Archaeological Institute of America

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
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology Time TBA

Webinar: Radiocarbon Dating & Stable Isotopes in Archaeology
2026-02-12 19:30 - 20:00 (America/Vancouver) | Zoom, 4985 SW 74th Court, Miami, FL, 33155, United States
Join SGS Beta for an accessible introduction to radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating and stable isotope applications in archaeology and related sciences. This webinar will cover the fundamentals of how radiocarbon dating works, including why calibration is essential for accuracy, and the special considerations needed when working with bone samples. Through case studies, you’ll learn how ¹⁴C analysis has been applied to archaeological discoveries ranging from Viking burials to mammoth remains, and how stable isotopes like strontium and oxygen provide insights into ancient migration, diet, and provenance.
Dr. Maren Pauly is a natural scientist specializing in isotope geochemistry who undertook her PhD in Natural Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin and previously completed her Master of Science and Bachelor of Science at the University of Waterloo in Canada. She is currently working as a scientific associate at SGS Beta.

Josef Wegner - Digging into Egypt’s Late Middle Kingdom, Recent Discoveries at the Anubis-Mountain Royal Necropolis, Abydos
2026-02-11 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Johns Hopkins University, Homewood campus Gilman Hall Room 50, Johns Hopkins University, Homewood campus, BALTIMORE, MD, 21206, United States
Wednesday Feb. 11, 5:30 – 6:30, Gilman Hall Room 50
Johns Hopkins University, Homewood campus
Dorothy Kent Hill Lecture
Josef Wegner, University of Pennsylvania
Digging into Egypt’s Late Middle Kingdom, Recent Discoveries at the Anubis-Mountain Royal Necropolis, Abydos

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.

Daniel Healey, Provenance Researcher, Worcester Art Museum: "Orphaned Antiquities & Cold Case Files: Investigating Provenance in the New Era of Museum Restitution"
2026-02-09 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | TX
The Clarence and Anne Dillon Dunwalke Lecture
Provenance refers to an artwork’s history of ownership, from the time of its creation or archaeological discovery to the present. Provenance researchers track down a wide range of sources—scholarship, auction catalogs, financial records, inventories, correspondence, photographs, markings on artworks themselves, and more—to reconstruct an object’s past and retrace its path to the museum. This work has been compared to that of an investigator, and provenance researchers routinely described as “art detectives.” Over the past decade, these metaphors have become increasingly relevant as law-enforcement agencies across the U.S. have arrested dealers, seized antiquities from the nation’s leading museums, and made hundreds of repatriations to countries around the world—all to great fanfare and press coverage. The collision between the worlds of law enforcement and museums has revolutionized the field of provenance research and redefined the standards of ethical and legal collecting in this country. As a former Antiquities Trafficking Analyst for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and now the Provenance Research Specialist at the Worcester Art Museum, I will share stories from the frontlines of provenance research—stories of looting, forgery, and repatriation—that explain why museums need “art detectives” now more than ever.

“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/)

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

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.

"Late Victorian Race Science and its Legacies in Aegean Archaeology"
2026-02-06 17:00 - 19:30 (America/Chicago) | Swallow Hall, Room 101, 507 South 9th Street, Columbia, MO, 65201, United States
Interested in receptions of antiquity, discoveries in prehistory, and ideas about race during the late 19th and early 20th centuries? The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA)’s Central Missouri Chapter as well as the Classics, Archaeology, and Religion (CAR) Department welcome Dr. Anne Duray for her lecture “Late Victorian Race Science and its Legacies in Aegean Archaeology” on Friday, February 6th, at 5:30 p.m. in Swallow Hall, Room 101.
There will be a reception beforehand at 5 p.m.

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

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

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

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

Archaeology-Hour Screening: NAGPRA as a Path to Healing and Reciprocity
2026-02-05 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Whitman College Maxey Hall 207, 173 Stanton St., Walla Walla, WA, 99362, United States
Please join us for an in-person screening and informal discussion of the Archaeology Hour talk by Danyelle Means (Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Santa Fe).
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.
This event is free and open to the public.

Founding the City: Carved Orthostats and Architectural Experimentation in Anatolia
2026-02-03 18:30 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Reed College, Performing Arts Building (PAB) 320, 3017 SE Woodstock Blvd., Portland, OR, 97202, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

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

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.

The Impact of Roman Military Presence on the Arid Landscapes of Southern Jordan and Israel
2026-01-29 17:30 - 19:30 (America/Denver) | Remote (Bozeman), Bozeman, MT, United States

AIA Archaeology Hour January 2026: NAGPRA as a Path to Healing and Reciprocity
2026-01-28 20:00 (America/New_York) | TX
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!

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).

“She is the Son of Bastet”: Gender in Papyrus Louvre 32308
2026-01-25 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | ARCE-NC Lectures, Rm 126 Social Sciences Bldg., UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
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 lecture by Rachel Barnas, UC Berkeley:
“She is the Son of Bastet”: Gender in Papyrus Louvre 32308
Sunday, January 25, 2026, 3 PM PST
MELC Lounge, Room 254 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
Because of nearby construction, please allow extra time to park your vehicle.
This is an in-person lecture and is not virtual. No registration is required.
The lecture will be recorded for later publication on the chapter’s YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE
About the Lecture:
Magic was a tool for dealing with a host of everyday problems in ancient Egypt, from headaches and snakebites to bad luck and nightmares, and employed a wide variety of strategies accordingly. Underlying many of these different strategies was a shared reliance on the power of analogy, which was used to impose a desirable mythological template on immediate, everyday reality. To accomplish this superposition, tools, problems, and even the speaker or subject of a spell could all be assigned mythic identities, ensuring that success was already predestined.
What happened, though, when there was a mismatch between the divine identity needed and some aspect of the subject’s everyday self? This situation presents itself in the case of one amuletic papyrus, Papyrus Louvre 32308, in which a female patient is cast as multiple male deities. Such casting raises a number of questions: Was this gender conflict seen as a problem? How does the text navigate this apparent conflict? Why not just pick some female deities and avoid the problem altogether? Exploring the answers to these questions through close reading of the Louvre papyrus and comparison to similar spells can help us refine our notions of when the bounds of gender could or could not be pushed in ancient Egypt and why, revealing just how much ancient magical texts can tell us about their users.
About the Speaker:
Rachel Barnas is a PhD candidate in the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department at UC Berkeley. She received her B.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from Yale University in 2013 and her M.A. in Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations from the University of Toronto in 2020, both with a focus in Egyptology. Her dissertation project examines patterns of literary and grammatical device usage in Ramesside non-funerary magical texts, as a means of analyzing the relationship between how the ancient Egyptians used language and how they experienced and understood their world. She has also worked in both curation and epigraphy, including as Terrace Research Associate at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and as a member of the IFAO team documenting the tomb of Padiamenope (TT33).
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.

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.

Into the Mani: Death, Burial, and Legend on the Southern Greek Mainland
2026-01-22 16:30 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Remote (Pittsburgh), Pittsburgh, PA, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship
Register for Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/6xRhkuW-ScGmMN4GpWaPKA

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.

The Annual de Bragança Endowed Lecture: Escape from Pompeii: Tracking Survivors from the Eruption of Vesuvius
2026-01-21 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | George Washington University, Funger Hall 108 (2201 G St NW Washington, DC 20052), Funger Hall, Room 108 (2201 G St. NW), Washington, DC, 20052, United States
George Washington University’s Capitol Archaeological Institute and Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Present The Annual de Bragança Endowed Lecture, delivered by Steven L. Tuck, Miami University, Ohio. REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED TO ATTEND BOTH IN PERSON AND VIA ZOOM.
Register to attend in person | Register to attend via Zoom

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, Library West, Room 212, 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.

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

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

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.
