BA in Archaeology 1982

Website(s) or other social media that you would like listed in your profile (personal, research, teaching)
https://anthropology.uiowa.edu/people/katina-lillios
Current CV
Areas of Interest
Archaeology of complex societies, Memory and identity, Anthropology of death, Identity and social difference, Material culture, Museums, Politics of the past, Geoarchaeology; Iberian Peninsula, Europe
Excavation and Fieldwork
Most recently, between 2007-2012, I directed excavations at the Copper Age burial site of Bolores (Torres Vedras, Portugal). The Bolores excavations were part of a larger project, funded by the National Science Foundation, which sought to determine what caused the collapse of complex societies around 2200 BCE in the Sizandro River valley, west-central Portugal. It also attempted to evaluate the factors and dynamics involved in the broader transformations of Iberian societies between the fourth-second millennia BCE. You can read more and access publications about this research on the Bolores Project website: http://bolores.lib.uiowa.edu. In 2015, our team published the site monograph In Praise of Small Things: Excavations at the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Burial of Bolores (Torres Vedras), Portugal.
Representative Publications
2020 Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula: The Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2018 Blanco-González, A., Lillios, K.T. López-Sáez, J.A. and Drake, B.L. Cultural, demographic and environmental dynamics of the Copper and Early Bronze Age in Iberia (3300–1500 BC): towards an interregional multiproxy comparison at the time of the 4.2 ky BP event. Journal of World Prehistory 31(1):1-79. DOI: 10.1007/s10963-018-9113-32015 In Praise of Small Things: Excavations at the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Burial of Bolores (Torres Vedras), Portugal, with Mack, J., Waterman, A.J., Artz, J.A, and Nilsson-Stutz, L. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series. 2008 Heraldry for the Dead: Memory, Identity, and the Engraved Stone Plaques of Neolithic Iberia. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. 1999 Objects of memory: The ethnography and archaeology of heirlooms. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 6(3):235-262.
What have you been doing since you’ve graduated?
It’s been 40 years since I graduated, so a lot has happened. I’ve been a faculty member, most recently at the University of Iowa, where I am currently chair of the Department of Anthropology. I’ve maintained research projects and interests in the Iberian Peninsula, focusing on the peoples and cultures of the 4th-2nd millennia BCE.
How did your experience in the program shape your professional and personal life?
As an undergraduate in the program, I learned many of the important skills needed to do archaeology, from recording, fieldwork, analysis, and illustration. Although the technologies have changed immensely since then, the basic principals still hold true, and I am grateful to my professors for instilling the importance of these. I also learned a great deal from the other undergrads and grad students at the time. Many are still my friends to this day! The regular opportunities we had to socialize with other students and faculty (at the Pub) taught me a lot about the field.
What interactions with members of the Archaeology faculty did you value most during your time in the program?
I particularly enjoyed Prof. Karl Petruso. His classes got me hooked on archaeology, and working with him on the BU excavations at the Iron Age castro site of Povoa de Lanhoso, Portugal in 1982 helped to get me interested in the archaeology of Portugal.

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