AIA TALKS: Andean Gold 17 Februrary 2014

Dr. Mark Aldenderfer first spoke to our society in February of 2003 on the topic “Silk Route and Diamond Path: the Archaeology of Tibetan Buddhism.” Dr. Aldenderfer has expanded his research interests to a second continent—South America. He is drawn to remote sites at high altitudes! Some of his current work focuses on a comparison of high altitudes cultural and biological adaptations.

In his evening talk on the 17th we get to look at lots of gold! Dr. Aldenderfer will review the ways in which golden objects were used by four cultures in the ancient Andes: the hunters and gatherers of the Titicaca basin at 2000 BC, the Chavin culture of the central Andes (900 BCE), the Moche (400 CE), and the Chimu (1200 CE). Gold served as personal adornment that also had social meaning, and through time, became identified with power and religious ideology.

The next day he will speak on Mustang, a site closed to the world until the 1990s. It is now home to a small but thriving Tibetan Buddhist community that was once part of a much larger world with connections westward into Central Asia and to the east into China and beyond via the famous Silk Road. Their origins are very much unknown. The earliest inhabitants are variously described as Aryans, Mongolians, Tibetans, and others. Archaeologists, historians, bio-archaeologists, archaeological scientists, including specialists in DNA analysis, along with a crack team of Alpinists and climbers, are recovering important new data that speak to the origins of the people of Upper Mustang and the ways in which the polity grew and changed over the past 3000 years.

Monday, February 17
4,000 Years of Andean Gold
7:30 PM
Wilson Hall Theatre, UAH

Tuesday, February 18
Ancient Mustang: The Origins of a High Himalayan Kingdom in Nepal

12:45 PM

Wilson Hall 168 (the art history lecture hall), UAH

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