The Netherlands Institute for the Near East

Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten  -  Institut néerlandais du Proche-Orient

26 Nov 10:00

Resilience and Adaptation in Ancient West Asia

Diederik Halbertsma

Rijksmuseum van Oudheden

Resilience and Adaptation in Ancient West Asia

NINO Postdoctoral Research Fellow 7th Annual Conference

Leiden, 26-27 November 2026

Organized by: Diederik Halbertsma

Theme

In a world increasingly preoccupied with the escalation of conflict, natural disasters, and rising temperatures and sea levels, it is no surprise that concepts like resilience, adaptive behaviours, resilient norms, and societal reconfiguration currently attract significant scholarly attention. Because of the benefit of long-term perspective offered by archaeology, the past offers great potential to inform us on how to find resilience against issues faced today. Ancient West Asia, for a plethora of reasons, provides a suitable setting for the study of human resilience. Despite periodic collapses, many societies in the region demonstrated remarkable resilience, adapting to shifts in climate, resource scarcity, warfare, and socio-political upheavals. This conference aims to explore how key resilience factors, such as social cohesion, economic diversity, social and political complexity, infrastructure, knowledge systems, environmental adaptation, and crisis preparedness, manifested across ancient West Asia.

This conference aims to bring together scholars from a broad academic background, including that of regions other than the Ancient Near East, to integrate state-of-the-art theoretical and archaeological thinking on resilience in the ancient world. As such, the conference will be divided into three sections. The first section, ‘Theoretical insights from World Archaeology’, will explore broad themes and current thinking in archaeology and resilience studies from various regions of the world, informing and furthering the study of resilience in ancient Southwest Asia. The second section, ‘Foundations in Resilience Studies’, will investigate current scholarship on central pillars of resilience theory within West Asian archaeology. The final section, ‘Regional Case Studies’, will bring together case studies from across various archaeological periods and geographic regions of West Asia.

Program

Day 1: Theory & Foundations

Theoretical Background & World Archaeology, followed by Foundations in Resilience

Time Session Speaker Topic
10:00 Doors Open — Informal Welcome & Coffee
10:30 Opening Miriam Müller & Diederik Halbertsma Welcome & Introduction
10:45 Keynote Ian Kuijt t.b.c.
11:45 Short Break — —
12:00 World Archaeology Dita Auzina t.b.c.
12:30 World Archaeology Sean Desjardins t.b.c.
13:00 Lunch Break — —
14:30 Foundations I Meredith Chesson t.b.c.
15:00 Foundations I Pascal Flohr t.b.c.
15:30 Afternoon Coffee — —
16:00 Foundations II Jennifer Swerida t.b.c.
16:30 Foundations II Bleda During Boom and Bust in the Sohar Hinterlands – Archaeological Data and Demographic Reconstructions


Day 2: Regional Deep Dive & Student Panel

Time Session Speaker Topic
10:00 Doors Open — Morning Coffee
10:30 West Asia I Nathaniel Erb-Satullo Surviving the Crisis Years: Foundations of Societal Resilience in the Late Bronze Age Caucasus
11:00 West Asia I Aris Politopoulos t.b.c.
11:30 West Asia I Bruce Routledge The Infrastructure of Resilience: Tells as Persistent Places in Landscapes of Mobility
12:00 Short Break — 15-minute transition
12:15 West Asia II Andrew Danielson A Tale of Two Wadis: Exploring Landscape and Settlement in the Highlands of Western Jordan
12:45 West Asia II Douglas Baird Resilience and Adaptation in the Konya Plain, 14,000-6,000 cal BC
13:15 Lunch —  
14:30 West Asia III DLshad Aziz Marf Mountain Resilience in the Zagros: How Ancient Communities Endured Socio-Environmental Crises and Preserved Their Architectural Heritage
15:00 West Asia III Sajad Samii From Inhabited House to Archaeological Record: An Experimental Approach to Resilience and Adaptation in West Asian Vernacular Architecture
15:30 West Asia III Aven al-Qatameen Making Landscape: Adaptation Strategies and Resilience in Neolithic Jordan
16:00 Closing   Group discussion
16:45 Closing Organizers Final Remarks & Thanks
17:00 Reception All Informal Drinks at the University

 

NINO/OIKOS course for MA students

The elective MA course Human Resilience in the Ancient Near East: Archaeological and Interdisciplinary Perspectives – for students of Archaeology, Ancient Civilizations, and/or Classics – integrates with the NINO Postdoctoral Researcher’s 7th Annual Conference.