Past Events

2018 Nov 15

The Lead Summit at Harvard: Revolutionary Discoveries in Lead Pollution and Health Impacts

5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location:
Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall, 1350 Massachusetts Ave. (Harvard Yard), Cambridge, MA
Amidst the news of continuing lead pollution crises, foremost researchers in this field will present new, groundbreaking and alarming data on the effects of long-term lead pollution, renewing the call to eliminate lead from our cities, homes and the environment. This event is open to the public and the media.

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2018 Nov 14

Climate, Pollution and Economic Growth in Human History: New results from the Historical Ice Core Project

5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location:
Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Stunning recent results from our collaboration with the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine, reveal new evidence about our human past sealed within the Colle Gnifetti ice core. A groundbreaking new, open-access article in Antiquity, sheds new light on the foundations of the European economy and the devastating volcanic eruption of 536AD.

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2018 Nov 02

Young Investigator Symposium

9:00am to 2:00pm
Location:
Barker Center for the Humanities, Thompson Room

The Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean (MHAAM), a collaboration between The Initiative for the Science of the Human Past at Harvard (SoHP) and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany (MPISHH) announces an opportunity for recent and graduating seniors and Master’s students to participate in a Symposium scheduled at Harvard University on Friday, November 2^nd, 2018. ... Read more about Young Investigator Symposium
2018 Apr 11

Death by Contact: Ancient Pathogen Genomes from Epidemics in Early Mexico

5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location:
Belfer Case Study Room, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Johannes Krause (Director, Department of Archaeogenetics, MPISSH Jena, Univ. Tübingen),

With comments by Edward T. Ryan, Director of Global Infectious Disease, Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health, and Principal Investigator, Harvard collaboration with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Noreen Tuross, Landon T. Clay Professor of Scientific Archaeology, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University.

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2018 Feb 15

The Archaeology of Poverty: How poor were Roman peasants? Did they get poorer?

5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location:
Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Kimberly D. Bowes, Assoc. Professor of Classical Studies,
University of Pennsylvania

With comment by

Leslie Dossey (Associate Professor of History, Loyola University Chicago)
Orlando Patterson, John Cowles Professor of Sociology, Harvard University.

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2017 Nov 16

SoHP Lecture: Gideon Avni on "'An Early Islamic Agricultural Revolution?' New Light on the Transformation of Agricultural and Irrigation Technologies in the late Roman and Islamic Near East"

4:00pm to 5:30pm
Location:
HUCE Seminar Room 440, 26 Oxford Street (4th Floor), Cambridge, MA
As part of the SoHP "What's New in the Fall of the Roman Empire" Lecture Series, Dr. Gideon Avni, Head of the Archaeological Division in the Israel Antiquities Authority and a lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, will speak at Harvard University on "'An Early Islamic Agricultural Revolution?' New Light on the Transformation of Agricultural and Irrigation Technologies in the late Roman and Islamic Near East." Included will be a discussion on projects of OSL dating fields, the early Islamic agricultural estates, the mechanism of introduction and diffusion of qanats in the Near East and beyond (north Africa, Iran and the east), in relation to the main issues raised by Andrew Watson’s pioneering research.
2017 Oct 10

Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean (MHAAM) Inaugural Public Workshop

2:00pm to 6:00pm
Location:
Barker Center: Thompson Room (12 Quincy Street, Cambridge)
Under the auspices of the Initiative for the Science of the Human Past at Harvard, and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, we are launching an exciting new virtual Research Center at Harvard and Jena: The Max Planck Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean (MHAAM). We are combining our institutions’ strengths in genetics, archaeology, history, and philology to bring the power of 21st-century technology to bear on some of history's great unsolved questions, starting with the peopling of the ancient Mediterranean, and the identity and impact of ancient pathogens on the fall of the Roman Empire.

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2017 Apr 04

CMES: Dynamics of Human Occupations and Evolutions of Settlements in the Bukhara Oasis | Rocco Rante

4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location:
CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA
The Center for Middle Eastern Studies presents

Rocco Rante
Archaeologist, Louvre Museum

This talk focuses on the dynamics of human occupations ensuing from water needs in the area of the Zerafšan delta. The recent geo-archaeological researches and OSL dating of paleochannels directed under the aegis of the Louvre Museum brought to light the water changes since Neolithic, generating a change on human behavior, which showed since the beginning an important evolution of settlements and a few later a transformation of commercial exchanges. The recent discoveries also carried out the exponential increasing of settlements within the oasis and the development of the urban characters.... Read more about CMES: Dynamics of Human Occupations and Evolutions of Settlements in the Bukhara Oasis | Rocco Rante
2017 Mar 30

Reccopolis Revealed: Recent Archaeological Discoveries in the Visigothic Royal City

5:30pm to 6:45pm
Location:
CGIS South S020 (Belfer Case Study Room), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Hosted by Michael McCormick

The public lecture will be preceded by a workshop from 1:00 pm – 4:30 pm on studies in progress involving Reccopolis. This workshop will feature talks and comments by all speakers.

Chairs:

Thomas Bisson, Harvard University
Michael McCormick, Harvard University

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2017 Feb 16

Prof. Dr. Johannes Krause, Director, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany, “The genetic history of plague: From the stone age to the 18th century via the Roman Empire”

5:30pm to 6:45pm
Location:
Barker Center: Thompson Room (12 Quincy Street, Cambridge)
Prof. Dr. Johannes Krause, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, will speak on “The Genetic History of Plague: From the Stone Age to the 18th Century via the Roman Empire” as part of the “What’s New in the Fall of the Roman Empire” Lecture Series, co-hosted by SoHP, the Department of History, and Department of the Classics. The presentation is scheduled for Thursday, February 16^th from 5:30 pm- 6:45 pm in the Barker Center: Thompson Room (12 Quincy Street, Cambridge).

... Read more about Prof. Dr. Johannes Krause, Director, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany, “The genetic history of plague: From the stone age to the 18th century via the Roman Empire”