Released: March 7, 2012
Lincoln, Neb. - The Lincoln-Omaha Society of the Archaeological Institute of America announces the fifth lecture on archaeology for the 2011-2012 season. Jane Carter, from the Department of Classical Studies at Tulane University, will be speaking on the history and archaeology of early Greece and how we can trace the development of society through its material culture. The case study Carter employs is the island of ancient Paros in the Aegean sea.
Her lecture titled "Ancient Paros and the Emergent Polis: Evidence for Societal Change from Material Culture" will be Monday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Avery Hall Rm. 115. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Although specifically related to the material culture from the Aegean island of Paros during the late Geometric to early Archaic periods (ca. 725 to 575 BC), this lecture looks to inform the audience how archaeology and objects can provide us information about social developments and associated political attitudes.
In particular, on Paros, Carter focuses on the idea of the middling ideology vs. elite ideology that many archaeologists and other scholars have been very interested in and for which the ancient poet Archilochos, a native of Paros, is often cited as a leading light. The idea would be to look at the material culture on Paros for any evidence of this emerging social and/or political stance.
Carter is Professor of Classical Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans. Her primary research interests involve the connections between Greece and the Near East in the Early Iron Age and how these connections manifest in material culture, primarily in sculpture. She has published widely on early Greek sculpture, with major publications on Orientalizing and Archaic Greek Ivory-carving, and a book on the Ages of Homer. She is currently writing a monograph on the beginnings of Greek Sculpture. She has excavated widely, at such sites as Knidos, Corinth, Paros, Nemea, Kavousi (Crete), Lefkandi, and Pylos. Her Ph.D was earned at Harvard University.