Speaker:

Li Liu, Stanford University

In China, grinding stones first appeared during the Upper Paleolithic period, and were one of the dominant tool types in many early Neolithic sites. Grinding stones were primarily used for processing plant foods and other materials. They gradually disappear in the archaeological record after 5000 BC in the Yellow River region at the time when millet-based agriculture may have intensified. However, grinding stones were continuously used by people throughout the entire Neolithic period in the Liao River region of Northeast China. The different trajectories in food processing methods (with or without grinding stones) in the two regions are likely related to diverse types of plants exploited; and we need to understand what plants were involved. By employing residue (starch and phytoliths) and usewear analyses, this study investigates the functions of grinding stones recovered at several sites in the Liao River region, dating to ca. 5800-3000 BC. The results suggest that the people utilized a broad-spectrum subsistence strategy throughout the entire Neolithic, using various wild, cultivated, and domesticated plants, including tubers/roots, cereals, beans, and nuts. The earliest domesticates in the Xinglongwa period include millets and Job’s tears. Rice may have been introduced to the region for the first time during the Hongshan period, coinciding with the rise of regional elite and intensified interactions with other Neolithic cultures in the south. This study sheds new light on the plant-use strategies of the grinding-stone users who developed complex societies in the Neolithic Liao River region.

Professor Colin Renfrew, Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research University of Cambridge

The image of mounted nomad warriors from the steppe lands of Russia bringing the Proto-Indo-European language to Europe has been displaced in recent years by new models;  the early spread of farming from Anatolia became a preferred explanation for language replacement. Recent work on ancient DNA has, however, brought the steppe theory back into prominence. The Indo-European question remains controversial and will be reviewed - but perhaps not resolved!

The lecture is free to the public. Parking at Lot #4 (Sunset and Westwood) is $12 for 24 hours, hourly parking available.

Speaker: Dr. Derek Turner, Connecticut College

Over the last fifteen years or so, philosophers of science have made a lot of progress toward understanding how researchers in fields such as paleontology, geology, and archaeology re-construct the past. One neglected issue, however, is counter-factual reasoning. An historical counterfactual claim has the form: “If condition C had been different at some time in the past, then the downstream outcome O would have been differ-ent.” Counterfactual claims are closely related to the idea that history is contingent—an idea that Stephen Jay Gould made popular in paleontology with his famous thought experiment of replaying the tape of history. However, counterfactual rea-soning remains controversial among historians, some of whom see no value in speculating (for example) about how things would be different if Al Gore had won the presidential election in 2000. One major challenge is explaining what would count as evidence for or against counterfactuals. In this talk, the speaker will (1) provide an overview of some of the relevant philosophical work on the epistemology of historical counter-factuals, and (2) argue that counterfactual reasoning does have a legitimate, if limited role to play in archaeologists’ efforts to reconstruct the past.

Featured Speakers: Dr. Marco Brambilla, Prof. Touraj Daryaee, Ms. Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky, Prof. Bert Vaux