Archaeological Institute of America-Milwaukee Society

2011-2012 Lecture Series

All lectures are held on Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. in Sabin Hall room G90 on the UWM Campus, (3413 North Downer, 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 Literature-Classics and Art History at UWM. Additional co-sponsors include the Map Society of Wisconsin for the November 6 lecture on the Peutinger Map, and UWM's Department of Africology for the December 4 lecture on East African archaeology.

Fall, 2011

Sunday, September 25, 2011, 3:00pm
Dan Davis, Luther College
Title: Exploring in Jason's Wake: Deepwater Archaeology in the Black Sea

Saturday, October 22, 2011, 1:00-3:00pm
National Archaeology Day Celebration
See Announcements for details

Sunday, November 6, 2011, 3:00pm
Richard Talbert, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Title: Roman Cartography at its Most Creative: The Magnificent Peutinger Map
Co-sponsored by the Map Society of Wisconsin

Sunday, December 4, 2011, 3:00pm
Chapurukha (Chap) Kusimba, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
Title: Understanding the Development of Urban Society in Ancient East Africa
Co-sponsored by the Department of Arfricology

Spring, 2011

Sunday, January 29, 2012, 3:00pm
Morag Kersel, DePaul University, Chicago
Title: Who Owns the Past? Investigating the Trade in Middle Eastern Antiquities

Sunday, February 26, 2012, 3:00pm
Laura P. Villamil, UW-Milwaukee, Anthropology
Title: After the Maelstrom: The archaeology of Post-Collapse Maya communities in Central Quintana Roo, Mexico

Sunday, April 1, 2012, 3:00pm
Monica L. Smith, University of California-Los Angeles
Title: The Archaeology of Ancient India

Sunday, April 29, 2012, 3:00pm
William Parkinson, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
Title: The Archaeology of Early European Village Societies

Lecture Descriptions

Sunday, September 25, 2011, 3:00pm
Dan Davis, Luther College
Title: Exploring in Jason's Wake: Deepwater Archaeology in the Black Sea

Description: The Black Sea is perhaps best known as the exotic setting for the tale of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece, but this large inland sea long served as a maritime highway for the ancient and medieval cultures of Greece, Rome, Byzantium and the Italian maritime republics. Like the Mediterranean, its depths hide the remains of hundreds of ancient shipwrecks, each with its own story to tell. But unlike the warm, oxygen-rich bottom of the Mediterranean, the anoxic (oxygen-free) waters of the Black Sea abyss are more conducive to the preservation of wood and organic remains. An international team of archaeologists and oceanographers is starting to discover ancient and medieval wrecks here using the latest in robotic and digital imaging technology. The well-preserved state of these wrecks and their cargoes, has electrified the archaeological community and the world. This lecture provides an overview of these discoveries through the eyes of Dan Davis, an archaeologist who helped direct the first scientific excavation of two ancient deep-water wrecks in the Black Sea using a remotely-operated vehicle.

Dr. Dan Davis is a Classical and marine archaeologist. He studies the material remains of ancient ships and harbors to understand the maritime economy, culture and technology of Greece, Rome and Byzantium. A former U.S. Navy diver and a graduate of the University of Iowa, Dan went on to earn a M.A. in Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Texas at Austin. He has participated in a number of underwater archaeological projects in the U.S. (Hunley, Denbigh), the Mediterranean (Israel, Turkey, Greece) and the Black Sea region (Ukraine, Georgia). Dan has published several articles on ancient seafaring and is currently preparing a book on ancient navigation. He is currently an Associate Professor at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. Dan Davis holds the AIA's McCann/Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology for 2011-2012.

For more on Dan Davis's underwater projects see: http://www.utexas.edu/features/2008/10/27/shipwrecks/

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Description: The Peutinger Map is the only map of the Roman world to come down to us from antiquity. This elongated masterpiece (22 feet long!), spans the ancient world from the Atlantic to India, and is full of colorful detail featuring land routes across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. The map was rediscovered mysteriously around 1500 and then came into the ownership of Konrad Peutinger, for whom it is named. Today it is among the treasures of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. In his lecture, Richard Talbert will discuss the Romans' approach to mapmaking, showing that Romans - more than any other ancient people - came to realize that maps are not mere factual records, but also value-laden documents. Then, as now, maps could even be designed to promote and reinforce values, from peace and civilization to unashamed pride in conquest and entitlement to world-rule. Talbert's lecture constructs a compelling fresh context for the Peutinger Map. In addition, he identifies its creation as a pivotal moment in Western cartography, an inspirational awakening with a long-term cultural impact that would influence Christian mapmaking through to the Renaissance.

Dr. Richard Talbert is from England, and studied Classics at Cambridge University, before becoming lecturer in ancient history at Queen's University, Belfast (1970). He next moved (1985) to teach in Canada at McMaster University, and to chair its History Dept. He moved again (in 1988) to take up his current position as William Rand Kenan Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. As visiting professor, he has taught at the universities of Alabama and Princeton. He has won Guggenheim and other fellowships and awards, and has secured extensive funding support for his work. He is past President of the Association of Ancient Historians. His historical interests within antiquity are broad and varied, ranging from Spartans and Western Greeks to government and society in the Roman empire, and above all in recent years mapping, travel and worldview. The establishment of Chapel Hill's unique Ancient World Mapping Center followed his publication of the path-breaking Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000). His latest major study Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. His recent collaborative work includes the volume Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and seven Wall Maps for the Ancient World (Routledge, 2011). Richard Talbert holds the AIA's Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship for 2011-2012.

Read more about Richard Talbert at: http://history.unc.edu/people/faculty/talbert.html

For information on his book on the Peutinger Map see: www.cambridge.org/9780521764803

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Description: Archaeologist Chapurukha (Chap) Kusimba, of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, will lecture on his ongoing archaeological investigations on the rise, sustenance and demise of ancient cities in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Mozambique, The Comoros Islands, and Madagascar). Dr. Kusimba will discuss the role of regional and interregional interaction in the development of urbanism between ca. 3000 B.C.-1900 A.D. and he will consider the extent to which trade and immigration with Eurasia played a part in the origins of ancient East African cities.

Dr. Chap Kusimba is Curator of Anthropology, African Archaeology and Ethnology, Anthropology Department of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago. His research focuses on the development of complex societies along the Kenyan coast during pre-colonial times, from 3000 B.C. to 1900 A.D. He received his bachelor's degree in African History and Kiswahili from Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Dr. Kusimba has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Fellowship and numerous other grants. He has authored or co-authored several books including The Rise and Fall of Swahili States (1999) and numerous articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes. His current archaeological field research focuses on the ancient maritime trade between East Africa and South Asia.

To find out more about Chap Kusimba's work see:
http://www.archaeology.org/0509/abstracts/africa.html
http://fieldmuseum.org/users/chapurukha-kusimba
http://fm1.fieldmuseum.org/aa/staff_page.cgi?staff=kusimba
http://www.fmnh.org/exhibits/exhibit_sites/stories/map/kusimba.htm

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Sunday, January 29, 2012, 3:00pm
Morag Kersel, DePaul University, Chicago
Title: Who Owns the Past? Investigating the Trade in Middle Eastern Antiquities

Description: When an artifact is taken from the ground it is subject to different fates. If it is scientifically excavated it is taken to the lab or museum for study and curation. If it is not found by archaeologists it may enter the antiquities market-legally or illegally. When there is a legal antiquities trade, recent research has shown that multiple stakeholders have competing claims. In Israel, for example, it is legal to buy and sell artifacts from legally sanctioned dealers, if the collections pre-date the 1978 national ownership law. Not all aspects of this trade are legal, however, and not all participants have an equal voice. The market in Israel is comprised of archaeologists, collectors, customs officials, dealers, government employees, looters, middlemen, museum professionals, and tourists, all expressing a degree of entitlement in the acquisition and disposition of artifacts. The porous borders between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority complicate the situation as artifacts found in those areas enter the market and go out to Europe, the Far East, and the United States. In her lecture, Dr. Kersel will document the journey of a Roman coin from the Palestinian countryside to the Upper West side of New York City, using it to examine the various positions in the debate over who owns the past.

Dr. Morag Kersel is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at DePaul University in Chicago. She is an archaeologist with a doctorate from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and a master of Historic Preservation from the University of Georgia. Her research interests include the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of the eastern Mediterranean and Levant, cultural heritage protection, the built environment, object biographies, museums, and archaeological tourism. Her work combines archaeological, archival and oral history research in order to understand the efficacy of cultural heritage law in protecting archaeological landscapes from looting. She has excavated and conducted field research in Canada, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, the U.S., and currently co-directs (with her husband Yorke Rowan who lectured for us last year) archaeological excavations at the Chalcolithic site of Marj Rabba in the Lower Galilee and the "Follow the Pots" project in the Dead Sea Plain of Jordan-tracing the movement of Early Bronze Age pots from the Dead Sea Plain in Jordan.

To learn more about Morag Kersel's work see:
http://www.alexandriaarchive.org/people_mk.php
http://adventureswithyandm.blogspot.com/

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The Classic Maya civilization flourished in Mesoamerica from ca. 250 to 900 AD and then collapsed. But what happened to the people? In her lecture, Prof. Laura Villamil, UW-Milwaukee, will present evidence of a widespread reoccupation of abandoned Classic Maya sites in south-central Quintana Roo, Mexico. Based on her recent excavations at the site of Margarita and neighboring sites, she will discuss what happened in the immediate aftermath of the so-called Classic Maya Collapse (ca. 850-900 AD), as well as some of the strategies adopted by the Maya to initiate the process of societal regeneration.

Dr. Laura Villamil is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her doctorate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Villamil has carried out fieldwork at various sites in southern Quintana Roo, Mexico since 1993. In 1998, she initiated the Central Quintana Roo Archaeological Project, a regional project that has investigated various sites in order to understand the long-term history of this little-known region of the Maya lowlands. Since 2008 she has co-directed excavations at the site of Margarita.

Learn more about Laura Villamil's work:
http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/anthropology/faculty/villamil.cfm

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Sunday, April 1, 2012, 3:00 pm
Monica L. Smith, University of California-Los Angeles
Title: The Archaeology of Ancient India

Description: Over two hundred years of archaeological research in the Indian subcontinent has revealed a fascinating wealth of ancient civilizations. The sophisticated Bronze Age Harappan culture (ca. 3300-1300 BCE) had trading relationships with the Arabian Gulf and with Mesopotamia, as well as an enigmatic script that remains undeciphered. The subsequent Early Historic period (ca. 1500-200 BCE) witnessed the development of Buddhism, urbanism and a comprehensive writing system. By the 1st century A.D., the written tradition included religious texts, poetry, political analyses, and even medical treatises. In this lecture Monica Smith will explore the highlights of archaeology in ancient India, including recent results from the international collaborative research project at the ancient city of Sisupalgarh, India.

Dr. Monica Smith is Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. She has her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, an M.A. in Archaeology from the University of California-Los Angeles; and a B.A. in Classical Civilization from the University of California-Santa Barbara. Her research interests include comparative modern and ancient urbanism, trade and economics in prehistory, archaeological method and theory, anthropology of food; South Asia, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean. She has conducted fieldwork in India at the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in Orissa state, along with other Indian research since 1992; other fieldwork experience includes projects in Bangladesh, Turkey, Tunisia, Madagascar, Egypt, Great Britain, Italy, and the American Southwest. She has published widely on her research interests and received several prestigious grants to support her work, including from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and National Geographic Society.

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Sunday, April 29, 2012, 3:00pm
William Parkinson, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
Title: The Archaeology of Early European Village Societies

Description: After tens of thousands of years of making a living by hunting and gathering wild resources in the natural environment, some human societies began to adopt more sedentary lifeways centered on the exploitation of domesticated plants and animals. In southern Europe, these Neolithic farmers began to establish villages about 9,000 years ago. This lecture discusses research recently carried out by Dr. Parkinson and his colleagues in Greece and Hungary to explore the social dynamics of early village societies in the Neolithic Period and Bronze Age (ca. 6000 to 1000 BC).

Dr. Bill Parkinson is a specialist in European and Eastern Mediterranean Prehistory. He is Associate Curator of Eurasian Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago and Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University. He is the American Director of the Körös Regional Archaeological Project, an international, multi-disciplinary research project aimed at understanding the social changes that occurred on the Great Hungarian Plain throughout the Holocene. He studies how the earliest state societies in Europe - the Minoan and Mycenaean states of Greece - arose during the Bronze Age, and how they interacted with their neighbors in the Near East, Egypt, and Anatolia. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, and his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation and other organizations. He has published extensively in scholarly books and journals, including the AIA's American Journal of Archaeology.

Learn more about Bill Parkinson's projects at:
http://fieldmuseum.academia.edu/WilliamParkinson/About
http://fieldmuseum.org/users/william-parkinson
http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/expeditions/parkinson_expedition/about.html

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