Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

PIZZA TALK: The fabric of the sea – sail manufacture in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean
2020-03-04 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
SPEAKER: Dr. Caroline SauvageAssociate ProfessorLoyola Marymount UniversityBellarmine College of Liberal ArtsABSTRACT:Sails were one of the most important fitting of Late Bronze Age ships, and yet, they are understudied because of the lack of archaeological remains. Although iconography has been largely scrutinized to gain knowledge concerning the shape of sails, their use and their riggings, sail manufacture has not yet been investigated properly. Tools for the production of textiles attest to their diverse forms and places of production, as well as to the types and dimensions of fabrics being produced, and the types of fibers being used. This talk proposes to address the question of sail manufacture throughout the eastern Mediterranean by studying textile tools within their archaeological coastal contexts, by exploring the necessary resources, skills and labor time, as well as by looking at ancient texts from the Aegean, the Levant and Egypt. We will include data from experimental archaeology used in maritime archaeology and in textile research in order to assess the logistics of sail production in the Late Bronze Mediterranean.

Taking To The Water: New Evidence And New Debates About The Earliest Seafaring In The World
2020-03-01 14:00 - 16:00
SPEAKER:John Cherry Professor of Archaeology and ClassicsJoukowsky Institute, Brown UniversityABSTRACT:Until quite recently, archaeologists have supposed that the seas and oceans represented a barrier to human dispersal, and that islands were among the last places on earth to be colonized by people, only fairly recently, as part of the worldwide spread of modern humans. But is that picture still correct? Startling new data have come to light just in the last few years, in parts of the Mediterranean and in island Southeast Asia, that have been claimed as evidence for a far longer antiquity for seafaring, reaching back hundreds of thousands, and perhaps as much as a million years. Naturally, these claims have attracted widespread attention and much discussion — and not only among archaeologists. This lecture outlines what we know, with reasonable certainty, about patterns of global maritime dispersal in the past few tens of thousands of years, before turning to present the new evidence and its strengths and weaknesses. In trying to understand it, we will need to consider information (amongst other things) from ethnographic analogy, experimental seafaring, and our current knowledge of the relative configurations of land and sea over the course of the Pleistocene era. Some of the bold assertions made in the past few years require more supporting data before they can be accepted. That cautious conclusion does not detract from the excitement and importance of this fast-moving field of research in archaeology. Contact Aaron A. Burke (aaburke@ucla.edu) for more information.

PIZZA TALK: Lord of the Rings: Archaeology in Shire, Ethiopia
2020-02-26 12:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:Dr. Willeke WendrichProfessorDept. of Near Eastern Language and CulturesUCLAABSTRACT:After five years of work in Ethiopia the UCLA Shire Archaeological Project has established close collaborations with four Ethiopian universities, national, regional and local offices and the population living around the site of Mai Adrasha. In December 2019 this culminated in a workshop to discuss the future of the archaeological site of Mai Adrasha. I will discuss the results of the excavations and survey in the tension field of different ideas and interests in both the past and the future.

PIZZA TALK: Three Thousand Years of the Cultural and Natural Legacy in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala
2020-02-19 00:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:Dr. Richard HansenAdjunct ProfessorDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of UtahABSTRACT:Excavations over four decades in the Mirador Basin have revealed perspectives of the origins, dynamics, and demographic collapse of the Preclassic Maya societies that flourished in northern Guatemala and southern Campeche, Mexico. The identifications of the social, political, and economic catalysts that created the cultural complexities in the Maya Lowlands have allowed new explanatory models responsible for the rise of cultural complexity during the Middle and Late Preclassic periods of Maya civilization (1000 BC-A.D. 150). Mapping and excavations in 51 ancient cities of various sizes throughout the entirety of the Basin have also revealed the ideological, logistical and economic dynamics that created a homogeneous society that merged to form one of the earliest state level societies in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, even in light of the economic, political, and ideological complexities of the Preclassic Maya in the Mirador Basin, a series of multicausal factors contributed to the long term demographic collapse of civilization in the area. The synthesis of the entire panorama of cultural process in the Mirador Basin provides new understandings of the saga of humanity found in emergent Maya civilization that is now being revealed for the first time.

Del árbol a la canoa: surcando el mar en Mesoamérica
2020-02-13 12:00 - 14:00
Mariana Favila VázquezArcheological studies regarding pre-Hispanic mechanisms of environment appropriation have been crucial to explain the complexity of Mesoamerican societies. However, an ontological dichotomy of water and land has permeated these investigations for decades. The activities practiced on the mainland, such as agriculture, among many others, are the preferred focus of interest for explaining indigenous social and historical processes. The activities and the role of the aquatic spaces are generally considered subordinate or secondary concerning the former. Through archaeological, iconographic and historicalevidence this paper argues that Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec, had a perception of the environment in which, although water was of course distinguished from the mainland, it was not seen exclusively as an opposite space, liminal and independent to the political, social, economic and religious dynamics of the indigenous people. Evidence of this is the development of a complex nautical technology that was permeated by the religious and ideological configurations of the societies that produced it. Consequently, navigation was practiced as a landscape connectivity system that integrated the use of waterways, coastal lagoons, wetlands, and estuaries, along with roads and activities in the mainland. This study allows for rethinking the valuation of aquatic spaces and getting closer to the local perception of the environment, in which the aquatic spaces are no longer the limit of the territories inhabited by humans.This talk is part of the El Mar Y Sus Metáforas Series and will be in Spanish. For more information about this talk or series, please contact Jimena Rodriguez.Mariana Favila Vázquez is a Professor of Archeology at the ENAH (National School of Anthropology and History, México) and a research associate in the project “Digging into early colonial Mexico: a large-scale computational analysis of 16th century historical sources” of the University of Lancaster, United Kingdom and the Museo de Templo Mayor in Mexico. Her research has focused on indigenous pre-Hispanic and colonial navigation traditions in the Mesoamerican cultural area.This talk is co-sponsored by the UCLA Latin American Institute, the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

PIZZA TALK: Migrations, Marginality, and Maritime Landscapes A New World Paleocoastal Occupation
2020-02-12 12:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:Dr. Amy E. GuisickAssociate CuratorNational History Museum of Los Angeles CountyABSTRACT:Methodological advances and innovative research are reshaping how we look for and understand human dispersals and adaptations on maritime landscapes. Refinements in paleoenvironmental reconstructions and search techniques have resulted in discoveries that challenge outdated theories of island and coastal regions as marginal to human migration, settlement, and subsistence. The Northern Channel Islands of California have become a focal point for this maritime research as new discoveries have shown this region to be integral for understanding initial human dispersals and early occupations in the New World. This region has also become a proving ground for methodological advances that are refining how we integrate land- and seabased data into project designs that recognize both the landscape and seascape as a complex maritime space integral to maritime societies. Recent research has focused on the terrestrial and submerged portions of the island landscape that were intact and subaerial during initial human dispersal to the islands and during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene island occupations. By integrating paleoenvironmental reconstructions, archaeology, historical ecology, and terrestrial and marine geology researchers are striving to recreate the paleoenvironment and paleolandscape present during initial island occupations. These data may be critical to clarify early island colonization and adaptions strategies of the first Americans.

The Land of Open Graves: Making Undocumented Migration Visible
2020-02-11 19:00 - 20:30
Since the mid-1990s’, the U.S. federal government has relied on a border enforcement strategy known as “Prevention Through Deterrence.” Using various security infrastructure and techniques of surveillance, this strategy funnels undocumented migrants towards remote and rugged terrain with the hope that mountain ranges, extreme temperatures, and other “natural” obstacles will deter people from unauthorized entry. Thousands of people have perished while undertaking this dangerous activity. Since 2009, the Undocumented Migration Project has used a combination of archaeological, forensic, and ethnographic approaches to understand the various forms of violence that characterize the social process of clandestine migration. In this presentation, De León will discuss how the “archaeology of the contemporary” can help make this process visible and argue that the types of deaths that migrants experience in the desert are both violent and deeply political. The Land of Open Graves will challenge audiences to confront the complexity of international migration and American policy choices. Reservations requested. Click here to RSVP by February 5. For more information call 310-825-4004.Friends of the Cotsen Institute are invited to a private reception with Professor De León at 6pm. To learn more about the Friends visit their page or contact Michelle Jacobson at mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu.Jason De León, Ph.D.Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/0 Studies University of California, Los Angeles Executive Director, Undocumented Migration ProjectJason De León, 2017 MacArthur Fellow, is Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles with his lab located in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. His multidisciplinary approach to the study of migration from Latin America to the United States is bringing to light the lives and deaths of clandestine migrants crossing the U.S.–Mexico border into the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. He combines ethnographic analysis of migrant stories, forensic science, and archaeological research in his efforts to understand this process—who makes the journey, the routes, the means of survival and manner of death—and the human consequences of immigration policy.

8th UCLA Archaeology Research Conference
2020-02-07 08:00 - 2020-02-08 17:00
The Graduate Student Association of Archaeology, an affiliate of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, will host the 8th Graduate Archaeology Research Conference. This conference will take place on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, California, on February 7th and 8th, 2020. Accepted applicants will give 20-minute presentations followed by brief question-and-answer sessions. Program with Abstracts – 8th Graduate Archaeology Research Conference.pdfThe talks will cover interdisciplinary approaches to this year’s theme on “Experiencing Destruction and Regeneration in Archaeology.” Speakers will discuss the many contexts in which uncontrolled or deliberate destruction—as well as regeneration, reconstruction, and re-use—plays a part in the archaeological past and present. Destruction lies at the heart of archaeological inquiries, seen in every context from the collapse of civilizations to the deliberate breaking of ceramics in ritual settings. Destruction of archaeological remains also occurs in the present through the neglect or eradication of material heritage for economic, sociopolitical or environmental reasons. Simultaneously, reconstruction and regeneration penetrate every aspect of archaeology—seen in current heritage management practices as well as in the material traces of ancient and modern peoples’ efforts at recovery, rebuilding and re-use.Speakers are encouraged to approach this topic from an experiential perspective, as moments of destruction and reconstruction or regeneration provide communal sensorial experiences, producing and reproducing social memory and shared identities. Archaeology, as a discipline rooted in materiality, can access these senses at their most basic level. Exploring such experiences of destruction and regeneration allows us to better understand the mindsets of past and present peoples alike as they destroyed, rebuilt and remembered.Keynote speaker Dr. Patricia Rubertone, Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, will address instances of destruction and regeneration through the intersecting lenses of archaeology, history and ethnography. She will discuss commemoration and erasure of Native American monuments in New England in the context of colonialism, as well as the implications of documentary genocide and urban renewal for recovering indigenous pasts.Please RSVP by February 3rd here. Email any questions to archaeogradcon@ioa.ucla.edu. The call for papers can be downloaded here.

PIZZA TALK: Lost Narratives: New Directions in the Post-1850 Historical Archaeology of Southern California
2020-02-05 12:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:James E. SneadProfessorDepartment of AnthropologyCal State NorthridgeABSTACT: Historical archaeology in the western United States has traditionally focused on either the colonial-era “missions” or 19th century mining sites in remote locations. Recently, however, historical archaeology itself has undergone a major conceptual shift, emphasizing the ways that the study of material culture can shed light on a wide range of historical topics dating to relatively recent times. These often bear on contemporary social issues, including ethnicity, identity, labor, and heritage. The diverse communities of Los Angeles present a remarkable template for such research: this talk will describe current scholarship at CSUN focusing on specific “lost narratives” of the city’s post-1850s inhabitants as examined through archaeology. Particular emphasis will be placed on the dynamics of “community engagement” that are the organizational center of these efforts.

Live Podcast Taping with Jason De León
2020-02-01 18:00 - 20:00
Cotsen faculty Jason De León will be a guest on the podcast “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard” on February 1, 2020. The UCLA Department of Anthropology is hosting a live taping of the podcast at 6:00pm in Korn Convocation Hall at UCLA.De León will also be speaking on February 11th as part of the Archaeology 50th Anniversary Lecture Series. Dax Shepard BA ’00, Anthropology in conversation with Jason De León Professor UCLA Department of Anthropology UCLA Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies Saturday, February 1, 2020 6:00 p.m.Korn Convocation Hall UCLA Registration required. Seating is first come, first served and is not guaranteed. Self-pay parking available in Structure 4About Armchair Expert: Armchair Expert is a weekly podcast hosted by American actor, director, and writer Dax Shepard and Emmy-nominated Monica Padman. Each podcast features Shepard and Padman interviewing celebrities as well as journalists and academics about “the messiness of being human”. Click here to learn more about Armchair Expert.

Screening of "The Old Kiyyangan Story"
2020-01-31 17:00 - 20:00
The Old Kiyyangan Story, an anthropological film based on oral histories and archaeological excavations at the Old Kiyyangan Village, Ifugao, Philippines, will be presented January 31 at 5pm in the Anthropology Reading Room. In addition to the film screening, there will be a research presentation and Q & A with co-screenwriter and Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Stephen Acabado. Acabado is a core faculty member of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. The event is free and open to the public. A trailer for the film can be viewed here.

PIZZA TALK: Initial Conditions for Biocultural Evolution in China: Understanding the Relationship Between Genetic Selection and Archaeological Remains
2020-01-29 12:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:Dr. Ryan NicholsAssociate Professor Dept. of PhilosophyCal State FullertonABSTRACT:The purpose of this paper is to preliminarily explain the initial conditions and key forces from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and pre-Imperial periods that contributed to distinctive features of subsequent Chinese culture, and to do so in accordance with an explicit model of cultural transmission. The paper opens with discussion of a small suite of genes supporting neurotransmitter function, genes that were selected in Continental East Asians. Second, Paleolithic climate, rainfall, plant domesticates, and physical ecological factors, principally of the Yellow River and North China Plain area, are reviewed with respect to their influence on early settlers and their social ecology. This focus fuels the third section too. In it I discuss the kinship structure, political organization, warfare, and religion of these Neolithic settlers. Fourth, the onset of cultural trends during the Shang and Zhou periods are discussed in terms of the initial conditions described above. By-products of this discussion include the identification of lacunae in a well-known model of cultural transmission, and the provisioning of the cultural evolutionary research community with a template, a draft template, for analytical application of theory to a historical population that explicitly considers Paleolithic and Neolithic genetic selection.

New Approaches to Tracing Cacao's Dispersal from the Amazon Basin
2020-01-23 17:00 - 18:00
Dr. Sonia Zarrillo will be presenting on “New Approaches to Tracing Cacao’s Dispersal from the Amazon Basin” on January 23rd at 5pm in the Cotsen Seminar Room (A222). This event was sponsored by the Andean Working Group.

PIZZA TALK: Contextualizing Roman Republican Sacrifice
2020-01-22 12:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:Dr. Claudia MoserAssociate ProfessorDept. of History of Art & ArchitectureUC Santa BarbaraABSTRACT:This talk explores what we can learn about Roman Republican sacrifice through the study of the material remains of sacrifice and the architectural settings in which the ritual occurs. I will argue that by examining the material record of sacrifice –the aniconic altars of the Republican period, their relations to the natural and built landscape, and the accompanying archaeological evidence of the ritual –we can form a comprehensive view of the procedure of sacrificial ritual, detailing aspects of the practice that might be absent from or inconsistent with what is found in images or texts. In this talk, I will integrate various types of evidence (topographic and architectural evidence, zooarchaeological material, and votive crafted goods) to reveal a sacrifice that is intricately linked to the sanctuary in which it is enacted, a sacrifice that is local and site-specific.

Indigenous Los Angeles—The Power of Online Exhibitions
2020-01-15 18:00 - 19:00
Fowler Curator of Archaeology Wendy Giddens Teeter will discuss the importance of the collaborative web-based project Mapping Indigenous Los Angeles and her experiences working with the Tongva and indigenous communities to forefront the multiple historical layers of Los Angeles. She will also speak about national and international repatriation efforts as UCLA’s Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Coordinator, which has helped Native American tribes regain their ancestors and cultural heritage as well as provide a platform to share their voices in online exhibitions, such as Carrying our Ancestors Home.For more information, please visit: https://www.fowler.ucla.edu/events/lecture-by-wendy-teeter-mapping-indig…

PIZZA TALK: Historical Preservation & Caltrans Archaeology
2020-01-15 12:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:George D. EversonAdjunct ProfessorDept. of AnthropologyMt. San Jacinto CollegeABSTRACT:Cultural Resource Management (CRM) has become a mainstay in our society for professional archaeologists and architectural historians. The California Department of Transportation (more commonly known as Caltrans) has their own staff of professionals to ensure that highway projects comply with applicable environmental laws. Specifically, Caltrans has professionals on staff to ensure we meet the standards of Section 106 of the national Historic Preservation Act.

The Promise of "Virtual Unwrapping" - Reading the Invisible Library
2020-01-14 19:00 - 20:30
The UCLA/Getty Conservation Program presents “The man who can read the unreadable,” computer scientist and professor W. Brent Seales, the first speaker in the 50th Anniversary Lecture Series. Currently a Getty Conservation Institute Scholar, Seales and his team have been key to revealing texts on papyri that are too fragile to unroll, such as Homers “Iliad” and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The recipient of a $2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Seales will discuss how technological progress over the past ten years has led to the promise of “virtual unwrapping” for reading the “invisible library” of scrolls found at Herculaneum; papyri that were buried and burned in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 70 CE.
Reservations requested. Click here to RSVP by January 8. For more information call 310-825-4004.
Friends of the Cotsen Institute are invited to a private reception with Dr. Seales at 6pm. To learn more about the Friends visit their page or contact Michelle Jacobson at mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu.
Seales is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Kentucky. His research applies data science and computer vision to challenges in the digital restoration and visualization of antiquities. In 2012-13, he was a Google Visiting Scientist in Paris, where he continued work on the “virtual unwrapping” of the Herculaneum scrolls. In 2015, Seales and his research team identified the oldest known Hebrew copy of the book of Leviticus (other than the Dead Sea Scrolls), carbon dated to the third century C.E. The reading of the text from within the damaged scroll has been hailed as one of the most significant discoveries in biblical archaeology of the past decade.

PIZZA TALK: The Impact of Lidar on Archaeological Research at the Ancient Maya City of Caracol, Belize
2020-01-08 12:00 - 13:00
SPEAKER:Dr. Arlen F. ChaseVisiting ProfessorDept. of AnthropologyPomona CollegeABSTRACT:Perceptions about the ancient Maya have changed significantly in the last decade with the advent of new technologies and as a result of continuous dedicated research that seeks to define their social and political organization. With its ability to penetrate dense tropical canopies, LiDAR has revolutionized the field of Mesoamerican settlement archaeology. Because dense vegetation covers most ancient remains in the Maya area, archaeological documentation of the spatial extent of sites using traditional means was both difficult and usually incomplete. LiDAR was initially applied to the site of Caracol, Belize in April 2009 and yielded a 200 sqkm Digital Elevation Model that, for the first time, provided a complete view of how the archaeological remains from a single Maya site –its monumental architecture, roads, residential settlement, and agricultural terraces –were distributed over the landscape. In May 2013, an additional 1057 sqkm of LiDAR data were recorded in west-central Belize. For the site of Caracol, these LiDAR data may be combined with 35 years of continuous archaeological research and excavation to formulate temporal parameters and guide social and political interpretations. The conjoined information derived from LiDAR and archaeological research is significantly changing our perceptions of ancient Maya civilization by demonstrating the anthropogenic changes made to landscapes, the scale of Maya urban settlements, and the socially complex situations that existed within and between Maya polities.

Cotsen Speaker Series w/ Guest Lecturer, Professor Alison Wylie
2019-12-05 16:00 - 2019-12-06 18:00
The inaugural event in the Cotsen Speaker Series, this is a two-day program consisting of a talk and panel discussion, that will allow scholars from both UCLA and the wider world to showcase a range of intellectual, theoretical, and research perspectives. Click Here to RSVP December 5th, 4pm -6pmWitnessing and Translating: The Indigenous/Science ProjectSpeaker: Alison WylieProfessor, University of British ColumbiaAbstract:The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) calls on non-Indigenous Canadians to build equitable, respectful and transparent partnerships with Indigenous Peoples as the primary means for advancing reconciliation. In this spirit, a UBC-based research cluster is building partnerships designed to embody a “practice of reconciliation,” focused on projects that bring the tools of archaeological science to bear on Indigenous-led research questions in ways that serve the interests of Indigenous communities. The projects taking shape under the rubric of Indigenous/Science raise pointed questions about how researchers committed to collaborative practice can best to navigate differences in ethical/epistemic commitments and the asymmetries of power and hierarchies of expertise that underpin them: what is required of us when called upon to bear witness to the real-world conflicts and consequences of scientific inquiry?December 6th, 4pm – 6pm(Reception to Follow)Panel on Equity in Archaeology and the Social SciencesAlison Wylie along with Stephen Acabado, Kara Cooney, and Marianna Nikolaidou will engage in a panel on equity in archaeology and the social sciences. This will be a forum for discussion of questions about who has a say in archaeological discourse, and systemic problems of discrimination that still plague the study of the ancient world. Bio:Website: http://alisonwylie.net/Email: alison.wylie@ubc.ca Alison Wylie, is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of the Social and Historical Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Her work is case-based, chiefly concerned with archaeological practice and feminist research in the social sciences. She addresses such questions as: what counts as evidence?; how should we understand ideals of objectivity given the role of values and interests in inquiry?; and how do we make research accountable to the diverse communities it affects? Recent publications include Material Evidence (2015) and Evidential Reasoning in Archaeology (2016), co-edited and co-authored with archaeologist Bob Chapman; articles on “What Knowers Know Well” (Scientiae Studia, 2017), “How Archaeological Evidence Bites Back” (STHV 2017), and her 2012 APA Presidential Address on feminist standpoint theory; and contributions to the Springer Handbook of Model-based Science (2017), Objectivity in Science (2015), How Well do ‘Facts’ Travel? (2010), Agnotology (2008), The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation (2009) and Embedding Ethics (2005).

Pizza Talk:Household Archaeology at Middle Preclassic La Blanca, Guatemala
2019-12-04 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Dr. Michael W. LoveProfessorDepartment of AnthropologyCSU NorthridgeAbstract:The Preclassic Period on the Pacific coast of Guatemala and Chiapas was a dynamic time, beginning with the establishment of the first sedentary villages and ending with the large city-states of the Late Preclassic. Although royal tombs and stelae with portraits of rulers capture the headlines, household archaeology offers the best route to understand changes in social relationships and the basis of political power. Excavations at La Blanca, as one of the largest settlements of Middle Preclassic Mesoamerica, have recovered one of the largest samples of Preclassic domestic remains. These data document social differentiation, along with the economic and ritual activities of a cross-section of households dating from 1000-700 BCE.

Chinese Archaeology Forum II: Musical Iconography and Archaeology
2019-12-02 13:00 - 17:00
Presenters 報告者:1:00-1:30 Kirie Stromberg 益田雾繪 (UCLA 加州大學洛杉磯分校): Beyond Form:Preliminary Thoughts on Music and Visual Abstraction in Early China 早期中國的音樂與視覺抽象化表达1:40-2:20 Gao Jiangtao 高江涛 (CASS 中國社會科學院考古研究所):Comprehensive Analysisof Musical relics Unearthed from Taosi Site 鼍鼓逢逢：陶寺遗址出土乐器综析2:30-3:00 Zhang Wenjie 張聞捷 (Xiamen University 厦门大學) New Thinking on the ChimeBells of Wangsun Gao 對王孫誥編鐘的一些新思考3:10-3:40 Li Guangming 李光明 (UCLA 加州大學洛杉磯分校) The Tonal Structure of theYajiang Chimes: On the Missing Shang Note in Western Zhou Music and Guanzi Tonal Theory从亚弜编铙音列结构看周乐戒商及管子生律法之由来3:50-4:20 Zhu Guowei 朱國偉 (China University of Mining and Technology 中國礦業大學）A review on experimental music archaeology and its prospect in China 實驗音樂考古研究綜述及其在中國的研究展望4:30-5:00 Lee Mei-Yen 李美燕 (National Pingtung University 國立屏東大學) WesternCultural Origin of Musical Instruments Found on the Musical Icons in Yungang Grottoes 雲岡石窟音樂圖像中的西方源流Discussants 點評者:Lothar Von Falkenhausen 罗泰 (UCLA 加州大學洛杉磯分校藝術史系)Helen Rees 李海倫 (UCLA 加州大學洛杉磯分校民族音樂學系)Sponsored by 资助机构：Henry Luce Foundation 路思基金會UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology 加州大學洛杉磯分校蔻岑考古研究所UCLA Center for Chinese Studies加州大學洛杉磯分校中國研究中心UCLA East Asian Library 加州大學洛杉磯分校東亞圖書館

PIZZA TALK: Living on the edge at Zincirli, Turkey: excavations at the crossroads of Syria and Anatolia in the 17th century BCE
2019-11-20 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Kathryn R. Morgan, Ph.D.Oriental Institute Postdoctoral ScholarAssistant Director of the Chicago-Tübingen Expedition to ZincirliUniversity of ChicagoAbstract:Recent excavations at the edge of the upper mound of Zincirli Höyük in Gaziantep province, southeastern Turkey, have discovered important remains of the Middle Bronze II period, destroyed in a conflagration. Zincirli is best known from its Iron Age heyday, nearly a millennium later, when it was one of several ethnolinguistically diverse, iconographically rich Syro-Hittite cities located in what is still today a border region between Syria and Turkey. Work at the site since 2015 has revealed that this multicultural character has even deeper roots: along with evidence for food, and possibly wine, production and storage, textile production, and local administration, the well-preserved assemblage includes vessel and cylinder seal types that attest to long-distance trade and cultural connections. It appears that Zincirli was part of an exchange network linking the Euphrates, North Syria, and Central Anatolia in the 17th c. BC—at least until relationships soured: according to the Annals of Hattušili I, the first military targets of the rising Hittite kingdom were in this very region. In this talk, I present recent discoveries at the site with a view toward illuminating this little-known network, which the Hittites apparently hoped to disrupt or co-opt.

Archaeology of Ancient Israel Lecture Series: Archaeology and the Kingdom of David and Solomon
2019-11-19 11:00 - 13:00
Archaeology of Ancient Israel Lecture SeriesSpeaker:Avraham Faust (Bar-Ilan University)Moderated by:Dr. Aaron Burke (NELC)Sponsored by:Kershaw Chair for Ancient Eastern Mediterranean StudiesCo-Sponsored by:Department of Near Eastern Languages and CulturesCotsen Institute of ArchaeologyAlan D. Leve Center for Jewish StudiesThe United Monarchy – the famed kingdom of David and Solomon – is at the center of a heated debate. While until 25 years ago there was a consensus that David and Solomon were historical figures who ruled over fairly large territories, it is now questioned by many who believe either that these kings were either petty chiefs controlling a limited territory around Jerusalem or that they did not even exist. Given these doubts, the archaeological evidence has come to the center of discussion stage. A broad examination of the nature of the Iron I-II transition, however, reveals major changes in practically every aspect of life, from settlement patterns to various aspects of material culture, including pottery form and decoration, and architectural developments. While each change could, in theory, be a result of a number of causes, a broad analysis of all the processes and transformations, and especially their sequencing in time and space, greatly narrows down the possible options. It is therefore the aim of the present lecture to briefly present the sweeping changes that accompanied the Iron I-II transition, to reconstruct (temporally and spatially) the processes of growing social complexity that they reflect, and subsequently to examine the implications of this analysis on the debate over the historicity of the so-called United

PIZZA TALK: From W’aka to Plaza: Ritual Landscapes in Huarochiri (Lima, Peru)
2019-11-13 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Carla Hernández GaravitoChancellor’s Postdoctoral FellowDepartment of Anthropology, UC RiversideAbstract:The Inka expansion on the Central Andes brought into the Empire several polities with different histories, traditions, and identities. The increasing pressure to manage diversity and territorial expansion led the Inka to build upon familiarity with their subjects whenever possible. In this presentation, I explore once such familiar space: ritual spaces. Inka plazas are well known to archaeological research as places for feasting, displays of Inka power, and affirmation of social solidarities. However, in many cases, Inka plazas were attached to other sacred built and natural places that rather than affirmed imperial control, embodied the identities of the subjects. I will discuss the history of such a sacred place or w’aka in Huarochirí before and after the Inka. I contend that the plazas fully adapted to the embodiment of community identity already at play in the w’aka. Consequently, the closeness between this w’aka and Inka plazas reinforced the notion of local communities appropriating and retelling their history of subjugation by the Inka as one of alliance and broadening of community ties. Finally, I look at how the experience of this local community with Inka imperialism informed how they engaged with Spanish colonialism and evangelization. Overall, my work aims to recognize the importance of experience and reinvention among Andean communities in the face of political imposition

PIZZA TALK: The ASArt-DATA Project in the frame of the Saharan rock art studies
2019-10-30 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Marina GallinaroCotsen visiting scholarAbstract:Rock art is one of the most fascinating cultural manifestations of humankind. The integration of rock art studies within the archaeological and anthropological domain faces crucial challenges. The complexity of documentation and publication and lack of reliable dating have hampered its immense potential as an archaeological source. This is particularly true for the Sahara, where outstanding paintings and engravings are now inaccessible for security reasons and at risk of destruction due to social and political turmoil.This talk will present aims, first results, and future perspectives of the project entitled Ancient Saharan Art – Decoding Art through Theoretically-sounded Archive (ASArt-DATA). This project focuses on Saharan rock art, proposing a new theoretical and methodological approach aimed at an integrated reading of the artworks, combining Archaeology, Anthropology, Visual Studies, and Digital Humanities. This work aspires to strengthen the connection between archaeological and anthropological studies, and between academy and society, thanks to the deployment of the underdeveloped potential of Rock Art.The ASArt-DATA Project – funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 795744 – is carried out by the Sapienza University of Rome and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.Bio:Marina Gallinaro is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Researcher at the Department of Ancient World Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and Visiting Researcher at The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.She received her PhD in African Studies at the University of Naples, L’Orientale, with a project on the settlement patterns in mid-Holocene sites in the Egyptian Western Desert. Since then she has carried out projects in the Sahara region, both in Egypt and Libya and in East Africa, Central Sudan, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.Her research focuses on the interplay between human and environment in arid zones, and to the strategies that humans adopted to cope with the climatic changes. In particular, her interest addresses: the emergence of pastoralism in Africa, through the analysis of the archaeological landscape and the connections between geomorphological features and different sets of archaeological data; ii. African rock art study characterized by a landscape and contextual approach; and iii. Cultural Heritage Management and sustainable development projects, with a specific focus on cultural landscapes and rock art sites in Sahara and East Africa.

PIZZA TALK: Materiaizing Memory: Contemporary Landscape Archaeology of a 19th Century Bahamian Plantation
2019-10-23 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Elena SesmaUC Berkeley, Postdoctoral FellowBio:Elena Sesma received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2019 and is currently a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley. Elena specializes in historical archaeology, community based methods and engaged anthropology, Black Feminist Theory, and memory studies. Her most recent research focused on an early 19th century cotton plantation site in Eleuthera, Bahamas and the descendant community who has lived on the property for the past 150 years, drawing connections between land, memory, and political action. Her current research examines the shared histories of late 18th-century Loyalist migration and slavery in the Bahamas and Atlantic Canada. She has been involved in archaeological projects in Massachusetts, Maryland, Nevis, the Bahamas, and northern Israel.Abstract:This talk addresses a community-based archaeology project focused on the history of a 19th century Bahamian cotton plantation and the present-day communities who live on and around the former plantation acreage. The Millars Plantation on Eleuthera, Bahamas was established in 1803 as a cotton plantation and remained in operation through the 1830s. The last plantation owner left the 2000-acre property to the descendants of her former slaves and servants at the time of her death in 1871. Many local residents today trace their lineage to the families named in the Millar will, and continue to uphold their rights to the land in the face of a series of legal challenges by Bahamian and foreign investors who would seek to develop new tourism-based economies in the area. In the process of documenting the historical landscape of the Millars plantation estate through oral histories and landscape survey, the research revealed ways that residents today have materialized memory – piecing together object, story, and space – on a living landscape that has more often been framed as empty or relegated to the past. This research demonstrates how these contemporary Bahamian communities mobilize historical objects and memory as tools for community-building and activism, illustrating the transformative power of a contemporary archaeology of historic spaces.

Beyond the facades: Exploring the Dead at Petra, Jordan
2019-10-19 13:00 - 15:00
Speaker:Megan PerryEast Carolina UniversityAssociate Professor of Biological AnthropologyAbstract:The mysterious Nabataeans, builders of the magnificent city of Petra, have long fascinated scholars and the public. Scant archaeological research and minimal textual sources have not clarified the shift from a primarily nomadic encampment in the late 4th century BC into a major capital city by the 1st century BC. Our understanding of Petra’s urban life recently has been transformed with the excavation of tombs within the ancient city. The human skeletal remains from these tombs have illuminated the origins of the city’s residents, their disease profiles, and what foods they relied on in this desert environment. This lecture demonstrates how Petra’s dead can inform what life was like in this ancient city. Contact Aaron A. Burke (aaburke@ucla.edu) for more information.

PIZZA TALK: Glassmaking in New Spain: A Study on Technology Transfer and Adaptation
2019-10-16 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Karime CastilloUCLA Archaeology Ph.D. StudentBio:Karime Castillo is originally from Mexico City. She received her B.A. in Archaeology from Universidad de las Américas Puebla and her M.A. in Artefact Studies from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. She is primarily interested in Mexican historical archaeology and colonial material culture. Her master’s thesis proposes a typology of pharmaceutical glass from London. As a historical archaeologist, she has done research on Colonial Mexican majolica and the Hacienda San Miguel Acocotla, Puebla, Mexico. She has worked for archaeological projects in different parts of Mexico, including Sonora, Mexico City, and Puebla, and has collaborated with the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City and London Archaeological Archive and Resource Center in London. At University of California Los Angeles she will study glass production in Colonial Mexico.Abstract:difficulties as they established their crafts in the New World. Glassmakers in particular, struggled finding the resources they needed in an unfamiliar land where glass had not been artificially made before. Nevertheless, colonial glassmakers found ways to adapt to the local resources and the industryflourished in New Spain, predominantly in Mexico City and Puebla. By bringing together archaeology, history, ethnography, and materials science principles and methods, it is possible to explore the processes of technological transfer, adaptation and development of glass production technology in Colonial Mexico. This talk presents some results of the analysis of glass from the two main glass production centers in New Spain. The chemical composition of archaeological glass from Mexico City and Puebla reveals the various ways in which colonial artisans adapted the technology to the resources available in a different and. Historical documents bring to the fore the social aspects of the technology and help to contextualize colonial glass production within the broader scope of Spanish colonialism.

PIZZA TALK: Exploring an Unsuspected Subterranean Realm at Chichen Itza
2019-10-09 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Dr. James BradyProfessorDept. of AnthropologyCal State Los AngelesBio:Dr. James Brady is best known for pioneering the archaeological investigation of Maya caves. Between 1981 and 1989 he directed excavations at Naj Tunich (National Geographic, August 1981, Archaeology Nov/Dec 1986) and from 1990 to 1993 he directed the Petexbatun Regional Cave Survey (National Geographic, February 1993). Moving to Honduras, Brady headed a three year archaeological investigation of the Talgua region (Cave of the Glowing Skulls, Archaeology May/June 1995). Since 2001, he has led a Cal State L.A. field school to Peten, Guatemala. More recently, he has co-directed a project studying Ulama, a modern survival of the ancient Aztec ballgame Ullamaliztli (Archaeology Sept/Oct 2003; Smithsonian Magazine, April 2006). From 2008-2010 he directed the investigation of Midnight Terror Cave in Belize and currently he is working with the Programme for Belize.

Egypt in LA
2019-10-05 13:00 - 2019-10-07 13:00
Hear eight of the world’s leading Egyptologists, who will appear together for the first time to share their expertise on life in Ancient Egypt. These experts are all editors of the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (UEE), a prestigious resource of in-depth articles on Ancient Egypt that has been a decade in the making. Accessible by the public, these articles cover language, religion, history, art, and a wide variety of other important topics on this critical civilization.Please join us for this special event which will emphasize the role of women and how they helped shape Ancient Egypt as we know it. Reserve tickets now or view the full program here.
