Past Events
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Alexis Boutin, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Sonoma State University
Since 2008, the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project has been studying and publishing the materials from Peter B. Cornwall’s 1940-41 expedition to Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia, which now reside in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. This multi-disciplinary team is adding to anthropologists’ understanding of how life was experienced and death commemorated in ancient Dilmun (ca. 2050-1800 BCE). In this talk, Dr. Boutin will explore how human skeletal remains and associated grave goods can reveal transformations in identity (e.g., gender, age, and physical ability) across the life course. She will also explain how experimenting with alternative modes of interpretation can improve bioarchaeological praxis and communicate effectively and accessibly with diverse audiences.
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Speaker:
Travis Stanton, Associate Professor, UC Riverside
Note: this Pizza Talk has been cancelled.
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Speaker:
Ian Morris, Stanford University
Note: this Friday Seminar has been cancelled.
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Speaker:
Erik Gjesfjeld, Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA
Human populations in the past and present have shown a remarkable ability to inhabit diverse and unpredictable environments. This research explores how archaeological remains can examine the use of risk-reducing strategies, such as social networking and technological innovation, in the remote Kuril Islands of Northeast Asia. Results from this research suggest that social safety nets may be an important mechanism for mitigating the effects of environmental unpredictability and that populations tend to become more technologically conservative in unpredictable landscapes. These findings help to highlight some of the misconceptions surrounding the concept of risk and support the future analysis of risk-reducing adaptations using material culture.
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Speaker:
Dr. Ian Hodder, Stanford University
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Speaker:
Ioannis Mylonopoulos, Associate Professor, Columbia University
Since 2014, Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archaeology has conducted excavations and geophysical survey at the sanctuary of Poseidon in Onchestos, the seat of the Boeotian Confederacy and a major sacred site of Central Greece, under the auspices of the Athens Archaeological Society. Excavation focuses on two large areas between Thebes and Haliartos, where geomagnetic survey also provided much information on subsurface architectural remains. The excavation has already yielded a rich array of finds: vases and vase-fragments (several bearing graffiti), numerous bronze objects (including several strigils), bronze and silver coins, weapons (among them a fully preserved sword), objects associated with horse- and chariot races, and many architectural elements (including several architectural terracotas bearing floral and abstract decoration in black, white, and red color on a beige background)
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Speaker:
Dr. Caroline von Nicolai, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich
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Speaker:
Mark Lawall, University of Manitoba
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Speaker:
Sara Becker, Assistant Professor, UC Riverside
There are a number of approaches in understanding how human civilizations evolved into complex, state-level societies. Labor organization as part of resource management is one way to distinguish these changes and bioarchaeology provides a unique opportunity to study the remains of the actual people who worked within these communities. This research addresses labor organization and distribution within Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100), one of the earliest Andean states in South America. This study examines the impact that state formation had on patterns of human labor observable on the bones of people who lived during the Tiwanaku state. State structure and social organization were evaluated through temporal and spatial labor changes associated with the activity of individuals, in order to provide a comparative framework of specic skeletal evidence to the extant archaeological record. Also, by examining the age and sex of these laborers, peoples’ gender roles or status dierences within this emerging state can be discussed. This investigation answers questions about what tasks people were doing within Tiwanaku, how the state was organized, as well as highlights the importance of reciprocal communal labor networks in order for a complex Andean society to function successfully
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Speaker:
Michelle Hegmon, Arizona State University
The Archaeology of the Human Experience (AHE) is a new initiative concerned with understanding what it was actually like to live in the past that archaeologists study (Hegmon 2013, 2016). I will begin the talk by explaining the origins and goals of AHE. Then, I will describe, in some depth, several examples of AHE
research. One explores how people in the ancient US Southwest were able recreate their society, moving from difficult and violent times to a more prosperous and peaceful way of life. Another considers how people’s labor changed as they became incorporated into the Inka Empire. And a third draws on studies of Nazi labor camps to ask whether and how we can know the suffering of others. The talk concludes with future directions of AHE, including ideas for experiential archaeology and historical/comparative perspectives.
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