Dr. Giorgio Buccellati, Research Professor and Director, Mesopotamian Lab, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
Dr. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati, Visiting Professor, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
Wednesday February 24th, 12:00pm (PT)

Urkesh was one of the first cities in history, dating back to the fourth millennium. It is, today, a large cultural hill, known as Tell Mozan, in northeastern Syria, an area ravaged by war.

The Mesopotamians  were already aware  of the history hidden in the tells which, even then, dotted the countryside. Here is a Sumerian text:

Where is Gilgameš, who, like (his ancestor) Ziusudra, sought  (eternal) life? Where are those great kings who came long before our own days? Above there are the houses where they dwelt, but it is below that there are the houses that last forever.

And here is a Babylonian text:

Go up any of the ancient tells and walk about see the skulls of people from ages past and from yesteryear: can you tell the difference?

Even the word for "tell" is still the same today as it was then. We may see here, four millennia ago, the beginning of community archaeology. It is the awareness of a life hidden in the ground where our roots sink deeply.

This will be both a personal tale and one about theory. Personal, because we want to share how we have  come gradually  to feel more and more the impact of what the question mark in the title of our talk implies. And yet theoretical, because we have always questioned this growing awareness of ours for conservation and heritage, trying to see why community archaeology  is in fact, as it must be, simply and purely "better" archaeology.

Register for this Cotsen Virtual Pizza Talk here! You will receive instructions on viewing the talk after registering. 

Dr. Glenn Wharton
Lore and Gerald Cunard Chair, UCLA/Getty Program in the Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
Wednesday February 10th, 12:00pm (PT)

The community-based conservation of the Kamehameha I sculpture on the island of Hawai’i shows how local residents can engage in negotiating the meaning of cultural heritage and affect how their past is represented. Professor Wharton will discuss his three-year collaboration with residents in a semi-rural Hawaiian community to research the material and social history of the sculpture, leading to a community decision about how to conserve it. The Kamehameha I sculpture was commissioned in 1878 to commemorate Captain Cook’s “discovery” of the Hawaiian Islands and promote a western style monarchy. Modeled in the image of a Roman emperor while wearing highly symbolic feathered garments, the figure has come to function as a spiritual, economic, educational, cultural, and political object. The participatory project aimed not only to conserve the painted brass sculpture, but also to enable a process of local control over narratives of the Native Hawaiian past. Wharton's ethnographic research reveals tensions that exist within the multicultural, post-plantation community, as local residents voiced notions of what it means to be Hawaiian and what stories should be told about the Native Hawaiian past.

Register for this Cotsen Virtual Pizza Talk here! You will receive instructions on viewing the talk after registering. 

Dr. Tiffany Fryer
Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton Society of Fellows, Princeton University
Wednesday January 27th, 12:00pm (PT)

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Dr. Tracie Mayfield, Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Southern California
Wednesday, December 2nd, 12:00pm - 1:00pm PT

During the nineteenth-century, Latin America was a hotbed of trade and commerce driven principally by extractive industries such as agriculture (principally sugar) and hardwood collection. Such ventures required large injections of capital into the creation and maintenance of productive landscapes as well as for hiring, housing, and feeding the workers who provided labor and management. This presentation will explore two such sites in Belize.  Lamanai, an inland site, which is located in what is now the Orange Walk District of northwestern Belize and San Pedro Town, which is located off the coast of Belize on Ambergris Caye. During the nineteenth-century British colonists established settlements at these sites: at Lamanai, to plant sugar cane and harvest logwood and mahogany and, on Ambergris Caye to cultivate a coconut plantation. Along with wild fauna, chicken, beef, and bottled, canned, or barreled products such as soda water, salted pork, and potted meat, the residents of nineteenth-century Lamanai and San Pedro Town were also active consumers of tobacco and bottled alcoholic beverages. In addition, earned labor money was used to purchase bottled medicines, health and hygiene products (e.g. chamber pots), and wearable objects such as buttons and boot heels. Here we compare and contrast these two contemporary sites, situated in very different landscapes, but both within the Latin American, British colonial-industrial complex. 





Register for this Cotsen Virtual Pizza Talk here! You will receive instructions on viewing the talk after registering.