The Afternoon Anthropology Lecture Series is hosted by the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures. These lectures are free to attend and open to all students, faculty and the public.

The department is pleased to welcome Jesse Tune from the University of Mississippi as its first lecturer of the semester. Tune is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Center for Archaeological Research at Ole Miss. His research focuses on the relationships between human migration and the landscape during the Pleistocene and early Holocene.

This presentation will review archaeological and paleoenvironmental data to investigate the timing and process of the colonization of Ireland. Ireland possesses a distinctly compressed archaeological record compared to the rest of Europe. While various periods of Paleolithic occupations are well-documented throughout the surrounding regions and date to the Pleistocene, human occupation of Ireland appears to be delayed until the Early Holocene. Once Mesolithic peoples finally did reach Ireland, they responded to local conditions and developed a uniquely Irish lithic technology.