Dr. Andrew McCarthy
Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI)

Wednesday 10 February 2016 at 6:00 pm
Reception to Follow

About the Lecture:

Heritage is an important and finite resource that appeals to many people. Archaeologists and historians, however, do not tend to be specialists in public outreach, which means that there are opportunities to engage the public with heritage that are sometimes missed. With increasing competition for both public and private funding, heritage workers must explore innovative ways to make research, protection, and presentation of past cultures relevant and appealing in today’s world. This lecture will explore some of the ways that the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) is working to help people in the 21st century engage with the past.

About the Lecturer:

Andrew McCarthy is an archaeologist and art historian with a specialization in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. He is involved in excavation, analysis and publication of several archaeological projects and also has interests in artifacts, archaeological theory and public archaeology. He has a Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Edinburgh where he is now a Fellow of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology. He is the Director of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) in Nicosia and the Director of the University of Edinburgh’s Prastio-Mesorotsos Archaeological Expedition.

The post “Recipes for Public Archaeology” by Dr. Andrew McCarthy appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Dr. Konstantinos Politis
Hellenic Society for Near Eastern Studies & ACOR-USAID-SCHEP Grantee

Rescheduled due to snow; new date:
Wednesday 3 February 2016
6:00 pm @ ACOR
Reception to Follow.

The USAID Sustainable Cultural Heritage through Engagement of Local Communities Project (SCHEP) invites you to a public lecture on Wednesday 3 February 2016 at 6 pm at ACOR in Amman. Sugar, Safi and SCHEP: An Industrial Archaeology Project in Jordan will be presented by Dr. Konstantinos Politis of the Hellenic Society for Near Eastern Studies and arecent SCHEP grantee.

About the Lecture:

Dr. Politis has worked in the region of Ghor es-Safi for more than 30 years and brings his love of this dynamic area and its history to bear in a lecture that will be based on research prepared for his new book (see below) on the sugar industry in medieval times. He will give particular emphasis to the current SCHEP-supported work that is being implemented in Ghor es-Safi.

About the Lecturer:

Konstantinos Politis is an archaeologist educated in Greece, the United States, Belgium and Britain. From 1988 until 2011 he was based at the British Museum which was the principal sponsor of his excavations in Jordan and Oman. He specializes in the early Byzantine and early Islamic periods.
From 2012 to 2015 Dr. Politis conducted research on the origins of the sugar industry. The results of this work, which was funded by the European Union, was presented during an international conference, in a travelling exhibition, on an exclusive website (www.sugarorigins.org) and in his new book The Origins of the Sugar Industry and the Transmission of Ancient Greek and Medieval Arab Science and Technology from the Near East to Europe.
As Chairperson of the Hellenic Society for Near Eastern Studies, Dr. Politis directed several archaeological, museum and site management projects for the Jordanian, Syrian and Omani governments, as well as for UNESCO and USAID. He has also organized an exhibition on the history of industry in modern Greece for a planned museum.

About USAID-SCHEP

USAID Sustainable Cultural Heritage through Engagement of Local Communities Project (SCHEP) is a 4-year project implemented by the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) supporting the sustainable preservation, management and promotion of cultural heritage resources in Jordan though community engagement in site development projects.

DISCLAIMER: The author’s views expressed during this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

The post “Sugar, Safi and SCHEP” by Dr. Konstantinos Politis appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Dr. Gary Rollefson
Professor of Anthropology, Whitman College
ACOR-CAORC Senior Fellow

Tuesday 25 February 2014 at 6:00pm
Reception to Follow

About the Lecture

Unprecedented population growth, environmental degradation, and a reduction of rainfall by the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period (c. 8,700-7,000 BC) resulted in severe pressures on farming communities in highland Jordan and other parts of the Near East. One consequence of these developments was a concerted move into the eastern badia region by pastoral groups to take advantage of the pasturage for their sheep and goats, converting vegetation useless for humans into meat, dairy products, wool and hair, and skins. Long considered to be a slow and somewhat timid process of adapting to the arid regions, recent research in the Wadi al-Qattafi and Wisad Pools east of Azraq now indicates that the shift into the badia by shepherds was robust and widespread, establishing semi-permanent villages that were occupied for several months of the year, sometimes practicing occasional agriculture when seasonal rains permitted, as early as 6,500 BC. Clearly, the harsh desert countryside we see today was not the landscape that these early herding groups enjoyed.

About the Lecturer

Dr. Gary Rollefson is Professor of Anthropology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He has worked in the field of archaeology in Jordan for more than thirty years. He specializes in Near Eastern prehistoric archaeology and prehistoric religions in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He is well known for his work, together with Jordanian archaeologist Zeidan Kafafi, at the site of ‘Ain Ghazal and the discovery there of Neolithic plaster statues.
Rollefson first came to Jordan on an ACOR fellowship in 1978. He lectures and publishes extensively. Rollefson studied Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, B.A. (1965), and at the University of Arizona, M.A. (1972), and Ph.D. (1978).

The post “The Late Neolithic Colonization of the Eastern Badia” by Dr. Gary Rollefson appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Dr. Gary Rollefson
Professor of Anthropology, Whitman College
ACOR-CAORC Senior Fellow

Tuesday 25 February 2014, 6:00 pm
Reception to Follow

About the Lecture:

Passing through the Black Desert in northeastern Jordan, one is struck by the lifeless and forbidding character of the landscape. The rainfall in the winter is sporadic and miserly, amounting to less than 50 mm on average per annum, although there may be many years in a row when a particular locality receives none at all. Bedouin herders have managed to eke out a living with their flocks, yet the population density of people and animals is among the lowest of the habitable regions of the planet. Archaeological investigations in the early and late 20th century indicated that this harsh region was inhabited for periods ranging certainly into the Neolithic and earlier periods, 7,000 to 10,000 years ago, and older.
Archaeological surveys and excavations undertaken since 2008 by the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project, as well as major improvements in remote sensing by David Kennedy’s Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME) project and Google Earth, have changed our understanding of what was considered the dismal nature of the Neolithic landscape into one that was much more inviting than what we can see today. Instead of timid migrations of a few families into the Badia, hundreds of kinship groups made the move about 7,000 BC from the damaged farmland of western Jordan into a region that, although it could not sustain agriculture, for thousands of years was probably a relatively lush grassland providing abundant pasturage for sheep and goats, even as far east as Ruwayshid. Veritable villages of families could live in permanent housing for 5 to 6 months of the year, tending their flocks and hunting teeming herds of gazelle and other animals. Charcoal from oak trees and preserved topsoil under Neolithic houses reveal that rainfall was probably considerably higher then, and that moisture penetrated the soil, providing extended growth capabilities for grasses and other plant life.

About the Lecturer:

Gary Rollefson is Professor of Anthropology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He has worked on archaeology in Jordan for nearly forty years, specializing in Near Eastern prehistoric archeology, and prehistoric religions in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He is well known for his work, together with Jordanian archaeologist Zeidan Kafafi, at the site of ‘Ain Ghazal and the discovery there of ancient plaster statues.
Rollefson first came to Jordan on an ACOR fellowship in 1978. He lectures and publishes extensively. Rollefson studied Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley BA (1965) and at the University of Arizona, MA (1972), and Ph.D. (1978).

The post “A Kinder, Greener Black Desert” by Dr. Gary Rollefson appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Dr. Stephen Bourke
Research Associate in Near Eastern Archaeology at Sydney University

Tuesday 26 February 2013 at 6:00pm
Reception to Follow

About the Lecture

This fully illustrated lecture will focus on recent discoveries at Pella, drawn mainly from the 2011 and 2013 field seasons. It will touch on the massive architecture recently uncovered dating to the proto-urban Early Bronze Age, before exploring recently uncovered Middle/Late Bronze and Iron Age civic/administrative complexes located five meters to the west of the monumental Fortress Temple. Recent Classical period discoveries (Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine/Umayyad) will then be outlined as they change the story of Pella’s Classical and Late Antique period history.

About the Lecturer

Stephen Bourke has worked as a Near Eastern archaeologist for more than 30 years, concentrating on pre and proto-history (ca. 5000-500 BCE) of the Levant. Beginning with a BA (Hons) at Sydney University (1979-82) under Basil Hennessy, Bourke then read his Doctorate in Syrian Bronze Age archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (1983-90) under Peter Parr, before taking up a series of Research Fellowships at Sydney University (1992-2002). He is currently a Research Associate in Near Eastern archaeology at Sydney University.

Over the last 30 years Bourke has worked on British, American, French, German and Italian excavation projects in Jordan, Syria and Cyprus. He directed four seasons of renewed excavations at Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan (1994-1999), the largest Chalcolithic (ca. 4900-3900 cal BC) site in the southern Levant. He has worked at Pella since 1980 and has directed the Pella excavations since 1992.

The post “From Village to Bishopric: Pella” by Dr. Stephen Bourke appeared first on ACOR Jordan.