Posted by vrcvanderbilt on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 in Events, HART, Lectures, VRC.

Maria Liston, associate professor and chair of the anthropology department at the University of Waterloo, will deliver an Archaeological Institute of America lecture on Thursday, September 24, at 6 pm at the Nashville Parthenon in Centennial Park. In her lecture, “Short Lives and Forgotten Deaths: Infant Skeletons in the ‘Bone Well’ near the Athenian Agora,” Liston, a bioarchaeologist, will speak on a remarkable find from the Athenian Agora, the excavation where she has worked with Barbara Tsakirgis, associate professor of classical studies and the history of art at Vanderbilt.

Liston pursues research as a skeletal biologist and archaeologist, focusing on the excavation and analysis of human remains and their mortuary contexts. “If you are a fan of Patricia Cornwell’s novels of forensic anthropology, you will love how Maria Liston solves the mysteries of ancient murders from the evidence of the surviving bone.” 

Since 2001 Liston has worked as the skeletal biologist in the Athenian Agora, the civic and religious center of ancient Athens. In her work there she has recently identified the oldest case of battered child syndrome known from the archaeological record. She also works in Greece with the excavations at Mycenaean Iklaina, and the new excavations in the Sanctuary of Ismenion Apollo in Thebes. She is currently publishing the skeletons from tombs found at Kavousi, Crete.  She also has directed the analysis of the remains of British and colonial soldiers at Fort William Henry, in New York.

Free and open to the public, Liston’s lecture is sponsored by the Nashville Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, the Conservancy for the Parthenon and Centennial Park, and Vanderbilt’s Department of Classical Studies and Department of Anthropology. Those who plan to attend the AIA lecture on September 24 are encouraged to call the Nashville Parthenon at 615.862.8431 to reserve a seat.

On Friday, September 25, Liston will present “Barbarians at the Gate: Victims and Perpetrators of the Herulian Sack, 267 CE,” at an informal lunchtime seminar sponsored by the departments of classical studies and anthropology.  This lecture will be held at noon in Cohen Hall 324.