Over three million years ago, our ancient ancestors realized that rocks could be broken into sharp-edged objects for slicing meat, making the first knives. This discovery resulted in a good meal—and eventually changed the fate of our species and our planet. In this talk, Chip Colwell shares his thrilling and accessible new book, So Much […]

How do we understand care in the ancient world? This talk will focus on current archaeological research conducted in the city of MohenjoDaro (a World Heritage Site) located in contemporary Pakistan (Sindh Province). Archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-Daro document hundreds of dwelling-houses and large buildings built along streets and lanes oriented towards cardinal points, which index […]

The history of archaeology as a scientific discipline has received a great deal of attention in recent years. As a result of extensive archival research and the reading of archives against the grain, alternative or indigenous archaeologies and earlier forms of relationships to the past—such as antiquarianism—have also begun to receive more serious scholarly attention. […]

For many people, the word "archaeology" conjures up images of monuments, often interpreted as traces of the lives of powerful rulers who can seem to be inevitable parts of any urban, agricultural society. But there are other stories archaeology can tell about societies in which there was no apparent ruler, but nevertheless show the hallmarks […]

Although historians and Tibetologists since the early 20th C have collected and interpreted religious documents describing in general terms rituals of death and safe passage to the afterlife among the early peoples of the Himalayas, the archaeological record offered little insight into them. But recent research by archaeologists across the region have made extraordinary discoveries […]