Peter Akkermans (Hulsberg, the Netherlands, 1957) studied Prehistory and Archaeology of Western Asia at the University of Amsterdam, where he also completed (cum laude) his Ph.D on Late Neolithic settlement and subsistence in Syria. From 1990 until 2009 he was Curator of the Dept. of the Ancient Near East in the Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities, in combination with an Extraordinary Professorship of Near Eastern Prehistory at Leiden University. He has directed and participated in archaeological field projects in Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey and Syria for over twenty years. He is director of one of the largest archaeological research projects in Syria, the Tell Sabi Abyad project, which focusses on the evolution of settlement in both the Late Neolithic (ca. 7000-5300 BC) and Late Bronze Age (ca. 1300-1000 BC) of Syria. The extensive, interdisciplinary programme includes surface survey and large-scale excavation at a number of archaeological sites in the Balikh valley of Northern Syria. Together with Glenn M. Schwartz (The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA), he recently published The Archaeology of Syria (Cambridge University Press, 2003), the first book to present a comprehensive review of the archaeology of Syria from the end of the Palaeolithic period to ca. 300 BC.
