ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE of AMERICA - Jacksonville Society

Promoting archaeological inquiry and public understanding of the diverse cultures of the human past
 
ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE of AMERICA - Jacksonville Society

WELCOME TO

The Archaeological Institute of America - Jacksonville Society

The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is the world's oldest and largest archaeological organization. The AIA is a nonprofit founded in 1879 and chartered by the United States Congress in 1906. There are more than 100 local societies, like this Jacksonville Society, in the United States, Canada, and overseas. Members include professional archaeologists, students, and enthusiasts, all united by their passion for archaeology and its role in furthering human knowledge.

The AIA promotes archaeological inquiry and public understanding of the material record of the human past to foster an appreciation of diverse cultures and our shared humanity.

The AIA supports archaeologists, their research and its dissemination, and the ethical practice of archaeology.

The AIA educates people of all ages about the significance of archaeological discovery and advocates for the preservation of the world’s archaeological heritage.

Professional archaeologists who are AIA members, have conducted fieldwork worldwide. The Institute has founded research centers and schools in seven countries and maintains close contact with these institutions. AIA Members are dedicated to the greater understanding of archaeology, the protection and preservation of the world's archaeological resources, and the support of archaeological research and publication.

SEASONAL LECTURES

PRESENTATIONS TAKE PLACE AT NOON EST, in Building 51 at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, (1 UNF Dr, Jacksonville, FL 32224) UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.  Email [email protected] to find out if Zoom is offered for each lecture.  The lectures are free and open to the public. After the lecture,  complimentary refreshments may be served in the Physical Anthropology Lab. On Saturdays, parking is free and the staff/faculty/vendor spaces are open to everyone.

2025 MEETINGS & PRESENTATIONS

 

Dr. Daniel Pullen from Florida State University

A Late Bronze Age “Naval Station” at Kalamianos (Saronic Gulf), Greece?

The Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project has documented the Late Bronze Age (14th-13th cent. BCE) harbor town at Kalamianos on the Saronic Gulf coast of the Corinthia, Greece. We suggest this site might be the Homeric town of “Eïones” which later Strabo identified as a “naval station.” The implications of this identification of Kalamianos as a naval station are evaluated in light of our current understanding of the archaeology of maritime culture, both commercial and military, of the Mycenaeans and other Late Bronze Age (LBA) peoples of the Aegean. The lack of identifiable maritime infrastructure – let alone that for specialized military activity – outside of Crete, including at Kalamianos, suggests that such installations were not essential for LBA maritime activities elsewhere in the Aegean.


Professor Pullen is an archaeologist with training in Anthropology and Classical Archaeology, working in the prehistoric Aegean region, especially the later Neolithic–Early Bronze Age and the Mycenaean/Late Bronze Age. His research interests lie in the emergence of complex societies (the state and political economy) as seen through changes in regional settlement patterns, monumental architecture, and political economy and administration; landscape archaeology; the interaction of coastal settlements with maritime and landbound areas; and agriculture in ancient societies.  His current research projects include the Late Bronze Age (Mycenaean) harbor settlement at Kalamianos on the Saronic Gulf of southern Greece; the Final Neolithic period at Alepotrypa Cave in the Mani of southern Greece; and the Early Bronze Age in western Anatolia, especially around the ancient city of Sardis. His major publications include the co-authored Artifact and Assemblage: The Finds from the Southern Argolid Survey (Stanford 1995), The Early Bronze Age Village on Tsoungiza Hill (Nemea Valley Archaeological Project I) (American School of Classical Studies at Athens 2011), the edited volume Political Economies of the Aegean Bronze Age (Oxbow 2010) from one of the department's Langford conferences, and most recently the co-edited book Neolithic Alepotrypa Cave in the Mani, Greece (Oxbow 2018).

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RECENT ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

Village of Saksun, Faroe Islands, by Eyðfinn Magnussen

Origins of Faroe Island Viking Settlers Examined

TORSHAVN, FAROE ISLANDS—An archipelago of 18 islands lying in the North Atlantic roughly halfway between Norway and Iceland, the Faroe Islands were colonized by Norse settlers sometime between a.d. 872 and 930. According to the Færeyinga Saga, a later literary account of that event, a Norse chief named Grímur Kamban led the Viking band that settled the Faroes. But just where Grímur and his followers came from has never been clear. Now, according to a statement released by Frontiers, a genetic study of 139 Faroese men has revealed that the Vikings who colonized the islands came from a diverse range of Scandinavian backgrounds and were distinct from the populations that later settled in Iceland. “Scientists have long assumed that the Faroe Islands and Iceland were both settled by similar Norse people,” says anthropologist Christopher Tillquist of the University of Louisville, who led the study. “Our results demonstrate that Viking expansion into the North Atlantic was more complex than previously thought.” Read the original scholarly article about this research in Frontiers in Genetics. For more about the history of the people who settled the Faroe Islands, go to “Letter from the Faroes: Lost History of the Sheep Islands.”


Etruscan urns and sarcophagus © Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage/Emanuele Antonio Minerva

Looted Etruscan Sarcophagi Recovered

ROME, ITALY—Italian police seized an array of third-century b.c. Etruscan artifacts that looters had found on their own land in the Umbrian town of Città della Pieve and had attempted to sell on the black market, according to a report in The Straits Times. Two sarcophagi, eight stone urns carved with Greek mythological scenes, a perfume bottle, and bronze mirrors are among the finds. The urns, some of which were inscribed with the family name Pulfna, were topped by lids featured sculptures of reclining women whose lips and jewelry still preserve traces of paint. In 2015, a farmer in Città della Pieve plowing land near the findspot of the recovered artifacts uncovered a hypogeum that also belonged to the Pulfna family. To read about a noble Etruscan family buried in a necropolis in Vulci, go to "The Tomb of the Silver Hands."


Peach illustration by Otto Wilhelm Thomé (1885) Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

How Peaches Spread Across North America

UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA—According to a statement released by Penn State University, while peaches were likely first introduced to North America by Spanish explorers, the fruits traveled across the continent along Indigenous networks starting in the early 16th century. Indigenous populations quickly adopted and selectively bred the stonefruits, facilitating their dispersal. A team of Penn State researchers radiocarbon dated preserved peach pits previously unearthed at 28 archaeological sites in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas to build a chronology of the fruit tree's domestication. They confirmed that the earliest North American peaches—the first fruit domesticated in Eurasia to be adopted in Indigenous cultures of eastern North America—were likely planted at a Muscogee farmstead in Georgia's Oconee Valley. Occupation at the site began between 1520 and 1550, prior to the founding of Florida's Spanish colonial settlement of St. Augustine in 1565. This indicated that the fruit spread independently of the Spanish colony. “Peaches need a lot of care by people to be productive,” says Penn State anthopologist Jacob Holland-Lulewicz. “How quickly peaches spread is very much a product of Indigenous networks and land management.” As early as the 1620s, peach groves were also widespread in Indigenous settlements of the American Southeast. Records of early European settlers describe that new North American peach varieties even outnumbered those found in Europe by the mid- to late-1600s. According to the researchers, the fruit had become so integral that when ancestors of the modern-day Muscogee Nation were forced out of Georgia and Alabama in the 1800s, they took peaches with them. “The act of growing and caring for peaches is an important cultural practice for Muscogee (Creek) peoples today,” says Holland-Lulewicz. “These were the first peaches introduced in the 1500s and 1600s that were then carried halfway across the continent and continue to be grown today.” Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. For more about domestication of crops crucial to Indigenous communities in North America, go to “Letter from the Four Corners: In Search of Prehistoric Potatoes.”

 

READ MORE RECENT ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

CURRENT ARCHAEOLOGY MAGAZINE

Click the cover image for more details

Let the Games Begin
How gladiators in ancient Anatolia lived to entertain the masses

The Many Faces of the Kingdom of Shu
Thousands of fantastical bronzes are beginning to reveal the secrets of a legendary Chinese dynasty

Europe’s Lost Bronze Age Civilization
Archaeologists have discovered more than 100 previously unknown megasites north of the Danube

Chalice of Souls
A Maya jade heirloom embodies an enduring sacred tradition

Exploring Ancient Persia’s Royal Fire Temple
At a remote lake in the mountains of Iran, archaeologists have identified the most revered Zoroastrian sanctuary