Lecturers to discuss Amazon rainforests, Bronze Age

Anthropology experts will recount findings from the Amazon and detail why the Bronze Age ended when they lecture during a free, public series at the University of Louisville this spring.

UofL’s history department and anthropology departments and the Archaeological Institute of America’s Kentucky Society are sponsoring the “Lectures in Archaeology” at 6 p.m. in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library. Here is the spring 2019 schedule:

• Feb. 28 -- “Boomtown Blues: Archaeologies of Expansion and Contraction in Amazonia.” Anna Browne Ribeiro, UofL anthropology assistant professor, will talk about how the resource and land-use strategies in the tropical forest region have been affected by environmental shifts and both pre-colonial and modern exploitation.
• March 28 – “1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed.” Eric Cline, professor of classics, history and anthropology and director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at George Washington University, is a 2018-19 Charles Eliot Norton lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America. Cline will explore why the Bronze Age ended and whether the collapse of those ancient international civilizations of Greece, Egypt and the Near East, from large empires to small kingdoms, holds some warnings for current society.

For more information, check www.kyarchaeology.com or contact Jennifer Westerfeld at 502-852-3756 or jennifer.westerfeld@louisville.edu.