Archaeological Institute of America

Rituals of the Everyday: Neighborhood Diversity in the Urbanization of Cahokia
2022-04-28 17:30 (America/New_York) | FL
Stone Lecture

The Problem With Prostitutes
2022-04-28 19:00 (America/Chicago) | Breasted Hall at the OI, University of Chicago, 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, 60637

Adventures with Animal Mummies
2022-04-28 19:30 (Pacific/Honolulu) | University of Hawaii, Art Auditorium, 2500 Campus Rd, Honolulu, 96822
Masks and vaccination required for in-person attendance.

The Lost Valley of the Crescent Moon: 30 years of research in Petra, Jordan
2022-04-29 | TBA (Stanford 2), Stanford, CA, United States
Joukowsky Lecture

Garden Forests of the Amazon
2022-05-12 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Whitman College, Olin Hall, 345 Boyer Ave, Walla Walla, WA, 99362, United States
To attend this lecture in-person, proof of vaccination plus booster and a K(N)-95 mask is required. Masks will be provided at the door (southern entrance of Olin Hall) for anyone who doesn’t have one.

Daily Lives in an Age of Empires: Local Economic Life during the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BCE, Turkey)
2022-05-15 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Lisbon, Lisbon, 1000004, Portugal
The Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BCE) in the Eastern Mediterranean stands out in the history of the ancient world as a time of political and economic consolidation, with multiple great powers – Mycenae, Babylonia, Egypt, the Hittites – exerting their military power in the region and engaging in an unprecedented degree of international trade and diplomacy. The archaeological and historical records from this period offer a treasure trove of evidence including monumental architecture, kingly correspondence, and luxury goods from far-off locales.
As a result, research on the Late Bronze Age has often focused on elite lives and histories, but the daily lives of non-elite individuals have remained largely unexamined. What was life like for those living outside of imperial capitals and other major centers? How were local practices of day-to-day life shaped by imperial aims? How deeply were rural settlements embedded in the political and economic structures of empire?
In this lecture, I address these questions using evidence from the site of Çadır Höyük, a rural center in the provinces of one of the major political players of the Late Bronze Age, the Hittite empire (modern-day Turkey). In particular, I use the ancient animal remains from Çadır Höyük to reconstruct the organization of day-to-day economic activities at the settlement. I consider the choices Çadırans made about which animals to raise (e.g., more cattle? fewer goats? lots of pigs?) and what products to focus on (e.g. meat? wool/fiber? dairy? a combination?). I then discuss how these choices relate to the settlement’s place within the broader economic system of the Hittite empire and how they can help us characterize what life was really like at Çadır during the Late Bronze Age.
Sarah Adcock is a Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago (2020) and her BA in Archaeology and English Literature from Baylor University (2008). Her current work focuses on the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean region around 1200 BCE.
For her dissertation research, she examined local responses to the Hittite collapse in central Turkey at the end of the Late Bronze Age through the analysis of animal remains from the Hittite capital Hattuşa and from Çadır Höyük, a Hittite provincial center. By comparing her results from these sites, she considered the specific impacts empire’s collapse had on animal management systems and the economic organization of food production both at the Hittite capital and in the empire’s provinces.
Her current work expands the focus of her research from the collapse of the Hittite empire to the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean region more broadly. The Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean is one of the largest and best known collapse events in human history, and it affected multiple polities across the region, presenting an opportunity for exploring differing responses to the processes associated with societal collapse. This project, “Everyday Lives at the End of the World?: Post-Collapse Animal Economies in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean” works to develop a macro-level understanding of changes and continuities in animal management and foodways that accompanied the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean. The goal of this work is to offer a new perspective from which to examine the massive political, economic, and social changes that occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean and to critically examine the historical narratives and theoretical frameworks that create our conceptions of collapse and “dark age.”

All the King’s Men: Officials’ Tombs in New Kingdom Thebes
2022-05-21 12:00 (America/New_York) | TBA (Jacksonville 2), Jacksonville, FL, United States
Cohn Lecture

“Moral Zoning” and the Visibility of Prostitution at Pompeii
2022-09-07 19:00 (America/New_York) | Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd, Cleveland, 44106, United States

CANCELLED - Working from Home: Assessing the Significance of Specialized Craft Production Based in Households in the Aegean Bronze Age
2022-09-13 17:00 (America/New_York) | FL
This lecture has been cancelled.

“Barbarians” and Bronzes: The Origins of Civilization in Ancient Vietnam
2022-09-15 19:30 (America/Chicago) | Alumni Hall 302 (“Trustees Room’), Knox College, Galesburg, IL, 61401, United States

Plumbing the Depths: Exploring Violence and Warfare in Humanity’s Past
2022-09-16 14:00 (America/Chicago) | Knight Auditorium, The Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois – Urbana/Champaign, 1 W. Green St, Urbana, IL, 61801, United States

The World’s Oldest Profession: Examining Prostitution in Pompeii’s Brothel
2022-09-20 17:00 (America/New_York) | Collins Cinema at Wellesley College, 106 Central St, Wellesley Hills, MA, 02481

New Approaches to the Archaeology of Disease: Climate, Imperialism and Malaria in the Indian Ocean
2022-09-20 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Webinar, Webinar, London, UK, London, Sonoma County, 5201, United Kingdom
Virtual lecture which is part of the AIA Archaeology Hour series.

The People of Angkor
2022-09-21 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Eliot Hall Chapel, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR, 97202
Matson Lecture

New Approaches to the Archaeology of Disease: Climate, Imperialism, and Malaria in the Indian Ocean
2022-09-21 19:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar, Webinar, London, UK, London, Sonoma County, 5201, United Kingdom

Life at Berkou: a newly-discovered Roman fortress in Egypt
2022-09-26 16:30 (America/New_York) | Department of Art & Archaeology seminar room (Green Hall 3-S-15), Washington Rd., Princeton, NJ, 08540, United States
Ettinghausen Lecture

Community Archaeology as Sustainable Archaeology
2022-09-26 19:30 (America/New_York) | Belk Visual Arts Center 117, Davidson College, 405 N Main St, Davidson, NC, 28036, United States

Operation Demeter: What Italy's largest antiques bust reveals about archaeological looting today
2022-09-27 17:30 (America/New_York) | UMass Amherst, Herter Hall 601, 161 Presidents Drive, Amherst, MA, 01003, United States

Healing the Body: How Scientific Archaeology is Revealing the Medicinal Practices of Enslaved Peoples
2022-09-29 14:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar, Webinar, London, UK, London, Sonoma County, 5201, United Kingdom
Virtual lecture which is part of the AIA Archaeology Abridged Series.

Ancestral Maya Pilgrimage at the Sacred Pools of Cara Blanca, Belize
2022-09-29 19:30 (America/Chicago) | WEBINAR (Rockford), Rockford, IL
Joukowsky Lecture
Register for the virtual lecture using the “register” button below

Hannibal’s Secret Weapon
2022-10-02 15:00 (America/New_York) | Brock University STH 215, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, ON, L2S 3A1, Canada
Norton Lecture
RSVP here for the event

Old Pots and New Drains: Changing Approaches to Waste and Wastewater in a Pompeian Neighborhood
2022-10-06 18:30 (America/New_York) | Dickinson College, Denny Hall #317, 272 W High St, Carlisle, PA, 17013, United States

Plumbing the Depths: Exploring Violence and Warfare in Humanity’s Past
2022-10-06 18:30 (America/New_York) | University of Akron, Leigh Hall 207, 150 East Exchange Street, Akron, OH, 44325, United States
Joukowsky Lecture
To register to attend via Zoom, email edumser@uakron.edu for the Zoom link.

Plumbing the Depths: Exploring Violence and Warfare in Humanity’s Past
2022-10-08 10:30 (America/New_York) | University of Dayton, Science Center Auditorium, 300 College Park Ave, Dayton, OH, 45469

Operation Demeter: What Italy's largest antiquities bust reveals about archaeological looting today
2022-10-12 18:30 (America/New_York) | University of Florida Campus, Fine Arts Building B, 300 Southwest 13th St, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States

Diet and Status in Roman Egypt: Evidence from Amheida in the Dakleh Oasis in the Western Desert
2022-10-13 17:30 (America/New_York) | Classics Library, 2175 Angell Hall, 434 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, United States

City Making in Byzantine Athens
2022-10-16 15:00 (America/Chicago) | Sabin Hall, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3413 N. Downer Avenue, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, United States

Inclusive Museum Narratives: Contextualizing Collections through Collaboration
2022-10-18 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles), 2022-10-19 19:00 (America/New_York) | FL

Snake Queens of Waka` and Beyond: Royal Women of the Snake Realm and their Imprint on Classic Maya Rulership
2022-10-21 20:00 (America/New_York) | Palm Beach Museum of Natural History, the Mall at Wellington Green, 10300 Forest Hill Blvd., Wellington, FL, 33414, United States
