ABSTRACT: The Odeion of Agrippa was among the first major Roman constructions in the city of Athens after years of spoliation. Despite an assemblage of "similar" buildings that the Romans constructed in the city, the Odeion of Agrippa stands out both spatially and architecturally. In 2024, I carried photogrammetric captures of the site to reconstruct how the building fit in the local topography and how it engaged in the surrounding architectural programming of the city. I argue that not only did Romans utilize architectural ornamentation to steer the city in a new direction, but they created a new space that enmeshed their own history with Athens' heroic past.

BIO: Luis Rodriguez-Perez is a 3rd year Ph.D. student at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. His research focuses on identity and architecture in early Roman Athens, applying 3D and other visualization methods.

ABSTRACT: This talk will investigate processes of urban dissolution, a phenomenon herein defined as the loss of the urban scale. In contrast to the robust body of archaeological literature on urban formation and urban maintenance, comparatively few analyses have targeted urban decline, particularly in an Aegean context, where the disappearance of urbanism has been presumed the byproduct of the collapse of the state. Positioned in opposition to these narratives, the talk examines the urban dissolution of Late Bronze Age Knossos. From the mid-18th to mid-15th centuries BCE, Knossos was the largest city in the Aegean, twice the size of the region’s other settlements. About 350 years later, it had lost three quarters of its urban fabric and dwindled to the size of a village. The talk analyzes how and why the loss of urbanism occurred, through study of material evidence recovered by over a century of archaeological exploration in the Knossos valley.

BIO: Alice Crowe is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Cincinnati and a B.A. from Boston University. Her research focuses on the archaeology of the Late Bronze Age Aegean, and centers especially on the site of Knossos, where she explores issues of memory, urbanism and its loss, and ceramic production and consumption. For this research, she has received support from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Archaeological Institute of America, and the University of Cincinnati University Research Council. Beyond ongoing projects at Knossos, she is publishing Late Bronze Age ceramic assemblages collected from the sites of Galatas and Tell Atchana, and by a regional survey of the Brauron area (ARTEMIS).

ABSTRACT: This panel presents the SEAALAB framework Archaeology Beyond the Trowel, which positions community engagement as a core practice and protocol in archaeology. Moving beyond research design, the approach insists on meaningful consultation, shared authorship, and transparency as foundational to ethical research. We confront questions archaeologists must grapple with: Who defines what counts as knowledge? Whose interpretations matter? What does consent look like beyond paperwork? The presentation reflects on the discipline’s entanglements with colonialism and extraction, and how these legacies continue to shape field practices and assumptions of authority. By foregrounding community priorities and co-developing research goals, SEAALAB challenges the notion that archaeologists are neutral stewards of the past. Instead, we offer a model for collaborative scholarship grounded in accountability, reciprocity, and respect for living communities whose histories are at stake. This framework is relevant not only for archaeology, but for any field-based discipline working with people and places.

BIO: The Southeast Asian Archaeology Laboratory (SEAALAB) at UCLA focuses on community-engaged research in the Philippines and broader Southeast Asia. The lab investigates culture contact, colonialism, and Indigenous responses through collaborative fieldwork. SEAALAB emphasizes ethical practice, local partnerships, and the integration of Indigenous knowledge in archaeological interpretation. Panelists: Maddie Yakal, Earl Hernandez, Mark Francisco, and Stephen Acabado

ABSTRACT: This talk explores the fieldwork experiences of undergraduate students participating in the Masis Blur Neolithic Archaeological Project in Armenia. As one of the region's earliest known farming settlements, Masis Blur offers a rich context for hands-on learning in archaeological excavation, analysis, and cultural heritage preservation. The presentation highlights student involvement in daily field operations, laboratory work, and engagement with the local and culture. Through firsthand accounts the talk underscores the value of experiential learning in shaping future archaeologists. But put simply, come, learn what we did last summer!

BIO: Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky is an assistant researcher at the Cotsen where she directs the Armenia Laboratory, and she has been the co-directing the Masis Blur Archaeological Project since 2012. Rosalyn Campbell is a bioarchaeologist and Egyptologist who has excavated through the Middle East, Africa, as well as Peru and North America. Chloe Gupta, Elizabeth Petrick, Eric Large, and Holland Fox are undergraduate students at UCLA. Chloe, Elizabeth, and Eric are also the founding members of the “risen from the ashes” Undergraduate Archaeology Club.