SFI External Professor Tim Kohler (Washington State University) will be delivering the Linda S. Cordell Lecture through the School for Advanced Research (SAR) on April 28, 2024, at the New Mexico History Museum.
In his lecture, Kohler, who recently co-led an SFI working group on “Inequality over the long-term,” will offer an archaeological account of wealth disparity worldwide, including the pre-Hispanic Southwest. His talk, “10,000 Years of Inequality: The Archaeology of Wealth Differences,” draws on new data from his Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI) project.
SAR’s named lecture — formerly a prize — recognizes other archaeologists whose work “represents the qualities and achievements of Linda Cordell’s scholarship,” according to SAR. SFI External Professor Scott Ortman (UC Boulder) was the winner of the 2017 Linda S. Cordell Prize.
The lecture honors the legacy of Linda S. Cordell, a renowned archaeologist whose work helped shape archaeological research in the southwestern U.S. In addition to her work with SAR, Cordell had longstanding relationships at SFI. In 1989, she delivered an SFI Community Lecture, and was an SFI External Professor between 2010 and 2013. After her death in 2013, then-SFI President Jerry Sabloff recognized her deep contributions to SFI’s intellectual community and mentorship of SFI postdoctoral fellows.
“Linda was a treasured figure for southwestern archaeologists — an innovative thinker, extremely well-versed in the discipline, and very supportive of her junior colleagues. It means a lot to me to be asked to give a lecture carrying her name,” says Kohler.