Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

Stones of the Butterfly: Archaeological Investigation of Yapese Stone Money Quarries in Palau, Micronesia
2016-05-05 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles)

Pizza Talk: "Currents and Commodities: How Oceanographic Effects Influenced the Prehistoric Colonization of Islands"
2016-05-04 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Scott Fitzpatrick, University of OregonFor many island societies worldwide, the acquisition and exchange of prized resources was fundamental to developing and maintaining social, political, and economic relationships. The patchiness of resources like stone, clay, tempering agents, shell, and animals often led to differential access which then helped to fuel the rise of social complexity. This presentation considers questions of resource acquisition as mediated by oceanographic and wind conditions, comparing results from archaeological projects in the Pacific and the Caribbean.

Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Open House
2016-04-30 13:00 - 16:00
Fowler OutSpoken TalkTua Pittman on Traditional Sea Voyaging and NavigationSaturday, April 30, 1:30 pm Internationally recognized as a traditional voyaging seafarer, Tua Pitman has navigated canoes for over thirty years without the use of modern instruments. He uses a traditional navigation system based on observations of the stars, sun, moon, the ocean swells, the flight patterns of birds and other natural signs.

Friday Seminar: "Archaeological Expedition to Sinop, Turkey: Exploring the Origins of Trade at the Nexus of Eurasian Civilizations
2016-04-29 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Owen Doonan, California State University, NorthridgeAncient Sinop was the crossroads of the ancient Black Sea, which has been itself described by the distinguished historian Georges Bratianu as the “Turntable of Eurasia.”Owen Doonan has led an interdisciplinary archaeological expedition to the Sinop region since the mid-1990s and through that research program has established a basic sequence of settlement, economic and cultural history in the region. The research has significant implications for the understanding of: (1) the entanglement of colonial and indigenous communities (ca. 630-200 BC); (2) the establishment of Roman infrastructure (1st – 3rd centuries AD) in a remote region of Asia Minor (the Roman term for modern Turkey); (3) the impact of the establishment of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) as the seat of a world empire, ca. 330-600 AD; and (4) the mysterious collapse of the flourishing Byzantine rural system ca. 650 AD.Starting in the summer of 2015 Dr. Doonan’s team has initiated a long-term program of excavations at Sinop kale, the heart of the ancient port and colony. He will speak on the new excavations in the context of the systematic survey and broader cultural and economic trends in the region.

Pizza Talk: "Mortuary Practice in the Mid-Chincha Valley, Peru: New Discoveries and Emerging Models"
2016-04-27 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Jacob Bongers, PhD Candidate, UCLAThis talk addresses local mortuary practices in the mid-Chincha Valley, Peru dating from the Late Intermediate Period, or LIP (AD 1000 – 1476) to the Late Horizon (AD 1476 – 1532). Ethnohistorical documents state that a complex, centralized state known as the Chincha Kingdom dominated the Chincha Valley from the LIP until the Late Horizon, when the Inca conquered and consolidated the Chincha. Here, we summarize mortuary data from three years of fieldwork (2013-2015) in the mid-Chincha Valley. We demonstrate a mortuary landscape of over 600 well-preserved tombs. We recognize two broad tomb types: above-ground and semi-subterranean chullpas and subterranean cists. We will highlight differences in mortuary architecture and treatment of the dead between these tombs. Notable finds include peculiar evidence of postmortem body manipulation, including human remains with red pigment, cut marks, and reed posts with human vertebrae. Existing radiocarbon dates indicate that at least one cist is pre-Inca and one chullpa is Inca in date, suggesting possible diachronic changes in mortuary practice that coincide with Inca conquest. We will marshal these data in an effort to characterize and explain the nature and variability of local, late prehistoric mortuary practices in the mid-Chincha Valley.

Friday Seminar: "Motivations and Mechanisms in Technological Change: Examples from the Talc-Faience Complexes of the Indus Valley Tradition"
2016-04-22 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Heather Miller, University of TorontoArchaeological interest in technological change focuses on both invention and production by craftspeople, and on social issues related to adoption of new technologies. We recognize that technological change involves both motivations and mechanisms for change, with respect to both the invention and innovation/adoption ends of the spectrum. The possible motivations and mechanisms for the development and spread of the faience materials found across western Eurasia provides an excellent third millennium BCE case study.A bewildering assortment of materials utilizing siliceous pastes were used to make small objects such as figures, beads and containers, in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, the Mediterranean, and regions beyond and between. From very early beginnings in the sixth millennium BCE or earlier in some regions, the assortment of these materials reached great diversity of production technique and material in the third and second millennia BCE, with much less diversity of appearance. In places where these materials have seen more analytical study, such as Egypt and the Indus Valley, similarities but also striking differences occur in the regional assortments of materials and techniques employed to produce quite similar appearing materials, used to make objects clearly belonging to the local corpus of style and topic. The Indus Valley case will be the special focus of my talk, where we must speak of it as a talc-faience complex due to the entwined nature of these materials in the Indus Civilization corpus.What was involved in the spread of these materials and their manufacture? Technological change includes both new ideas or products, and the adoption of those new ideas or products, both invention and innovation (sensu Torrence and van der Leeuw 1989). For the example of the Indus case, can we find clues to the social process involved in the innovative development of these materials from analysis of the objects and their production?

Pizza Talk: "The Centrality of the Outer Fertile Crescent: A View from Aradetis Orgora"
2016-04-20 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Marilyn Kelly Buccellati, UCLA2010 was our last excavating season in the ancient city of Urkesh in the northeastern corner of Syria although we went to the site in December 2011 to meet with the local staff to assure continuing their work on conservation and site presentation. With the impossibility of excavating at Urkesh during the war, and in view of the affinities between the third millennium at Urkesh and the Kura-Araxes culture I decided to actively return to my early interests in the southern Caucasus and join an excavation in the Republic of Georgia. In 2013 I began to participate in the Aradetis Orgora excavations of Ca’ Foscari led by Elena Rova. Elena is excavating the third millennium strata and her Georgian partner, Iulon Gogoshidze continues the Georgian excavations of the Late Hellenistic-Early Imperial period palace on the summit of the mound. The strata from the end of the fourth millennium and the early third millennium consist in a number of dwellings containing the characteristic Kura-Araxes ceramics and hearths. The talk will highlight the contributions being made by this area of Shida Kartli (Inner Georgia) to the concept of the “Outer Fertile Crescent.”

Pizza Talk: " 19th Century Archaeology Meets Sacred Landscape: A Second Look at Quen Santo"
2016-04-13 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: James Brady, Cal State University, Los AngelesDuring the last decade of the 19th century, four cave studies of exceptional quality were produced. The best was Eduard Seler’s report on Quen Santo in Huehuetenango, Guatemala because of the exceptional finds still associated with the cave at that time. As a grad student at UCLA, Brady became fascinated with the site after Ted Gutman of the Friends of Archaeology translated the report from German. In 2006 new road construction opened this remote area of the Maya Highlands and permitted a restudy of the caves. Combining 21st century cave archaeology with Seler’s 19th century reporting provides rich portrait of an important Chuj Maya pilgrimage site.

Friday Seminar: "Human-environment Synergies in Driving Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinctions in South America"
2016-04-01 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Emily Lindsey, University of California, BerkeleyFor decades a debate has raged over the relative contributions of human activities and environmental change in driving the extinction of most of earth’s large mammals near the end of the last ice age. Recent research by our group in South America draws on archaeological, paleontological, paleoclimatological, quantitative modeling, and geochemical studies in order to investigate how these extinctions progressed through space and time across the continent. These studies reveal complex synergistic interactions between climatic and anthropogenic pressures, and highlight the need for integrating multiple regional-scale analyses in order to understand how large-scale extinction events transpired in the past, and how they are likely to proceed in the context of ongoing climate change and growing human impacts today.

Medieval Ireland: An Overview of 1,000 Years from the Archaeological and Historical Record
2016-03-30 19:00 - 21:30
The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA and the Institute of Field Research present a public lecture:Medieval Ireland: An Overview of 1,000 Years from the Archaeological and Historical RecordDr. Stephen MandelVice Chairperson of the Royal Irish Academy Committee for ArchaeologyThe Medieval Period in Ireland is often defined in terms of specific events, from St Patrick lighting the Pascal fire to bring Christianity in 432 AD to the first Viking Raids on Lambay Island in 795 AD to the Anglo-Norman invasion led by Strongbow in 1169 AD. However, whilst these dates dominate the discourse, in isolation they are a simplistic classification and can take focus from a far more complex story. This presentation will give an overview of the medieval history of Ireland through the archaeological and historical record, demonstrating that this small island nation has always held significance far greater than its size.

Pizza Talk: "The Ancient Site of Zita in Southern Tunisia"
2016-03-30 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Dr. Ali Drine, Archaeological Researcher and Director of Archaeological Mapping, Institut National du Patrimoine in TunisiaThe site of Zita was a political and economic hub situated on the Zarzis Peninsula in the region of Tripolitania, southern Tunisia. Historical sources make reference to the site, including the Itinerarium Antonini and the Tabula Peutingeriana. A Carthaginian foundation, the urban area was incorporated into the Roman Empire with monuments such as a forum, capitol, and likely also a basilica and bath complex. The Carthaginian population persisted in its adherence to Punic identity and religion well into the Roman occupation. A Punic sacrificial precinct (tophet) has yielded over 600 stelae hewed from the limestone on which Zita sits, dozens of urns, and diverse iconographic representations. Neo-Punic graffiti and inscriptions to the goddess Tanit (Calaestis) further indicate the Carthaginian ancestry of the population, which thrived primarily on the production and export of olive oil. Most of the archaeological features are still buried under olive and almond orchards. Since 2012 research is ongoing through a collaboration between the Institut National du Patrimoine (Tunis, Tunisia), UCLA and Brown University.This lecture is co-sponsored by the Silsbee Chair in African Cultural Archaeology.

Berekian Family Manuscripts Donation to the Armenian Archives at UCLA
2016-03-11 19:00 - 21:00
Join us on Friday, March 11 at 7PM, as we celebrate the donation of the Berekian Family archive to the Chitjian Research Archives and the Armenian Research Program in Archaeology and Ethnography at UCLA.See the flyer below for details.Reception to follow.Please RSVP at kristineolsh@ucla.edu by March 9th, 2016.

Friday Seminar: "Stories from the Skeleton: Masculinity, Old Age, & Disability in Ancient Bahrain"
2016-03-11 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Alexis Boutin, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Sonoma State UniversitySince 2008, the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project has been studying and publishing the materials from Peter B. Cornwall’s 1940-41 expedition to Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia, which now reside in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. This multi-disciplinary team is adding to anthropologists’ understanding of how life was experienced and death commemorated in ancient Dilmun (ca. 2050-1800 BCE). In this talk, Dr. Boutin will explore how human skeletal remains and associated grave goods can reveal transformations in identity (e.g., gender, age, and physical ability) across the life course. She will also explain how experimenting with alternative modes of interpretation can improve bioarchaeological praxis and communicate effectively and accessibly with diverse audiences.

[CANCELLED] Pizza Talk: "Settlement Patterns and LiDAR in Central Yucatan: Evaluating the Potential of Remote Sensing in Conditions of Comples Canopy"
2016-03-09 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Travis Stanton, Associate Professor, UC RiversideNote: this Pizza Talk has been cancelled.

[CANCELLED] Friday Seminar: TBA
2016-03-04 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Ian Morris, Stanford UniversityNote: this Friday Seminar has been cancelled.

Pizza Talk: "Modeling Strategies of Risk-Reduction in the Kuril Islands"
2016-03-02 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Erik Gjesfjeld, Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLAHuman populations in the past and present have shown a remarkable ability to inhabit diverse and unpredictable environments. This research explores how archaeological remains can examine the use of risk-reducing strategies, such as social networking and technological innovation, in the remote Kuril Islands of Northeast Asia. Results from this research suggest that social safety nets may be an important mechanism for mitigating the effects of environmental unpredictability and that populations tend to become more technologically conservative in unpredictable landscapes. These findings help to highlight some of the misconceptions surrounding the concept of risk and support the future analysis of risk-reducing adaptations using material culture.

Friday Seminar: "Epistemological Issues Raised by Theories of Entanglement"
2016-02-26 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Dr. Ian Hodder, Stanford University

Pizza Talk: "Excavations at the Sanctuary of Poseidon in Boeotian Onchestos (Greece): Report on the First Two Campaigns"
2016-02-24 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Ioannis Mylonopoulos, Associate Professor, Columbia UniversitySince 2014, Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archaeology has conducted excavations and geophysical survey at the sanctuary of Poseidon in Onchestos, the seat of the Boeotian Confederacy and a major sacred site of Central Greece, under the auspices of the Athens Archaeological Society. Excavation focuses on two large areas between Thebes and Haliartos, where geomagnetic survey also provided much information on subsurface architectural remains. The excavation has already yielded a rich array of finds: vases and vase-fragments (several bearing graffiti), numerous bronze objects (including several strigils), bronze and silver coins, weapons (among them a fully preserved sword), objects associated with horse- and chariot races, and many architectural elements (including several architectural terracotas bearing floral and abstract decoration in black, white, and red color on a beige background).

Friday Seminar: "Long-distance Networks in Neolithic Europe"
2016-02-19 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Dr. Caroline von Nicolai, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich

Pizza Talk: "Transport Amphoras, Symposia, and Early Iron Age Economies"
2016-02-17 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Mark Lawall, University of Manitoba

Pizza Talk: "Bone Weary: Labor in the South American Tiwanaku State (AD 500-1100) from a Bioarchaeological Perspective"
2016-02-10 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Sara Becker, Assistant Professor, UC RiversideThere are a number of approaches in understanding how human civilizations evolved into complex, state-level societies. Labor organization as part of resource management is one way to distinguish these changes and bioarchaeology provides a unique opportunity to study the remains of the actual people who worked within these communities. This research addresses labor organization and distribution within Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100), one of the earliest Andean states in South America. This study examines the impact that state formation had on patterns of human labor observable on the bones of people who lived during the Tiwanaku state. State structure and social organization were evaluated through temporal and spatial labor changes associated with the activity of individuals, in order to provide a comparative framework of specic skeletal evidence to the extant archaeological record. Also, by examining the age and sex of these laborers, peoples’ gender roles or status dierences within this emerging state can be discussed. This investigation answers questions about what tasks people were doing within Tiwanaku, how the state was organized, as well as highlights the importance of reciprocal communal labor networks in order for a complex Andean society to function successfully.

Keynote Address, 6th Annual UCLA Interdisciplinary Archaeology Research Conference
2016-02-05 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Michelle Hegmon, Arizona State UniversityThe Archaeology of the Human Experience (AHE) is a new initiative concerned with understanding what it was actually like to live in the past that archaeologists study (Hegmon 2013, 2016). I will begin the talk by explaining the origins and goals of AHE. Then, I will describe, in some depth, several examples of AHEresearch. One explores how people in the ancient US Southwest were able recreate their society, moving from difficult and violent times to a more prosperous and peaceful way of life. Another considers how people’s labor changed as they became incorporated into the Inka Empire. And a third draws on studies of Nazi labor camps to ask whether and how we can know the suffering of others. The talk concludes with future directions of AHE, including ideas for experiential archaeology and historical/comparative perspectives.

Pizza Talk: "Tunneling with Technology: Recent Investigations at the Classic Maya Site of El Zotz, Guatemala"
2016-02-03 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Thomas Garrison, Assistant Professor, USC

Friday Seminar: "Comanche Visual Culture and the Theater of War"
2016-01-29 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Severin Fowles, Barnard College, ColumbiaThe colonial history of the American Southwest looks quite a bit dierent today than it did only a decade ago. We used to know who the empires were: the Spanish imperial project began in the sixteenth century, held back the advance of the French imperial project for the better part of a century, before both succumbed to the American imperial project. We used to know who the barbarians were as well: as the Germanic hordes were to Rome, so the bellicose equestrian tribes of the Plains were to European and Euro-American civilizations. But now these story lines come undone. Now we are told that, for much of the colonial era, some of the most ambitious imperial actors were Native American—and that the Comanche in particular were involved in a strange form of reversed colonialism, startling the European colonizers by beginning to colonize them in return. Are there archaeological remains that speak to the new, more complicated colonial dynamics recently identied by revisionist historians?

Pizza Talk: "In the Eye of the Storm: The Resilience of the Urkesh Project in the midst of the Syrian War"
2016-01-27 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Giorgio Buccellati, Professor Emeritus, UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

Pizza Talk: "Uncovering a Lost City of the Qarakhanid Empire: Alpine Urbanism in Medieval Uzbekistan"
2016-01-20 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker:Michael Frachetti, Associate Professor, Washington University in St. Louis

Friday Seminar: "Plant-based Subsistence Strategies and Development of Complex Societies in Neolithic Northeast China: Evidence from Grinding Stones"
2016-01-15 16:00 - 18:00
Speaker:Li Liu, Stanford UniversityIn China, grinding stones first appeared during the Upper Paleolithic period, and were one of the dominant tool types in many early Neolithic sites. Grinding stones were primarily used for processing plant foods and other materials. They gradually disappear in the archaeological record after 5000 BC in the Yellow River region at the time when millet-based agriculture may have intensified. However, grinding stones were continuously used by people throughout the entire Neolithic period in the Liao River region of Northeast China. The different trajectories in food processing methods (with or without grinding stones) in the two regions are likely related to diverse types of plants exploited; and we need to understand what plants were involved. By employing residue (starch and phytoliths) and usewear analyses, this study investigates the functions of grinding stones recovered at several sites in the Liao River region, dating to ca. 5800-3000 BC. The results suggest that the people utilized a broad-spectrum subsistence strategy throughout the entire Neolithic, using various wild, cultivated, and domesticated plants, including tubers/roots, cereals, beans, and nuts. The earliest domesticates in the Xinglongwa period include millets and Job’s tears. Rice may have been introduced to the region for the first time during the Hongshan period, coinciding with the rise of regional elite and intensified interactions with other Neolithic cultures in the south. This study sheds new light on the plant-use strategies of the grinding-stone users who developed complex societies in the Neolithic Liao River region.

Pizza Talk: "Q&A with Lord and Lady Renfrew"
2016-01-13 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Colin Renfrew, Senior Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Indo-European Origins Revisited: New Data, New Problems
2016-01-11 19:00 - 21:00
Professor Colin Renfrew, Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research University of Cambridge The image of mounted nomad warriors from the steppe lands of Russia bringing the Proto-Indo-European language to Europe has been displaced in recent years by new models; the early spread of farming from Anatolia became a preferred explanation for language replacement. Recent work on ancient DNA has, however, brought the steppe theory back into prominence. The Indo-European question remains controversial and will be reviewed – but perhaps not resolved! The lecture is free to the public. Parking at Lot #4 (Sunset and Westwood) is $12 for 24 hours, hourly parking available.

Pizza Talk: "The Ancient Methone Archaeological Project: The First Two Years"
2015-12-02 12:00 - 13:00
Speakers: John Papadopoulos, Professor, Department of Classics, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLASarah Morris, Professor, Department of Classics, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
