The UMMAA Brown Bag Lecture Series is pleased to present Dr. Andrew Womack, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Asian Studies at Furman University, who will speak on Friday, February 17, 12-1 pm., on the topic of "Constructing Translocal Identities in Neolithic Northwestern China: Insights from Ceramic Analysis." 

Over the last century, archaeologists have investigated late Neolithic and Bronze Age interaction networks spanning Eurasia, which in the east connected steppe pastoralists with farming communities in what is now northwestern China. Few models have been put forth to explain how and why these networks formed and functioned. What research has been done on this topic has generally focused on analysis of ceramics and metal objects to suggest long-distance movement of commodities between broad geographic regions. Dr. Womack suggests that to understand long-distance interactions, we first need to understand the movements of people and goods at the site-specific level. This talk will draw on recent petrographic analysis of ceramic vessels from the Tao River Valley of Gansu Province, as well as collections from across northwestern China in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, Sweden. His results demonstrate that localized interaction was occurring on a regular basis among settlements in the Tao River Valley and was likely a key aspect of identity formation across a much wider region.

This is an online lecture.  Join via Zoom at: https://umich.zoom.us/j/95567379046

The Museum’s Brown Bag Lecture Series is free and open to the public.