2009-2010 Lecture Series

ALL lectures are held on Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. in Sabin Hall room G90 on the UWM Campus, corner of Newport and Downer Avenues. All lectures are free and open to the public and followed by refreshments. They are co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology, Foreign Languages and Linguistics-Classics and Art History at UWM.

Fall, 2009

Sunday, October 4, 2009, 3:00pm
Lorenc Bejko, University of Tirana, Albania
Kress Lecturer
Late Bronze Age Albania: Life and Death in the periphery of the Mycenaean World
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Sunday, November 15, 2009, 3:00pm
Robert Grenier, Parks Canada
Wilkie Lecturer
The 1565 Wreck of the Basque Galleon San Juan in Labrador and the 2001 UNESCO Convention for Heritage Shipwrecks
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Sunday, December 6, 2009, 3:00pm
Ana Nieves, Northeastern Illinois University
The Petroglyphs of the Nasca Valley and "The Nasca Lines"
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Spring, 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010, 3:00pm
Clemens Reichel, University of Toronto
Kershaw Lecturer
Worlds in Collision--Urbanism, Competition and Conflict in Northern Syria during the Chalcolithic Period (4500-3000 BC)
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Sunday, March 28, 2010, 2:00pm
Carter Lupton, Milwaukee Public Museum
Talk About Your Mummy Roadshows
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Sunday, April 25, 2010, 3:00pm
Sarah Nelson, University of Denver
Jade and Identities in the Hongshan Culture of China
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Lecture Abstracts

Sunday, October 4, 2009, 3:00pm
Lorenc Bejko, University of Tirana, Albania
Kress Lecturer
Late Bronze Age Albania: Life and Death in the periphery of the Mycenaean World
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Description: Lorenc Bejko's excavations in Albania have produced evidence for connections between today's territory of Albania and the Aegean/Mycenaean centers of Greece during the Middle and late Bronze Ages (ca. 1600-1200 B.C.). In his lecture Bejko will examine patterns of distribution of the Mycenaean-type objects found in Albania and how they relate to the local late Bronze Age cultures. Focusing in particular on burial customs and settlement patterns of the late Bronze and early Iron Ages in southeastern Albania, he will compare the general Albanian context with other neighboring areas of Epirus, Thessaly and western Macedonia. He will explain the relationships between Mycenaean culture centers to the south and Albania to the north using the anthropological core-periphery model and will use different concepts of border and frontier areas to distinguish the study area from other neighbors to the north of the Mycenaean world.

Lorenc Bejko Conducting Archaeological Field Survey in Devoll Valley, SE Albania

Dr. Lorenc Bejko is Professor of Archaeology, Ancient History and Cultural Heritage Management, Department of History, Faculty of History and Philology at the University of Tirana in Albania and holds the 2009 Samuel H. Kress Lectureship of the Archaeological Institute of America. For more information about Lorenc Bejko and his work read AIA's interview with him at: http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10503

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Sunday, November 15, 2009, 3:00pm
Robert Grenier, Parks Canada
Wilkie Lecturer
The 1565 Wreck of the Basque Galleon San Juan in Labrador and the 2001 UNESCO Convention for Heritage Shipwrecks
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

From 1978 to 1985 marine archaeologists of Parks Canada excavated the wreck of a Spanish Basque galleon called the San Juan, loaded with whale oil, which had been lost in 1565 within the harbor of 16th century Red Bay, Labrador-"Oil Capital of the World." This is the oldest shipwreck ever found in North America, north of Florida. Robert Grenier, Chief of Underwater Archaeology Service, Parks Canada, and Project Director of the San Juan excavation, will explain how the Red Bay Project developed into one of the most comprehensive marine archaeological projects ever undertaken in Canada. The excavation established important policies and precedents in underwater archaeology; and the numerous innovative techniques used to solve acute problems related to this excavation and the inherent significance of the ship itself, linking the New World to the Old World, were the reasons stated by UNESCO in selecting the San Juan on its permanent logo for the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This Convention, finally ratified in January 2009, is the first legal instrument designed to protect the precious cultural heritage under the sea which is threatened by technological advances and expansion of diving around the world.

Robert Grenier

Dr. Robert Grenier is Chief of Underwater Archaeology Service, Parks Canada, and Project Director of the San Juan excavation from 1978-1985. He holds the Nancy Wilkie Lectureship in Cultural Heritage for the Archaeological Institute of America.

For the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage see: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001528/152883E.pdf
http://www.unesco.org/en/underwater-cultural-heritage

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Sunday, December 6, 2009, 3:00pm
Ana Nieves, Northeastern Illinois University
The Petroglyphs of the Nasca Valley and "The Nasca Lines"
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Ana Nieves

The Grande River System in Peru's Department of Ica is best known for the large scale drawings on the desert floor collectively known as "The Nasca Lines." The name "Nasca Lines" is a broad generalization, however, often used to describe a wide variety of geoglyphs in various styles. In fact, geoglyphs of different types can be found not only in the Nasca Valley and the adjacent pampas (elevated plateaus), but also in the northernmost valleys of the river system. In recent years, the area's geoglyphs have been studied alongside smaller scale examples of rock art, i.e. petroglyphs. That research has taken place primarily in the Palpa Valley, where petroglyph sites are well-known. As part of her doctoral research, Nieves conducted a rock art survey of the Nasca Valley and was able to document 26 petroglyph sites in this valley alone. Nasca Valley petroglyphs were clearly comparable to Paracas and Nasca iconography and, interestingly, some of this valley's petroglyph motifs are also designs found among the "Nasca Lines." Ana Nieves' lecture provides an overview of this rock art survey, and focuses in particular on the relationship between petroglyph sites and the area's geoglyphs.

Dr. Ana Nieves is Assistant Professor in the Art Department, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010, 3:00pm
Clemens Reichel, University of Toronto
Kershaw Lecturer
Worlds in Collision--Urbanism, Competition and Conflict in Northern Syria during the Chalcolithic Period (4500-3000 BC)
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Clemens Reichel at Hamoukar

Excavation of several cities in Northern Syria whose origins date back in the early Late Chalcolithic period (ca. 4000 B.C.) have shown the existence of an urban development contemporary with and possibly independent of the emergence of cities in Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Dr. Reichel's lecture will discuss recent archaeological work at Hamoukar, a Late Chalcolithic urban center in northeastern Syria excavated by the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of Antiquities since 1999. He will attempt to identify the mechanisms that led to the formation of this early urban entity and the reasons behind its violent demise by warfare around 3500 B.C. Most studies of early Near Eastern urbanism have identified the emergence of cities in this area as a secondary development, following the expansion of the highly urbanized Southern Mesopotamian Uruk Culture into the Upper Khabur region during the mid-4th millennium B.C.

Dr. Clemens Reichel is Professor of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto and holds the Kershaw Lectureship in Near Eastern Archaeology of the Archaeological Institute of America for 2009-2010.

For more about Clemens Reichel see http://www.rom.on.ca/collections/curators/reichel.php

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Sunday, March 28, 2010, 2:00pm
Carter Lupton, Milwaukee Public Museum
Talk About Your Mummy Roadshows
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Talk About Your Mummy Roadshows: How two ancient gentlemen came to Milwaukee and, after sitting around for a century, ultimately inspired a search for their roots (by two slightly less ancient gentlemen) which led to a most ambitious worldwide quest seeking answers to various historical questions that span some two thousand years

Description: In late 1887, the Milwaukee Public Museum, open less than three years, acquired two Egyptian mummies. Through changing buildings and changing times they remained among the Museum's most popular exhibits, but little else...until 1986. In that year they were first CT-scanned and the texts on their coffins were translated by a professional Egyptologist. Added to a new exhibit five years later, with fuller interpretation, they became a learning tool. But that was not the end of the story. The Milwaukee mummies, both originally from the site of Akhmim, Egypt, were the impetus for development of an ongoing program - the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium. As part of AMSC's development of a broad database of mummies from Akhmim, the MPM mummies were again scanned in 2006, using newer equipment which continues to augment and revise our understanding of these individuals and their ancient community. The lecture will describe what these research programs tell us about the history and culture surrounding these mummies.

Carter Lupton puts MPM Mummy through the CT Scan

Carter Lupton is Section Head - Anthropology and History for the Milwaukee Public Museum. An archaeologist with the museum since 1976, he was formerly head of History and Anthropology.

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Sunday, April 25, 2010, 3:00pm
Sarah Nelson, University of Denver
Jade and Identities in the Hongshan Culture of China
Location: Room G90, Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee

Sarah Nelson

Many archaeologists are interested in identities-how did the peoples we excavate think of themselves vis-à-vis other peoples with whom they interacted? From the earliest use of pottery and plant cultivation in ancient China, around 6,500 B.C., stone objects were produced for ornament and ritual. These can be traced through time, as jade stone began to be used, and the carvings became more elaborate. The Hongshan culture of northeastern China (4,000-2,500 B.C.) created the first intensive jade use in China. Jades were found in elite graves, apparently with important ritual meanings. The carving of these jades was labor intensive. Why was jade so important? In what way did jade play a part in establishing the identity of the buried elite? Sarah Nelson will discuss these questions as well as the modern looting and forging of these valuable objects.

Dr. Sarah Milledge Nelson is John Evans Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Denver.

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Last Updated: September 9, 2009