By Ann Eberwein María Constanza Ceruti is an archaeologist, anthropologist, and mountaineer with an impressive list of accomplishments. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1973 and her parents, who were both doctors, took her to many museums and… Read More
By Ann Eberwein Born is 1911, Harriet M. Smith was the first female archaeologist in Illinois and led early excavations at Cahokia including the salvage excavation of Murdock Mound (Mound 55). Smith received her Doctorate in Anthropology from the University… Read More
By Aislinn Sanders As the temperatures drop and snow begins to fall, people are undoubtedly imbued with the classic holiday spirit that comes with this time of year. Thoughts of holiday-specific food and drink, story telling with friends and family,… Read More
By Aislinn Sanders Recently, Bettina Arnold was interviewed by the Wisconsin Public Radio Morning Show and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for her knowledge on ancient beer brewing methods. It is her hope that she can get those uninterested in conventional… Read More
This event will take place virtually via Zoom.
Come join us for our first-ever virtual colloquium presented by Dr. Patricia B. Richards on October 9th at 2:30 PM via Zoom!
From 1878 through 1974 Milwaukee County utilized four locations on the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin for the burial over 10,000 individuals, primarily paupers, the institutionalized, and the unidentified. Two archaeological excavations in 1991-1992 and again in 2013 resulted in the recovery of over 2,400 individuals from one of those cemetery locations. Curated by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Archaeological Research Laboratory, the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC) individuals, artifacts, and associated archives represent one of the largest, if not the largest, archaeologically recovered, permanently curated skeletal collections in the United States. In addition to generating a substantial osteological data set, this project offers a model for crossing boundaries between cultural resource management, academic research, and social engagement at a time when the exhumation of the United States’ forgotten historic cemeteries has become increasingly common. As a project focused on a late 19th and early 20th century cemetery, the MCPFCP is situated not only within the history of historical archaeological research but is also influenced by the recent bioarchaeological trend of engaging with social theory to examine social identity and lived social experience. This talk summarizes the project to date within the overarching goal of returning a voice and an identity to individuals robbed of both by burial in the MCPFC.
Patricia Richards
Dr. Patricia B. Richards is a senior scientist in the Anthropology Department at UWM. She is also a Principal Investigator for UWM-CRM and has conducted cultural resource studies in Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois since 1973. Her specialties include mortuary analysis and historic period archaeology in the Great Lakes region. She has served as project director of the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery Project since the collection was permanently moved to UWM in 2008 and directed the original excavations in 1990s.
This meeting will take place virtually via the web conferencing app, Zoom. Please follow the instructions below to attend on the day and time of the colloquium. Thank you.
Join Zoom Meeting at 2:30 PM on October 9th.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3103017900?pwd=TURnd1E4Z0s3bUhFUW5oQkVzOThVZz09
Meeting ID: 310 301 7900
Passcode: 9516145
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,3103017900#,,,,,,0#,,9516145# US (Germantown)
+13126266799,,3103017900#,,,,,,0#,,9516145# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 310 301 7900
Passcode: 9516145
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbUEqcWZ6f
Congratulations to the doctoral student Ashley Brennaman for winning the Lambda Alpha Graduate Research Grant Award! Sponsored by Lambda Alpha — the national honor society for anthropology — this award is one of only six given nationwide each year. Ashley’s… Read More
Sabin Hall G90
Sunday, February 9, 2020, 3:00pm
Pedar Foss, Professor, Classical Studies, DePauw University, Indiana
Title: When Did Vesuvius Explode?
It has long been held, on the basis of a letter of Pliny the Younger, that Mt. Vesuvius erupted on 24 August, AD 79. But after excavators began to work at the sites of Herculaneum at Pompeii, some scholars expressed doubts, suggesting a date later in the autumn of that year. Debate has increased with recent paleo-environmental research and the find of an inscription last year. Scholars have divided over a topic that might appear trivial—after all, most archaeological sites never enjoy such a precise date. But it is an excellent case study for testing our methods of historical and archaeological research, and I will lift the lid on those methods.
As part of a book project (Pliny and the Destruction of Vesuvius, Routledge 2021), I have collated, for the first time, every manuscript and printed edition of Pliny’s Letters 6.16 and 6.20, in order to track and analyze the literary tradition of the date through its surviving evidence. I have also compiled a reconstruction of the pre-eruption landscape and coastline, and collected all recent volcanological and archaeological research about the event. Having made a multidisciplinary reconstruction of what happened over the two terrifying days of the eruption, I can now offer an answer to the question of when Vesuvius exploded.
Pedar W. Foss is Professor of Classical Studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where he has worked since 1999. As a teacher, he conducts courses in Latin, ancient history and literature, and art and archaeology. He received his B.A. in Chemistry and Classics from Gustavus Adolphus College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; he subsequently taught at the University of Cincinnati and at Stanford. His research concerns domestic life at Pompeii, landscape archaeology, and Geographic Information Systems. He has edited for the Journal of Roman Archaeology and was co-editor of the book reviews for the American Journal of Archaeology from 2008-2011. He has lived, studied, and worked for extended periods in Greece, Italy, Tunisia, Turkey, and England. He is a fanatical follower of football/futbol/soccer.
Sabin Hall G90
3413 N. Downer Ave, Milwaukee, WI
Abstract: For more than three hundred years during the Late Bronze Age, from about 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the Mediterranean region played host to a complex international world in which Egyptians, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cypriots, and Canaanites… Read More
Click Here to listen to Dr. Richards talk about UWM Anthropology’s important work on the Milwaukee County Poor Farm project!
