ICOMOS-UK would like to invite you to join them for their annual Christmas lecture, which will celebrate the inscription of the UK’s latest World Heritage Site, the Gorham Cave Complex in Gibraltar, earlier this year. They will be welcoming Professor Clive Finlayson, Director of the Gibraltar Museum and of the Gorham’s Cave Complex, to give a lecture entitled ‘In the footsteps of the Ancestors – excursions into the Gorham’s Cave complex World Heritage Site’.
Event Details Date: 15 December 2016
Venue: the Gallery, 70 Cowcross St, London, EC1M 6EJ
Tickets: £16 (members)/ £19 (non-members) / £11 (students)
The ticket price includes a glass of wine and festive refreshments
The dispersal of modern humans across the globe in the Late Pleistocene is an unfolding story. As people reached new regions of the planet they discovered that they had not been alone. Conventional wisdom tells us that the competitively superior modern humans were responsible for the demise of all who they came across in their relentless path towards global colonisation. The story of humanity is much more complex than this and it is becoming increasingly clear that the evidence does not support this simple model. New technologies, now capable of piecing together the entire Neanderthal genome, are revolutionising the way in which we understand the story.
New technologies are not enough on their own – they often rely on fossils and artefacts which largely come from museum collections from caves excavated over a century ago. Fortunately, there are also sites which have survived the attention of over-eager Victorian archaeologists and their contemporaries and which have the potential, in combination with new technologies, of revealing the secrets of the Ancestors. These sites, which include the Gorham’s Cave complex, newly inscribed as a World Heritage Site, constitute the most universal heritage of all, that of all humans, past, present and future. It is our responsibility to protect these key sites and to welcome them, as equal partners, into the community of castles, churches and historic towns.
Book now: Visit http://www.icomos-uk.org/about-us/events/ to download a booking form and return it to us at ICOMOS-UK, 70 Cowcross St, London, EC1M 6EJ or email it to admin@icomos-uk.org
Payments can be made by cheque addressed to ICOMOS-UK or online at http://www.icomos-uk.org/payment/