Adult Programs
The Center’s Speaker Bureau offers presentations to community groups at the Center or your location. Each 45-minute lecture includes a slide show and a question and answer period. Learn about the history under your feet and the scientific process of archaeology.
Topics include the following:
12,000 Years: The Interpretation of Material Culture in San Diego
This presentation explores how archaeologists reconstruct the deep human history of San Diego County, from the end of the last Ice Age to the present, through the material traces people left behind. Drawing on archaeological evidence from across the region, this presentation examines how early communities adapted to changing climates, shifting coastlines, disappearing megafauna, and new food resources, and how those changes are reflected in stone tools, settlement patterns, and everyday objects. Rather than treating artifacts as isolated finds, the talk shows how material culture can reveal diet, technology, mobility, and social organization, while also addressing the challenges archaeologists face, including gaps in the archaeological record, early excavation practices, and the pressures of modern development. The presentation also highlights the role of the San Diego Archaeological Center in preserving, interpreting, and sharing this 12,000-year history through public archaeology, education, and hands-on programs, and why understanding the past remains essential to protecting the cultural heritage beneath our feet.
The Science of Archaeology: How We Know What We Know
This presentation explores archaeology as a scientific discipline rooted in anthropology and supported by geology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. This presentation guides audiences through the full archaeological process, from forming research questions and locating sites to mapping, excavation, and laboratory analysis, explaining how archaeologists use stratigraphy, relative and absolute dating methods, and experimental approaches to interpret the past. The talk emphasizes human adaptability and innovation, showing how people in the past developed technologies and lifeways that were well suited to their environments and available resources. Using examples from San Diego and beyond, the presentation demonstrates how archaeology helps us understand shared human heritage, protect cultural resources, and place modern society within a much deeper historical framework.
Fact or Fiction? Hoaxes, Hearsay, and Hollywood
This presentation accompanies the San Diego Archaeological Center’s Fact or Fiction? exhibit and explores why fantastical ideas about the human past are so compelling, and how they take hold in popular culture. Using four well-known case studies, including Atlantis, crystal skulls, pyramid power, and the Piltdown Man hoax, this lecture examines how kernels of truth can be distorted into pseudoscientific claims through misinterpretation, appeals to authority, and the language of “science.” Audiences are guided through the real archaeological evidence behind these stories, learning how archaeologists test claims, identify hoaxes, and separate speculation from science. The talk ultimately shows how critical thinking, peer-reviewed research, and skepticism are essential tools for understanding the past, especially in an age where misinformation spreads faster than ever.
For questions regarding the Center’s Adult Education Programs, or to book a presentation, please contact Public Archaeology Director Adam Niesley at aniesley@sandiegoarchaeology.org.