the previous Discovering the Archaeologists of Europe project which ran from 2006-2008.
https://www.discovering-archaeologists.eu/
Leonardo da Vinci programme Lifelong Learning programme
Leonardo da Vinci programme 'Lifelong Learning programme´
NWO research project within theOdyssee programme (2010-2011). Researchers are dr. Heleen van Londen (applicant), dr. Laura Kooistra, dr. Chiara Cavallo, drs. Anja Fischer.
https://www.nwo.nl/onderzoek-en-resultaten/onderzoeksprojecten/i/24/7024.html
Director/ private business Van Londen archeologie
Director AAC/Projectenbureau , unit for contract archaeology, Amsterdam Archaeological Centre, Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam (0,5 fte)
Assistant professor at the Amsterdam Archaeological Centre, Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam
Researcher/projectleader Midden-Delfland project at the Institute for Pre- en Protohistoric archaeology Albert Egges van Giffen, University of Amsterdam
Director /private business. Archeologisch Historisch Adviesbureau Heleen van Londen
Coordinator Centre for Experimental Archaeology , Archaeological Theme Parc, Archeon, Alphen aan den Rijn
2007 - present member of the board of Post Academic Schooling in Archaeology (PASTA)
2007 - present secretary of the board of The Netherlands Institute for Heritage (Stichting Erfgoed Nederland )
2007 - present expert on archaeology of the advisory committe for Cultural History, municipality of Gouda
2006 -2007 member of theboard post doctoral training ' Management of Archaeologicial Projects'
2004 -2006 member of the board, Dutch archaeology foundation (Stichting Nederlandse Archeologie)
2002 -2004 member of the project group Technologie & Samenleving deelprogramma Archeologie organized by Senter.
1999 -2000 member of the working group for quality care in heritage management (assignment of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science).
1998 -present expert on archaeology of the committee for historic Monuments municipality of Reeuwijk
2008 - present independent expert for the Netherlands commission Environmental Assessment (MER) in the field of landscape and a rchaeology
2008 - present member of the scientific advisory committee for the European Archaeologists Association (EAA) conference in The Hague 2010
2005-2007 member of the a dvisory group Protecting and Delevloping the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape (NWO)
2008 - present member of the advisory board of the Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries