Archaeological Institute of America

Decolonizing Museums and the Case of the 'Elgin Marbles': Exceptionalism vs Solidarity
2024-11-07 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Edmonton) | Tory Breezeway 1, University of Alberta, 6-5 Humanities Centre, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E5, Canada
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships

Collecting the Ancient World: Early Explorations, Encyclopedic Museums, and World's Exhibitions
2024-11-07 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | Strand Union Building 235, Montana State University, 613 West Harrison Street, Bozeman, MT, 59715, United States
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology

The Representation of Ramses II's Enemies in the Battle of Kadesh Reliefs
2024-11-07 19:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Wilson Hall 168, 301 Sparkman Drive Northwest, Huntsville, AL, 35816, United States
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology

“the way we lived was shaped by objects”: Contemporary Reflections on Black Materiality
2024-11-08 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | The Standish Room, Science Library, UAlbany Uptown Campus, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY, 12222, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

Sailing at the Edge of Empire: The Roman Red Sea and Beyond
2024-11-08 18:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Toledo Museum of Art, 2445 Monroe St, Toledo, OH, 43620, United States
The George F. Bass Lectures

Dr. Eric Cline - 1177 BC and After: The Collapse and Survival of Civilizations
2024-11-12 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus, Baltimore, Maryland, 21210, United States
Dr. Cline will discuss what happened after the Bronze Age world of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean collapsed. He will highlight why some civilizations endured, some gave way to new ones, and some disappeared forever. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration.

POSTPONED AIA Archaeology Hour with Alison Futrell: The People's Arena
2024-11-13 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York)
Apologies–this event is canceled. We will put information out about rescheduling when available!

Archaeology of the Ọyọ Empire (West Africa): Chivalry, Colonies, and Household Politics in the Early Modern Period
2024-11-14 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | 164 Lake Ontario Hall, Grand Valley State University, Allendale Campus, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401, United States

Living and Dying as an Immigrant in Classical Athens
2024-11-18 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Doe Library, Room 308A, Campanile Way, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
The Archaeological Institute of America, San Francisco Society, is thrilled to welcome Dr. Camille Acosta (UC Irvine) to the UC Berkeley campus to share her research on immigrant communities in Classical Athens and archaeological evidence for their burials.
Abstract:
Classical Athens is widely known for being the birthplace of democracy, a political system in which any free male could participate in the governing of the city-state. Yet this democratic system excluded a range of individuals from citizenship, including women, slaves, and immigrants. This talk will explore the archaeological evidence for one of these groups: immigrants, including both Greeks from other city-states and non-Greeks such as Phoenicians or Egyptians. Despite coming from a range of places around the Mediterranean and Black Seas, all of these immigrants all died in Athens and were laid to rest in one of the city’s cemeteries. The archaeological evidence of these burials will be used to tell the stories of some of these immigrants, including a man from the island of Chios, a young girl from the island of Lesbos, and a community from the region of Messenia. By re-creating these ancient funerals, this talk sheds light on the lived experience of migrants and centers them as agents rather than “victims” of the Athenian state.
Speaker: Dr. Camille Acosta, Assistant Professor of Art History, Archaeology, and Visual Studies, UC Irvine

Serpent Mound - An Icon of Ancient Ohio
2024-11-23 10:30 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Science Center Auditorium (SC 114) at The University of Dayton., 450 East Stewart St, Dayton, OH, 45409, United States
The second presentation in the Archaeological Institute of America Dayton Society’s 2024-2025 Lecture Series presented by Dr. Brad Lepper, Senior Archaeologist World Heritage Program, Ohio History Connection
Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio is one of the largest and most spectacular earthen sculptures in the world. The age of the serpent is a subject of much current debate with some archaeologists arguing that it was built by the Adena culture at around 300 B.C.E. and others favoring the Fort Ancient culture at around 1100 C.E. Although much about Serpent Mound still is shrouded in mystery, ancient cave paintings in Missouri may provide a key to unlocking some of its secrets.
This lecture is scheduled to take place in person in the Science Center Auditorium (SC 114) at The University of Dayton.
For a campus map with building and parking information visit https://udayton.edu/map/
Thanks to the Archaeological Institute of America’s Lecture Program and its Dayton Society members this lecture is free and open to the public.

Era of the Living Dead: Memory, Sacrifice and the "Royal" Tombs at Umm el-Marra, Syria
2024-12-04 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus, Baltimore, Maryland, 21210, United States
Lecture by Dr. Glenn Schwartz
Whiting Professor of Archaeology
Near Eastern Studies Department
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore Society AIA Lecture at Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus
Gilman Hall Room 50

Building a 13th and 14th Century Multi-Ethnic Community at 25BD1 in Northeastern Nebraska presented by Dr. Doug Bamforth
2024-12-04 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Eaton Humanities Room 250, Pleasant Street 1610, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
Thousands of Plains farmers settled along Ponca creek in northeastern Nebraska during the latter decades of the 13th century, in the midst of a wave of social change and dislocation across the mid-continent as Cahokia collapsed and drought spread widely over much of North America. In contrast to the small homesteads on the central Plains prior to this time, the Ponca creek sites range up to 200 acres, suggesting a community bigger than anything that had existed in the region before. Potters at the site made classic Plains vessels and classic midwestern Oneota vessels in households that were nearly side-by-side and mixed these styles together on other pots. This lecture addresses the social changes at work in the mid-continent at this time along with the history of work on Ponca creek from the 1930s to the present, including geophysical prospecting and excavation in the last few years. Viewed in the context of the Plains as a whole, the changes there represent a sea-change in social formations and likely mark the appearance of the modern Pawnee and Arikara nations.

After 1177 BCE: The Survival of Civilizations
2024-12-09 19:30 - 20:30 (Pacific/Honolulu) | University of Hawaii, Manoa Art Building, Art Auditorium, 2535 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu, HI, 96822, United States

AIA Archaeology Hour with Uzma Rizvi: Caring for MohenjoDaro
2025-01-22 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Ontario
Join us at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific as the AIA-Walla Walla Society hosts the next installment of the 2024-2025 AIA Archaeology Hour series!
Register now!

The Deep Prehistory of the Human Presence in the World’s High Mountains and Plateaus
2025-01-26 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Concordia University, Grimm Hall, 1530 Concordia, Irvine, CA, 92612, United States

A Day in the Life of an Etruscan Sanctuary: Gender, Community and Ritual at the Etruscan Site of Poggio Colla
2025-01-29 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Jones Hall 108, Uptown Campus of Tulane University, 6801 Freet St, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
George M.A. Hanfmann Memorial Lecture

A Late Bronze Age “Naval Station” at Kalamianos (Saronic Gulf), Greece? presented by Dr. Daniel Pullen
2025-01-29 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Eaton Humanities Room 250, Pleasant Street 1610, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
The Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project has documented the Late Bronze Age (14th-13th cent. BCE) harbor town at Kalamianos on the Saronic Gulf coast of the Corinthia, Greece. We suggest this site might be the Homeric town of “Eïones” which later Strabo identified as a “naval station.” The implications of this identification of Kalamianos as a naval station are evaluated in light of our current understanding of the archaeology of maritime culture, both commercial and military, of the Mycenaeans and other Late Bronze Age peoples of the Aegean. The lack of identifiable maritime infrastructure – let alone that for specialized military activity – outside of Crete, including at Kalamianos, suggests that such installations were not essential for LBA maritime activities elsewhere in the Aegean.

Decolonizing Museums and the Case of the 'Elgin Marbles': Exceptionalism vs Solidarity
2025-01-30 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Newberry Hall, Room 125, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 434 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, United States

“the way we lived was shaped by objects”: Contemporary Reflections on Black Materiality
2025-01-31 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | D.H. Hill Library Auditorium, 2 Broughton Dr., Raleigh, NC, 27695, United States

Normalizing Loot: A Case Study of a Plundered Imperial Shrine
2025-02-02 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | IU Indianapolis, Campus Center INCE 002, 420 University Blvd., Indianapolis, IN, 46202, United States

Jon Frey's The Origins of Roman Bathing at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia
2025-02-04 16:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, 1 Quinlan St, Lynchburg, VA, 24503, United States
Oscar Broneer Memorial Lecture
In addition to being one of the most recognizable monuments at the site, the Roman Bath at Isthmia in Greece continues to yield surprising discoveries. Excavations in the
1960s through the 1980s revealed not only the 2nd c. CE structure but also parts of an earlier Greek-period pool of impressive dimensions—a fitting monument at a
Sanctuary of Poseidon. Most recently, a re-investigation of the excavated material and associated documentation has revealed the presence of a third structure that fits in time between the other two. This presentation discusses these buildings by focusing on the discovery in this location of tegula mammata—a peculiar type of tile used in heating systems in Roman-style baths prior to the adoption of the more common tubulus. These artifacts provide evidence for changes both to Roman building practices of the 1st century CE and to the athletic sanctuary as Romans from the re-founded colony of Corinth returned to Isthmia with their own unique needs and expectations.

Egyptian Conceptions and Manifestations of Borders and Cultural Hegemony in the Late Bronze Age Southern Levant
2025-02-05 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | University of North Carolina Greensboro, MHRA building, Room 1215, 1111 Spring Garden St, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States

“Aššur, accept! Aššur, listen!”: Connecting Arabia and Assyria through Incense and Olfaction
2025-02-06 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | SMU, Owens Art Building, Greer Garson 3515, 6101 Bishop Blvd, Dallas, TX, 75205, United States

Funerary Dining or Offerings for the Dead? Archaeobotanical Evidence from the Shaft Tombs at Petra, Jordan
2025-02-13 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | University of Texas San Antonio, Downtown Campus, Buenavista Building, Aula Canaria Lecture Hall, San Antonio, TX, United States

God's Breath and Nefertiti's Secret: Ancient Perfumes and their Shipwrecked Ingredients
2025-02-19 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Ontario
Anna Marguerite McCann and Robert D. Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology

Stress, Sex, and Death: Health and Survival in the Context of Medieval Famine and Plague presented by Dr. Sharon DeWitte
2025-02-19 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Eaton Humanities Room 250, Pleasant Street 1610, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
In the 14th-century, Afro-Eurasia was struck by a devastating pandemic of bubonic plague, now often called the Black Death, that killed an estimated 30-60% of some affected populations. Dr. DeWitte will discuss her bioarchaeological research, focusing on the skeletal remains of people who died before, during, and after the Black Death in London, England. This work aims to clarify the biosocial factors that shaped vulnerability to historical plague mortality and deepen the temporal scope of understanding of the syndemic interactions that shape epidemic disease experiences and outcomes. Analysis of demographic trends before and after the Black Death in London has revealed evidence of declines in life expectancies and, by inference, health for people before the Black Death, but improvements in health afterwards. Examination of patterns of skeletal indicators of stress reveal differences between males and females, which might reflect variation in sensitivity to stressors or differences in dietary resources in the aftermath of the Black Death. Dr. DeWitte will highlight future directions in medieval plague bioarchaeology, including analyses of the potential effects of migration on population-level patterns of health in the context of famine and plague.

The Past in the Past: Traditionalism in Archaic Crete
2025-02-20 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Haury Anthropology Building, University of Arizona, Room 215, 1009 E South Campus Dr, Tucson, AZ, 85719, United States
The Barbara Tsakirgis Memorial Lecture

Why underwater? The importance of submerged landscape research for understanding Pleistocene peoples in the New World
2025-02-22 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Palm Beach Museum of Natural History, the Mall at Wellington Green, 10300 Forest Hill Blvd., Wellington, FL, 33414, United States
Doris Z. Stone New World Archaeology Lectures

Life and Death along the Nile: Tales from the Tombs of Tombos
2025-02-27 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | University of Louisville Center for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (CACHe), 1606 Rowan Street, Louisville, KY, 40203, United States
Beginning around 1500BC, the New Kingdom Egyptian Empire expanded its reach into the territory of its southern neighbor, Nubia, in search of resources such as gold and cattle. Over the next few hundred years, interactions between the ancient Egyptians and Nubians would include violent encounters, trade and exchange, political relationships, and the establishment of interethnic communities. One Egyptian colonial community established in Nubia, Tombos, spans the period from Egyptian expansion through the empire’s decline, allowing for rare perspective on this time of sociopolitical transition. In her talk, Professor Michele Buzon will explore the processes of change and consequences of contact for the people who once lived at Tombos. Evidence for disease stress, nutritional deficiencies, immigration from Egypt to Nubia, and biological relatedness between inhabitants will be presented. Osteobiographies of specific individuals from Tombos will be described to highlight how the rich archaeological record can be used to understand past societies.

From Ancient Quarries to New Inquiries: Exhibiting the ISAC Museum’s Roman Sculpture Collection in an Age of Greater Transparency
2025-02-27 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Willamette University Law School, Paulus Lecture Hall, 245 Winter St SE, Salem, OR, 97301, United States
