ACOR public lecture announcement
The Levantine Early Bronze Age: Re-evaluation and New Vistas
Dr. Suzanne Richard
ACOR-CAORC Senior Fellow & Distinguished Professor of History and Archaeology at Gannon University
Wednesday 28 September 2016 at 6:00 p.m.
Reception to Follow
About the Lecture:
The Early Bronze Age is undergoing a considerable “sea change” in the light of a new, higher radiocarbon (C-14) chronology. Against that backdrop, this lecture will assess the cultural and chronological linkages of the Early Bronze (EB) III – IV periods (ca. 2900-2000/1950 BCE) between the northern and southern Levant. Realignment with Egyptian chronology shifts the links with the Pyramid Age, while comparisons with Ebla in Syria and the southern Levant provide new insights on the EB IV period.
The talk will highlight new vistas on complexity in the EB IV and discuss Syrian and indigenous influences, as well as consider, once again, the EB III urban – EB IV rural shift (ca. 2500 BCE) of sedentists and nomads in this re-evaluation of a critical period in the history of the Near East.
About the Lecturer:
Dr. Suzanne Richard is professor of History and Archaeology at Gannon University in Erie, PA. She is a renowned Early Bronze Age scholar with an extensive CV of publications, who has directed 12 field seasons (latest in 2016) at the site of Khirbat Iskandar in the Wadi al-Wala—one of the most important sites for understanding the collapse of urbanism (EB III) and transition to a rural economy in EB IV (ca. 2500 BCE).
As an ACOR-CAORC fellow this year, she is working on Vol. 2 of the Khirbat Iskandar Expedition Series; she completed Vol. 1 in 2008 (published 2010), also as an ACOR-CAORC fellow at ACOR. Her current interests include the interrelationships between the northern and southern Levant in light of the new higher C-14 chronology. The topic of the volume she is currently editing is New Horizons in the Study of the Early Bronze Age III-IV in the Levant.
Dr. Richard is Director of the Collins Institute for Archaeological Research as well as the Archaeology Museum Gallery at Gannon University. She graduated from Gannon University (B.A.) and The Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D.).