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Archaeology Program News

Although the quiet of the summer months is savored by all who are left in the A level of Fowler, the fall brings its rewards by welcoming back the returning students and faculty and greeting the new members of UCLA's archaeological community. This year we welcome three students to the Archaeology Program.

Jamie Aprile received her B.A. from Indiana University, and the chair of her committee will be Professor Sarah Morris. Jamie's area of interest is in applying anthropological theories and principles to the study of prehistoric Greece, especially the Bronze Age Aegean. She is currently studying Late Bronze Age state development in Mycenaean polities. She also has an interest in archaeology's role in the modern social context.

Jennifer Carey graduated from the University of Miami and the Post-Baccalaureate Program in Classics at UCLA. Jennifer spent the 2001 field season at the Horace's Villa project, which is a site just outside of Rome, working with Professor Bernard Frischer, Department of Classics. She will continue her studies on Imperial Rome, eventually focusing her research on the Flavian Emperors. Her advisor will be Professor Susan Downey.

Davide Zori comes from the University of Florida, with an interest in Medieval archaeology, specifically Viking Age Scandinavia. He has been researching the aspects of societal change as it is represented in the archaeological record. He has focused on fortresses of the Viking Age and their relationship to state formation, but he is currently engaged in an ongoing excavation of a tenth- to eleventh-century burial ground in southwest Iceland, which includes both a heathen cremation and Christian inhumations. His committee chair is Professor Jesse Byock.

We are proud to announce the accomplishments of our continuing students. Pochan Chen and Aleksander Borejsza advanced to candidacy and received their C.Phil. degrees. In the spring, the Archaeology Program also had three new Ph.D. recipients: Gwen Bennett, Maura Heyn, and Michael Hilton. Mike Hilton's dissertation title is "Evaluating Site Formation Processes at a Higher Resolution: An Archaeological Case Study in Alaska Using Micromorphology and Experimental Techniques." Maura Heyn's topic is "Social Relations and Material Culture Patterning: A Juxtaposition of East and West." Gwen Bennett's dissertation title is "The Organization of Lithic Tool Production During the Longshan Period (ca. 2600­2000 BC) in Southeastern Shangdong Province, China." The diversity of these topics is a true expression of the interdisciplinary nature of the Archaeology Program.

Berenike featured in national news

The research of Willeke Wendrich, Assistant Professor of Egyptian Archaeology, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA, and her colleague S.E. Sidebotham, University of Delaware, at the Egyptian site of Berenike was featured in the New York Times in an article entitled "Dig Shows Ancient Trade With India." More information is available from the website http://www.archbase.com/berenike.

A Whalebone in Early Athens

Discovered in 1934, the strange bone fragment (shown above) found in a ninth century BC well shaft in central Athens in the area that was to become the Agora, or civic center of the city, has finally been identified as being a fragment of a scapula of a fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), the second largest creature on earth.

Deriving from the carcass of an immature beached whale, the bone was brought to Athens and was used as a cutting surface before being discarded around 850 BC. The context and function of this extraordinary artifact will be discussed in an article by Dr. John Papadopoulos, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at UCLA, and Deborah Ruscillo scheduled in the American Journal of Archaeology.


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