Public Lectures
2007-2008
Humans in a Changing Landscape
Unless otherwise noted, all lectures take place at the James A. Little Theater, New Mexico School for the Deaf, 1060 Cerrillos Road, at 7:30 pm. Nina Jablonski’s lecture on April 22, 2008 will be held at the Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center in downtown Santa Fe. All theaters are wheelchair accessible and hearing-assistance devices are available upon request. SAR Lectures are FREE to the Public.
SAR Membership Lecture videos are available on DVD and VHS for $15 each. They are for sale the night of each lecture at the Membership table or contact the SAR Membership Office at 505-954-7203 or by email at members@sarsf.org.
September 20, 2007
William deBuys
Writer and Conservationist
Rephotography:
New Mexico Then and Now
…historical and modern images reveal widespread changes in the New Mexico landscape.
Long-term change and natural variability of the Southwestern climate exert a profound influence on the landscape around us, especially when combined with the impact of human land-use. In an engaging lecture, conservationist William deBuys illustrates the widespread transformations that have taken place over the last century and a half in New Mexico. Our diverse but arid environment has been drastically altered by human impact. Through rephotograpy, the pairing of historical photographs with contemporary views of the same lands, deBuys takes us on a remarkable journey of the environmental changes in our own cherished landscape. Through the lens of the camera we have a unique insight into future changes we might expect to see in the decades ahead.
William deBuys is an author, speaker, and Professor of Documentary Studies at the College of Santa Fe. He has authored several books on the changing landscape of the Southwest including Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range and Salt Dreams: Land and Water in Low-Down California.
Sponsored by Daniels Insurance, Inc. and Thornburg Companies.
Hospitality for the lecturer provided by Santacafé.
October 18, 2007
Doug Schwartz
Archaeologist, former SAR President, current School for Advanced Research Senior Scholar
On the Edge of Splendor: Reinvisioning Grand Canyon Archaeology
…ancient farmers delicately adjusted their lifestyle to survive a changing climate.
For 8,000 years the Grand Canyon and its surrounding plateaus were widely used by hunters and gatherers—ancient farmers who, at first delicately and then frantically, adjusted their lives to changes in climate. Former SAR President Doug Schwartz spent over 20 years working throughout the Canyon. The prehistory of the area was essentially unknown when he was first introduced to it as a young undergraduate in 1949. In a lively and colorful talk, Schwartz relates his work in the back-country exploration, river running, archaeology, ecology, climatology, and ethnography that went into uncovering an unexpected and fascinating picture of prehistoric life in this unique environment.
Doug Schwartz was president of SAR from 1967-2001. He is currently a senior scholar at the School and hasn’t let retirement slow him down. During the past year he concentrated on two extensive projects: an examination of how the 1000-room 14th century pueblo at Arroyo Hondo, which he excavated in the 1970’s, fit into and helped better understand the late prehistory of the northern Southwest and; a reexamination of the earlier work he did in the Grand Canyon which led to a better understanding of the demographic and cultural dynamics of the Canyon’s prehistory.
Sponsored by Garcia Street Books, C.T. Herman and Evalinda Walrack of Merrill Lynch, Karen Walker Real Estate, The Flora Crichton Lecture Fund, and The First National Bank of Santa Fe.
Hospitality for the lecturer provided by AMAYA at Hotel Santa Fe.
December 6, 2007
Rod McIntosh
Archaeologist
When Cities Blow Away:
Ecological Resilience in West Africa
…facing an irregular climate and harsh landscape by clustering communities and creating reciprocal relationships.
West Africa’s interior floodplain of the Niger River long supported stable, high population densities and an entirely indigenous, highly sustainable, urban civilization. Yet this was a landscape of abrupt change and irregular climate. The prehistoric response—and the one that continues today—was one of “ecological resilience” in the form of reciprocal relations among multiple specialists and unusual clustered cities. Anthropologist Rod McIntosh gives a captivating, illustrated talk on 4,000 years of human response to an unforgiving landscape.
Rod McIntosh is professor of anthropology at Yale University and a curator at the Yale Peabody Museum. As an archaeologist he has dedicated his career to studying the ancient past of Africa. He taught at Rice University for twenty-five years and at the national universities of Mali and Senegal as a Senior Fulbright Fellow. Since 2002 he has spent summers as a visiting professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, where he has been involved in the reconstitution of archaeology at the former Afrikaner university. Thirty years of fieldwork include excavations at early urban sites in Ghana and Senegal. Most recently he worked in the dry Saharan Méma of Mali. He is the author of publications on palaeoclimate and human response, the intellectual history of archaeology, and the international illicit trade in art and antiquities.
Sponsored by The Paper Tiger and The Flora Crichton Lecture Fund.
Hospitality for the lecturer provided by La Fonda on the Plaza.
February 7, 2008
Brian Fagan
Archaeologist
Cathedrals, Droughts,
and the Flail of God
…large climate changes have made both startling and subtle impacts upon the course of human history.
We have been here before! Anthropologist Brian Fagan takes a look back at four centuries of global warming that had a startling but subtle impact on the course of human history. His story runs the gamut from medieval Europe to Norse Greenland, from the Great Basin and the Southwest to Mesoamerica and the Andes, across the Pacific and Asia to the monsoon climates of the Indian Ocean. Fagan tells the tale of the “silent elephant in the climatological room” of a millennium ago with astonishing implications for our own warming world.
Dr. Fagan takes us on a journey to times when temperatures were occasionally as warm as today, harvests were abundant, cathedral building was at its peak, Genghis Khan ruled, and drought was a constant threat.
Originally a specialist in pre-European African history and archaeology, Brian Fagan is now a leading archaeological generalist, with a recognized expertise in the broad issues of human prehistory. Regarded as one of the world’s leading archaeological writers, he is the author or editor of 51 books and has contributed more than 100 specialist papers to national and international journals on archaeology and history. His most recent book is Fish On Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World (Basic Books, 2006).
Sponsored by Carole Ely and Robert Wickham —AV Systems, Betty and Luke Vortman, and Walter Burke Catering.
Hospitality for the lecturer provided by School for Advanced Research Guest Services.
April 3, 2008
Julie Cruikshank
Cultural Anthropologist
Do Glaciers Listen? Remembering the Little Ice Age
…oral histories relate climate change in northwestern North America from 1550-1850 A.D.
Memories of the Little Ice Age in northwestern North America (roughly 1550–1850A.D.) remain vivid in oral histories transmitted among indigenous communities near the Alaska-Yukon border. In stories from these First Nation communities, glaciers listen, pay attention, and respond to human indiscretion. Anthropologist Julie Cruikshank discusses how melting glaciers are now revealing material evidence that reinvigorates longstanding oral traditions about human history and environmental change, bringing Aboriginal peoples and scientists together for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaborations.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, enlarged glaciers in the Saint Elias Range provided travel routes for Aboriginal traders crossing from the Gulf of Alaska coast to the interior Yukon Plateau. In the 20th century, both Canada and the United States designated National Parks in this glaciated region, displacing indigenous residents from these territories; those parks are now encompassed within a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Dr. Cruikshank is professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of Life Lived Like A Story (winner of the 1992 MacDonald Prize); Reading Voices; and The Social Life of Stories.
Sponsored by Thornburg Companies.
Hospitality for the lecturer provided by School for Advanced Research Guest Services.
April 22, 2008
Nina Jablonski
Biological Anthropologist
Skin Deep: Evolution of Human Skin and Skin Color
…modern science indicates skin has been structurally and functionally transformed over time.
Skin is the physical interface between the body and the environment. Scientists recognize that human skin is unique in three ways: its naked sweatiness, its range of colors, and its use as a canvas for individual self expression.
The importance of skin in human evolution is rarely recognized because skin is hardly ever preserved in fossil or archaeological records. Modern comparative techniques, including comparisons of DNA sequences, have made it possible to study how skin has been structurally and functionally transformed over time. In an energetic, illustrated talk, anthropologist Nina Jablonski explores the unique aspects of human skin and its importance as a key element of human adaptation to an ever-shifting environment.
Dr. Jablonski is professor of anthropology at The Pennsylvania State University and head of the department. A biological anthropologist with broad research interests, she has held academic jobs at the University of Hong Kong, The University of Western Australia, and the California Academy of Sciences. She conducts research on the evolution of Old World primates, including humans, and is especially interested in how primates adapt to changing environmental conditions. Her book, Skin: A Natural History (University of California Press, 2006), received the 2007 W.W. Howells Award (for best book in biological anthropology) of the American Anthropological Association.
Sponsored by The Leakey Foundation and The Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center.
Hospitality for the lecturer provided by Trustees of The Leakey Foundation
Image credits:
- Courtesy William deBuys.
- Courtesy Doug Schwartz.
- Courtesy Rod McIntosh.
- Courtesy Brian Fagan.
- Courtesy Julie Cruikshank.
- Courtesy Nina Jablonski.
