Alexis Catsambis on “Where Cutting Edge Meets Cultural Heritage: Investigating Deeply Submerged Archaeological Sites”

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Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 11am in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

In 1872, Sir Charles Lyell noted that it was “probable that a greater number of monuments of the skill and industry of man will, in the course of the ages, be collected together in the bed of the ocean than will exist at any other time on the surface of the continents.” In the early twentieth century a number of astonishing underwater discoveries at Antikythera, Mahdia, Marathon, and Artemision came to illustrate this insightful statement. The field of maritime archaeology, however, only truly developed as a consequence of advances in marine technology during the middle of the last century which allowed archaeologists to bring the profession’s scientific standards to the underwater environment. Now a mature, dynamic discipline, this area of study has maintained its strong association with cutting-edge advances in science and technology. Nowhere is this more visible than in one of the field’s most exciting frontiers – deep-submergence archaeology. 
 

This lecture will trace the evolution of methodologies first utilized by the pioneer of underwater archaeology, Dr. George Bass, as they are applied today in some of the most challenging environments in the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and elsewhere. It will concentrate on case studies tied directly to the lecturer’s research, illustrating both recent discoveries, as well as the unique parameters that apply to deep-water sites. As will be demonstrated, with our ever-increasing abilities to locate and study the monuments of the skill and industry of humankind located on the ocean floor, Charles Lyell’s words echo all the more true today. 

About the Speaker:   Alexis Catsambis is a maritime archaeologist who holds his degrees from the Nautical Archaeology Program of Texas A&M University (Ph.D., M.A.) and the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity of the University of Birmingham, U.K. In his professional capacity, Dr. Catsambis serves the Naval History & Heritage Command as an archaeologist and cultural resource manager, providing for the stewardship, research conservation, and curation of the U.S. Navy’s sunken craft and associated artifacts. Through his academic research, Dr. Catsambis has directed and participated in a breadth of archaeological investigations. While focusing on the Mediterranean and Black Seas in antiquity, his practical experience spans to the North American continent and includes underwater visual surveys and site assessments, remote-sensing surveys, terrestrial excavations, as well as shallow- and deep-water excavations. He has also been involved with the conservation and digital reconstruction of sites and artifacts, having spent time at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center of Clemson University and the NATO Undersea Research Centre in La Spezia, Italy. His recent publications include the Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology, which he co-edited with Dr. Donny Hamilton and Dr. Ben Ford.  He is the AIA’s Bass Lecturer for 2012/2013. 

A no-host lunch open to AIA members with the speaker will follow the lecture at Christos Greek Restaurant, 2632 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis.

Vanča Schrunk on “Island Archaeology: A Roman Villa on St. Clement in the Adriatic”

Thursday, March 14, 2013 at 6pm in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College

 Adriatic islands played an important role in ancient navigation and economy. The centrality of the Adriatic Sea for travel and exchange between the Mediterranean and European societies conditioned the life and economy of the islanders. The islands’ landscape and seascape and the nature of settlements were dynamic and responded to changing historical scenarios.

The island of St. Clement, with its agricultural land, deep bays with good anchorage, and resources for salt production and stone quarrying, has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Geophysical survey and excavation conducted on a Roman villa in Soline Bay since 2007 have shown the evidence of multi-period occupation, from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity. With the perspective of island archaeology and interdisciplinary approach, our international team studies the island’s society in the context of maritime culture and patterns of regional and long-distance connectivity. Our project is contributing to the preservation of Croatian cultural and archaeological heritage and to the local community development.

Note: parking is available/allowed in Macalester lots

About the speaker: 

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Dr. Vanca Schrunk is senior adjunct faculty in the Department of History, at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul.  Her research interests include social and economic aspects of Roman maritime villas, Roman pottery, island and coastal archaeology, cultural and historical landscapes, and archaeology and tourism. She has published numerous articles and has co-authored or co-edited several books. The two more recent publications, co-authored with her sister/colleague, are: “The Brioni Archipelago:  Functional Identity of a Historical Landscape,” with Vlasta Begovic, in Landscapes, Identities and Development, eds. Z. Roca, P. Claval and J. Agnew (Ashgate 2011) 137-149; and “Maritime Villas on the Eastern Adriatic Coast (Roman Histria and Dalmatia),” with V. Begovic, in The Roman Empire and Beyond: Archaeological and Historical Research on the Romans and Native Cultures in Central Europe, eds. Eric De Sena and Halina Dobrzanska, BAR International Series 2236. (Oxford 2011). 3-21.

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A no-host dinner with the speaker will follow the lecture at Pad Thai Grand, 1681 Grand Avenue, St. Paul

Peter Schultz on “Style, continuity, and the Hellenistic Baroque”

6:00 PM, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013

O’SHAUGNESSY EDUCATION CENTER AUDITORIUM UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS

The sculpture of the Hellenistic period – specifically "Hellenistic baroque" sculpture – is often characterized as a rather revolutionary break with previous sculptural traditions in the ancient Greek world. In this lecture, Dr. Peter Schultz re-examines this position. Dr. Schultz's argument is not that the conventional characterization of the Hellenistic baroque as "revolutionary" is incorrect. Rather, his argument is that the familiar characterizations of the Hellenistic baroque as "new" or "innovative" or "revolutionary" have obscured another important art historical reality. Namely, that several underlying aspects of the Hellenistic baroque are firmly rooted in a stylistic tradition that extends directly back to the sculpture of the fifth century B.C.E., specifically to the sculpture of fifth and fourth century Athens. This "Classical" pedigree of the quintessential "Hellenistic" style has some ramifications regarding how the "baroque mode" was used by Hellenistic sculptors. Perhaps more importantly, examination of this "baroque tradition" allows for some rather interesting speculation as to what the sculpture crafted in the Baroque style might have meant to the artists, patrons, and communities that made, purchased, and consumed it.

About the Speaker: Dr. Peter Schultz is the Olin J. Storvick Chair of Classical Studies, Chair of the Department of Art, at Concordia College, Moorhead. Dr. Schultz' research interests include Ancient Greek history and art history; Classical and Hellenistic archaeology; the social history of art; archaeological theory; the Classical tradition; the topography of early Greece; the archaeology of death, ritual and cult; early, medieval and contemporary Greek dance, music, poetry and landscape. Dr. Schultz has received numerous awards and honors. He has published numerous articles, co-edited a number of books and is currently preparing his book The Temple of Athena Nike. Art, Politics and Agency in Classical Athens for publication.  

Please note: There will NOT be an AIA dinner with the speaker after the lecture.

A map with the lecture location and parking information can be found here:

http://webapp.stthomas.edu/campusmaps/?campus=stpaul&lng=-93.1923758983612&lat=44.9436753878781&maptype=UST&zoomlevel=16&searchtype=buildings&searchterm=John%20R.%20Roach%20Center%20for%20the%20Liberal%20Arts%20%28JRC%29&ids=[%2254%22] 

Nicolle Hirschfeld on “Bar codes (but no scanner!): Potmarks and what they tell us about Late Bronze Age business”

Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 11am, in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

People mark things for all sorts of reasons: to claim ownership, to indicate recipient, to keep track of sequence, to label contents or weight or quality or price or date of consumption or manufacture, for example. Some marks are less purposeful: doodles.

Archaeologists regularly find marked objects: coins, tools, architectural elements, and especially pottery. The audience may be familiar with the many kinds of information gleaned from the study of Greek and Roman amphora stamps. This lecture presents the author’s research on marking systems of the Late Bronze Age, and what they tell us about the organization of trade and industry. 

About the Speaker:

Dr. Nicolle Hirschfeld is with the Department of Classical Studies at Trinity University, and is also a Research Associate with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.  She holds her degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D.), Texas A&M University (M.A.), and Bryn Mawr College (B.A.).  Her current interests are exchange among Late Bronze Age cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, the maritime archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean, ancient technologies and the development of writing, ancient industries (particularly ceramics), and the archaeoogical history of Cyprus.  Professor Hirschfeld has received numerous awards for her work, published widely, and is the AIA’s Kershaw Lecturer for 2012/2013 (http://www.archaeological.org/giving/endowments/234). See also: 

N. Hirschfeld. 2008. “How and Why Potmarks Matter,” Near Eastern Archaeology (71.1-2) 120-129.

A no-host lunch with the speaker will follow the lecture at Christos Greek Restaurant, 2632 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis.

 

Tina Neuhauser on “Roman Provincial Theaters. A Review Based on Selected Examples”

Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 6pm in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College

The Roman architect Vitruvius (De architectura 5,3,1) said that building a theater was one of the first priorities at a site: “When the forum is placed, a spot as healthy as possible is to be chosen for the theatre, for the exhibition of games on the festival days of the immortal gods…” Evidence of ancient theaters can be found throughout the whole Roman Empire.  In addition to extant theaters, one finds their indications in present architectural remains or in reference to performances found on inscriptions. Not enough attention has been given to the Provinces concerning the existence of theaters and to their role in the history of ancient theater. This is particularly true in Dalmatia, Moesia, Noricum and Pannonia, where a number of diverging cultures met. Greek, Roman/Italic as well as Gallic influences can be seen in theaters in these provinces based on selected examples. Moreover, these four Roman Provinces provide us with an interesting legacy, which cannot be found in the rest of the Roman Empire.

About the Speaker:
Tina Neuhauser, Research Assistant and Lecturer at the University of Graz, Department of Archaeology, Institut für Archäologie, Karl-Franzens-Universität, Graz, Austria. Her current projects include: International archaeological and interdisciplinary Cooperation Project “Cultural exchange and socio-political importance of the Isis-sanctuary from Savaria in Comparison (Hungary), Iseum Savariense Szombathely (Hungary), Department of Archaeology Vienna (Austria) and Department
of Archaeology Graz (Austria), http://iseumsavariense.hu ; International archaeological and interdisciplinary Cooperation Project Ancient Stobrec - Epetion/um (Croatia), Institut za arheologiju u Zagrebu (Croatia) and Department of Archaeology Graz (Austria); nternational archaeological and interdisciplinary Cooperation Project The Roman Villa on the site of Soline, island of Sv. Klement (Croatia), Institut za arheologiju u Zagrebu (Croatia), Muzej hvarske baštine (Croatia), University
of St. Thomas (USA), Department of Archaeology Graz (Austria), http://www.stclementarchaeology.org/index.html
  


No-host dinner with the speaker will follow the lecture at Pad Thai Grand Restaurant, 1681 Grand Ave.**

*The John B Davis Lecture Hall, is in the basement of the Ruth Dayton Campus center at Macalester (#25 on the map in the link below):
http://www.macalester.edu/about/maps/campusmap-large.html

**Here is the map for Pad Thai Grand:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Saint+Paul&state=MN&address=1681+Grand+Ave&zipcode=55105-1805&country=US&latitude=44.940091&longitude=-93.171534&geocode=ADDRESS

Thanks for a great student poster session!

We celebrated National Archaeology Day with a poster session featuring the archaeological work of eleven undergraduate and graduate students from five Minnesota colleges (Carleton, Gustavus Adolphus) and universities (Minnesota, St. Thomas, Concordia). The sites represented are in Bulgaria, Croatia, Israel, Italy, and Jordan. By presenting their work, students introduced their classmates, families and friends to the AIA and to its global work. The poster session brought together students and professionals from different institutions, as well as AIA-MN members, some parents and the public at large. Thanks to the Outreach Grant, we were able to reimburse students for the costs of poster printing and serve refreshments at this event, which encouraged mingling and conversation.

Students in Archaeology: Second Annual Poster Presentation of Recent Fieldwork

11:00 am-1:00 pm, Saturday, October 20, 2012

Anderson Student Center room 202, University of St. Thomas

Please join us in celebrating National Archaeology Day by visiting with students from a variety of Minnesota institutions as they present posters about their experiences with archaeological fieldwork. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in archaeology and the preservation of cultural heritage to learn more about the global work of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the thrill of archaeological discovery. We are reaching out to our community by presenting the vibrant student involvement with archaeological fieldwork and projects nationally and internationally and hope to inspire students and the general public and encourage life-long interest in preservation of archaeological heritage.

This poster session has been made possible by an AIA Outreach Grant intended to bring together the public and students and professionals from different institutions encourage membership in the AIA and its Minnesota Society. Thanks to the Outreach Grant, we are able to serve refreshments at this event and offer $5 rebates to anyone who joins the AIA during the event.

Please join us to mingle, snack and celebrate archaeology and the thrill of discovery!

An interactive map to the building location and parking options is here:

http://webapp.stthomas.edu/campusmaps/