Speaker: Ben Nigra, PhD Candidate, UCLA

'Paracas’ refers to a polychromatic fine-ware tradition, a canon of architectural elements, a set of specific mortuary practices, and a rich textile tradition associated with Peru's southern coast during the first millennium BCE. Despite decades of research dedicated to Paracas 'art', craft goods and iconography, south coast archaeologists struggle to understand the basic sociopolitical character of Paracas and the social and material conditions that drove its development through time. Excavations at Huaca Soto (2014-2015) re-calibrate this narrative by examining the evolution of monumental ceremonial architecture in the Chincha Valley. Our investigation further suggests that Paracas platform mounds became widely recognized as huacas, or sacred spaces, that garnered attention from later Wari, Chincha and Inca groups. Huaca Soto thus provides a case study on the appearance and evolution of coastal monuments in the long-term - spanning the first millennium BCE to today.  

Speaker: Rachel Moy, PhD Candidate, UCLA

This talk will summarize the preliminary results of the first season of excavation and research of the UCLA Shire Project at the site of Mai Adrasha in the northwestern Ethiopian highlands. I will discuss how Mai Adrasha fits into what we know of a larger pre-Aksumite to Early Aksumite cultural and political context. Due to how few excavated sites date to these periods, research needs to start with basic descriptions before we can make any firm broader conclusions. My dissertation will focus on the ceramic data from Mai Adrasha. I plan to start with the raw data to create four typologies each with a different method. I will then compare the four typologies taking into account the strengths and weakness of each. From these results, I will develop a more robust method to describe the ceramic data, and from this base, we can begin to describe more broadly the site of Mai Adrasha, its surroundings, and its broader cultural and political context.      

Speaker: Dr. Marriana Nikolaidou, UCLA

Marianna Nikolaidou holds a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Thessaloniki in Greece, and is a research associate at the Cotsen Institute since 1994. Her research and fieldwork focus on the Neolithic and Bronze Ages of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. She has published extensively on gender issues, symbolism and ritual, ceramic iconography and technology, adornment, and the history of archaeology. Projects with the  Cotsen include: the publication of  ornaments and ceramics from Sitagroi, study of ceramic technology  at Tell Mozan in Syria, and currently the analysis and study of prehistoric pottery at the excavations at Ancient Methone. 

The pottery from Methone is the topic of her talk. Dating to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, the material illuminates three millennia of prehistoric occupation at this key site  on the Northern Aegean coast, and provides insights to the prehistory of the region."

Speaker: Merrick Posnansky, UCLA Professor Emeritus

Black Lives Matter has been a contentious political and Social concern in recent years but most of the heat has concerned the present situation of Police violence on Black youth in the USA. My own concern is with the general decrease of interest in the lives of poorly documented Blacks before the 1960's. Archaeology has been the key for understanding much of the nature of the transplantation and acculturation of Africans in the New World. This presentation seeks to review the history of and growth of African American archaeology from the 1940's when it was realized that much of African culture and behavior survived the Atlantic Slave Trade. UCLA doctoral research has been in the forefront of American research and has covered plantation societies in the Caribbean and Louisiana, the nature of free maroon societies in remote parts of the Caribbean and South America, the nature of free African life in both the Caribbean and the United States and the excavation of landmark sites such as the Harriet Tubman house. Though reference will be made to current research,  including biogenetic studies and the extension of Diasporan archaeology to both maroon (runaway slaves) societies in the New World and to the West African points of departure, the talk seeks to emphasize that more work urgently needs to be done in Africa American Archaeology. It is vital that African American  archaeology, as well as the archaeology of other American minorities, be integrated into University courses both in Anthropology and History courses dealing with the early histories of peoples in North America.