astronomy

Wil Roebroeks

Wil Roebroeks is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wil Roebroeks rather than just read about it. In short: Wil Roebroeks (born 5 May 1955) is the professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is widely considered to be the pre-eminent Dutch archaeologist.

Key takeaways

Wil Roebroeks belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wil Roebroeks to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wil Roebroeks from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wil Roebroeks (born 5 May 1955) is the professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is widely considered to be the pre-eminent Dutch archaeologist. In 2001 he became a member of the influential Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007 Roebroeks won the Spinozapremie, the most prestigious scientific award in the Netherlands.

Career Wil Roebroeks was born on 5 May 1955 in Sint Geertruid. He began his academic career as a history student at the Radboud University Nijmegen where he graduated cum laude in 1979. He then studied prehistory at Leiden University, graduating in 1982. In 1989 he obtained his PhD from the same university, again graduating cum laude. In 1991 he won the Eureka! prijs award for his popular science work Oermensen in Nederland. In 1996 he became a professor at Leiden University. In 2005 Roebroeks achieved international fame when challenging the Out of Africa theory in Nature. In another article in the same journal Roebroeks published on the discovery of stone tools in Great Britain, older than expected and contradicting the previously held belief that Northern Europe was settled much later than the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. In 2007 the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek awarded Roebroeks the Spinozapremie. The jury report highlighted his various original contributions to the study of human prehistory and called him the most prominent Dutch archaeologist nationally and internationally. In 2009 Roebroeks again made the international news with his work on Krijn, the first Dutch Neanderthal fossil. This discovery prompted him to argue for the founding of a North-Sea Institute to deal with the archaeological material found in that sea. In 2012 he published an article about the earliest ochre use of early Neandertals. The discovery was made at the Maastricht-Belvédère archaeological site which has an estimated age of 250.000 BP.

Publications Roebroeks has published in a number of academic journals including Current Anthropology, Nature and the Journal of Human Evolution. What follows is a selection of his most prominent publications:

Roebroeks, Wil (1990). Oermensen in Nederland: de archeologie van de oude steentijd [Prehistoric people in the Netherlands: the archeology of the ancient Stone Age] (in Dutch). Meulenhoff. ISBN 978-90-290-9659-1. OCLC 1136158425. Roebroeks, Wil; Conard, Nicholas J.; van Kolfschoten, Thijs; Dennell, R. W.; Dunnell, Robert C.; Gamble, Clive; Graves, Paul; Jacobs, Kenneth; Otte, Marcel; Roe, Derek; Svoboda, Jiri; Tuffreau, Alain; Voytek, Barbara A.; Wenban-Smith, Francis; Wymer, J. J. (1 December 1992). "Dense Forests, Cold Steppes, and the Palaeolithic Settlement of Northern Europe [and Comments and Replies]". Current Anthropology. 33 (5): 551–586. doi:10.1086/204113. S2CID 73534499. Roebroeks, Wil (1 June 1994). "Updating the Earliest Occupation of Europe". Current Anthropology. 35 (3): 301–305. doi:10.1086/204279. S2CID 144757434. Roebroeks, Wil; van Kolfschoten, Thijs (1996). The earliest occupation of Europe. European Science Foundation. ISBN 978-90-73368-06-4. OCLC 610987240. Corbey, Raymond; Roebroeks, Wil (2001). Studying Human Origins: Disciplinary History and Epistemology. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-5356-464-6. Dennell, Robin; Roebroeks, Wil (December 2005). "An Asian perspective on early human dispersal from Africa". Nature. 438 (7071): 1099–1104. Bibcode:2005Natur.438.1099D. doi:10.1038/nature04259. PMID 16371999. S2CID 4405913. Roebroeks, Wil (December 2005). "Life on the Costa del Cromer". Nature. 438 (7070): 921–922. Bibcode:2005Natur.438..921R. doi:10.1038/438921a. PMID 16355198. S2CID 4418867. Roebroeks, Wil (1 November 2008). "Time for the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe". Journal of Human Evolution. 55 (5): 918–926. Bibcode:2008JHumE..55..918R. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.08.008. PMID 18926558. Roebroeks, Wil; Villa, Paola (29 March 2011). "On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (13): 5209–5214. Bibcode:2011PNAS..108.5209R. doi:10.1073/pnas.1018116108. PMC 3069174. PMID 21402905. Roebroeks, Wil; Sier, Mark J.; Nielsen, Trine Kellberg; De Loecker, Dimitri; Parés, Josep Maria; Arps, Charles E. S.; Mücher, Herman J. (7 February 2012). "Use of red ochre by early Neandertals". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 109 (6): 1889–1894. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109.1889R. doi:10.1073/pnas.1112261109. PMC 3277516. PMID 22308348. Roebroeks, Wil; Soressi, Marie (7 June 2016). "Neandertals revised". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (23): 6372–6379. Bibcode:2016PNAS..113.6372R. doi:10.1073/pnas.1521269113. PMC 4988603. PMID 27274044.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wil Roebroeks

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wil Roebroeks claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wil Roebroeks before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wil Roebroeks ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wil Roebroeks

In research: Wil Roebroeks appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wil Roebroeks in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wil Roebroeks is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1955 births, 20th-century Dutch archaeologists, 21st-century Dutch archaeologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wil Roebroeks outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wil Roebroeks in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wil Roebroeks means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wil Roebroeks out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wil Roebroeks in simple terms?

Wil Roebroeks (born 5 May 1955) is the professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is widely considered to be the pre-eminent Dutch archaeologist.

Why does Wil Roebroeks matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wil Roebroeks?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wil Roebroeks.