Van Dommelen was born in the Netherlands and took part in his first excavation while in high school.[3] He studied classics and archaeologyatLeiden University in the Netherlands. He graduated with two Master of Arts (MA) degrees in 1990, and completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1998.[2] His doctoral thesis was titled "On colonial grounds. A comparative study of colonialism and rural settlement in first millennium BC west central Sardinia".[4]
From 1993 to 1997, during his doctoral studies, van Dommelen was a graduate research assistant in the Department of Archaeology at Leiden University. In 1997, he moved to the University of Glasgow, Scotland, where he had been appointed a lecturer in archaeology. He was promoted to senior lecturer in 2005 and appointed Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology in 2008.[2]
Van Dommelen, Peter (1998). On colonial grounds: a comparative study of colonialism and rural settlement in first millennium BC west central Sardinia. Leiden: University of Leiden. ISBN978-9076368023.
Van Dommelen, Peter; Gómez Bellard, Carlos (2008). Rural landscapes of the Punic world. London: Equinox. ISBN978-1845532703.
Rowlands, Michael; Van Dommelen, Peter (2013). Material culture and postcolonial theory. Routledge. ISBN978-0415247283.
Van Dommelen, Peter; Knapp, A. Bernard, eds. (2010). Material connections in the ancient Mediterranean: mobility, materiality, and Mediterranean identities. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN978-0415586689.
Knapp, A. Bernard; van Dommelen, Peter, eds. (2015). The Cambridge prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0521766883.