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

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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