4/26/13

SLU Professor Edits New Book about South Asia Archaeology

Shinu Abraham

CANTON – A new book edited by a St. Lawrence University professor honors her former advisor and focuses on the recent work of American archaeologists in South Asia.

Connections and Complexity: New Approaches to the Archaeology of South Asia, co-edited by Shinu Anna Abraham, associate professor of anthropology, was recently published by Left Coast Press. The other editors are Rhode Island College’s Praveena Gullapalli, the Pratt Institute’s Uzma Rizvi and Kennesaw State University’s Teresa Raczek.

Abraham said the book is an edited volume in honor of the late Gregory L. Possehl, Professor Emeritus of South Asian archaeology of the University of Pennsylvania

“Possehl was my advisor at the University of Pennsylvania and he knew about the book before passing away suddenly in 2011,” she said. “The book grew out of a day-long symposium at the national Society for American Archaeology conference in 2009. The three co-editors are also former students of his.  The volume represents the most recent cutting-edge work being done by American archaeologists in South Asia and includes a chapter by me titled, ‘In Search of Craft and Society: The Glass Beads of Early Historic Tamil South India.’”

The contributions are by American scholars of South Asian archaeology and represent a variety of new research projects that have been influenced by Possehl’s long career.  The common themes that weave together these projects are the investigation of ancient socio-political complexity, trade and exchange, inter-regional interaction and material culture studies.

Abraham received her Ph.D. in 2003 from the University of Pennsylvania. Her specializations include early Indian Ocean exchange, Early Historic Tamil South India, craft production and ancient glass bead technologies. She is co-editor of Migration, Trade and Peoples Part I: Issues in Indian Ocean Trade and Commerce (2010).  Abraham is documenting and analyzing excavated glass beads from the ancient south Indian port site Pattanam/Muziris and developing a survey project to trace the manufacture of ancient iron and glass in South India.