BIO:Isabel Rivera-Collazo is Assistant Professor on Biological, Ecological and Human Adaptations to Climate Change at the Department of Anthropology  and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Dr. Rivera-Collazo is an environmental archaeologist specializing on geoarchaeology, archaeomalacology, coastal and marine processes, maritime culture and climate change, with regional interests in Puerto Rico, the […]

Dr. Chip ColwellSenior Curator of Anthropology, Denver Museum of Natural ScienceAbstract:Five decades ago, Native American leaders launched a crusade against museums to reclaim their sacred objects and to rebury their kin. This controversy has exploded in recent years as hundreds of tribes have used a landmark federal law to recover their heritage from more than […]

Felipe Rojas SilvaAssistant Professor of Archaeology and the Ancient World and Egyptology and AssyriologyBrown University

Early globalization? Isotopic evidence of food practices in Prehistoric Italy Mary Anne TafuriDepartment of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of RomeThe cultural and social importance of food goes far beyond the mere necessity of nutrition, yet archaeologists have been slow to tackle issues of the sociality of food in prehistory. This is a great loss particularly […]

Jonathan WinnermanLecturer, UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures ABSTRACT:Begun in 2012, the goal of the Block Yard Project at Tell Edfu is to organize, conserve, and document the wealth of epigraphic material discovered in the settlement site to the west of the well-known Ptolemaic temple. Prior to the present study, many of the objects were […]

Savino di LerniaDirector, The Archaeological Mission in the SaharaDirector, The Archaeological Mission in the Kenyan Rift ValleySapienza University of Rome, ItalyAbstractClimate changes are a serious threat to cultural and natural heritage. Although many contexts are today seriously endangered, recent studies highlight how “archaeology and cultural heritage threatened by anthropogenic climate change are not just victims […]

Gregson Schachner & Reuven SinenskyAbstract:Ancestral Pueblo communities in the American Southwest underwent dramatic transformations in the mid-1st millennium AD, including rapid population growth and the widespread adoption of social structures that remained in place over the next millennium. We explore to two key moments in this process: the widespread adoption of sedentary agriculture in the […]

The Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico house some of the most spectacularly complex rock art of the ancient world. Approximately 4000 years ago, hunter-gatherers began transforming this region into a painted landscape. Perhaps the greatest of these masterpieces is the White Shaman mural, an intricate Pecos River style painting that spans […]

Dr. Leigh LiebermanDepartment of HistoryClaremont McKenna College          AbstractIn recent years, the study of ancient artifacts has moved beyond straightforward typologies, descriptions, and quantifications. New approaches to the analysis of material culture -  including methods of geospatial referencing, artifact agency, object biography, and statistical analysis of large datasets - have drawn attention to […]

Dr. Stacie KingAssociate Professor of AnthropologyAssociate Faculty for the Center forLatin American and Caribbean StudiesIndiana University BloomingtonAbstract:This talk explores the challenges that ethnonyms create when trying to reconstructhistories of multiethnic landscapes in the ancient world. My larger project in the Nejaparegion of Oaxaca, Mexico addresses various aspects of conquest and colonialism alonginteregional trade routes, including […]