THT IndoFest 2024 Day 6: Harappan Civlization. June 15, 2024. Dr Jeewan S Kharakwal. Dr D P Sharma

About The Speakers:

Dr Jeewan Singh Kharakwal heads the Department of Archaeology and is also the Director of Sahitya Sansthan, JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Udaipur, Rajasthan.  Dr Kharakwal received his Ph. D from Deccan College, Pune, on the Archaeology of Central  Himalayan Region. He has participated in a number of archaeological excavations ranging from Stone Age to Iron Age in Karnataka, Maharashtra, M.P. , Gujarat and Uttarakhand. He spearheaded a multidisciplinary Indo-Japanese archaeological research project at Kanmer, a Harappan site in Kachchh, Gujarat 2005 to 2012.  He has co-authored three books  besides publishing 60 papers in various journals published from Asia and Europe. 

Dr. D.P. Sharma is an Archaeologist, Museologist and Art Historian. He did his M.A. in Ancient Indian History Culture & Archaeology from Allahabad University and D.Phil from University of Allahabad. He was awarded a commonwealth scholarship and qualified for M.A. Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology University of London. He did excavations at Sussex (U.K.) and Pincenvent (France) under Dr. Mark Newcomer and Prof. Gourhan. During 2003-04. He did excavation at Sterkfontein cave in South Africa, under R.J. Clark, where 3.3 M. old Australopithecus skeleton was discovered. From 1985 to 2005  was head of Harappan and prehistoric collection of National Museum, New Delhi. In 2005 became Associate Professor & H.O.D. Museology in National Museum Institute (Deemed University). Dr. Sharma has published 281 Papers/Lectures and 101 Books. He was working As Director in Bharat Kala Bhavan Museum of Banaras Hindu University and as visiting Professor of Archaeology in other Universities in India.

THT IndoFest 2024 Day 5: Harappan Civlization. June 14, 2024. Dr Mayank Vahia. Dr Cameron Petrie

About the Speakers:

Dr. Mayank Vahia is a retired professor from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He has been working on issues related to the history and philosophy of astronomy and science. He has a special interest in the Harappan Civilisation and Harappan writing. 

Dr Cameron Petrie is a member of the faculty in the Department of Archaeology in Cambridge since 2005, when he became the Research Councils UK Fellow in South Asian and Iranian Archaeology, He conducts research on the archaeology of India, Pakistan and Iran.  He received his PhD from the University of Sydney.  His research primarily focuses on the rise of complexity, the social and economic aspects of state formation, the impact that the growth of states and empires has on subjugated regions, and the relationships between humans and the environment.  He has extensive field and research experience at archaeological sites dating from the Neolithic up to the medieval period in India, Pakistan and Iran, and co-direct projects in each of these countries.

THT IndoFest 2024 Day 4: Harappan Civlization. June 13, 2024. Dr Jennifer Bates. Dr Brad Chase

About the Speakers:

Dr Jennifer Bates is an Assistant Professor of Archaeological Science at Seoul National University's Dept. of Archaeology and Art History.  Dr Bates is an archaeobotanist with a special interest in the Indus Civilisation of South Asia. She has also worked on material from other regions and time periods.  Dr Bates' Indus research focuses on how we can address broader social, cultural and environmental questions such how societies were internally organised, how villages and cities interacted during periods of urbanisation and deurbanisation, what happens when cultures meet and interact, and how people reacted during periods of climatic instability, through analysis of the basic universal factor of life: food. Her PhD work (University of Cambridge) explored whether village life was affected by the rise and fall of urban centres in northwest India c.3200-1500BC.   

Dr Brad Chase is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Albion College in the US state of Michigan.  He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the supervision of Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer.  He has worked closely with archaeologists from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda for over 20 years and is currently continuing research with archaeologists from the University of Kerala.  His research has focused on studies of animal bones and archaeological chemistry from Indus Civilization archaeological sites in Gujarat. 

THT IndoFest 2024 Day 3: Harappan Civlization. June 12, 2024. Speakers: Dr. Greg Jamison. Dr S V Rajesh

About the Speakers:

Dr Gregg Jamison is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the College of General Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His primary research interests include the Indus Civilization (2600-1900 BCE),  inscribed seal production and use, craft production, experimental and ethnoarchaeology, and the origins of cities and states.  He has conducted archaeological fieldwork in India, Pakistan, Oman, Bahrain, France, Belgium, Poland, and throughout the midwestern United States.

Dr SV Rajesh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Archaeology, University of Kerala.  His fields of research interests include Indus Civilization, field archaeology, artefact analysis, ancient technology, thanatology, origin and development of urbanism in South Asia, and Megalithc/Iron Age archaeology.  He is currently directing a multidisciplinary archaeological research project entitled “Archaeological Excavations at Juna Khatiya and Explorations in Gujarat’. 

THT IndoFest 2024 Day 2: Harappan Civlization. June 11, 2024. Speakers: Dr V N Prabhakar. Dr Dennyz Frenez

About the Speakers:

Dr V N Prabhakar is Associate Professor (Archaeology) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, since September 2020.  He specializes in the Protohistoric Archaeology of India, Field Archaeology, Heritage Management and the Application of Sciences in Archaeology.  He is the Archaeological Sciences Centre Coordinator at IIT Gandhinagar, fostering the application of sciences in archaeology.  He was formerly, Director (of Exploration & Excavation and Institute of Archaeology) at the Archaeological Survey of India.

Dr Denny Frenez received his Ph.D from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2011. He is currently researching commercial and cross-cultural interactions between urban-level societies in South and Western Asia during the Bronze Age, with a particular focus on the Greater Indus Valley and Eastern Arabia.  He has directed archaeological excavations in India and Oman, worked on collections with museums and expeditions in India, Oman, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.  He teaches graduate and post-graduate courses about the Indus Civilization at the University of Padova (Italy) and IIT Gandhinagar (India).  Since 2017, he has been working as a consultant for archaeology and heritage at the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism of the Sultanate of Oman. 

THT IndoFest 2024 Day 1: Harappan Civlization. June 10, 2024. Speakers: Dr R S Bisht and Dr P Ajithprasad

About the Speakers:

Dr R S Bisht, a recipient of the Padma Shri Award,  is a former Joint Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). He is best known for excavating and interpreting the internationally renowned Harappan site of Dholavira,  which brought to light many new facets of Harappan Civilization.

Dr P Ajithprasad retired as Professor and Head of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, where he had joined as a Faculty member in 1990.  He has worked on Harappan archaeology from the 1980’s onwards and has been a part of the M.S. University excavations of the Harappan sites in North Gujarat, Kachchh and Saurashtra. He is currently involved in the study of Early Harappan and Harappan cultural development in Gujarat along with Palaeolithic investigations in Western India, especially in Kachchh.