Free event at the Portland State University campus!

This year's theme is 'the Archaeology of Change.' Fundamentally, archaeologists study the ways people, societies, and environments change through time: within a year, over decades, centuries, or even millennia. Sometimes cultures persist in the face of environmental upheavals or cultural shifts; sometimes they don't. Why in some places and times do once highly-mobile people become sedentary? Why do the food choices people make change or not? Why is change sometimes fast or sometimes gradual? Why do some parts of culture persist (and some parts change)? (Chess is one of our favorite examples... 12th c. chess pieces have been excavated from coastal Scotland!) We can think about change across so many fronts (technology, beliefs and religion, family structure, food) it is mind boggling.

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