XII ANNUAL MONGOLIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE -- CO-HOSTED BY THE EMBASSY OF MONGOLIA AND THE MONGOLIAN CULTURAL CENTER (FEBRUARY 15-16, 2019)

The Embassy of Mongolia and the Mongolian Cultural Center in Washington, DC are pleased to invite those interested in Mongolia to the XIII Annual Mongolia Studies Conference, scheduled to take place during February 15-16, 2019 in Washington, DC.

The conference will be held at Clarewood University, located at 1840 Michael Farady Drive (Suite 100), Reston, VA 20190.


Those interested in attending should register and provide their $40 fee beforehand; queries should be directed to:
info@mongolcc.org
khulan@mongolianembassy.us

Here is the schedule for the two-day event:

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15

(Morning Session: Clarewood University -- 1840 Michael Farady Drive, Reston, VA)

9:00: Registration

9:30: Opening Remarks:
HE Ambassador Otgonbayar Yondon (Ambassador of Mongolia to the United States)
Saruul-Erdene Myagmar (President of the Mongolian Culture Center)

10:00: The Secret History of the Mongols
Discussant: Christopher Atwood, University of Pennsylvania
-- Linguistic Interpretation of Numerous Terms Found in The Secret History of the Mongols
HE Ambassador Ariunbold Yadmaa, Ambassador of Mongolia to Canada
-- Some Features of the Vocabulary of The Secret History of the Mongols
Battugs Shagdar, Mongolian State University of Education
-- The Secret History of the Mongols and the Aral Wall
Dotno Dashdorj, University of Pennsylvania

12:00: Lunch

(Afternoon Session: Library of Congress: 10 1st Street, SE/Thomas Jefferson Building)

14:00:Introduction
HE Ambassador Otgonbayar (Ambassador of Mongolia to the United States)
Keynote Speech
Lessons Learned from the Repatriation of Mongolian Dinosaurs
Bolortsetseg Minjin, American Museum of Natural History

15:30: Tour
Introduction to Mongolian Collection at Library of Congress
Susan Meinheit, Asian Division
Book Presentation Ceremony
Venerable Arjia Renbuchi's Biography in Japanese and in Classical Mongolian Script

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16

(Clarewood University -- 1840 Michael Farady Drive, Reston, VA)

8:30 Breakfast

9:00: Religion (Room 1)
Moderator: Luvsanjamts Davannyam, Gandaan Monastery
-- Features of Mongolian Monks' Dietary Practices
Batnairamdal Chuluun, Mongolian University of Medical Sciences
-- Mongolian Buddhist Diplomacy: Opportunities and Challenges
Lkhagvademchig Jadamba, Bold Tsevegdorj, National University of Mongolia
-- New Religious Movements in Mongolia
Erdenebayar Gombosuren, Demberel Sukhbaatar, National University of Mongolia
-- On a Magnificent Work of Toin Jambaldorji about How to Recognize the Raw Materials of Traditional Medicine*
Seesregdorj Surenjid, Mongolian University of Medical Sciences

9:00 Mongolian Community in the US (Room 2)
Presenter: Tsahim Urtuu
-- Current Status of Mongolian Families Living in the US*
Uvsh Purev, Indiana University
-- Assessment of Mongolian Government Funded Educational Loan Program
Erdenebat Gantumur, Temuulen Natsagdorj, Tsenguun Byambadorj, Bayarjavkhlan Batbaatar, Borchuluun Yadamsuren
-- Supporting the Mongolian Heritage among Mongolian Youth in the US Capital: Mongol Children's Festival and Competition
-- Heritage Mongolian Speakers in the US: Who are They? How to Teach Them
Narantsetseg Tseveendulam, Saruul-Erdene Myagmar

11:00: Coffee Break

11:15: International Relations (Room 2)
-- Mongolian Identity and Sinophobia
Zolzaya Erdenebileg, Tselmegtsetseg Tsetendelger, co-editors, Macongolia
-- "Mongol Arirang:" The Music Representation and Dialogues in the Interculturalism between Mongolia and Korea
Sunmin Yoon, University of Delaware
-- Relations Between Mongolia and Taiwan
Enkhchimeg Baatarkhuyag, Columbia University

11:15: Early History (Room 1)
-- Notes About the Origin of Mongols in Zava Damdin's "Altan Debter"*
Hesigtogtaqu, Minzu University of China
-- Hunting Regulations of Qubilai Qa'an and his Successors
Christopher Atwood, University of Pennsylvania
-- Land Usage and Protection of Power in the Kitan Empire
Zachary Hershey, University of Pennsylvania

12:45: Lunch

13:30: Philology
-- Tsedenjav's Ulaanbaatar: Red Hero of Literary Modernism
Simon Wickhamsmith, Rutgers University
-- Phraseological Units of the Mongolian Language: Religious Origin
Tagarova, T.B., Irkutsk State University
-- Persistence and Renewal of Belief in the White Old Man of Western Mongolia
Barbara Annan, Independent Folklorist

13:30: Modern History (Room 1)
-- Research on State Purge Mechanisms
Tamir Chultem, Erdenesaikhan Lkhagvasuren, Independent Research Institute
-- Unruly Advisers and Runaway Nomads: The Mongolian People's Republic's Occupation of Central Inner Mongolia, 1945-1946
Anran Wang, Cornell University
-- The Modernization of the Mongolian Military
Bolor Lkhaajav

15:00 Coffee Break

15:15 Journalism (Room 2)
-- Fake News Distributed in Mongolian Language on Facebook
Borchuluun Yadamsuren, Iderjargal Dashdondog, Tsahim Urtuu North America
-- Tendency and Present Situation of Mongolian Media
Batbaatar Jamyiansuren, Mongolian State University of Education
-- Online News Reading Behaviour of Undergraduate Students in Mongolia
Choimaa Lodoiravsal, Uugangerel Bold, Borchuluun Yadamsuren

15:15: Architecture (Room 1)
-- The Monasteries of Altan Khan: The Reconstruction of the Sume-qin Temple of Hohhot
Wei Chen, University of Pennsylvania
-- Amarbayasgalantu Monastery
Nancy Steinhardt, University of Pennsylvania

16:45: Wrap-Up and Concluding Remarks (Room 1)

18:00: Embassy of Mongolia to the United States -- 2833 "M" Street, NW

Reception in Honor of Conference Participants
Hosted by HE Otgonbayar Yondon, Ambassador of Mongolia to the United States

Summer Color Winter Enigma Art Exhibition
Azzaya Dashdondon, Children's Book Author

*Indicates presentation in Mongolian

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TANG CENTER FOR SILK ROAD STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY SPONSORS CONFERENCE/SYMPOSIUM ON "POINTS OF TRANSITION: OVOO AND THE RITUAL REMAKING OF RELIGIOUS, ECOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL POLITICS IN INNER ASIA" (FEBRUARY 22, 2019)

As part of the Mongolia Initiative at the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of East Asian Studies, a conference/symposium will be held at Doe Library from 10 AM to 6 PM on February 22 in Berkeley, CA on "Points of Transition: Ovoo and Ritual Remaking of Religious, Ecological and Historical Politics in Inner Asia".

Ovoo, the structures of stones, trees, scarves, skulls, steering wheel covers and an array of other objects, are ubiquitous across the landscape of contemporary Mongolia, Buryatia, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai, having long marked sites where ritualistic (though often highly spontaneous) practices often take place.

Built and maintained by various members of the public, gatherings at ovoo have over past centuries been major sites of political action, where the identities of and relationships between shamans, lamas, imperial officials, businesspeople, bureaucrats, politicians, and nonhumans are narrated, contested and re-defined. At the same time, ovoo are often engaged individually, by travelers stopping at roadside ovoo or at places generally unspoken of to others and not visible on the wider landscape that may nonetheless be important to an individual or smaller group.

Scholars from the US, Europe, and Asia will discuss these and other issues, focusing on how these sites are useful in juxtaposing historical and political narratives, ecological and environmental movements, religious practices, and the productive logistics of households, businesses, and states.

Please address queries to: ieas@berkeley.edu (e-mail) or 510-642-2809 (phone)

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Two other Mongolia-related events will be taking place in February, both sponsored by the University of California at Berkeley's Mongolia Initiative and both taking place at 180 Doe Library:

Topic: Shoroon Bumbagar: Tombs with Mounds in Central Mongolia
Speaker: Nancy S. Steinhardt (University of Pennsylvania)
Date: Thursday, February 7, beginning at 4 PM
Where: 180 Doe Library

This talk begins with a tomb often known as "Shoroon Bumbagar" that was excavated in Bayannuur (Bulgan). Covered with murals but without an inscription or other information about its dates, the tomb is discussed alongside better known tombs such as Pugu Yitu's (d. 678) only five kilometers away, as well as the tombs of Tang China and Sogdania. Before drawing concusions, the talk turns to Turk, Uyghur and other contemporary paintings and architecture in Mongolia, to question the borders of Chinese art and architecture and why they are so extensive.

Topic: Mongol "Translations" of a Nepalese Stupa: Architectural Replicas and the Cult of Bodnathe Stupa/Jarung Khashar in Mongolia
Speaker: Isabelle Charleux (CNRS Paris)
Date: February 21, beginning at 5 PM
Where: 180 Doe Library

The cult of the Nepalese stupa of Bodnath (Tib. and Mo. Jarung Khashor) was very popular in 19th and early 20th century Mongolia and especially in Buryatia, as testified by the translation into Mongolian of a famous guidebook to Bodnath, a corpus of Mongolian oral narratives, the many thankas and amulets depicting the Bodnath Stupa along with a Tibetan prayer, and the existence of architectural replicas in Mongolia, probably to create surrogate pilgrimages to Bodnath.

This talk will focus on these architectural replicas, explaining how the Nepalese architecture was "translated" to Mongolia and attempting to understand whether the differences between the original and the replicas are due to local techniques and materials, the impossibility of studying the orignal, or to the distortions induced by their mode of transmission. Has the original building been reinterpreted to the point of transforming its meaning? This is but one of the questions that form the heart of this presentation.
                           

ANNOUNCEMENT AND INVITATION

Oyungerel Tsedevdamba and Jeffrey L. Falt will be in Philadelphia on February 7 to launch and read excerpts from the new English translation of their Mongolian best-selling novel The Green-Eyed Lama, described below.

WHEN:
Thursday, February 7, beginning at 7 PM

WHERE:
Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting House
20 East Mermaid Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19118

All ACMS members -- as well as "Friends of Mongolia" and anyone interested in Mongolia -- are invited to attend

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The Green-Eyed Lama by Oyungerel Tsedevdamba and Jeffrey L. Falt; 458 pages; paperback ($24); (Independently published and available on Amazon, 2018)

First published in Mongolian in 2008, this epic novel is set in the 1930s when Buddhist lamas were executed or imprisoned and Buddhist temples across the country were destroyed. It became an immediate best-seller, having sold more than 80,000 copies in Mongolia over the last decade. A subsequent French translation was also well received, with one reviewer describing it as a "singular novel saga, ambitious and successful". Now this recently published translation makes the book available to an English-speaking audience.

As Former Minister of Sports, Culture and Tourism (and former Member of Parliament) Oyungerel Tsedevdamba recalled at the launch of the original version in Mongolia back in 2008, "I dreamt of writing the stories of my ancestors, my great-grandparents and their sons and daughters, and how they were purged". 

That dream is successfully realized in this volume which brings to life people and events from more than eighty years ago, providing a sympathetic rendition of one of the more momentous and moving periods in Mongolian history. As another French reviewer recently noted, this "solidly documented" novel "takes place in grand, almost mystical places," providing opportunities for the reader to "discover the habits and customs of a country little known but endearing". Perhaps most notably, this book ensures that the stories of Oyungerel's ancestors -- and indeed the stories of an entire generation of seemingly forgotten Mongolians -- can once again be heard, remembered and celebrated.

Oyungerel Tsedevdamba grew up as a herder girl during the Soviet era, receiving a scholarship to study economics in the USSR; subsequently she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study at Stanford University. She later served as advisor on human rights to both the Mongolian President and Prime Minister. In 2012 she was elected to Parliament and appointed as Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The author of eleven books and co-author of two more, she was awarded the Chevalier de L'ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture of France, in part for her efforts to end the death penalty in Mongolia.

Her husband Jeffrey L. Falt was educated at the University of California-Berkeley. He is also a lawyer with a strong interest in human rights and legal reform, having worked in Africa, Asia and Latin America with a number of international organizations including the Asia Foundation, Amnesty International, USAID and the American Bar Association, among others.

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Roxanne Prazniak, ed., Sudden Appearances: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief and Art; 304 pages ($68); (University of Hawaii Press, 2019)

Part of the University of Hawaii Press's continuing series Perspectives on the Global, this new book will be of special interest to ACMS members, given its emphasis on the "artistic creations and political transformations" fostered across Eurasia as part of a "new historical consciousness visible in the artlstic legacy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . . . common themes, styles, motifs and pigments circulated to an unprecedented extent during this era, creating an equally unprecedented field of artistic exchange".

Examples of this impact are wide-ranging and include many "art historical puzzles" including the Siiyah Kalem paintings, the female cup-bearer in the Royal Drinking Scene at Alchhi and the Mongol figures who appear in the Sienese mural . . . Drawing on primary sources both visual and literary as well as scholarship that has only recently achieved critical mass in the area of Mongolian studies and Eurasian histories, Roxanne Prazniak orchestrates an inquiry into a critical passage in world history, a prelude to the spin-off to modernity".

Notably, this volume does not resort to the usual geographic "markers" such as China, Europe, the Middle East and India; rather, it moves the focus away from the nation-state and instead moves the analysis "toward a borderless world of creative commerce".

Roxanne Prazniak is Professor of History at the Robert A. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. Her PhD is from the University of California-Davis; she also has degrees from San Francisco State University and the University of California-Berkeley.

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Christian Sorace and Sanchir Jargalsaikhan, "Lost in the Fog," Jacobin, Available On Line from January 2019 and available here.
 
As this recent on-line articles describes it, "Environmental, political and corruption crises have collided to threaten the core of Mongolia's democracy". The analysis that follows will be of particular interest to those folloiwng recent political events in Ulaanbaatar including the protests on Sukhbaatar Square, the ongoing Small and Medium Enteprise (SME) scandal and the continued crisis in parliament.

Intriguingly, the article notes the coining of a new word -- MANAN, the Mongolian word for "fog" that also happens to be the acronym of Mongolia's two major political parties, the Mongolian People's Party (MAN) and the Democratic Party (AN). Readers will appreciate the informative and thought-provoking discussion on corruption as well as disenchantment with aspects of the democratic process in Mongolia

Christian Sorace is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Colorado College and will participate in the ACMS Speaker Series in Ulaanbaatar later this year. Sanchir Jargalsaikhan is a political scientist, activites and development policy advisor who gave an ACMS lecture last year on environmental governance in Mongolia.

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D. Boldbaatar, N.C. Kunze and E. Werker, "Improved Resource Governance Through Transparency: Evidence from Mongolia," Extraction Industries and Society, Available On-Line from January 2019 and available here.

As this recent article notes, programs such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiaitive (EITI) involving 49 resource-rich countries have emerged in recent years as part of an ongoing attempt to combat corruption and increase public benefits from the extractive sector. This article looks at the effectiveness of the EITI effort, specifically with respect to Mongolia's mining sector.

In particular, a framework is developed and applied to Mongolia as part of an effort to consider how Mongolia might improve governance within its natural resource sector. Based on an assessment of contract case studies involving water usage agreements and comminity benefit-sharing agrreements, the authors assess the stages of such frameworks in Mongolia thus far as "incomplete". In their view, "greater attention to mobilization and citizen empowerment is needed to ensure that contract transparency can meaningfully contribute towards improved governance".

D. Boldbaatar is affiliated with the University of British Columbia's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs; N.C. Kunz is associated with the University of British Columbia's Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering; and E. Werker is associated with the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University, also in Vancouver, Canada.

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Stephen Lezak, "Re-Replacing the Desert in the Conservation Landscape: Charisma and Absence in the Gobi Desert," Land, Available On-Line from December 29, 2018 and can be accessed here.

This recent article, available on-line, focuses on the millions of newly planted trees spread across the Gobi Desert in both China and Mongolia. Although often planted amidst much fanfare and publicity, they usually struggle to survive. Many public and private actors are typically involved, using a variety of reasons to rationalize the effort including a stated desire to protect, restore or modify the local environment "despite evidence of their negative consequences upon local ecosystems".

As the abstract notes, "This paper investigates how these afforestation projects both challenge and affirm recent theoretical work on conservation, while also providing key insights into the decision-making framework of land management across the world's third largest desert region".  The article builds on the work of Jamie Lorimer and others who "identify the charisma of certain species as a primary driver of contemporary conservation".  Taking their observations farther, Lezak uses examples from the Gobi in an effort to better understand land use and environmental governance in ways that could have implications well beyond Mongolia and the Gobi Desert.

Stephen Lezak is associated with the School of Geography and Environment at Oxford University. He was a recent presenter as part of the regular ACMS Speaker Series in Ulaanbaatar.

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Hermione Spriggs, ed., Five Heads (Tavan Tolgoi): Art, Anthropology and Mongol Futurism; 136 pages (15 Euros); (Sternberg Press, 2018)

As reviewer Lilly Markaki at the University of London describes it, this book "brings together visual and verbal documentation of the art-anthropology exchange processes alongside further reflections on Mongolian art and culture, deep time and the art-anthropoogy hybrid. Situating itself within the 'chaotic forces of transition' shaping Mongolia, this collaborative effort not only offers insight into contemporary Mongolia, but also future-oriented and hopeful encounters".

The book's backcover provides further commentary as well as several intriguing questions: "What does the future look like, or feel like, from the perspective of a yak in the coal-mining district of Khovd? From the perspective of a Mongolian root extracted, illegally traded and sold internationally as a pharmaceutical product? Or from that of the toolkit of an urban shaman securing economic futures for professional women in Ulaanbaatar?"

The London exhibition on which this book is based was organized by University College London and funded by the European Research Council under its "Emerging Subjects of the New Economy" program, led by Dr. Rebecca Empson from the Department of Anthropology at University College London.

Hermione Spriggs is an artist, researcher and exhibition-maker. Originally from the northeast of England, she is currentlly a researcher at University College London's Department of Anthropology and Slade School of Art. She has an MFA in Applied Art from the University of California-San Diego and a BS in Anthropology from University College London.

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G. Munkherdene and David Sneath, "Enclosing the Gold-Mining Commons of Mongolia: the Vanishing Ninja and the Development Project as Resource," Current Anthropology (2019)

As described in the abstract of this article in Current Anthropology, "Since its emergence in the mid 1990s, unauthorized and small-scale gold mining -- widely known as 'ninja' mining -- has grown to become a central element of Mongolia's informal economy, engaging tens of thousands of people in seasonal, unregulated and occasionally dangerous labor."

According to the authors, "The story of ninja mining is illustrative of the wider transformation of political economy that Mongolia has experienced, in which a de facto public resource was created in the wake of the collapsed state socialist economy, only to be progressively privatized and enclosed by increasingly powerful mining company interests".

Examining "implementation of a development project aimed at providing sustainable livelihoods for those engaged in unauthorized mining" the article uses anthropological critiques of development to "explore the ways in which the project, while arguably succeeding on its own terms, failed to meet the expectations of the miners involved," noting that it was "ultimately unable to address the fundamental issues of property relations and access to resources that lie at the heart of the ninja phenomenon".  

G. Munkherdene is a Lecturer in the Department of Humanities, Mongolian University of Science and Technology in Ulaanbaatar. David Sneath is Reader and Director of the Mongolian and Inner Asia Studies Unit in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.

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Manduhai Buyandelger, "Asocial memories, 'poisonous knowledge', and haunting in Mongolia," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2018)

This very recent article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute notes that "Shamans in postsocialist Mongolia claim that previously supressed origin spirits demand that their descendants become initiated as shamans in exchange for ceasing to harass them for forgetting and abandonment. Some clients refuse to become initiated as shamans and thus choose to sever their relationship with their past".

The article goes on to "explore one such refusal, which led to a disintegration of existing social ties, while also yielding unexpected memories".  According to the author, "These memories are different from the shared memories that emerge in the context of organized shamanic rituals," setting the stage for a discussion of such issues as "poisonous knowledge," "unattended spirits" and "haunting by unwanted memories". 

Manduhai Buyandelger is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. She received her BA and MA in Literature and Linguistics from Mongolia National University and her MA and PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University. She is the author of Tragic Spirits: Gender and Memory in Contemporary Mongolia (University of Chicago Press, 2013).

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Orhon Myadar and Sara Jackson, "Contradictions of Populism and Resource Extraction: Examining the Intersection of Resource Nationalism and Accumulation by Dispossession in Mongolia", Annals of the American Association of Geographers (2018)

This recent article will be of special interest to those who follow political and economic developments in Mongolia. In particular, it focuses on "contradictions of populism and resource extraction in Mongolia in the context of the recent presidential election of Khaltmaa Battulga, who is often portrayed as a dangerous populist. We consider Battulga's victory as an echo of Mongolian voices' sense of dispossession and discontent driven by gross wealth disparity and precarious livelihoods."

Much of the article focuses on the controversy surrounding Oyu Tolgoi, the world's second largest undeveloped copper/gold mine, viewing it as "a window into the country's turbulent resource politics". According to the authors, "Public resentment is directed toward the disparity between the very few whom mining benefits and the third of the population trapped in poverty." Against this backdrop, the election of President Battulga can perhaps best be understood as both "a response to the neo-liberal regime" and as "a moment of resistance to structural dispossession".

Orhon Myadar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Sara Jackson is a Geography Lecturer in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver in Denver, CO.  

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Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolia/Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia (ISSN 0440-1298)

Starting from 1981, this journal summarizes results from various field expeditions conducted by researchers from Mongolia and Germany. The early years included mostly researchers from Mongolian State University (now National University of Mongolia) and Martin Luther University Halle/Salle. A link is available here. 

Thanks to Sue Ann Gardner (Communications Librarian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for loading and arranging the material. Thanks also to Altangerel T. Durshahinhan (doctoral student in the Manter Laboratory of Parasitology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) for doing the initial scanning.

Reportedly, "this journal includes amazing natural history data on birds, mammals, plants, protista, herps, fishes, archaeology, paleontology and more than cannot be found anywhere else. It is truly a precious source of information that will enhance and enable researchers on the natural biota of Mongolia for the future".

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Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology edited by Junko Habu, Peter V. Lape and John W. Olsen; 771 pages; ($299); (Springer, 2017)

This comprehensive handbook published in late 2017 includes a number of chapters on Mongolia which will be of special interest to those conducting archaeology in that country:

-- Byambaa Gunchinsuren, "A History of Mongolian Archaeological Studies" (pp. 59-77)
-- Byambaa Gunchinsuren, "The Development of Prehistoric Archaeology in Mongolia (pp. 293-308)
-- William Honeychurch, "The Development of Cultural and Social Complexity in Mongolia" (pp. 513-532)
-- Byamba Gunchinsuren, "The Archaeology of Mongolia's Early States" (pp. 707-732)


ANNOUNCEMENT AND INVITATION

The University of California-Berkeley's Mongolia Initiative schedule for spring 2019 includes a launch of the Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology, as detailed below.

WHEN:
Monday, April 29 beginning at 3 PM

WHERE:
180 Doe Library
University of California-Berkeley 

Further information on this event provided by the University of California-Berkeley's Mongolia Initiative includes the following:

This event celebrates the publication of the Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology by inviting two editors of this volume, both of whom are prominent scholars in the field of Asian Archaeology. John W. Olsen (University of Arizona) will talk about his recent archaeological expeditions in Mongolia and Tibet with a focus on Paleolithic archaeology in these regions. Peter V. Lape (University of Washington) will disuss his recent survey of small islands in eastern Indonesia and new information about the island Southeast Asia Neolithic period.