Modern Humans’ Earliest Artwork and Music

Date: 

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 6:00pm

Location: 

Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA

New European Discoveries

Randall White, Professor, Department of Anthropology, New York University

The earliest evidence of artwork made by modern humans, Aurignacian art, was created more than 35,000 years ago and has been found in French, German, and Romanian archaeological sites. Randall White will discuss the rich corpus of Aurignacian painting, engraving, bas-relief sculpture, musical instruments, and personal ornamentation that was studied before World War I
in southwest France, along with recent discoveries from classic Aurignacian sites. He will also highlight how the combined study of archives, long-forgotten museum collections—and even back dirt (excavated material)—is contributing
new discoveries and contextual data about early Eurasian expressive culture.

2018 Hallam L. Movius, Jr. Lecture and Reception 
Free and open to the public. Presented by Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology.
Free event parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage.

This event will be livestreamed on the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture Facebook page. Check back the day of the program for a direct video link. 

A recording of this program will be available on our YouTube channel approximately three weeks after the lecture.