Past Events

Christopher Dore, PhD, RPA, Heritage Business International

Dr. Dore has conducted archaeological expert witness work for over 20 years as a part of his work portfolio. He is a Certified Forensic Litigation Consultant, a professional member of the Forensic Expert Witness Association (FEWA), and the vice-president of FEWA’s southwest region. Dr. Dore is a co-author of the SAA’s Professional Standards for the Determination of Archaeological Value and has published in legal journals. He has served as an expert witness on high-profile cases nationally that have included criminal looting and artifact trafficking, but also fraud, insurance claims, hazardous waste liability, professional qualifications and performance, and plagiarism.

Applying one’s archaeological expertise to the legal system as an expert witness is rewarding and provides the potential to assist in site protection. However, the legal system operates under a different set of rules and practices. Archaeologists often take on their first job as an expert witness without understanding the context, role, and rules of a legal expert. Without this understanding, archaeologists often end up having a stressful and unrewarding experience, being ineffective, and could have their professional reputations damaged. This seminar provides an introductory overview of the basic information need to successfully transfer one’s skills as an archaeological expert to those of an effective archaeological expert witness. Topics include qualifications, rules of evidence, contracts, best practices, marketing, reporting, communication, testimony, and ethics.

1. Describe the basic framework of the U.S. legal system and the role of an expert witness
2. Explain the key federal rules that qualify an expert witnesses and that expert witnesses must follow in their work
3. Illustrate what archaeologists do as expert witnesses
4. Provide attendees with the information to decide if expert work is for them
5. Explore where to go to learn more

Jack Berner

Archaeologists have been puzzled and fascinated by the Bronze Age of the Southern Ural Steppe in Russia since the 1970s. Specifically, Sintashta-Petrovka (2050-1700 BCE) communities exhibited highly unusual organization for steppe pastoralists, including centrally planned towns, monumental fortifications, and sedentary subsistence. Of equal interest, these communities never invested in agriculture although their environment would have allowed for it. Thus, archaeology in this region contradicts anthropological models that expect complex, centralized societies to emerge only in agrarian and demographically dense contexts. Beginning in ca. 1700 BCE, these settlements disaggregated during the so-called “Sintashta Collapse”. It is unclear what social and demographic processes led to the dissolution of proto-urban settlements, partially due to the fact that previous research has been conducted on an atomized site-by-site basis without considering the regional perspective. Jack Berner’s research addresses these deficiencies in an interdisciplinary manner, by incorporating multiple lines of evidence to identify and map Bronze Age habitations in the Zingeyka River Valley in the Southern Urals. In this talk, he will first outline a program of research that uses multispectral satellite images, soil geochemistry, and pedestrian survey to create a highly detailed land classification that highlights Bronze Age hinterland habitations. Next, he will discuss the nature of his scientific relationships with Russian scholars, and the importance of student-driven collaboration in Russian archaeology. Finally, he will address how this project thoroughly addresses common ethical concerns including engagement with local stakeholders, open-access knowledge, and a safe environment for undergraduate volunteers.

The Student Affairs Lecture Series in Archaeology (SALSA) provides an opportunity to hear student members present on their current research as well as a space to discuss and connect with other students.

Jessica I. Cerezo-Roman, PhD, RPA, University of Oklahoma

Dr. Cerezo-Roman received her master’s degree in Biological Anthropology from the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, and her doctoral degree in Anthropology from the University of Arizona, Tucson. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Her academic and professional trajectory has allowed her to study the human body and mortuary customs from fascinating ancient, historic, and modern contexts, using cutting edge methodological and theoretical archaeological approaches. She has designed archaeological projects employing innovative and diverse methods and social theories by marrying and reworking processual and postprocessul approaches. One of her technical strengths is her expertise with human remains, particularly highly burned and fragmented human remains, for reconstructing posthumous treatments of bodies to answer broader anthropological questions. She is one of the leading experts on studying ancient cremation in North America. Dr. Cerezo-Roman has worked with more than 2,200 cremation burials associated with Prehispanic populations in the Americas from Arizona, Northern Mexico, and Belize, and from Gallo-Roman contexts from Belgium, Archaic contexts from Greece, Neolithic contexts from China, and Late Stone Age hunter-and-gather and Neo-Punic contexts from Africa.

This workshop is designed for archaeologists and bioarchaeologists who want to learn about different excavation and laboratory analytical procedures that maximize time, data collection, and robust scientific rigor and ethical consideration when working with human remains. Cremation funeral customs are understudied in archaeological and bioarchaeology research. Cremation is a multi-stage process that involves preparation of the body, burning the body in a pyre, and often removal of remains into a secondary place of burial or secondary cremation deposit. If permitted by necessary agencies and affiliated communities, cremations are a fascinating transformative mortuary ritual that leaves archaeological traces and enormous evidence in human remains that can be analyzed. Detailed archaeological excavation combined with rigorous analysis of the human remains, including thermal alteration, estimation of age at death, biological sex, and determination of pathologies, can allow researchers to reconstruct different stages, variations, and social significance of cremation rituals to the decendent, mourners, and community through time and space.

The participants will become acquainted with:
1. Different anthropological research questions related to cremation mortuary ritual from an archaeological and bioarchaeological point of view;
2. Fundamental archaeological excavations techniques and data that can be reconstructed from pyres and secondary deposits of cremated remains;
3. Essential osteological methods and techniques to reconstruct the biological profile of the individuals and thermal alterations.

Diogo Oliveira

When the Portuguese reached Mozambique Island at the end of the 15th century, they encountered a populated coast of diverse communities integrated within a wider Swahili world. Swahili society was at its fundamental nature cosmopolitan and incorporated arts, cultures, peoples, and beliefs from Africa, India, the Middle East, and the Far East. Although Swahili archaeology is well established in Tanzania and Kenya, there is still little understood about Northern Mozambique and its role in the Swahili world. This lecture will present preliminary results from recent excavations on the northern coast of Mozambique, as well as interpretations from known archaeological sites, to better assess the nature of Swahili society on the northern Mozambican coast at the time of Portuguese first contact. Diogo Oliveira will also raise questions about the nature of Swahili culture in Northern Mozambique and its construction of a maritime cultural landscape centered around cross-oceanic connections in the vast Indian Ocean Trade Network. Finally, he will address his own experience in the field as a Fulbright Student Scholar in Mozambique and the ethical and methodological considerations utilized during this project's duration. Engaging with historically marginalized communities is fundamental to decolonizing the discipline, and this lecture will explore the vital relationships archaeologists must establish with local scholars, as well as community members and leaders in order to ethically conduct archaeological research.

The Student Affairs Lecture Series in Archaeology (SALSA) provides an opportunity to hear student members present on their current research as well as a space to discuss and connect with other students.

Tonya Fallis, MA, RPA, GISP, City of McKinney, TX

Tonya Fallis received her MA in Archaeology from Eastern New Mexico University in 2002. She specializes in geospatial and database applications in archaeology and created her first GIS-based predictive model back in the 90s, when 30-meter Landsat data was still considered pretty cool. She was an archaeologist and GIS Specialist at New Mexico's Archaeological Records Management Section for twelve years. In the private sector, she worked with GIS in natural and cultural resource conservation, including the design of an archaeological site management system for the City of Santa Fe. She currently works as a Senior GIS Analyst for the City of McKinney, Texas, where she uses GIS to support public history and heritage education.

Story Maps are an excellent resource for engaging the public with archaeology and heritage education. They can be used to communicate the results of archaeological research, and provide a medium for telling the stories of underserved populations. Story Maps can also be used at low cost for non-profit or educational purposes, allowing organizations with scarce resources to create their own stories on an easily-accessible platform.

1. Describe Story Map designs and how they use geospatial data, text, and multimedia to achieve different goals.
2. Review the options available for Story Maps based on free, low-cost, and full-priced Esri accounts.
3. Outline best practices behind production, design and maintenance of a Story Map, including issues of special interest to archaeologists.