When
Thursday, February 20, 20202:00 p.m.The Hillel Classroom, 1245 E. Second Street
Jointly-sponsored with the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, Sally and Ralph Duchin Lecture series
Thomas E. LevyDistinguished Professor, Department of AnthropologyCo-Director, Scripps Center for Marine ArchaeologyUniversity of California, San Diego
Title: Transdisciplinary Marine Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recent Research off the Carmel Coast (Israel) and the Peloponnesus (Greece)
Abstract: Coastal zones are some of the most sensitive ecosystems for examining how societies adapt to climate, environmental and social change. The new Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology at UC San Diego has initiated a three-prong approach to the deep-time study of human adaptation of coastal zones in the eastern Mediterranean. This involves the use of a wide array of shallow marine geophysical survey instruments; sediment coring to obtain proxy data for studying landscape, climate and ecosystem change on land and sea; and underwater archaeological excavation and photogrammetry to understand how human cultural systems adapt to deep-time environmental and social change. The work takes a transdisciplinary or ‘team science’ approach integrating anthropology, geosciences, humanities (Jewish and Hellenic studies), information technology, and other fields. This lecture discusses recent underwater fieldwork at Biblical Tel Dor along Israel’s Carmel coast and at Methoni - a submerged Middle Bronze Age settlement off the southern coast of Messenia in the Peloponnesus region of Greece.
Thomas Evan Levy is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and the inaugural holder of the Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at the University of California, San Diego. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Levy is a Levantine field archaeologist with interests in how early mining and metallurgy influences social evolution and human adaptation along coastal zones. Widely published, Levy recently received an honorary doctorate from Charles University in the Czech Republic; he serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Cyprus. Tom is an alum of the University of Arizona’s Department of Anthropology where he earned a BA in 1975, followed by a PhD at the University of Sheffield in 1981. In 2016, Tom was appointed Co-Director of the new UC San Diego Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology at UC San Diego and has carried out underwater archaeology projects in Greece and Israel. Photos: 1) Underwater survey at the submerged Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000 - 1600 BC) site at Methoni, Greece. Circular feature may be foundation of a storage silo or tower; 2) head shot, Thomas E. Levy;