Past Lectures
Discovery of a New and Pristine Cave System, NW Botswana
Date: 17 April 2012
The Origins Centre in conjunction with the Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA) present asn informal and entertaining talk on two large scale surveys for buried caverns in the remote Drotsky’s (Gcwihaba) and Koanaka cave areas of NW Botswana. The speakers are Roger Ellis and Gavin Selfe. The project, at the behest of the Botswana government, is to develop a new national park in the remote north of the country in which the caves will play a major role. Currently known as the Gcwihaba Caves Project, the park has been cited for World Heritage status and is intended to add to Botswana’s diverse list of tourist attractions.
The method by which the new caves have been located, accessed and explored is what makes the project so unique. By applying scientific, engineering and caving skills, the mystery of Botswana’s underground heritage is now being revealed, and the presenters take you on an journey of adventure and discovery deep within the Kalahari. Gavin Selfe is a consulting geophysicist for various mineral exploration companies. Roger Ellis, a retired engineer, has been involved in the discovery and exploration of many of Southern Africa’s premier wild caves.
Colonial Adventurer or Loyal Follower? Revisiting the life and scholarship of Dorothea Bleek
Date: 27 March 2012
Dr Jill Weintroub has spent almost a decade focusing on the biography and scholarship of Dorothea Bleek, the daughter of Wilhelm Bleek and niece of Lucy Lloyd, the pioneers of research on the Bushman or San. On March 27, she will deliver a lecture entitled Colonial Adventurer or Loyal Follower? Revisiting the life and scholarship of Dorothea Bleek.How, if at all, has history treated Dorothea Bleek? Comments Weintroub: “In general, when she features on the stage of the past, it is as an enigmatic figure who lacked the insight that her father, the German philologist Wilhelm Bleek, displayed towards the subjects of his “bushman researches” conducted at his Mowbray home from 1870 to 1875. In much of current scholarship on the celebrated Bleek-Lloyd research project and its archive, Dorothea Bleek’s oeuvre rarely warrants close attention. “But a close reading of her field notebooks, personal correspondence and published and unpublished materials reveals a complex character whose scholarship and research is complicated by idiosyncratic personal and intellectual contexts. The written record of Dorothea Bleek’s fieldwork in southern Africa shows her engaging with the landscape and the people she found therein in a myriad of complex and contradictory ways.” Weintroub’s presentation suggests ways in which Dorothea Bleek’s biography and intellectual lineage impacted on her research practice and fieldwork as she traversed the landscapes of southern Africa in a lifelong attempt to know and understand the people she called “bushmen”. The speaker has written an illustrated book describing one of Dorothea Bleek’s early trips through the South African landscape, called By Small Wagon with Full Tent. Having relocated from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Dr Weintroub is now Research Fellow at the Rock Art Research Institute at Wits University.
What is religion? An archaeologist’s answer
Date: 20 March 2012
Archaeologists often talk about ancient religions. But what is religion?Professor David Lewis-Williams, Professor Emeritus and Senior Mentor at the Rock Art Research Institute at Wits University, will tackle this subject in a talk at Origins Centre on Tuesday 20 March 2012. The address follows a lecture he recently delivered at Lambeth Palace in London, seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the request of the Tindale Society. Professor Lewis-Williams will outline an account of religion that has appeared in many of his acclaimed books, such as The Mind in the Cave, Inside the Neolithic Mind (with David Pearce), Conceiving God and Deciphering Ancient Minds (with Sam Challis). He will address questions such as, Why do people believe in a supernatural realm? Is religion really a social glue? The speaker is the author/co-author of 25 books and has been published widely on rock art, prehistoric belief and the ancient San people. He has won numerous awards for archaeological research.
Viking Pirates: The Creation of a Maritime Identity
Date: 6 March 2012
The Viking expansion that unfolded c.750-1050 AD created the modern nation states of Scandinavia and led to a far-flung diaspora of Nordic peoples that transformed the northern world. But how did it start? Why did the inhabitants of what are now Norway, Sweden and Denmark begin to make such dramatic attacks on their neighbours, and why did they escalate so quickly? Neil Price, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, will deliver a talk on the subject at Origins Centre on Tuesday March 6. This talk will look at the very first Viking raids and raiders, examine their motives and background, and explore their development in the early ninth century. Over this crucial 50-year period, a few boatloads of opportunistic marauders became fleets numbering hundreds of ships, growing to armies of thousands that included both men and women. Using comparative studies of pirate groups from later times, it will be argued that these first Vikings created a unique form of maritime community, blending violence with political and social ambition. In so doing, they shaped new identities for themselves and left a historical legacy that can still be seen today. Professor Price is a leading specialist on the Vikings and ancient religion, he has global interests in a wide range of archaeological subjects. He is currently researching Viking burials, historical piracy, World War II in the Pacific, and the opium trade.
