Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

Friday Seminar: "Keepers of Tradition, Harbingers of Change: Tracing Communities of Practice in Greco-Roman Karanis, Egypt"
2017-06-02 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Speaker: Dr. Sonali Gupta-Agarwal, UCLA Traditions are transmitted through teaching and learning. The manner in which knowledge relating to craft production gets transmitted can help us in understanding the causes behind cultural continuity and change. By using an anthropological approach to find teaching and learning patterns, I investigate the role of potters inmodern day pottery workshops of Egypt and India in the transmission of knowledge relating to pottery production. Employing video footage using a video annotation research tool, I discern subtle gestures and postures of potters engaged in the process of pottery production and statistically examine these to reveal patterns specific to each workshop. I transpose the method and understanding gained from the study of modern potters to the archaeological context in Karanis, Egypt. Teaching and learning of pottery making leaves recognizable markers on the vessel that can be traced metrically. My research suggests that one can trace ancient communities of practice, knowledge transfer and interpret continuity or change in material culture as part of an ongoing learning tradition.

Pizza Talk: "The Shimmer of Bodies: Aztec Luxury in Context"
2017-05-31 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Patrick Hajovsky, Associate Professor, Art History, Southwestern UniversityTaking a critical perspective, I argue that Aztec “luxury” objects worn or held on the body linked valor and value to tonalli, the heat-life energy that manifests personality and fate, and yollotl, the heart, source of blood and center of human life. The Aztecs explored the equivalences and differences between luxury materials–lapidary, gold, feather–through synesthetic metaphors that tied visual art to Nahuatl poetry. Forms made of these materials further emphasize these essential connections between person and object, which allowed the object to become a surrogate of the owner’s agency. This is important to consider in the Aztec economy of sacrifice and the logic of state of control.

The Inka Khipu: Communicating with Strings, Knots and Colors in Ancient Peru
2017-05-30 16:30 - 18:30

Homes and Habitat: A Mini-Symposium on Greco-Roman Architecture
2017-05-30 11:00 - 13:00

[CANCELLED] Friday Seminar: "Blood Weddings: the Inkas, the Habsburgs, and Royal Incest"
2017-05-26 16:00 - 18:00
NOTE: This Friday Seminar has been cancelled. Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Mumford, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Brown UniversityIn 1558, in Spanish Peru, the Inka princess Cusi Huarcay married her brother, Sayri Thupa, with the blessing of the Catholic bishop of Cuzco, carrying the Inka tradition of sibling marriage into the colonial era. In 1570, King Philip V of Spain married his niece Anna of Austria, the daughter of his cousin and his sister. Each marriage reflected a royal practice of close-kin marriage forbidden to ordinary people, in Peru just as in Europe. Scholars have never seen them as comparable: on the one hand, the apparent magical thinking of the Inkas, who believed kings were descended from the Sun and should not pollute their blood with outsiders; on the other the apparent pragmatism of European monarchs, for whom endogamy was a tool in geopolitical strategy. In fact, there was pragmatism behind the magic and magic behind the pragmatism. In both kingdoms, close-kin marriage was a way that kings and queens sacralized themselves through breaking the most intimate and dangerous of laws. This research project, juxtaposing these two traditions of power and sexuality, opens a window into how entangled states create a shared political culture under colonialism.

Pizza Talk: "3-D Digital Model of the Egyptian Fortress at Jaffa"
2017-05-24 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Jeremy Williams, Ph.D. Candidate, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLAThe practice of digitally modelling archaeological sites has grown more and more common in recent years. Well-known ancient sites such as the Temple of Karnak, Khirbet Qumran, and the Roman Forum have benefited from such models.The recent digital model of the Late Bronze Egyptian fortress at Jaffa has provided various insights that deepen our understanding of the function and design of this site.This presentation will demonstrate the process of modelling the fortress, focusing on important aspects of the reconstruction and the modelling itself . It will also include some brief demonstrations of the software used to create the digital model in order to show the accessibility and benefits of such models.

Friday Seminar: "Taboo topics: Exploring absences in the faunal remains from Çatalhöyük, Turkey"
2017-05-19 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Nerissa Russell, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cornell UniversityEthnography shows us that every society has some form of food taboos, often focused on the meat of particular animals. While the pig taboo, in particular, has received considerable archaeological attention in the eastern Mediterranean, there is little discussion of taboo in prehistory. The obvious reason is that, lacking textual or direct ethnohistorical evidence, it is difficult to study absence. However, taboos are likely to have affected the composition of most zooarchaeological assemblages, so we cannot afford to ignore them. While specific beliefs cannot be applied from ethnography to deep prehistory, some of the structuring principles seen in ethnoarchaeological and ethnohistoric studies can help us to identify prehistoric animal taboos. I argue that the patterning of the animal bone assemblage from Neolithic Çatalhöyük has been shaped by taboo practices. These taboos involve multiple taxa and take several forms.

Pizza Talk: "An American Icon in Plastic: The Technical Analysis, Study, and Treatment of a First Edition 1959 Barbie"
2017-05-17 12:00 - 13:00
Speakers: Morgan Burgess and Marci Burton, M.A. Students, Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials, UCLAThis study focuses on a privately owned, autographed, first edition (c. 1959) BarbieTM doll made from poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) plastic. Contrary to “sticky-leg syndrome”, where plasticizer migrates from the PVC and deposits to the surface as a tacky liquid, this doll exhibits a bloom of a fugitive, waxy, white solid on the legs from the mid-thighs to the ankles. In addition, the doll was autographed by Ruth Handler, the designer of BarbieTM and a cofounder of the Mattel corporation. Her signature and the date are now barely legible as the once sharp lines of ink have migrated within the PVC plastic.Multi-spectral imaging and x-radiography were performed on the doll in order to non-invasively, non-destructively examine the plastic and gain an understanding of the manufacturing procedures. In addition, with collaboration from the Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) of the Smithsonian, computed tomography, Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy data were collected on the plastic components of the BarbieTM doll. The results collected from the analysis provided insight into the process of manufacture, material composition and structural integrity of the doll, as well as determined the agents of degradation and identified the waxy bloom compound observed locally on both PVC plastic legs, but absent on other plastic components of the doll. After the removal of the waxy bloom, the (c.1959) BarbieTM, along with her clothing, accessories and case, was housed with archival materials and kept in a monitored environment to slow the degradation process and prevent another waxy bloom outbreak on the PVC plastic.

Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Open House
2017-05-13 12:00 - 16:00
ConnectionsArchaeology is a collaborative field and archaeological teams always consist of specialists from many disciplines. This interconnectedness is an integral part of a holistic understanding of our past. Join us for an open house that illuminates the relationship between the Fowler Museum and archaeological research, beginning with two gallery talks in the Fowler Museum. These talks will be followed by a lecture, Connections Ancient and Modern: Reflections on Fieldwork in India by Dr. Monica L. Smith and will include a panel discussion with the audience. After the discussion the archaeological labs will be open to the public, giving visitors the chance to explore how archaeologists work together on many different levels to contribute to our appreciation of cultural heritage through interdisciplinary, cutting edge research.For information call 310-209-8934. No reservation required.

Friday Seminar: "The Synthesis of Archaeology and World Systems Analysis and its Application to the Region of Southern Caucasia"
2017-05-12 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Pavel Avetisyan, Director, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of ArmeniaThis talk is dedicated to the investigation of the main concepts in World-system analysis such as border, border-line, frontier, and contact zone. Taking in to account the privileges of World-system analysis in archaeological investigations, this contribution, through demonstration of concrete cases, argues the idea of formation of “Near Eastern World-system” during the mid phase of Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNB) as a result of Agricultural Revolution. This oldest World-system was disintegrated during the first half of the 7th millennium BC with the establishment of new historical systems of regional significance: the result of these developments was the appearance in historical arena of Bronze Age World-systems.

Pizza Talk: "Trying to Do the Right Things to Protect the World's Archaeological Heritage: A Committee Member's Tale"
2017-05-10 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Lothar von Falkenhausen, Professor of Art History, UCLAThe Presidential Cultural Property Advisory Committee is charged with implementing the 1970 UNESCO convention in order to curb the illegal inflow of cultural property into the United States. Lothar von Falkenhausen has served on this Committee since 2012. He will report on the legal framework under which the Committee does its work, as well as on his experiences so far.

Friday Seminar: "Cremation Practices and Personhood among the Pre-Hispanic Hohokam of Southern Arizona"
2017-05-05 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Jessica I. Cerezo-Román, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Cal Poly PomonaChanging perspectives on concepts of personhood are explored by deconstructing cremation mortuary customs among the Prehispanic Hohokam of the Tucson Basin, southern Arizona, from the Preclassic to Classic periods (AD 475-1450/1500). The approach used analyzes how people were represented in mortuary rituals through three main bodies of data: (1) biological profile of human skeletal remains, (2) posthumous treatment of the body, and (3) archaeological context. The biological profile of human skeletal remains relates to physical aspects of an individual’s life. Examining posthumous treatment of the body and the archaeological context allow for reconstruction of relationships between the living and dead that are displayed through mortuary ritual. The combination of biology and culture reveals clues to how people were remembered at death by their families, peers, and community, as well as an individual’s position(s) within multiple social networks. Results indicate that certain aspects of personhood did not change across time and space. However, by analyzing changes through time in cremation rituals it was possible to infer that some aspects of personhood did change. These changes in cremation practices parallel broader sociopolitical changes of increased social differentiation and complexity among the Classic Period Hohokam.

Pizza Talk: "How Many People Do You Really Need to Understand a Maya Pot? The Maya Vase Research Project at LACMA"
2017-05-03 12:00 - 13:00
Speakers: Dr. Megan O’Neil, Associate Curator, Art of the Ancient Americas, LACMA; Laura Maccarelli, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation Science, LACMA”This presentation features the Maya Vase Research Project, a collaboration of LACMA’s (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) Conservation Center and the Art of the Ancient Americas Program, which is studying Classic-period Maya ceramics in the LACMA collection . Using new technical imaging and a variety of analytical tools, this multidisciplinary research project is examining Maya vessels in new ways, studying materials and manufacturing techniques in relation to art historical, epigraphic, and archaeological analyses.

The Indian Roots of Global Buddhism
2017-04-29 10:00 - 17:00

Friday Seminar: "Partnering with Pots: The Work of Objects in the Imperial Inca Project"
2017-04-28 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Tamara L. Bray, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Wayne State UniversityNew understandings of matter and materiality are being driven by recent theoretical developments in the realm of science, particularly physics and ecology. These evolving orientations are, in turn, contributing to new philosophical thinking on the nature of being and reality. The trickle-down effects of these developments are, in part, responsible for what has been termed “the ontological turn,” a trend clearly visible in recent archaeological discourse. In combination with new relational and symmetrical approaches guiding investigations into constitution of “the social,” the door has been opened to imagining logics and ontologies different from our own in our studies of past peoples. In this paper, I work from the basis of the imperial Inca ceramic assemblage to consider how these distinctive objects were deployed in the task ofempire-building and what insights they provide into native Andean and Inca ontology during the late pre-Columbian period. I develop the argument that imperial pots were construed as animate bodies and agents of the State based on an analysis of vessel morphology and iconography. The study brings to the fore the mutually constituted nature of the imperial Inca project, which I contend involved armies of both people and things working collectively in the construction of a new social order

Pizza Talk: "Building Futures, Saving Pasts: An Examination of the Approach of the Sustainable Preservation Initiative"
2017-04-26 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Paul Burtenshaw, Director, Projects, Sustainable Preservation InitiativeThe Sustainable Preservation Initiative (SPI) attempts to “Build Futures and Save Pasts”-simultaneously protecting tangible cultural heritage and enhancing the lives of the people who live around it. To do this, we develop sustainable local businesses, which are connected to archaeology and provide real and long term incomes to communities .Through this, we hope to create new economic opportunities and allow people to leverage historic sites responsibly .This talk will explore the rationale behind SPI’s approach to heritage preservation and sustainable development and reviews our successes, failures, and lessons from our projects in Peru, Guatemala, and Jordan.

Friends of Archaeology Dinner: Academic Excellence
2017-04-25 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 on April 25, 2017 where three excellent students will present their research. The reception will begin at 6:00pm and be followed by dinner at 6:45pm. Ellen HsiehArchaeology of the Boxer Codex: Spanish, Chinese, and Indigenous reactions in the Colonial PhilippinesKarime CastilloGlass Production in New Spain: Some Results of a Study in Technology Transfer and AdaptationAdam diBattistaHippo Tooth and Hog Tusk: Worked Animal Material at Ancient MethoneRSVP by April 18, 2017Yes, I will attend No, I will not attend This event is restricted to Friends of Archaeology. For more information about becoming a Friend, please visit our membership page.

Pizza Talk: "The Temple of Dendur in Context: Nubia, the Met, and Virtual Reality"
2017-04-19 12:00 - 13:00
Speakers: Noemi Mafrici and Michela Mezzano, Ph.D. Candidates, Architecture and Landscape Heritage, Politecnico di TorinoThis talk will present the first outcomes of the ongoing joint research project between POLITO and UCLA. The project “Cultural Heritage in context: digital technologies for the humanities” concerns the UNESCO campaign of the 1960s for the rescue of the Nubian temples that risked being flooded .The aim of the project is to reconstruct the lost context of the Nubia heritage and to visualize the relocation of the temples involved in the salvage campaign .The case of the temple of Dendur will be presented through its three contexts: the lost original Nubian landscape, the relocated space at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Virtual Reality reconstruction context.

Friday Seminar: "Mines, Fields, Hillforts: Challenging the Marginality of the Jawa Hinterland (NE-Jordan) in the 4th Millennium"
2017-04-14 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Bernd Mueller-Neuhof, Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

Pizza Talk: "Community Archaeology--1984"
2017-04-12 12:00 - 13:00
Speakers: Dr. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati, Visiting Professor, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology; Giorgio Buccellati, Professor Emeritus, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA”These forty years now I’ve been speaking in prose without knowing it!” Unlike Moliere ‘s Monsieur Jourdain, we knew we were “speaking prose” … Our “prose” was community archaeology, which we undertook to implement since the beginning of our excavation projects in Syria. Having embarked on an effort that relied on a common sense type of approach, very much down to earth as it befits an archaeological endeavor, we have come to reflect more and more on its theoretical implications. And the current war in Syria has put to a severe test our presuppositions . We will first review the main aspects of our specific case of “community archaeology” at Tell Mozan, ancient Urkesh, and we will then share our reflections on its theoretical import. This is particularly meaningful now, at a moment when the concept is beginning to gain traction on the one hand, while on the other we find ourselves physically separated from our “community.”

3D Scanning and Printing Workshop
2017-04-06 10:00 - 12:00
This workshop will begin with a demonstration of two handheld 3D scanners, the Artec Eva and Space Spider. Andy Greyson will walk through how to set up the environment, capture the data, and process the scans. He will also provide tips to efficiently utilize the variety of tools included in the software.The second half of the workshop will focus on 3D printing during an interactive Q&A with Doug Daniels. You will also see two 3D printers from the UCLA Library Lux Lab in actions: the MakerBot 5th Gen (a fused deposition modeling printer) and Form 2 (stereolithographic printer).Technologists from the Digital Research Consortium will also be available to discuss 3D modeling for research projects.RSVP at http://bit.ly/2nDpPd0 by Monday, April 3, 2017.Header image from the Smithsonian X 3D collection: Lidded ritual ewer (zun) in the form of an elephant with masks and dragonsWritten by Vince RossiChina, possibly Hunan provinceShang dynasty, ca. 1100-1050 BCEBronze, 17.2 x 10.7 x 21.4 cmFreer Gallery of Art, F1936.6a-b

Pizza Talk: The experimental reconstruction of a Stone Age house: a chaîne opératoire approach
2017-04-05 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Annelou van Gijn, Professor of Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University

Pizza Talk: "Digital Gothic: Reverse Engineering the Lost Monuments of Medieval Paris"
2017-03-15 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Meredith Cohen, UCLA Art History

Friends of Archaeology Tour to Downtown LA Theater District Spring 2017
2017-03-12 13:00 - 16:00
On March 12, 2017, Anthony Caldwell, manager of the Scholarly Innovation Lab at UCLA, took an FoA group on a tour of architectural treasures in downtown Los Angeles, focusing in particular on the old movie theaters that at one time studded the stretch of Broadway from Third Street to Ninth Street. As the heart of the entertainment capital of the world, Broadway was home to over two dozen picture palaces in various architectural styles: Beaux Arts, Art Deco, Neoclassical, Baroque and Spanish Renaissance—and of course, some that defy labeling. FoA members were treated to a fascinating discourse on the background of each building, with plenty of history and a few colorful details.

Friday Seminar: "Tell el-Dab'a/Avaris, the Capital of the Hyksos, a Town of Different Ethnicities"
2017-03-10 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Manfred Bietak, Professor Emeritus, University of Vienna Institute of EgyptologyAvaris, capital of the Hyksos, was inhabited, as we may presume, mainly by a western Asiatic population, which migrated to Egypt from the late Middle Kingdom onwards. We may call them for convenience sake Amorites as the little onomastic evidence we have, shows that they had mainly Western-Semitic personal names. We don’t know yet, if this population was homogenous. Most probably they were not, as their osteological remains show a sexual dimorphism. This phenomenon is known when wives are taken from a different gen-pool than the men. This result was attested some time ago by the physical anthropologist Eike M. Winkler from the University of Vienna. Most probably, immigrants from the Levant seem to have married local women who also did not match the Egyptian population type. Therefor they may have originated from an older substratum of immigration from different origin. We are lacking, however, the osteological material of the Egyptians who lived in the oldest settlements of the 12th Dynasty at Tell el-Dab‘a at ‘Ezbet Rushdi. These people were not buried within the town as the Canaanites, but according to the Egyptian mortuary tradition in a separate but still undisclosed cemetery, outside the town. We have various indications that they continued to live within Avaris untill the end of the Hyksos Period. Within the oldest part of the town of Avaris, at the quarter where we have evidence of a planned settlement and a temple of the 12th Dynasty, there are no intramural burials, also not from the Second Intermediate Period. The same applies to a quarter directly south of this Middle Kingdom settlement, where even during the Hyksos Period the usual burials in houses or courtyards – which are ethnical markers – are missing. What is missing in this district are finds of toggle-pins which held together the typical Western Asiatic garment at the left shoulder. Such finds were, however, collected within the immediately adjoining quarters, where obviously the Amorites lived.Besides Egyptians and people from Western Asia from dierent periods of immigration, Avaris proves more and more to have been a multi-ethnical town. Ceramic remains from dierent parts of Nubia can be taken as evidence that also various ethnicities of Nubians lived here. As their pottery has open forms, not suitable as containers of imports, and as the roughly produced cooking pots are not attractive as imports it is likely that Nubians lived in Avaris over a long period. Some of the cooking pots even seem to have been produced of local clays. This would speak indeed for the physical presence of Nubians.Besides the above mentioned ethnicities there is even some small evidence that Cypriots may have beenpresent in Avaris shortly before the Hyksos Period as Cypriot pottery was produced locally in Cypriot handmade technique.

Pizza Talk: "Booty to Baubles: The Material Impact of Rome's Conquest of Egypt"
2017-03-08 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Stephanie Pearson, Institut für Archäologie at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, GermanyIn the later first century BC, Egyptian material sweeps into Roman houses on an unprecedented scale. Its connection to Octavian’s conquest of Egypt has been taken for granted; but what are the actual mechanisms by which a political event could affect material culture? Archaeological and textual evidence in fact sheds light on this process, in part by allowing us to identify precise categories of Egyptian objects that Romans acquired. It also reveals the importance of considering context and artistic adaptations in understanding the variety of meanings for Egyptian material in Roman houses.

Friday Seminar: "Beyond All Edges in Central Arizona"
2017-03-03 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Sarah Herr, President, Desert Archaeology Inc.The cultural affiliation of the pre-contact residents of central Arizona defies easy categorization. These residents of small settlements construct their houses in array of styles, form undecorated ceramic vessels, specialize in projectile point production, and trade other goods rarely but widely, and are not easily encompassed into Hohokam or Puebloan histories. The State Route 260—Payson to Heber project, a culturalresource management investigation conducted for the Arizona Department of Transportation in advance of highway realignment, provided the opportunity to examine the lifeways of these people who live beyond many boundaries. Trying to understand their experiences provides a starting point for considering the larger issues of how Southwest archaeologists conduct research in areas outside demographic cores.

Screening of The Archaeologist: A Documentary by Kimon Tsakiris
2017-03-02 18:30 - 21:30
Please join us for a screening of the documentary film The Archaeologist by Kimon Tsakiris. The film will be preceded by a panel discussion with Professor John Papadopoulos (UCLA, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology) and Professor Katerina Zacharia (Loyola Marymount University, Classics) and followed by a reception.A synopsis of the film follows:In the final “battle” of her career, a determined archaeologist–who has dedicated all her life to protecting the cultural and natural environment of the land–has two months to salvage as much as possible from an archaeological dig which is planned to be flooded during the construction process of a new dam by the Greek National Power Company.Parking available in UCLA Lot 4, 221 Westwood Plaza at Sunset Blvd. Upon entering Lot 4, turn left into the Pay-By-Space area.Parking is $3/hr, max $12/day.Automated pay stations accept $1 or $5 bills and credit/debit cards.

Pizza Talk: "The Arts of Memory: Anthropology of a Mental Artifact"
2017-03-01 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Carlo Severi, Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale, EHESS, ParisFor linguists, anthropologists and archaeologists, the emblematic image always and everywhere preceded the appearance of the sign. This myth of a figurative language composed by icons, that form the opposite figure of writing, has deeply influenced Western tradition. In my talk, I show that the logic of Native American Indian mnemonics (pictographs, khipus) cannot be understood from the ethnocentric question of the comparison with writing, but requires a truly comparative anthropology. Rather than trying to know if Native American techniques of memory are true scripts or mere mnemonics, we can explore the formal aspect both have in common, compare the mental processes they call for. We can ask if both systems belong to the same conceptual universe, to a mental language, to use Giambattista Vico’s définition, that would characterize the Native American arts of memory. In this perspective, techniques of memory stop being hybrids or imprecise, and we will better understand their nature and functions as mental artifacts.

LaTeX: Bibliographies and Citations
2017-03-01 10:30 - 12:00
LaTeX is a document preparation system that uses plain rather than formatted text, which encourages users to focus on content rather than formatting. This system is increasingly used for preparation of articles and theses, and has wide application across the sciences and humanities. This workshop will build on the first and focus on preparing bibliographies and citing references with LaTeX.Bring your computer with LaTeX installed for hands-on practice. If you were unable to attend the first workshop or did not get LaTeX installed on your computer please contact dal@ioa.ucla.edu prior to March 1st.
