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A temporary exhibit in the atrium of the Archaeological Research Facility describes the FoodStore project. The exhibit is accompanied by a lecture by Dr. Valentina Tumolo on March 13. On March 7, a reception at the ARF (4:00 pm) will celebrate the exhibit's launch. The reception on March 7 and the lecture on March 13 are both free and open to the public.

About: Storing food has always been a basic need for semi-nomadic and sedentary people, representing both a risk-management strategy and a source of social power. In archaeological contexts, the ways in which food is stored is associated with a combination of ecological, technological, and social factors. FoodStore is an ongoing project centred on the investigation of features for food storage in south-eastern Turkey and the Kurdistan region of Iraq in the late fifth, fourth, and third millennium BC, through a combination of traditional macro-archaeological methods and micro-archaeological techniques. The goal of the project is to identify how past technological knowledges interacted with different landscapes and climates, and under various social conditions, to create and preserve diverse types of storage features.

This lecture is part of the series Women and Gender in the Phoenician Homeland and Diaspora. This program of public lectures takes place monthly on Thursdays at 9:30 AM Pacific, from October 2023 through May 2024. See the list of lectures and dates below.

Watch on the ARF YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/arf-channel or watch later on the ARF & Badè YouTube channels.

This talk will take place in person at the ARF and on Zoom (you must have a Zoom account to attend). Register for online attendance here.

Abstract: 

Epipalaeolithic (c. 10-20 kya) hunters-gatherers in Southwest Asia experimented with plant and animal management and developed long-ranging, complex networks of exchange and movement, but little remains known of this period in Cyprus. The Ancient Seafaring Explorers of Cyprus Project (ASEC) extends the broader understanding of Epipalaeolithic wayfinding, placemaking, and technological use in Cyprus through systemic survey of the central southern coast. Here, we present two new Epipalaeolithic occupations in Cyprus that contribute to our broader understanding of landscape use and movement of EP groups during the initial phases of occupation and exploration of Cyprus.

This talk will take place in person at the ARF and on Zoom (you must have a Zoom account to attend). Register for online attendance here.

Abstract: 

The Pompeii Artifact Life History Project (PALHIP) is a long-term UC Berkeley Classics research project designed to shed light on various aspects of the life history of portable artifacts in the Roman town of Pompeii and selected sites in its environs. This talk reports on some of the results obtained in the field seasons carried out in 2022 and 2023 - the third and fourth years of a second five-year research cycle in which the project is focusing on the characterization of the
artifact assemblages recovered in a set of eight small to medium-sized residences that occupy the bulk of Insula I.17 - a block near the center of Pompeii that was excavated in the 1950s and 1960s. During these two field seasons the project has extended its evaluation of the artifacts from the several residences in the block, while according considerable attention for the first time to the evaluation of the various forms of documentation relating to their excavation. This talk focuses
on the challenges involved in working with this documentation (field notes, redactions of field notes, artifact inventory ledgers, drawings, photographs, artifact catalog cards) and how this can be mobilized to determine where and how objects were disposed within residences and how they circulated within these structures. The results elucidate some of the dynamics of Pompeian households, including the implications of the presence/absence of domestic slaves for the ways in which objects were disposed. 

A special lecture with Blue Shield International's Patty Gerstenblith, as she discusses the legal, ethical, and voluntary constraints that have been adopted to protect cultural heritage and in particular archaeological sites from theft and looting during armed conflict.

This lecture is part of the series Women and Gender in the Phoenician Homeland and Diaspora. This program of public lectures takes place monthly on Thursdays at 9:30 AM Pacific, from October 2023 through May 2024. See the list of lectures and dates below.

Watch on the ARF YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/arf-channel or watch later on the ARF & Badè YouTube channels.

This lecture is part of the series Women and Gender in the Phoenician Homeland and Diaspora. This program of public lectures takes place monthly on Thursdays at 9:30 AM Pacific, from October 2023 through May 2024. See the list of lectures and dates below.

Watch on the ARF YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/arf-channel or watch later on the ARF & Badè YouTube channels.

This talk will take place in person at the ARF and on Zoom (you must have a Zoom account to attend). Register for online attendance here.

Abstract: 

At the start of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) on mainland Greece, the settlements of the northern Argolid and southern Korinthia were fragmented into hamlets and small regional centers with elites enmeshed in local socio-political relationships and hierarchies. They were also interconnected across the two regions likely through social ties that allowed for economic exchange and drove political development. The palatial period (c. 1400-1200 BCE) saw the expansion and consolidation of socio-political and economic power at the palatial citadel of Mycenae and the creation of a hinterland region including the Nemea Valley and further west at Aidonia.

I will consider these regions, especially during the Early Mycenaean period, when several sites could have become a center and other areas, the hinterland. This will include new evidence excavated by the Nemea Center in the later Sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea and the preliminary results of the TAPHOS project at the LBA cemetery of Aidonia, both sites in the southern Korinthia.

History of Art Public Lecture: Cannibal Gold in the Wilderness of Greater Darién. By Juliana Ramírez Herrera.

Abstract: It was in the rainforests of Greater Darién that the Spanish, attracted by vast quantities of gold, first invaded the American mainland. In European eyes, the wet environment, teeming with toads, blood-sucking bats, and other creatures associated with the Christian Devil—figures that the Natives proudly donned as gold body ornaments—evidenced the Natives as cannibals and sodomites inhabiting a Christian world turned upside down. Positing Indigenous gold body ornaments as assembling, with their wearers, apotropaic surfaces and membranes that simultaneously repelled and enticed, this talk delves into colonial narratives pertaining to violence, sodomy, and cannibalism in Greater Darién, where Natives have successfully resisted Western and nationalist intrusions since the early sixteenth century. The aim is to reconstruct the ancestral and continuous power of the adorned Native body, examining the corporeal mediations and confrontations that gold body ornaments afford as enticing radiant surfaces and repellent porous membranes into violent practices of consumption.

This talk will take place in person at the ARF and on Zoom (you must have a Zoom account to attend). Register for online attendance here.

Abstract: 

The Taraco Archaeological Project has been focusing on early settled life in the Titicaca Basin of South America. These past two field seasons 2022 and 2023 we have focused on the earliest settlement evidence at the Formative sites along the Taraco Peninsula. This season we encountered some excellent early horizons, identified by the artifacts. We also returned to developing a more productive flotation system with some results regarding yields. While present in Chiripa, the group also harvested tubers and made quinoa beer.

This talk will take place in person at the ARF and on Zoom (you must have a Zoom account to attend). Register for online attendance here.

Abstract: "Visibilizing" the presence and participation of elite women in the history of Maya civilization, during one of its most prosperous periods, the Classic (250 A.D. - 1000 A.D.), allows us to overcome the gender bias that for decades has conditioned the construction of narratives about its past. On this occasion we present the case of the Ladies of Uhx Te' K'uh, two foreign princesses who occupied a relevant position in the court of Palenque. As we will see, to elucidate their role in history, through the analysis of their representations, can be decisive to better understand the complex socio-political situation of this regional capital during the Classic period.

Please join the AIA San Francisco Society for the first event of our spring lecture series. We are thrilled to host Dr. John Pollini (University of Southern California) for the Anita Krause Bader Lecture. Dr. Pollini will be giving a talk titled "Christian Destruction and Desecration of Images and Temples of Classical Antiquity." To receive a link to the virtual event, please register here.

This talk will take place in person at the ARF and on Zoom (you must have a Zoom account to attend). Register for online attendance here.

Abstract: 

The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) is the template for historic preservation and facilitator of cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology in the United States. Signed into law in 1966, the NHPA acknowledges that "The preservation of heritage is in the public interest so its vital legacy of cultural…benefits will be maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans." The NHPA paved a pathway for professional archaeologists to identify and evaluate the significance of archaeological sites so government agencies can better administer these precious resources. For better or worse, this law and its progeny have led to the identification of tens of thousands of sites across the country, which has greatly expanded archaeological knowledge in the United States. While we know more about the archaeological past than ever before, the NHPA has not been applied evenly across historic properties associated with all Americans. This talk discusses steps taken to increase the identification and proper evaluation of Black American heritage sites in the United States and U.S. territories through the NHPA. Recent research of the Black Heritage Resources Task Force demonstrated that while most State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) are lacking in their efforts to document Black sites, there are several states and communities that are exemplars of positive work designed to include Black communities in the evaluation of their sites and have made strides towards documenting Black heritage in their jurisdictions.

This lecture is part of the series Women and Gender in the Phoenician Homeland and Diaspora. This program of public lectures takes place monthly on Thursdays at 9:30 AM Pacific, from October 2023 through May 2024. See the list of lectures and dates below.

Watch on the ARF YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/arf-channel or watch later on the ARF & Badè YouTube channels.

This lecture is part of the series Women and Gender in the Phoenician Homeland and Diaspora. This program of public lectures takes place monthly on Thursdays at 9:30 AM Pacific, from October 2023 through May 2024. See the list of lectures and dates below.

Watch on the ARF YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/arf-channel or watch later on the ARF & Badè YouTube channels.

This talk will take place in person at the ARF and on Zoom (you must have a Zoom account to attend). Register for online attendance here.

Abstract:

This talk will present one facet of my research in bioarchaeology which seeks to answer major questions about social and health transformations of the human past. The agricultural transition had major impacts for humanity which brought about negative impacts on past human populations and an increase in population size. This has repercussions for much of the world's population today, who live in poverty and insanitary crowded conditions. Using an approach that assesses case studies in diverse regions, we find that patterns of health change are regionally specific and can only be understood through highly contextualised interpretation. Our application of new methods show the intricate relationship between the parent-child nexus and their stories of stress.