Professor Holl giving a lecture in Martin Hall
 

First, Professor Holl explained the keyword “civilization” and pointed out that “civilization” in his lecture mainly referred to class and social structure. Then, he introduced the civilizations in ancient Africa one by one with historical documents and archaeological findings. Professor Holl emphasized that besides the well-known ancient Egyptian civilization, there were many different types of civilizations in Africa due to distinctions in regional geography and ecological environment. He also pointed out that African civilizations did not originate from a single source and different places had their own traditions with certain similarities and obvious differences.

After the lecture, the audience asked questions actively. Professor Holl answered their questions on “Out of Africa” theory of human evolution, Egyptology and communications between different civilizations. This report not only gave us a chance to know more about the diversity of ancient African civilizations, but also aroused our interest in African archaeology.

Accompanied by Ma Guoqing, Head of the Department of Anthropology, Professor Holl also visited the museum, scientific archeology lab and physical anthropology lab of the Department of Anthropology, and discussed future cooperation between the two universities in the research and teaching of archaeology.