Traveling the Ancient Silk Road: Plants and Animals on the Trans-Eurasian Exchange Routes

NYU Anthropology, Kriser Auditorium, 6 PM

Cyprus, acknowledged as the island of copper already during ancient times, plays an integral part in discussions involving ancient Mediterranean connectivity. Research of recent years, including advances made by the project ComPAS, funded by the European Research Council, has acknowledged that Cypriot and Levantine communities were connected both commercially and culturally throughout the Late Bronze Age and into the Early Iron Age. Our lecture will present new and exciting data, that attest to the uninterrupted albeit transformed connectivity between the two regions. The evidence entails raw materials, prestigious artifacts and a plethora of ceramic fine wares and transport vessels that elucidate the involvement of the island’s communities within the oscillating character of Mediterranean long-distance trade. 

Biography

Robert Spengler III, PhD, is the head of Paleoethnobotany Laboratories & the Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution research group at Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology.

I supervise a team of scholars and run a laboratory that leads the way in the archaeobotanical sciences. The members of Spengler Lab engage in two linked areas of study: the domestication and dispersal of crops in prehistory and early history. They Study the great trade routes of the ancient world, colloquially known as the Silk Road,and the ways that globalization fueled greater inequality, political development, and cultural change.They explore the links between the intensification of agriculture and the emergence of complex social systems. As a secondary branch of scholarship, my team is investigating changes in adaptations for seed dispersal during plant domestication.Specifically, we are rethinking domestication and focusing on an ecological approach.I maintain paleoethnobotanical studies at sites across Eurasia from Mongolia to Turkmenistan,as well as in East Asia, Europe, and North America.