TWO ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURES SLATED AT
MONMOUTH COLLEGE
Release Date:
October 26, 1999
Indiana University professor Geoffrey Conrad will
present two archaeology lectures at Monmouth College Wednesday, Nov. 3, in the Highlander Room
in Stockdale Center.
Conrad’s 4 p.m. lecture will explore "The Tainos: The Indians
Who Greeted Columbus," while his 7:30 talk will focus on the "The Rise and Fall of the Inca
Empire." At 5 p.m., there will be a meal in the Private Dining Room featuring southwestern
U.S. cuisine. The cost is $5.25, and reservations are required. Please call 309-457-2371 for
reservations or further information.
The Indians who welcomed Christopher Columbus to the
Caribbean islands have become known as the Tainos, after a word that meant "good" or "noble"
in their own language. Columbus wrote of them that there were "in all the world no better
people." Despite these words of admiration, relations between Europeans and Indians soon
deteriorated, and by 1525 disease and warfare had severely disrupted Taino culture.
Conrad’s lecture gives a general overview of Taino culture
and describes new research at Taino sites in the Dominican Republic.
The latter lecture gives a general overview of the Inca
Empire in Peru (1440-1532), the largest empire ever formed in the pre-Columbian New World.
Conrad discusses the history of the Incas as well as the nature of Inca society and the Inca
state, and offers an interpretation of the dramatic rise and fall of the empire. He puts
special emphasis on the role of Inca religion and the worship of the mummies of dead rulers.
The lectures continue a series of presentations sponsored
this academic year by the Western Illinois Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.
The next scheduled lecture is March 6, 2000.
Released
by the Office of College Communications
Barry McNamara, Associate Director of College Communications
Phone: 309-457-2117
Fax: 309-457-2330
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