Prof Christophe Snoeck

Key Research Interests
• Bioarchaeology
• Cremation
• Radiocarbon dating
• Isotope analyses (H, C, N, O, S, Sr)
• Biologically available strontium
• Funerary rituals
I am a Research Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the head of the Brussels Bioarchaeology Lab (BB-LAB). In my research, I combine my multi-disciplinary expertise in archaeology and isotope geochemistry to answer key archaeological questions. 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. I then came back to Belgium as a post-doctoral researcher at the VUB. In 2017 I obtained a post-doctoral fellowship from both the FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen) and the FNRS (Fond de Recherche Scientifique de la Belgique) to expand my research on the isotopic study of burnt human remains.
Since January 2018, I am also the Scientific Coordinator of the CRUMBEL project - Cremation, Urns and Mobility: population dynamics in BELgium - funded by the Belgian Excellence of Science program (EoS). Bringing together researchers from three Belgium universities (VUB, ULB and UGent), this project studies the collections of Belgian cremated bone dating from the Neolithic to the Early Middle Ages to provide insights on funerary practices, migration and mobility patterns of past Belgian populations. On 1st February 2021, with the start of the ERC Starting Grant LUMIERE , I also start my tenure track as a Research Professor at the VUB. The LUMIERE projects aims to develop new proxies for the study of charred and calcined bone to answer questions of mobility and landscape use at the European Level.
Trough a wide range of national and international collaborations, and in association with the IsoArcH online and open access database, I am also developing a map of the biologically available strontium for Europe based mostly on modern plant samples.
Background
MEng Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences 2010, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
MSc Archeological Science 2011, University of Oxford, UK
DPhil Arcaeological Science 2015, Unviersity of Oxford, UK
Background
MEng Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences 2010, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
MSc Archeological Science 2011, University of Oxford, UK
DPhil Arcaeological Science 2015, Unviersity of Oxford, UK
Main Publications
Snoeck C., Pouncett J., Claeys Ph., Goderis S., Mattielli N., Parker Pearson M., Willis C., Zazzo A., Lee-Thorp J.A. & Schulting R.J. 2018. Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales. Scientific Reports, 8:10790
Snoeck C., Pouncett J., Ramsey G., Meighan I., Mattielli N., Goderis S., Lee-Thorp J.A. & Schulting R.J. 2016. Mobility during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Northern Ireland explored using strontium isotope analysis of cremated human bone. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 160(3):397–413
Snoeck C., Schulting R.J., Lee-Thorp J.A., de Jong J., Debouge W. & Mattielli N. 2015. Calcined bone provides a reliable substrate for strontium isotope ratios as shown by an enrichment experiment. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 29:107–114