On Friday, December 6, Raven Garvey, assistant professor of anthropology and assistant curator at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan, will present the fourth and final talk in the Roy A. Rappaport Lecture Series in the Forum Hall at Palmer Commons on the U-M central campus.

In Friday’s talk, “Foragers in a World of Farmers,” Garvey discusses why Patagonians remained foragers in prehistory, even though they lived alongside and interacted with farmers for at least 2,000 years. In this lecture, she demonstrates that dryland farming was possible in parts of Patagonia, and that growing populations could have benefited from farming in late prehistory. Garvey argues that risks associated with farming might simply have been too great despite potential benefits.

The four lectures in the series are based on Garvey’s book manuscript, Patagonian Prehistory: Human Ecology and Cultural Evolution in the Land of Giants.

The lecture will be held at 3 p.m. The Rappaport lectures are free and open to the public.