Anna Blume to Lecture on Pre-Columbian Architecture

“Mound A,” Poverty Point, Louisiana. Dimensions of mound: 710 x 660 x 72 ft. Photo by Jenny Elerbe, 2012.
“Mound A,” Poverty Point, Louisiana. Dimensions of mound: 710 x 660 x 72 ft. Photo by Jenny Elerbe, 2012.

Anna Blume, History of Art, will give a lecture on Thursday, September 8, at 6 pm, about the research she’s been doing on the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys and the earthworks and mounds constructed by the communities living there from the 4th century B.C. onward.

The lecture will be hosted by the Pre-Columbian Society of New York. From the invitation:

“In the 4th century B.C. communities began to build monumental architecture in the Lower Mississippi Valley. One of the most remarkable remaining sites from the Late Archaic period is the city of Poverty Point, Louisiana. Traveling up the Mississippi River through the massive 13th-century city of Cahokia, Illinois, to the animal and geometric earthworks from Iowa to Lake Michigan, one sees how diverse communities continued to shape the land over thousands of years. This talk will focus on three of these sites from different periods and geographic locations and consider the importance of monumental architecture to the people who made them. I will also question why these monuments are so rarely referred to within the broader Pre-Columbian literature and why they are not commonly recognized in the vast ancient past of North America.”

The lecture, which is open to the public and will be followed by a reception, is at the Institute of Fine Arts, 1 E. 78th St. RSVP to [email protected]. Blume’s research was supported by funds from the FIT Faculty Development Grants and Awards Program and by the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

For more information, contact Blume, 74646.

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