June 3, 2022
The 2021/2022 season of the National Lecture Program brought a welcome return to in-person lectures for the Salem Society. They hosted two public lectures and, this past April, they were able to share the excitement of discovery with the community by hosting a public archaeology day. Scott Pike, President of the Salem Society, shares the details with us below.
“The Salem Society welcomed 2022 with a return to both in-person lectures and community partnerships. The Society, in collaboration with Willamette University’s Center for Ancient Studies and Archaeology, hosted a talk by Prof. Lesley Gregoricka on March 10th entitled “Set apart from within: Articulated women in commingled tombs from Early Bronze Age Arabia.” On April 1st, the Society was pleased to continue with the annual Rumpakis Lecture on Greek Studies with a lecture by Justin Holcomb entitled “Ice Age Seafarers? Geoarchaeology and the Search for the Aegean Paleolithic.” In addition to the public lectures, on April 10 the Society, Willamette University, and the City of Salem, along with the Willamette Heritage Center and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, co-sponsored a public archaeology day, inviting the community to visit the ongoing excavations and landscape study of the location of the mid-19th century Mission House of the Oregon Indian Manual Labor School, which later was converted to a parsonage serving the Oregon Institute and Willamette University. This study is providing critical information on the transition of cultural activities of the area during the time of colonial expansion and settlement in the central Willamette Valley.”
