The Middle Danube Basin of Central Europe plays a critical role in understanding the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition due to its position as one of the major riverine and environmental corridors by which anatomically modern humans entered a Neanderthal-occupied Europe. Central Europe, however, is noticeably different from Western Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, with its greater diversity of industrial types, i.e., two “transitional” industries (the Bohunician and the Szeletian) rather than one, as with the Châtelperronian in France and the Uluzzian in Italy. Recent...
Little is known about the urban area of ancient Arbil, counted among the few cities in the world with a continuous occupation from prehistory to modern times. At least since the Bronze Age, Arbil is known as important religious and economic center at the crossroads between Southern and Northern Mesopotamia and Iran. Recent fieldwork west of the famous Citadel revealed settlement remains ranging from the later Neo-Assyrian period (8th–7th centuries BC) reaching beyond the end of the Assyrian Empire at 612 BC. In addition to the 2009-2012 excavations, the first phase of a surface survey in...
Evidence from the Pampa de Mocan offers a new model for landscape development in an often-neglected setting of the North Coast of Peru: agriculturally marginal landscapes. By shifting focus away from center-oriented models that typically attribute landscape change to structuring projects (i.e. irrigation), this project investigates large-scale transformations in terms of small-scale, agent-based decisions and the self-reinforcing sequences they initiate. However, current environmental archaeology methodologies are incongruent with the spatial and temporal scale that these...
This presentation explores new archaeological and historical data that reveal the dynamics of wider geopolitical networks in the eastern part of the Southern Maya lowlands in 378-736 C.E. It compares and contrasts the periods of regional political consolidation of 378-406 C.E. and 546-695 C.E. in terms of the known historical context, the impact on the built landscape, and the representation in the visual culture and the written rhetoric. The goal is to refine our understanding of the ancient Maya ‘superstates’ and to search for appropriate theoretical models corresponding to...
Although some have suggested that North Coast ceramics are characterized by a stable technological style over thousands of years, evidence indicates that several technological styles “coexisted” with one another, waxing and waning in popularity over the long duree. In this...
A roundtable discussion exploring interdisciplinary approaches to iconoclasm. Taking the recent events in Syria and Iraq as a starting point, a roundtable of specialists from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds (including archaeology,...
This talk explores the role that the worldwide movement of repatriation of human remains and cultural heritage from museums and other institutions to minorities and indigenous populations plays in contemporary identity politics. Beyond the obvious...
What does the future of ocean exploration look like? Deep-sea explorer Robert D. Ballard, famous for the discovery of hydrothermal vents, “black smokers,” and the wreck of the RMS Titanic, will discuss the history and future of ocean exploration technologies. From the earliest manned deep-diving submarines to the latest remotely operated vehicle (ROV) systems that use satellite technology to transmit data in real time, technology has increasingly made interactive ocean exploration a reality. Ballard will highlight past scientific achievements in ocean exploration and outline...
Recent archaeological excavations at the site of Inkawasi, in the Cañete Valley on the south coast of Peru, uncovered a trove of 32 khipus – Inka knotted-string recording devices – in a large state storage facility. Inkawasi was built by the Inkas for their military campaign to...