Secrets of the Silk Road, a major new exhibition of international importance, concludes its three city US tour in 2011 with a stop at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology—the only East Coast venue. Organized by the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, where it will be on display March 27, 2010 through July 25, 2010, this exhibition draws on the collections of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Museum and the Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology in Urumqi in northwest China. This groundbreaking exhibition features more than 150 objects that represent the rich cultural heritage over the past four millennia of East Central Asia—a crossroads of the Silk Road. Read More...

The January 12, 2010 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, Haiti and the surrounding region is over, but the recovery and rebuilding process is just beginning. Penn Museum's International Classroom program is joining the effort, raising awareness and money for Haiti with an educational benefit evening, Help for Haiti: Beyond Media Coverage, Friday, March 19, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Admission to the fundraising event, which offers guests a special opportunity to learn more about the history, culture, and traditions of Haiti, is $10 per person, with all proceeds going to the Haitian relief efforts. Guests can enjoy music and dance performances Read More...

Siberia's Lake Baikal region is an archaeologically unique and emerging area of hunter-gatherer research, offering insights into the complexity, variability, and dynamics of long-term culture change. The exceptional quality of archaeological materials recovered there facilitates interdisciplinary studies whose relevance extends far beyond the region. The Baikal Archaeology Project—one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted in the history of subarctic archaeology—is conducted by an international multidisciplinary team studying Middle Holocene (about 9,000 to 3,000 years B.P.) hunter-gatherers of the region. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the project includes scholars in archaeology, physical anthropology, ethnography, molecular biology, geophysics, geochemistry, and paleoenvironmental studies. More...