Deep cultural history and the humanities

Tue 12 March

Wolfson College

Humans, their ancestors and cultures coevolved with technologies for two million years. As this cultural evolution leads us into artificial intelligence, the humanities remain vital for deep exploration of what it means to be human. This can have quite practical applications, such as a defense against AI-wielded disinformation. It also helps us reflect on the human condition. How much of culture is due to our mind, our groups, and how much is due to the continual process of social learning? Here we explore these questions through a survey of prehistoric technologies and arts, ancient diseases and shamans, and kinship. This deep cultural past reveals that AI has made the humanities and social sciences ever more crucial.

Speaker:
Alex Bentley is Professor of archaeology and anthropology at University of Tennessee, but spent much of his career in the UK, starting as a postdoctoral researcher at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, then Reader in anthropology at Durham University and subsequently Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol. In his research on early farming communities in Europe and Southeast Asia, Bentley focuses on prehistoric kinship, and recently prehistoric disease. After years of lecturing on archaeology, and developing undergraduate courses in data science and “computational social science,” Bentley now explores how our deep past helps understand our near future.

Details:
This is a hybrid event, which will take place in-person and on Zoom.
If you would like to attend online, please register for the Zoom link: https://wolfson-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwocuuhqjgsGdQSF_hSP3ilMbk476MsSEpV#/registration
Refreshments will be available for the in-person audience.

Access:
This event will take place in Gatsby Room on the first floor of the Chancellor's Centre. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located each floor of the building.
For more details please view our AccessAble guide: https://www.accessable.co.uk/wolfson-college/access-guides/chancellor-s-centre

Cost: Free