The newest archaeological excavations in Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and research studies in CHamoru language in Germany, offer exciting aspects of the culture of the Mariana islands.

The MARC Research Lecture Series 2022 will be held via Zoom:

• December 8, 2022, 6:00 P.M
• Join the Zoom meeting https://zoom.us/j/95067615168?
• Meeting ID: 950 6761 5168
• Passcode: MARC2022
• Dr. Carlos Madrid, MARC Director of Research and Associate Professor of Spanish Pacific History, will be the host and moderator

The event will feature:

James C. Bamba

Bamba is a CHamoru cultural practitioner from Guam, living and working in Luta/Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands as the Endangered Plant Species Specialist at the CNMI Department of Lands & Natural Resources. With a focus in CHamoru weaving, he has taught the special studies course Tinifok CHamoru (CHamoru weaving) at the University of Guam, and has worked as a cultural instructor at Sagan Kotturan CHamoru.

Dr. Maria Cruz Berrocal

Berrocal is with the Networks Across Oceania Project, University of Cantabria. An archaeologist, and tenured professor of the Department of History of the University of Cantabria, Berrocal works on Spanish colonialism in the Pacific and its impact on local populations. She has investigated the direct and indirect effects of these first contacts in the 16th and 17th centuries through excavations on islands north of Taiwan, in Fiji, Alofi, and Wallis and Futuna.

Eduardo Tarancon Torrecilla

Torrecilla holds a history and heritage degree from the University of Burgos, and a master’s degree on cultural anthropology from the University of Seville. In the University of Cantabria, he is conducting his doctoral thesis about archaeobotany in Rota/Luta (CNMI), studying the relationship between plants and vegetation and the islanders before the European colonial period.

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