Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

Friday Seminar: "Snake Queens and Statecraft: Kaanul Women and their Political Legacies at Waka'"
2017-12-08 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Speaker: Dr. Olivia Navarro-Farr, College of WoosterRecent investigations in Waka’s primary civic-ceremonial structure discovered a royal tomb including the remains of Queen K’abel. These excavations also revealed the name of an earlier, previously unknown Kaanul queen, Ikoom Sak Wayis, likely pertaining to the interment of a royal female excavated at the site’s palace complex in 2004. This discussion focuses on the wide-ranging evidence that underscores the place of these queens in the collective social memory of ancient Wakeños, their diplomatic capabilities, and their political importance. This examination also serves to initiate conversations about increasing theoretical considerations of how women acted deliberately and meaningfully as agents of ancient statecraft.

Friday Seminar: "Destroying the Archive: Sex, Racism, Image and Contemporary Archaeology
2018-01-12 15:00 - 17:00
Speaker: Dr. Doug Bailey, Professor, Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State UniversityWhat happens when people attempt to discard and destroy a museum archive that contains many thousands of visual and material objects? In this workshop, we discuss the politics, potential, and violence of archive objects (specifically a cache of over 1200, 35-mm transparencies from the mid-late 20th century. What lives do they live? Are they passive and neutral objects resting peacefully in an institution’s collection? Are they active material things? If the latter, then what affect do they have, what energies and essences do they constitute, what is their present and their future, where should they go, and what should they do?

Vertical Archaeology, Horizontal Stratigraphy: A Century of LA Graffiti
2018-01-16 18:00 - 20:00
Willeke Wendrich, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, cordially invites Friends of Archaeology members to a special dinner and lecture on January 16, 2018 with Susan Parker, Academic Director, Pitzer in Ontario Program Associate Professor of Environmental Analysis Pitzer College, Claremont, CA. The reception will begin at 6:00pm and be followed by dinner at 6:45pm. This event is restricted to Friends of Archaeology. For more information about becoming a Friend, please visit our membership page.

Pizza Talk: "Macroscale multimodal imaging and spectroscopy reveals raw material selection and production technology of Fayum Portraits"
2018-01-17 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Ioanna Kakoulli, Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UCLAFayum portraits are paintings mainly on wooden support reflecting Greek painting traditions and Egyptian funerary practices. These paintings are naturalistic portraits of the deceased and provide a snapshot of Greek civic life and customs in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman rule. Non-invasive and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of these portraits from the macro to the molecular length scale using combined imaging and spectroscopic techniques supported label-free fingerprint identification of pigments and binding media revealing raw materials selection, production technology and the operational sequences (chaîne opératoire) of the processes associated with the making of the painting. Results from the analyses integrating hyperspectral cubes in reflectance luminescence and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and forensic imaging investigations combined with fiber-optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) and portable XRF, indicated the use of a variety of natural and synthetic organic, inorganic and composite pigments mixed with melted beeswax in ‘encaustic’ [εγκαυστική] painting technique. The significance of this research is twofold: 1) research has been conducted without the need to take any samples and 2) results from the analyses revealed key information on the fashion and practices in Egypt during the Greek and Roman period. For example, the production of the green pigment, a synthetic organic-inorganic complex, giving the green color to the ‘gemstones’ of the necklaces in women’s portraits, is similar to the processes in alchemical manuals of the third century AD, describing a method how to color rock-crystals green, in imitation of precious stones. Similarly, the pigment madder lake used to paint the red-purple garments in the portraits replicates technology employed for the production of mordanted dyes to tint yarns for the textile ‘industry’. These results further illustrate the close affinities and interconnections between the various ‘chemical arts’, such as mining, metallurgy, corrosion and dyeing, to the art of painting and how the cultural and socio-political milieu in Egypt during the Greek and Roman period, with philosophies driving experimentation, influenced material choices and processes involved for the production and use of pigments in art.

Friday Seminar: January 19, 2018
2018-01-19 15:00 - 17:00
This will be a series of two 30-minute lectures”Perception in Palatial Architecture: The Example of the Tupkish Palace at Tell Mozan” by Dr. Federico BuccellatiSpace, as an expression of the architectural volumes expressed in Mesopotamian palatial architecture, can seem an abstract, distant concept, visible but not understood, and lacking interaction. These volumes, however, carry a deeper meaning: they conditioned and were affected by the daily life of the individuals who used these spaces. The aim is to go beyond the factuality of the data, important though that is, and to recover, through arguable and documentable procedures, the human perception. This perceptual impact encompasses not only the sense of sight, but also sound, smell and touch. The archaeological record gives only partial evidence, as is always the case, but this is often enough to draw meaningful conclusions.”Architecture Between Bricks, Images and Words” by Dr. Maria Gabriella MicaleThe centrality of architecture in the Mesopotamian worldview is reflected in both myth and reality. The presented research is a study of form and function of architectural representation and description. It analyzes the representation of Assyrian architecture by means of an innovative theoretical approach, which identifies features and functions of the occurrence of architecture in both images and texts, also in the light of the broader Mesopotamian culture. Contrary to the traditional scientific approach to images, which considers them mere reproductions of the physical built space, the project aims at defining the role of the textual description of architecture in the construction of visual imagery, the relationship among the different traditions (architectural, iconographic, and textual), and the paths of their reciprocal influences.

Pizza Talk: "Achaemenid Stone Towers and Recent Excavations at Pasargadae, Iran"
2018-01-24 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Ali Mousavi, Lecturer, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLAThe World Heritage site of Pasargadae, in southern Iran, is the first dynastic center of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century B.C. Pasargadae’s palaces, gardens and the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great are outstanding examples of the first phase of royal Achaemenid art and architecture. The ruins of a solitary stone tower, known by the local name of Zendan-e Suleiman (prison of Solomon), dominates the Palace area at Pasargadae. The function of this tower and its counterpart at Naqsh-e Rustam, near Persepolis, has been the object of various studies. The towers, however, defy any convincing interpretation. The results of recent excavations at Pasargadae seem to shed some light on the function of these towers.

Critical Archaeological Gaming Workshop
2018-01-25 09:00 - 2018-01-26 18:00
This workshop focuses on the design of archaeological games that entice users to engage with archaeological skills, methods, questions and results. What are possible goals of such games, and how can these be reached through narratives, interactive mechanics and visual, aural and motive stimulants.Beyond providing exercises in archaeological approaches, can emergent gameplay have a significant heuristic function? If so, what are the requirements for availability and quality of data, player choice and player skill development?View the workshop program for details on the talks and activities. Guests are invited to join in-person or remotely view and participate in the workshop on Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/631730989Image credit: Screenshot from “Deadfall” https://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/06/its-a-global-archeological-adventure-i…PROGRAMThursday, January 2510.00-10.15 Willeke Wendrich — Welcome and purpose of the workshop10.15-11.00 Tara Copplestone — Rethinking Archaeology Through Game Design11.00-11.15 coffee break11.15-12.00 Erik Champion — The Sin of Completeness versus the Lure of Fantasy in Contested Possibility-Spaces12.00 – 1.00 Lunch Break1.00-1.45 Willeke Wendrich — Walking through Empty Buildings, Everybody Wears the Same Shoes1.45-2.30 Hannah Scates Kettler — Jumping into the Animus: Revisiting old video games to create new ones2.30-3.15 David Fredrick — Secrets in the Garden: Modeling Vulnerability and Information Exchange in the House of Octavius Quartio3.15-3.30 Coffee break4.15-5.00 Rosa Tamborrino — The sense of Time in Videogames: Fragments and Lack of Dynamics in Historical Environment ReconstructionsFriday, January 2610.00 – 12.00 Demonstrations in the Digital Archaeology Lab (Fowler A163)12.00 – 1.00 lunch break1.00- 3.00 Discussion: setting the agenda and follow up (Fowler A222)3.00 pm Friday Seminar: Panel Discussion on Critical Archaeological Gaming: Chris Johanson, Demetri Terzopoulos, Eddo Stern, Lisa Snyder4.00 pm Reception5.00 pm Public Lecture by David Fredrick Data Games: Cognitive Mapping in Ancient Pompeii

Friday Seminar: "Data Games: Cognitive Mapping in Ancient Pompeii"
2018-01-26 15:00 - 17:00
Speaker: Dr. David Fredrick, Associate Professor, Department of Classical Studies, University of Arkansas3:00pm — Panel Discussion on Critical Archaeological Gaming with Chris Johanson, Demetri Terzopoulos, Eddo Stern, and Lisa Snyder4:00pm — Reception5:00pm — David Fredrick Lecture: Data Games: Cognitive Mapping in Ancient Pompeii

Pizza Talk: "Interpreting the Idiom of Urban Display in Architectural Relief Sculpture at the late Roman Villa of Chiragan (Haute-Garonne, France)"
2018-01-31 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Sarah Beckmann, Visiting Lecturer, Department of Classics, UCLAOver the last generation, scholarly attention towards the production of sculpture in the late antique period (ca. 250 – 550 CE) has rekindled interest in the villa of Chiragan (Haute-Garonne, Aquitaine). Since its excavation in the 19th century, Chiragan has been heralded for its statuary collection, which remains the largest extant assemblage of marble sculptures securely associated with a private context. Among the finds are a number of late antique sculptures that were ostensibly made in eastern workshops: several portraits, small scale mythological statuettes, and multiple relief series. My paper focuses on this latter genre and suggests that these under-synthesized reliefs have much to add to our understanding both of the villa of Chiragan and the marble statuary habit of late Roman villas in southern Aquitaine.

UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Graduate Student Conference
2018-02-02 16:00 - 2018-02-03 18:00

Pizza Talk: "The Manufacture and Use of Metallurgical Ceramics at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico"
2018-02-07 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Meanwell, Lecturer, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, MITCopper and copper alloy artifacts were valued commodities at the Postclassic period (AD 1150-1500) Maya capital of Mayapán, and are found as a variety of luxury items, most commonly small ornamental bells. Due to the lack of ore deposits near Mayapán, metal must have been imported from elsewhere in Mesoamerica, entering as a raw material for shaping into desired objects or as already finished goods. As at other Maya sites, the assemblage of metal objects at Mayapán favors common commodities such as bells, tweezers, rings, and miniature axes, but the high frequency of casting errors and the unusual preference for miniaturized bells suggest local production of desired objects using re-cast metals. The past two decades of excavation at the site has unearthed a small but growing assemblage of ceramic fragments that seem to have served as remelting crucibles and as metallurgical molds for casting.Our ongoing analysis of an exported sample of metallurgical ceramics investigates the raw materials used in manufacture, the modes of production, and the parameters of their use. We investigate the metallurgical ceramics using a variety of analytical tools, specifically ceramic petrography, electron microscopy, and chemical analyses, to demonstrate that these ceramics were used in metallurgical activities and to gain insight into their production and functionality. These highly specialized ceramic materials seem to have been produced using specific raw materials and pastes required by the intense heat and reducing atmosphere required of metallurgical production. This investigation provides insight into the localized pyrotechnical solutions developed by Mayapán’s metallurgical specialists to meet the demands of high-temperature crafting activity.

Friday Seminar: "The Past, Present, and Future of Space Archaeology"
2018-02-09 15:00 - 17:00
Speaker: Dr. Justin Walsh, Associate Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Chapman UniversityThe archaeology of human activity in space has been conceptualized since the 1990’s. Early work included definition of the parameters of the field, identification of subject material and sites, development of methodologies, and integration of common terrestrial archaeology activities such as cultural resource management and heritage protection into space archaeology. More rarely, but no less significantly, there have been research projects carried out by academic archaeologists as part of efforts to push the envelope of “the possible” in archaeological practice.This lecture will begin by outlining the history of space archaeology to date and contextualizing it within developments in the field of contemporary archaeology more generally. The author will then describe how they are undertaking the first archaeological investigation of a permanent habitation site in space: the International Space Station. The ISS Archaeological Project (ISSAP; https://issarchaeology.org) is applying the latest technological tools, including machine learning and crowd sourcing techniques, to classifying data from millions of images depicting life on board the space station during the last 17 years. This information will be used to map patterns of astronaut presence and absence in various locations, and the associations between crew, objects, and spaces on ISS. The results will enable a better understanding of how a society and culture forms on a spacecraft, and improve life during long-duration missions.

Pizza Talk: "Burning Rings of Fire: Prehispanic Maya Lime Production and Environmental Resource Management"
2018-02-14 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Kenneth Seligson, Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, USCBurnt lime was one of the most significant materials in the daily lives of the Prehispanic Maya, and yet archaeologists have uncovered relatively little evidence of production methods or locales prior to the Spanish Conquest. This talk presents the investigation of a series of pit-kilns in and around the Prehispanic site of Kiuic in the Puuc Region of the northern Maya Lowlands and highlights the multiple lines of evidence that identify these structures as lime production features. This sub-regional pit-kiln technology has implications for understanding resource management practices and the socio-economic organization of a significant Prehispanic Maya industry.

Pizza Talk: "Worked Animal Objects in Iron Age Greece"
2018-02-21 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Adam DiBattista, PhD Candidate, The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLAThe early Iron Age was a time of profound social change in Greece in which new ideas about materials like bone and ivory develop. At the same time, textual and iconographic evidence speaks to the importance of animals and animal sacrifice in the Greek world. As the remnants of living animals, objects made from tooth or bone carry special potential for the creation and negotiation of meaning. Beginning in the Early Iron Age, these objects are frequently deposited in votive contexts where they function as a novel form of social behavior and organization based around sanctuary sites. Analysis of the technical aspects of worked animal object production helps reveal the attitudes of producers towards the materials. Additionally, contextual studies of worked animal objects reveal patterns of use and deposition of these objects.

Friday Seminar: "Khok Thlok, Cosmology, and Angkor as a Hydraulic City"
2018-02-23 15:00 - 17:00
Speaker: Dr. Miriam Stark, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’iThe Mekong Basin that Angkorian Khmers inhabited was a watery world. Annual monsoon rains dictated their farming and shaped their mobility, and short-term droughts that followed each year’s rainy season drove Khmers to dig household ponds and temple reservoirs. Chinese, Khmer and Cham histories include a Khmer origin story in which a foreign ruler conquers and marries a local serpent princess, and the bride’s father drains the local waters to create farmland for his daughter’s new dynasty. Environmental studies suggest that increasingly severe floods challenged Angkor’s urban engineers, and the decades-long droughts that followed pushed farmers on the Angkor Plain to their limits. Angkorian life revolved around water, and so did the life of its capital, but not simply in response to climate. Water has been intrinsic to Angkorian cosmology since the beginning of Khmer recorded history: simultaneously salubrious, secular and sacred. Water frames my presentation on Angkorian archaeology, which begins with the Khok Thlok origin story, examines the cosmology of water in Angkorian Cambodia, and problematizes Angkor, which BP Groslier described as his “hydraulic city”: from the household level to the urban scale. Archaeological and environmental research offer rich, and occasionally, competing perspectives on how water shaped 9th-15th century Khmers.

Celebrations of Life: Gedenkschrift Symposium in Memory of Lloyd Cotsen
2018-02-25 09:00 - 20:00

Pizza Talk: "Moving Agriculture onto the Roof of the World"
2018-02-28 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Jade d’Alpoim Guedes, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, UC San DiegoResearch on agriculture’s spread in East Asia has followed an underlying assumption: that farming produced equally reliable returns across the vast expanse of territories into which it spread and always placed farmers at a demographic advantage. Significant ecological barriers to growing crops on the Tibetan Plateau meant that the opposite was true. Using ecological niche modeling to illuminate how foragers and farmers interacted in environments marginal to crop cultivation, this paper demonstrates that the higher elevation reaches of the “third pole” constituted a barrier for expanding millet farmers. In these areas foragers maintained a competitive advantage. Following the end of the climatic optimum, decreasing temperatures effectively ended millet farmer’s expansion. It was only following the introduction of a suite of new crops and animals that the Tibetan economy as we know it today was able to flourish, but also that pastoralists and farmers finally began to truly encroach on forager territory.

Pizza Talk: "The Ancient Methone Archaeological Project: 2014-2017"
2018-03-07 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. John Papadopoulos, Professor, Department of Classics, UCLAThe final season of fieldwork on the Ancient Methone Archaeological Project—a collaboration of Greek Ministry of Culture and UCLA under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens—was concluded in the summer of 2017. This presentation is an overview of our fieldwork at the site during the 2014-2017 seasons, and incorporates earlier fieldwork by our Greek colleagues beginning in 2003.

Friday Seminar: "Island Kingdoms of Ancient Hawai'i"
2018-03-09 15:00 - 17:00
Speaker: Dr. Mark McCoy, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist UniversityThe archaic form of state society evolved independently at least six times in prehistory – in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, the Indus Valley, Mesoamerica, and coastal Peru – and marks a turning point that was fundamental to the creation of modern society. New research suggests another, much more recent, example of the formation of archaic states occurred in the Hawaiian Islands. Located in the North Pacific, the archipelago of islands that make up the Hawaiian chain are so naturally isolated that they remained undiscovered by people until Polynesian voyagers established a new settlement there around AD 1000. By the time of first contact with Europeans, 800 years later, it was home to hundreds of thousands of people governed by independent kingdoms. How did this occur, and what does it tell us about the moment in history when chiefs became kings? In this lecture, I will draw upon nearly twenty years of field research in Hawai‘i and outline what we currently know about the creation of these island kingdoms through archaeology and local oral histories, with the goal of explaining why society transformed and what these changes tell us about the larger course of human prehistory.

Archaeology & Anthropology Film Festival
2018-03-13 16:00 - 19:30
Please see the flyer below for the upcoming UCLA Archaeology & Anthropology Film Festival. This will take place on Tuesday, March 13 from 4:00—7:30pm in the UCLA CNSI Auditorium.Please RSVP here no later thanTuesday, March 6 at 12pm.

Pizza Talk: "Performance and Politics in Hittite Anatolia"
2018-03-14 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Michael Moore, PhD Candidate, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLAVirtually all studies of Hittite festivals have focused on philological issues and the cultural and religious background of the festivals (Hattic, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, or Mesopotamian). Studies of the roles of the participants, the political ramifications of festivals, the sensorial experience of participants, and other aspects of Hittite festivals remain unexamined. Taking the festival celebrations and sacred landscape of the Hittite capital of Hattusa as its points of departure, this talk examines the sociopolitical aspects of Hittite festivals and how spectacle was used to display and contest power in the Hittite court.

Himalayan Wonders Unearthed
2018-04-02 17:00 - 19:30
Himalayan Wonders Unearthed30 Years of Discoveries in India and TibetFor thirty years, Peter van Ham has been researching regions in the Himalayas that had been closed for research for over half a decade. His major research focus is the life and achievements of one of Tibet’s greatest masters – Lotsava Rinchen Sangpo, the ‘Great Translator’ from the eleventh century CE. The few surviving religious establishments founded under his aegis are the oldest temple sites of the entire TIbetan cultural realm. Their works of art, mostly preserved in their original state, are of great importance not only for TIbetan culture but also for India, Central and even Middle Asia, revealing influences reaching as far as the Mediterranean. Supported by H.H., the Dalai Lama, the Archaeological Survey of India, and the UNESCO, van Ham has made important art historical and archaeological discoveries and was the first to document these unique sites that for centuries eluded public attention. The event was livestreamed and the recording is available below.
April 2nd, 2018, 5:00 – 7:30pmLecture and Reception at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) Auditorium at UCLA570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095Parking available at Lot 9Click here to RSVP by March 23rd, 2018

Visit to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
2018-04-07 10:00
Dr. John Jonson, Curator of Anthropology, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, will meet us at the museum and discuss Native American artifacts in their collection. An excursion to the Chumash Painted Cave is also planned to be included.For more information about becoming a Friend, please visit our membership page.

Pizza Talk: "Construction, Use and Repair: Late Neolithic Pottery from Southeastern Albania"
2018-04-11 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Gazmend Elezi, Ph.D. Candidate, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLAThe large amount of ceramic sherds in archaeological contexts and the variety of ceramic wares, shapes and dimensions during the Late Neolithic period in the Balkans is an indication that pottery was involved in many social activities. As such, it is among the best proxies to understand the daily life of Neolithic communities. In this paper, I am going to present the first preliminary results of a multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach of the Late Neolithic pottery from the Korçë region in SE Albania. In order to investigate the sociocultural dimensions of the pottery, I have used a number of methods including typological and stylistic classification, ceramic petrography, X-ray analysis, and residue analysis. The first results of this study show that, although there are significant similarities between different sites, there are also technological, stylistic, and functional differences that characterize the ceramic assemblage of each settlement. The variety of pottery is also evident within each site, while there are some indications for sharing technologies between different media. The potters have used different clay sources or recipes for manufacturing their vessels, while a number of techniques were used for finishing and elaborating their surfaces. Ceramic vessels were also involved directly or indirectly in the extended exchange networks developed in the area during this period. Moreover, some of the ceramic containers seem to have an additional social value that probably was not related to their function as their life was extended by repairing them.

How Many People Does it Take to Understand a Maya Pot?
2018-04-17 18:00 - 20:00
Willeke Wendrich, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, cordially invites Friends of Archaeology members to a special dinner and lecture on April 17, 2018 with Drs. Megan O’Neill, Associate Curator in the Art of the Ancient Americas, LACMA and Laura Maccarelli, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation Science, LACMA. The reception will begin at 6:00pm and be followed by dinner at 6:45pm. This event is restricted to Friends of Archaeology. For more information about becoming a Friend, please visit our membership page.

Pizza Talk: "The Bronze Age Cargo of the Cape Gelidonya Shipwreck: New Data on Maritime Trade and Metal Production in the Mediterranean"
2018-04-18 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Joseph (Seppi) Lehner, Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of SydneyThe ship that sank at Cape Gelidonya (Turkey) ca. 1200 BC is one of only three known wrecks dating to the Late Bronze Age, though this was an era of intensive overseas exchange in the Mediterranean. It was also one in which metals had an importance like that of oil today, and the cargo found on the seabed at Cape Gelidonya consists primarily of copper and tin in the form of ingots and ingot fragments, along with broken bronze tools intended to be remelted and refashioned into useful implements. The ship likely belonged to a tinker traveling a circuit along the coasts of Cyprus, Syria, and southern Anatolia.The shipwreck was among the first to be scientifically excavated, when in 1960 George Bass announced to the world the exciting discoveries he made. Newer discoveries at Cape Gelidonya have now shed new light onto this important site, and cutting-edge scientific analyses of the cargo now gives us brand new insight into Bronze Age technologies and trade networks. Even more, we get a view into the life of a maritime metal at the end of the Bronze Age when the famous civilizations and empires of the Mediterranean and Near East experienced significant upheaval. Here Dr. Lehner presents the Cape Gelidonya shipwreck in its cultural and historical context, revealing how maritime cultures and trade in this crucial time period functioned and what new problems now emerge in the study of ancient societies in this dynamic region.

The Iron Age of Europe (800-50 BC) in a Eurasian context
2018-04-19 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Peter Wells, Professor of Anthropology, University of Minnesota

Persian and Greek Participation in the making of China's First Empire
2018-04-22 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker: Professor Duan Qingbo, Northwest University School of Cultural Heritage, Xi’an.Followed by a concert of Chinese and Persian music by UCLA faculty, Li Qi and Amir Pourjavady.Terra-cotta warriors, bronze chariots and horses are among the iconic artifacts associated with China’s first imperial dynasty, the Qin (221-206 BCE). Chinese archaeologist Duan Qinbo shares new evidence that suggests the material culture and social governance of the Qin may not be solely indigenous Chinese, but may also have come to China along Central Asian trade routes. *Presented by the UCLA Fowler Museum, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Department of Ethnomusicology, Boethius Initiative, Center for Chinese Studies, Confucius Institute, and Pourdavoud Center for Study of the Iranian World.

Friday Seminar: "A Critique of Archaeological Reason"
2018-04-27 15:00 - 16:00
Speaker: Dr. Giorgio Buccellati, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLAThe recent publication of a book on theory (same title as this talk, Cambridge 2017), has its roots in a long and intense confrontation with the experience of field work, which began for me in Iraq and Turkey in the ’60s: it was a very practical experience which elicited, by contrast, a strong interest in theory. It was also the beginning of the digital era, which we marked with the introduction of a bulky pre-PC computer to Terqa in 1978, the first of its kind in Syro-Mesopotamia: such an early start, too, conditioned my subsequent work in this area, with an emphasis on modes of thinking beyond technology per se. Starting from these conditioning factors, I will outline the basic points of the book, as defined in the subtitle: structural, digital and philosophical aspects of the excavated record. I will then describe the structure and goals of the accompanying website, with an invitation to collaborate in its continued operation.

Pizza Talk: "Community Archaeology from Below: Major New Developments from Tell Mozan in Syria"
2018-05-02 12:00 - 13:00
Speakers: Dr. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati & Dr. Giorgio Buccellati, UCLADuring the last seven years when war has raged in Syria, foreign archaeological projects have come to an almost total standstill. But then, the question arises: what were the presuppositions that, instead of allowing archaeology to disappear or, worse, to be kidnapped by a violent iconoclastic fundamentalism, could have given archaeology an impetus in fostering stronger group identity precisely at a moment of crisis? Our talk will answer this question with reference to the site of ancient Urkesh, where we have had been excavating since 1984. We talked about it already on other occasions, but innovative projects have been burgeoning at a steady rhythm around this site. We will talk about these various new activities, and draw some conclusions about the nature of community archaeology as we have experienced it in ways that were unimaginable only a few years back: it is truly community archaeology “from below,” where the “below” includes all of us, the community of archaeologists alongside the many other communities that find themselves nurtured by the distant past embedded in their territory.
