Friday Seminar

Speaker: Dr. Manfred Bietak, Professor Emeritus, University of Vienna Institute of Egyptology

Avaris, capital of the Hyksos, was inhabited, as we may presume, mainly by a western Asiatic population, which migrated to Egypt from the late Middle Kingdom onwards. We may call them for convenience sake Amorites as the little onomastic evidence we have, shows that they had mainly Western-Semitic personal names. We don’t know yet, if this population was homogenous. Most probably they were not, as their osteological remains show a sexual dimorphism.

Speaker: Dr. Sarah Herr, President, Desert Archaeology Inc.

The cultural affiliation of the pre-contact residents of central Arizona defies easy categorization. These residents of small settlements construct their houses in array of styles, form undecorated ceramic vessels, specialize in projectile point production, and trade other goods rarely but widely, and are not easily encompassed into Hohokam or Puebloan histories. The State Route 260—Payson to Heber project, a cultural

Speaker: Dr. Agnete Lassen, Associate Curator, Yale University Babylonian Collection

Focusing primarily on seals, this talk will investigate the formations and transformations of social identity in cultural encounters, using the Assyrian merchant colonies in Anatolia as a case.

Speakers: Society for American Archaeology Executive Committee

This Friday the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology will host the members of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Executive Committee for an informal discussion on the implications of recent political transitions for archaeologists in the United States and around the world.

Speaker: Dr. Alan Sullivan, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati

Archaeological investigations of the effects of anthropogenic fire on the livelihoods of small-scale societies, particularly those of the prehispanic northern Southwest, are embryonic in scope and disciplinary impact. When burning is mentioned in the literature, the emphasis is on its effectiveness in clearing or deforesting areas for corn farming.

Speaker: Dr. Geoffrey Summers, Research Associate, University of Chicago Oriental Institute

Mauritius, a small island nation in the Western Indian Ocean, was uninhabited until the arrival of the Dutch in the 16th century. After the Dutch left it was ruled first by the French and then by the British until independence in 1968.

Speaker: Dr. Philippe Walter, Sorbonne Universités, Université Pierre et Marie Curie

The precious character of the Cultural Heritage artifacts and their uniqueness imply particular cautions and require instruments, which may give the maximum of information directly on the objects, in-situ in the museums or in the archaeological sites. The implementation of new analytical tools, including mobile instruments, allows a deep insight on the archaeological and artistic materials. 

Speaker: Dr. Pierre Lemmonier, Centre National de Rechereche Scientifique

Technologie culturelle designates the strain in the anthropology of objects and techniques first developed in France in the early 1970s. This approach gives a prominent place to the physical actions of people making and doing things, to the way things are made and physically used, and to technological processes. This talk deals with contemporary methods and results in the field.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this Friday Seminar has been CANCELLED.

Speaker: Dr. Dorie Reents-Budet, Boston Museum of Fine Arts