Dr Tuna Kalaycı

Tuna Kalaycı is an assistant professor of computational archaeology. His main quantitative interests are remote sensing, data analysis, and modelling. He also tackles questions of landscape archaeology and (ancient) cities. In particular, he focuses on productive landscapes, landscapes of movement, walking/walkability and neighbourhoods. His work also aims to positively challenge modern concepts, such as digitalisation, machine automation and smart cities. He is affiliated with the SAILS Initiative. He is a member of the Kerkenes Project, working on Iron Age urban dynamics.

Tuna holds degrees in Statistics (BSc), Settlement Archaeology (MSc), and Anthropology (PhD). His dissertation work at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, focused on the stability of urban systems during environmental crises. Next, he held a post-doctoral researcher position at the IMS-FORTH (Greece), specialising in remote sensing approaches to archaeology. Before joining Leiden University, he was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at the ISPC-CNR (Italy) and Durham University (UK). His “Modern Geospatial Technologies for Ancient Movement Praxis” project produced computational tools to understand Bronze Age traffic in Upper Mesopotamia.