Upcoming Events

The AIA San Francisco Society is pleased to welcome Dr. Rubina Raja (Aarhus University) to give the Harald Ingholt Lecture.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.