Prof. Christophe Snoeck

I am an Associate Research Professor at the Archaeology, Environmental Changes & Geo-Chemistry (AMGC) Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the founder and head of the Brussels Bioarchaeology Lab (BB-LAB). My work sits at the interface between archaeology and the natural sciences, with a strong focus on developing and applying analytical approaches to investigate past human and animal populations.

Following a MSc in chemical engineering (ULB, 2010), I obtained a second MSc (2011) and a PhD (2015) in archaeological science from the University of Oxford (UK) with the support of the Philippe Wiener – Maurice Anspach Foundation. In 2017, I obtained postdoctoral fellowships from both the FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen) and the FNRS (Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique) to further develop my research on burnt skeletal remains. A year later, I started leading the CRUMBEL project (Cremation, Urns and Mobility: population dynamics in BELgium), funded through the Belgian Excellence of Science programme. Bringing together researchers from VUB, ULB and Ghent University, CRUMBEL investigates Belgian cremated bone collections ranging from the Neolithic to the Early Middle Ages to better understand funerary practices and population dynamics.

In 2021, I started my tenure track at VUB with the ERC Starting Grant LUMIERE (Landscape Use and Mobility In EuRopE – Bridging the gap between cremation and inhumation). This project expanded the analytical possibilities offered by charred and calcined bone and developed new approaches to reconstruct past population dynamics and human interactions with landscapes. Since 2025, I also lead LOCO (The Low Countries: Crossroads of Europe from the Neolithic to the Late Middle Ages) which investigates the movement of people, materials and ideas across the Low Countries over 7,000 years. Combining archaeology, history, geochemistry and digital humanities, the project explores this region as a long-term European crossroads.

My research is strongly collaborative and combines methodological development with archaeological applications. Through BB-LAB, I have built an interdisciplinary research environment bringing together researchers working across bioarchaeology, isotope analysis and archaeological science. I am involved in a wide range of national and international collaborations and projects, while, in association with the IsoArcH online and open access database, also contributing to the development of open and comparative datasets that improve the interpretation and reproducibility of bioarchaeological research.

Photo credit: Frédéric Raevens photography