Archaeological Institute of America

Dreadful were the vestiges of (the Revolutionary) War.
2025-12-27 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago)
ZOOM lecture by Douglas Scott (Retired Supervisory Archaeologist with the National Park Service); A study of surviving bullet struck structures and objects from the first day of the American Revolution: Employing Forensic Firearm Examination Techniques to Historic Contexts.

Zoom Lecture: Forgotten Saint-Simonian Travelers in Egypt
2026-01-11 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/zoom-lecture-forgotten-saint-simonian-travelers-in-egypt/
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a Zoom lecture by Dr. John David Ragan, Independent Scholar (PhD, NYU):
Forgotten Saint-Simonian Travelers in Egypt
Sunday, January 11 2026, 3 PM PST
Register in advance for this lecture:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/cAzvIld9RvanelhVxNRq1A
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
There are a few things you should know before you join the lecture:
* Advance registration is required. When you click on the link to “Register in advance for this lecture” you will receive instructions by email on how and when to join, along with a link on which you will click to join the meeting. Save the email, as you will need the link it contains to join the meeting. Please register now. Please do not share the join link with anyone, it is unique to your email address. Try to join at least 10 minutes before the meeting. When you do join the meeting, be prepared to be put in the waiting room until the lecture starts at 3 pm. This is a security measure.
* If you haven’t already installed Zoom, you should download and install the Zoom program (app) well before you try to join the meeting. There IS an option to use your web browser to join the meeting instead of the Zoom program, but the browser interface is limited and depends greatly on what browser and what operating system you’re using.
* For tutorials on how to use Zoom, go to https://learn-zoom.us/show-me. In particular, “Joining a Zoom Meeting” should show you what you need to do to join our lecture.
* All meeting attendees can communicate with everyone, or with individual participants, using the chat window, which can be opened by clicking on the chat button and which you can probably find at the bottom middle of your Zoom viewing screen. Participants will be encouraged to hold their questions for the speaker until after the lecture, and will also be encouraged to address their questions for the speaker to everyone, not just to the speaker, so that all can see them. “Everyone” is the default chat option.
If you have any questions, please email glenn@glennmeyer.net or arcencZoom@gmail.com.
About the Lecture:
This lecture and a book with the same title tell the stories of two French women and a French African man, travelers connected to the Saint-Simonian utopian socialists, who came to work for the Egyptian government in the 1830s. They have been marginalized and excluded from the historical record, because they were women, not part of the colonial elite, or of mixed racial heritage. This history brings them alive through extensive archival research and vibrant storytelling.
There is Suzanne Voilquin, a practicing midwife in Cairo who was involved in left-wing popular politics in Paris and became the editor of one of the first feminist newspapers ever published (1832–34). The second traveler, Thomas Ismayl Urbain, was born in French Guyana, where his mother was born a slave and his father was a French sea captain. “Jehan d’Ivray” is the pen name of the third traveler, a teenage woman who married an Egyptian studying medicine in France, and traveled with him to Egypt in 1879. She wrote more than twenty books, including a retrospective look at Suzanne Voilquin and women in the Saint-Simonian movement, bringing the story full circle to another generation.
Their stories brilliantly illustrate the paradoxes of nineteenth century colonialism in Egypt. Suzanne Voilquin grew up in the Parisian working class and sympathized deeply with Egyptians but initially exoticized the differences between Egypt and her home country, while Urbain, a literary pioneer in black pride, nevertheless joined the French army and saw his role in the colonial occupation as a means of helping indigenous people. These characters transcend the neat binary of East and West and offer a rich, nuanced window onto the experiences of French travelers in Egypt during the nineteenth century.
About the Speaker:
Dr. John David Ragan has a PhD in history from New York University and degrees from the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, the University of Cincinnati, and Binghamton University. He has traveled in fifty countries, across Europe, North Africa, Latin America, New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia and the Himalayas, studying French in Paris, Arabic in Cairo and Tunis, German in Berlin, and Spanish in Salamanca and Mexico City. He is a working member of Laborers Union Local 942, Fairbanks, Alaska, and has published two books and numerous articles.
About Northern California ARCE:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://www.facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://arce-nc.org, https://bsky.app/profile/khentiamentiu.bsky.social, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

Early Peoples in the Plateau: Nimíipuu Knowledge and Landscape Adaptation in the Bitterroot Mountains
2026-01-15 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W 1st Ave, Spokane, WA, 99201, United States
Join us for a lecture by WSU grad Student Jordan Thompson on early Northwest culture.
Abstract: Mountain environments and resources have played a significant role in Indigenous cultural and subsistence lifeways and knowledge systems yet remain underrepresented in landscape research. Recent archaeological evidence points to the Southern Columbia Plateau as an early entry point for the Peopling of the Americas. Understanding the landscape is essential to adaptation in new and changing environments, and archaeological methods combined with Indigenous knowledge are uniquely positioned to investigate these human-environment relationships. Indigenous oral narratives, correlated with geologic processes, reveal a deep record of landscape knowledge that may offer insight into early migration, environmental adaptation, and landscape exploration. In this talk, I will present on collaborative research which integrates geoarchaeology and ethnogeology to examine how land use, mobility, and placemaking shaped the establishment of seasonal subsistence cycle among the Nimíipuu (Nez Perce). Ethnogeology foregrounds Indigenous perspectives of place, complementing archaeological investigation by contextualizing the cultural meanings of stone artifacts. This talk will focus on Nimíipuu subsistence in an understudied portion of the western Bitterroot Mountain uplands, a segment of the Northern Rockies, in the North Fork Clearwater River watershed of Idaho by examining toolstone sources, their distribution across the landscape, and how these features acquire meaning. By combining geoarchaeological and ethnogeological frameworks, this talk explores how people come to know, understand, and connect to landscapes while developing a sense of place with reciprocal subsistence systems.

The Southern Mani Archaeological Project: Fieldwork at the End of the World
2026-01-18 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | 303 Paterson Hall, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Speaker: Chelsea A.M. Gardner (Acadia University)
The Mani peninsula is the literal (geographical) and metaphorical “end of the world”, since it occupies the southernmost point of mainland Greece and the mythical entrance to Hades, the ancient Greek underworld. Mani’s occupation history includes being home to the earliest hominid caves in Greece up to modern tower-houses and intergenerational feuding. I have been working in Mani since 2012, and this talk will introduce Mani, its liminality, and its storied past through three separate archaeological initiatives: the Diros Project (2012-2015), the CARTography Project (2018-2022), and the first season of the Southern Mani Archaeological Project, a SSHRC-funded survey that began in May 2025.

10,000 years of Oaxaca Cuisines from Mesquite Pods to Mezcal
2026-01-20 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | TBA (Santa Fe), Santa Fe, NM, United States
Doris Z. Stone New World Archaeology Lectures Time TBA

TBA (North Alabama (Huntsville))
2026-01-20 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | TBA (North Alabama (Huntsville)), Huntsville, AL, United States
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology Time TBA

The Annual de Bragança Endowed Lecture: Escape from Pompeii: Tracking Survivors from the Eruption of Vesuvius
2026-01-21
The Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Presents The Annual de Bragança Endowed Lecture, delivered by Steven L. Tuck, Miami University, Ohio. Exact time, location, and Hybrid Zoom registration link TBA.

Life, Death, and Disease: Insights form Petra’s Tombs and Cemeteries 2
2026-01-21 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | TBA (Nashville), Nasvhille, TN

Seeing the Past Anew: The Digital Epigraphy and Archaeology’s Toolkit for Accessible 3D Heritage
2026-01-21 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | University of Florida, Fine Arts Building “B”, 400 SW 13th Street, Gainesville, FL, 32601, United States
Lecturer: Dr. Eleni Bozia
Associate Professor, Department of Classics
Head of the Data-Driven Humanities Research Group
University of Florida
Archaeology, epigraphy, and heritage sites point to and recall the past, and reasonably so. People usually turn to them for Instagram photos or contemplate on them because they are told that “history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” However, in reality, there is still a large disconnect between the past and the present, the value of one for the other, and overall, the purpose of sustaining, supporting, and engaging with these fields and their objects of interest. This talk will traverse the history of digital preservation and dissemination, and digital world heritage through the lens of the Digital Epigraphy and Archaeology project to emphasize that nothing is more urgent for the present than the past, and how technology and AI can bring archaeology and epigraphy to a new, more responsible ecosystem of valued knowledge. Ultimately, this talk advocates for a future in which the digital humanities not only preserve the traces of antiquity but also empower new ways of engaging with them, transforming the past into a living, collaborative resource for global society.

The Past Keeps Getting Bigger: Living with the Past in the Present and the Future at Tell Dhiban, Jordan
2026-01-22 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Edmonton) | Business Building 2-09, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The AIA Helene J. Kantor Memorial Lecture (link: https://www.archaeological.org/endowment/the-helene-j-kantor-memorial-lecture/)
Professor Bruce Routledge (University of Liverpool)
Tell Dhiban is a large mound in central Jordan occupied since 3000 BCE. It is best known as the capital of the biblical kingdom of Moab and the site of a significant Nabataean temple. However, focusing on separate moments in time does not do justice to a site where the past has always formed the ground beneath one’s feet. This talk will consider how for 5,000 years inhabitants of Dhiban have lived with the past, including current residents for whom the past also plays a key role in their futures.

Into the Mani: Death, Burial, and Legend on the Southern Greek Mainland
2026-01-22 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Pittsburgh), Pittsburgh, PA, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship Time TBA

The (Beautiful) Men and Women of Jaina Figurines
2026-01-25 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Hybrid
Lifelike Maya figurines from the Island of Jaina have been collected for almost 200 years, with hundreds now known in collections around the world, from Berlin to Brooklyn, and Los Angeles to Mexico City. These figurines also present the largest corpus of female representations of the ancient Americas, comprising roughly one-third of all known examples. Many examples are rattles or whistles, and trace of brilliant pigments remain in place. In this talk, Mary Miller will look at their meaning and their making, all c 700-900 CE.

Boxes, Banks, Bags, and Bones: Carrying and Storing Money in Ancient Rome
2026-01-27 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Semans Auditorium (Room 117), Belk Visual Arts Center, 315 N. Main St., Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
About the lecture:
How did the Romans carry, store, and save their money? This talk surveys the archaeological evidence for the wallets, purses, bags, boxes, and chests in which the ancient Romans placed their coined money at home and on the go. From reused cooking pots to bronze arm purses and ceramic “piggybanks,” we will explore what the methods and means of containing coined money reveal about Roman daily life, religious practice, and the social and cultural norms around the function of physical currency in the ancient world.
About the speaker:
Dr. Robyn Le Blanc, Assistant Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Archaeology at UNC Greensboro, specializes in the archaeology and coinage of the Roman provinces. Her current research explores how Roman colonies used their coinages to negotiate a local identity. She is also developing a project on Roman money boxes. In 2021-2022 Dr. Le Blanc was the Kershaw Lecturer in Near East Archaeology for the Archaeological Institute of America, and she has recently given invited talks for the American Numismatic Society and the Oxford Numismatic Society. She has participated in excavations in Israel, England, and Montenegro, and she is co-director of WIRE: Women in the Roman East (see more at wireproject.org).

AIA Archaeology Hour January 2026: NAGPRA as a Path to Healing and Reciprocity
2026-01-28 20:00 (America/New_York)
Join the AIA for the first AIA Archaeology Hour talk of the new year as new AIA President Brian I. Daniels hosts Danyelle Means for “NAGPRA as a Path to Healing and Reciprocity.”
This presentation will be given at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central/6pm Mountain/5pm Pacific.
Have you noticed empty exhibit cases at museums over the past two years as museums move to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)?
Means’ presentation reframes NAGPRA not as a legal obligation but as a vital opportunity for healing, reciprocity, and relationship-building between archaeologists, museums, and Indigenous communities. Drawing from Indigenous perspectives, the talk explores how NAGPRA challenges institutions to move beyond compliance and toward practices rooted in respect, sovereignty, and shared stewardship. By centering Native voices and experiences, this session invites the audience to consider how honoring ancestors and returning cultural items can transform the field into one of accountability, trust, and long-term collaboration.
Register here!

The Impact of Roman Military Presence on the Arid Landscapes of Southern Jordan and Israel 2
2026-01-29 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Denver) | TBA (Bozeman), Bozeman, MT, United States
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship Time TBA

Dr. Stephen Humphreys zoom lecture about the Camden Revolutionary War battlefield.
2026-01-31 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Chicago)
Dr. Stephen Humphreys is the CEO of American Veterans Archaeological Recovery program. One of his projects involves the Camden Revolutionary War battlefield.

From Farmers to Kings: The Emergence of Social Hierarchy in Prehistoric Europe
2026-02-02 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | TBA (Iowa City 1), Iowa City, IA, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

TBA (Portland)
2026-02-03 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | TBA (Portland), Portland, OR, United States

A Deep Dive into Deep Time: Archaeology, Underwater
2026-02-05 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | TBA (San Francisco), San Francisco, CA
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology

Reflections on Ancient Greek Mirrors
2026-02-05 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | S150 Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, 270 River Road, Athens, GA, 30602, USA
The Barbara Tsakirgis Memorial Lecture

Landscapes of Time and Memory: Foragers in the Mojave Desert 2
2026-02-05 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Paulus Lecture Hall, Willamette Law School, 245 Winter St SE, Salem, OR, 97301, USA
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship

TBA (Stanford)
2026-02-06 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | TBA (Stanford 1), Stanford, CA, United States
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology Time TBA

The Unknown Ottawa Project – working with colonial and indigenous assemblages from the Ottawa region
2026-02-08 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | 303 Paterson Hall, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Speaker: Laura Banducci – Carleton University
This project involves the re-studying and digitization of artefacts from several assemblages from Lake Leamy Park, at the confluence of the Ottawa and Gatineau Rivers. This was a central meeting place from the earliest days of human occupation of the region, yet the materials are not well-published or easily accessible. National Capital Commission archaeologists and members of Carleton University are working together to bring decades of archaeological investigation in the park to light for the general public and for scholars. Site 18, a beachfront stretch along the Ottawa, contains thousands of fragments of stone tool debris and pottery attesting to its frequent use 2000 years ago. Site 24, along the Gatineau River, reveals the remains of the earliest settlers in the region, who travelled North from the US to Hull Township at the turn of the 19th century. This lecture discusses the beginning of work on these assemblages and highlights some of the stories about Ottawa’s past we’ve learned so far.

On Metals, Grasses, and Mollusks: A Local History of Ecology, Economy, and Empire in Roman Iberia
2026-02-09 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | TBA (Fresno), Fresno, CA
Time TBA

“What Do We Owe to Already-Looted Objects?”
2026-02-09 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Jepson Hall, Room 118, Richmond Way 221, Richmond, VA, 23226, United States
Lecture by Elizabeth Marlowe, Professor of Art History and Chair of the Art department at Colgate University
(https://www.archaeological.org/lecturer/elizabeth-marlowe/)

The Ecstasy and the Agony:Excavations at La Venta, Mexico, an Olmec Capital
2026-02-11 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | University of Florida, Smathers Library Room 100, 1508 Union Rd, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States
Lecturer: Dr. Susan Gillespie
Professor of Anthropology, University of Florida
In 1942 and 1943, excavations revealed fabulous buried deposits of jade and other precious items in a very unexpected place: La Venta on Mexico’s southern Gulf coast, an area of swamps and tropical forest. These finds produced an “ecstatic” reaction in the world of archaeology and shed light on the Olmecs, a mysterious early civilization in Mesoamerica (c. 1150-400 BC). Subsequent fieldwork in 1955 revealed even more astonishing discoveries: tons of jade and other greenstone objects recovered at an “agonizing” cost. The archaeologists encountered tremendous problems excavating La Venta. The site was already suffering damage by development, and subsequent looting destroyed much of what was left. The story of the ecstasy and agony of La Venta’s excavations is reconstructed through archival archaeology, analyzing the field records, maps, and photographs.

Replacing Empires. The Archaeology of Political Transformation and Spatial Dynamics in 1st Millennium BCE Mesopotamia
2026-02-13 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Columbus), Columbus, OH, United States

From Farmers to Kings: The Emergence of Social Hierarchy in Prehistoric Europe 2
2026-02-17 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Lynchburg 1), Lynchburg, VA, United States

Soto’s Stuff: Spanish 16th Century Expeditions and What They Left Behind
2026-02-17 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | University of Florida, Smathers Library Room 100, 1508 Union Rd, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States
Lecturer: Dr. Charles Cobb
Lockwood Chair in Historical Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History
2025 UF Research Foundation Professor
Over the last decade, research by a collaboration of archaeologists has made considerable strides toward identifying sites visited by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto’s army in the American Southeast (A.D. 1539-1543). In addition to delineating the route traveled by Soto, our working group has now amassed a substantial sample of European metal objects recovered from Indigenous villages. This presentation provides new insights on the Soto route and on how the related artifacts shed light on patterns of discard, trade, and the ways in which Indigenous societies reshaped European material culture.

Punitive Labor and Enslavement in the Roman Bakery
2026-02-17 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Semans Auditorium (Room 117), Belk Visual Arts Center, 315 N. Main St., Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
About the lecture:
In 2023, excavators in Pompeii found a bakery in the Casa di Rustio Vero that was separated from the house—and the rest of the world—by metal bars. The excavators interpreted the bars as an indication of incarceration and the use of convicts as labor. This lecture explores the evidence for convict labor in bakeries and argues that the material consequences of enslavement and incarceration are probably indistinguishable in the setting of commerical activity. Deploying both textual and material evidence, Benton will show the various ways that punitive labor grafted onto different systems and scales of production.
About the speaker:
Dr. Jared Benton, associate professor of art at Old Dominion University, is co-director of the Saïss Plain and Zerhoun Massif archaeology project, a survey of the plain SE of Volubilis in Morocco. He has previously excavated workshops in Volubilis and was a field supervisor for the American Excavations at Morgantina from 2013-2020. His book, The Bread Makers, explores Roman commercial baking, with a focus on how production would differ not only between communities but also between operators with different investment tolerances. With a number of co-authors, he recently published an article on the structure and archaeobotany of a bakery at Volubilis in Mouseion.
