Leendert Kooijmans is former Dean of the Faculty, Director of the National School for Archaeological Research and Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Leiden. From 1966 to 1982 he was the Curator of the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. In 1974 he received his Ph.D. for a thesis on the relation between sea-level change and the prehistoric occupation of the western parts of the Netherlands. His research focuses on the Neolithic in general, and the transition of hunter gatherer communities to farming in north-west Europe.