Nena Galanidou
Biography
Nena Galanidou is a professor of prehistoric archeology at the University of Crete. She teaches the archeology of the Stone Age, the early period of human history before the invention of writing, so called because stone is the primary material preserved and thus used for informing us about early technology.
She was born and raised in Piraeus and graduated from Ralleio. She studied archeology at the University of Crete and did postgraduate studies at the Universities of Southampton (MSc in Archaeological Computing) and Cambridge (PhD). As a postdoctoral fellow at Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge (1996-1999) she carried out research and independent teaching in the Department of Archaeology. She is a visiting Professor at the University of York.
She has published books and studies on early spatial organization, Mesolithic Greece and Public Archaeology. Her great passion is the archeology of Human Evolution and the first inhabitants of Eurasia.
She has conducted excavations in Greece, Croatia, Israel and Cyprus.
She leads research expeditions that bring to light valuable evidence of ancestral cultures hundreds of thousands of years old on islands in the northeastern Aegean and Ionian seas.
Talk Details
Technology and Art – Genesis and Birth
When was human technology born and who were its first creators? Are humans the only ones who use tools, or do other animals have this capacity and advantage? How from the first humble stone tools did humans manage not only to dominate the earth but also to reach other planets? And how did they go from these first tools to shaping objects that testify to aesthetic pursuits? Who were the first artists and why? How unique and creative are Homo sapiens after all?
Nena Galanidou explains how these and other questions will take us to the depths of human prehistory, to the magical world brought to light by the archaeology of the Human evolution. She presents the findings and the latest developments in Paleolithic archeology and primatology, scientific disciplines that invite us to think about the human condition holistically and globally and to rethink the history technology and art.