Walter Cruells is an archaeologist in the Prehistory Department from the Autonomous University of Barcelona specialising in the Neolithic period in Catalonia where he has conducted several major research projects, Since 1990 he has been working on Near Eastern Pottery Neolithic archaeological sites of the 7th–6th millennium cal BC in Syria and Turkey.
Inna Mateiciucová is a Czech archaeologist and Assistant Professor in Archaeology at the Masaryk University in Brno where she is the founder and, since 2009, the head of the Centre of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East PANE of the Department of Archaeology and Museology. She has long-standing research interests in the topic of Neolithization, the study of lithics, the Near Eastern Neolithic as well as contact and communication processes in prehistory.
Olivier Nieuwenhuyse was a Dutch archaeologist affiliated with Leiden University, which has a long tradition of archaeological prehistoric research in the ancient Near East. He had conducted fieldwork in Lebanon, Turkey and Syria, and was most recently active in northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan). He was published extensively, including several monographs. The prehistoric ceramic traditions of the Middle East were his specialty. He was also active in international efforts to safeguard endangered archaeological heritage in Syria and Iraq. Sadly, Dr. Nieuwenhuyse passed away in 2020.
