About this Event
📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email
🧠 Lecture: "An Archaeologist’s Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse"
🎤 Speaker: Dr. Jakob W. Sedig
Headlines about humanity-ending AI, environmental catastrophe, and pandemics can make it feel like our days are numbered. But archaeology and genetics tell a more hopeful story: we’ve faced catastrophe before—and survived.
In this engaging talk, archaeologist Dr. Jakob W. Sedig explores dramatic moments in our species’ past that could have ended us, from a genetic bottleneck around 800,000 years ago in one of our ancient ancestors, to the Toba supervolcano eruption 70,000 years ago, to powerful solar storms recorded in tree rings and ancient texts. He’ll also dive into slower-moving crises like the century-long drought in the US Southwest 1,100 years ago, unpacking popular misconceptions and showing how the archaeological record reveals deep patterns of human resilience.
Dr. Sedig is a Senior Archaeologist and Principal Investigator at Chronicle Heritage, with research focuses in the US Southwest/Northwest Mexico and ancient DNA. Formerly Ethics and Outreach Officer and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Reich Lab at Harvard Medical School, his work has helped integrate ancient DNA with archaeology and address the ethics of paleogenomic research with Indigenous communities.
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Agenda
6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.
6:55 PM – Host introduction
7:00 PM – Lecture begins
7:45 PM – Audience Q&A
8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round
8:30 PM – Wrap up.
Event venue & nearby stays
Dorchester, Address found in email confirmation, Boston, United States
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