Professor Wendy Ashmore of the University of California, Riverside, one of the world's leading authorities on the archaeological study of space and landscape, will speak at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Feb. 12.
Ashmore will talk about the new ways archaeologists are examining the history of ancient places like Stonehenge, the pyramids of Egypt, New Mexico's Chaco Canyon and the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan. The 10th Annual Distinguished Archaeology Lecture is sponsored by the CU-Boulder anthropology department and is free and open to the public.
The talk will be held at 7 p.m. in room 1B50 of the Eaton Humanities Building and will include a question-and-answer session with the audience. The Eaton Humanities Building is located northwest of Norlin Library. Parking is available along University Avenue.
Ashmore and others are working to understand the roles and meanings of archaeological sites, from their initial establishment through sequences of occupation and often up to their present-day use as tourist attractions or as symbols of national or ethnic identity. Ashmore will use examples of specific sites around the world to discuss how archaeologists address such "biographies of place."
The event is sponsored by Western Cultural Resource Management of Boulder.
Ashmore has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Belize, Honduras and Guatemala, including the ancient Mayan cities of Copán, Xunantunich and Quiriguá. She received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a professor in the anthropology department at UC, Riverside.
She has written more than 50 articles and book chapters and has authored or edited seven archaeology books and monographs, including "Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns," "Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives" and "Archaeology: Discovering Our Past."
Ashmore is a fellow of the American Anthropological Association and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was the 2000 Distinguished Lecturer in Archaeology for the American Anthropological Association.