OAS London Speaker Series – February 13, 2025 at 7:30 pm
Dr. Tiziana Gallo: Diverse histories of ground stone gorgets in Southern Ontario
Unfortunately, our upcoming meeting on Thursday is cancelled. We are hoping to hear from Dr. Gallo in the Fall of 2025 about her intriguing research surrounding Ground Stone Gorgets.
Apologies for the inconvenience. We hope to see everyone at our March meeting
Dr. Gallo will present an assemblage of ground stone gorgets from the Royal Ontario Museum’s Archaeology of the Americas legacy collections through the lens of object histories. Combining technological and usewear analyses with museum catalogue entries allows to reconsider the temporal and functional attributions of this understudied object category: gorgets are typically dated to ca. 3000-1500 BP and their function is uncertain. Additionally, it brings forward their varied and continued histories as Indigenous belongings as well as their complicated post-contact trajectories as antiquarianist collectibles and museum objects. Revisiting these often decontextualized gorgets and their ongoing relations helps challenge some of archaeology’s core concepts (hylomorphism, typology, authenticity, and the importance of context) and find new avenues for making legacy collections more accessible and meaningful in the present.
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