Speaker: Dr. Jana Skrgulja, Visiting Scholar, UCLA

The aim of the lecture is twofold: on the one hand, to survey main archaeological sites in the area between the eastern Adriatic and the river Drava, where the remnants of the material culture ascribed to the Goths have come to light in the past hundred years or so, with particular emphasis on southern Pannonian region, as well as to present and analyze the types of artifacts found; on the other hand, to address the still ongoing debate about the relationship between material culture and ethnic identity based on the selected examples of artifacts attributed to the Goths (in opposition to the so-called ethnic ascription method). Building upon the post-processualist approach, lecture also intend to contextualize the material evidence in terms of possibilites offered by the artifacts to provide information about burial customs, social identity and gender status.

Speaker: Dr. Chin-hsin Liu, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cal State University, Northridge

A specialized craft industry in prehistory is often studied from perspectives such as social organization, labor and product distribution, and exchange network. While these angles indeed provide significant insight to the past, the biological impact of craft production on community members is a critical component offering a nuanced view on people’s lifeways. Pre-industrial metalworking is a biologically and environmentally demanding process that frequently involved arduous labor, landscape alteration, and waste management. In this talk, I use a cluster of metalworking sites in prehistoric central Thailand to illustrate how each stage of the metallurgical process can manifest into skeletally detectable markers (morphological and chemical), and how these markers can lead us to understand people’s actions as they faced the consequences of a long and intensive metallurgical tradition.

Speaker: Dr. Mohamed Ali, American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center

The Meroitic kingdom is an ancient kingdom in Nubia, located and flourished at the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara, in Sudan. Researchers, with no convincing evidence, have argued that tribal movements within the Meroitic territory and the Axumite invasion from the east (Ethiopia) caused the collapse of the Meroitic state. Here I consider the nature of the political economy in order to provide a better understanding of the collapse and the regeneration of the Meroitic state. I employ theoretical frameworks to the collapse of the Meroitic state, c. 350 B.C.-A.D.350, and regeneration during the Post Meroitic period (4th century to 7th century AD). I investigate how the nature and the manifestation of Meroitic sociopolitical power changes during and after the collapse of the Meroitic state.

Mortuary practices and settlement patterns studies are used here to determine changes in local identity and social roles that reflect the integration and/or lack of integration of the hinterlands in the Meroitic and Post Meroitic sociopolitical systems. I demonstrate that local elites on the east bank and east hinterland re-established a polity based in the old Meroitic settlements and redeployed Meroitic symbols to legitimize and reinforce their authority and power.

The locals on the west bank were not well integrated into the Meroitic sociopolitical system. They eventually became a real threat that impacted the Meroitic central power together with the Axumite threat from the east and the economic recession in the Mediterranean market. Elites on the west bank would have taken advantage of the weakness of the Meroitic central power and manipulated trade networks and formed local alliances that led to political and economic independence.

Speaker: Dr. Stratos Stylianidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Cultural heritage is our deep soul. It is the unique legacy for all societies worldwide, but at the same time our common responsibility. A value rewards humanity by providing the classical and universal principles. It provides the panhuman context of mutual understanding, respect, liberty and expression. The protection of cultural heritage is a matter for all and its recording and documentation a vital step towards preservation. The first part of this talk addresses the cultural heritage documentation context, the international framework on documentation by international charters and conventions, and the real needs that push organizations and people to operate in this process. Various sensors and platforms, both from image-based and range-based technology illuminate how scientific research and practice, transpose the real object to a 3D model. Commercial and open source tools for data processing, management and representation are presented likewise. The presentation of innovative mobile mapping systems enabling data capture and management for cultural heritage information of various scales, is closing this talk.