FRIDAY SEMINAR:Giving Voices - Without Words - To Prehistoric People
2019-03-08 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Dr. Ruth TringhamProfessorGraduate School (Anthropology)UC BerkeleyABSTRACT:This presentation describes a path to addressing the discomfort that I and many of my braver colleagues have had when putting words into the mouths and heads of prehistoric actors, knowing that these words say more about us than they do about prehistory. Yet without such speech, how are we archaeologists and the broader public to imagine the intangibles of the deep past (emotions, affect, gender, senses)? Moreover, such words create a misleading certainty that conceals the ambiguities of archaeological data. Are there alternative options to verbal and vocal clarity when creating imagined fictive narratives about the past? With inspiration from composer Györgi Ligeti, from linguists and experimental psychologists, and from ASMR performers, I explore the emotive power of vocal non-verbal interjections and utterances that have more universality and less cultural baggage, using them in three diverse remediations of digital media from three prehistoric archaeological contexts in Europe and Anatolia.

PIZZA TALK: Bulgarian Archaeology: A Century in Review
2019-03-13 12:00 - 13:00
Ivan VasilevFounder and CEO Balkan Heritage FoundationABSTRACT:Occupying the eastern part of the Balkans along the Western Black Sea shore, Bulgaria has a rich and diverse archaeological heritage. Within its borders are the remains not only of the early humans and Neolithic farmers, but also of the arguably Europe’s oldest civilization dating to the 5th millennium BCE. A very significant share of the country’s archaeological heritage belongs to the civilizations of the ancient Thracians, Greeks, Macedonians and even Persians as well as Celts, Romans, Byzantines, medieval Bulgarians and Ottomans. The country has more than 150,000 registered archaeological sites, thousands of historic sites and millions of archaeological artifacts kept in around 300 museums and collections, which means Bulgaria ranks with Greece, Italy and France as Europe’s archaeologically richest countries.Bulgaria’s archaeological heritage received the interest of European scholars in the second half of the 19th century, not much before the country received autonomy from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. However, the beginning of the archaeological investigation in the country dates to both decades around the turn of the century (1890s-1900s). It was encouraged and supported backed-up and triggered by the development of relevant research and museum infrastructure across the country. The National Archaeological Museum was established in 1892 and the Bulgarian Archaeological Society (later National Archaeological Institute) was established in 1901.Archaeologists have been unearthing the evidence about the past of these lands for more than a century. The current presentation will review their greatest achievements and discoveries while introducing the country’s rich potential for research. It will start with a review of the finds from Kozarnika Cave – one of the earliest Paleolithic sites in Europe, the “world’s oldest gold” found in Varna and the richest collection of Attic vases outside Athens. Then it will highlight treasures and tombs of Thracian royalty along with important monuments and cities of ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and medieval Bulgarians.

FRIDAY SEMINAR: Land Use and Political Economy: Niche Construction in the Gordion Region, Turkey
2019-03-15 16:00 - 18:00
Dr. Lisa Kealhofer Professor, Anthropology and Environmental Studies and Sciences, Santa Clara UniversityAbstract:Archaeologists have often assumed that agricultural strategies are significant factors in altering environments. Narratives of societal collapse typically point to environmental degradation as an outcome of population increase or political breakdown. We use a version of Niche Construction Theory to interpret the timing and nature of landscape change around Gordion in central Anatolia over the last 5000 years. Recent work in the Gordion region by us and others demonstrates that major environmental change is only weakly connected to standard measures of agricultural intensification. Using detailed stream histories and survey-based settlement data, we show that the largest environmental changes predate significant settlement in small watersheds, while the largest regional-scale changes postdate high intensity settlement and land use. By integrating multiple lines of evidence, we identify and date both environmental perturbations and possible counteractive niche construction strategies associated with political centralization.

PIZZA TALK: Corral Redondo, Peru: 75 Years Later
2019-04-03 12:00 - 13:00
Corral Redondo, Peru: 75 Years LaterDr. Hans Barnard, UCLADr. Danny Zborover, Institute for Field ResearchVanessa Muros, UCLAABSTRACTCorral Redondo is located in southern Peru, where the Chorunga River joins the Ocoña River on its way from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean. In 1943 Corral Redondo briefly shot to fame after local villagers discovered the site and recovered 96 Wari period (ca. 600‒1000 CE) blue-and-yellow feathered panels, stored inside eight large ceramic face-neck jars. Inka period (ca. 1450‒1550 CE) silver and bronze vessels, as well as gold and silver figurines of camelids and humans, dressed in miniature garments, were found elsewhere on the site. The type and number of artifacts found suggests that the site functioned as a ceremonial compound in both Wari and Inka times. However, because the site was looted and the finds dispersed to museums in Peru and elsewhere, all archaeological information associated with them has obviously been lost. In the summer of 2018 a team from the Cotsen Institute, the University of Chicago, the Institute for Field Research,and local archaeologists visited the Ocoña Valley to investigate and record the remains of Corral Redondo and its wider environs. In this presentation, the first results of this ongoing research endeavor will be discussed.

Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Yinxu, China
2019-04-04 16:00 - 17:30

Occasional Lectures in Anthropology: The Powers and Pitfalls of Molecular Archaeology
2019-04-09 13:00 - 14:00
Dr. Elizabeth (Lisa) Matisoo-SmithProfessor of Biological Anthropology and ChairDepartment of Anatomy, University of OtagoThe Powers and Pitfalls of Molecular ArchaeologyIn 1989 it was announced in Nature that DNA could successfully be extracted fromarchaeological bone, and thus was born the field of molecular archaeology. The lastdecade has seen the field flourish with the development of Next Generation Sequencing(NGS) technology. While the results of many molecular studies have contributedpositively to our understanding of prehistory, others have not. It must be recognised thatmolecular techniques are just tools, and like all tools, they are only useful if usedproperly. What is most important is that the right questions are asked, the appropriatesamples to answer those questions are collected, and the results interpreted in thecontext of the current knowledge. This paper discusses the past, present and future ofmolecular archaeology, focusing on both the strengths and the weaknesses of theapplication of molecular techniques and the interpretation of molecular data withregards to reconstructing the prehistory of the Pacific.

Archaeology of Ancient Israel Lecture Series: Feeding the Gods in Ancient Israel
2019-04-11 14:00 - 16:00
Dr. Jennie EbelingAssociate ProfessorDepartment of ArchaeologyUniversity of Evansville in IndianaAbstract:Bread and other grain-based foods were not only staples in the ancient Israelite diet; they were also staples in the ritual acts that accompanied the worship of several deities in ancient Israel. In addition to the state god YHWH, who required regular offerings of lechem hapanim (“bread of the presence”) in the Tabernacle and the Jerusalem Temple (Exodus 25:30, 39:36, 40:23; Leviticus 24: 5-9; Numbers 4:7; 1 Kings 7:48), the Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 7:18, 44:17-25) was worshipped by families in Jerusalem and throughout Judah with cakes that were marked with her image. Although the biblical writers did not record the details of these practices, the remains of ritual activity in a variety of Iron Age (ca. 1200-586 BCE) archaeological contexts are strongly associated with areas where bread and other foods were prepared and consumed. In this presentation, I will discuss the evidence for feeding the gods in Israelite houses, the house of YHWH, and other contexts, and suggest that the ritual importance of bread in ancient Israel began with women’s food offerings to household deities.For more details see: https://www.cjs.ucla.edu/event/feeding-the-gods-in-ancient-israel/

PIZZA TALK: Adventures in Paleoethnobotany: from the short grass plains of North American to the Andes of South America
2019-04-17 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Dr. Sonia ZarrilloPostdoctoral FellowCotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLAAbstract:Throughout human history, from our earliest ancestors through to modern societies, plants were of vital significance. They have been essential to diet, used as medicines and in ceremonies, fashioned into a myriad of tools, containers, adornments, and musical instruments, depicted in artwork and used as emblems, and relied on as a source of fuel and building material. Paleoethnobotany, or archaeobotany, is the study of the interrelationships between people and plants in the past. More specifically, paleoethnobotany is the recovery, analyses, and interpretation of plants from archaeological contexts to answer questions of behavior and ecological interactions between past peoples and plants. In this lecture, case studies from past and current research – from the northern Plains of North America to the South American Andes – will be presented to illustrate the range of knowledge to be gained from paleoethnobotanical studies, followed by research and volunteer opportunities for students and the interested public.

PIZZA TALK: Athenian Pottery in the Persian empire
2019-04-24 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Dr. Kathleen LynchUniversity of CincinnatiAbstract:Athenian pottery was exported throughout the Mediterranean in the Classical Period. Perhaps surprisingly, it found eager consumers in the Persian Empire, or rather, in territory controlled by the Persians during the Greek Classical period. The presentation will consider what the imported Greek pottery meant in the context of the Achaemenid empire, with a special focus on Gordion in central Turkey. The former Phrygian capital turned Persian outpost is an anomaly with its abundant, high quality Athenian pottery. Typically Athenian pottery tends to be found in coastal settlements of the eastern Mediterranean, but Gordion is 500 km from any coast. What was the appeal of Athenian pottery?

FRIDAY SEMINAR:The Wadi Shu'aib Archaeological Survey Project: First Results from Field Research 2016−2018
2019-04-26 16:00 - 18:00
Alexander Ahrens is a Senior Researcher with the Damascus Branch, Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute. Currently, he is a Visiting Scholar at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University (as recipient of a 2019 AIA/DAI Study in the U.S. Fellowship). He holds a PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Bern (Switzerland), and a MA in Near Eastern Archaeology and Egyptology from the University of Tübingen (Germany). Apart from his most recent project work in Jordan, he has actively participated in excavations at several sites in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkey.Title:The Wadi Shuʿaib Archaeological Survey Project: First Results from Field Research 2016−2018Abstract:The Wadi Shuʿaib Archaeological Survey Project (WSAS) was initiated in 2016. The Wadi Shuʿaib Archaeological Survey Project (WSAS) concentrates on a thorough survey and reevaluation of all archaeological and historical sites in the Wadi Shuʿaib, ranging from the Neolithic Period to the Ottoman Period, starting from immediately south of the city of as-Salt down to the city of Shuna South (Shuna as-Janubiyyah) located at the mouth of the wadi in the Jordan Valley. As part of the survey project, since 2017 excavations are carried out at the site of Tell Bleibil (Tall Bulaybil), located at the mouth of the alluvial fan of the Wadi Shuʿaib in the southern Jordan Valley.

Ahmanson Lecture:“The Late Roman Villa of Santiago da Guarda (Ansião, Portugal): Architecture and Mosaics in a living palimpsest”
2019-04-28 14:00
Ahmanson lecturer, Professor Filomena Limão of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, will give her talk, “The Late Roman Villa of Santiago da Guarda (Ansião,Portugal): Architecture and Mosaics in a living palimpsest”, Sunday April 28th 2019, at 2PM in the Fowler Museum, Room A222 at UCLA.

Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Presents: The Dig
2019-04-30 19:00 - 22:00
Please join the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies in “The Dig,”. This award-winning one-woman play, accompanied by live music written and performed by Yuval Ron, follows an American archeologist’s journey to discover the truth about an artifact in Israel that could have transformational implications for Israel, the Middle East and the world.To RSVP, visit https://www.international.ucla.edu/israel/event/13721.

PIZZA TALK: Survey in the Dunes New Discoveries from an Old Archaeological Project in Sistan, Afghanistan
2019-05-01 12:00 - 13:00
William B. Trousdale is Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution and Principal Investigator of the Helmand Sistan Project. Trousdale served both at the National Museum of Natural History and at the Freer Gallery in his 35 year career in archaeology.Mitchell Allen is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian and the Archaeological Research Facility at UC Berkeley, founded two archaeology-focused publishing houses, AltaMira Press and Left Coast Press, in a 40 year scholarly publishing career.Abstract:This presentation will oﬀ er a brief overview of the Helmand Sistan Project (HSP), the only multidisciplinary, long-term, comprehensive survey and excavation project ever conducted in the southwest corner of Afghanistan. In the ﬁeld in the 1970s and sponsored jointly by the Smithsonian and the government of Afghanistan, HSP identiﬁed almost 200 sites in the Sistan region– and excavated 12 of them– to establish the ﬁ rst cultural history of the region from the Bronze Age to the present, one that has not been superseded because of four decades of subsequent political and military conﬂict. With publication of this legacy project now underway, we report on a few highlights of the 5000 year history of the region, including a previously unknown early Iron Age culture and a pristine archaeological landscape from the 15th century CE.

PIZZA TALK: Inca Architecture and The Erasure of Women
2019-05-08 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Dr. Stella NairAssociate ProfessorUCLA, Dept of Art History

FRIDAY SEMINAR: The Plant-People Relationship in Ancient Central Asia
2019-05-10 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker and Bio: Elizabeth Brite is a clinical assistant professor in the Honors College, Purdue University. She is also co-director of the Khorezm Ancient Agriculture Project in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan. Dr. Brite received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA in 2011.Abstract:This talk explores the recent proliferation of studies on the plant-people relationship in ancient Central Asia. Over the last 25 years, signifi cant data sets of ancient plant remains and other dietary indicators have emerged from major and minor archaeological sites across the region. Many of the studies that have produced these data pursue a wide-ranging picture of the transmission of domesticated plants across cultures and emphasize the role of the Silk Road in shaping food globalization in prehistory. Contrasting these are other studies that examine the local, embedded, and indigenous facets of ancient plant usage and domestication within Central Asia itself. Both perspectives capture fascinating aspects of ancient human-environment dynamics in Central Asia using novel approaches. They also mirror contemporary discourse about globalization and its implications for human societies. This talk will explore these bodies of emerging scholarship and present information on new research in Central Asia aimed at addressing some of the recent trends.

PIZZA TALK: Temporalities of Reuse Monumental, Social, and Somatic Time in Adapted Buildings
2019-05-15 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Ann Marie YasinAssociate Professor of Art History and Classics USC

FRIDAY SEMINAR:Intimate plants: Constructing past identities through people’s relationships with their food
2019-05-17 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Christine A. HastorfUniversity of California, BerkeleyAbstract:Plants have been the most common non-human set of species that people have engaged with over human existence. While most people speak of domesticating plants, they too have domesticated us. They have formed intimate relations with us, having convinced our ancestors to settle down and care for them. At times they have become kin, moving in with us and sustaining us, like a good grandmother. How can we see these intimate relationships with plants in the past, given that they are often scarce in archaeological sites? By thinking about plants in more social ways we can begin to get closer to people’s choices, values and engagements with plants as we accept that this has been an intimate relationship since the before the palaeolithic times.Bio:Christine Hastorf is a professor of Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley. She is a leading scholar in the field of paleoethnobotany. She is currently the director of the McCown UC Berkeley archaeobotany laboratory and the Archaeology Research Facility at UC. Berkeley. As archaeologist, she led archaeological work in the Andean region of South America since 1980 with focus on plantpeople relationship. Her published books include Agriculture and the Onset of political inequality before the Inka; Empire and domestic economy; Heads of State: Icons, Power, and Politics in the Ancient and Modern Andes. Her most recent book is the Social Archaeology of Food:Thinking of food in Prehistory.

Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Open House 2019
2019-05-18 11:30 - 16:00
The Annual Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Open House will take place onMay 18, 2019 from 11:30 to 4:00pm with the theme Technology: Ancient and ModernExplore the breadth of ancient technologies through a mosaic of talks by Drs. John K. Papadopoulos, Gregson Schachner, Monica L. Smith, and Willeke Wendrich. Then visit the labs within the Cotsen to learn more and see these technologies up close!

PIZZA TALK: Novel Imaging Spectroscopy Applications for the Study of Ancient Cypriot Monumental Paintings
2019-05-22 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Roxanne RadpourPh.D. candidate, UCLA

FRIDAY SEMINAR: A Historical Ecology of Slavery in the Danish West Indies
2019-05-24 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Dr. Justin DunnavantUC President’s Postdoctoral FellowUniversity of California, Santa CruzBio:Dr. Justin Dunnavant is a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowat the University of California, Santa Cruz. He holds a BA inHistory and Anthropology from Howard University and anMA and Ph.D. from the University of Florida. While hisformer research interrogated the history and representation of minority groups in southern Ethiopia, his current work in the US Virgin Islands investigates the relationship between ecology and enslavement in the former Danish West Indies.Justin has conducted archaeological research in US VirginIslands, Belize, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, andThe Gambia. Abstract:The transatlantic slave trade era – marked by chattel slavery, racial capitalism, and exploitative plantation economies – radically transformed societies and environments in the Americas. In this talk, I attempt to craft a historical ecology of the African Diaspora through an analysis of slavery in the Danish West Indies. Drawing from an array of archaeological, historical and environmental data, I argue that the development of plantation slavery elicited lasting ecological changes as colonial planters developed exploitative monocrop agricultural systems and enslaved Africans made a life in the Caribbean. Theoretically, I use a Black Geographic lens to interrogate the relationship between African diasporic communities and their Atlantic environments. Finally, I posit the need to engage questions of sustainability as a form of redress in contemporary archaeological praxis.

PIZZA TALK: Approaches to the Spatial Organizations of Ancient Cemeteries GIS Recording and Analyzing of the Three-Kingdom Period Burials in Korea
2019-05-29 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Dr. Sungjoo LeeKyungpook National University

FRIDAY SEMINAR:Department of Human and Evolutionary Biology
2019-05-31 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Dr. Linda ReynardResearch Associate Department of Human and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityAbstract:Over the last 20-30 years, the analysis of stable isotope ratios from bones and teeth has contributed tremendously to the understanding of paleodiets, paleoenvironments, and migration. However, hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios in collagen are understudied compared to the well-known use of carbon, nitrogen, and strontium isotope ratios. Given that hydrogen and oxygen show geospatial patterns of isotopic variation as tracers of the global hydrological cycle, further investigation of the utility of these tracers for archaeological studies is warranted. I will outline results of our study using the Mediterranean basin as a test case, involving Late Bronze and Iron Age humans and fauna from five sites spanning 3500 km east-west across the Mediterranean basin. This rich data set shows highly variable faunal isotope ratios; in contrast, humans have tight population mean isotopic ratios. Diet type, digestive physiology, and human manipulations of foodstuffs likely play a role in causing these patterns. In addition,environmental variability between the sites is noted in the collagen isotope ratios. These results demonstrate that hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios in bone are valuable tracers, but equally that much further work is needed to elucidate the mechanisms responsible for the patterns seen.Bio:Dr. Reynard is a research associate and lecturer at the Department of Human and Evolutionary Biology,Harvard University. Her research includes the application of state of the art of Hydrogen and Oxygenisotope geochemistry for paleodiet and paleoenvironment research in archaeology. Dr. Reynard finished her D.Phil, and her M.Sc. in archaeological science at University of Oxford.

Wep-Waut in Westwood - 2019 Edition
2019-06-02 10:00 - 17:00
Egypt in AfricaProfessional presentations by UCLA undergraduate students

The Art and Archaeology of Ritual and Economy in East Asia: Workshop and Symposium in Honor of Lothar von Falkenhausen
2019-06-05 09:00 - 2019-06-06 17:30
The Art and Archaeology of Ritual and Economy in East Asia: Workshop and Symposium in Honor of Lothar von Falkenhausen東亞古代禮制和經濟的藝術與考古研究：羅泰教授還曆慶賀學術研討會 June 5-6, 2019, YRL Main Conference Room, UCLA

UCLA Chinese Archaeology Forum: Resources, Exchange, and Society
2019-08-23 09:30 - 16:30
Resources, Exchange, and SocietyUCLA Chinese Archaeology Forum (2019)第一届洛杉矶中国考古论坛：资源、贸易与社会9:30-4:30 Friday Aug 23 UCLA Young Research Library Presentation RoomOpening Remarks: 9:30-9:40First Panel: Resources and Exchanges in Early China (Chair Li Min, UCLA)第一组：早期中国的资源与交换 (主持人：李旻 加州大学洛杉矶分校)9:40-10:10 Wu Hao (Shandong University): Settlement and Social Structure on the Jianxin Site during the Middle and the Late Dawenkou Period武昊（山东大学历史文化学院）：枣庄建新遗址大汶口中晚期聚落与社会结构10:10-10:40 Gao Jiangtao (CASS): Resources, Trade Routes, and Settlements in theEmergence of Early Civilization in China: Perspective from the Jinnan Basin高江涛(中国社会科学院考古研究所)：中国早期文明之路视野下的晋南资源聚落10:40-11:10 Pang Xiaoxia (CASS): The Xiawanggang Site during the Erlitou Period: A Transportation Hub in Cultural Interaction庞小霞（中国社会科学院考古研究所）：文化互动中的枢纽—-二里头时期的淅川下王岗11:10-11:20 10 minutes break11:20-11:50 Li Min (UCLA) The Minshan Pathway in the Prehistoric Interaction of Early China李旻（加州大学洛杉矶分校）：史前中国互动圈中的岷山通道Second Panel: Ritual and Society (Chair Zhang Meimei, Occidental College)第二组：仪式与社会 (主持人：张楣楣 西方学院)11:50-12:20 Kirie Stromberg (UCLA): Music and State Formation in Early China益田雾绘(加州大学洛杉矶分校)：早期国家形成视域中的音乐12:20-1:00 pm Lunch1:00-1:30 Tian Zhaoyuan (East China Normal University)Pledge of Allegiance: Reflection on the Early State of System田兆元（华东师范大学社会发展学院）：盟誓：关于早期国家制度的思考1:30-2:00 Li Wanmeng (UCLA): Investigation of Daoist Temple in Grotto-HeavenLandscape Based on the Case Study of Dongxiao Temple Site李皖蒙(加州大学洛杉矶分校)： 洞天福地中道教宫观考古调查——以临安洞霄宫遗址为例Third Panel: Maritime Resources and Networks (Chair Liu Miao, Xiamen Univ.)第三组：海洋资源与网络 (主持人：刘淼 厦门大学)2-2:30 Cao Yang (Shandong University): Salt Archaeology Survey at the West Coast of the Bohai Gulf: Results from the 2018 Season曹洋（山东大学文化遗产研究院）：2018 年渤海湾西岸地区盐业考古调查及研究2:30-3:00 Liu Miao (Xiamen University): Production and Export of Fujian Ceramics: Survey of Anxi Kiln Sites刘淼（厦门大学人文学院）：福建古陶瓷生产及外销—-安溪县古窑址调查3-3:30 Zhou Jun (East China Normal University): Genglubu Navigation Manualsfrom the Perspective of the Maritime Communities周俊（华东师范大学社会发展学院）：海洋命运共同体视野下的《更路簿》Special Presentation: Chinese Archaeology through Camera Lens特别报告：考古镜像3:30-4 Du Lin (UCLA) A Modern Man’s Way of Viewing the Past: ArchaeologicalPhotography in the Northwestern Provinces of China杜琳(加州大学洛杉矶分校):摄影之眼的“怀古”与“求真”西北文物考察照片4-4:30 Commentary 总结评议：Prof. Lothar Von Falkenhausen 罗泰 教授 (加州大学洛杉矶分校艺术史系)Sponsored by: 资助机构：Henry Luce Foundation 露丝基金会UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology 加州大学洛杉矶分校蔻岑考古研究所UCLA Center for Chinese Studies 加州大学洛杉矶分校中国研究中心UCLA East Asian Library 加州大学洛杉矶分校东亚图书馆

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.

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.

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.

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: 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.
