XPost: alt.history.ancient-egypt, alt.history.ancient-worlds, sci.archaeology XPost: soc.history.ancient, alt.archaeology

Reposting to correct subject line. My apologies.

Glenn Meyer wrote:

PLEASE NOTE THE ROOM CHANGE FOR THIS LECTURE ONLY!!!!

The Northern California Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt; the Department of Near
Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley; and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, are
sponsoring the following lecture:

Sudanese Antiquity: New Insights from the Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition (BONE)

By Dr. Brenda J. Baker
Arizona State University

WHEN: 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 15, 2016
WHERE: NES Lounge, Rm 254 Barrows Hall, Barrow Lane and Bancroft Way, UC Berkeley
There is no admission, but donations are welcomed.

About the Lecture:

In a project area encompassing nearly 100 m2 on the right (north) bank of the Nile River west of
Abu Hamed, Sudan, the Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition has documented sites ranging back to the
Early Stone Age (>250,000 years ago) with more intensive use in the Middle Stone Age. The focus of
fieldwork has been on habitation, rock art/gong, and cemetery sites dating from the Mesolithic to
Christian periods in the eastern portion of the concession. Using a combination of 2- and
3-dimensional historic and modern remote sensing data combined with in-field survey and
excavation, we examine topographic prominence, intervisibility, and other spatial and contextual
relationships between archaeological sites and the natural environment. This research spans
different periods and different types of sites, from relationships among clusters of Kerma period
graves in one area to analysis of Meroitic fortifications and their viewsheds within a broader
region. This work helps us understand interconnected components in the region as part of a larger
cultural dynamic with complex relationships to people and the environment in the past and present.
Relationships between this “hinterland” and core areas of state-level societies are also of
interest. Grave architecture and treatment of the dead show variable local practices but inclusion
of imported grave goods show integration into far-flung trade networks from the Kerma (c.
2500-1500 BC) through Christian (c. AD 550-1400) periods. Persistence of local traditions, spatial
and social organization of cemeteries, and distinct identities marked in life (e.g., dental
avulsion) or death (e.g., interment with archery equipment) illuminate new aspects of ancient
Nubian mortuary behavior and identity. Additionally, indicators of diet and disease in the
skeletons provide insight into shifting patterns of subsistence and life histories of individuals
over time.

About the Lecturer:

ASU bioarchaeologist Brenda Baker poses with her Sudanese field crewDr. Brenda Baker is a core
faculty member of the Center for Bioarchaeological Research and Head of the Bioarchaeology
approach (subfield) since 2012. Dr. Baker taught previously at Tufts University (1992) and
Minnesota State University Moorhead (1993-94), and was Director of the Repatriation Program and
Curator of Human Osteology at the New York State Museum from 1994-1998. She is the founding
co-editor of the new journal, Bioarchaeology International. She has served on the Executive
Committee of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (2012-2015), as an Associate
Editor of the International Journal of Paleopathology (2010-2015), and is a founding Steering
Committee member of the Western Bioarchaeology Group (2012-present). Her teaching includes
upper-division undergraduate courses on the Global History of Health, Life and Death in Ancient
Egypt, Bioarchaeology, undergraduate and graduate courses in human osteology, and graduate courses
in paleopathology and The Bioarchaeology of Children and Childhood.

Dr. Baker’s research encompasses bioarchaeology, mortuary archaeology, human osteology, and
paleopathology, emphasizing the investigation of human skeletal remains within their
archaeological contexts to reconstruct past lifeways and the health status of ancient people. She
directs the Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition (BONE) in northern Sudan, currently funded with a
multi-year grant of $1.18 million from the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project. She has also
received grants from the Institute for Bioarchaeology, National Science Foundation, Packard
Humanities Institute, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. She has been
the bioarchaeologist for the University of Pennsylvania Museum-Yale University-Institute of Fine
Arts, New York University Expedition to Abydos (since 1988) conducting burial excavation and
analysis of human remains from both cemetery and settlement contexts at this important ancient
Egyptian site. She is also the bioarchaeologist for Princeton University's expedition at Polis,
Cyprus ( since 2005), where she has focused on burials from two medieval basilicas.

MORE INFORMATION

Go to http://arce-nc.org/lectures.htm or send email to Chapter President Al Berens at
hebsed@comcast.net.

-----

Glenn Meyer
Publicity Director
Northern California ARCE

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