War, Peace, and the Feast: Conflict and Resolution in the Past

War, Peace, and the Feast is a hands-on opportunity to experience the variety of ways that conflicts were contested, resolved, and prevented in the past as revealed in the archaeological record. We present three main themes about ancient conflict. First is the variety of ways in which conflicts could be contested. These contests could indeed be bloody wars, but also could take the form of smaller-scale ritual battles like those which are seen today in Chiaraje, Peru. Myths also tell of sporting events taking place for warfare. Indeed, sports are well-known as a measure for pausing conflicts, as was the case in the ancient Olympics. We might infer that periodic sporting events both created social bonds between participants and released tensions before they could break into bloodshed. Finally, we present feasting as a key method in which social bonds were created as a means to provide stability and prevent conflict. With competitive feasting, we see the themes of War, Peace, and the Feast come full circle.

International Archaeology Day will be celebrated here in Milwaukee on Saturday October 20, 2018, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm on the UWM campus. Come to the first floor of UWM’s Sabin Hall (3413 N. Downer Ave.) and join us for an exciting afternoon doing archaeology with local specialists, ranging from experimental archaeology to helping identify and analyze ancient artifacts! FREE and open to the public. Fun for all ages!

This event is co-sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America, Milwaukee Society and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Departments of Anthropology, Art History, and FLL Classics Program.

International Archaeology Day

Evelyn Perry is a proud Milwaukee native and Associate Professor of
Sociology at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She earned a
Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at Colorado College and holds a Ph.D.
in Sociology from Indiana University. Cities are of great interest to
her because they provide myriad opportunities to investigate how
inequities are produced, perpetuated and challenged. Her research
program examines these processes in the context of neighborhood life—
drawing together the areas of community and urban sociology, culture,
and inequality to address core social science and policy concerns.

Amitav Ghosh, one of the most important novelists and essayists of our
time, traces the entangled history of commodities, conflict and climate
change in the Indian Ocean. Since the time of Vasco da Gama’s voyage,
the Indian Ocean has been the theatre of intense imperial rivalries over
commodities and resources. For centuries the main players in these
conflicts were Western colonial powers, but lately the countries of the
Indian Ocean rim have themselves become major consumers of
resources, and thus, the principal drivers of anthropogenic climate
change, an ongoing process that will have catastrophic consequences for
the billions of people who live around the Indian Ocean. This lecture
explores the continuities between the resource conflicts of the past and
the future by focusing on two transformative imperial wars: the
Anglo-Dutch spice wars of the 17th century and the 1st Opium War of
1840-42. It also poses a question: are the imperatives of empire and
military supremacy among the major drivers of climate change?