Please note: this talk is limited to the Harvard Community
On Wednesday, March 23rd at 3 pm in Boylston 103 and on Zoom (details below), Professor Bauer will run a masterclass, "Ritualized Production and Cultivated Distinctions on the Early Deccan: Re-Centering Perspectives of Early Historic (ca. 500 BCE – CE 500) Indian Ocean Trade".
Talk Abstract:
"This lecture reviews recent archaeological evidence from the interior Deccan region of southern India to address the changing nature and intensity of exchange relationships with the wider network of Indian Ocean commerce throughout the first millennium BCE. It offers an analysis centered on interior places that contrasts with suggestions that the region was mere “periphery” or “hinterland” to a widening system of trade that was centered on port towns. Contextual analyses on the Deccan suggest that the cultural significance of a variety of locally produced materials and exotic items was related to changes among ritual practices that were instrumental in constituting newly emergent social distinctions and collectives during the first millennium BCE. Prior to the development of this new socio-historical and symbolic-material context, inhabitants of the region had seemingly less use for nonlocal trade items from across the Indian Ocean, despite evidence for long-term connections with littoral regions. As such, I point to how unique historical developments within the interior Deccan would come to significantly affect the profusion of materials and objects that were distributed from India to a broader Indian Ocean world."
If you would like to participate over zoom instead of in person:
https://harvard.zoom.us/j/92172066622?pwd=LzFLbVVxTjBiZ0dFMWN6d2VmTStzQT09
Password: 795341
LOCATION:In person or Zoom (see posting) STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20220323T190000Z DTEND:20220323T190000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR