On Friday, October 11, Raven Garvey, assistant professor of anthropology and assistant curator at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan, will present the second of four talks in the Roy A. Rappaport Lecture Series in the Forum Hall at Palmer Commons on the U-M central campus.

In Friday’s talk, “Explorers of an Empty Landscape,” Garvey describes historical reasons for Patagonia’s absence from discussions of the initial colonization of the Americas. She presents unconventional evidence that supports a relatively slow migration through the Americas. Patagonia is the farthest place to which colonizers traveled from the east Siberian point of entry, and so should be central to hypotheses regarding migration speed—a particularly controversial aspect of the colonization process.

The four lectures in the series are based on Garvey’s book manuscript, Patagonian Prehistory: Human Ecology and Cultural Evolution in the Land of Giants.

All the lectures will be held at 3 p.m. The next two lectures are on November 15 and December 6. The Rappaport lectures are free and open to the public.