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The Archaeological Institute of America
Western Illinois Society
CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2016-2017
Click on titles for more details.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
“‘The Local’: Mapping Real and Imagined Taverns, Pubs, and Breweries
from Antiquity to Modernity”
Sarah Bond, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Iowa (Sarah-Bond@uiowa.edu)
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
“The Archaeology of
Shipbuilding”
Thursday, October 20,, 2016
“Constantinople’s Theodosian Harbor and the Archaeology of Byzantine
Ships”
Michael R. Jones,
Research Associate, Institute of Nautical Archaeology (jones44440@gmail.com)
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
Monday, January 30, 2017
“Medieval Maritime Networks: Tracing Connections in Japan’s Seto Inland
Sea”
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Monday, April 3, 2017
“Sacrifices to Spectacles: Intangible Expressions of Naval Victory and
their Importance”
Kristian Lorenzo,
Visiting Assistant Professor, Hollins University
(kristianlorenzo@gmail.com)
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Kyle Jazwa,
Lecturer in Archaeology, Monmouth College (kjazwa@monmouthcollege.edu)
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
“‘The
Local’: Mapping Real and Imagined Taverns, Pubs, and Breweries from
Antiquity to Modernity”
Sarah Bond, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Iowa (Sarah-Bond@uiowa.edu)
“The Archaeology of
Shipbuilding”
Shipwrecks
provide some of the most valuable archaeological evidence for trade,
travel, and cultural exchange in the ancient and medieval world. Much of
this information derives from the cargoes and personal possessions found
on a well-preserved shipwreck site. However, remains of ships’ hulls,
sailing rigs, and equipment also offer vital clues to economic and
social conditions in ancient societies. This talk features several
examples of ancient and medieval shipwrecks that have been investigated
and reconstructed by nautical archaeologists. Each study shows how ship
construction materials and methods, hull design, and propulsion (i.e.,
sails, oars, etc.) reflect the larger roles of ships and seafaring in a
society, often in surprising ways. The shipwrecks to be discussed will
include examples from the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas and will range
in date from the Late Bronze Age to the early medieval period (c. 1300
B.C. - A.D. 1025).
Thursday, October 20,, 2016
“Constantinople’s
Theodosian Harbor and the Archaeology of Byzantine Ships”
Michael R. Jones,
Research Associate, Institute of Nautical Archaeology (jones44440@gmail.com)
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
In the
spring of 2005, Turkish archaeologists excavating in Istanbul’s Yenikapı
neighborhood made one of the most important recent discoveries in the
field of Mediterranean nautical archaeology. The Yenikapı excavation was
part of the Marmaray Project, a multi-billion dollar expansion of
Istanbul’s public transportation system: it included the construction of
new subway lines in the city and its suburbs and the Marmaray Tunnel, a
rail tunnel under the Bosporus Strait connecting the European and Asian
sides of the city. This archaeological rescue excavation was conducted
by the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and uncovered remains from over
8,000 years of the city’s history, from the Neolithic to late Ottoman
periods. The most significant finds for nautical archaeologists,
however, were from the Theodosian Harbor, the largest commercial harbor
of Constantinople from the late 4th to 11th centuries A.D. In addition
to tens of thousands of artifacts, the remains of port installations,
and items of ships’ equipment, at least 37 shipwrecks were preserved in
the harbor’s anaerobic sediments. This assemblage is the largest
collection of early medieval vessels ever found in the Mediterranean at
a single site. They are particularly significant due to the wide range
of vessel types represented, including both merchant ships of various
sizes and rowed galleys, the first ever found from the Byzantine period.
This talk will summarize a decade of work by researchers of the
Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University on eight of
the Yenikapı shipwrecks. These shipwrecks are beginning to provide
answers on the nature of maritime trade, shipbuilding technology, urban
life, and social change during the heyday of the Byzantine Empire.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
In this paper, I consider the
Greek migration to the island of Cyprus at the end of the Bronze Age.
The appearance of “Greek” material items and language on the island
strongly suggest the arrival of Mycenaean Greeks during this period of
crisis in the eastern Mediterranean. Archaeologists, however, are still
uncertain about the intensity of the Greek migration and its
socio-political impact on Cypriot society. In order to contribute to
this ongoing debate, I consider the concept of “social identity” and the
potential of archaeologists for identifying prehistoric social groups
using material items alone. I then apply a new methodology founded on
this theoretical background to the Cypro-Mycenaean archaeological
evidence in order to evaluate the degree of Greek migration to the
island and long-term processes of hybridization/entanglement with the
local culture.
Monday, January 30, 2017
“Medieval
Maritime Networks: Tracing Connections in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea”
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
This
study demonstrates that despite the political upheaval of Japan’s late
medieval period (15th – 16th c), trade connections within the Inland Sea
region actually flourished, resulting in the beginnings of a regional
commodities market. Until now, it has been difficult to track maritime
practices in this era due to the lack of written records of medieval
seafaring. Using geospatial analysis of extant documentary and
archaeological evidence, however, it becomes possible to discern the
flow of certain commercial goods within the Seto Inland Sea region.
Through this analysis it becomes apparent that smaller ports largely
unrecorded in written documents were often critical transshipment hubs,
facilitating trade in the region. Furthermore, geospatial analysis
allows tracking of ship captains’ voyages, providing insight into
medieval seafaring practices and proving the existence of complex
individual and institutional maritime networks.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Scholars
have for generations recognized the importance of wine production,
distribution, and consumption in relation to second millennium BC
palatial complexes in the Mediterranean and Near East. However, direct
archaeological evidence has rarely been offered, despite the prominence
of ancient viticulture in administrative clay tablets, visual media, and
various forms of documentation. Tartaric and syringic acids, along with
evidence for resination, have been identified in ancient ceramics, but
until now the archaeological contexts behind these sporadic discoveries
had been uneven and vague, precluding definitive conclusions about the
nature of ancient viticulture. The situation has now changed. During the
2013 excavation season of the Kabri Archaeological Project, a rare
opportunity materialized when forty large storage vessels were found in
situ in an enclosed room located to the west of the central courtyard
within the Middle Bronze Age Canaanite palace. A comprehensive program
of organic residue analysis has now revealed that all of the relatively
uniform jars contain evidence for wine. Furthermore, the enclosed
context inherent to a singular intact wine cellar presented an
unprecedented opportunity for a scientifically intensive study, allowing
for the detection of subtle differences in the ingredients or additives
within similar wine jars of apparently the same vintage. Additives seem
to have included honey, storax resin, terebinth resin, cedar oil,
cyperus, juniper, and perhaps even mint, myrtle, or cinnamon, all or
most of which are attested in the 18th century BC Mari texts from
Mesopotamia and the 15th century BC Ebers Papyrus from Egypt. These
additives suggest a sophisticated understanding of the botanical
landscape and the pharmacopeic skills necessary to produce a complex
beverage that balanced preservation, palatability, and psychoactivity.
During the 2015 excavation season, an entire vinification complex was
unearthed, leading to new questions about palatial economy and the role
viniculture played in the site’s regional stature during the MBA. This
research has resulted in insights unachievable in the past, which
contribute to a greater understanding not only of ancient viniculture
but also of Canaanite palatial economy.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Scholars
have long been aware of “Warrior Graves” dating to the end of the Bronze
Age in the western Siteia foothills of East Crete. They have yielded an
array of notable finds, including richly decorated pottery and the rare
occurrence of both bronze and iron swords along with inhumation and
cremation burials in the same tomb. In other words, these tombs straddle
the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the early Iron Age on Crete –
precisely the time of the Trojan War and collapse of empires (ca. 1200
BCE). As unusually rich Late Minoan Warrior Graves with mainland
influences at the twilight of Mycenaean power, the Mouliana Sellades
tombs serve as the perfect inverse to the recently-discovered “Griffin
Warrior Grave” at Pylos, which marks the rise of Mycenaean hegemony
three centuries earlier as an unusually rich mainland Warrior Grave with
Minoan influences. Memorable discoveries of funerary monuments began in
1903 with the excavations at Sellades (Mouliana) by Greek Stefanos
Xanthoudidis (Xanthoudidis 1904), followed shortly by American Richard
Seager at Plakalona (Tourloti) in 1905/1906 (Seager 1909: 286;
Betancourt 1983: 52). While there have been subsequent studies of the
funerary finds, these investigations have relied primarily on the
publication of Xanthoudidis, especially since Seager did not publish his
research at Plakalona. Xanthoudidis’ publication, while excellent for
its time, is insufficient by 21st century standards. The Mouliana
Project aims to publish these important artifacts from Mouliana Sellades
comprehensively and with modern scientific analyses such as pXRF and
organic residue analysis, to make them available to the wider scholarly
world. The project will provide background for understanding the world
of the Homeric epics – one in flux, with great movements of peoples and
massive changes, but one both continuing and adapting the traditions of
the Bronze Age to lead to the foundations of Classical Greece.
Monday, April 3, 2017
“Sacrifices
to Spectacles: Intangible Expressions of Naval Victory and their
Importance”
Kristian Lorenzo,
Visiting Assistant Professor, Hollins University
(kristianlorenzo@gmail.com)
Naval victories often occasioned
not only the formation of celebratory monuments but also the creation,
renewal or modification of festivals, holidays, processions and
spectacles. Due to their very natures, these intangible expressions of
the emotions of victory sometimes left little impact on the
archaeological record. Therefore, the focus of this talk will be an
analysis of the remaining physical (archaeological, epigraphic, and
literary) evidence for first Greek, and then Roman examples of
festivals, sacrifices, etc. associated with naval victories. Through
this analysis, I intend to explore the full cultural contexts that truly
animated the physical memorials for a number of Greek and Roman naval
victories. This will allow for a greater appreciation of the meaning(s)
such monuments had for their respective societies, especially as loci
for personal and communal remembrance.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Kyle Jazwa,
Lecturer in Archaeology, Monmouth College (kjazwa@monmouthcollege.edu)
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.
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