Contact: Maridith Geuder
Modern lessons offered by ancient cultures will be examined during two public lectures Oct. 11 at Mississippi State University.
Anthropologist and archaeologist Mark Nathan Cohen will lead the program. Holder of the Distinguished Teaching Professorship in Anthropology at the State University of New York/Plattsburgh, he is the author of two influential books on health and population pressure in history, "The Food Crisis in Prehistory" (1977) and "Health and the Rise of Civilization" (1989).
Both books are published by Yale University Press, as is his most recent work, "Culture of Intolerance" (1998).
"Applying Archaeology to Modern Problems" is the title of his first MSU program at 2 p.m. in 201 Cobb Institute of Archaeology. A reception follows at 3:30.
At 7 p.m. in the Colvard Union small auditorium, he will examine race and American society. Titled "Americans Don't Understand Freedom: Property or Progress or Profit or Efficiency (and Our Ignorance is Killing Us)," the lecture will examine some closely held cultural beliefs.
Cohen's campus visit is sponsored by the Cobb Institute and the department of sociology, anthropology and social work as part of the Oct. 9-16 observation of Mississippi Archaeology Week. For more information, telephone (662) 325-7521.