Christopher II Of Denmark (1319-1332), Lund

Only a 'few' days later, I've come back to answer (sorry for the slight delay guys...).

I am currently in my first year of Archaeology, just having completed the first semester in fact. So far, so good ;). One of the reasons I choose Leiden was indeed the larger, independent faculty, but a major selling point for me was the slightly more diverse curriculum. When visiting Groningen and Amsterdam, I got the impression that they mostly focussed on specific areas (e.g. Classical- and medieval Archaeology) a little bit too much for my liking. Chinese archaeology is an area I am particularly interested in and, while it in itself is not taught in Leiden, I feel the curriculum would prepare me somewhat better for this possible specialisation.

So, unfortunately I did not join in any of the field schools last year (I was busy taking my last High-school exams back then), although we did have a case-study on Veldhoven this past semester. Man, that would have been an awesome excavation to join! I'll have my first field-school in May, and to be honest I'm hoping for either something Roman or Early medieval. I already had the privilege of joining a Neolithic excavation for a couple of days this past semester, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I get the feeling that I am slightly more drawn to historical archaeology. Plus, the possibility of excavating coins is a nice addition ;).

As for a specialisation; I simply have too many interests. For a long time I had my heart set purely on Chinese archaeology (nummismatically, this is also one of my larger areas of focus), but throughout the past semesters we've had module on both the Americas and the Near-East that I've thoroughly enjoyed and I could see myself doing in the future. But the urge to focus on the numismatic side of archaeology is also definitely there, or just metal finds in general (like yourself). And we haven't even touched on classical and medieval archaeology! I'll first complete this year, we'll see where I end up afterwards. One thing is sure however; it's most likely not going to be prehistory ;)

Mika