Classical and medieval studies lecture series to be held at Bates

The classical and medieval studies program at Bates College will present Far Beyond Town Walls: The Archeology of the Medieval North Atlantic on Feb. 25, March 13 and March 24. The public is invited to attend the lecture series free of charge.

The sixth annual lecture series will discuss the medieval archeology of the North Atlantic. The lectures will consider current research projects and new findings that reveal dramatic interactions among people and their environments on the maritime frontiers of medieval Europe.

The first of the lectures, Viking Halls and Windswept Islands: Researching the Early Medieval Northeast Atlantic, will be delivered by Steffen Stummann Hansen at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Hansen, a research lecturer with the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology at the University of Copenhagen, has conducted many archaeological research projects in Denmark and the Faroe Islands, including the investigations of the Toftanes Site, Faroe Islands, the best preserved Viking dwelling excavated in recent decades in the North Atlantic region.

Hansen and Anne-Christine Larsen are presently coordinating the Viking Unst Project, a large scale study of settlements and landscape change in the Shetland Islands, United Kingdom.

Hansen has published many scholarly papers in international archaeological journals.

Anthropologist Thomas H. McGovern will lecture on Food, Faith and Climate Change: The Life and Death of Norse Greenland at 7:30 p.m. March 13, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center. McGovern, professor of anthropology at Hunter College, City University of New York, is the leading North American scholar in the study of Greenland Norse settlements.

The last lecture, The Picts: Archeology Meets Early History in Northern Scotland, will be delivered by Anna Ritchie at 7:30 p.m. March 24, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. Ritchie, an archaeologist with the National Museums of Scotland, provided the first detailed evidence of direct contact between the native Picts of northern Iceland and Norwegian Viking settlers.

The lecture series is sponsored by the classical and medieval studies program, the Bates College Lectures and Concerts fund, and several academic departments. For further information about the series, call 207-786-6077.