Simon James, Professor of Archaeology, School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester   

Thursday, April 24, 2014

“The Past, Present and Future of the Monmouth College Archaeology Research Laboratory”

Kristian L. Lorenzo, ACM-Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Classical Archaeologya t Monmouth College                       

Detailed Descriptions

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

“Warships for the Gods: New Settings for the Ship Dedications of ca. 479 BC”

Kristian L. Lorenzo, ACM-Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Classical Archaeology at Monmouth College                      (kllorenzo@monmouthcollege.edu)

7:30 P.M. Ferris Lounge, Seymour Union, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois

With the March 2014 release of 300: Rise of an Empire, the movie version of Frank Miller’s graphic novel Xerxes about the Battle of Salamis, modern popular interest in this pivotal naval battle will reach new heights. The victory of the allied Greeks at Salamis against more than two-to-one odds literally turned the tide of the Persian wars halting the seemingly inexorable advance of the Persian war machine. The Greeks dedicated three captured enemy warships as commemorative thank offerings, one to Poseidon at Isthmia, another to Poseidon at Sounion and the third to Ajax at Salamis. Scholars have suggested seaside locations for these dedications. This talk proposes securely intra-sanctuary locations for the dedicated Persian warships based upon an examination of the topographical and archaeological data for Poseidon’s sanctuaries at Sounion and Isthmia and Ajax’s on Salamis. This proposal seeks to re-situate these long lost monuments in their dedicatory settings as important parts of a vibrant, dynamic past in which dedications for military victories were integral components of Greek sanctuaries.

Monday, October 7, 2013

“Silk Route and Diamond Path: The Archaeology of Tibetan Buddhism”

Mark Aldenderfer, Professor, Anthropology and Dean, School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts

at the University of California, Merced (maldenderfer@ucmerced.edu)

7:30 P.M. Ferris Lounge, Seymour Union, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois

For most westerners, Buddhism is timeless, and Tibet remote and romantic. For the archaeologist, though, the two are intimately connected. There is a substantial material expression of Tibetan Buddhism that is tied to pre-Buddhist political institutions, imperial expansion and collapse, and subsequent transformation into the monastic and temple tradition found on the plateau today. In this paper, I will discuss what is known of Tibetan Buddhist archaeology within this outline, and will describe the historical and cultural influences on the expression of Buddhism on the plateau, and the transformations it is undergoing in the modern political climate. My perspective is unique: at present, I am the only western archaeologist conducting research in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

“4000 Years of Andean Gold”

Mark Aldenderfer, Professor, Anthropology and Dean, School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts

at the University of California, Merced (maldenderfer@ucmerced.edu)

7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

In this presentation I will review the ways in which golden objects were used by four cultures in the ancient Andes: the hunters and gatherers of the Titicaca basin at 2000 BC, the Chavin culture of the central Andes (900 BC), the Moche (AD 400), and the Chimu (AD 1200).  Gold first serves as a personal adornment that as has a social meaning, and through time, becomes identified with power and religious ideology.

Monday, November 11, 2013
“Classical Spies: American Archaeologists with the OSS in World War II Greece”
Susan Heuck Allen, Lecturer in History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences at the Rhode Island School of Design and Visiting Scholar in the Department of Classics at Brown University (susan_heuck_allen@brown.edu)

7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

I offer a unique perspective on an untold story, the first insiders' account of the American intelligence service in WWII Greece.  Archaeologists in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean drew on their personal contacts and knowledge of languages and terrain to set up spy networks in Nazi-occupied Greece. While many might think Indiana Jones is just a fantasy character, American archaeologists with code-names like Thrush and Chickadee took part in events where Indy would feel at home: burying Athenian dig records in an Egyptian tomb, activating prep-school connections to establish spies, and organizing parachute drops into Greece. These remarkable men and women, often mistaken for mild-mannered professors and scholars, hailed from America’s top universities and premier digs, such as Troy and the Athenian Agora, and later rose to the top of their profession as AIA gold medalists and presidents. Relying on interviews with individuals sharing their stories for the first time, previously unpublished secret documents, diaries, letters, and personal photographs, I share an exciting new angle on archaeology and World War II.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

“A Village on the Edge: Understanding Life on the Eastern Roman Frontier”
Danielle Fatkin, Assistant Professor of History, Knox College (dfatkin@knox.edu)

7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

The modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has a well-educated work force, a lively tech sector, and a busy real estate industry. Yet the country still struggles with necessities, including sufficient food and fresh drinking water for its rapidly expanding population. Life in Roman and Byzantine Arabia was a similar mixture of wealth and want. On-going excavations at Dhiban, Jordan, reveal the transformations wrought in one rural community by successive waves of Romanization, Christianization, and Islamization. This lecture highlights major finds from excavations conducted during the summer of 2013, including a Byzantine house and a Roman water system. Advanced recovery techniques also revealed the existence of squatter settlements on the site after the end of major occupation in the early Islamic period, indicating that the site remained important to people living in the region, even when most of the site had been formally abandoned. By reconstructing changes in trade patterns, subsistence techniques, and the environment, excavations have a chance to explain both how the site grew under the Roman Empire and why that growth proved unsustainable over the long-term, revealing lessons that resonate with modern struggles to manage scarce water and other resources in the region today.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

“Walk on the Wildside: From Garden Space to Game Space in the House of Octavius Quartio in Pompeii” 

David Fredrick, Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Director of Humanities, University of Arkansas    (dfredric@mail.uark.edu)

7:00 P.M., Bergendoff’s Larson Hall, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois
This lecture will demonstrate Dr. Fredrick’s innovative uses of the Unity game engine and gaming technology to advance our understanding of architectural space and decorative ensembles in Pompeii.

Tuesday February 25, 2014

 “Roads to the Past: Highway Sponsored Archaeology in Your Own Backyard”

David Nolan, Coordinator of the Western Illinois Survey Division for the Illinois Transportation Archaeological    Research Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (djnolan@illinois.edu)

7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business,, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

The lecture will describe the basic processes used to find, document, evaluate, and excavate archaeological remains located in the paths of proposed highway projects. The discussion will highlight the results of recent state-sponsored archaeological investigations undertaken in the west central Illinois, including the US 34 Biggsville Bypass ,the NRHP District in Galesburg, the Maquon area, the Macomb Bypass and the War of 1812 Fort Johnson in Warsaw.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

“Blood in the Dust, Death in the Dark: Combat and chemical Warfare at Roman Dura-Europos, Syria”

Simon James, Professor of Archaeology, School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester    (stj3@le.ac.uk)

7:30 P.M., Hanson Hall of Science 102, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

Alternatively titled ‘Cold-Case CSI: Roman Syria AD256’, this is a detective story, an exercise in uncovering forgotten secrets of a ferocious battle fought between the Romans and Sasanians. It is a tale told entirely through archaeology, for the siege in which perished the city of Dura-Europos, ‘Pompeii of the East’, is unknown to history. The Franco-American excavations of the 1920s-30s, and new work between 1986-2011, has revealed in graphic detail the course of the Sasanian attacks, and the determined efforts of the Roman defenders to thwart them; siege ramps and mines are still there to be seen, and excavation recovered copious weaponry and the bones of the slain, including dramatic traces of the defenders’ last stand. This, the most vivid archaeological testimony ever found for ancient warfare, is still revealing surprises. For careful reappraisal of evidence preserved in the old excavation archives suggests that an early form of chemical warfare was among the horrors unleashed at Dura, the earliest archaeological testimony for one of the grimmest of all facets of human conflict…  

Thursday, April 24, 2014

“The Past, Present and Future of the Monmouth College Archaeology Research Laboratory”

Kristian L. Lorenzo, ACM-Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Classical Archaeology at Monmouth College                        (kllorenzo@monmouthcollege.edu)

7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

In 2010, Monmouth College received an anonymous donation of thousands of prehistoric Native American artifacts, including spear points, pottery sherds, axe heads, and arrow heads. The collection represents human activity in Western Illinois for the last 12,000 years. The Monmouth College Archaeology Research Laboratory now houses this collection which is one of the largest locally available for study. Students have been accessing and cataloguing artifacts from this collection under the direction of three different lab directors. This talk sets the collection within the chronological sweep of Western Illinois prehistory, provides an overview--complete with videos--of current student lab work and previews future avenues of student collection management including website development, database management and community outreach programs.