Light-Writings: Koutroulou Magoula 2017-2018

Photography by Fotis Ifantidis
Curated by: Yannis Hamilakis, Justin Han, Kelley Tackett

An exhibit of photographs taken at the archaeological site of Koutroulou Magoula in central Greece, a site which was a Neolithic village for several centuries in the 6th millennium BCE and also used for burials in later periods. Since 2009, the site has being explored by the Koutroulou Magoula Archaeology and Archaeological Ethnography Project and is currently a collaboration between the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology, other universities, and the Greek Archaeological Service (Dr. Nina Kyparissi). The selected photos, out of the many hundreds taken, come from the 2017 and 2018 seasons and fall into five themes: Diggers, Landscapes, Bodies, Tactilities, Theatre/archaeologies. The photographs are accompanied by passages from the reflective, personal diaries of some of the Brown and RISD students who participated in the project in 2018.

Archaeologists use photographs all the time, primarily for the purposes of recording and documentation. In the field, many other, non-official, “social” photographs and snapshots are taken, which rarely become part of the archaeological story. There is, however, a third kind of photographic-archaeological production: photographs that comment visually on the process of archaeology, on excavation and on field practices, photographs which are at the same time artistic creations but which can also operate as photo-ethnographic objects; as one of the outcomes of the archaeological process which can be disseminated in various ethnographic contexts, and provoke and elicit responses and reactions that can lead to further reflection and research. This is the kind of photography we exhibit here. In doing so, we foreground the archaeological site not only as a site of research and education but also as a site of cultural and artistic production.

Surekha Davies, an InterAmericas Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, will be discussing her research in an informal talk. Pizza and soda will be provided, or feel free to bring a lunch.

For a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks, please visit http://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2018/08/02/brown-bag-talks-for-fall-2018/

Learn to produce technical illustrations

Handle ancient objects close up

Drop in sessions, casual atmosphere

No experience or artistic confidence necessary

Praveena Gullapalli, an Associate Professor in Anthropology at Rhode Island College, will be discussing her research in an informal talk. Pizza and soda will be provided, or feel free to bring a lunch.

For a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks, please visit http://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2018/08/02/brown-bag-talks-for-fall-2018/

Thomas Thornton (University of Oxford) | Thursday, November 29th 5:30 PM | 85 Waterman Room 015

Flood narratives are common in oral traditions of Northwest Coast and other Indigenous Peoples. Unlike Biblical floods, however, these floods are often linked to rising sea-levels, the same threat humans face today with global climate change in the Anthropocene. In Tlingit tradition, Southeast Alaska was consumed by an epic flood which is linked to the activities of Raven, the Trickster-Demiurge, who also became a catalyst for adaptation to the novel environments wrought by the Flood. Humans were forced to seek refuge in “stone nests” on high mountains which are said to have “saved the people” from the deluge. Tom Thornton suggests that these narratives, still invoked as encapsulations of resilience and adaptation, hold continuing relevance today in the face of anthropogenic climate change.

Tom Thornton is an Environmental Anthropologist with 30 years of research and teaching experience, most recently as Director of the Environmental Change and Management program at the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, UK .  His research interests are in human ecology, climate change, adaptation, local and traditional ecological knowledge, conservation, coastal and marine environments, conceptualizations of space and place, and the political ecology of resource management among Indigenous peoples of the North Pacific. His most popular books are Being and Place among the Tlingit (2008) and Haa Léelk’w Has Aaní Saax’u / Our Grandparents’ Names on the Land (2012).

Supported by generous donors to the Shepard Krech III Lecture fund. Reception to follow.   

Jen Thum, a doctoral candidate in Archaeology and the Ancient World, will present her dissertation, “Pharaoh Was Here: The Mechanics of Egyptian Royal Living-Rock Stelae”, in a public lecture. All are welcome.

Dr Manuel Fernández-Götz is a Reader in Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, Executive Board Member of the European Association of Archaeologists, and winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Archaeology. He has authored more than 140 publications on Iron Age societies in Central and Western Europe, the archaeology of identities, and the archaeology of the Roman conquest.

Professor Matisoo-Smith is a molecular anthropologist and Professor at the University of Otago’s Department of Anatomy; she holds her degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Auckland (MA and PhD).  Her areas of specialization are Pacific prehistory and origins of Pacific peoples, ancient and modern DNA analysis, and she has recently begun work on tracking Phoenician expansions across the Mediterranean.  Professor Matisoo-Smith is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Society of Antiquities, London, and her publications include DNA for Archaeologists (with K.A. Horsburgh, 2012).

This lecture is co-sponsored with the Narragansett Society, the Rhode Island chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America and is part of the AIA’s Jo Anne Van Tilburg Lecture Series.

Brown University’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World will host a conference titled State of the Field 2019: The Ancient DNA Revolution in Archaeology on February 22-23, 2019. Our gathering builds on a tradition of “State of the Field” workshops hosted by the Joukowsky Institute to reflect upon trends in archaeological research. This year’s conference aims to address the many issues surrounding the development and uses of ancient DNA methods around the world and to promote discussion between archaeologists, anthropologists, and geneticists in order to examine new opportunities and challenges for ancient DNA research in archaeology.

Keynote Panelists:
Logan Kistler, Smithsonian Institution
Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, University of Otago
Christina Warinner, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Oklahoma

Find more information at: brown.edu/go/sotf2019

This workshop is free and open to the public.
No preregistration is required.