Celebrate the glamour, labor, and discoveries of archaeology at Harvard. Join Harvard student archaeologists in the museum galleries as they share their experience from excavations around

the world and across time. Explore what archaeologists do and examine artifacts from the teaching collection. Make a visit behind the scenes to the Zooarchaeology lab that helps scientists identify animal bones. Hands-on activities will be available for all ages. Activities are spread across both the Peabody Museum and the Harvard Semitic Museum.

a lecture by Mary C. Stiner, Regents Professor, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona

Humans are the only animal species that bury their dead, and this practice is preserved in Paleolithic sites as early as 120,000 years ago. The emergence of burial traditions in this time period implies that both Neanderthals and early humans had already begun to conceive of the individual as unique and irreplaceable. Mary Stiner will discuss the archaeological evidence for burial practices in the Paleolithic, the earliest-known ritualized bridge between the living...

a lecture by Matthew Spriggs, Laureate Fellow and Professor of Archaeology, Australian National University, Australia

The earliest European explorations in the Pacific region sparked speculation about the origins of Pacific Islanders. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several archaeological studies were made in Polynesia, Micronesia, Island Melanesia, Australia, and New Guinea. Matthew Spriggs will discuss the findings of a five-year project to understand the early history of Pacific archaeology and its contributions to our understanding of...