Dr. D.J.W. Meijer studied Semitic Languages and Archaeology of the Near East at the University of Amsterdam and the University of London. His fieldwork took and takes place (since 1969) in Turkey and Syria. He is especially interested in emergent urbanism and state-formation processes in the Ancient Near East (from ca. 4000 BC onward), their socio-economic correlates such as the growth of trade, as well as in the iconography of cylinder seals. A book is envisaged about the feasibility of modelling the Mesopotamian and Syrian city-states on those of early Renaissance Italy. Currently he is working, with Dr. Gerrit van der Kooij and several assistant researchers, on an archaeological project financed by NWO and attempting to determine the variability of human response to fluctuating environmental factors in marginal areas in Palestine and Syria. His other interests include the philosophy of science and its application in archaeology.
